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Hanzi Helper version 0.6
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http://hanzihelper.sourceforge.net
coljac@users.sourceforge.net

-- Intro --

Hanzi Helper maintains a list of characters and lets you make practice sheets based
on these characters or a subset of them. It's a way of remember what you should know
and testing yourself, as well as practicing new characters you just learned.

-- Building --

HanziHelper is a Java application. To build from the sources, you need Java and
Ant (http://ant.apache.org) installed. Then just run "ant" in the HH directory.
The result will be build/hanziHelper.jar, which is an executable jar file. Run
with "java -jar hanziHelper.jar" or double-click on its icon.

-- Using --

This program does not include any Chinese-specific functionality. To view Chinese
characters, you will need to have a Chinese font installed, and to enter them into
the application, you'll need a Chinese input method installed on your operating
system or to cut and paste from somewhere else. The default font is "Arial Unicode MS"
which is the universal font that is installed with Microsoft Office. You'll probably
want to alter this. The screenshots were made using a font called "KaiTi_GB2312" in
a file called "simkai.ttf" - this excellent font ships with Chinese WinXP but you can
probably Google for it or use the font of your choice. Note that the font sizes set here
are only used in the print section of the application.

From the main window, view or add (via the menu) the current characters in the list.
You must enter Pinyin and Chinese, but the English is optional. Hitting enter or
pressing the OK button will add your character.

When you are ready to print practice sheets, select File->Print or hit ctrl-P
in the main window. From here, select the style and text to print and you will be
shown a preview. You can change the page settings, fonts and box sizes here. If you
hit the "resize" button on the font dialog, it will iteratively figure out the biggest
font size that will fit in the boxes.

When run, the application will create two data files: record.txt, the character list,
which is a UTF-8 encoded text file, and charapp.properties, which records your settings
such as paper size and fonts. You can edit these files externally if you really want to.

-- TODO --

Record importing/exporting.
Record editing

-- CHANGES --

Version 0.6

Can disable header info, grid lines.
Print dialog is resizable and fits itself to screen automatically.
Print controls altered for space.
Sample data packaged with application.
Numbers removed from record file.
Can clear the record database.


Version 0.5

Initial release.