Memaid Superkaramba widget


Description
Installation
FAQ
Download
Authors and credits


Description:

This is a client for Memaid, a flash card program with a twist, that makes your memorisation process more efficient by using a neural network to optimally schedule your reviews.

Other Memaid clients require you to fire up the software and sit down for a dedicated study session. Although this client can be used in the same way, it's main purpose is somewhat different. It's designed to blend discreetly into your desktop wallpaper, using the SuperKaramba technology. The widget will unobtrusively present you with a new item for review from time to time, and leave the answer on the screen for a configurable period, so that you can review it passively if you stumble upon it by moving windows.

The widget is discreet enough that you can ignore it completely if you wish, yet it is always there if you have a few seconds to spare to do a microrevision.



Installation:

First install the Python bindings for Memaid by typing 'make' as root in the memaid_superkaramba directory. Then copy the directory to whereever you keep your Superkaramba themes, run superkaramba and point it to memaid_superkaramba.theme.

This widget requires SuperKaramba version 0.32 or later. To edit question databases, you also need to install KMemaid, which you can download from the Memaid website.



FAQ:

Q:  How do I create or edit question databases?

A:  Use KMemaid for that. You can launch KMemaid by clicking on the arrow icon in the top right.

Q:  Why do I always need to click on 'Click to get new question' to get to the next question?

A:  By default, the widget leaves the answer on the screen for a configurable amount of time, so that it's there for passive review. If you don't want this behaviour, click on 'Set delay between questions' from the right-click configure menu and set the delay to zero.

Q:  It seems I have to double click to use the widget. How annoying!

A:  This means that the widget is in a mode where single clicking is used to drag it across the screen. Activate 'Toggle locked position' from the right-click menu and you should be fine.

Q:  What does 'Database locked' mean?

A:  Another Memaid client is running or the client has crashed recently. Remove the lockfile (called 'dumbfile') from the directory which contains the database.

Q:  The text is not properly centred.

A:  There seems to be a bug in Qt which reports incorrect pixel sizes for text. You can try to work around this by fiddling with the h_scale and v_scale parameters in memaid_superkaramba.py.

Q:  What a boring dialogue box to open a new file. Was that the best you could do?

A:  Install the PyKDE bindings, and you'll get the standard KDE file dialog instead.



Download:

The latest Memaid SuperKaramba widget can be found on the Memaid website.



Authors and credits:

Memaid Superkaramba widget: Peter Bienstman

Memaid core code: David Calinski

Also thanks to the person who designed the background for the Liquid Weather Superkaramba theme, on which the background of the Memaid widget is based.