SynPhony Features
Check out these pages for details on additional features.
SynPhony Word List Features
The word list page is the best place to understand how SynPhony works. Its main function is to produce word lists based on the selections you make in the control panel. The appearance and arrangement of the words can then also be modified by the options in the activity controls section above the virtual page.
The word lists can be printed directly from the browser and should appear on paper as it does on the screen. You can change the letter size ( ) and the number of columms ( ). By default the words appear in order of frequency that they occur in texts. You can change the sort order ( ) to sort
- alphabetically
- by position of the focus letter
- randomly
- from the ends of the word (useful if the language has word final morphology)
- by the CV shape (consonant - vowel)
- by the length of the words (shortest to longest)
You can choose to restrict the number of words which get placed on the page from 20-200 or leave it unrestricted.
You can also choose to highlight the focus letter. If the analysis of the vocabulary contains information regarding the stress pattern then this can also be selected. You can also select to show the sequence of letter buttons which have been pressed (because you do not have to follow the order of the letter buttons as provided in the Control Panel.)
When printing the word list you can remove a word from the page by selecting the "Eraser" tool () and then clicking on any word in the list. It is removed from the current display of the page but does not get removed from the database.
You can toggle the virtual page size by clicking on the button at the top left hand corner of the "page". The page size can be changed to a physical page size in the Settings.
Writing Exercise Layouts
You can create 2 writing exercise layouts from this page: one for writing words (), the other for writing letters (). Creating a word writing layout is a two-step process. Because the list of words can present more words than you need for writing practise you have the capability of selecting which words to use for creating your writing exercise sheet. The first step is to select the Word writing button (), then you click on the words on the page you wish to use for the writing exercise (they turn green), then you click on the button labelled "Create Writing Layout" that appears at the top of the virtual page. The words (or letters) appear with dashed writing guides. You can then print the page to transfer it to paper. You can exit from the writing exercise layout by unselecting the buttons on the activity controls again.
The Alternative Search feature
SynPhony normally searches for GPCs or phonemes. However, you can search for larger (or smaller) levels of text as well if you wish. For example, in English, you could not get a word list in which every single word ends in the morpheme "ing" using the normal search function with the letter buttons because it consists of 2 phonemes. But using the alternative search function ( ) you can search for any series of letters. This function doesn't search the GPC form of the word but the regular orthographic form. Clicking this button brings up a small text input area. There is a help button which provides information on how to use some simple regular expressions to perform custom searches. To remove the alternative search input box simply click on the ( ) again. To remove the resulting word list from the page simply perform another search using the letter buttons again.
Note that when you use the alternative search method SynPhony disregards any letter buttons you may have selected.
Copying words to the clipboard
When you press the "Copy Words " button you can copy the current word list to the clipboard to use in another program, like a spreadsheet or word processor. The font size and number of columns will be retained.
Store this page
This button lets you store any content within the virtual page (word lists, puzzles, or any other content) to the computer's local storage and then create a PDF using the My Library page. This allows you to create a “book” with content of your choosing. You could create a series of word lists that increase 1 letter at a time, or a collection of puzzles or any other content which SynPhony produces.