# The &klettres; Handbook

Anne-Marie
Mahfouf

    &Anne-Marie.Mahfouf.mail;

2001
2006
&Anne-Marie.Mahfouf;
&FDLNotice;
2006-02-08
1.5

&klettres; is an application specially designed to do help the user to learn alphabet in a new language and then to learn to read simple syllables. The user can be a young child aged from two and a half or an adult that wants to learn the basics of a foreign language.

Ten languages are available at the moment: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Luganda, Romanized Hindi, Spanish and Slovak but only English, French and your language if it is among those are installed by default.

&klettres; is really easy to use. The language can be changed using the Language menu. The user can also choose the Level from 1 to 4 in a combo box in the toolbar or via the Level menu. Themes (background and font color) can be changed in a combo box or in the Look Themes menu. Three themes are available: Classroom, Arctic and Desert. Finally, the mode can be changed from kid to grown-up using the Look Mode menu.

KDE
kdeedu
klettres
alphabet
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
French
Italian
Romanized Hindi
Spanish
Slovak
Luganda
language

## Introduction

&klettres; is a very simple application that helps a child or an adult to learn the alphabet and some simple sounds in his own language or in another language. The program picks up a letter or a syllable in random, this letter/syllable is displayed and the sound is played. The user should then type this letter or syllable. Training is done in the levels where the letter/syllable is not displayed, only the sound is played. The user does not need to know how to use the mouse, the keyboard only is needed.

There are ten languages available at the moment: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Luganda, Romanized Hindi, Spanish and Slovak. If your &kde; language is Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Spanish or Slovak then your language is taken as default, otherwise French is the default. You can easily get any additional available language by using the File menu and Get Alphabet in New Language... menu item, provided that your computer is connected to the Internet.

&klettres; needs &arts; running for the sound

Two different modes allow you to adapt &klettres; to your need and have the full usual interface or a stripped interface. For a child, the menubar is no longer visible. We assume that a child will not want to set the language himself. A combo box allows him to choose the different levels. For an older user, the background is not so childish and the menubar is present in the Grown-Up style. Three different themes (Classroom, Arctic and Desert) set up a different background with different fonts.

You do not need the language keyboard layout anymore as you can use the special Characters toolbar to type any special character in each language. In the Settings menu, Toolbars, select Characters and the toolbar will appear at the bottom of &klettres;. Click on the letter you want and it will be shown in the input field. This toolbar can be dragged anywhere on your screen.

If you prefer having the language keyboard layout, please use &kcontrolcenter;, in the section Regional & Accessibility and submenu Keyboard Layout in order to set the correct keyboard layout.

## Using &klettres;

&klettres; has 4 levels. Levels 1 and 2 deal with the alphabet and levels 3 and 4 concern syllables. For a very young child (2 1/2 to 4), I would suggest that he/she is sitting on your lap in front of the computer and that you do the game together.

### Levels 1 and 2

Screenshot of &klettres; Level 1
&klettres; level1

Level is Level 1, language is French, theme is desert and mode is grown-up.

If your &kde; language is set to Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Spanish or Slovak, then this will be the default language the first time you run &klettres;. For other languages, French is the default. &klettres; comes with French and your default language if among those listed above and you can get additional languages via File Get Alphabet in New Language... provided you have an Internet connection.

In level 1, the user sees the letter and hears the sound. He then has to type in the letter in the box. If it is correct, the next letter appears (without having to press Enter or whatever). If the user types the wrong letter, he hears the sound again. In this level, the user memorizes the letters, associates them with their sound and recognizes them on the keyboard.

The user can type in either lower or uppercase letters. The letters are automatically put in uppercase so that a child will match them with the keyboard. He can type only one letter at atime.

When you type a letter in the input field, there is no need to press Enter and the program waits for a short while before testing if the letter is right. This short wait is to leave time to a young child to understand what he/she just typed, especially if this is the wrong letter. You can change this time by using the Settings menu, Configure &klettres;... and the Timer page which will bring you a dialog where you can set two different times: one for the Kid Mode and one for the Grown-up Mode.

After the first time, the language setting is saved in a configuration file on closing of &klettres; and loaded the next time, with the level you were in.

The mode (kid or grown-up) is saved in the config file and therefore is kept until you change.

The letters appear in random order. They are not the same consecutively.

Screenshot of &klettres; Level 2 &klettres; level2

Here is a screenshot of Level 2 with the kid mode, classroom theme and Danish language.

Clicking in the Level combo-box and choosing Level 2 or using the Level menu brings you to level 2. In that level, the user only hears the sound of the letter and has to type in the letter. If he is wrong, the letter appears to help him.

### Levels 3 and 4

Screenshot of &klettres; Level 3 &klettres; level3

Here you can see &klettres; level 3, grown-up mode, arctic theme and Czech language.

In level 3, the user sees the syllable and hears the sound. He then has to type in the letters in the box. If the first letter of the sound is wrong, the user cannot type in the second one. The letter disappears and he has to try again. The number of letters is two or three, it depends of the language.

Screenshot of &klettres; Level 4
&klettres; level4

Here you can see &klettres; level 4, kid mode, desert theme and Slovak language.

The sounds appear in random order.

Clicking in the Level combo-box or using the Level menu in the menubar and choosing Level 4 brings you to level 4. In that level, the user only hears the sound of the syllable and has to type in the letters. This level is quite difficult for a young child.

### Configuration dialog

The configuration dialog has two pages: one for Font Settings and one for the Timer.

#### About fonts

You can easily change the font that displays the letters. In some distribution, the default font used from the system is really ugly. In grown-up mode, in the Settings menu, in Configure &klettres;... you will find a Font Settings page with a font chooser dialog. The new font will be applied to both the displayed letter/syllable and the user field.

Changing font is also nice as some fonts (Helvetica for example) do not display correctly East-European languages as Czech and Slovak. If some letters or syllables are not displayed, please change the font and choose Arial for example.

You can also choose here the size you like the best. This size will be kept in configuration.

Screenshot of &klettres; Font Chooser Dialog
&klettres; Font Chooser Dialog

Here you can see &klettres; Font Chooser Dialog.

#### Timers

The timers set the time between two letters &ie; the time during wich a letter is displayed. The units are tenths of seconds.

The Timer page in the Settings Configure &klettres;... dialog has two timers settings: one for the Kid Mode and one for the Grown-up Mode. Defaults are 4 tenths of seconds for Kid Mode and 2 tenths of seconds for Grown-up Mode. Increasing the time leaves you more time to see your errors.

Screenshot of &klettres; Timers Settings
Screenshot of &klettres; Timers Settings

## Command Reference

### The Main &klettres; Window

#### The File Menu

&Ctrl;N File New Sound

  Play a new sound

&Ctrl;P File Replay Sound

  Play the same sound again

File Get Alphabet in New Language...

  Opens the Get Hot New Stuff dialog for &klettres; to download a new language

&Ctrl;Q File Quit

  Quits &klettres;

#### The Level Menu

Level Level 1

  Choose the level 1 (letter displayed and sound)

Level Level 2

  Choose the level 2 (no letter displayed, sound only)

Level Level 3

  Choose the level 3 (syllable displayed and sound)

Level Level 4

  Choose the level 4 (no syllable displayed, sound only)

#### The Language Menu

Language English

  Choose the English language

Language French

  Choose the French language

#### The Look Menu

Look Theme Classroom

  Switch to the classroom theme

Look Theme Arctic

  Switch to the arctic theme

Look Theme Desert

  Switch to the desert theme

&Ctrl;K Look Mode Kid

  Toggle the kid mode: no menubar

&Ctrl;G Look Mode Grownup

  Toggle the grown-up mode: normal interface

#### The Settings Menu

&Ctrl;M Settings Show Menubar

  Toggle the menubar

Settings Toolbars

  Toggle the Main and the Characters toolbar

Settings Configure Shortcuts...

  Configure &klettres; shortcuts

Settings Configure Toolbars...

  Configure &klettres; toolbars

Settings Configure &klettres;...

  Configure &klettres;: display a dialog with the Font Settings page and the Timer configuration page.

## Adding Sounds to &klettres;

If you would like to add sounds in your own language, it is very easy to do so. Record the alphabet sounds and place them in a folder named 'alpha'. Then record the most current syllables and put them in a folder named 'syllab'.

Create a text file `sounds.xml`, preferably using Kate as editor or another editor capable of different encoding. In this file, write all the alphabet sounds and syllable sounds you recorded, like this example for the czech language:

    <klettres>
    <language code="cs">
        <menuitem>
          <label>&Czech</label>
        </menuitem>
        <alphabet>
            <sound name="A" file="cs/alpha/a.ogg" />
    	...
        </alphabet>
        <syllables>
            <sound name="BA" file="cs/syllab/ba.ogg" />
    	...
        </syllables>
      </language>
    </klettres>

Replace "cs" with the two letter code and "Czech" with the name of your language. Write the sound names with the special characters of your language in upper case in utf8.

Additionally you can tell me about special letters in your language so I can easily generate the special Characters toolbar. Create a text file `cs.txt` (replace "cs" with the two letter code of your language) with each special character of your language in upper case on one line. And save both text files with utf8 encoding (upper right dropbox in &kate; allows that)

The sounds should be in wav or ogg format and long enough for KAudioPlayer to play them (between 1.5 and 2 seconds long, please add some silence if they are too short). Then make a tarball of all that and send it to me.

See the &klettres; website for more up to date instructions on how to add a new language.

## Questions and Answers

&reporting.bugs; &updating.documentation;

The background picture does not appear.

You need to configure with the `--prefix` option set to your &kde; folder or to add this folder to your path.

I do not hear any sounds

You need to have &arts; support and the &arts; daemon needs to be running. Make sure you compiled kdelibs with arts if you compiled &kde;. In any doubt, ask your distribution. You can also check if &arts; is running in &kcontrolcenter; -> Sound & Multimedia in the Sound System tab. There you must make sure that Enable the sound system is checked.

For &kde; 3.4 users, you must also be sure that the player used to play &kde; sounds is the default &kde; sound system player. See in &kcontrolcenter; -> Sound & Multimedia the System Notifications tab, click on the Player Settings button on the bottom right and in the dialog please check Use the &kde; sound system.

I do not see some letters on the icons on the special Characters toolbar. I see rectangles instead for some languages.

&klettres; in Czech and Slovak needs Arial and if you do not have this font installed, please ask your distribution support how to install it.

If you have &Windows; on your machine, you can use the TTF fonts from &Windows; (Arial is in those) via &kcontrolcenter; -> System Administration -> Font Installer (click on Administrator Mode and add the &Windows; Font folder).

The letters on the icons on the special Characters toolbar are too small for some languages.

&klettres; in Czech and Slovak needs Arial and if you do not have this font installed, please ask your distribution support how to install it.

If you have &Windows; on your machine, you can use the TTF fonts from &Windows; (Arial is in those) via &kcontrolcenter; -> System Administration -> Font Installer (click on Administrator mode and add the &Windows; Font folder).

Why are there only ten languages?

In order for me to add a new language, I need the sounds for the alphabet and some basic syllables. Someone speaking natively the new language must record these sounds in wav, mp3 or preferably, ogg format. For levels 3 and 4, the syllables must be chosen by a teacher or someone who knows how children learn: these must be the syllables you have to learn just after the alphabet in order to learn well the basics of this language. Please send me a mail if you are able to do that. See the &klettres; website for detailed instructions on how to add a new language.

## Credits and License

&klettres;

Program copyright 2001-2005 &Anne-Marie.Mahfouf; &Anne-Marie.Mahfouf.mail;

I am very grateful to the following people whose contribution has been greatly valuable:

- Czech sounds: Eva Mikulčíková evmi@seznam.cz

- Dutch sounds: Geert Stams geert@pa3csg.myweb.nl

- Danish sounds: Erik Kjaer Pedersen erik@binghamton.edu

- French sounds: Ludovic Grossard grossard@kde.org

- Slovak sounds: Silvia Motyčková and Jozef Říha silviamotycka@seznam.cz

- Italian sounds: Pietro Pasotti pietro@itopen.it

- English sounds: Robert Wadley robntina@juno.com

- Spanish sounds: Ana Belén Caballero and Juan Pedro Paredes neneta @iquis.com

- Romanized Hindi sounds: Vikas Kharat kharat@sancharnet.in

- Luganda sounds: John Magoye and Cormac Lynch cormaclynch@eircom.net

- Classroom background picture: Renaud Blanchard kisukuma@chez.com

- Original icons: &Primoz.Anzur; zerokode@yahoo.com

- Support and coding guidance: &Robert.Gogolok; &Robert.Gogolok.mail;

- SVG icon: Chris Luetchford chris@os11.com

- Code for generating special characters icons: Peter Hedlund peter@peterandlinda.com

- Port to KConfig XT, coding help: &Waldo.Bastian; &Waldo.Bastian.mail;

- Kids and grownup SVG icons, desert theme: Danny Allen dannya40uk@yahoo.co.uk

- Timer setting widget: Michael Goettsche michael.goettsche@kdemail.net

Documentation copyright 2001-2006 &Anne-Marie.Mahfouf;&Anne-Marie.Mahfouf.mail;

&underFDL;

&underGPL;
&documentation.index;