Leger as an English - German language teaching tool.
Since Leger has an integrated dictionary, speech capabilities and creates lists of words it can be useful for learning English or German languages or preparing the foreign language lessons for foreigners.
There are a lot of English classic books in the Gutenberg project. You can open the chosen book, mark the fragment of text and let the application make the list of words excluded words you have already learned (these should be included in the separate text file). Then you can browse through the sorted list of new words and search the explanation of them just by clicking them in the hypertext mode. You can easily copy the explanations to the special file that you can print or save. This is also useful if you are a teacher to prepare the text for your students. You can prepare a set of files with words which should be known by the student at the certain level to exclude these words from the list of new words. I am planing to make this process easier in the next version, so write me if you want to use this program for that purpose. You can let the computer read the book as well.
This is the first version of the Leger application. If there is enough interest I will release the next, better versions of that program. There exists a LEDIC application with the English 30 MB dictionary- encyclopedia. Please, ask me for the details (do not forget to include your e-mail address).
Possible future enhancements:
ΓÇó Support for a case insensitive search
ΓÇó New databases: computer terminology and other special terminology, foreign language dictionaries etc.
ΓÇó Extended support for teachers to make the preparation of the foreign language lessons easier.
ΓÇó Text editor enhancements: multiple fonts in one window, wild card search, LF-CR translation - support for UNIX text files, double scrolling to scroll the page itself, some editor macros etc.
The future of that program depends on your interest and suggestions.
Speech capabilities.
The Leger program uses Apple PlainTalkΓäó or /and Speech manager extension to convert text to speech. These extensions should be available from ftp.apple.com. Preferably use the PlainTalkΓäó extension for its quality. Avoid using Speech manager on the AV machines - use PlainTalkΓäó only (do not use the low quality MacinTalk voices on the AV machines). Just drag the extension and voices to your system folder then restart and that is all. On other machines you have to use the Speech manager extension or both Speech manager and PlainTalkΓäó extensions together with TTS voices. If you have a little RAM (4MB) you cannot use the high quality TTS voices, but you should be able to use the compressed TTS voices.
If you have any problems with the program itself or speech capabilities, just write me a note (with your e-mail address) and I will try to find a solution if possible.
Remark: The AV machines are not bundled with the speech generation extensions outside the USA.
Shareware information:
If you do not pay the shareware fee to get the code to enter, the application will quit after 6 minutes from launching. The shareware fee for the program Leger is $10 (15 DEM).
(You pay only for the application Leger, the files enclosed in the folder 'PD dict.' are public domain and you do not pay for them.) You can send a cheque issued by a Bank (not a Personal cheque but Bank's cheque) or you can ask me for my bank account number. You can also send a cash - it usually works but not always. Send all your remarks and the shareware fee to:
Jacek Iwanski
ul. Opolska 42/8
46-045 Turawa
Poland.
tel. +48/71/628214
Please, give me your e-mail address so I can immediately send a registration code.
