The Fool's Workshop

Flashcard Wizard Frequently Asked Questions

I'm overwhelmed with the number of menu items, features, and preferences. What different sources of help are there for Flashcard Wizard?
- There are a number of sources of help. When you start up Flashcard Wizard for the first time you are given the option of a short introduction. Besides this, there is always help in the form of Apple Help files (which are really just html files and you can use a browser of your choice to view them) accessable from the Help -> Flashcard Wizard Help... -> Help where you may also find email addresses for reporting bugs etc. In addition to these help files which may be too detailed and long for quick reference, there is Balloon Help available for almost all functions in Flashcard Wizard. Simply turn Baloon Help on in the help menu or by pressing the "?" mark on the toolbar. A third source of help are the "?" marks on many windows in Flashcard Wizard. This will pop up a quick field of help detailing the major functions of that window.
When I print a set which has pictures in it, all I get is "Picture: <filename>" for the first field. Why is this?
- Because of the great workload required to add such features Flashcard Wizard does not yet support printing for sets with pictures in them. Only the name of the picture file will be printed.
I have entered some rather long words or phrases into my Flashcard Wizard set. These do not display completely during flashcard study or in the Edit Set window. How do I view all of the entry?
- Flashcard Wizard does not make an effort to guess the length of various words and phrases, nor does it place limits on how much you can put in any of your 2 or 3 fields (or the comment). However, with the varying size of monitors, and the limited amount of text you can fit on that monitor both the Edit Set window and the flashcard window may be resized. The Edit Set window may be resized by choosing on of the choices in the menu: Set -> Window Size ->
- The flashcard window's size is controlled from the File -> Preferences -> Flashcard Review -> More... There you may choose from about a dozen different sizes for the flashcard window and its fields. For example, if you have a lot of text in the first of your three fields, you may choose a configuration which displays the first field larger than the others. If you have only two fields, you might wish to choose one of the configurations which uses a very small third field.
Why does Flashcard Wizard take a long time to change fonts?
- Because Flashcard Wizard offers support for all languages in its cards, assuming the fonts are installed and you have the language kits for that language (included free with OS 9 and on) the computer sometimes takes some time when changing the fonts between language scripts. For example, if you sometimes study Japanese, and other times Chinese, the change in fonts is somewhat time consuming as the OS flips between the two frequently to change the fonts of fields in the program. I have been unable to discover a way of avoiding this.
I downloaded Flashcard Wizard and while I the .sit.hqx file is decoded Stuffit Expander will not decompress the .sit file. Why will it not compress?
- Flashcard Wizard was compressed with a newer version of Stuffit. You need to use version 5.0 or later of Stuffit. Search your hard drive first for a newer version of Stuffit and if you have it, delete older versions you find. You may download the newest freeware version of Stuffit Expander, go to the Alladin homepage.
Why are the flashcards slow on my computer even though my computer is fairly new and powerful?
- Flashcard Wizard may flash slowly because it needs more memory. If you can spare the memory trying giving it 20000k or more in the "Get Info..." window of the finder. It seems as though the more memory you give Flashcard Wizard, the happier and faster it becomes. Also, try quiting other applications, quiting Flashcard Wizard and reopening the program.
Why do the fonts change in the "Add Entry" window and why does the keyboard layout for my chosen language not get selected or get selected in the wrong fields?
- I am still struggling with getting the fonts to work more intuitively in the "Add Entry" window. Ideally, if the first field is Chinese, then Chinese input would automatically commence when you click on the field. In reality, getting this to work probably has proved a challenge that I'm still working on.
- If you have sets to add in Chinese, Japanese, Korean or some other non-Roman script, consider typing them up in simpletext and then importing them into Flashcard wizard. This process is in fact quite simple and faster than using the "Add Entry" window. In the word processor, type all the first fields of the entries one after another seperated by carriage returns. Then leave one line blank, then type all the second fields of the entries one after another seperated by a carriage return. If you have a third field, leave a blank line and then enter all the third fields of the entries one after another seperated by a return. Save the result (as text) and import it into Flashcard Wizard as a file seperated by groups of entries. Note you can also import comma or tab delimited lists but if you have to switch keyboard layout every time you get ready to type the second or third field, then you might as well do it within Flashcard Wizard.
I have the newest version of Flashcard Wizard, but my old files don't work with Interval Study? Didn't you fix Interval Study errors?
- Older versions of Flashcard Wizard tended to corrupt Interval Study statistics over time. Also, until version 0.93 all the files were based on comma delimiters. If you open your files individually in 0.93 or greater, Flashcard Wizard will update older files to the tab delimited Flashcard Wizard format. As for corrupted Interval Statistics, you have two options:
  - Open the "Set Status" for the user file which has corrupted data, choose "Reset Statistics" from the "Set Tools" popup menu. This should reset all interval study statistics.
  - Export your files to tab deliminited files and then re-import them so that all interval data is erased.
Why, during Interval Flashcard Study, do many of the entries not appear in the correct font or language script?

Flashcard Wizard currently is only programmed to handle interval study with groups of sets which are in the same language script and fonts. Thus, if you have created a user, added some sets in Japanese and some sets in Korean, when you begin Interval Study, Flashcard Wizard will choose the fonts of the first user set and use them for all interval flashcards. The reason that it has been programmed this way is that Flashcard Wizard already tracks a wide range of information about every single entry, treating them as single independent units when conducting interval study. To allow interval study for one user to have multiple fonts and scripts would mean that every single user set entry would have to store information about the fonts of its fields. To avoid a balooning file size for user sets, this has not been done.
If you would like to conduct interval study with multiple fonts and multiple languages create a user for each language/font and conduct interval study on each of them.

Software, web design, and other foolishness by Konrad Mitchell Lawson.

Updated: August 12, 2000

Send Email