The Chinese Toolbox Project
The Chinese Toolbox Project is the continuation of a project I began in 1992. Personal goals for the project and the computing platform have changed, but the Chinese
Toolbox Project would not be what it is today if it weren’t for its unusual beginnings.
The Chinese Toolbox Project is the basis of Chinese Toolbox FREE and Chinese Toolbox READER, client applications for learning Chinese through reading. Chinese Toolbox products will eventually become a platform of
collaboration for colleges, universities, independent Chinese schools, software developers, and end users.
My vision for the Chinese Toolbox Project is admittedly lofty. There is so much potential when it comes to using computers to teach and learn Chinese, and I would assume other languages as well, but for now I am focused on Chinese. I envision far more collaboration in developing software and content. As I see it, collaboration should occur at three levels: software developers, educators, and learners of Chinese.
The Chinese Toolbox Project is mainly composed of C++ source code, but it also includes all files related to the development of actual products. Currently, three projects can be built from the CT Project source code. The largest project includes all Chinese Toolbox functionality. I call it Chinese Toolbox Complete,
and I build it every time I do a release build of Chinese Toolbox FREE and Chinese Toolbox READER.
Chinese Toolbox Complete is used in the development of the other two projects. It contains some of the same authoring tools that were developed years ago for the MS-DOS version of the program.
The most fundamental concept in Chinese Toolbox is that of a “frame”, a rectangular area of a window. A frame can be drawn with the mouse. You can shape its border and overall appearance. Frames contain data objects. A
text frame contains text. A checkbox frame contains a checkbox. Frames can be moved and resized after they’re drawn. Most properties of frames can be changed through dialogs built-in to Chinese Toolbox Complete.
In Chinese Toolbox FREE and Chinese Toolbox READER all rectangular areas on the screen are frames. All these frames were drawn using Chinese Toolbox Complete. Chinese Toolbox FREE reads the same authored (binary) file as created by CT Complete. It just doesn’t allow changing of frame properties.
Chinese Toolbox Complete is being designed for Chinese lesson designers, teachers, and professors — anyone who teaches Chinese and wants to make their learning materials available to students in the form of a computer program, a program with built-in, complementary tools for assisting students’ learning of Chinese.
When Chinese Toolbox Complete is first made available, it will likely be on a case-by-case basis. It contains much functionality that has not been documented, and it is a bit rough in areas. I use it on a daily basis, but I know its quirks. Before an official public release of Chinese Toolbox Complete can occur, some changes and more thorough testing will need to take place.
Besides universities and language schools, Chinese Toolbox Complete will eventually be made available to companies interested in localizing Chinese Toolbox FREE and Chinese Toolbox Reader to their own local language. This is another issue I’m working on: localization. Localizing the program into German will allow German students to study Chinese without having to go through English as an intermediary language. Hopefully, many companies will come forth expressing an interest in localizing Chinese Toolbox FREE to their country’s language.
A number of other related products on other platforms are also planned. The only limiting factors are time, human resources, and of course, money, which can procure much more of the previous two.
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