TaskMagic3 Update

Current Version 3.2.8

N.B. This download is for those who already have a licensed version of TaskMagic3.

Click here to download the latest TaskMagic3 exe files (and the _data.msi file) as a zip file.

You can use these in a couple of ways:

1. Replace the existing files on your server (or computers) with the exe files in the zip file.
2. Copy the MSI folder from the TaskMagic3 installation CD to your computer. Replace the exe files in the \program files\TaskMagic3\ directory in the MSI folder with the new exe files from the zip. Replace the _data.msi file in the MSI folder with the new one from the zip. Install TaskMagic3 using the modified MSI. If you already have TaskMagic3 installed, you should uninstall / remove it (before replacing any of the files) and then re-install it (with the new files).

Please contact us if you have any questions regarding the update.

See below for update history and details of update contents.

TM3 - Update history to date:

The updates listed below are either improvements we've made to TaskMagic because we've thought of something new, or fixes to problems reported to us. While we have tested TaskMagic thoroughly through many, many hours of computer use, there's always the chance that you will discover something that doesn't work as you think it should. If this happens, please do not hesitate to contact us and let us know, and we'll endeavour to put it right as quickly as possible.

3.2.8 Click on a file in the TaskMagicCreate File Viewer to copy the contents of the file to the computer's clipboard in the correct format for pasting directly into textivate (see this post on the textivate blog). This works for TextMatch, GridMatch, Mix&Gap, Dialogues. For Mix&Gap files with an "original" gap-fill, gaps are copied too. For Mix&Gap files and Dialogue files with "Find it!" data, this data is also copied.

3.2.6 Fixes the following: in Comprehension in Mix&Gap, sometimes the last comprehension question failed to appear on the exercise screen; the front page didn't display properly in TaskMagicPlay and TMPlayHome on displays with more than 72 pixels per inch.

3.2.5 Fixes an issue in Mix&Gap Write Gap and Prompt Gap, whereby the program reported a runtime error if the user answered questions without checking the answers, then scrolled to a different set of answers before checking. (You'd never notice it if you checked after each answer...)

3.2.4 Fixes the issue that some Windows 7 users had whereby TaskMagic3 file types were not visible in the file list box on the File Viewer screen or on the Data Import screens (both in TaskMagic Create).

3.2.3 Minor revisions / fixes: clicking edge of image in Pic-Sound click & match caused the game to go wrong; errors on the gap-fill input screen in Mix&Gap (TMC); very occasional program crash in gap-fill in Mix&Gap, when all words gapped; cancelling when opening a new file in Mix&Gap caused loss of extra gap-fill data for the existing file.

3.2.2 Minor revisions / fixes: individual game files did not show up on the Mix and Gap edit screen in TaskMagic Create (when these files had already been saved); Clicking Restart button on the Dialogues Word Jumble screen caused a runtime error and program crash.

3.2.1 Minor revisions / fixes: incorrect positioning of text box in Find it! when instructions shown; Find it! data not cleared on opening new file in TaskMagic Play; Maze game over issue; treatment of apostrophes in Mix and Gap.

3.2.0 (i) 4 new gap-fill formats in Mix & Gap: Multi Gaps, Write Gaps, Prompt Gaps and Long Gaps. (ii) New multiple choice reading comprehension format in Mix & Gap. (iii) Improved worksheet printing - now prints to the default size of the orinter rather than only to A4. (iv) Improvements to screen layout in: 3 in a Row; 3 in a Row 2; 5 Counters; OXO; Click and Match; Pic Reveal; True or False?. (v) New worksheets in Mix & Gap for the new exercise formats. (vi) Original gap-fill worksheet now includes numbered gaps, as does the new on-screen version.

3.1.9 (i) New look to Find it! screens in Mix&Gap and Dialogues. (ii) Minor improvements and fixes: mixed rows / columns in Grid Match; changes to Gap-fill worksheet instructions; fix to problem with moving items on Sound Match edit screen for items with no text; improvements to media player appearance on some Mix&Gap and Dialogues screens.

3.1.8 Fixes for the following minor issues: (i) feedback still visible from previous session when restarting Trainer (on some systems); (ii) occasional program hang when restarting a Multi-Choice file; (iii) file associations not created by installer on some systems.

3.1.7 (i) Mix&Gap gap-fill now allows for part of a word to be gapped, as well as the whole word or multiple words. (ii) Improvement to Snake worksheet. (iii) New look to some game screens, especially Half Lines in Dialogues, Snake in Mix&Gap.

3.1.6 (i) New Trainer activity in Text Match, Picture Match, Sound Match and Grid Match. (ii) Improvements to the way punctuation is handled in Mix & Gap.

3.1.5 (i) 200 word limit removed for gap-fill exercises in Mix&Gap - can now have up to 500 words. (ii) Jump! game added to Sound Match and Pic-Sound. (iii) Extra info on screens re. the no. of items in matching exercises. (iv) Hide / Show button to hide / show answers on some match screens.

3.1.4 Match worksheets in Text Match and Picture Match can now print over multiple pages - no longer limited to 16 items. Improvements to file saving (removing data from files reduces file size).

3.1.3 Resolves the following issues: (i) very occasional runtime error when printing Find it! worksheets in Mix&Gap and Dialogues which may run onto more than 2 pages; (ii) in GridMatch in TMCreate, clicking View Exercises causes the program to enter a hang loop when the random splash screen also displays (random = 1 in 15), requiring the program to be ended with Task Manager.

3.1.2 Resolves the following issues in TMCreate: (i) runtime error when deleting Find it! prompts in Mix&Gap and Dialogues; (ii) runtime error when clicking to edit the gap-fill exercise in Mix&Gap after previously removing gapped words from the main text.

3.1.1 Resolves issue of TMCreate hanging after opening TextMatch file via TM file viewer then closing file.

3.1.0 Adds support for other languages. Resolves the following issues: incorrect text blocking on invaders2 game; clicking on a mss3 file in TM file viewer reported the file as pic match instead of pic-sound.

3.0.9 Adds facility to include up to 3 words as one gap in Mix&Gap gap-fill. Resolves the following issue: Pic Match file containing images with same name as previously opened pic match file - old file was used instead of new one.

3.0.8 Resolves the following issue: sound player failed to display for some questions in Multi-Choice.

3.0.7 Improvements to gap-fill in Mix&Gap.

3.0.6 Resolves several issues to do with long texts in Mix&Gap.

3.0.5 Resolves several minor issues.

3.0.4 Resolves the following isses: problem with autosizing of text in Mix&Gap; error caused by long texts in Mix&Gap gap-fill.

3.0.3 Resolves issue of crash errors when resizing some screens.

TaskMagic2 Update

If you have a version of TaskMagic2 which is older than 2.1.6 and you would like to update to the last version of TaskMagic2, please read the instructions below.

Download TM2Update.zip

Once this is downloaded, unzip it. This will unpack the 2 files: TaskMagicCreate.exe and TaskMagicPlay.exe

Copy these files and paste them into your TaskMagic2 directory, replacing the existing versions. The TaskMagic2 directory should be C:\Program Files\TaskMagic2\

TM2 - Update history:

2.1.6 - September 2009
Fixes for the following issues:
(i) Attempting to save the associated Text Match file from the Find It! screen in Dialogues and Mix&Gap generates a runtime error and causes the program to close.
(ii) File name limit in the Rename option of TaskMagic File Viewer too low (was 30 characters, now increased to 50).

2.1.5 - September 2009
TaskMagic2 made compatible with Internet Explorer 8 for downloading files with images / sounds attached over the internet.
Fixes for the following issues:
(i) Problem with text/screen resizing in Mix Single.
(ii) Clicking Help button in Next Letter 1 and Next Letter 2 generates an error and causes the program to close.
(iii) Save errors in Grid Match.

2.1.3 - February 2009
Minor adjustments and improvements.

2.1.2 - December 2008
New Browse facility in TaskMagicCreate: On the TaskMagicCreate front page there is a new button which launches a TaskMagic file browser. You can quickly see the contents of all of your TaskMagic files, print a copy of the contents for your records, rename files, or open the file directly so that you can edit it or try out the games and exercises.
New Blank Grid Worksheet in Grid Match: Print out a blank grid with row and column headers, and use it for listening, reading, writing, battleships, 3 in a row etc.
Grid Match answers are no longer case-sensitive, so missing an initial capital letter no longer scores as an incorrect answer.
New Right/Wrong Answer Feature in Flashcards: For those occasions when students are reviewing the vocabulary in order to test themselves, there are now 'right answer' and 'wrong answer' buttons. Students look at the first half of the pair, see if they know the answer, then click the next button. If they got the answer right they click on the tick button, and if they got it wrong they click on the cross button. Wrong answers are repeated again at the end of the sequence.
Space Bar / Return Key to move on in Flashcards so that you don't have to click on the button.
Accent screen stays on top once you've opened it, so you don't have to click the Accents button each time you want to add an accent.
Resolution of the following issues in the previous version:
(i) Pelmanism & Dominoes worksheets printed on two pages on some printers.
(ii) Drag & Match exercise not available in Text Match files with sound attached.
(iii) Screen resizing / display problems on notebook computers with 1024x600 screen resolution.
(iv) Text items not visible on Grid Match front page after resizing.

2.1.1 - October 2008
New exercise type in Mix & Gap and Dialogues: Find it! - allows the teacher to select pieces of text from the original text to use as the basis for a "Find the French for.." exercise (or Spanish, German, Italian or whatever!). Or you could ask questions about the text, as long as the answer can be lifted directly from the text.
New Find it! worksheet in Mix&Gap and Dialogues.
If you create a Find it! exercise, you can click on a link to automatically create a Text Match exercise based on your prompts and selected text items. This means that if you are working on a text and you want to practise vocab from a text, you can do it all at the same time. You type or paste in your text in Mix&Gap, the program creates up to 18 exercises based on the text including the Find it! exercise. You click the Tools button to create the Text Match file and you have access to up to 21 more exercises practising the vocab you have selected from the text.
New Dominoes worksheet in Text Match, Picture Match and Grid Match.
Mix&Gap will now accept texts of over 250 words (there is a limit of 500, but the text can get pretty small with some of the exercise types if you go as high as 500 words).
Quick Input option in TextMatch and Dialogues in TaskMagicCreate, making it easier to type or paste in a whole list of vocab or a whole dialogue.
New voice record / playback facility for some exercises with sound. This can be found on the TMPlay front pages for Sound Match, Pic-Sound, Mix&Gap (when there's a sound file), Dialogues (when there's a sound file), Multi-Choice (when there's a sound file), and also on the Flashcards page in Sound Match and Pic-Sound. You can hold down the rec button to record to the computer, release to stop recording, and click the play button to play back the sound you have recorded. This allows you to listen to a sound file, record your own voice and compare your recorded version with the original. The sound level depends on the audio settings on your computer.
In Mix&Gap Gap-fill, you can now opt not to make the list of missing words available. Particularly useful if you've included a sound file.

2.0.1 - September 2007
Improved screen resizing.
Improved text formatting for worksheets.
Resolution of the following incompatibility issues relating to Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista:
(i) Space character was not visible for some gap-filling exercises.
(ii) Problems with sound playback.
(iii) Problems recording the length of sound files.
(iv) Problems opening files directly by double-clicking or by hyperlink.
(v) Problems opening files with pictures and sounds attached over an internet connection.

2.0.0 - January 2007
6 new screens in Text Match: Flashcards; Hangman; Doors; Snake; Invaders II; Maze II
7 new screens in Picture Match: Flashcards; Hangman; Doors; Snake; Invaders II; Maze II; Pic Reveal
6 new screens in Sound Match: Flashcards; Hangman; Doors; Snake; Invaders II; Maze II
5 new screens in Pic-Sound: Maze; Invaders; Spin; Flashcards; Doors
5 new screens in Mix & Gap: Click & Fill; Word Guess; Anagrams; Snake; Invaders II
4 new screens in Dialogues: Space; Click & Fill; Word Guess; Anagrams
New exercise group called Grid Match: this allows teachers to create games and exercises based on information typed into a grid - ideal for verb conjugation.
All game screens now automatically fill the screen at any resolution (with a minimum of 800x600), whereas previous versions only displayed 800x600 pixels. This makes TaskMagic2 much more useable with an interactive whiteboard.
More user-friendly tools in the editing screens for the match exercises, meaning that items can now be moved around, deleted, columns switched etc with ease.
Data Import: On the edit screens for match exercises it is now possible to import data, so that, for example, a group of pictures used for a particular pic-match exercise can be imported easily to a pic-sound exercise. Likewise with soundfiles and text items.
Individual game files: As well as saving the main TaskMagic file for a particular exercise, within most exercise groups it is now possible to save individual game files. Teachers / webmasters can then create links to individual games rather than to the exercise front page.
Files open over internet: It is now possible to save htm files for TaskMagic exercises containing images or sounds, so that these can be opened directly over an internet connection. So you are no longer limited to making text-only files available to download.

TaskMagic1 Update

If you have a version of TaskMagic1 issued before June 2005 and you would like to update to the last version of TaskMagic1, please read the instructions below.

Download TMUpdate.zip

Once this is downloaded, unzip it. This will unpack the 2 files: TaskMagicCreate.exe and TaskMagicPlay.exe

Copy these files and paste them into your TaskMagic directory, replacing the existing versions. The TaskMagic directory should be C:\Program Files\TaskMagic\