Open Window Software News Spring 2008 A Free E-mail Newsletter from Open Window Software Featuring Tips on Using the WinFlash Suite, HandyCards and Flashcard Exchange Contents: 1) WinFlash v11 Suggestion Contest 2) WinFlash Feature Highlight - One Pass 3) Free Upgrades for Referring Your Friends 4) Study Tip - Managing Peaks In Due Pairs In Leitner Study Files 5) How To - Choose An Intermediate Format For Data Importation 6) Latest In-line Program Updates --------------------------------------------------- 1) WinFlash v11 Suggestion Contest We're actively working on WinFlash v11 and are looking for suggestions from our users. We'll give a free upgrade to v11 to the 5 best suggestions that aren't already in our very large stack of requests. By "best" we mean improvements that will be valuable to a large percentage of users, and that are implementable with a reasonable investment in coding time for the value of the improvement. Please consider these two measures when contemplating a suggestion. We often receive suggestions that are SO specific to a particular, unusual, application of the program that they just don't justify the effort necessary to add them. An example of this type of suggestion is "I'd like to have the next question displayed determined by how I answer the current question" - i.e. programmable branching within the study file. While this might be useful to a few individuals, the vast majority of users would never spend the necessary time to set up the branching logic. --------------------------------------------------- 2) WinFlash Feature Highlight - One Pass Study files can be set for either Continuous or One Pass repetition in the Options|Pair Order and Size panel. The One Pass option can be advantageously used when studying small decks that you want to learn in a hurry - e.g. cramming for Friday's Spanish vocabulary final. For this purpose, also set the Order to Random on the same panel. At the completion of each pass through the study file you'll be told how many answers were correct and incorrect and asked if you wish to run the file again. If you select Yes, you'll be given the option of only showing the pairs that were answered incorrectly on the just-completed pass. By continuing to re-run only the misses from the previous pass, you'll focus on the pairs giving you trouble. Once you answer all the remaining incorrect pairs from the previous pass correctly, the program will reset and the next pass will again ask ALL the pairs. Try cranking through this process a few times the next time you need to master some content in a hurry. You'll be surprised how effective it is! Note: This feature is not available in WinFlash Basic. --------------------------------------------------- 3) Free Upgrades for Referring Your Friends Quite a few of you have earned free upgrades to v10 by referring your friends to us! Have a friend that could use WinFlash? You can earn a free upgrade to the next release of your version of the program (v10 if you haven't upgraded yet or v11 when it comes along if you're already at v10). Just have your friend mention your name in the Comments section when placing the order. A great way to help out a friend and get the next major release gratis! --------------------------------------------------- 4) Study Tip - Managing Peaks In Due Pairs In Leitner Study Files When using the Leitner System mode with large study files you may encounter a situation when a much larger than usual number of pairs is due on a particular day. This can occur for a number of reasons: 1. You haven't looked at the deck for quite some time and many pairs are overdue - hence all are due today 2. Although you've been doing the pairs every day as they're due, convergence of different intervals for different box numbers results in a large number of pairs from different boxes being due on the same day 3. In an ambitious mood, you did a large number of pairs and promoted them all to the same box on the same day - they're now all due again today Regardless of the reason, you're faced with a daunting number of due pairs given today's available time, ambition level, etc. What to do? Simply do as many pairs as you are prepared to do today - the others will still be waiting tomorrow. By spreading out the bulge of due pairs over a few days you'll decrease the likelihood of future bulges. If you always insist on doing ALL due pairs on the day you encounter them, you'll be prone to a future 'big day' because of reason #3. --------------------------------------------------- 5) How To - Choose An Intermediate Format For Data Importation In our last newsletter we discussed the handling of fonts when importing materials. If this is your key consideration in choosing an intermediate import format, you'll want to review that How To here: http://www.openwindow.com/newsletters/ow20071201.txt If the content you want to import doesn't require specialized font handling - i.e. it is fine if the default Q and A fonts are used - then the following considerations may help you choose between the various intermediate formats. It's always a good idea to use a scrap file as the target to see how the import is going to work out. Make sure your procedure and your data to be imported works correctly before importing data into your valuable working study files! WinFlash Educator can import the following formats - those with an * support importation of Unicode fonts and embedded font effects: - Flashcard Exchange - (.hc extension files) * This is the best format to use when dealing with files downloaded from Flashcard Exchange. You can simply use File|Open to open the .hc file you have downloaded and it will be automatically converted to WinFlash's .flu format. The Educator|Import menu is not needed when using .hc files (though it will still operate correctly). - HandyCards For Palm/PocketPC - (.hc extension text files) If desired, regular HandyCards .hc files can also be imported using File|Open rather than the Educator|Import menu. - JTutor For Palm (.jt extension text files) Specialized format for JTutor files only. - Text File - Excel Export Format (.csv extension text files) If your data is already in Excel, or if it is easy to convert to a text file where the Q and A of each pair are on the same line, separated by a comma, this format is a good choice. Note that any pairs that include commas must be enclosed in double quote marks as in this three-pair example (when exporting from Excel, this is handled automatically): "A question including, for example, two commas",The first answer The second question,"An answer including, for example, two commas" The third question,The third answer - Text File - Two Lines Per Pair (.txt extension text files) The easiest format to construct from scratch - simply put each Q and A on its own line: A question including, for example, two commas The first answer The second question An answer including, for example, two commas The third question The third answer - Text File - User-specified Delimiter (.txt extension text files) If you have more complex data that includes carriage returns within the Q or A you can use this format. In the example we use #$@$ as the delimiter. Note that each pair STARTS with the delimiter and separates the Q and A with the delimiter: #$@$This question has two lines separated by two carriage returns. This is the second line in the question.#$@$This is the answer to Q1. #$@$This question has two lines separated by a single carriage return. This is the second line in the question.#$@$This is the answer to Q2. #$@$This question has a single long line with no carriage returns. This is the second sentence in the question.#$@$This is the answer to Q3. - Windows Clipboard - Tab-separated - One Line Per Pair * If your data is already in a two-column Word table, this format can be used. The program takes more time to import data in this format because of the Unicode and font effects support and large files can take several minutes to import. Be sure to select only two columns of content from the source table and DON'T select the column titles or you'll end up with a Q&A pair whose Q is the title of the first column and whose A is the title of the second column. --------------------------------------------------- 6) In-line Program Updates Since the Last Newsletter If you're running something older than v10.10.05, you're missing out on some nice improvements in the 'look' of the program - "Complete icon facelift throughout the program" The 10.10.06 update to all WinFlash versions addresses the following issues: 1. Corrected line height issue on opening of Editor's Table View 2. Fixed 'repeated pair' bug when adding or removing pair to/from the Priority List 3. Corrected problem where pressing Help button in the editor closed the editor 4. Added explanatory dialog when program thinks another copy is already running 5. Changed back to DO Show Glossary Buttons as default 6. Added progress bar to Import from Windows Clipboard operation 7. Corrected non-progressing progress bar bug when using default 'Blue Glow' skin The 10.10.05 update to all WinFlash versions addresses the following issues: 1. Complete icon facelift throughout the program 2. Fixed error caused when returning from editor to a no-longer-existing deck location 3. Repaired location for user-supplied correct and incorrect icons 4. Added line height adjustment when changing font size in Editor's Table View The 10.10.04 update to all WinFlash versions addresses the following issues: 1. Corrected issue with Find when the search word was a Category name 2. Sped up editor loads and saves for large files 3. Added warning dialog when entering Table View for large files 4. Fixed the Help file which was missing an important 'How To Use Graphics' section in the last release --------------------------------------------------- Need Help? Have A problem? Check out our online listings of the latest releases and the problems that they've solved: http://www.openwindow.com/pages/wfprobs.htm If your issue isn't covered there, please send e-mail to support@openwindow.com and we'll do our best to resolve your problem. --------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIBE: Send e-mail to service@openwindow.com with SUBSCRIBE as the Subject. UNSUBSCRIBE: Simply send an email to service@openwindow.com with REMOVE as the Subject. This newsletter is a free service of Open Window Software and is Copyright © 2008 Open Window Software. All worldwide rights reserved.