The best thing about creating knowledge systems in SuperMemo is that it is entirely interactive and there is no compilation stage. After you create your system, you only click the Learn Only button in Options (or ReadOnly if your system is designed for presentation rather than learning purposes), and follow that with File : Hide SuperMemo (this hides the SuperMemo shell behind your application). This way you can have simple presentations or courses developed literally in minutes, and later distributed on CD-ROM media.

To create your own knowledge systems, you have to activate full-access SuperMemo by making sure that SuperMemo shell is not hidden. Press Ctrl+Alt+F12 if this is not the case. Press Ctrl+Alt+F12 also if you are not sure in what state SuperMemo is. Finally, set Tools : Options : Data Access : Access Mode to Full Access (you can open the Options dialog by pressing Ctrl+P).

If you want to create simple question-answer items, read Adding items.

Otherwise, you can create more advanced knowledge systems by following the steps listed below:

1. create knowledge hierarchy in the Contents window. Use commands Add, Sibling, and Insert to expand the hierarchy. Drag and drop knowledge elements or use Delete to modify once created structure. See Hierarchy operations for more.

2. create individual knowledge elements: (1) Ctrl-click a selected element in the hierarchy to open the element window, (2) drag and drop element components from the editing toolbar in the element window (see Components available), and (3) change the properties of added components to create the final shape of the element (see Component pop-up menu).

To open the editing toolbar, click the Edit tab at the top of the element window.

To drag and drop components onto the element window click three spots in turn: (1) selected component on the editing toolbar, (2) top-left corner of the component’s requested location in the element window, and (3) bottom-right corner of the component’s location. To find out more about the types of components see Components available.

To fill out the content or to modify the properties of individual components, right-click the component and choose appropriate options from it’s pop-up menu.

Note, that all objects used in creating knowledge elements are stored in indexed object registries for reuse and search purposes. Creating registries is automatic. Each object maintains a list of its users. If the list of users is empty, the object is deleted with or without confirmation (images, sounds, or videos are examples or objects whose deleting must be confirmed, while texts or lexicon entries are deleted without confirmation).

To reuse registry objects, right-click the newly created component, choose Link registry member on the pop-up menu, and choose the linked object in the registry that appears on the screen. For more about registries see Using registries.

The best inspiration for creating one’s own knowledge system might come from having a look at commercially released SuperMemo titles.

Note: having created a knowledge system, you will certainly be glad to know that to convert it into a commercial multimedia CD-ROM title is much easier than you might think. See Releasing one’s own CD-ROM title.