Hi,

I am trying to setup SuperMemo on my Palm TX so that I can review RTK1 and also input new vocabulary to review. I used the supermemo file that was originally posted on the Yahoo RTK usergroup by Leo but I have been unable to view the kanji in supermemo. I converted the file left on the Yahoo usergroup to a supermemo database file for the palm but when I go to use it on the Palm I get a "?" in place of the kanji when I am reviewing.

I guess that this is because I need to have software to recognize the japanese characters; however, I am unsure of how to set this up correctly.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

jondesousa Wrote:Hi,

I am trying to setup SuperMemo on my Palm TX so that I can review RTK1 and also input new vocabulary to review. I used the supermemo file that was originally posted on the Yahoo RTK usergroup by Leo but I have been unable to view the kanji in supermemo. I converted the file left on the Yahoo usergroup to a supermemo database file for the palm but when I go to use it on the Palm I get a "?" in place of the kanji when I am reviewing.

I guess that this is because I need to have software to recognize the japanese characters; however, I am unsure of how to set this up correctly.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

A lot of people seem to have this problem, and it seems to be even more common on palm. Did you try the yahoo supermemo users group? Sorry, that's the only suggestion I have. Anybody else?

The problem will be that your palm doesn't support unicode characters. Can you view Japanese characters using any other program on your palm (other than specialist software like PAdict)? If so then I think that you will need to alter the supermemo settings to use a unicode font instead of the standard western font. If not then you'll have to do something that involves putting unicode fonts on your palm and perhaps more than this.

I've only used supermemo on windows so I can't really offer any definitive advice I'm afraid.

I am unable to view Japanese fonts on any program including Adobe acrobat e-reader and Documents to go. I appreciate your help though.

Yeah, if you had a Pocket PC then I would be able to suggest a solution but I don't know if anyone has come up with a fix for the Palm. Have a hunt on the web and see if you can find anything on it. Until you can view Japanese fonts in other programs, like an internet browser, I don't think you'll be able to get it working on supermemo.

I installed J-OS to my palm and I am able to write in kanji on my palm. I am also able to convert the excel file to a text file and open it without difficulty in Windows and still see kanji; however, when I am transferring the file to my palm, I am still getting a ? instead of a kanji in the answer column. Any thoughts?

I had a LOT of trouble with Supermemo for CE (HP Journada). I don't know if the Palm version of SM is different to the CE one, but it seems that importing in Q&A format does not support unicode, you have to use XML format. I therefore had to create an XML file using Excel and (even worse) convert all unicode characters to decimal Numeric Character References (NCRs). Decimal NCRs are the codes as used in HTML for example 仮名 is &# 20206;&# 21517; (without the spaces, I put those in to prevent the message board software from displaying them as characters). The 5 figure number is the characters unicode code in decimal.

Here is a sample of the resulting XML file, showing the Q&A for 一 (one):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<SuperMemoCollection>
<Count>2042</Count>
<SuperMemoElement>
<Type>Item</Type>
<Content>
<Question>one</Question>
<Answer>&# 19968;&# 12288;&# 12300;&# 12452;&# 12481;&# 12301;&# 12288;&# 12308;1&# 12309;</Answer>
</Content>
</SuperMemoElement>

(Without the spaces in the string of NCRs, as above)
The other 2042 items follow in succesive <SuperMemoElement> elements, followed by the closing tag: </SuperMemoCollection>

The string of NCRs in the example look like this:
一　「イチ」　〔1〕
which is the character, onyomi and character frame number (the latter two items in Japanese brackets, but of course you only really need the character itself in NCR format, the rest was just me being fancy, and you can add any other content that you want.

I had a few problems with encoding settings in SM after that, and then you have to remember to set the answer in a unicode font (e.g. MS Mincho). I view in non-HTML format in SM, as I had problems with the HTML view, I think because the implementation of HTML in this version of SM is very crude, and it worked out better without.

If you want any of the files I produced to try this out let me know. Of course, I don't know if SM/Palm will throw up problems I didn't come up against in SM/CE.

Pangolin: What CE machine do you have? Can you input and see Japanese characters in other programs? If so, how did you do it? I have it set up but found it quite difficult and was wondering how you did it. I don't use supermemo on my CE machine though.

I have the HP Journada 720. I have only attempted Japanese input with JWPce. Until I got SuperMemo recently, JWPce was the only program I used it for as I bought an old Journada cheaply on eBay expressly for that program.

I expect input will only be possible with a program like JWPce which has it's own input system. Although Japanese can be viewed in Pocket Word and such as there is no problem copying over unicode fonts such as MS Mincho from your desktop machine and using them in applications, including JWPce and SM, of course.

To create Q&A files on the CE machine itself would require you to input into something like JWPce and copy and paste to SM I expect. However, I'd always planned on preparing Q&A "offline" on the desktop and importing, which is what I did with RTK1 Q&A file.

jondesousa Wrote:I installed J-OS to my palm and I am able to write in kanji on my palm. I am also able to convert the excel file to a text file and open it without difficulty in Windows and still see kanji; however, when I am transferring the file to my palm, I am still getting a ? instead of a kanji in the answer column. Any thoughts?

I assume you checked/unchecked the decode UTF 8 button?

Pangolin Wrote:I expect input will only be possible with a program like JWPce which has it's own input system. Although Japanese can be viewed in Pocket Word and such as there is no problem copying over unicode fonts such as MS Mincho from your desktop machine and using them in applications, including JWPce and SM, of course.

You can input and display Japanese characters in any program. A guy called Bagoj created files that allow you to do it. Obviously it's all unofficial so you do so at your own risk (backup all your files in case you need to do a hard reset) but check out these forums:

http://www.firstloox.org/forums/showthre...ge=1&pp=15

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=103305

I did it for my iPAQ hx4700 and the multibox IME on the pocket pc is probably the best feature. It allows you to write the character with your stylus.

leosmith Wrote:I assume you checked/unchecked the decode UTF 8 button?

I initially started with an excel file which I saved as a tab limited text file. I then opened up that file to ensure that I was seeing the kanji when I saved into the text file. I did see the kanji there so I dropped to text file onto the supermemo / palm file conversion tool. I then hot synced the file onto my palm. I tried adjusting the settings on the palm but still to no avail.

Thanks, Wrightak, I will definitely try that out, I see my model is specifically mentioned in the first post.

The first one is really old and I implemented it over a year ago. I think that people have worked on it a bit so there's probably an improved version somewhere. Definitely have a look around and let me know what you find.

jondesousa Wrote:I initially started with an excel file which I saved as a tab limited text file. I then opened up that file to ensure that I was seeing the kanji when I saved into the text file. I did see the kanji there so I dropped to text file onto the supermemo / palm file conversion tool. I then hot synced the file onto my palm. I tried adjusting the settings on the palm but still to no avail.

Did you read what I said about SM for CE not be able to import unicode characters? The support guy at SM said that Q&A format import doesn't support unicode and he pointed me towards the XML template. Even in XML format the unicode characters would not import. I asked technical support about this and got no reply.

In the end I had to resort to converting the actual unicode characters to Numerical Character References as described above. I used an online conversion tool for that. The whole process is extremely fiddly. If anyone knows a better method, I'd love to know.

I think the pda versions of SM are based on older versions of SM and the import routines don't handle unicode. I'm wondering whether the best idea is to try another program altogether!

I think that this would be much more difficult to do than it is worth. I think I will end up sticking with Twinkle instead of using Supermemo. I didn't realize it would be such a hassle. On top of that, Twinkle is free and you have to pay for supermemo.