With Handstory, we are able to view web pages, other documents, and even images all on our handhelds. While first using this program may be a bit daunting, with practice you’ll find that it is an incredibly easy and efficient program to use. Let’s look at the basics of Handstory:
The Startup Screen
This is the startup screen for Handstory. The first thing you should notice are the clips. These are the available clips which you can access. The clips with the red arrow on them mean that they have not been opened yet. To open a clip simply press “Open” in the clip selection options (if it has not already been selected), and press the clip you want to view.
The clips that we have available on Handstory currently include:
Cultural Dictionary – These are clips marked with a “CD” in front of them. They contain useful information about various facets of life in Japan, including its people, places, and food, among other things.
Grammar Index – Here you’ll find a quick reference guide to Japanese grammar. These references correspond to the grammar points in our Genki textbooks.
Kanji Radicals – A brief reference material concerning kanji radicals and their names.
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Clip Selection Options
Right below the list of clips is a toolbar. These are various options you can use to view or change information about the clips.
New – This creates a new Handstory Memo document.
Open – Press this button and then a clip you want to view to open it.
Category – Press this button and then a clip to change which category it is stored in. Once the clip is pressed, a sub-menu will appear with various categories. Press the category you want the clip to be stored in, or press “Edit Categories” to rename or make a new category.
Del (Delete) – Press this button and then a clip to delete the clip.
Details – Press this button and then a clip to view more detailed information about the clip. From here you can change such things as the title of the clip and the category.
Notice that if you press and hold down on a clip a sub-menu will appear with many of the same options in the toolbar. Two new options include “Beam”, which will allow the selected clip to be beamed to another handheld, and “Move”, which stores the clip on the handheld itself, rather than on the memory stick.
Viewing the Clip
When you open a clip, you should see this screen appear (your clip may be different from the one viewed in the picture above).
Options
Link – In a clip, links to other pages appear as underlined words. Simply tap the link to go to the desired page.
Close Button – Closes the entire clip and returns you to the clip selection page.
Back/Forward Buttons – Like any other web browsers, Handstory also has a back/forward feature. This allows you to go back and forth between pages that you’ve been to.
Search Buttons – Allows you to search for pages within the clip.
Page Display – Shows the number of pages loaded into each clip. Tapping this will bring up options to allow you to go to the top or bottom of a page, or anywhere else on the page (by percentage, e.g. 50% would be in the middle of the clip).
Home Button – Brings you to the “home page” of the clip.
All these features of the clip page allow for efficient navigation of any clip.
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Hopefully, this page has set aside some of the doubts of using Handstory. Once you are accustomed to using this program, you will want to start clipping any web page you can find so you can bring it on the go with you!