*** Disclamer ***
Mouseflash was written by me to aid my japanese study, I'm releasing it as open source in the hope it will  help others in some way. 
While I am not aware of any bugs contained in it, you use it at your own risk. I make not assurances of it's suitability for purpose.

 マウスフラッシュ　は　僕　の　日本語　の　勉強　を　支援　する　ために　作った　プログラム　です。　誰　か　を　役　に　立つ　ため　に　オープンソース　として出して　います。
 マウスフラッシュ　は　バグ　が　ある　か　も　しらない　から　自己責任　取って　使って　ください
 マウスフラッシュ　の　説明書　は　まだ　英語　のみ　翻訳　が　出来る　かた　が　居たら　メール　して　ください。

*** License ***

Mouseflash is free open source software, you can use it and modify it as you wish provided no money is charged for it, or anything which is a direct derivitive of it.
All sample photos for the stand-alone game were taken by me, and can be used in any way free of charge.
The dictionary tool and examples file come from the edict project at: http://www.edrdg.org/jmdict/edict.html

*** What is MouseFlash ***

A set of tools for Foreign Language study (currently focused on Japanese)

Written in VB.Net using Visual Basic Express 2008, Mouseflash is a tool which shows floating Flashcard words next to your mouse cursor, so you can learn while using your computer.

It can optionally show intermittent multiple choice quizzes, the quiz game remembers what words you struggle with and asks them more often

It also has a built in dictionary tool which is based on Edict. The dictionary can be used to add more words to your word list.

As well as the full mouseflash progam, there's a stand alone version of the Dictionary, it's a quick and dirty lookup of the Edict dictionaries, but I've found it very useful

There is also a Quiz Game, so if you don't like the MouseFlash function, you can still play the quiz and use the dictionary. The stand alone quiz uses pictures, getting questions right will unscramble the image, getting them wrong will mess it up, so you can put some jpegs in the 'MouseFlashImages' folder and they will be used as an incentive, a few images have been provided to get you started
BEWARE: PICTURES YOU PUT IN HERE WILL BE ENCRYPTED TO STOP CHEATING!

*** Usage ***

The programs require a parameter, which is a textfile with studywords, 

I've provided two batchfiles for each program, one loads a blank list, so you can start building your own studylist by adding them with the dictionary　or alternatively by cut-pasting them into a text file from Jlookup (they should be in the correct format - see Documentation folder for a how-to), The file must be created in Unicode-16 format, I'd recommend using windows notepad.

The other batchfile loads a sample wordlist is aimed towards JLPT1 and has over 5000 words, so is not suitable for a beginner - it should let you see how wordflash works for testing.

The dictionary requires the edict files to be in the working directory of the software, otherwise the dictionary will not function... the files are all in the bin folder, so as long as you start the programs with the batchfiles provided it should work fine without reconfiguration.
you can get the edict files from:
http://www.edrdg.org/jmdict/edict.html

*** Linux Support ***

Mouseflash works on Linux via Wine+Mono, 
You need to install the fonts via WineTricks with the command 'winetricks  cjkfonts'
Start mouseflash with 'Wine Mouseflash.exe WordList.txt'
you need to edit the ini file and set 'nothreads=1' as the threading does not work correctly on the dictionary. Transparency doesn't currently work correctly on the flashcards, so they will render with a black background.

*** What's next for mouseflash? ***
Mouseflash is currently being tidied up, and minor improvements made... at some point in the future I may add support for other languages.

Mouseflash support for Linux is being worked on, it works, but needs some tweaks to get it right, it is my intention that MouseFlash should eventually be fully usable on Linux... 

I'm considering a sucessor to mouseflash, which will be writen in G++ in linux (a windows port will be available), it will contain the same quiz and dictionary functionality, but will be based around an adventure game,
with the users progress based on their foreign language ability. 

*** Web Links ***
English site:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mouseflashsuite/
Japanese Site:
tbc.
Email Address for questions & support: 
jpstudygames@nym.hush.com
