SuperMemo Commander

Introducing SuperMemo Commander

Throughout its 18 year development (the Delphi line), SuperMemo for Windows has been enabled with a multitude of options available in a myriad of contexts. All of them implemented with an intention to improve the learning experience. The feature set is always being reorganized and often pruned. By embracing the NUI (Natural User Interface) design philosophy we have gone as far as to intentionally avoid adding new buttons, menu items, options, etc. Yet we keep receiving complaints from confused students.

Newer SuperMemos attempt to relieve the feature bloat by introducing SuperMemo Commander (available with Tools : Commander; alternatively, and more quickly, press Ctrl+Enter). The tool makes it possible for you to quickly execute (often deeply-buried) commands via mnemonic keyboard shortcuts. Only the hardest to access options have been included in the Commander list. The list is open to changes upon user suggestions. The names of commands can be changed by the user.

For example, to open the Sleep Chart press:

1. Ctrl+Enter - to open SuperMemo Commander
2. S - for Sleep Chart mnemonic
3. Enter

You can create an alias for a selected mnemonic keyboard shortcut. To do that:

1. Select the command in the first Command column
2. Click Rename (Alt+R) to the right
3. In the Command name dialog box, type the new name, and click OK

Available commands

The command set is easily expandable in future updates to SuperMemo 15. If you cannot remember a shortcut or need to often use a command available from a deeply nested menu or a button that is not part of your layout, send your request for new commands via e-mail.

• Alarm: Cancel
• Alarm: Set
• Ancestors : Show
• Bullet
• Capitalize text
• Compress images
• Delete after cursor
• Delete before cursor
• Dismember (e.g. to split an e-mail with multiple attachments to separate elements each holding a single attachment)
• Done!
• Duplicate element
• E-mail: Answer
• E-mail: Paste
• Fit picture (to save space in the element by reducing the size of the image component to the size of the picture)
• Fit to component
• Highlight
• Horizontal line
• Hyperlink: Element
• Paste: Article
• Plan
• Pronunciation: Add
• Reference: Edit
• Remove formatting: Front
• Remove formatting: Plain text
• Remove formatting: Selection
• Reopen collection
• Sleep Chart
• Sort repetitions
• Split: Split the article
• Splitmark: Insert splitmark
• Tasklist: Add task
• Tile components
• Unit: Convert (for all imperial unit conversions with 4 keystrokes)
• Unzoom image
• Zoom image mode

SuperMemo Commander dialog box

In the top part of the dialog box, you can see the following three columns:

• Command
  • Command text box - the text box which you start typing the name of the SuperMemo command you want to execute in
  • Command list box - the list of available commands (the list gets filtered by the name that you can type in the text box above)
• Custom name
  • Custom name text box - the text box which you start typing the custom name for the command you want to execute in (to quickly move to this field, press Alt+U)
  • Custom name list box - the list of available custom names (the list gets filtered by the name that you type in the text box above)
• Buttons
  • OK (Enter) - close the commander and execute the selected command
  • Cancel (Esc) - close the commander without executing any command
  • Rename (Alt+R) - give your own name to a given command (the custom names are stored in the commands.ini file located in the [BIN] subfolder of your SuperMemo installation)
  • Default - restore the default command names in the Custom name column (it effectively deletes the commands.ini file from the [BIN] subfolder)

At the bottom, against the yellow background, you can read the description of the currently selected command.