APPLICATION: SLYFLASH 1.0
PROGRAMMER: SAM CAMPBELL III
EMAIL: SLYFOOT@MODOMAIL.COM
DATE: JANUARY 5, 2005

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SLYFLASH.EXE is a simple flashcard driller. It reads plain ASCII
(Text) files and displays 'Flash Cards' in sequential or random order.
It is primarily intended for use by students who want to drill for
exams or quizzes or by people who have large ASCII trivia databases.
SLYFLASH.EXE can be used to view flashcards in question and answer
format, or it can be used in 'drill mode' which gives users an easy
way to quiz themselves with flashcards or trivia files. SLYFLASH.EXE
will accept up to three answers for any given question. The program
was written in Microsoft Quickbasic for DOS, but it works under Win9x
and WinXP. SLYFLASH.EXE also comes with two large screen modes which
are designed to be easily viewed by the visually impaired. The program
does not require any installation. SLYFLASH.EXE is FREEWARE.
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I got the idea for writing this program after writing a trivia bot for
an IRC trivia channel. I wanted a DOS program that used a command
interface to test my trivia knowledge and I could not find a program
that did exactly what I wanted it to. The program will be very
intuitive to anyone who has played trivia on IRC or on old BBSs. But
even if you haven't, there are only four main commands and a handful
of options to learn.

The four main commands are:

* /HELP  -- Brings up a help screen.
* /VIDEO -- Switches between 80 and 40 character mode.
* /FLASH -- Loads Flashcard files
* /QUIT  -- Exits the program.

The /HELP command brings up simple help screens which explain how to
use SLYFLASH.EXE  The /VIDEO command uses screen mode 2 (80 character
display) by default, but visually impaired people can switch it to
screen mode 1 (40 character display).  All of the program screens are
designed to be easily viewed in 40 character mode.  The /QUIT command
closes any open SLYFLASH files and exits to DOS or Windows.

The /FLASH command is where all the action happens.  You use that to
select any ASCII (Text) file in SLYFLASH format.  The SLYFLASH format
is any text file in which every line is delimited by 1 to 3 tilde (~)
characters.  The reason I chose the tilde character is because ASCII
trivia databases are not likely to include a tilde except as a
delimiter (separator), whereas using semicolons, colons, or quote and
commas as delimiters might end up resulting in errors due to lines
that cannot be read properly by the program.  The basic format for a
SLYFLASH card file looks like this:

QUESTION~ANSWER
QUESTION~ANSWER 1~ANSWER 2
QUESTION~ANSWER 1~ANSWER 2~ANSWER 3

When using drill mode, answers are not case sensitive.  It does not
matter whether you type "answer","ANSWER" or "aNsWeR". The program
is also smart enough to handle files that have lines with unnecessary
spaces, so these lines will work:

QUESTION ~ ANSWER
QUESTION ~ANSWER 1 ~ ANSWER2 
  QUESTION~ ANSWER 1 ~ANSWER 2
QUESTION ~ ANSWER 1 ~ ANSWER 2 ~ ANSWER 3

Even if the file uses unnecessary spaces, you would not have to
duplicate the spaces when quizzing yourself in drill mode; simply
typing the correct answer will work.  However, there are 5 types of
incorrect formats that will cause SLYFLASH to give an error. These
are:

* NO DELIMITER - Line x does not have a tilde (~) delimiter.
* BEGINS WITH DELIMITER - Line begins with a tilde (~) delimiter.
* ENDS WITH DELIMITER - Line ends with a tilde (~) delimiter.
* DOUBLED DELIMITER - Line contains doubled tildes (~~).
* TOO MANY DELIMITERS - Line has more than 3 tilde (~) delimiters.

The following are all examples of incorrect formats:

THIS IS A QUESTION AND THIS IS AN ANSWER WITH NO DELIMITER
~THIS IS A QUESTION STARTING WITH A DELIMITER~ANSWER
QUESTION~THIS ANSWER ENDS WITH A DELIMITER~
QUESTION~~THIS LINE HAS DOUBLED DELIMITERS
QUESTION~ANSWER1~ANSWER2~ANSWER3~ANSWER4 IS TOO MANY

If an opened flashcard file contains a line with one or more of
these format errors, it will display the incorrect line and then
close the flashcard file.  Flashcard files are very easy to make:
all you need is a standard text editor like EDIT.COM or Notepad.exe
(I heartily recommend Ultraedit for Windows, a fantastic shareware
text editor).

If you create flashcard or trivia files in a word processor, be sure
to save the files as PLAIN TEXT.  You can also use spreadsheet or
database programs to save triviabases as long as there are no more
than 4 fields (Question, Answer1, Answer2, Answer3) and as long as
the delimiter has been changed to a tilde in a text editor. Also be
sure there are no empty fields between delimiters!  If there are
empty fields, use a fill feature to fill the field with EMPTY or NULL
or some other word so that there will not be doubled delimiters. The
good news is that SLYFLASH can handle text files that contain double or
single quotes (' or ""), so if you save a file as quote and comma
delimited, then you could simply change the commas to a tilde. However,
just be sure that the question or answer fields do not contain commas
or you may end up with too many answer fields when changing them to
tildes.  Also, SLYFLASH does not handle long file names, so files must
be in the old DOS 8.3 filename.extension (FILENAME.EXT) format.

When you open a flashcard or triviabase in SLYFLASH, it will ask you
what ORDER you want to display the cards in.  You can choose from
three modes: SEQUENTIAL, RANDOM (NO REPEATS) and RANDOM (CONTINUOUS).
SEQUENTIAL mode opens a text file and goes through each line in the
file in the order they are read.  RANDOM (NO REPEATS) will shuffle
the order of the lines in the file and will display them all without
repeating each other until the program has read every line.  RANDOM
(CONTINUOUS) will read lines at random, occasionally repeating a
line.  If you choose SEQUENTIAL or RANDOM (NO REPEATS), the program
will ask you if you would like to go through the current cardset
again once you have finished with it. No matter what order you have
chosen, you can close the file and open another file by typing /FLASH
at any time.

SLYFLASH.ZIP should contain the following files:

* SLYFLASH.EXE -- The main executable
* README.TXT   -- This README file
* WORLDCAP.SLY -- World Capitals
* USCAP.SLY    -- U.S. Capitals
* SYMBOLS.SLY  -- Chemical Symbols
* ACADEMY.SLY  -- Academy Best Pictures & Directors
* TRIVIA.SLY   -- General Trivia (600 Questions!)


The program has decent error-handling, but if some unknown error
occurs, feel free to send a bug report with a description of how the
bug is triggered to SLYFOOT@GMAIL.COM or SLYFOOT@MODOMAIL.COM

That is pretty much everything there is to know about SLYFLASH! It's
a very simple program written by a very simple programmer with very
simple tastes... :)

This is a shout-out to all of the geeks in the LiveJournal Ubergeeks
Community (http://www.livejournal.com/community/ubergeeks/)

Resistance Is Futile!

~Sam Campbell III (AKA Slyfoot)

OTHER FREEWARE BY SAM CAMPBELL III:
DOTS.EXE - Braille Tutorial (DOTS0000.ZIP on Simtel & PCmag.com)

END OF README.TXT
