Open Window Software News Winter 2011 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 - Shortcut Keys 3) Free Upgrades for Referring Your Friends 4) Study Tip - Jumpstart New Pairs added to Leitner Deck 5) How To - Install a Foreign-language Keyboard Mapping 6) Latest In-line Program Updates --------------------------------------------------- 1) WinFlash v12 Suggestion Contest Extended - Again We've decided to extend the development period for v12 through the end of the school year, releasing the official beta sometime in June. We already have a small alpha team working on the in-progress v12 - testing as we go. Because of this longer development cycle 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. Suggestions don't have to be complex to be useful. My wife, Kathy, found it annoying that the flashing hint and comment buttons could only be activated when in their 'full-color' state - so in v12 you don't have to 'time' your mouse click to launch a hint or comment. --------------------------------------------------- 2) WinFlash Feature Highlight - Shortcut Keys Folks who are competent typists can save time when using WinFlash by learning and using the shortcut keys - key combinations that achieve the same result as clicking on a button or menu item with the mouse, but without removing a hand from the keyboard. Most dialog buttons have a 'built-in' shortcut key - just look for the underlined character in the title of the button. You can 'press' this button by holding down one of the Alt keys while typing the underlined character. For example, if you are reviewing cards that are 'standard pairs', you can 'click' the Display the Answer button by typing Alt-d and enter the result (Correct or Incorrect) by typing Alt-c or Alt-i. Try this approach the next time you're reviewing a study file and see if it doesn't speed things up a bit. Another class of shortcut key is invoked by holding down the Ctrl key and typing a letter. You're probably familiar with the standard Windows shortcut combinations for Copy, Cut and Paste: Ctrl-c, Ctrl-x and Ctrl-v. Here's the complete list of WinFlash-specific shortcut keys from the Help topic Shortcut Keys and Buttons: Shortcut Keys Ctrl-a - Opens the current study file to the current Q&A pair in the WinFlash editor Ctrl-b - Toggle Browse Mode Ctrl-d - Initiates a Copy Pair operation Ctrl-e - Opens the current study file to Q&A pair 1 in the editor Ctrl-Alt-f - Moves to the first Q&A pair in the editor Ctrl-g - Opens the Go To Pair dialog box or, if the editor is open, moves the cursor into the edit box for entering the Q&A pair to jump to. In either case, Enter will complete the move to the Q&A pair after typing in the pair number Ctrl-h - Clicks the Hint or Comment button in the Question or Answer dialog, respectively. This shortcut is inoperative in test mode. Ctrl-i - Opens the current study file with a new Q&A pair ready to edit in the editor inserted immediately following the current Q&A pair Ctrl-l - Opens the current study file with a new Q&A pair ready to edit in the editor inserted at the end of the file Ctrl-Alt-l - Moves to the final Q&A pair in the editor Ctrl-m - Moves to the memo control in editor Ctrl-n - Moves to next Q&A pair in editor Ctrl-o - Brings up the File|Open dialog Ctrl-p - Moves to previous Q&A pair in editor Ctrl-q - Closes and saves the open study file - this combination is disabled when working in the editor. Ctrl-r - Resets the contents of the status bar. Ctrl-s - Opens the Show MY Answer dialog if Answer dialog is open and the Show MY Answer speed button is enabled. Short Cut Keys for Text Editing Ctrl-Right Arrow - Moves cursor one word to the right. Ctrl-Left Arrow - Moves cursor one word to the left. Ctrl-Shift-Right Arrow - Selects from cursor position to end of word. Ctrl-Shift-Left Arrow - Selects from cursor position to beginning of word. Ctrl-a - Selects all text in the current edit box. Ctrl-b - Applies the bold style to all selected text in the current edit box. Ctrl-i - Applies the italics style to all selected text in the current edit box. Ctrl-u - Applies the underline style to all selected text in the current edit box. Ctrl-c - Copies selected text to the clipboard. Ctrl-x - Copies selected text to the clipboard and deletes the selected text from the source location. Ctrl-v - Pastes the text on the clipboard at the cursor location - WITH any font style information from the source. Ctrl-Alt-v - Pastes the text on the clipboard at the cursor location - WITHOUT any font style information from the source. --------------------------------------------------- 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 - Jumpstart New Pairs added to Leitner Deck When we are using a study file in the Leitner mode for ongoing mastery of an information set, we may periodically wish to add some new pairs. We don't want to change the overall Leitner settings for the deck because that will modify the due dates for the existing pairs. To get a jumpstart on the new pairs (assumed to be in Bin 1 to start) try the following: 1. Set Options|Q&A Modes|Mode Specific Settings|Wait one day before repeating missed pairs to Unchecked. 2. As you run through the new pairs - mark them incorrect, even though you may have gotten them right. This will keep returning them to Box 1. Because of the setting you made in 1., these pairs will keep recycling through as long as you keep marking them as incorrect. 3. Only treat the new pairs in this manner. Answer any old pairs in the normal fashion. 4. After a few sessions where you run through the new pairs a couple of times before quitting, and after you feel you have a good short-term grasp of the new pairs, go ahead and mark them correct when you know them. This will promote them to Box 2, to join their compatriots in the normal rotation. 5. Return the option that you set in 1. to its original setting. Personally, I prefer it unchecked. That way on regular pairs I am asked a missed pair again in the current session which I feel helps reestablish mastery of the pair. V12 has a new option which improves the above scenario - Do not promote Box 1 pairs. When checked you can then freely mark the pairs right or wrong (so the stats will be correct) but they won't be moved to Box 2 until you uncheck this option. --------------------------------------------------- 5) How To - Install a Foreign-language Keyboard Mapping Note: To read this section with the included screen graphics, go to the web-based help article here: http://www.openwindow.com/helpfile/index.html and select Foreign Language Keyboard Setup in the alphabetized index. To add another language to your computer's repertoire open Control Panel and select Regional and Language Options. Now select the Languages tab (Keyboards and Languages in Vista) and click the Details button (Change Keyboards... in Vista). Next click the Add... button and select the language you wish to add in the top drop-down list from the Add Input Language dialog that appears and click OK. Again, Vista is a little different - select the language from the list (in our example we'll use Russian, then click on the Keyboard entry below "Russian" and select the checkbox saying "Russian". Vista also allows you to click the Preview button to see how the keys will be assigned to the keyboard when it is set to Russian. Now click the Apply button to save these new settings. Then click the Key Settings button which will show you that in order to switch back and forth between Russian and English you simply type the LeftAlt-Shift combination (LeftAlt is the key labeled Alt to the left of the space bar). Click the OK button to finalize the addition of the new language to your computer. Let's try it out! Open a new study file in WinFlash (see Quickly create a text-based study file in Help if you aren't already familiar with this procedure). For the first Question text type "Now is the time for all good men", now click into the Answer's edit area. Before typing, hit the LeftAlt-Shift combination and then type "To come to the aid of their party." Instead of the English characters, you'll see the foreign language characters generated by those keystrokes. This is all well and good - but how do I know which key types which Russian character? The best solution I've found is the following article on Wikipedia.org which shows pictures of the keyboard layouts for most common languages. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout to view this article and while there print out the section of the article which contains your keyboard of interest. You can then use this for reference when learning to type in your new language! We have enhanced the use of keyboard mappings in the upcoming v12 by allowing you to set a 'default' keyboard for the Questions and a separate one for the Answers. The program will then automatically switch to the proper keyboard mapping when you are entering text into one of the edit boxes. --------------------------------------------------- 6) In-line Program Updates Since the Last Newsletter There have been no new updates of v11 since our last newsletter. v11.00.05 is 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? 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