Open Window Software News Fall 2010 A Free E-mail Newsletter from Open Window Software Featuring Tips on Using the WinFlash Suite, HandyCards and Flashcard Exchange Contents: 1) WinFlash v12 Suggestion Contest Continues 2) WinFlash Feature Highlight - Leitner Box 0 Pool 3) Free Upgrades for Referring Your Friends 4) Study Tip - Learn the Q&A Relationships BOTH Ways 5) How To - Easily Create Spelling Decks Using Text-To-Speech (Educator Only) 6) Latest In-line Program Updates --------------------------------------------------- 1) WinFlash v12 Suggestion Contest We're still working on the v12 upgrade, so we're keeping the suggestion contest open for further requests. We'll give a free upgrade to v12 for 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 simply 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 - Leitner Box 0 Pool If you're planning to use the Leitner System (definitely our favorite) for mastering a large body of knowledge, we think you'll find the Box 0 Pool feature to be quite useful. Let's say you have 500 anatomy definitions to memorize by the end of the term. If you build your deck and start with the normal Leitner mode, you'll find you immediately have 500 pairs due... A bit daunting... Using the Box 0 Pool, newly-created and imported pairs are placed in Box 0. At the first opening of the study file each day, the status of the file is analyzed to determine how many (if any) pairs should be moved from the Box 0 holding area into Box 1 - available for study. The settings that control enabling and using Box 0 are accessible in Options. First set the file to Leitner mode in Options|Q&A Modes, then click on the Mode Specific Settings button which will bring up a two-tab dialog controlling operation of the Leitner mode. Click on the Pool (Box 0) Settings tab to access these controls. Below is a description of each setting on this panel (from the Help file). Open one of your Leitner decks and access this panel to follow along while reading the descriptions. Box 0 Use Depending on which radio button is selected, new pairs will be placed in box 1 (due immediately) or in box 0 (due based on the rest of the options on the Pool Settings tab). Pairs created in the editor can be steered to either box when this latter option is selected. Box 0 Controls Maximum Pairs Added... This value sets a maximum number of pairs to transfer into box 1 at the beginning of each day's first study session. Maximum Total of Day's Due Pairs... This value sets a maximum total of new and previously due pairs. In the dialog above, the Maximum Pairs Added is set to 10 and the Maximum Total Pairs to 50. For these values, if there were 46 due pairs when the session was started, 4 more pairs would be moved from box 0 into box 1, giving a total number of pairs due for that session of 50. If there were already 55 pairs due for the session, no new pairs would be added. I.e. this value does not limit the number of pairs due - it simply sets a threshold above which no new pairs will be added. Choose Pairs to Transfer... This selection chooses whether pairs are added into box 1 in the order that they were created or at random from all pairs in box 0. Transfer __ Pairs Immediately... After entering a number here, pressing the Transfer button will immediately move that number of pairs from box 0 into box 1. Reset All Pairs In This File To Box 0 This allows all Q&A pairs to be reset to box 0. An 'Are You Sure?' message will be displayed after pressing this button, as the operation cannot be undone once completed. --------------------------------------------------- 3) Free Upgrades for Referring Your Friends Quite a few of you have earned free upgrades to v11 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 (v11 if you haven't upgraded yet or v12 when it's released if you're already at v11). 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 - Learn the Q&A Relationships BOTH Ways What's this mean?? Simply that you'll have a much firmer grip on the material if you master the study file with the A First followed by Q option enabled and set to Random. As an example, consider a geography pair on state capitals - New Hampshire/Concord. If you study with the A First option enabled, sometimes the Question will appear as Concord, requiring you to answer with New Hampshire. Learning this relationship in both directions creates a firm grasp of the fact in your memory. Most subjects can be studied in this manner and you'll reap the benefit come exam time! --------------------------------------------------- 5) How To - Easily Create Spelling Decks Using Text-To-Speech (Educator Only) We've previously discussed using Educator's built-in recording capability to generate the audio question for spelling decks. Here's a much quicker approach that employs the text-to-speech capability in Educator. 1. Create a new study file using File|New. 2. Using the Quick Deck panel in the Editor, enter each spelling word as a pair where the question and answer are the same - e.g. Aardvark, Aardvark. When you've entered all of your words, click Save and then close the editor. 3. Choose Options|Q&A Modes|Settings Common To All Modes|Automatic fill-in-the-blank from Standard Pairs. 4. Turn on text-to-speech. If you don't want the answer read when it's displayed, uncheck Enable Answer TTS on the Options|Speech panel. 5. Here's the trick - in Options|Colors and Fonts, change the background color of the Questions to black. This will make the text of the question invisible. You'll now have a deck which will 'read' your spelling word as the question. Then, after you type your answer into the fill-in section and hit 'Enter' or click the 'Check' button with the mouse, the answer will be displayed along with the indication of whether you got it right or not. Consider using Educator's Cheers and Jeers feature to add a little audio fun to the exercise. --------------------------------------------------- 6) In-line Program Updates Since the Last Newsletter v11.00.05 is still the current version for WinFlash Basic and Scholar. WinFlash Educator is at v11.00.06. The 11.00.05 update to all WinFlash versions addresses the following issues: 1. Corrected Subject Outline for locales where '-' is used as the date separator 2. Positioned cursor at last used file when opening Subject Outline 3. Fixed problem with Unicode characters in checking FIB answers 4. Corrected problem in Create Composite File when checking for duplicates 5. Added section in Help file addressing Foreign Language study 6. Made help section on exporting text to speech to .mp3 files easier to locate The 11.00.06 update to WinFlash Educator ONLY addresses the following issues: 1. Fixed issue causing the program to crash when using Text-to-speech with study files where there was no text in some of the Q's and/or A's 2. Added code to use the correct Text-to-speech voice when reading Q's and A's in the Answer First mode 3. Corrected bug causing ALL pairs to be placed in Bin 1 when switching BACK from Use Bin 0 in Leitner Mode 4. Updated code for cancelling an Audio Export so that it does so cleanly. 5. Added code to properly place Flashcard Exchange imported pairs in Bin 0 if this feature is selected when importing --------------------------------------------------- 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 (c) 2010 Open Window Software. All worldwide rights reserved. ---------------------------------------------------