Managing Users

Flashcard Wizard will function easily in any language lab setting where many students are sharing a group of computers. It was primarily for such a language lab setting that the "User" features of Flashcard Wizard were designed. However, "User" features play an important role in the organization of sets and interval study so that even those who always use Flashcard Wizard on their own personal computer should understand and use these features.

Creating a New User and loading this user each time you open Flashcard Wizard has the following advantages:

  1. When a user is loaded, you may conduct interval study on all "User Sets"
  2. When a user is loaded, you may change the font and other settings of your user sets all together.
  3. When a user is loaded, you may view statistics and information on all your user sets in the "User Set" and the "Set Status" windows.
  4. Changes to a user set will not modify the original set that was created so that additional statistics, such as TTF statistics may be stored in these sets for the user's interval study seperate of the originals.

You can create a new user by selecting the first item from the "User" menu. While in this initial window you must enter a name for the new user, determine the TTF schedule for this user if you wish to use interval study features, as well as determine the location to save the user file and all its sets. The TTF schedule is a row of numbers which indicates the number of days between the study of an entry at each stage. See more on this in the interval study help file. If you wish to store all your user related files on a removable disk or network, change the default saved location at the bottom of the window. You may also assign a password to your user which you will be prompted to enter each time you load the user. Note that should you lose this password, the user will no longer be accessable. Even after creating the user, you may change the TTF schedule and the user's password by selecting "User Properties" from the "User" menu.

After your user is created, you may add any number of sets to the user through the "Add User Sets..." in the User menu. If you hold the option key down when choosing this item, you can choose a folder full of sets to add them all at once. These sets will then be copied into a folder with the name of your user + " ƒ" in the same directory as your user file.

To view a list of all your user sets as well as statistics about them, select the "User Sets..." option from the "User" menu. Here a list of the user sets, the number of entries in each one, the percentage of entries from a set which was included in the last session of interval study, whether a set has its own special TTF schedule, and whether the set is included in this user's interval study. Also, the total size of the user sets, and other statistics can be found at the right. As with anything in Flashcard Wizard, you can find more information by clicking the "?" button in the toolbar which will display baloons with explanations for each field and button.

In the "User Sets" window you may remove duplicates from sets, delete and add sets, as well as modify the properties of one or several sets (include multiple sets by holding the shift key down as you click). Note, only from this screen will you be able to modify the set properties of user sets. You cannot change the properties of user sets directly from the "Set" menu.

Also in the "User Sets" window you may access more information about user sets by clicking on a user set and then on the "Set Status" button which will give you statistics such as how many entries are at each TTF stage and how many need to be reviewed in the coming days.

It is always a good idea to backup one's user and user sets, and this may be done directly from the "Backup" sub menu of the "File" menu. You can also set Flashcard Wizard to automatically backup your user and sets. See the help file on customizing Flashcard Wizard for more information.

User Logs & Statistics

In the User menu there is a menu command for accessing User Logs and Statistics. This is really two features packed into one. User logs provide users the means to record and track up to 10 categories of events. You may activate and deactivate the User Log feature and turn on and off tracking for various events in the "User Logs" preferences panel in the "File" menu.

When the User Logs feature is active, whenever the user performs an action which is tracked by the log, such as flashcard study or adding new user sets, details of this action will be tracked and saved in the User file. To view these events, open the User Log window from the "User" menu. Here you may manually edit the logs by pressing the "Unlock Field" button (not advisable as the logs must follow a very specific format), access the User Log preferences through a shortcut button, clear the log of certain events you no longer wish to track, and clear the log altogether.

Another feature of the User Logs and Statistics window, and perhaps its most powerful, are the Interval Study statistics. Wheras the "Set Status" feature in the "User Sets" window is useful for viewing the statistics and changing stages and days for the entries of individual sets, users will often want to know how many entries are at each stage and each day of the coming week for all their sets together. This is now possible through this window. The statistics are divided into two, first a table of entries seperated by their TTF stage, and the second table listing how many entries need to be studied today (0) and in the coming days (1->7).

To modify and view the entries and stages of individual sets, use the "Get Set Status" button in the "User Sets" window.

Back to Flashcard Wizard Help Page