The element menu lists the most important operations that
can be executed on the element
that is currently displayed in the element window. To open this menu press Alt+F10
in the element window, press Apps Key
(context menu key left of the right Ctrl key), right-click over an
empty element area (i.e. the area that is not covered by components), or right
click over the element toolbar
at the top of the element window. Note that clicking
over a component will open the component menu
instead. If your
element is entirely filled with components or you are not sure which area is
component free, right click over the element
toolbar
to open the element menu.
The element menu includes the following options:
- Learning
- Execute repetition (Shift+Ctrl+R)
- execute a repetition over the currently displayed element. If
the element is not outstanding, mid-interval repetition will be
executed. Use Execute repetition to review mission-critical
material (e.g. before an exam). Using Execute repetition will prevent the review from being
"wasted" in terms of the learning process. It will also prevent interference of the review with the optimization
algorithm used by SuperMemo. Even if you accidentally preview an
element, it is recommended that you leave the trace of the event by
using Execute repetition. In subset
learning, Execute repetition is performed on all
non-outstanding elements
- Reschedule (Ctrl+J) - decide when to make the
next repetition of the element. You should use this option with caution as all attempts to
override the selection made by SuperMemo may negatively affect the accuracy of the
repetition spacing algorithm. You will most likely use this option to
affect the priority of articles in incremental
reading. In addition, in periods of intense repetition,
e.g. after a vacation, you might manually increase intervals of some less important items to
make sure that the next repetition takes place after the busiest
period
- Remember
(Ctrl+M)
- introduce the displayed element into the learning process. Optionally you can specify the first
interval, e.g. if you believe you will remember the item in 2 months, you might save time
by choosing the interval 60 without a detriment to the learning process. Once you memorize
an element, it will periodically be presented for review by SuperMemo. Remember executed
on a task will ask you if you would like to remove the task from the
tasklist. If you confirm, this operation will convert the task to a
topic
- Forget (Ctrl+R)
- remove the displayed element from the learning process and
put it at the end of the pending queue.
Optionally you may specify the position in the pending queue (e.g. at
50% of its length)
- Dismiss
(Ctrl+D)
- ignore the displayed element in the learning process. The element will still be available when browsing
the collection but it will not enter the learning process
unless you explicitly choose Remember
- Done (Shift+Ctrl+Enter) - terminate the review of
an article in incremental reading. You can delete
portions of the text or the whole text to save space. If the article has
children, SuperMemo will propose to dismiss it. Otherwise it will
propose to delete the article altogether
- Priority
- Increase (Ctrl+Shift+Up) - increase the priority of
the element in the learning process. For items, this operation will
reduce the forgetting index. For topics,
this operation will reduce the A-Factor, and for topics with the
minimum A-Factor (i.e. 1.01), it will also reduce the forgetting
index (which affects the forgetting index of cloze deletions
generated from the topic)
- Decrease (Ctrl+Shift+Down) - decrease the priority
of the element
- Add to drill (Ctrl+Shift+D)
- add the displayed element to the final drill queue
- Learn branch (Ctrl+Alt+L) - make repetitions only in the
branch to which the currently displayed element belongs. SuperMemo will propose the nearest ancestor as the
root of branch learning (i.e.
starting point).
Responding with Yes to Do you want to learn this branch will begin
repetitions. Responding with No will make SuperMemo propose the next nearest
ancestor as the root. Select Cancel to abort this option.
If you want to manually point to the root of the branch to learn, select it in the contents window and click Learn at the bottom of
that window. You can do it also by opening the ancestor window (Alt+P),
clicking the selected ancestor, and pressing Ctrl+Alt+L
- Postpone branch (Ctrl+Alt+P) - postpone
outstanding repetitions in the branch to which the displayed element
belongs. SuperMemo will propose the nearest ancestor as the root of the
branch that should be affected by Postpone.
Responding with Yes to Do you want to postpone this branch will
apply Postpone to the displayed branch. Responding with No will make SuperMemo propose the next nearest
ancestor as the branch to postpone. Select Cancel to abort this option.
If you want to manually point to the root of the branch to postpone, select it in the contents window and
press Ctrl+Alt+P. You can do it also by opening the ancestor
window (Alt+P), clicking the selected ancestor, and pressing Ctrl+Alt+P
- Locate extracts - Find all extracts and clozes generated from the
currently displayed article. As this operation is rather slow, you may
prefer to use Edit : Browse branch (Ctrl+Enter) instead. Locate
extracts is necessary only after you have moved some descendant
elements to other branches of the knowledge tree
- Show repetition history - show the history of repetitions for
the currently displayed element
- Reset repetition history - reset the
history of repetitions for the currently displayed element. You can opt for using this
option once you substantially change the contents of the element so that you feel like
learning a completely new piece of knowledge. You can also delete the
repetition history by using Show repetition history and pressing Del
- E-mail - e-mail the displayed element
to someone:
- Element - send the current element via e-mail (the same as the
mail button on the element toolbar)
- Attachment - send the element files as attachments (same as E-mail
: Element except the texts are not pasted into e-mail body). Use
this option to send formatted articles without loading the e-mail body
with the unformatted copy of the text
- Q&A - e-mail the element as question-and-answer text only
- Texts - e-mail all texts of the element in mail body
- HTML - convert the element to HTML and send it via e-mail. Only
references to object files (such as pictures) will be sent. To send the
object files, use E-mail : Element
- Source - convert the element source data to text and send it via e-mail.
Only references to object files (such as pictures) will be sent. To send the
object files, use E-mail : Element
- Template - see: Using
templates for details
- Save as template -
save the currently displayed element as a template
- Save as default
-
save the current element as a template and make it the default template in the currently
selected category
- Save with objects - save the currently displayed
element as a template, and include references to texts, pictures, sounds and other objects
associated with the element
- Apply template - use a selected template from the
template registry to modify the look of the element
- Replace with template - replace the current template source
with a new template
- Detach template - restore the original look of the element from
before the time the template had been applied with Apply
template
- Impose template - overwrite the source template with the
currently applied template (Shift+Ctrl+F2)
- Add template - add components from a selected template to the
currently displayed element
- View source - view the source template of the current element
- Save to file - save the current element as
a template file
- Load from file - load a template file saved
with Save to file
- Copy template - copy the currently used template
to the clipboard
- Paste template - paste the template from the
clipboard
- Template flags - advanced users may want to
determine in detail how templates are interpreted where the template
does not match the source:
- Delete template extras - when applying a template, delete all template components that do not match the source.
This means that template components that cannot be found in the
source will not be displayed
- Skip source extras - When applying a template, delete all source components that do not match the template.
This means that source component that cannot be found in the
template will not be displayed
- Check source - let the source template flags determine the way in which the template is applied
- Check template - let the template flags determine the way in which the template is applied
- Edit
- Element parameters
-
open a dialog box with element parameters. This option, also
available with Ctrl+Shift+P, is most useful for the following purposes: changing the category to which the element belongs,
changing
the forgetting index, changing the ordinal number (most often
used in sorting the pending queue),
changing the A-Factor of topics taking part
in incremental reading, changing the priority of a
task or changing the tasklist to which the task belongs. In the case of changing the
category, if you decide that your item would rather belong to Physics than to Chemistry,
you can select Chemistry in the Category
box and the item will be moved to the appropriate branch of the knowledge
tree (when you choose OK)
- Duplicate
(Ctrl+Alt+D) - create
a copy of the currently displayed element in the same place of the knowledge tree
- Move (Ctrl+Shift+V) - quickly move an element to a new
location in the contents window. After pressing Ctrl+Shift+V, select
the new destination in the knowledge tree
and press Enter (or click Accept at the bottom of the contents
window). Remember to choose Replace target or Add as last
child to determine how the element is placed in the new
location
- Title (Alt+T) - set a new
title. Either use the currently selected text or open the title window to edit the element's title. Use Alt+T to quickly generate a title from
text selections or text fields in
the element. Note that you can also start edit titles in the contents
window by clicking the title twice
- Swap Q&A
- swap the question with the answer (as
in standard flashcard programs). More precisely, this option swaps texts and fonts between the first non-answer text component and the first answer text
component. Usually you need this option to swap questions with answers when you learn
bilingual pairs of vocabulary. It is most useful in conjunction with Duplicate (see
above). The shortcut for swapping components is Ctrl+Shift+S
- Transfer element (Ctrl+Shift+T) - quickly
transfer an element from one collection to another. It is recommended
that you keep all your learning material in a single collection;
however, you may keep separate collections for testing purposes, for
e-mail, for use with tasklists, etc. For example, if you receive an
interesting article via e-mail, it may end up in your e-mail collection,
while you would rather want to keep it in your learning collection.
Instead of doing paste and copy and switching between the collections,
press Ctrl+Shift+T and point to the collection to which the
element should be transferred
- Copy element - copy the element to the
clipboard. Please note that large files and large texts are not copied to the clipboard.
These are specified as the reference to files or texts on
the disk. In other words, if you paste the contents of the clipboard containing an element
to the body of an e-mail and send it to your colleague, he will not be able to paste
images, sound files, long texts, etc.
- Paste element - paste the contents of the
element stored in the clipboard with Copy element (above) to a newly added element in the current category
- Paste template - paste the contents of the
element stored in the clipboard with Copy element (above) to the current
element. This option is similar to Template : Replace with template (below),
but the template is taken from the clipboard instead of the template
registry. Paste as template can work between collections but in order to be
complete it must be made on the same computer. This is comes from the fact that
Copy element stores the element in the clipboard with some reference to files on the hard disk. There must be a path match to
the referenced files, otherwise
those references will be ignored
- Browse branch (Ctrl+Enter) - open the branch
rooted in the current element in the element browser
- Copy
- Component - Copy the contents of the current component
- Q&A - copy the question-and-answer texts to the clipboard
- Texts - copy the element's texts to the clipboard
- Source - copy the text of the element's source to the
clipboard
- Selection - perform operations on a group
of selected component. You can select components by putting them in the editing mode or in the dragging
mode
- Link registry member - link a given
registry member to all selected component. The components must be of the same type. For
example, if the components are images, you will link to them an image file from the image
registry. If they are texts, you will link a text registry member, etc.
- Link registry font - link a selected font
from the font registry to all selected components. The components must be of text or sound
type
- Alignment and size - align a group of
components or change their size. This makes it easy to align left borders of components,
spread them equally, make them of the same size, etc.
- Background - determine the background image
used in the currently selected element. If you want to change the background in all
elements, use Tools : Options : SuperMemo : Default background image
- Import file - import an image file to use
as the background in the currently displayed element. This file will first be integrated
with the image registry
- Link from registry - link the element with
an image from the image registry. The linked image will be displayed as the background
- Arrangement - determine the way the
background image will be displayed
- Top-left - display the background image in
the top-left corner of the element display area
- Center - display the background image in
the center of the element display area
- Tile - tile background image throughout the
element display area, i.e. fill the element with many copies of tightly aligned bitmap
- Stretch - stretch the background image to
fill exactly the contents of the element display area. If the background image is smaller
than the element it will be extended
- Delete - remove the background image
- Color - determine the background color of
the element
- Scaled - determine if components should automatically resize in
proportion when you resize the whole element (this will not affect OLE
components)
- AutoPlay - make sure the element plays its
first playable component each time the element is displayed. Playable components are:
sound, video, script and the binary component (when linked to executable
files)
- Type - determine the type of the element:
item, topic or task
- Item - this is the basic element type used
in the learning process (often in the question-answer format). See: Topics vs. items
- Topic - mark the current element as topic (as opposed to an item). Topics are central to incremental reading
- Task - tasks are used in
to-do lists. If you select this option, the current element will be added to the current
tasklist as a new task
- Components
- Test repetition cycle (Shift+Ctrl+L)
- test the repetition
cycle without making a repetition. This makes it possible to see if all components show up
in proper stages of the cycle: show answer, grade, next repetition, etc.
- Repeat Autoplay (Ctrl+F10)
- play again the first
playable component (the one played with Autoplay). This can be useful in
pronunciation exercises when you want to hear again the learned word or sound
- Next component - select the next component
and set it in the editing mode
- Previous component - select the previous
component and set it in the editing mode (the currently
selected component is set in the presentation mode)
- Translate all - translate all text and
sound components to the currently selected language (in Tools :
Options : Language : Collection translation). If no language is
selected or no translation is available, this option has no effect
- Transliterate all - display the phonetic
transcription of all text components in the currently selected language (in Tools
: Options : Language : Phonetic transcription). If no
phonetic registry is selected then this option has no effect. If the transcription of a
given word is not found, a string of question marks will be displayed instead. This option
can also be used for a quick spell-checking of your texts. Misspelled words will show as
question marks. Naturally your phonetic transcription registry setting must match the
language in which you are writing your collection. If your language is English, there is a
70,000-item phonetic transcription registry available from SuperMemo
Library included in the collection: English Pronunciation
- Component order
-
change the order of components. Order of components is important in tiling components one
over the other. It is also important for AutoPlay (see above). AutoPlay
plays the first playable component in component order. Similarly, SuperMemo automatically
generates the element's title by using the text of the first text component in the
component order
- Delete components - delete all components
in the currently displayed element
- Delete element - delete the currently
displayed element (same as Ctrl+Shift+Del). Note that all children of the current
element in the knowledge tree will also be deleted
- Mode
- Jump to - display another element in the element window
- Next - display the next element according
to the element order specified on the pop-up menu of the button Next
- Previous - display the previous element
according to the element order specified on the pop-up menu of the button Next
- Next element - display the next element in
the knowledge tree
- Previous element - display the previous
element in the knowledge tree
- First element - display the root node of
the entire collection
- Last element - display the last element in
the collection, i.e. the last child of the last child of the last child ... of the root
node of the knowledge tree
- Parent element - display the parent element
of the current element
- Back (Alt+Left) - return to the previously visited
element
- Forward (Alt+Right) - backtrack elements revisited with Back
(above)
- Ancestor (Alt+P)
- open a window with the list of
all ancestors of the current element in the knowledge tree. You can then select an
ancestor by double-clicking its title in the Ancestors window