]> The &kwordquiz; Handbook Peter Hedlund
peter.hedlund@kdemail.net
2003 2004 2005 Peter B. Hedlund &FDLNotice; 2006-02-24 0.8.1 &kwordquiz; is a flashcard and vocabulary learning program for &kde;. KDE tdeedu KWordQuiz flashcard vocabulary language education school college university
Introduction &kwordquiz; is a tool that gives you a powerful way to master new vocabularies. It may be a language or any other kind of terminology. Easy to use With &kwordquiz; you build your own vocabulary documents in a simple and intuitive way. The basic layout is a two-column spreadsheet where you type vocabulary entries in one form that you know and in another form that you want to learn. You change the titles of the columns to reflect what you are practicing. Practice modes Before you start a quiz you select how you want to practice. &kwordquiz; offers five different modes to make practicing more efficient. The different modes make it possible to have the quiz go through your vocabulary in sequential or random order in one or both directions. Quiz types When you have entered your vocabulary and selected a mode you are ready to start a quiz. The vocabulary document is hidden during the quiz so you cannot cheat. Maybe you want to start with a flashcard session, then you can move on to a multiple choice quiz or do the powerful question and answer quiz. You get instant feedback on correct and incorrect answers and you have the option to repeat any errors, further improving your learning efficiency. If you need a little extra help you can use the hint function. Vocabulary documents &kwordquiz; can open several types of vocabulary data. Supported are .kvtml used by other &kde; programs such as &kvoctrain;, .wql used by WordQuiz for &Windows;, .csv files with comma-separated text, and .xml.gz files created by Pauker (http://pauker.sourceforge.net). You can automatically combine several documents to one large list if you need to practice for ⪚ a final exam. &kwordquiz; can save your vocabulary documents several different formats. The default is the .kvtml format used by other &kde; programs. Other available options are the .wql format used by WordQuiz for &Windows; allowing exchange with &Windows; users, .csv, and .html. You can have several files open at the same time and easily copy or move entries between files. Command Reference The <guimenu>File</guimenu> Menu &Ctrl;N File New New creates a new blank vocabulary document &Ctrl;O File Open... Open one or more existing vocabulary documents. Several documents can be combined to one larger list. File Open Recent Open a recently used vocabulary document &Ctrl;G File Get New Vocabularies... Downloads new vocabularies. &Ctrl;S File Save Save the active vocabulary document to disk File Save As... Save the active vocabulary document with a new name &Ctrl;P File Print... Print the active vocabulary document. &kwordquiz; provides several options for printing your vocabularies. &Ctrl;W File Close Close the active vocabulary document &Ctrl;Q File Quit Quit &kwordquiz; The <guimenu>Edit</guimenu> Menu &Ctrl;Z Edit Undo Undo the last command. The name of this item will change to reflect what will be undone. &Ctrl;X Edit Cut Cut the current selection and place it on the clipboard &Ctrl;C Edit Copy Copy the current selection and place it on the clipboard &Ctrl;V Edit Paste Paste the content of the clipboard to the current selection. If only one cell is selected &kwordquiz; will activate smart pasting and calculate the space required for pasting and add rows if necessary. Edit Clear Clear the current selection &Ctrl;I Edit Insert Row Insert a new row at the current selection. If the selection extends over more than one row, an equal number of rows will be inserted. &Ctrl;K Edit Delete Row Delete the selected row. If the selection extends over more than one row, all selected rows will be deleted. &Ctrl;M Edit Mark as Blank Mark as Blank marks selected text (or the word where the caret is) as a blank for a 'Fill-in-the-blank' quiz, &ie; it's enclosed in brackets. Only available if Fill-in-the-blank is enabled. Edit Unmark Blanks Unmark Blanks clears previously assigned blanks, &ie; brackets are removed. Only available if Fill-in-the-blank is enabled. The <guimenu>Go to</guimenu> Menu F6 Go to Editor Activate the vocabulary editor F7 Go to Flashcard Start a flashcard session F8 Go to Multiple Choice Start a multiple choice quiz F9 Go to Question & Answer Start a question & answer quiz The <guimenu>Vocabulary</guimenu> Menu &Ctrl;L Vocabulary Column Titles... Define the titles of the two columns in the vocabulary. Displays a dialog. Vocabulary Font... Change the font used to display the vocabulary. If you are in flashcard session the font used to diplay the card will be changed. Displays the standard &kde; font dialog. Vocabulary Rows/Columns... Specify the number of rows in the vocabulary, or define the height of selected rows or the width of selected columns. Displays a dialog. Vocabulary Sort... Sort the vocabulary entries. Displays a dialog. Vocabulary Shuffle Shuffle the vocabulary entries in a random order The <guimenu>Mode</guimenu> Menu The menu provides five different modes for the quiz. Note that the menu names will change to reflect the column titles of the currently active vocabulary document. The mode must be selected before a quiz is started. The selected mode will apply to Flashcard, Multiple Choice and Question & Answer. Mode Column 1 -> Column 2 In Order During the quiz you will be given the entries of Column 1 and asked to provide the corresponding Column 2 entries. This will be done in the order the entries appear in the vocabulary document. Mode Column 2 -> Column 1 In Order During the quiz you will be given the entries of Column 2 and asked to provide the corresponding Column 1 entries. This will be done in the order the entries appear in the vocabulary document. Mode Column 1 -> Column 2 Randomly During the quiz you will be given the entries of Column 1 and asked to provide the corresponding Column 2 entries. This will be done in a random order, but each entry will be asked once. Mode Column 2 -> Column 1 Randomly During the quiz you will be given the entries of Column 2 and asked to provide the corresponding Column 1 entries. This will be done in random order, but each entry will be asked once. Mode Column 1 <-> Column 2 Randomly During the quiz you will be given an entry of either Column 1 or Column 2 and asked to provide the corresponding entry in the other column. This will be done in a random order for both column and entry. Each possible combination will be asked once. The <guimenu>Quiz</guimenu> Menu Return Quiz Check Check if your answer is correct K Quiz I Know Count as correct during a flashcard session. D Quiz I Do Not Know Count as error during a flashcard session. You can later repeat these cards by selecting QuizRepeat Errors. &Ctrl;H Quiz Hint Get the next correct letter during a Question & Answer session. &Ctrl;R Quiz Restart Restart the quiz session from the beginning. Will reset the scores. &Ctrl;E Quiz Repeat Errors Repeat any questions you answered incorrectly. Becomes available once you have answered all questions once. The <guimenu>Settings</guimenu> Menu Settings Toolbars Main Toolbar (KWordQuiz) Toggle the Main Toolbar Settings Toolbars Go to (KWordQuiz) Toggle the Go to Toolbar Settings Toolbars Quiz (KWordQuiz) Toggle the Quiz Toolbar Settings Toolbars Special Characters (KWordQuiz) Toggle the Special Characters Toolbar Settings Show/Hide Statusbar Toggle the Statusbar Settings Configure Shortcuts... Configure the keyboard keys you use to access the different actions. Settings Configure Toolbars... Configure the items you want to put in the toolbar Settings Configure Notifications... Configure notifications for certain events in &kwordquiz; Settings Configure &kwordquiz;... Configure preferences for the vocabulary editor and the quizzes. Displays a dialog. The <guimenu>Help</guimenu> Menu &help.menu.documentation; The Vocabulary Editor The vocabulary document area has the appearance of a spreadsheet-like grid. The grid consists of cells organized in two columns and a number of rows. Each column and row has a header. The column headers are used to specify the titles of the vocabulary document. They can be set by selecting VocabularyColumn Titles.... The row headers number the rows consecutively. You can click in a cell of the grid to make it the active cell. You can select several cells for copying or other editing by dragging over them with the left mouse button down. To select entire rows or columns click in the headers. The Vocabulary Editor The Vocabulary Editor In the document you build a vocabulary of pair-wise entries in the two columns. You can enter text into the active cell simply by starting to type. The cell will now be in edit mode and you can select all or part of the text. You can also edit a cell by double-clicking it or pressing F2 and make changes directly in the cell. When you have finished typing one entry, press the return key and the next cell will automatically become active. Hence, it's easy to quickly type several entries. You can customize this behavior by selecting SettingsConfigure &kwordquiz;.... When you reach the bottom row of the grid, a new row will be added as you press return, so you can just continue to type. When a new window is created it has 50 rows, but there is really no limit to the number of rows you can have in a document. Flashcard Session Select Go toFlashcard to start a flashcard session on the entries of the active vocabulary document. The mode selected in the Mode menu will be used. If you change mode during a session, the session will be restarted. If you are working with long expressions the window can be resized to make more space available. The font size will also influence how much will fit in the different parts of the window. By selecting VocabularyFont you can specify the font used for the flashcards. Flashcard Session Flashcard Session Initially the front of the card is displayed. Use QuizCheck to see the other side. To move on to the next card either select QuizI Know to count the card as correct or QuizI Don't Know to count the card as incorrect. Select QuizRepeat Errors to repeat the cards you have counted as incorrect. Select QuizRestart to start the session from the beginning again. If you are using a random mode the cards will be reshuffled. The score sections at the bottom of the screen shows the number of cards, the number of cards you have seen, the number of cards counted as correct, and the number counted as incorrect. All items on the Quiz menu are available on the Quiz toolbar that is displayed on the right by default. Multiple Choice Session Select Go toMultiple Choice to start a multiple choice quiz on the entries in the active vocabulary document. The mode selected in the Mode menu will be used. If you change mode during a session, the session will be restarted. If you are working with long expressions the window can be resized to make more room. The font size (selected for the editor) will also influence how much will fit in the different parts of the window. In the example below the user gave an incorrect answer to the previous question. He/she is now about to answer the next question. Multiple Choice Session Multiple Choice Session Your choices are shown on the top left. Select the one you think is correct. Use QuizCheck to see if the answer is correct. If you have activated the automatic mode in SettingsConfigure &kwordquiz;... your selection is checked immediately. The previous question is shown below the current. The answer you gave is also displayed. If you answered incorrectly the correct answer is shown. Select QuizRepeat Errors to repeat the questions you answered incorrectly. Select QuizRestart to start the session from the beginning again. If you are using a random mode the questions will be reshuffled. The score sections at the bottom of the screen shows the number of questions, the number of questions you have answered, the number of correct answers, and the number of incorrect answers. All items on the Quiz menu are available on the Quiz toolbar that is displayed on the right by default. Question & Answer Session Select Go toQuestion & Answer to start a question & answer session on the entries in the active vocabulary. The mode selected in the Mode menu will be used. If you change mode during a session, the session will be restarted. If you are working with long expressions the window can be resized to make more room. The font size (selected for the editor) will also influence how much will fit in the different parts of the window. In the example below the user gave a correct answer to the previous question (to see how incorrect answers are handled, see the Multiple Choice chapter). He/she is now about to answer the next question. Question & Answer Session Question & Answer Session Your question is shown on the top left. Type your answer in the edit field. Use QuizCheck or Enter to see if the answer is correct. The previous question is shown below the current. The answer you gave is also displayed. If you answered incorrectly the correct answer is shown. Select QuizHint to get the next correct letter of the answer. In SettingsConfigure &kwordquiz;... you can select that questions where you use the hint function are always counted as incorrect. Select QuizRepeat Errors to repeat the questions you answered incorrectly. Select QuizRestart to start the session from the beginning again. If you are using a random mode the questions will be reshuffled. The score sections at the bottom of the screen shows the number of questions, the number of questions you have answered, the number of correct answers, and the number of incorrect answers. All items on the Quiz menu are available on the Quiz toolbar that is displayed on the right by default. Fill-in-the-blank 'Fill-in-the-blank' is a powerful way to practice in &kwordquiz;. It is a special kind of question and answer quiz that needs to be described in more detail. In order to use this feature you must turn it on in the configuration dialog. Consider the following table. It could be a vocabulary in &kwordquiz;: English German 1 We own a computer Wir besitzen einen Computer 2 We own a computer Wir [besitzen] einen Computer 3 We own a computer Wir [besitzen einen] Computer 4 We own a computer Wir [besitzen] einen [Computer] The important thing to note is the placement of the brackets. They tell &kwordquiz; how the quiz should be performed. In 1. there are no brackets. Assuming English is the question and German the answer you have to give the entire expression 'Wir besitzen einen Computer' for a correct answer. In 2. &kwordquiz; would display the question but also 'Wir ........ einen Computer'. For a correct answer it is sufficient to write 'besitzen'. 3. shows that a blank can consist of more than one word. The correct answer is 'besitzen einen'. In 4. there are two separate blanks. To specify that in the answer you have to write 'besitzen; Computer', i.e separate the blanks with a semicolon in order to get a correct answer. Marked blanks are only of relevance if they appear in the answer. Otherwise the brackets are ignored. Furthermore, brackets have no effect in multiple choice quizzes. To simplify the creation of 'Fill-in-the-blank' vocabularies there are toolbar and menu commands to mark and unmark blanks. Of course you can also just type the brackets. &kwordquiz; checks the syntax. If the text appears in red there is something wrong with the brackets and a quiz cannot be started. The 'Fill-in-the-blank' features can be turned on and off in the Options dialog. Turning them of will make it possible to use fonts that map other characters to the positions of the brackets. It will also speed up performance slightly. Printing &kwordquiz; provides the ability to print vocabulary documents in several different ways. When selecting FilePrint... you are presented with the standard &kde; print dialog. In order to get access to the special &kwordquiz; features you need to click on the Options>> to see the Vocabulary Options tab. On this tab you can select to print the document as a vocabulary list (&ie; as displayed in the editor), a vocabulary exam, or as flashcards. Vocabulary Printing Options Vocabulary Printing Options Vocabulary list The vocabulary will be printed as displayed in the editor. This includes font, row heights, and column widths. Make sure that the columns are narrow enough to fit on the page. Print Vocabulary List Print Vocabulary List Vocabulary exam The vocabulary will be printed as displayed in the editor, except that the right column will be left empty and a third column for scoring is added. Settings used include font, row heights, and column widths. Make sure that the columns are narrow enough to fit on the page. Print Vocabulary Exam Print Vocabulary Exam Flashcard Two 3" x 5" cards per page. The cards will always be printed in landscape. Print Flashcards Print Flashcards Dialogs Configure Editor Configure Editor Configure Editor You can configure the behavior of the Enter key when working in the editor. You can also select if the functions for Fill-in-the-blank should be activated. Turning them off will speed up performance a little. Select Defaults to restore all settings to predefined defaults. Select Apply to make your changes without closing the dialog. Select OK to make your changes and close the dialog. Select Cancel to close the dialog without making any changes. Configure Quiz Configure Quiz Configure Quiz For flashcard sessions you can select if the cards should be flipped automatically, and if they should be counted as correct or incorrect. Enter a time delay in seconds for the automatic flipping. For multiple choice sessions you can select if your choice should be checked immediately or if you have to select QuizCheck first. For question & answer sessions you can select if questions where you use QuizHint should be counted as incorrect. For all sessions you can select if the scores should be displayed as percent instead of absolute numbers. Select Defaults to restore all settings to predefined defaults. Select Apply to make your changes without closing the dialog. Select OK to make your changes and close the dialog. Select Cancel to close the dialog without making any changes. Configure Flashcard Appearance Configure Flashcard Appearance Configure Flashcard Appearance For flashcard sessions you can select the Font: and the colors of text, card and frames. Click the Flip to switch between the Front and the Back of the cards. Select Defaults to restore all settings to predefined defaults. Select Apply to make your changes without closing the dialog. Select OK to make your changes and close the dialog. Select Cancel to close the dialog without making any changes. Configure Special Characters Configure Special Characters Configure Special Characters Nine configurable actions are available for insertion of special characters into the vocabulary. Select one of the actions in the list and then click the Character... button to select a character for that action. A larger preview of the current character is displayed. Changing the keyboard shortcut associated with each action can be done by selecting SettingsConfigure Shortcuts.... Select Defaults to restore all settings to predefined defaults. Select Apply to make your changes without closing the dialog. Select OK to make your changes and close the dialog. Select Cancel to close the dialog without making any changes. Column Titles Column Titles Column Titles Use this dialog to define the column titles of the vocabulary. Select OK to make your changes or Cancel to discard any changes. Special Characters Special Characters Special Characters Use this dialog to select any special character you want to associate with the current special character action. Rows/Columns Rows/Columns Rows/Columns Use this dialog to specify the number of rows you want in the vocabulary. You can also adjust the width (in pixels) of the selected columns and the height (in pixels) of the selected rows. Select OK to make your changes or Cancel to discard any changes. Specifying a number of rows lower than what currently is in the vocabulary may lead to loss of data. Sort Sort Sort Use this dialog to sort the vocabulary alphabetically. You can specify if the sort should be based on the left (French in this example) or right (English in this example) column and if it should be in ascending or descending order. Select OK to do the sort or Cancel to leave the vocabulary unchanged. Questions and Answers &reporting.bugs; &updating.documentation; Can I combine several vocabularies to one. Yes, when you select FileOpen... you can highlight more than one file in the dialog. By default they will be opened in separate windows, but if you select the check box Join selected files into one list, then the data in all files will be combined into one new list. Credits and License &kwordquiz; Program copyright 2003-2004 Peter B. Hedlund peter.hedlund@kdemail.net Documentation copyright 2003-2004 Peter B. Hedlund peter.hedlund@kdemail.net &underFDL; &underGPL; Installation How to obtain &kwordquiz; &install.intro.documentation; Compilation and installation &install.compile.documentation; &documentation.index;