Kardz - Portable character-based language flash cards using MIDP

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About

Kardz is a character-based language flash card program for your cell phone or mobile device, using Java MIDP 2.0, that I wrote in roughly 1-2 weeks. Each card consists of a character entry and an answer entry. Character entries can be used for any character-based language. Answer entries are in English. Features include:

No dependency on language font files
Support for selecting card subsets through defining categories
Support for newlines in card definitions
Scrolling support for cards that won't fit on the screen
Easy toggling between English and the currently selected language
Randomization and resetting of card order
Jumping to any specified card number
Ability to save state of card order and current card on program exit
Relatively easy setup to include other languages
Relatively small JAR file size
Coded using MIDP Game API to optimize user interaction

I've been using Kardz for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, but it can be extended to any character-based language, such as, for example, Thai or Hebrew. I originally designed Kardz for intended use with East Asian languages, but technically, any Romanized alphabet can be used as well, since they are all character-based (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.).

Setup for your own cards and languages does take a bit of work. It's actually not that bad; I've outlined step-by-step instructions in the documentation. The essential steps are: writing your own cards in UTF-8, running the DataGen utility, creating the PNG file of characters, and rebuilding the project. I intended this for use by Advanced End Users or highly-motivated casual users. You can always email me if all else fails.

Flash card data is hardcoded into the source. This is to optimize card and character mappings. Thus, the only way to include your own custom cards is to rebuild the project with the new data. The Kardz distribution includes a separate J2SE program (DataGen) for automating generation of code for card data. Each language draws its characters using its own PNG file of characters. DataGen will output a text file of UTF-8 characters that you will need to paste into a graphics editing program to create this PNG file. Since characters are drawn based on a bitmap file, technically, any set of characters or custom drawings may be used. In this fashion, Kardz allows users to create custom alphabets if desired. You could create your own language with smiley faces and weird dingbats as characters for all I care. There is absolutely no dependency on any font files. Additionally, DataGen will ensure that any character that is used multiple times on one or more cards is stored only once in the PNG file.

I'm including examples of 3 languages in this distribution (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean). The flash card sets are minimal, so most likely, you will want to generate your own card data. See the source code documentation for details on how to do this.

Please send me comments, suggestions, and any feedback! I'd appreciate it a lot. ^_^

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Last modified: Thursday, 12-Jan-2006 07:59:20 UTC