Message Sequence

The newer tools, starting with the Headlines Trainer, play each message through a sequence of numbered boxes shown in the “How to practise” step. Each box is one thing that can happen for a message: its buttons switch that thing on or off, and the box lights up while it is happening. The older tools use the Playback Controls, which do the same job with a different layout.

The Show detailed controls switch adds a description under each box. Nothing else changes: the controls are the same in both views.

Playback Style

The “Playback style” menu sets the whole sequence in one go. Choosing a style presses the buttons for you; change any of them afterwards and the menu shows “Custom”.

• Basic: play the Morse once, then stop.
• Speech After: play the Morse once, then speak the message.
• Speech Before: speak the message, then play the Morse once.
• Morse Code Ninja – Standard: play the Morse twice, speak the message, play the Morse again, ring the bell.
• Morse Code Ninja – Speed Racer: play the Morse four times, stepping down to your speed, speak the message, play the Morse again, ring the bell.

Every style but Basic goes on to the next message by itself. The two “Morse Code Ninja” styles follow the pre-recorded material on the Morse Code Ninja website.

Practice Style

Above the sequence, Practice style changes its shape. With nothing lit you just listen: the Morse, time to recognise it, then what it was.

• Know first: you are told the message before you hear it, so you learn what it sounds like. The Introduction box appears, with Flashcard or Speech (one of them is always on).
• Mark yourself (the Word List Trainer in Labs): after each message you indicate whether you got it; see Mark Yourself.
• Say (the Word List Trainer in Labs, for lists of short messages): you say the message, and speech recognition marks it; see Say.

At most one is lit: a mark for a message you were told first would mean little.

The Sequence

The boxes are played in order for each message. A box with all its buttons off is skipped.

1. A tool that has options for how to choose the next message (at random, or each one once) has a Choice box first, and the other boxes are numbered after it.
2. Introduction, with Know first: Flashcard shows the message and Speech says it, before you hear the Morse. With the flashcard on, the time at the end of the box is the shortest the step takes; with Speech on as well, the step lasts until the speech has finished, if that is longer.
3. Morse: the message is played in Morse code, using the Morse Controls for its speed, pitch and volume. Some tools also have Speed Racer and/or Build Up options. One of these is always on:
   • Morse plays the message at your speed.
   • Speed Racer plays it faster (or slower) first, stepping down (or up) to your speed. See Speed Racer.
   • Build Up plays it built up a word at a time first, then whole. See Build Up.
   Count plays the Morse 1 to 5 times, or over and over until you press Next. The time beside it is the extra gap between one play and the next (in addition to the standard word or character gap).
4. Recognise: time to work out what you heard. Either the time in the box passes, or Hold stops the run until you press Play. They are alternatives: with Hold on, the time is not used.
5. Reveal: Flashcard and Speech again, this time after the Morse, to tell you what it was, with the same shortest time.
6. Check (only on a tool where you can mark yourself, and only with Mark yourself on): indicate whether you got it. The run then goes down the On a hit or the On a miss lane, each with a Bell of its own, before carrying on with the rest of the message. Recap moves to the miss lane, with a Wait of its own after it. With it on, the boxes after it are numbered one higher; with it off, the sequence is one path as above.
7. Recap: Morse plays the message once more, now that you know what it is. The time beside it is the gap that follows.
8. Bell: Bell rings to mark the end of the message.
9. Wait: before the next message, either the time in the box passes, or Hold stops the run until you press Play.
10. Then: Next Message has three states. Off stops after this message, on plays the next message, and 1 plays this message again.

Some tools can also play the Morse on a simulated radio band, with noise, fading and other stations. That is set in the Band Conditions Controls, opened from the “How to practise” step. The speech and the bell are not affected by it.

Mark Yourself

Some tools (the Word List Trainer in Labs) let you indicate after each message whether you got it. Light Mark yourself under Practice style; off, the sequence is as described above.

• The Check box comes after Reveal. With Hold on, the run waits: press Play if you got it, or X (or Missed) if you did not. With Hold off, you have the time in the box to press X; after it, the message counts as right.
• You often know you have missed it before you are told what it was, so X works from Recognise onwards, through Reveal, to the end of Check. Pressing it short-circuits that part of the sequence, but Reveal still shows and says what it was; then the run goes down the miss lane, without waiting at Check.
• The run goes down the hit or the miss lane, and the message goes into the history with your verdict. Recap is in the miss lane, after its bell: it plays the Morse once more only when you missed it. The miss lane’s Wait comes last: a Hold or a pause after a miss, off to start with.
• In the Choice box, Until right plays only the messages you have not yet got right in this run, and stops when you have got them all right. It and Once Each are never both on.
• Favour sets how much more often the messages you have missed come up: Evenly, A little, More or Mostly. It modifies the random choice, so it needs Random on.

Say

With Say lit under Practice style (the Word List Trainer in Labs, for lists of short messages), speech recognition marks each message instead of you.

• Say the message as soon as you know it, in the Recognise box. The time there is the longest the microphone waits for you to start.
• What you said is marked at Check, straight after. Reveal moves to the miss lane, after its bell: a message you got right is not shown or said again.
• The hit and miss lanes, the history, Until right and Favour work as they do with Mark yourself.
• Allow the microphone with the Microphone link; Play opens it until you have. What you say is sent to a speech recognition service on the internet.
• If you have not got it, press X (or Missed) instead of saying anything: the message is marked missed straight away, and the miss lane shows or says what it was.
• If it marks a message you got right as missed, press Backspace or I was right while the miss lane plays.
• For a list with messages of more than three words, Say is not available.

Pauses

Each pause is a small box with a number in it, in the box of the sequence it belongs to. Type a new value to change it. While the run is waiting there, the pause fills up to show the time passing. A pause that cannot happen (because the button it goes with is off) is disabled, and its tooltip says why.

A bare number is a time in milliseconds, so it stays the same however fast the Morse is. Give it a unit instead and it is measured in Morse code, so it keeps its proportion when you change speed:

• 5dit: 5 dit lengths at the character speed.
• 3fdit: 3 Farnsworth dit lengths — the same as the gap between two characters.
• 1ws: 1 word space — the same as the gap between two words.

A space before the unit is fine: 5 dit is the same as 5dit. The number of milliseconds the pause currently comes to is shown under it. These are the tag format pause units, without the square brackets.

Play and Pause

• Play starts practising, or carries on from a pause.
• Pause stops everything where it is: the Morse, the speech and any pause that is counting down. Press it again, or Play, to carry on from the same place. It also lights by itself when the run is holding for you.
• Replay plays this message again from the start.
• Next goes to the next message. If the Morse is looping forever because of the Count option, it ends the repeats and carries on with the rest of the sequence instead.
• Stop ends the run.
• Intro plays VVV so you can check the Morse speed.

The stopwatch and the countdown timer are on the right of the same row. When the timer runs out the run stops and “Time’s up!” is shown and spoken.

Some tools have a count under them: “Stop after [50] messages”. The run stops after that many messages, or when the timer runs out if that comes first, and says so. 0 is no limit.

What Changed from the Playback Controls

If you know the older Playback Controls, these are the differences. Settings, share links and settings files made with the old controls are converted automatically.

• Play no longer restarts a message that is already playing: Replay does that.
• Pause acts at once, not at the end of the current step.
• “Repeat” is now Next Message, the last box of the sequence.
• Speed Racer and Build Up are buttons in the Morse box, not separate “message modifiers”.
• “Flashcard Time” is now two pauses, one in Introduction and one in Reveal.
• “Extra Gap” is now three pauses: one between plays of the Morse, one after the Recap, and the Wait before the next message, which the old controls only waited after the bell. “Bell Gap” is gone: the Wait is the pause after the bell.
• “Morse again” is now called Recap.
• The boxes once called Before and After are now Introduction and Reveal.
• Recognise can hold until you press Play, as well as wait for a set time.