Flash for Palm Pilot
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This page describes the Palm-pilot version of the Chinese flashcards program.

I also have a version of the flashcards program which works with the Palm-pilot. In fact, I have reached the conclusion that the flashcard program is far better suited to the Pilot than it is to a desktop Windows machine.  It is much easier to use on a bus or subway than the Windows version on a laptop, for example, and it only takes a few seconds turn turn on. Some of the features of the PalmOS version (such as the find feature) are not available in the Windows version.

I have tested this with both PalmOS 2.0.5 and PalmOS 3.5, and I have have access to other versions of PalmOS on an emulator. This should work on virtually any Palm-Pilot that is out in the world.

This version should also work with handhelds running PalmOS 5.  Note: Users of Palm Tungsten may be quite interested in a beta version of a flashcards program that can take advantage of the improved display capabilities.  This beta also contains a vocabulary reader.  Click here for more information.

Here is a picture that shows what it looks like:

This version can be downloaded from here.

CJKOS is no longer required if you are using the larger font capabilities that come with the flashcard program.  If you wish to use the default-size font (which incidentally is harder to read) then CJKOS will be required.  If you install CJKOS. then the minimum requirements are that you install CJKOS.prc, cmanager.prc and a 12x12 font (either GB or Big5 encoding for simplified and traditional characters respectively). It is of course possible to install support for both simplified and traditional characters.  For more information about CJKOS, click here.  CJKOS is inexpensive shareware that also provides an IME capability for the Palm Pilot. 

In this version, I have two vocabulary files. One for simplified characters, and a second one for traditional. Each is about 116Kb, and the actual program is about 15Kb. You can install both the traditional and simplified character lesson databases if you wish. As with the Windows version, the vocabulary databases contain the new words from books I - III.  For people who find the size of the vocabulary files excessive, you can use the Windows version of the flashcard program to selectively export vocabulary.

After you unpack the zip file, you need to load flash.prc onto your Pilot which is the basic application. Then you can load FlashData-GB.pdb and/or FlashData-B5.pdb. The "GB" file contains the vocabulary in simplified characters, and the "B5" version contains traditional characters.

The zip file also contains two additional Palm databases which contain larger fonts in 16x16 and 20x20 formats.  You do not need to install both, and if you are using the default sized font (and hence CJKOS), you do not need to load either one.

There isn't much to explain about how to use this - it works more or less the same way the Windows version does. The only tricky bit is getting CJKOS installed and configured, and even this is optional if you are using the larger fonts.  The only bit of wisdom that I can offer is that if you want to display traditional characters, it probably works better to configure CJKOS to use the "Chinese BIG5" character set. In fact in this mode, it seems to be able to detect and deal with both simplified and traditional characters. When I had the thing configured to display "Chinese GB", it was only able to display simplified characters.

I might add that the localizer buddy that comes with CJKOS will change all of the labels for all of the standard applications on the Palm-Pilot to be Chinese. Students who are just starting to learn Chinese might wish to not install the localizer buddy.

A couple of other points:
If you are using the larger fonts, CJKOS is not required (I still find it to be an extremely useful tool however). If you wish to continue to use the 12x12 font, then CJKOS is still required.
The font size is configured from the configuration menu item.
The zip file now contains three additional .pdb files - FlashFont16.pdb, FlashFont20.pdb and FlashFont24.pdb. These are for the 16x16, 20x20, and 24x24 characters, and you can load one or both of them if you wish. If you wish to continue using normal sized characters from before, you don't have to load either one (but then again, there wouldn't be much point of upgrading from flash 1.6).
These new fonts are only usable with the flashcard application. It is not possible to use these with CJKOS or the Oxford dictionary.
I gather that this works well with Sony CLIE handhelds as I haven't had complaints about it yet.
There is a second new feature that allows you to load custom vocabulary files that you have generated in the new Windows version of the flashcard application. For details of the Windows version click here.  When the flash application starts up, it automatically enumerates the flash databases that are loaded, and allows you to select among the first three that it finds.  There is a top level menu Vocabulary which allows you to toggle back and forth between PCR 1-3 and the user vocabulary files that you might have registered.  The settings for minimum and maximum lesson number as well as the name of the vocabulary file that you have specified are saved.
At the moment, the find feature is hardwired to use the PCR vocabulary.

For information about older versions of the Palm version of flash, click here.

A beta version is available which has a vocabulary reader which would be of interest to intermediate and advanced students of Chinese. For more information, click here.

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This page was last updated on 08/17/03.