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If you want to group related items in Supermemo, you need to create a category for them. That's especially true if you want to give those related items a common layout, or "look". Follow the steps on this page to create a new category.
- Set Supermemo to the right level.
- Open the contents window.
- Create the category.
- Set the active category.
- Summary
Set SM to the Right Level
Supermemo offers a bewildering array of options and features. To help spare you confusion, Supermemo comes with many of those features turned off. One of them is the feature that allows you to create categories.
To turn on that feature, click in the menu bar on "File->Tools->Level" and pick the level you want. Any level above "Beginner" is fine.
Open the Contents Window
The category we create will appear in the Contents window with a "document" icon. In the previous lesson, we mentioned that the Contents window is orthogonal to the notion of categories--but we still want items in our new category to appear someplace sensible in the contents window.
Open the contents window by pusing the "Contents" button in the main window. Select the place where you'd like to create your new category. I'll assume you want your category to appear at the "top level", right under the root element in the contents window (the one that represents your whole collection).
Scroll to the top of the contents window, and click once on the topmost element. It will by highlighted. Now your new category will appear as a child of that selected element.
Create the Category
We will create the category in one swoop. Right-click on the selected item in the contents window, and choose "New->Category". You'll see a new element appear in the contents window, and a popup will ask you to type in a name. Pick a name for your new category, and type it in.
Wasn't that easy? You've got a new category!
Sometimes the icon for your category will be blue, rather than yellow. That means that Supermemo things the category is a flashcard, and it will show you the category during your daily quizzes. (It will look like a big blank screen--how boring!) That shouldn't happen if you've followed the directions above, but if it does simply select the icon in your Contents window and "forget" it by typing Ctrl-D. (That's control-dee, NOT control-delete!)
Now when you create new items in this category, Supermemo will automatically put them under this element in the Contents window. In Supermemo terms, this element is the root of the category. You may bump into a menu option letting you change the category root: that is basically never a good idea.
And I might as well tell you about another quirk in Supermemo. It doesn't like for any element to have too many "children". So if you add lots of items to your category, you'll notice Supermemo creating "subfolders" under the category root, and putting the new items in the subfolders. Don't be surprised, and don't worry about it. Supermemo calls the current subfolder the category hook. New items in your category will always appear as children of the category hook, which changes over time--but the category hook is always a child of the category root. Unless you change it, of course. But that's basically never a good idea.
Pick the Active Category
When you create a new element, Supermemo automatically puts it into the category which is active at the time. So how do you know which category is active? Now that you've created one category, you can't wait to create five more. But once you've done that, how can you make sure new questions end up where they're supposed to?
There are two ways to set the active category. The easiest is to type Ctrl-Alt-C. Supermemo will show you a pick-list and allow you to select a category. That will remain the currently active category until you change it. But beware: when you create a new category, Supermemo automatically makes it the active category.
The other way is to open up a toolbar. In the main menu, click "Toolbars->Tools". A toolbar will pop up containing that same category pick list.
You can also get at the toolbar by using the dock. Choose "Toolbars->Dock" in the main menu, and SM will pop up a big panel with several tabs. The "Tools" tab will reveal that same toolbar.
Summary
You can create a category anywhere you like in your knowledge tree. Just right-click the parent element and choose "New->Category", and give your category a name. Use the "Tools" toolbar to set the active category. Now whenever you add elements to Supermemo, they will automatically appear in the right place in your knowledge tree.
