MouseFlashSuite Files

*** whats new ***

V1.1:
	Initial support for Kana and English learners Game+Flashcard changed accordingly
	Japanese translations on the popup menu
	Dictionary search modified for English learners
	Minor bugfixes to Quiz game
	Mouse Flashcards no longer cycle color (it's an option in the advanced menu)
	Ini setting file default changed from %UserProfile% to working path
	Code clean up, useless code removed, better form object names

*** Disclamer ***
Mouseflash was written by me to aid my japanese study, I'm releasing it as open source in the hope it will  help others in some way. 
While I am not aware of any bugs contained in it, you use it at your own risk. I make not assurances of it's suitability for purpose.

*** License ***

Mouseflash is free open source software, you can use it and modify it as you wish provided no money is charged for it, or anything which is a direct derivitive of it.
All sample photos for the stand-alone game were taken by me, and can be used in any way free of charge.

*** What is MouseFlash ***

A set of tools for Foreign Language study (currently focused on Japanese)

Written in VB.Net using Visual Basic Express 2008, Mouseflash is a tool which shows floating Flashcard words next to your mouse cursor, so you can learn while using your computer.

It can optionally show intermittent multiple choice quizzes, the quiz game remembers what words you struggle with and asks them more often

It also has a built in dictionary tool which is based on Edict. The dictionary can be used to add more words to your word list.

As well as the full mouseflash progam, there's a stand alone version of the Dictionary, it's a quick and dirty lookup of the Edict dictionaries, but I've found it very useful

There is also a Quiz Game, so if you don't like the MouseFlash function, you can still play the quiz and use the dictionary. The stand alone quiz uses pictures, getting questions right will unscramble the image, getting them wrong will mess it up, so you can put some jpegs in the 'MouseFlashImages' folder and they will be used as an incentive, a few images have been provided to get you started
BEWARE: PICTURES YOU PUT IN HERE WILL BE ENCRYPTED TO STOP CHEATING!

*** Usage ***

The programs require a parameter, which is a textfile with studywords, 

I've provided two batchfiles for each program, one loads a blank list, so you can start building your own studylist by adding them with the dictionary@or alternatively by cut-pasting them into a text file from Jlookup (they should be in the correct format - see Documentation folder for a how-to), The file must be created in Unicode-16 format, I'd recommend using windows notepad.

The other batchfile loads a sample wordlist is aimed towards JLPT1 and has over 5000 words, so is not suitable for a beginner - it should let you see how wordflash works though.

the dictionary requires the edict files to be in the working directory of the software, otherwise the dictionary will not function... the files are all in the bin folder, so as long as you start the programs with the batchfiles provided it should work fine without reconfiguration.

*** What's next for mouseflash? ***
Not sure, Mouseflash is a 'finished product' from my point of view, in the sense that it's doing everything I need study wise, if there is community interest, I may develop it further with more functions, extra games
and support for languages other than Japanese.

Mouseflash sort-of works on Linux via Mono, but it's a bit weird (therewere trasparency issues on the mouse flashcards). I plan to fix that at some point in the future.

I'm considering a sucessor to mouseflash, which will be writen in G++ in linux (a windows port will be available), it will contain the same quiz and dictionary functionality, but will be based around an adventure game,
with the users progress based on their foreign language ability.