Chapter 1. Introduction

KLettres is a very simple application that helps a child or an adult to learn the alphabet and some simple sounds in his own language or in another language. The program picks up a letter or a syllable in random, this letter/syllable is displayed and the sound is played. The user should then type this letter or syllable. Training is done in the levels where the letter/syllable is not displayed, only the sound is played. The user does not need to know how to use the mouse, the keyboard only is needed.

There are twenty five languages available at the moment: see the list above. If your KDE language is among those, then it is taken as default, otherwise French is the default. You can easily get any additional available language by using the File menu and Get Alphabet in New Language... menu item, provided that your computer is connected to the Internet.

Two different modes allow you to adapt KLettres to your need and have the full usual interface or a stripped interface. For a child, the menubar is no longer visible. We assume that a child will not want to set the language himself. A combo box allows him to choose the different levels. For an older user, the background is not so childish and the menubar is present in the Grown-Up style. Three different themes (Kid, Desert and Savannah) set up a different background with different fonts and colors.


You do not need the language keyboard layout anymore as you can use the special Special Characters toolbar to type any special character in each language. In the Settings menu, Toolbars Shown, select Special Characters and the toolbar will appear at the bottom of KLettres. Click on the letter you want and it will be shown in the input field. This toolbar can be dragged anywhere on your screen.

If you prefer having the language keyboard layout, please use System Settings, in the category Hardware, Input Devices on the page Keyboard in order to set the correct keyboard layout.