Updating Wordboxes

You can use this feature to update the vocabulary lists in a wordbox. It is available from the file menu of the wordbox.

Updating a wordbox means that certain fields of index cards in the vocabulary lists will be replaced with information from a new version of the wordbox, while retaining all quiz statistics. For example, there are several wordbox files offered on this web site for studying Japanese vocabulary and Kanji. These wordboxes are generated based on dictionary files from the Monash site. Whenever the original dictionaries are updated, the wordboxes offered here are also regenerated. You might want to use these newer versions, but if you have already started studying with a wordbox, simply replacing it with a newer version would mean to lose all the quiz statistics in the wordbox. You would have to start your quizzes for this wordbox all over again.

In this situation, the wordbox update feature can be used:

  1. Before you start, make a backup of your wordbox.
  2. Open the old version of your wordbox.
  3. Open the wordbox update dialog from the file menu.
  4. Select which fields to updated. Note that you cannot select or deselect the heading field. This is because the heading field is used to match the entries from the new wordbox with entries in the old wordbox. This means also that the word folder and word list structure in both old and new wordbox does not matter. I.e., even if a word card was moved to a different word list in the new wordbox, or a word folder or list was renamed, Babbletower will still find the corresponding word card in the old wordbox.
  5. Choose whether you want to add new entries. If you select this option, Babbletower will add those entries from the new wordbox that it cannot match with any entry in the old wordbox into a new word list. This word list will be created in the root of the old wordbox. The name is the current date.
  6. In the file chooser, select the new wordbox, then tap OK. The update process will start. When it is done, the entries in your old wordbox will contain updated information, while the quiz statistics are unchanged. The new wordbox will not be modified.
  7. Save your wordbox.
Hint

  • For those who use the Kanji wordboxes from this website: You can use this feature to switch between the different versions of wordboxes. For example, if you have been using the Kanji wordboxes with English translations but would prefer to use those with German translations, you can switch your Kanji wordboxes to German by doing an update with the appropriate German Kanji wordboxes. Similarily, you can switch between Kanji wordboxes with and without the example compounds.

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