To test the grammar principles explained in the lesson, you will need a corresponding .lst file. Create or import file that matches the lesson name, such as 'Adjectives.lst'. This file should consist of a list of items, one item per line, with the target language on the left, a delimiter such as ':' and then the English on the right. The first item in the list should have a tag that indicates what lesson it belongs to - this tag starts ands ends with curly braces, and it has two vertical lines before the grammar tag. (Although the lesson name is already clear from the name of the lst file, the list will eventually be imported into other files, such as your personal vocab file, so it is useful to tag the first item in the lesson.) The last item should indicate that it is the end of the lesson with an 'END' tag.
Here is what a lst file looks like when it has the appropriate tags:
eins : one { | | Numbers one to ten}
zwei : two
drei : three
vier : four
fünf : five
sechs : six
sieben : seven
acht : eight
neun : nine
zehn : ten { | | END}
To add the lesson to the Grammar menu, open the file 'Grammar Topics.txt'. (If this file does not exist, create it, and save it in the appropriate 'XGrammar' subfolder). A quick way to access this file is to select "Edit Topics' under the Grammar menu heading. Edit the file so that it lists the grammar topics you want to make available, with one topic per line. In this example, you would add 'Numbers one to ten' (the suffix '.txt' is not needed) on a single line. As soon as you save the list of topics, the Grammar menu will include the new item.
As explained above, under 'Manual Method', the name of a grammar lesson associated with a particular vocab item can also be indicated within the list ('.lst') file, before the list is imported into a vocabulary. (See 'File formats' under the Help menu for details). Note that these tags are added automatically if you create a grammar topic with the 'Automatic Method' described above.
The first time a user reaches the tagged vocab item, the associated txt file will appear. Subsequent views of the same item will not automatically show the grammar lesson but the grammar button will become active, indicating the content is available for students who want to review it. Also, if the topic is entered into the 'Grammar Topics.txt' file, it can be reviewed at any time (even outside test sessions).
Currently, there is no capacity for speciying in advance which WRONG answers will be offered in the multiple choice answers, but providing several similar items should enable the program to select suitable distractors in the multichoice question. (The program chooses distractors semi-randomly, but based on their similarity to the correct answer). The program is based on the philosophy that students should not be exposed to mistakes, so the wrong answers cannot be examples of poor grammar; they must instead consist of correct German sentences that fail to match the item. Prompts can be used to flesh out the questions in more detail. For instance, to test declension of adjectives, the English prompt could contain a sample German sentence or phrase with the relevant word missing.
altes : old [ein ____ Haus]
alter : old [ein ____ Mann]
alte : old [eine ____ Frau]
alt : old [Der Mann war ____]
alt : old [Die Frau war ____]
alt : old [Das Haus war ____]
To test word order, without demanding laborious typing of every word, the task could involve typing the initial letter of each word in a sentence. The English prompt could indicate, not only the English meaning that must be achieved, but also which German words need to be arranged in order. Because this format is only suitable for testing in one direction, the items should either have the 'E2G' (English-to-German) checkbox selected within the Edit dialog (E2J for Japanese, E2F for French, etc) - or, equivalently, they should have the usual colon delimiter ':' in the '.lst' file replaced with an arrow made from an equals sign '<=', where the arrow indicates the direction of testing.
EhsFeSg <= He has given his wife a hearty kiss. [Er... hat... gegeben... seiner... Frau... einen... Schmatz]