You can put your foreign language course into a single file. I will call this file a Book. You can split your course into one or more books (files). The book consists of lessons. Each lesson is presented in a single window and has three parts:
• contents (interactive items that form the body of your lesson),
• exercises (set of exercises to allow students checking their knowledge),
• grammar notes (text explaining issues related to the lesson).
Here is the book's icon:
 
Polish Example
Creating a Book - Step by Step.
• Launch the Language Toolkit Writer,
• Choose New from the File menu (or Open... if you want to open the existing book - you can open Polish Example for instance)
The Main Book Window will be presented:
 
If you close this window then all other windows belonging to this book will be closed. When the Main Book Window is in the front then you can edit the Book Preferences.
• Open the Book Preferences window (from Utilities menu).
 
Here you should choose fonts to display text in your native language (English Font) and in the foreign language (Foreign Font). The Signature is used for the informational purposes. You can put your name or copyright notice there. The Author Password is used to open the book in the Writer (to make changes) if the Read Only? check box is checked.
You can protect your database to allow a demo level access for the unregistered users. In this case you should fill in the User Password field. The demo mode is time limited.
To open a lesson you should double click on its title in the Main Book Window. You can have opened many books at the same time.
• Now you can create a lesson.
Click New text in the Main Book Window (at the bottom). Type the lesson's title in the dialog box and press OK. If you created a new book then you will be asked to save the book file to a disk.
The new lesson's window will be opened.
 
Initially the window is empty and you have to fill it with the lesson's contents. To do this you should use the two floater windows with the language oriented items and arrows. To add an item to the window just drag its name (or arrow) from the floater window to the lesson's Contents.
You always drag the item name (or arrow) from the floater window to the Contents of the lesson, drop it there, resize, move to the convenient location and double click the item to open its editor window. You set up the item (i.e. enter text, pictures, sound, explanation, etc.) in the editor window only. You resize the item and move it to another location in the Contents window only.
Now I will explain each item separately.
• Text Item
Drag Text Item to the lesson's contents window and drop it there. Resize it to the convenient size (depends how much text you intend to enter) and double click it to open its editor.
 
You will see the above window (this is the editor window of a Text item). You have to enter your text sentence by sentence. Enter the first sentence in a foreign language in the Sentence field (you can use styled text with colors), below enter the English translation. Vocab. field is designed to enter all unknown words used in the original sentence in their basic forms (nominative, infinitive). You should separate these words with commas followed by the single spaces (this is important). If you have any remarks about the sentence then you should type them in the Grammar Notes box (styled text allowed). Finally, record the sentence with a microphone using the Record button. You can also paste sounds if you have them pre-recorded on your Mac. You do it via the standard cut/copy/paste operations. Copy the sound to the clipboard (from another sound application for instance). Select the sound-item (the box with three buttons: Play, Record, Clear - to select it you can just click near the Play button so the select-frame will appear). Choose Paste from the Edit menu. You can copy the sound from the sound-item as well.
Click Enter Sentence button to save the sentence and make place for the new sentence. If you want to have each sentence written in a separate line then check the CR box.
Now you can enter the next sentence and repeat all steps. If you want to change previously entered sentence then you have to select it from the upper scroll text, make changes and click the Enter Sentence button. If you edit a sentence and you want to enter the new sentence without saving changes to the edited sentence then use the New Sentence button. This will clean all boxes.
Close the editor window. You can resize the Text Item in the lesson's Contents window to the apropriate size.
• Text + Picts.
This is basically the same as Text Item but you can paste pictures - one picture per sentence. To paste a picture you should click in the white frame region of Text + Picts item (or on the picture if its already there) and paste it from the clipboard (you have to do it in the editor window of course). If you select the picture region then you'll see the selection-frame around the whole item - this means that picture is a target for your cut/copy/paste operations. Do not forget to press the Enter Sentence button to save the picture.
• Picture
Picture is just what the name indicates. Drag this item and double click to open its editor as usual. Paste the picture into the empty frame (click inside the frame first). If you select the picture region then you'll see the selection-frame around it - this means that it is a target for your cut/copy/paste operations. Then fill the Translation and Vocabulary boxes. Record (or paste) sound associated with this picture and close the editor window.
If you have a bigger picture then you might want to use the arrows to indicate some nouns presented on the picture. The choice of arrows is available in the arrows window. These are basically the same items as Picture, so you can assign translation, vocabulary and sound with each arrow.
• Comment
It is a pure styled-text item to write your comments and notes for student. Again, drag it, drop it, resize it, double click it to open the editor, enter the comment, close the editor window, and resize again if needed.
• Movie
It is just a QuickTime movie item. Drag it, drop it, double click it to open the editor, paste the movie (or use the Load Movie... menu item - from the Utilities menu), and close the editor window. You can move and resize the movie afterwards. The movie contents is not visible in the lesson's Contents window in the Writer (to see the movie in the Writer you should double click inside its frame). The movie contents is visible in the Reader as one expects.
• 1 Choice Txt
This item is designed to enter phrases with variable parts. Here is the editor:
 
The item marked fixed remains unchanged for all alternative sentences. For the beginning and ending you have a choice to make them fixed or not. Each time you click New button the new pop-up menu item is created. Remember to click Enter button after you define each sentence. Typical usage is the following:
- fill Beginning, Middle, Ending, ... fields,
- click Enter button,
- click New button,
- fill (Beginning), Middle, (Ending), ... fields,
- click Enter button,
...
• 2 Choice Txt
Works like the above simple 1 Choice Txt item.
• Basic Graphic (ovals, rectangles, lines)
These work like Picture Items. If you set the Frame thickness to zero then you can use these items as the invisible picture markers (to assign different translations to various parts of a picture without using arrows).
Additional Information
• To delete a multimedia item just select it (you can select more than one item) and choose Clear from the Edit menu.
• To rename the lesson select this lesson name in the Main Book Window and click Rename text (at the bottom of the Main Book Window).
• To delete the whole lesson select its name in the Main Book Window and click Delete text (at the bottom of Main Book Window).
• To move the lesson name into another location in the Table of Contents (in the Main Book Window) just drag its title in this window.
• You can easily copy lessons from one book to another by dragging their titles (from one Main Book Window to the other). This way you can compose your custom book in seconds.
• If you put one item on the top of another one (few arrows on a bigger picture for instance) then you can use Send to Back item (from the Utilities menu) to make the arrows to appear on the top of the bigger picture.
• Your book is automatically saved (to preserve memory while working with sound and pictures) so you do not have to save it manually. If you want to save the book in its certain form before making further changes then use the Save a Copy As... item.
• This version does not support printing (this will be fixed soon).
• If you close the Main Book Window then all windows belonging to this book will be closed automatically. You can open unlimited number of books at the same time.
• Large pictures and many opened windows require more RAM.
• You can include URLs in your text and in some items. If you do not want to include URLs then leave the URL fields empty.
• You can copy/cut/paste the multimedia-language-items using the usual technique. Remember that some of these items need much memory to be copied. Increase the memory partition in the Get Info window if necessary.
