I cannot find my earier original post on that topic, so I am posting this update in a new thread.
Originally,I wanted this to be a multimedia-featured reader on Chinese folk legends text with stories focusing on Hangzhou where I had been in the nineties and which I regard as the most beautiful place in South Eastern China.
I have now changed that and included prose and poetry passages on a variety of topics such as (1) Classical Literature, (2)Modern Literature,(3)Poetry, (3)Daily Life (jokes, street signs, restaurant menu cards), (4) folk legends, and much more. All this comes with sound files, study aids such as Pinyin transcription for each Chinese character, interactive Reading Comprehension tests, and a large resource for training Chinese characters and vocabulary used in these texts.
There is no additional software required; if you have a web browser and the free Acrobat reader you should be able to run this on your computer. All files have been encoded in utf-8 (unicode), and focus is on both simpplified and traditional Chinese characters,and written texts both in classical as well as in modern written style. For some Chinese texts, I have also prepared different calligraphic versions such as the Seal script (coming near the earliest forms of Chinese characters ever written), caoshu (cursiv script, looking very nice!)-this is to train the Westener´s eye for character graphical forms in the major Chinese calligraphic styles.
I am still looking for some free storage space in the web to upload. The application is a single installation file of some 200 MB and as such quite large. Once I have uploaded it to the web I will post a download link here. Anyone interestesd may freely access and use it.
All the best!