Introduction

The S283 Multimedia guide program is used to start other packages provided on the S283 DVD-ROMs. This guide will be installed to your hard disk; the other packages remain on the DVD-ROMs, so to run them you must place the required DVD-ROM in the drive.

The left-hand pane provides a contents list. Click on an item in this list and information about it will be displayed in the right-hand pane. To start an activity, select it in the contents list and click the Start button.

If the required DVD-ROM is not found in the drive, you will get a message prompting you to insert the correct DVD-ROM. Do so, wait for the drive light to go out, then click OK to try again.

If the package is still not found, you will be asked if you want to use a different drive. If the package is still not found you will be asked if you would like to find the package yourself. This may happen because you have copied the software to another location. If you wish to do this, browse to the new location and click OK; this will register the new location. 

Accessibility

Keyboard interface
This guide can be operated using the keyboard alone. As with any standard Windows program, you can use the Tab and Shift+Tab keys to select the different items in the window. The Space or Enter key will act on the selected item. Items in the contents list can be expanded or collapsed using the + and – keys on the numeric keypad.

Many of the other packages can be operated similarly. In some places there may be actions that require the use of a mouse; switch on Use Mouse Keys in the Accessibility option in the Windows Control Panel to use the keyboard to control the mouse pointer.

Colours and Fonts
If you find it difficult to read the text in the guide, you may want to select Use Windows colours in the Options menu. This makes the program use the colours and fonts defined in the Appearance tab of the Display option in the Windows Control Panel.

Script viewer
A script viewer facility is available for programs containing audio and/or video. If you would like the script viewer to start automatically when an activity is launched, select Script viewer from the Options menu.

Java
Some of the packages supplied are written in Java. Java is a system that is under continuous development and this can lead to problems as new versions are released.

The Options menu has two options which you can select to help resolve problems:

Local Java
Selecting this runs S283 packages with their own copy of the Java run-time environment (JRE); this is the version that the packages were originally written and tested with. 

System Java 	
Selecting thus runs S283 packages using the version of the Java run-time environment (JRE) is currently installed on your system.