Using my app is the best compliment I can wish for.

Last night, I worked till 1:00 AM, and got Spelling Champion loaded to the Surface I just got in the afternoon. and this morning, at the breakfast table, I told my Olivia, my youngest daughter, "Hi, Olivia, I have something to show you." and I passed the surface with Spelling Champion on the screen to her. "you got a new iPad?  and you load the app to this iPad?" I said "No, this is not an iPad, it call Microsoft Surface and I loaded Spelling Champion on it." I replied. "Can I try?" asked Olivia. I said "sure." After spending a few minutes on it, Olivia said  to me: " this is great! much better. I like it." "how much better?" I asked, "100% better, I can do it anywhere. Can I bring to school to show my friends?".  "sure, just make sure you do not break it."
...
" Dad, can I do spelling now?"   From that response, I knew I did not waste my time last night, and I did not waste my time in last 6 months building Spelling Champion! my daughter likes it, I am sure your children will like it too.

Update on Spelling Champion

I have been wanting to buy  Microsoft Surface 2, since the first time I laid eye on it when I attended Microsoft "Dog Food Conference" in Columbus.

I thought I would get it during Thanksgiving shopping time. To my surprise, it was out of stock! It will be Christmas eve tomorrow. I went to Best Buy and Micro Center today to try my luck. Nop, it is still out of stock.
But according to Windows Store Apps Dev Center,  "You must install Windows App Certification Kit version 3.1" and test your app before submitting it for certification and listing in the Windows Store."
same as many store apps, Spelling Champion is targeted to be marketed in X86, X64 and ARM device markets. That meas I have to test my app in Window RT device.

Out of desperation, I got a Surface 64G from Micro Center today, From the time I got the device from the store, till now, I was glued to a few sets of screen, keyboard and mouse till now.
the good news is that I managed to upgrade the Surface form window 8 to window 8.1 and I was able to complete Windows App Certification process in surface using  Windows App Certification Kit for RT.

Spelling Champion runs fine in Surface ! and passed Windows App Certification test!

I am just one step away from submitting the app for certification and for being listed. just make the package and click the button submit!

I decided to have another day or 2 to have final UAT before submitting it. I have worked on it for 6 months, I do not mind to wait for 2 more days.  Because I believe in "Software craftsmanship" and high quality software product!

here is the link to  manifesto softwarecraftsmanship

User Manual for Spelling Champion

Spelling Champion Version 1.2.2.1 User Manual

Welcome to Spelling Champion. I hope it will help you or your children as it helped my daughter. After you successfully installed Spelling Champion, you will see an app with the logo like one of them.

1. Starting

When you launch the app, you will see a splash screen shown below. If this is the firsts time you lunch the app, you will stay at splash longer as it needs to create database. As a start, the app build a few sample modules for you, you can download ( purchase) additional modules or create your own modules at later time.

Splash Screen

2. Modules Page

After Splash screen, you will be presented with a page with all modules you have in the app. 

Modules ( Starting Page)

On this page, you can:

1) Touch on ( click on) the lesson shown on the screen to go to Lesson Page to start spelling practices. 

2)Touch  on (click on) the module title shown on the top of the page to go to the Module Detail Page

2) Swipe from bottom ( right click) to show the bottom app bar buttons. On this page there are 3 bottom app bar buttons. One is for creating new module and the other is for downloading modules from the server. The last let you directly upgrade from trial to official version with full functionality. If you are running the official version of the app, that button will be disabled.    

3. Module Detail Page

Let's say you touch on the module title on the Modules Page, you will be presented Module Detail Page. On Module Detail Page, on the left you will see a list of words that are included in this module, besides you will see a host of lessons in the module.  For each lesson, you can see what are the words in the lesson.

Module

On Module Detail Page, you can :

1) Touch on a specific lesson to start your spelling practice, or 

2) Edit Module under bottom app bar or,

3) Add new Lesson from bottom app bar.
4) Pin/Unpin current module to/from "Start Screen"

4. Edit Module Page

Either select Add New Module on Modules Page or you select Edit Module on Module page, you will come to Edit Module Page. On this page, you can work on module title, module description and words in the module.  there are 2 favorite switches. One is for the module,  when it is switched on, the module will be listed ahead of modules that does not have it switched on.. this is the way to ensue a specific module show up on Modules page.  The Other switch is for words, when a specific word has this switch on, the word will be listed ahead of words that do not have it switched on in Module and in all lessons.

For each word, there is a sample sentence, if the word is not used in the sample sentence, it will be considered as invalid. The word in the list will get red background color, otherwise, the background is green. 

you only can save the module when the  title and description are both provided and at lest there is one word in the module, and there is no invalid word in the word list. You can touch on the speaker icon to listen the pronunciation of the word and the sample sentence. It is important you ensue the word and the word in the sample sentence are of the same form. example of mismatch could be : "fish" and "fishes"; "take" and "taking"; "come" and "came"
On Edit Module Page, you also can delete a word from the module, add a word to the module and you also can delete the module in its entirety. However, it is important to know that once a module is deleted there no way to recovery it back, that's why I hide the delete button to Edit Module Page. Besides delete module case, when you are done, please touch on <Done> button to commit your changes and go back to where you came from.
on the bottom of the window, on the right there is a search box, you can use it to local the words in the module quickly. on the left, there is a speaker icon after <Add word> button, you can click on this speaker to ask the app to read all words and respective sample sentence in the module for you.

5. Lesson Page

whether you touch on the lesson on Modules Page or you touch on the lesson in Module Detail Page, you come to Lesson Page, where you do your spelling practice.

when the lesson got started, you will hear word and the sample sentence of the word. you then type your answer and touch on <Submit> button. if your answer is right, the app will read the next word for you. if your answer is not right, the app will ask you  "Do you want to try again?". if you missed the reading of the word or the sample sentence, you can touch on <Listen> button to listen again. if you really do not know how to spell the work, you can touch on <Show Hint> button to get the correct spelling of the word. if you decide to skip the word, you can touch on <Skip> button to move on to the next word.  at any point of time, you can restart the lesson by touch on <Start Over> button.

Besides, spelling practice, you also can go to Edit Lesson page through bottom app bar button. Unless you are in Modules Page, you always can go to previous page by touch the left arrow button on the top left of the page.

6. Edit Lesson Page

you can come to Edit Lesson Page either from Module Detail Page by Add New Lesson, or from Lesson Page by Edit Lesson. When you are in Edit Lesson Page, you can:

Add words to the lesson, all available words are listed on the right, all selected words are listed on the left. You can add word, Remove Word by either select the word and click on the respective button or just drag-drop the word between two word group. You also can add all word or remove all words by click on respective buttons. When Lesson is invalid, the <Done> button is disabled. to protect the data from been deleted by mistake, the delete button is hidden here. in order to delete a lesson, you need to edit lesson and then click on the delete button here.

Edit Lesson

7. Download Page

On Modules Page, one of the bottom app bar buttons is <Download>. by touch on <Download> button, you will come to Download Page. on this page, you will be able to see the Modules installed on you device, and the modules available for downloading.

At this release, there are 10 modules around 3000 words available for free download. You can select the available modules to download. when you have downloaded all available modules, you will be led to Modules Page.

8. Preference Setting page

At any page of the app, you can go to preference page by showing charm and touch on <Settings> and then <Preference Setting>    

Under preference setting, you can

select  voice for learning language
select voice for native language
select lesson size when downing modules
specific number of lesson per module on Modules Page
specific whether the app offers encourage message when you spell a word correctly.

There are 2 other switches for technical support purpose. you will only make changes under advice of technical support. do not touch them by your own.

9. At any page of the app, you can go to preference page by showing charm and touch on <Settings> and then <About Spelling Champion>.

On About page, you can click or touch on the link for Privacy Policy information on the web and check for the current app version number.

10. Rating and Comment

On the Starting Page, you can provide your rating on the app by showing charm and touch on <Settings> and then <Rate And Review>. once you do that you will get to the rating screen similar to the following:

   
when you are on the screen, you can provide your rate on the app and your comments on the app and then click / touch on Submit button to submit your rating and comment on the app.

Acknowledgement of contribution on Spelling Champion 1.0

Throughout the past six months, my wife and daughters gave me the help and encouragement I needed to develop this app.

My youngest daughter, who just turned seven, has been a loyal “guinea pig” and professional tester  for the app; my eldest daughter, who is now twenty-seven, provided lots of help in language and content development. My wife came up with the original idea and offered lots of suggestions along the way; furthermore, she relieved me from much of my household work so that I could devote myself to developing Spelling Champion. 


My long-time friend Chris Wang, a professional graphics designer from Singapore, provided graphic design for the app. Without Chris's help the app would not be as aesthetically pleasing as it is now.

Mark Smith from Julmar.com, an expert in XAML technology and MVVM pattern, offered important technical help when I desperately needed them. Spelling Champion uses both the source code offered by Mark and a component published by Julmar. Many thanks to you, Mark and Julmar!  Chris made Spelling Champion a better app from outside, your help made Spelling Champion a better app from inside. your help is much appreciated and I look forward to establishing long term collaboration with both Julmar and Mark Smith. 

During the final stage of the publishing process, I encountered some technical difficulties in certification processes. Ashish Sahu, Senior Support Escalation Engineer from Windows Store Developer Solutions Support Team, offered tremendous help.  I admire his professionalism and commitment to excellent customer service. Thank you, Ashish!   

Thank you all for your continuous support; if this app does help people a bit here and there, you are all part of the effort in making it possible.


Thank you and love you all!

Announcement on Spelling Champion 1.0

Hi, there.

If you are coming across this blog for the first time, don’t be surprised, because I just created it a while ago. But I promise you it will benefit you if you stop by more often from now on.

My name is Peter Lu, a father of three daughters. My youngest one, Olivia is a first grade student; Wendy is heading off to college next year; and Fan is working on her PhD in politics science in UC Davis .  Almost as long as I have been a father, I have been working in the software development business.

Taking on these two 2 roles offered me opportunities to become both a better software application professional and a better parent. When Fan was born, I got her a wet diaper notification device; and when she was in elementary school, I got her a PC Ten/Ten Tutor as her extra homework; When Wendy was old enough to learn math, I wrote her a web based math flash card app for her to practice math; when Olivia was born, I wrote her an app to record her daily milk intake and discharges.

About a year ago, I wrote Olivia two window desktop apps.  One is for spelling practice and the other one for math practice. She likes them and I would venture to say that she  would not do as well as she is doing now in her study without these apps. One day at dinner table, my wife said to me “Peter, these apps do help our daughter a lot in her study. I think it would be great if you can make these apps available to other children in the U.S. and maybe even around the global.” I thought that was a great idea. 

Inspired by her idea, I started writing these apps in Window store app and plan to make them available at a very low price. Well, after many late nights and weekends, my first window store app, Spelling Champion is about to be released. The second one is still under construction. Of cause, it would be called  Math Champion!

Spelling Champion is an app that runs in both Intel base OS and ARM base OS. As long as you have a window 8 device, you are set. ( windows 8.1 is a free upgrade to Windows 8.0)

Spelling Champion provides spelling practice for all alphabetic languages and provides multilingual support for native language.  If your native language is Japanese, France or Chinese, and you want to practice spelling for English or German, you will be able to do so with Spelling Champion. 

Thanks to offline Text To Speech (TTS) technology offered by Microsoft Window 8.1, Spelling Champion is able to let you choose words you want to practice with, and do your spelling practice even when the device is not connected to internet. To the best of my knowledge at the time of writing, this is only possible with Window 8.1, not in Android or in iOS. You can create / modify the modules or lessons you want. To save you the trouble of creating modules, Spelling Champion also allows you to download modules from the service I provided at no cost to you.  At its launch, High Frequency Words and complete spelling words for Kindergarten, first grade, second grade are available as free download,   And English and Chinese are supported as native language.  As I said, all alphabetic languages are supported as practicing language.

Depending on response, I will continue developing modules for elementary and middle school students and make these available for downloading at very low price or free.  The High Frequency Words serials with be provided for free.  Complete Spelling  serials will be provided at very low price. I also have plans to develop vocabulary modules in other languages, and make them available for purchase at very low price.

Again, depends on response, I will make app support additional languages as native language.  You also can participate in the process by offering help in translation.

You also can participate in this effort by providing modules in other languages and for other purpose. You can submit your module to me, and decide the price you want to sell or for free download. After reviewing, approved modules will be available for download or for purchase. 

At the same time, I will continue enhance the app by adding more useful features and making it more user friendly to you and become your companion in your language study.   

If you are a parent like me and want to help your child in language study, go to windows app store and search for Spelling Champion. If you are preparing to take the TOEFL, SAT or GRE exam and wanting to improve your verbal scores, go to the window app store and search for Spelling Champion.

If you have any suggestions, feedbacks on the Spelling Champion, please feel free to drop me a note in my blog. I will try my best to make your experience with the app an enjoyable one and incorporate your suggestions into the future release of the product.

Keep tuning in, once the Spelling Champion passed Microsoft App store review and is available in the app store, I will let you know as soon as I am notified by Microsoft.

Enjoy it and hope to hear from you soon.