For today's tip, I'd like to talk about File naming issues.
Naming WordsOne of the potentially confusing things is with 'word files'. In your Word Library, the word files are displayed in the middle column under the heading 'File'.
There are 2 concepts here: The WORD FILE, and what I would call the WORD DISPLAY. If we look at the "Animals" Category, first item, we see "animals_bird (bird)" displayed. This means that for the WORD FILE name is "animals_bird", and when this word file is played back, the word "bird" is displayed (hence the name "word display").
The reason for having these 2 different concepts is that you may wish to create separate instances for a particular word display. For example, the word display "wave" could be referring to the action of waving, or could be referring to ocean waves. So one you might name as "action_wave", and the other as "nature_wave". Similar instances may arise from different languages having the same combination of letters.
Now, when you create your own word file, you can name the word file anything you like. You DO NOT have to follow this system we used in the default library that comes with Little Reader.
In fact, it's better that you use a DIFFERENT naming system, a more PERSONALIZED naming system, eg., "animals-bird-KL". This is so that if you import another 'bird' word that someone else made, it is far less likely to have an import conflict with yours, and your import would go much more smoothly. Likewise, when you EXPORT your file for others to download, the people downloading and importing it would have far less likelihood of encountering a conflict with your word file, and hence there'll be less instances of people choosing to 'skip' your file or 'cancel' the whole import.
For more about import conflicts, see this thread:
http://forum.brillkids.com/little-reader/important-import-conflicts-please-help-to-debug/Naming Export filesWith words, we've seen 2 different concepts in the above example: the 'word file', and the 'word display'. Now, I'll add a third concept, which you'll encounter when you EXPORT or IMPORT word files: ".wrd" files! Confused yet? You should be! :tongue2:
These export files - .pl (for playlists), .cat (for categories) and .wrd (for words) - are quite separate from the internal naming systems, and only come into play when dealing with import/export. Like the Word File, these export names do not have to have ANYTHING to do with what's inside. Eg., I can export my "Body Parts" Category and name the .cat file something like "KL's Gruesome Body Parts.cat" (except I might not count on many people downloading it...
).
Like the previous issue, it would be advisable to name the file in a personalized way, so that when someone downloads it into their regular download folder, there's less chance that the file name would conflict with something that someone else had already done and which was previously already downloaded.
One reason we allow the export names to be different is so that people can label their exports files in a recognizable way, like in my example above. Also, you could include multiple instances in one export file - eg., you could select all your animal-related categories and export it as one big "My Big Creature Set.cat" file.
Hope that helps!
KL
For TIP #1 (Flash Card mode), see here:
http://forum.brillkids.com/little-reader/tip-1-for-using-little-reader-flash-card-mode/.
Digg
