This is the Setup screen, it is the first Window that loads when you start the application and it is used to customize your lesson / test.
Lesson Selection:
The tree explorer at the top is used to select the lesson file / folder. If you select a folder then it will use all of the lesson files from that folder to create your lesson, but it will not recurse through sub-directories.
The lesson files are based completely off of Adam Sheik's website, the Beginner and Intermediate files are from the Revision Sheets section of the website and they include sound in some cases. The Lessons: Level 1 - 3, are from the Cantodict. Level 1 and 2 are complete, but Level 3 only includes the first 500 entries, resulting in approximately 1000 characters to learn. I thought this was a good number to start. Also, only the Level 1 - 3 files have mandarin pronunciations and sometimes simplified equivalents.
If you want to create your own lesson files it is pretty easy. They are simply CSV text files with the following format:
[Traditional Character / Simplified Character], jyutping pronunciation, pinyin pronunciation, English meaning, optional MP3 file (which needs to be located in the Audio folder)
You don't need to have anything at any of these positions, you just must have the Commas so if you want to create a file of just Characters and English meanings it could look like this:
[Character], , , Meaning
Also, about the Traditional Character / Simplified Character, this also follows the format of the website's Cantodict. If you just have one character, the application will assume that it could be either Traditional or Simplified. If you have 2 with a slash between them then the one of the left is considered the traditional character and the one on the right, the simplified.
Mode:
The next section is the Mode, whether you want to study the characters or take a test. The only difference between the two modes is that in Test mode the English meanings are hidden until you press the Reveal button. I may look into multiple choice type testing later.
Number / Range:
The number drop down allows you to select how many words you would like to include in your lesson. I like to study about 25-50 at a time, but ALL is an option.
The range drop down allows you to pick what range of selected words you would like to study. This was done with the intention that I would probably only study 50 words at a time, so first day I would study words 1 - 50, and the next day 51 - 100.
Options:
This is where you can further customize your lesson. The check boxes are for selecting what you would like to see in the Lesson mode. If you don't want to see any of the romanizations you can turn jyutping and pinyin off. If you only want to see Traditional characters you can do that too. Randomize will, as the name implies randomize your lesson. But it will not randomize the range that you have selected. A range of 1 - 50 will always take the first 50 words, and Randomize will just randomize that subset.
The "Hide J/P" option isn't very obvious because I didn't have the screen real estate to spell it out. This is only visible when Test mode is selected and it will allow you to hide the Jyutping / Pinyin pronunciations while taking a test, but still display them when you press the Reveal button. I added this on after because I was finding that if I saw the Jyutping, I knew the meaning, without really knowing the character.
And the Start button will start the lesson. ;)