Type2Memory

A local typing-practice and English vocabulary app, built for a 14-year-old to practice keyboard typing, spelling, listening, and word meaning — all sharing one word library.

Runs entirely on your own machine: a small Node/Express server serves the frontend and persists progress to a JSON file on disk. No account, no cloud, no external services.

Requirements

• Node.js 18 or newer (comes with npm)

Running it

npm install
npm start

Then open http://localhost:3210 in Chrome.

The port can be changed with an environment variable if 3210 is already in use:

PORT=4000 npm start

What's inside

• 打字练习 (Typing practice) — word / sentence / fill-in-blank / listening modes, a virtual keyboard overlay, key-error heatmap, and a match-game review of missed words after each session.
• 背单词 (Vocabulary) — flashcards with example sentences (English + word-by-word Chinese breakdown + full translation + audio), a free-practice quiz, and a guided daily learning plan:
  • 60-minute session clock that only counts while the tab is active and you've interacted recently (pauses automatically otherwise, and can be paused/resumed manually).
  • 15 new words a day, drawn from a difficulty ladder (easy → medium → hard) so a session never mixes trivial words with advanced ones — the next difficulty level only unlocks once ~90% of the current one has been introduced.
  • Each new word: read the card → recall its spelling from the Chinese meaning alone (no peeking) → record yourself saying it and compare against the built-in pronunciation → a quick meaning check → then the example sentence plays as a reward. Capped at 3 minutes per word so one hard word doesn't eat the whole session; a skip button avoids getting stuck.
  • Remaining time is spent on a quiz cycling spelling (typed, not multiple-choice), pronunciation repeat-after, and meaning checks — weighted toward today's words but still reviewing recently-learned ones. Get something wrong three times in a row and it switches to writing the word out five times before moving on.
  • Every quiz mistake is logged and shown on the daily results screen (and from the vocab home screen any time that day) so a parent can review what tripped the child up.
• 3000-word milestone — the library includes the official Oxford 3000 word list (~2861 words) alongside a hand-curated set, tagged by difficulty and tracked toward a 3000-word goal.

Project structure

index.html        Frontend — the entire UI and app logic in one file
assets/words.js    Word library ({ word, zh, pos, lvl } per entry)
words.md           Hand-curated word source list (import target for words.js)
server/
  server.js        Express app: serves the frontend, exposes the data API
  store.js          JSON-file "database" (data/store.json), atomic writes
data/
  store.json        Created automatically on first run — not committed

Data & persistence

Progress used to live in the browser's localStorage; it's now served by the backend and stored in data/store.json (created automatically the first time you run the server). This means:

• Progress survives clearing browser data, and can be backed up by copying that one file.
• If the server isn't running, the app still works for that session (typing, quizzes, etc. all function), it just won't remember anything once the page is closed.

data/store.json is not committed to this repository (see .gitignore) — it's personal practice data, not project source.

Study mode (focus lockdown)

The app is fully local, so it works with the internet cut off.

From inside the app (easiest): on the vocabulary home there's a 🔒 开始学习（断网 + 全屏） button. It goes fullscreen, starts the daily plan, and asks the backend to block every browser's internet via the firewall — Windows shows one administrator (UAC) prompt to approve. To finish, 🔓 结束学习模式（家长） asks for the parent password and restores browsing (another UAC prompt). Set the password first with tools/study-mode-setpass.bat.

From the desktop (alternative): the same thing without the in-app button:

• tools/study-mode-setpass.bat — one-time setup: set the management password (changing it later requires the current password). Stored as a salted hash in %ProgramData%\Type2Memory, outside the repo.
• tools/study-mode-on.bat — no password needed; anyone can lock. Adds Windows Firewall rules blocking every installed browser's internet access (localhost is unaffected), makes sure the server is running, and opens the app fullscreen in Chrome kiosk mode.
• tools/study-mode-off.bat — asks for the management password, then removes the rules and restores normal browsing.

The app also detects tab/window switches during an active quiz question: the question is immediately scored wrong (looking up the answer is pointless), the word is queued for the round review, and the number of leaves is shown on the daily results screen for the parent.

Note: the password gates the easy path (the off script). A child whose Windows account has administrator rights could still remove the firewall rules manually via Windows Defender Firewall settings — making their account a standard user is the only hard guarantee.

Adding new words

Edit words.md and ask for a re-import — new words get deduplicated against what's already in assets/words.js automatically. Every entry needs a lvl (1 = easy, 2 = medium, 3 = hard) so the daily plan's difficulty ladder can place it correctly.