Alpha Quizzer version released

The first alpha version of the new standalone quizzer went alpha last night. If you are interested in selling flashcards using this new quiz system, please send me an e-mail and we can talk about getting you into the pre-release system.

So far, I've created a Spanish language set with it and have been using it myself for the past month as I try to learn Spanish and also make sure the quizzer really works as a learning tool.

Here is a screen shot of the quiz window. No one liked the green buttons in an early mock up and I'll be changing that soon. Opinions welcome.

serial number systems and installers

Last night I took a huge step and completed the trial and for sale serial number system and an installer for a small collection of Spanish decks. This is a test and would require a bunch more work on the flashcard side, but I'll be testing this out on my own and probably fine tune a little bit more before I send it out to some of my reviewers. This has been a long time coming and it feels good to have an actual product shaping up.

This is just the upgraded quizzer system. Once I have one or two of these done I'll go back and finish Memorize-It which needs just a few more features and then I'll ship that. No timeline on either, but I am making progress.

Stay tuned.

Installer and Optimizer

I've been working on the installer for a sample stand alone quiz application. Like everything else it ends up getting stalled with more small problems. The latest was a tough one that took me a few days to find. When I built the application as a "Release" application which removes debug information and optimizes the machine code of the application. At that point it started having really strange problems and the only way to debug is by printing information to a log file. After a lot of digging I found a simple boolean variable that was not being initialized. All that work for a simple variable that wasn't set. Now I'm back to working on the installer and general application cleaning. Good progress.

As usual if you are going to wait on your purchase, I offer free upgrades for everyone who purchases within 6 months prior to an upgrade so it won't cost you any extra if you purchase today. Plus, upgrades are going to be $10 (maybe $15) so it's not like it'll be unaffordable.

Making progress

I was off on vacation for a week and have been back for a few days and getting back into working on the next version of Memorize-It. Before I left I had finished the tabbed test/quiz system in the standalone quizzer. This required a lot of rewriting in the multi-file loading system and cost an extra week's time. Now I'm into the testing side of the house. I had a conversation this morning with a potential customer who was asking about the t-scope feature. He had one idea that I may add to the list of things I'm going to do in v5.

He asked me when it would be done and as usual, I have no idea when something this large is going to be done. The biggest problem being that I'm focused on building a new application/learning system built around Memorize-It Flashcards and once I get that done I still have some polish on Memorize-It to deal with. I've moved into the last big feature on the standalone quizzer/learning system and that as I said is testing. I first have to go back and redo the art for the test pane and I've started that and hope to have it done soon. Once that is done I think I'm into the testing (bug finding and fixing) and installer phase which will be very nice and feel like I'm nearing completion of a huge task. The second biggest problem is that I'm leading a trip to Africa in August and have been working hard on training the team, and I'm starting a new game development class in the fall. Both of those are beginning to impact the Memorize-It development effort.

As usual, don't think delaying your purchase of Memorize-It will make any difference. I offer free upgrades to those who have purchased in the previous 6 months and my upgrade price (for any version of Memorize-It, even 1.0) is $10.

New Edit Window

I "finished" the new edit on Monday. This has been a huge effort and glad things are still moving along. Here is a screenshot.

It is fully functional at this point. The biggest difference is that all card elements are on this one window. To change the title, card number and category you used to have to click a button to open a dialog which slowed the card creation process. I've also made the card styles and tabs single click "buttons" instead of pull downs in the previous version. This will cut down from two click to change card style or card side to one click speeding the card creation and editing process.

I've also added fixed sizes for the cards (3x5,4x6,5x7,6x8) as well as the Max setting which maximizes the card size for the edit window. The previous version always maximized for the window size. This caused problems when people maximized to full screen the cards were just too large. At least now the card size can be easily set to a specific size. One concern I have is that 3x5 is in inches which is very American. If you know how the metric world sizes index cards please contact me, I could use the help.

My friends don't link the green buttons so I'm probably going to go back and rework the button colors, but that is just are and doesn't change the functional working of the window.

Now I'm back to working on the standalone quizzer and will finish that and come back to working on Memorize-It 5.

Flashcards with sound

One of the best things I ever added to Memorize-It was sound. I did this on the first computer that came with a microphone. It was a macintosh IIsi. I've since abandoned the Mac and have lately been trying to revive it with limited success due to other obligations, but that is a different story. I added the sound on flashcards while I was in Germany learning German. I would come home from the local Gasthaus and type in the words I had struggled with to for the evening. Later I would add the sounds and archive them for others to use. Sound on cards really adds a lot of potential to the value of flashcards.

Printing Flashcards

Printing flashcards was a feature that came along much later. I had only envisioned an electronic quiz system, but it seemed that many people also wanted to print their flashcards. Not a problem, I'm always open to new features and added it to the 2.0 version. I do most of my printing on business card paper because they travel well and you get more per page of paper making them less expensive. I've added a lot more formats over the years and am always surprised (but quick to add) the many different formats that people are interested in.