[jsword-devel] flashcards updates

Wed Sep 22 15:54:38 MST 2004

Troy,

Troy A. Griffitts wrote:

> Hey DM,
>     Like the new 'No Multiple Choice' option.  It keeps me from 
> cheating, though I can usually be honest and not look down to the 
> answers if I want to test myself better.  One thing I miss though is 
> multiple columns for the multiple choice answers.

I can't take credit for the "No Multiple Choice". This is a good feature.

However, I am the culprit for the change in the number of columns. Only 
did it for one reason. Some of the lessons have very long answers which 
were getting truncated.....

The change to the number of columns is in one place. So it is easy to 
change. I'll put it back to 3. You can set it to something else if you 
like. I made two symbolic constants NUM_COLUMNS and NUM_ANSWERS in 
QuizPane.java. It is not necessary for NUM_ANSWERS to be a multiple of 
NUM_COLUMNs but it makes the screen look more balanced. It might be nice 
to have these be preferences.

It would be possible to add some sliders to manipulate these two values 
on the setup panel.

By the way, QuizPane now loads and shows in JBuilder. Took me a while to 
figure out what JBuilder wanted. So you can do the changes via the builder.

>
>     I don't mind using the common.jar file, if it isn't much of a size 
> hike.  It was nice when the app was ~100K.  I don't mind it increasing 
> because of lessons, as an instructor can choose which lessons to 
> package the app with for his students, but I'm hesitant to let this 
> small app get much larger than 200k.  Every time I run it and am 
> online, it grabs a new version, and if I'm on a modem connections, 
> that can get old if we're above 200K.  More functionality and features 
> might make it worth it, but if it's just for our convenience, I'd opt 
> to have a smart jar packager that only pulls the classes necessary 
> from common.jar (or something like that).

It is downloading daily because lessons are being added daily and 
because we have been changing the code daily.

The rule of thumb is that at start up, if the computer is online, it 
will check all the jars in the program to see if any are newer. If they 
are then they will download those. You can see this by running the 
program via WebStart two times in a row. The first may download the 
program, the second one won't.

If we have three jars. One for the flashcard program, one for the 
lessons and one for commons, then the daily download would be much smaller.
The initial download would be slower since it would be three different 
jars. But on the other days it would only download program changes if 
the program changed or lessons if the lessons changed. Commons would 
only download very infrequently (i.e. when a new version of JSword 
becomes available, or when commons was changed to contain a feature that 
FlashCards wanted. That is, we would only get a snapshot of it 
infrequently.)

At this time commons is 300K.

>
>     Regarding separate jars for lessons.  I think this is a great 
> idea.  I had hoped we could have different jars for lesson sets.  Like 
> mounce.jar black.jar, etc.  Of course it would merely be by 
> convention; I would guess we would dynamically add all jars found in a 
> particular location to the classpath.  Dunno what you had in mind.

I was thinking one jar, because having multiple jars would require 
editing the jnlp each time one was added (or figuring out how to 
automate its construction). Also, I don't know if WebStart is smart 
enough to handle what seems like a simple change.

If we get to that point it may be better to add an installer and let 
people download, install and uninstall lessons.

>
> Thanks again for all the work.
>         -Troy.
>
It has been my pleasure to work on your program. I have devoted my time 
between jobs to writing software to further God's kingdom.

I may not have much more time to give. I am starting a new job on Monday 
(and going on vacation until then). So I need to give that a lot of 
attention. I also want to focus on getting JSword 1.0 out.

I will make myself available to fix anything I may have broke or made 
tough for someone else to change. So do ask if you want me to help.

>
>
> On Tue, 21 Sep 2004, DM Smith wrote:
>
>> Troy,
>>   I'm thinking of making a few more changes:
>> 1) put the lessons in a separate jar.
>> 2) Have two jnlp files, one with the jar and one without. (I want my 
>> daughter to be able to use this for her English class)
>> 3) Cleanup the unused code (e.g. the separate EditorFrame)
>> 4) Use java.util.logging for debugging.
>> 5) Use common.jar from jsword instead of copies of the classes. (This 
>> is selfish of me. I only want to maintain one set of code) I am in 
>> the process of removing most of the dependencies that common.jar has. 
>> So ist deployment size should be pretty lightweight.
>>
>> Let me know if there are any other changes that you would like. I 
>> realize that I have changed the code so much that it probably won't 
>> be maintainable in JBuilder. So, I will try to be available to make 
>> the changes.
>>
>> See below for response to your response.
>>
>> Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
>>
>>> DM,
>>>
>>> DM Smith wrote:
>>>
>>>> Made the following changes:
>>>> Fixed all the Hebrew vowel point clipping problems I could find.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It looks like my version of java and font (not specifying a font, 
>>> just using the default) might be the problem.  I'm upgrading java 
>>> now.  Every place Hebrew is displayed, it clips the bottom of the 
>>> vowels.  It looks like it's only clipping like the last 2 pixels, 
>>> but that's enough to turn a segol into a sere-- actually, if I look 
>>> close, I can see maybe the top pixel of the bottom dot of a segol.
>>
>>
>> Let me know if it is still a problem. I think I provided enough extra 
>> space in the status bar on the quiz window, the displaying of the 
>> Hebrew word either as a "Challenge" or as an "Answer" on the quiz 
>> window, in the list of FlashCards on the Edit screen.
>>
>> I did not change the height of the "front" editor on the Edit screen.
>>
>> I am wondering whether you are actually specifying a font. I think 
>> (meaning I have not tested it) that Java using the Windows Look And 
>> Feel under WinXP will pick up the font that is set in Windows. In 
>> FlashCard, it is using font names like "Dialog" in a couple of 
>> places. So I am wondering whether it is picking up the Windows choice 
>> for a dialog font.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Fixed save. It was not hooked up.
>>>> Put the Flash Card Editor on the edit tab.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I really like this.  The only feedback I would give is maybe make 
>>> the 'Front' text edit box bigger or CENTER, so it grows on resize, 
>>> instead of 'Back'.
>>
>>
>> Will do.
>>
>>>
>>>> Fixed the ant build to not croak on ImportLesson.java (the build 
>>>> now ignores everything in the migrate package/directory)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Awesome, thank you.  I was thinking of maybe adding a 'utils' 
>>> directory at the root, at the same level as 'app'.  David submitted 
>>> a c tool to convert BibleWorks hebrew font encoded 2 column CSV 
>>> files to flashcard files, and was wondering where to put this.  What 
>>> do you think?
>>
>>
>> I think utils would be a fine place for the C code. The program needs 
>> a few changes to make it produce valid *.flash files. It needs to do 
>> the following:
>> a) output wordCount=
>> b) number the pairs. Currently they are like this:
>> word=...
>> answers=...
>> word=...
>> answers=...
>> But they need to be:
>> word0=...
>> answers0=...
>> word1=...
>> answers1=...
>>
>> It would also be useful if the program took an option to provide a 
>> friendly name and put that into the *.flash as:
>> lessonTitle=friendly name
>> But it is easy enough to add it manually.
>>
>> I'd make the change, but I am only set up to do java. I don't have a 
>> C/C++ build environment and have not set up Eclipse to build it.
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Please provide feedback.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Great work.  I'm really happy with the editor now-- it's the same 
>>> idea as the old one, which I was familiar with, but yours is MUCH 
>>> prettier and way more functional.  I'm really excited.
>>>
>>> My Hebrew prof thinks it's really cool too! :)
>>
>>
>> If I have time, I think I will be trying to import the list of 800 
>> Hebrew words that Anthony provided.
>>
>>>
>>>     -Troy.
>>>
>>>
>>
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