TapSlovo: detailed guide
Everything TapSlovo can do and how to use it, organised by feature. You do not have to learn it all at once: the app works right after it starts, and the plans, the diary and other features stay off by default until you switch them on in the parent menu. This guide matches version 0.9.6.
The app
How the app works
The child taps a picture and the app says the word aloud. In the With sentences mode the words build up a sentence in the top bar; Say reads the whole sentence and Clear erases it. In the Words only mode the app simply says the tapped word. Words never move around on their own: each one has a fixed place so the child can learn it.
Folders, quick phrases, favorites and search
Words are in folders by topic (Food, Animals, People, Places, Actions, Play and more). Quick phrases are ready-made sentences for everyday situations. Favorites are words you choose yourself (the star in the word editor). When you switch on Recently used, the app shows the words used most recently. The magnifier (Search) finds a word even without accents, shows the path to it and highlights it in its fixed place.
Parent mode and the lock
The settings are protected by a lock so the child cannot change them by accident. Hold the gear at the bottom right for about 1.2 seconds and solve a short addition (Parents only). After three wrong answers the lock closes for a while. In the menu you set Child (the grammatical gender of first-person texts), Language, Mode and the other options described below. The menu closes by itself after a minute without a touch.
Editing words: voice, photo, own phrases
In the menu choose Edit words. Tapping a word or phrase opens the editor: Record voice records your voice (otherwise the device voice speaks), Take photo or From gallery replaces the picture with a photo, and the star adds the word to favorites. You add own phrases (up to 15) with Add a phrase in the My phrases folder; a phrase has text, a photo and your voice. Editing ends with Done or by itself after three minutes. Keep pictures, labels and voice consistent: children learn more easily when things do not keep changing.
Hiding words
The Words card in the menu limits what the child sees: All words, Basic only or Custom. A hidden word stays an empty square in its place and the others do not move, so the child’s motor memory is not disturbed. In edit mode you can hide single words and folders with Hide and bring them back with Show. The last remaining word cannot be hidden.
Appearance and controls
Tile size offers three sizes (standard, large, extra large); larger tiles are easier with weaker motor control and have their own layout, so nothing is lost. In the Display card you switch on High contrast and enlarge the labels (Label size). In the Controls card, Press delay (a tile reacts only once the child holds it briefly) and Double-tap protection (repeated taps are ignored) help.
Usage overview and goals
Usage overview (for parents only) shows the most used words, new words, the average sentence length and a chart by week; the overview can be saved as a file. In the Goals section you set weekly goals, for example “use ‘want’ five times a week”; only the parent sees whether a goal is met and the child gets no badges. The app stores only daily totals of taps, never the text of sentences; the log (Usage log) can be switched off and cleared (Delete log) and nothing is sent anywhere.
Backup, restore and deleting data
Everything stays only on the device, so make backups. Back up creates a ZIP file with the voices, photos, own phrases and settings; keep it somewhere safe. Restore from backup brings everything back, and before restoring the app saves the current state, which you can bring back with Go back to the previous state. After 14 days the app reminds you to back up. Delete all data removes all data on the device; it needs two confirmations and holding the button.
Plans
Daily plan
The daily plan is a row of cards in a fixed order, for example Breakfast, School, Snack, Bath. You switch it on in the menu in the Plans and diary card (it is off by default) and a 📋 Today button appears above the bottom bar. The child taps a card, the app says it, and once the activity is done the child ticks it off with the ✓ button. You set the cards and their order in the menu with Edit daily plan cards: a card can be a word from the vocabulary (Add word from vocabulary) or an own card with text, a photo and your voice (Add own card, then Photo and voice). You change the order with the arrows, and a card is deleted with a double tap. There can be at most 12 cards. The ticks clear by themselves on a new day, or you can do it with New day: clear all ticks.
Weekly plan
The weekly plan shows seven days one under another, Monday to Sunday; today is highlighted and labelled. Each day has a row of cards of the same kind as in the daily plan (a word from the vocabulary or an own card), at most 8 per day. By tapping a card the child hears what is going to happen. Only the parent changes the weekly plan: in the menu choose Edit weekly plan, pick a day and add or reorder cards. Nothing is ticked off and nothing changes by itself, because consistency matters to children. It is switched on separately and is off by default; the 🗓 Week button then appears above the bottom bar.
Diary
What the diary is and how to switch it on
The diary is an album of events: photos and short videos from outings, celebrations or an ordinary day, with a short text the child can hear. You can have as many entries as you like. You switch it on in the menu in the Plans and diary card (it is off by default); a 📖 Diary button then appears above the bottom bar, which the child uses to browse the entries, and a Manage the diary button appears in the menu. Everything stays on the device. The app has no permission to read the gallery: you choose photos and videos yourself with the system picker.
Adding photos from the gallery
On the Manage the diary screen choose Add photos from the gallery and select one or several photos at once. The app groups them by the date they were taken and creates one entry for each day; inside, the photos run from the oldest. You then edit the entry: the date, the text that is said when tapped, the order and deleting items. Photos are reduced in size and each also gets a preview at card quality. To add more to an existing entry, open it with ✎ and add them there.
Video up to 15 seconds
On the Manage the diary screen choose Add video (up to 15 s) and pick a video from the gallery. Even if it is longer, the entry holds only the 15 seconds you select: in the Choose up to 15 seconds window move the Start and End sliders (a difference of at most 15 s), try Preview the clip and confirm with Use this clip. From the selected part the app creates a new short video and stores only that; the original long video is not stored. Creating it takes as long as the selected part lasts, and the app must stay open. If the phone cannot do this, the whole original video is stored instead (up to 300 MB) and only the selected part plays; you can then change it with the ✂ button.
Text, order and playback
Every entry has a date, a text (at most 120 characters) and ordered photos and videos; you change the order with the arrows. The child opens the 📖 Diary button above the bottom bar, sees the entries from the newest and taps one to open it. Tapping the text reads the entry aloud, the arrows let the child flip through the photos and videos, and the Play button plays the whole entry in turn: it says the text, shows the photos and plays the videos. The child cannot change or delete anything in the diary; only the parent can.
Backup in parts, freeing space and restoring
The diary has its own backup, separate from the app’s ordinary backup. On the Manage the diary screen choose Back up the diary: several ZIP files appear (each up to roughly 50 MB), which you store somewhere safe. The app checks them after creating them, and the backup removes nothing from the phone. To free up space use Free up space on the phone: it is offered only after a backup, needs confirmation and deletes only the originals that are in the backup. Previews stay on the phone, and whether to delete the originals is always decided by you alone. You restore (Restore the diary from a backup) by selecting all the parts at once; it fills in missing entries and freed originals.
About me and Mine
About me and the Mine folder
About me is one short sentence about the child for strangers, for example “My name is … and I like …”. In the menu, in the About me card, you switch it on, type the sentence and add a photo and your own voice with Photo and voice. An 🙋 About me button then appears above the bottom bar; it opens a card with the photo and the text, and the sentence is said only once the child taps the card. Nothing is said by itself. Mine is a folder of own words and sentences: you switch it on with the switch My button in the bar and add a new word or sentence with a photo and voice in Edit words mode. Do not write anything in About me that not everyone should hear.
Tips
What the icons above the bottom bar mean
Functions you have switched on appear as labelled icons in the row above the bottom bar: ⭐ Mine (own words and sentences), 🙋 About me (a sentence about the child for strangers), 📖 Diary (the diary), 🗓 Week (the weekly plan) and 📋 Today (the daily plan). An icon appears only for a function you switched on in the parent menu; if you switch nothing on, the row is not shown at all and the app looks as before. The bottom bar keeps the magnifier (search) and the gear (parent menu).
How to update the app
The web app (installed from the browser onto the home screen) updates by itself. After a new version is released, the phone downloads it in the background the next time you open it with internet, and starts using it only the next time you launch it, so the old version may run for a little while. So close the app completely (remove it from the list of running apps) and open it again; sometimes you need to do this twice. Voices, photos, phrases, settings and the diary are not deleted by this. You can see the version in About: hold the Bystrohry logo on the start screen for about 1.2 seconds. You update the APK app (Android) by installing the new APK over the existing one; your data stays because it is signed with the same key. The Google Play version updates itself through Google Play. The APK and the Google Play version cannot be installed over each other (the signatures differ); make a backup before switching from one to the other.
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