User's Manual of Cardbox

This page contains the operating instructions for the program "Cardbox e-learning". To facilitate the overview, it will be split into several sub-pages that can be accessed via a table of contents.

Creating Packages

Planning and Structuring of the Package

In advance should be clear roughly how the structure of the learning package should be. In particular, how many levels of hierarchy has the package and how they are to be subdivided.

For example, it may consist of lessons and sub-lessons and the sub-lessons then contain the index cards. Per sub-section you should allow 30-50 flash cards.

Package creation is possible in 2 ways in principle:

1. Online - Creation
   With the launched program a learning package is entered interactively
2. Offline - Creation
   The content is entered with an editor into a CSV file and then the data exchange function is used to import it into a learning package.

Creating Packages Online

This is done interactively with the program.

Preparing Steps:

1. Using the menu command "Learning Package - Edit Treeview" the tree view is switched to edit mode. First, context menu commands are now enabled and secondly, the index cards become visible as numbered entries in the tree.
2. Via radio button "Edit Mode" the main area will be switched in the edit mode. In this mode two textboxes are visible, serving the input of Question and Answer content.

Entering Lessons and Sublessons:

1. Click the node that is to get a subentry. In the beginning, only the root node is present. It gets lessons as subentries. These get sublessons as subentries. Sublessons then finally include flash cards.
2. Then right-click the same node - a context menu opens.The allowed commands are enabled.
3. Select "Add Group" - an entry is created and given a name automatically. The name can be changed later in a meaningful label.

Input of a Label for Lessons and Sublessons:

1. Invoke the context menu command "Edit Name" in the same way - the box turns into an input box. (The node to be processed must be selected)
2. Enter the designated title.
3. By pressing the Enter key you leave this mode.

In the same way entries can be deleted again and entries for card files can be generated. The entries for cardfiles are numbers, which cannot be changed.

Input of the Content of Cardfiles:

1. Left-click the card file you want to edit (e.g. with the left mouse key). Its current content appears in the main area with both textboxes.
2. Enter Question and Answer, these will be saved automatically.
3. The Answer can also get structured content by using a Html - Editor, the so called Tiny Mce Editor. To activate the Tiny Mce Editor press the button "Html Editor Mode" - the editor occupies the whole main area and can be left by pressing the buttons "Okay"and "Cancel". Its features are more or less intuitiv.

Inserting Math Formulas

Prepare Index Card

1. Create a new index card and display it in edit mode or
2. Show existing card file
3. Activate HTML editing mode

Create and Insert Formula(s)

1. Show formula editor with card file - equation editor
2. Create formula in latex mode, control is done in the equation editor.
3. Copy the latex code with copy / paste into the answer window, here
   1. Insert inline by enclosing the content in \( and \).
   2. Insert as an extra formula line, enclosing the content in \[ and \].
4. Exit HTML editing mode with Okay

Inserting Multimedia

Prepare Index Card

1. Create a new index card
2. Activate editing mode for the index card (if you have not already done so)
3. Activate HTML editing mode and exit with Okay

Insert Multimedia Content

1. Show multimedia window with card file - multimedia provider
2. Select multimedia type, in the example: document
3. Select a file, in the example a PDF file. The file should be previewable.
4. Activate the box for automatic resizing (optional)
5. Drag the file from the yellow border into the answer window. The file can now be seen in the answer window.

Creating Packages Offline

To create packages offline you must prepare a CSV file. It can be imported as Learning Package by using the data exchange function of the program. How you can import will be explained in the section about data exchange.

General structure of the CSV file:

1. Each cardfile occupies an own input line
2. Exactly the first cardfile of each lesson / sublesson is signed with the name of those lesson / sublesson
3. Delimiter between the items is the semicolon. Single entries of a cardfile must not contain a semicolon or newline character.
4. To make semicolon / newline in Question / Answer usable, the following "Entity References" can be used: {semi} for a semicolon, {newline} for a line break.
5. The whole file must be encoded in UTF-8 code.

A single line is structured as follows:

A sample file will be provided here . It contains 3 lessons from a English - German - Learning Package.

Learning and Testing

Transfer of Lessons into a Cardbox

Choose the intended lesson / sublesson by clicking its checkbox in the tree view and click the button to transfer the lesson into the cardbox (down arrow).The contained cardfiles can be recognized in the symbolic cardbox at the bottom by its dark-grey color.

By using the cardbox tabs (below the Mode - Radio buttons) you can choose the desired cardbox. This is enabled only in Base Mode. This way several cardboxes are supported. The currently active cardbox is visually displayed together with a learning statistic at the bottom.

Presenting the Cardfiles in Learning Mode

To activate this mode simply press the radio button "Learning Mode" and then press the button for cardfile extraction (up arrow). By marking the checkbox "Random" you can control a random extraction order. The cards will be taken from first compartment and stay there after their presentation.

Presenting the Cardfiles in Test Mode

To activate this mode simply press the radio button "Test Mode" and then press the button for cardfile extraction (up arrow).The following steps are traversed:

1. Extraction of the cardfile and presentation of the question
2. Unhiding the answer (down arrow on the right-hand side of the question)
3. Evaluation of the answer (Buttons on the right-hand side of the answer). The result of the evaluation can be "accepted" or "refused" meaning you have either answered correctlyand the cardfile will be resorted into the next compartment or you have not answered correctly and the cardfile will be resorted into the first compartment for sooner repetition.

As you can do in the Learning Mode, you can choose a random extraction. Additionally you can exchange foreign vocable ("Question") and native vocable ("Answer") during the test. This can be done with the checkbox "Exchanged".

Extra Functionality

Additionally the following extra functionality exists:

1. Data exchange in the menu Learning Package (export, import). This will be explained in an extra section.
2. Open, Create and Rename in the menu Learning Package
3. Editing of cardboxes in the menu Cardbox
4. Display of the "About" - Box in the Help menu. It displays version information.
5. Display of the User's Manual in the Web by using the Help menu.

Editing the Cardboxes

In Base Mode you switch to the edit mode of the cardboxes by using the menu command Cardbox - Edit Cardboxes. The cardbox tabs change their view. You can do the following:

1. The "In Use" state of each cardbox can be changed by clicking the appropriate checkbox.
   A cardbox with the checkbox unchecked will be invisible in the normal state
2. Per input box you can edit the name of the cardbox.

Data Exchange

Fundamental Sequence of the Data Exchange

1. Invoke the command to display the data exchange dialog in menu Learning Package
2. Choose the Data Source Provider
3. Choose the Data Source File (grayed out if provider does not use one)
4. Choose the Data Sink Provider
5. Choose the Data Sink File (grayed out if provider does not use one)
6. Press the Copy Button (enabled if all requirements are fulfilled)
7. The progress bar indicates, if the Copy action is active yet

Explanation of the Data Source Providers

These are the sources of the Data Exchange. The following are implemented:

 Explanation of the Data Sink Providers

These are the sinks or targets of the Data Exchange. The following are implemented:

Attention! Use both "Updating" sinks only in exceptional cases, f.i. if you wish to improve the content of some cardfiles in the CSV file and then want to reimport the file.

Example for a CSV Import

1. Choose CSV Import as data source provider
2. Choose an existing CSV file
3. Choose Sql Database Sink
4. Choose a not existent MDF file
5. Press Copy
6. Open the learning package just imported with Learning Package - Open Learning Package