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MEMAID USER'S MANUAL

v0.04

Introduction

Hi,
We are glad you are interested in MemAid and we do hope you will find it useful.

You may want to read repetitions.html file before continuing: it's about repetitions, why they are so important, and how MemAid can help.

General Information

All information is stored by MemAid in question/answer format.
Simple fact (stored in question/answer format) are called an item.
Generally (unless you are using knowledge files shipped by someone else) it's you who puts new items into your learning collection.
Whatever information you want to memorize, you think about a question and answer relevant to that information, and input it in MemAid. MemAid will make sure you will remember, and will make sure that you review that item only when necessarily, so your learning process should be as effective as possible.

How does MemAid know how well you remember a item? Well, there are repetitions and during repetitions MemAid presents you a question: you should then think about answer. An "OK" button (or similar) should show you the answer. Then you should grade yourself: how well did you remember that fact? Be honest here: that feedback will be used by MemAid to compute the next repetition and learn about your memory (e.g. when you forget) in order to better compute intervals in the future.

Versions

There are many UI (user interfaces), most are GUI (graphical user interfaces). (NOTE: They share the same core code so porting a data from one to another shouldn't be a problem.)

• Console version (written in strict ANSI C, so it should compile on all Operating Systems).
• CGI (web) version - coming soon.
• GUI that uses wxWindows. It was first MemAid GUI, it's now lagged behind and it's not supported, at least for a moment.
• GUI that uses FOX Toolkit, also quite simple and portable. Could be better than version above as was made recently.
• KMemAid by Klemens Meyer, uses QT/KDE libraries.
• A SuperKaramba widget by Peter Bienstman, which merges into your KDE desktop wallpaper.

If you still hesitate which GUI you want to use, you may want to check out general screenshots and KMemAid screenshots.

About grades

Some versions may use numerical grades: please note that MemAid uses a 0-5 scale where 0 is the worst ("Null") grade, while 5 is the best ("Perfect").
We are sorry for all people that are accustomed to another scale. From country to country there are different scales and it's hard to make anything really country-neutral.
The 0-5 scale has been chosen initially and it's used in the "heart" of MemAid.
(BTW: It could be possible that your UI has a configurable scale visible to the end user - check your UI manual for that.)

Usage

Here is a description of the usage of a Memaid client, given in a way that is a UI-independent as possible. Probably you can find somewhere more detailed description for the UI of your choice (e.g. The Kmemaid Handbook for KMemAid version).

When you run MemAid you will see one or two boxes, and some buttons.

You can start the learning process by pressing "Learn" (maybe from the "Learn" menu).
MemAid will ask you if you want to learn new elements (items).
Then it will probably say you that nothing is in the queue (as you don't have any items prepared there), and ask if you want to add new facts on your own.

Now you can type a question in the first box and an answer to this question in the second box.
After doing that, click "OK" and choose a grade - how well you remember this fact NOW, or rather:
how well you remembered this fact before typing it into MemAid).
This will influence when the next repetition will take place. If you don't remember it at all (grade "Null" or "0"), MemAid will most probably present you this fact very soon (e.g. tomorrow).
If you remember this fact excellently (e.g. grade "Perfect"), MemAid won't waste your time with repetitions of this fact in the near future.
After pressing a grade you can add a next element (again: question and answer), or you can finish by pressing a "Stop" button or something alike.

If you run MemAid the next day, or a few days later, you will probably have some repetitions scheduled by MemAid.
It's easy: MemAid will show you a question. Try to recall the answer.
(If you have a problems with recollecting, you may use a "Hint" button, one or more times). If you finally recollect it (or give up thinking you completely forgot the answer), click "OK" - that will show you the correct answer.
Now grade yourself - how well did you remember this fact/answer. This grade (and info about past repetitions of this element (MemAid keeps that data)) will allow MemAid to schedule the next repetition on a date when you will be close to forgetting this element. This is the most optimal date - you shouldn't waste your time on repetitions of things you remember well, should you?

Happy learning!

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