═══ 1. General Help ═══ Welcome to the special free preview version of MsgVu/PM. It doesn't do much yet, and has some bugs and shortcomings and a crummy icon, but it is handy for reading files of CompuServe forum message threads. CAUTION: Although care has been taken to insure that no loss of your data results from using this program, you are urged to work only with copies of your actual message files. To get started, use File Open and provide the name of one of your message files. After a pause (which may be long because performance improvements have not yet been made), two windows appear. The Tree View window appears on the left, and the Contents View window appears on the right. (Press Ctrl+C for the Help Table of Contents.) Dave Briccetti & Associates P.O. Box 1713 Lafayette, CA 94549-7013 USA 510 945-7565 CompuServe: 74475,1072, Internet: daveb@netcom.com Copyright (c) 1992, David C. Briccetti All Rights Reserved. ═══ 2. Tree View Window ═══ The Tree View window provides a view of the hierarchical structure of the message threads in the message file. The root node of the tree represents the message file. The next level represents threads. Subsequent levels represent replies. ═══ 2.1. Reading Messages ═══ To read a message, click on a thread or reply, or press one of the arrow keys to move the selection cursor. ═══ 2.2. Expanding and Contracting ═══ You can expand and contract portions of the tree by clicking on the + and - icons, or pressing the + and - keys on the keyboard. You can use the Tree popup menu to expand or collapse the entire tree. To pop up the Tree menu, press the pop-up menu mouse button (the right, by default) somewhere in the window. ═══ 2.3. Changing Fonts ═══ To change the font used in the window, use the Font Palette from the System Setup folder. Drag the font you want to use into the window. ═══ 3. Contents View Window ═══ The Contents View window shows the contents of a message. ═══ 3.1. Changing Fonts ═══ The procedure for changing fonts in this window is temporarily different from the drag/drop procedure used in the Tree View window. Use the pop-up menu mouse button (the right, by default) to pop up the Edit menu, and select the Set Font choice. Note: A bug will cause incorrect results in the window until another message is displayed. ═══ 3.2. Flowing Text ═══ You can have message text displayed as it appears in the message file, or you can have it flowed so that the text makes better use of the screen space. Use the Edit Flow Text menu choice to control this option. Note: The flowing option has a bug which causes some adjacent words to appear without spaces between them. ═══ ═══ Dave Briccetti is an independent OS/2 programming consultant and software developer. He has been in business since 1983, and has been working heavily with OS/2 since 1987, on a variety of interesting and complex tools and applications, for himself and for clients.