Help for KingKanji (PalmOS version)

Contents

Description
Installation
Registration
Awards
Lesson overview
Screen layout
Opening a lesson
Opening multiple lessons
Restarting a lesson
Stroke order feedback

Changing preferences
   Changing the lesson mode
   Changing the presentation order
   Changing the flashcard order
   Changing the animation size
   Changing stroke order feedback
   Changing the brush size
Included lessons
Creating lessons
Removing lessons
Copying lesson items
Using KingKanji with a memory card
Acknowledgments
Kanji Textbooks
Copyright
Changes


Description

KingKanji is an award winning Japanese kanji/kana flashcard system for reading and writing Japanese. It runs on the PalmOS 2.0 and above, which means it is compatible with all Palms, Handspring Visors, Sony Clies, and Handeras except the older Palm 1000 and 5000. The latest version is always available from the Gakusoft Website at http://www.gakusoft.com.

It includes stroke order animations for 2,100 characters covering all of the Joyo kanji plus kana! It also automatically provides stroke feedback while these characters are drawn with the stylus (pen). The ability to practice not just reading but writing, as well, is one of KingKanji's distinguishing features.

Over 300 lessons are included covering popular Japanese texts. Custom lessons can also be created using the included LessonEditor for Windows, Microsoft Word 2000, or a Japanese word processor. KingKanji is highly customizable and tests users in Japanese or English. Lesson items can be composed of a single character, multi-character phrases, and sentences.

KingKanji is completely self-contained and does not require any other programs or OS hacks to display Japanese.


Installation

To load KingKanji, simply install the database files KingKanji.prc, Kfnt.pdb, Knja.pdb, Fdbk.pdb, and JWL.pdb on the Palm. Although optional, it is highly recommended that the files Kf24.pdb and Ka24.pdb also be installed. They contain the larger and better Japanese font and matching animated stroke order. More complete installation details are provided in the file install.html.

JWL.pdb contains the lessons from the textbooks Japanese the Written Language/ Part 1 and Part 2. Lessons for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT.pdb), Remembering the Kanji (RTK.pdb), A Guide to Remember Japanese Characters (GRJC.pdb), and Yookoso! can be installed from the two database files located in the installation subdirectory titled "othercards."

Additionally, five day trial versions of two arcade games are included with the KingKanji distribution. The games are bonus software located in the "extra" subdirectory and not related to language learning. They are based on the classic video games Star Castle and Asteroids. Copy the files AstroCastle.prc and AstroStorm.prc (or AstroCastle_color.prc and AstroStorm_color for color devices) to your Palm device to install them. To thank you for your support, the KingKanji registration code can be used to permanently unlock the games.


Registration

The shareware version expires after 30 days from time of installation. After this evaluation period, the program will not function without a registration code.

Please visit the Gakusoft Website at http://www.gakusoft.com for information on how to purchase a registration code via the Web ($24.95). After obtaining a personal registration code, select Help-Register... from the KingKanji menu and enter the code in the dialog box. The menu is displayed when the Palm's Application Menu icon in the lower-left corner of the graffiti area is pressed. The icon looks like a small pull-down menu. The menu selection needs to be made before the expiration dialog box appears. KingKanji will immediately be fully functional.

Upgrades are free for registered users -- just install the new version and it will automatically detect your registration information. Also, the KingKanji registration code will work on the two included video games.


Awards

KingKanji won 1st Place in the Education/Science category of the ACM's Quest for Windows CE programming contest. KingKanji for the PalmOS is an enhanced version of this program.


Lesson overview

After a lesson is loaded, the first flashcard's English meaning is shown (unless you have changed the the initially displayed items in KingKanji's preferences). Perform the following steps to work through the lesson:

  1. Write the Japanese in the Writing Area with the stylus.
  2. Press the "Show" button to view the reading and kanji.
  3. Tap any of the displayed characters to view its stroke animation.
  4. Press the "Right" or "Wrong" button based on whether or not the drawn characters are correct. The status will be updated and the next flashcard will be shown.
  5. Repeat the preceding steps until the lesson is completed.

In the default lesson mode, all flashcards are presented once then the missed items are repeated until all cards are correct.

Note that the meaning , reading, and kanji fields can be scrolled when text is too long to be completely displayed. Drag the stylus in the text field in the desired scroll direction or press the right arrow button next to the field.


Screen layout
  1. English meaning
  2. Japanese reading
  3. Kanji
  4. No animation mark
  5. No feedback mark
  6. Writing Area

The display is composed of the following elements:


Opening a lesson

To open a lesson:

  1. Select File-Open from the menu.
  2. Choose the file for the lesson to be loaded from the dialog box.

The Filter drop-down list can be used to filter the Open Lesson dialog's displayed lessons by lesson database. This can be useful when wishing to display lessons for a particular text book.


Opening multiple lessons

To open several lessons at once:

  1. Select File-Multi-Open from the menu.
  2. Choose the lessons to open from the dialog box's Available Lessons list. The names will then appear in the Selected Lessons list.
  3. Press the OK button to open the lessons in the Selected Lessons list.
To remove a lesson from the lower list, simply select it in the lower list.

The Filter drop-down list can be used to filter the Multi-Open dialog's displayed lessons by lesson database. This can be useful when wishing to display lessons for a particular text book.

Note: when multiple lessons are open, the lesson state is not saved when switching to another application. This means that the next time KingKanji is started, initially no lessons are loaded.


Restarting a lesson

To restart a lesson:

  1. Select Options-Restart from the menu.

If in Quiz 25 or Quiz 50 mode, a new random set of lesson items will be used.


Viewing stroke order animation

Tapping on a displayed kanji or kana character will animate its stroke order. The longer the stylus is held down, the slower the animation. The stroke order for kana, Joyo kanji grades 1-6, and a few general Joyo kanji are available. If there is no stroke order data for a character, then it will not animate when touched.


Scrolling long Japanese text

Long Japanese text in the reading or kanji fields can be scrolled by dragging the stylus left or right in the field.


Stroke order feedback

The grades 1-6 Joyo kanji plus kana characters have stroke order feedback available. When these characters are shown in the kanji area and written in the Writing Area, the stroke being written will appear orange until the stylus (pen) is lifted. Once the stroke is finished, the line will change color to either black (correct), blue (fair), or red (incorrect). For grayscale devices, the strokes will either be black (correct), dark gray (fair), or light gray (incorrect). A fair result does not necessarily mean the stroke is wrong. It means that it could be wrong and probably should be checked by looking at the character animation. Incorrect means that it is highly likely that the character's stroke was written incorrectly.

If a character does not have feedback available, an orange 'X' will appear underneath the character. For grayscale devices, the 'X' is just below the lower right corner of the character. Even if a character has feedback, it may not be activated in the Writing Area if a previous kanji in the kanji field does not have feedback.

Feedback can be turned on or off from KingKanji's Options-Preferences... menu. (See Changing stroke order feedback)


Changing preferences

The preferences dialog can be displayed by selecting Options-Preferences from KingKanji's application menu.
  • The Mode changes the set and sequence of flashcards.
  • The View section changes the order of a flashcard's lesson items.
  • The Other section controls whether flashcards are shown in random order, large animations are displayed, feedback is given for handwritten strokes, and the large (thick) brush is used in the drawing area.

The next seven sections explain each preference in detail.

 


Changing the lesson mode

There are four different lesson modes:

To change the lesson mode:

  1. Select Options-Preferences from the menu.
  2. Choose the desired mode from the Mode selection box in the Preferences dialog.

Changing the presentation order

By default, the current flashcard's English meaning and Japanese reading (hiragana/katakana) are initially shown. The kanji reading is shown after the Show button is pressed. To change the order:

  1. Select Options-Preferences... from the menu.
  2. Select the elements to be initially displayed (i.e., before the Show button is pressed). Unselected elements will be shown after the Show button is pressed.

Changing the flashcard order

When Random is selected in the Preferences dialog, flashcards are shown in random order in Normal lesson mode. If unselected, flashcards are shown in the order they were entered in the lesson file.

To change the Random setting:

  1. Select Options-Preferences from the menu.
  2. Select or deselect the Random checkbox in the Preferences dialog.
  3. Press the OK button.

Changing the animation size

There are two animation sizes, normal and large. The large display mode shows the animation in a pop-up window and with a larger font if available (Ka24.pdb must be installed). Normal mode shows the animation directly in the text field.

To change the animation size:

  1. Select Options-Preferences... from the menu.
  2. Select or deselect the Lg Animation checkbox in the Preferences dialog.
  3. Press the OK button.

Changing stroke order feedback

To turn stroke order feedback on or off:

  1. Select Options-Preferences... from the menu.
  2. Select or deselect the Feedback checkbox in the Preferences dialog.
  3. Press the OK button.

Changing the brush size

To change the Drawing Area's brush size (large or small):

  1. Select Options-Preferences... from the menu.
  2. Select or deselect the Lg Brush checkbox in the Preferences dialog.
  3. Press the OK button.

Included lessons

The default included lessons are from the text book Japanese the Written Language. The lessons are stored in the JWL.pdb database. If you no longer want to use the included lessons:

  1. Delete the JWL lesson database (see Removing lessons).
  2. Install your own flashcard database (see Creating lessons) or one of the alternate included lessons for Remembering the Kanji, A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters, and Yookoso! Getting started with Contemporary Japanese in the files RTK.pdb, GRJC.pdb, and Yookoso.pdb.
Note: you do not need to delete JWL.pdb to use your own lessons. Follow the above steps if the included lessons are too basic and you do not wish to use them.


Creating lessons

Lesson creation overview

Creating lessons is a two step process. The first step is to create the lesson source files in EUC text format. The second step is to create the Palm database file from these lessons.

Creating lesson text files

There are two ways to create and edit lessons for KingKanji. The first is to use the included Lesson Editor program (LessonEditor.exe). The second is to use a word processor capable of reading and writing Japanese files in the EUC character encoding.

Using the Lesson Editor program

The Lesson Editor program requires Windows XP or 2000 with the Japanese language pack installed. The language pack is included with the operating systems and consists of the Japanese fonts and input method. They can be installed from the CD through the Regional Settings under Control Panel. If you can already read and write Japanese in Notepad, then the language pack is already installed.

The following are excellent references for installing Chinese support.

Windows 2000
See the University of Redlands description: Installing East Asian Language Support Under Windows 2000 Professional.

Windows XP
See the University of Redlands description: Installing East Asian Language Support Under Windows XP.

To install the Lesson Editor, run the setup.exe file included in the KingKanji distribution.

Once the language pack and lesson editor are installed, run the Lesson Editor program from the Windows Start Menu. A dialog box will appear from which you can either start creating a new lesson or open an existing one. The list on the left-hand side shows the kanji from each lesson item in the lesson file. Use it to quickly navigate to a lesson item. The three fields on the right-hand side are for entering the kanji, readings, and meanings. Multiple readings or meanings should be separated with a slash character, '/'. Be sure to save the file when finished. To see a sample, open one of the included ".kf" lesson files.

Using a word processor

If you are using the Lesson Editor, then this step can be skipped. Proceed to "Creating a Palm database".

To create flashcard lessons without using the Lesson Editor , a Japanese word processor capable of saving files in the EUC encoding format or Microsoft Word 2000 and the Japanese Language Pack, available from www.microsoft.com, is needed. Save the files in EUC format with the extension ".kf"--You may have to save the file with the extension ".euc" and change it to ".kf" afterwards. You can enter an unlimited number of lesson items but 25 items is recommended or the lessons become lengthy and less effective. It is also recommended that all user created lessons be placed in the Palm database named Kusr.pdb. Note that the lesson history (correct/incorrect guess frequencies) for the user created lessons are reset every time Kusr.pdb is transferred to the Palm.

A lesson file consists of a list of lesson items with one item per line. The format for an entry in a lesson is:

kanji [reading1/reading2/.../readingN] /meaning/meaning2/.../meaningN/

The kanji can be a single term composed of multiple characters including hiragana and katakana. The reading should be the hiragana or katakana reading of the character(s) with multiple readings separated by a single ASCII '/' character. The meaning is the English translation and should be simple ASCII characters with multiple meanings separated by a '/' character. The spaces, brackets, slashes, and new lines in the file should all be ASCII. The most common cause of lesson errors is the accidental use of double byte spaces, brackets, or slashes. Also, do not leave any of the fields blank. It may help to open the included lesson files with a Japanese word processor and examine the structure.

You can download a free Windows Japanese word processor titled JWP from the Monash Nihongo ftp Archive at ftp://ftp.cc.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo or the US mirror site at ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/japanese/monash/00INDEX.html.

Creating the Palm database file on Windows

Windows users should use the included program lessons2pdbwin.exe to create their own Palm database of lessons. Run the program to start the file creation wizard. Be sure to give the database a unique name or it will replace an installed lesson database with the same name.

Creating the Palm database file with Java (for Unix and Mac)

The Java program less2pdb is used to create a database of lessons on Unix and Mac computers. Make sure the Java SDK or run-time is installed and start less2pdb with the command java -cp less2pdb.jar less2pdb or jre -cp less2pdb.jar less2pdb, depending on if you are using the Java SDK or run-time. The databases created using this tool can only be named Kcrd or Kusr. This means that only one of each database can be installed at the same time.

First select the lesson database to create, either Kusr.pdb or Kcrd.pdb. Normally you will want to create Kusr.pdb. Kcrd.pdb will replace all the included lessons so only create it if you no longer want them. Next, press the "Choose Lessons" button to invoke an "Open File" dialog box from which multiple lessons can be selected for inclusion in the database. Select the lessons then press the "Open File" dialog box's "OK" button. Press "Done" in the main dialog to finish. The database file will be created in the same directory as the selected lessons. The lessons will be available after the database file is installed to the Palm device. Please refer to the Palm manual for directions on how to install a database file.

Editing the included lessons

The lesson files for the included Japanese-English textbooks and Japanese-German book are installed in the cards subdirectory under the KingKanji Tools installation directory. The default location is C:\Program Files\Gakusoft\KingKanji Palm Tools\cards. These files can be modified or used as a guide for creating lessons.


Removing lessons

To permanently remove a lesson database and all of the lessons it contains:

  1. Select File-Remove Database... from the KingKanji menu.
  2. Choose the database to remove.
  3. Press the dialog's OK button.

Copying lesson items

The current lesson item's meaning, reading, or kanji fields can be copied to the Palm clipboard so they can be pasted into other applications like a Japanese-English dictionary. The character encoding used for copying is Shift-JIS (SJIS). To copy a lesson item's field, select Edit then either Copying Meaning, Copy Reading, or Copy Kanji from KingKanji's application menu.


Using KingKanji with a memory card

KingKanji does not include native support for running from a memory card. However, it is compatible with the freeware program MSMount that let's standard PalmOS applications run from a card. The program can be found at http://www.palmgear.com.


Acknowledgments

The following people aided the development of KingKanji either directly or indirectly.


Kanji Textbooks


Copyright

KingKanji is copyright of Gakusoft, LLC and may not be sold without its expressed, written permission. This software may not be reverse engineered or disassembled. The unmodified self-extracting archive or zip file may be redistributed freely.
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Changes