DP Tool Club 17/CD_ASCQ_17_101194.iso/vrac/flip416.zip/FLIPPER.DOC

Text File | 1993-12-08 | 42KB | 875 lines

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SECTION 5.0 COMMAND REFERENCE

This is the command reference for Flipper.

Section 5.1 This table of contents

Section 5.2 General information.

Section 5.3 Quick commands.

Section 5.4 Using Flipper's review mode.

Section 5.5 Advanced review mode features.

Section 5.6 Searching.

Section 5.7 Basic Configuration changes

Section 5.8 Loading and saving configurations

Section 5.9 Advanced Configuration Changes.

Section 5.10 Cursors


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Section 5.2 General information.

Flipper does several things automatically.  First of all, Flipper
will echo what you type so you can catch typing mistakes.
Next, Flipper will read the output of some programs
automatically, as it is being written to the screen.  Any features
can be turned off if you desire.

Whenever alt is pressed, if Flipper is speaking, it stops. The
automatic output is silenced only until you strike another key,
such as the shift key.  The computer continues to execute the
program, even if you silence the voice.

Flipper can also react to keys that you press.  The following
assumes that the default configuration, or a similar one is
loaded.  If you move around the screen with the arrow keys,
Flipper will read the material you are moving over.  For
example, if you move line by line up or down, Flipper will read
the lines as you move onto them.  If you move left or right a
character at a time, Flipper reads the character.  If you move a
word at a time using control left arrow or control right arrow,
Flipper reads a word at a time.  You can also move a sentence
at a time, forwards or backwards right in your word processor
or editor, using the alt left arrow and alt right arrow keys.
Refer to section 5.3, for further information.

The fourth method for accessing information from the screen is
to use the quick keys described in section 5.3. The quick keys
allow you read or spell words or lines in the vicinity of the
cursor without removing your hands from the home positions on
the keyboard.  They are accessed by holding down alt and
pressing keys near the right hand home row.  You can also set
Flipper so that when you hold down alt and press a number key
on the top row, it will read a section of the screen that you have
chosen, such as a status line for a word processor.  See the
paragraph on the W command in section 5.4 for an example.

The most complete tool you have for reading the screen is the
review mode, which you start by pressing alt semicolon.  The
features available in the review mode are explained in section
5.4.  While you are in the review mode the computer is stopped,
and you can move across the screen having its contents read to
you.  Many of Flipper's other functions are also controlled from
the review mode.

You can stop Flipper and get back to your application program
by pressing alt space bar at any time.

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Section 5.3 Quick commands.

This section describes commands that can be changed by using
the define interview.  It assumes that you are using the default
configuration, or a similar one.  The quick commands are
accessed by holding down the alt key with your left hand and
pressing one of the keys near the right hand home row.  Since
your hands do not have to leave the home row, you can check
something quickly while you are typing without losing your
place on the keyboard.  If you need to use one of these keys for
a program, you can use the alt N command which is described
at the end of this section.

The alt key is the key to the left of the space bar.  Holding
down the alt key and pressing slash will announce the position
of the cursor.  The keys on the right hand home position, J, K,
and L, will read the word to the left of the cursor, the word
under the cursor, and the word to the right of the cursor,
respectively.  The keys below them, M, comma, and period,
will spell these same words.  The keys above the right hand
home row, U, I, and O, will read the line above the current
line, the current line, and the line below the current line,
respectively. In addition, alt Y reads the line before last. Note
that these keys form a block on the keyboard around the right
hand home row.  The middle key reads the current item, the
right key reads the next, and the left key reads the last.  The top
keys, U, I, and O, refer to lines, the next row to words, and the
bottom row refers to characters.

Flipper will read a sentence at a time if you use alt left arrow
or alt right arrow.  It will actually scroll through the text in
your word processor.  Alt up arrow will read the current
sentence.  Flipper can also read continuously, sentence by
sentence.  Continuous reading is started by alt down arrow.
You can stop it at any time with an alt.  After you are done
making changes or reviewing that section, you can start Flipper
reading your text from that point on with an alt down arrow.

Alt semicolon will start the review mode.  See section 5.4 for
documentation of the review mode.

Alt H starts the help mode.

All of the alt number keys are set to read the window with the
same number.  This is useful, for example, if you want to be
able to read a status line or part of a status line that your
application program puts on the screen.  Definition of the area
to be read is started by pressing W during the review mode. For
example, if your program has a status line on line 25, you can
set alt 8 to read it by pressing W, then 8 for the eight key, then
1 for the starting column, 80 for the ending column, 25 for the
starting row, and 25 for the ending row.

Alt P reads the page meaning read the whole screen.

alt F flips between the primary and secondary configurations.
Refer to section 5.8 and section 5.10 for more information about
setting up and using configurations.

Alt space bar stops Flipper at any time, and leaves the review
mode.

If you need to use one of the above keys for a program, you can
just press alt N.  Flipper will then say normal, meaning that the
next key press will be treated normally instead of being captured
as a command to Flipper.  For example, if your communications
program uses alt H to hang up the modem, you would press alt
N, to get Flipper to disregard the next key, and then the alt H.

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Section 5.4 Review mode

Flipper's review mode is started by pressing alt semicolon.
When it is active, the following functions are available.  If you
hold down control while pressing a key in review mode, the
instructions for that key are read.

Many of the functions of the review mode are similar to the alt
keys in the regular mode.  J, K, and L read the previous,
current or next word.  The difference between using the review
mode and the alt keys is that when you use the alt keys, you
read the material without moving, where in the review mode,
these keys also move your location. For example, if you
continue to press the L key in the review mode, you will
advance a word at a time, reading out each word. Similarly, the
U, I, and O keys will take you to the last line, read the current
line, and take you to the next line.  The M, comma, and period
keys do the same one character at a time.

Additionally, there are keys in the review mode which do
functions which are unique to the review mode.  For example,
the T key will announce the time of day.

The B key will take you back to where you were the last time
you were in the review mode.  This is useful for example, if
you are referring to information from one part of the screen
while typing it into another part of the screen.  You just hit the
B key each time you reenter the review mode, taking you back
to the area of the screen that you are using the review mode to
examine.

The C key will take you out of the review mode, and move the
cursor to the present position, if it is possible.  If the cursor can
not be moved into a location, for example away from the DOS
command line or onto a status line for a program, Flipper will
say failure after moving the cursor as close as it can to the
indicated location.  The S key will allow you to enter a search
pattern as described in section 5.6.  The semicolon key moves
your position back to the cursor.

The P key will read the current page, or screen.  If you want to
read only a portion of the screen, you will need to set up one of
the alt number keys.

The E key will read the enhancement at the current position.

The G command lets you grab a line of text off the screen. You
can then put it back in a different place, or in a different
application.  You mark the beginning of text with the mark with
the X key, and then move to the end of the text and press G.
You can read back the text later with shift G, and you can put
the text back into an application program later with the put
action which you can attach to a key.  The default grab buffer
is small, about 100 characters, but you can enlarge it by putting
a G on the command line for Flipper, followed by the number
of characters you want.

Slash in the review mode will announce current position, row
and column.  Alt slash in the review mode will announce the
position of the cursor.

You can use the V command to change Flipper's voice, as
documented at the end of section 6.0.

You can also use the cursor keys, left, right, up, and down.
The left and right keys move a character at a time in each
direction and read that character.  The up and down keys move
a line at a time, and the lines are read.  These same keys, with
control, move words to the right or left, and single lines up or
down, and read off the word at that position.  This is useful, for
example, to read a column of words.

Pressing the D key will allow you to define many of Flippers
actions.  It is documented in section 5.5, below.

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Section 5.5 Advanced review mode.

Many of the commands in the review mode can be preceded by
a number, which can be typed using the keypad or the regular
number keys.  That will result in the forward or backward
motion being done that many times.  For example, 50 L will
move forward 50 words.  The keys which usually read the
current line, word, or character, I, K, and comma, will move
to an absolute coordinate, for example 10 I will move to line 10,
10 K will move to the tenth word on the line, and 10 comma
will move to the tenth character or column on the line.  A
number before the P command will result in the current page
being read starting from that line.

Whenever you are asked for a row or column number, you can
press return, to use the old value.  Flipper will read it out to
you, so you can check a defined window setting, for example,
by pressing W to start the definition, then selecting the window,
and then pressing return in response to the questions.  You can
also answer C, to use the current cursor position, or X, to use
the position of the marker.

Holding down shift while pressing the U, I, and O keys will
move you to the first line, the middle line, and the last line of
the screen, respectively.  The J, K, and L keys will move you
to the beginning, middle or end of the current line, respectively,
and the M and period will move you to the beginning or end of
the current word.  As odd man out, shift comma will spell the
entire current word.

Holding down the alt key while pressing M, comma, or period
will move you character by character while pronouncing the
military alphabet word for the appropriate character.  It will also
read the extended ASCII number for any other symbol.

The F command allows you to flip between two configurations,
primary and secondary.  This allows you to configure Flipper
two different ways, and then easily switch between them. You
can also load an unlimited number of configurations into the
computer's memory using the FLIPEXT command and then
load them using the F command.  To retrieve the third
configuration that you loaded with the FLIPEXT command, for
example, you would type 3 F.  See section 5.10 for additional
information on the use of FLIPEXT, FLIPLOAD, and
FLIPSAVE.

The X command is used to mark a location on the screen.  You
can use the marked location in several different ways.  You can
move to the marked location with a shift X.  If you type X when
you are being asked a row or column number, the position of
the mark is used, row or column.  Additional marks can be used
by preceding X with a number up to nine.  For example, 2 X
sets the second mark.  2 shift X jumps to the second mark.
Whenever you are asked for a row or column number, you can
reply with the C key, to use the current position, or X, to use
the marker position, or number X, to use another marker.  You
can also read from where you are to the mark using the R
command.

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Section 5.6 Searching.

Searching is the process of having Flipper look for something on
the screen.  You tell Flipper what you want to search for by
pressing S in the review mode, typing what you want to look
for, and then pressing return.  Flipper will then search forward
and tell you if it finds what you were looking for by giving its
position and moving there.  Once the pattern is defined, you can
search for the pattern repeatedly by pressing alt J, K, or L in
the review mode. Alt L is used to search forward from the
current location on the screen.  Alt J will start a backward
search, and alt K will do a forward search over the whole
screen, starting at the top.

For example, to search for the word dog on the screen, first
enter the review mode.  Then press S and then type d o g
followed by a return.  Flipper will jump to the first letter of the
first occurrence of dog on the screen, and announce where that
is, row and column.  To search for other occurrences of the
word dog on the screen, press alt L repeatedly.  Flipper will
continue to advance to the first letter in each of the following
occurrences of the word dog.  When there are no more on the
rest of the screen, Flipper will say pattern not found, and will
not move.

In addition to searching for simple words, you can also search
for enhancements and other types of things on the screen using
wild cards.  They are entered into the search pattern by pressing
control and a letter.  Wildcard characters are special characters
in a search string.  They can be entered into search strings along
with plain characters to search for classes of characters, or
attributes like enhancements or the beginning of a line.
The option keys also allow you to choose whether capital letters
will match small letters during a search.  For example, if you
want to search for changes in the video enhancements on the
screen, you would press S, to start the search, control E, for
enhancement, and then return, to show that you have finished
the string, and then alt J or L as many times as you wish to find
wherever the enhancements are changed on the screen.

To find, for example, a regular, non-enhanced character
followed by an inverse video character, you would press S, to
start the search, control R, for regular, control A, for anything,
control I, for inverse, and then return, and the search string is
defined.  You can then press alt J or L as desired to find that
on the screen as many times as it occurs.  The search string is
saved until you change it or restart Flipper when you boot the
system.  The search string is also saved and reloaded with the
configurations.

To get a list of the wildcards that you can use in a search, hit
control S from review mode.

If you know the number for a symbol or enhancement, you can
enter it into the search pattern by using control N.  Flipper will
prompt you for the character number.  You can use the military
spell commands, alt M, comma, and period in the review
mode, to find the number for a character that is on the screen.
You can also use the E command to get the number for an
enhancement that is on the screen.


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Section 5.7 Basic Configuration Changes

Flipper keeps two complete configurations inside its own
memory. These include the current search string, defined blocks,
margin settings, symbol sets, option choices, etc.  To switch
back and forth between them, you press the F key (for flip)
during the review mode, or alt F outside the review mode.  To
save configurations, you can type

FLIPSAVE FILENAME.FLP

at the DOS prompt, where filename is any valid name.  To load
the configuration back in, type

FLIPLOAD FILENAME.FLP

See section 5.8 for more information.

Changing Flipper's voice.  Voices are changed by pressing V
during the review mode, and pressing the function keys.  Keys
one and two raise and lower the speed of Flipper's voice during
normal output.  Similarly, function keys five through ten
control the pitch, inflection, and amplitude of Flipper's voice.
You can change Flipper's three voices separately, keyboard
echo, command, and automatic output, by using alt, control, or
shift with the function keys.  Press return when you are done.

Flipper's characteristics can be modified either temporarily or
permanently, to match your changing needs.  Many of these can
be changed by pressing the function keys during the review
mode, in combination with the alt, control and shift keys.  All
of them alternate on and off, so the best way to use them is not
to memorize where they are, but to just try them until you find
the one you want.  After you have Flipper set the way you
want, there are two programs, called FLIPSAVE and
FLIPLOAD, that you can run from the DOS prompt that will
save the configuration in a file that you specify on the command
line.  Flipload is automatically run with the file START.FLP,
so you can change this file to make Flipper start up in your
favorite configuration.  Flipper has many other facilities for
handling configurations, which are described in section 5.8.
Section 6.0 of the instructions describes the available options.

Flipper can read any character or symbol that appears in the
IBM character set.  This includes the letters and symbols which
appear on your keyboard, but also includes such things as forms
drawing characters and shaded boxes.  These additional symbols
are off by default, but you can turn them all on by using the
override all symbols on option (function key 6 during the review
mode).  You can tell Flipper which selected symbols to read by
pressing insert during the review mode and then pressing the
function keys.  The symbols are divided into descriptive sets
such as forms drawing symbols, mathematical symbols and
foreign symbols.  You can also turn on symbols from the
keyboard by typing them.  If you want to turn on specific
special symbols, Flipper can read through a list of them and you
can tell it to read them or not one at a time.  To get the list of
symbols which are to be turned on or off, press insert, then
control F, control M, control D, or control A, and you will be
given a list of form symbols, math symbols, decorative symbols
or accent and other foreign symbols, respectively, and asked to
select the ones you want.  Alt insert and alt delete combinations
are used in the review mode to insert symbols into Flipper's
letters set or delete symbols from Flipper's letters set, for
example if you want accented characters sent directly through to
a synthesizer.  They are documented in section 5.9.

To delete characters from the character set, you can press delete
during the review mode and then type the symbols which you
want to remove from the character set.

If you know the ASCII code for a symbol that you want to turn
on or off, you can put that symbol into the character set by
typing the number and then the insert key.  Similarly, you can
remove a symbol from the symbol set by typing its number and
then the delete key.  Flipper will tell you what the ASCII code
for the characters that you are moving over when you use the
military spell commands alt M, comma, and period over non
alphabetic symbols.

The selected set of symbols are saved and reloaded with the
configuration, and primary and secondary sets are maintained
along with the rest of the configuration.

If you are spelling or moving one character at a time, all
symbols will be read whether or not they are turned on.

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Section 5.8 loading and saving configurations


This section describes Flipper's multiple configuration
capability, including the use of the F command and the utility
programs FLIPLOAD, FLIPSAVE, and FLIPEXT.

All of the changes that you make to the way Flipper works,
including its voices, the character set, option settings, search
strings, etc., are referred to as a configuration. Once you have
Flipper set up the way you want within a spreadsheet, for
example, or for a spelling checker, you will undoubtedly wish
to save the configuration so that you can use it again later.

Flipper not only lets you save and reload a configuration, it will
allow you to you to make up several of them and switch
between them quickly.

For example, you might want to have one configuration for
entering text into WordPerfect, and a different configuration for
proofreading your text, with punctuation and capitalization
turned on.  It would be very clumsy, of course, to always enter
the review mode, make the changes, leave the review mode, etc.
To set up Flipper to make this faster, first, set up a
configuration for WordPerfect the way you want it.  Then make
the other configuration the same by pressing shift F.  Now both
configurations are the same, set up for WordPerfect.  Now you
can put in the changes for the differences you want.  When you
then flip the configuration with the alt F command, Flipper will
flip between the editing mode and the writing mode.

It is often useful to have two configurations, primary and
secondary, that only have one difference, so that you can change
that one thing quickly.

Now that you have set up these two configurations for
WordPerfect, you can save them for use later on.  To save them
permanently, after you exit WordPerfect, flip to the primary
configuration, then execute the following command:

flipsave wpprime.flp

then flip to the secondary configuration with the alt F, and
execute the following command:

flipsave wpsecond.flp

you can then load those configurations later by executing the
command:

flipload wpprime.flp wpsecond.flp

The names wpprime and wpsecond are arbitrary, of course.

the last flipload command loads your starting configuration into
both the primary and secondary configurations.

Flipext is a command that you can use to set up other
configurations in memory, in addition to the primary and
secondary configurations that are built into Flipper.  For each
configuration that you set up with Flipext, you will use up 3
kilobytes of your system memory.  As you set up each
configuration with flipext, it is given a number, 1 for the first
one that you make 2 for the second, and so on.  Flipext is used
with configurations that you have saved earlier with the flipsave
command.  For example, you can set up your starting
configuration as an external configuration by executing the
command:

flipext start.flp

at the DOS prompt.  You use the configurations that you loaded
by going into the review mode, pressing the number of the
configuration that you want, then pressing the F key.

A simple example of the use of configurations set up with the
flipext command is the case of a computer which is used by both
blind persons and by sighted persons.  You can set up a silent
configuration for use by sighted persons, and a regular one for
use by Blind operators.  You do this by going into Flipper's
review mode and then turning off all of Flipper's speaking
options, including automatic output, keyboard echo, reading
after arrow keys, reading after backspace and delete, and you
can also turn off the quick keys, and the alt number keys.
With this configuration, the only difference that Flipper being
loaded makes is the ability to pop into review mode, and
memory use.  You can then save this silent configuration by
leaving the review mode, and then executing the command:

flipsave silent.flp

Then if you put in the autoexec.bat file the line:

flipext start.flp silent.flp

then you can turn off Flipper for use by a sighted person by
entering the review mode at any time, and then pressing 2 F.
When you need to use the computer again, you can press 1 F,
loading the starting configuration again, making Flipper
interactive.

You can also change external configurations by going into the
review mode, setting the configuration the way you want it, and
then pressing the number of the configuration that you want to
change, and then shift F.  Remember that you need to change
the configuration that you load from on the disk to make
permanent changes that will be there when you reboot.

Flipper can load configurations automatically, each time you
start a program.  You simply list the configurations that you
want loaded in a text file, one per line.  The text file should
have with the same name as the program that you run, but with
the extension .FAC.  The first two listed will be loaded into
Flipper, and the rest will replace external configurations.  If you
want to skip one, and not have it be replaced, you can leave a
blank line.

{ }
Section 5.9 Advanced configuration changes

Flipper has an interview system for defining what it does.  Some
users may never need to this at all.  With the default
configuration supplied, the program works right out of the box.
But if you wish to customize many of Flipper's powerful, new
features, you will want to use this menu system to set Flipper up
the way you prefer.

To get to the Definition Menu, enter Review Mode and press D.
You will be asked a series of simple questions.  If you are not
sure of the answer to a question, just hit return and Flipper is
likely to pick a reasonable choice for you.

For example, you can turn off echo for specific keys on the
keyboard. If you don't want the backspace key to say backspace
as well as the character you are deleting, just press D, for define
in review mode, then K for key, and when Flipper asks you
which key, press the backspace.  Flipper will then ask you if
you want to echo that key, and you hit N, for no.  You can then
hit alt spacebar to leave anything else on that key unchanged.


As another example, lets say that you would like to have the tab
key read the column number as you tab over in a document.
You hit D, for define, and then K for key, of the choices you
are read.  Flipper will then ask you to hit the key you want to
define, and you hit the tab key. Flipper will ask you whether
you want the key echoed, and whether you want to clear any
Flipper function from that key. If you say N, don't clear it,
Flipper will then ask whether you want it sent to the application.
You say Y, for yes, because you want the tab itself to be done,
and then no when Flipper asks you if you want to do something
before the application.  You want it to be done after, so that
Flipper will read off the column that you end up on.  Flipper
will then ask what you want to do.  You then press C, for
cursor functions, again one of the choices available, and then P
to read the position of the cursor.  Flipper will ask you whether
you want both the row and column read, or what, and you can
respond with C, to read the cursor column only.  Flipper will
then ask you whether you want to read column one or just one.
After answering these questions, and leaving review, Flipper
will read the column number as you tab.  So, instead of having
to call up and ask for a feature, (as many people have, by the
way), you can do it yourself.

If you want to find out what Flipper is already doing, once you
have picked what you want to look at, a key for example, just
hit return at each question.  Flipper will then tell you what each
of the current settings are as you go.  One good way to learn
how to configure Flipper is to explore existing configurations in
this way.

You can move through the choices in this and all other Flipper
menus by using the up and down arrow keys.  To select a menu
choice, either press the return key when you are on the
selection you want, or type the first letter of your selection.

Pressing return in answer to a menu question will select the
previous setting for that option.  You can press the space bar at
any time and Flipper will announce the previous or default
setting for the current menu option.

Pressing the backspace key is a good way to find out where you
are, should you be interrupted while using the menus. Pressing
backspace will cause the question to be read again. Pressing
escape will back up to the previous menu, or, if you are at the
Definition Menu's main level, escape will quit and put you back
to Review Mode. If you leave with an escape or an alt
spacebar, Flipper assumes that you want to leave the rest the
same as it was.


Each time Flipper asks a yes or no question, you have similar
options, with spacebar to read the default, return to use the old
or default answer and backspace to re-read the question.

If Flipper is asking for a number, such as an enhancement
number, a row number, or a column, you can answer with a
return to get the old answer, a C to use the current location, X
to use the location of the mark, or a number 1-9 followed by X
to use the location of one of the numbered marks.  Remember,
you mark a location on the screen by pressing X during the
review mode, or a number and then X for one of the other
marks.

For example, if you are asked for an enhancement number, you
can reply with a C and Flipper will take the enhancement at the
current location.  If you are being asked for a row number, you
can respond 9 X and Flipper will use the row of the ninth mark
as the answer.

You can also press spacebar to hear the current setting, and
backspace to re-read the question, as usual.

Actions are a central part of the interview process.  That is
where you are asked what you want Flipper to do.  The same
actions are available from a key, a reaction zone, or a cursor
move.  An action can be read a window, read a line, read the
cursor position, toggle a function key toggle, etc.  Any time you
can do an action, you can do a series of actions.  This means
you can read several windows, the line number and then the line
of text, and so forth, in any combination.  One of the questions
asked is whether you want to allow automatic output during an
action.  The reason you might not want automatic output during
an action is that you might not want to hear what the application
would speak, because you want to specifically speak something
that you chose instead.

The C cursor definition interview is explored in section 5.10.

The W selection from the define menu will allow you to define
windows with many more options than the simple W from
review mode.  These options include being able to read pop up
boxes, and specific enhanced areas, and detailed control over
how the material is read, including all symbols on, announcing
enhancement changes, spelling, etc.

P for a prefixed key:

This item lets you define keys based on what keys you pressed
before. For example, you can assign an action to the second
press of a key. You might want to define alt w to read the
current word, and then alt w again to spell the word.  You
would use the prefix choice to assign the action on the second,
or double keypress.


The Q selection, for quiet, allows you to select areas of the
screen which are not automatically read.  Do not confuse them
with the windows of the W command.  Quiet windows are
useful, for example, if a clock is on the screen and is being read
every second.  You can just put a quiet window over the clock
to silence it.  Quiet windows are particularly useful when you
have extended automatic output on, which may to read too much
otherwise.  Up to ten quiet windows can be defined at a time,
each associated with a number key one through nine, or zero.
When you are defining a quiet window, you can respond D
instead of picking a window, to deactivate all quiet windows.
Or, once you have selected a particular window, you can press
D to deactivate that quiet window.  The only speech that the
quiet windows will suppress is that from the automatic output,
or the extended automatic output.  When you read an area with
a command, the quiet windows have no effect.

One of the choices of how to read a window is to have Flipper
send the selected text to a electronic Brailler, or to a Braille
display.  If Flipper says device not ready, you need to set up the
output device.  You set up a serial device by putting a plus sign
on the command line for Flipper, followed by a 1 for com1 or
a 2 for com2.  You then need to set up the communications port
with the mode command to the correct baud rate, etc.  To set up
a parallel device, put an equal sign on the command line,
followed by a 1 for LPT1 or PRN, a 2 for LPT2, a 3 for LPT3,
etc.  Once the device is set up, you can Braille any item or
window from an action.  In the review mode, you can Braille
several lines starting with the line the review cursor is on by
typing a number followed by the alt equal.  If the margins set
using the W key are on, they will be used.  Flipper requires full
hardware handshaking for serial Braille devices, and com3 and
com4 may be used if your computer BIOS supports them.

To create an exception vocabulary, write an ascii file with the
words whose pronunciation you want to change one per line,
followed by an equal sign, and the characters that you want to
send to the synthesizer instead.  To load the exception table, use
the program FLIP_VOC followed by a space and the name of
the dictionary file.  The space taken by the dictionary is close to
the size of the text file itself.  There is no need to sort the
dictionary, FLIP_VOC will take care of that.  There is a
example vocabulary in EXAMPLE.VOC.  To load it, you
would give the command:

FLIP_VOC EXAMPLE.VOC

after Flipper is loaded.  The text after the equal sign for each
word can be a phonetic misspelling, or phoneme strings
particular to the specific synthesizer.

You can change Flipper's messages by editing the text. First,
you run MESSAGES.COM which is a self extracting archive of the
files you need.  Flipper's messages are in the files that end in
FLS (Flipper strings).  Do not edit the lines in curly brackets,
they are the labels.  After the messages are edited, run the
program FLIPCOMP to generate the FLC files that Flipper will
load when it is booted.  FLIPCOMP will take about 3 minutes on a
386sx.

{ }
Section 5.10 Cursors

Having Flipper place the cursor at the best point on the screen,
the place where the action is, is important to make a program
easy to use.  Flipper will actually look for several different
characteristics, and attempt to choose the one that makes the
most sense.  Sometimes it is necessary to give Flipper a hint, to
make it use another method for selecting the cursor position that
works better for a particular program.  Sometimes it is
necessary to make Flipper use different techniques in different
parts of a program.

By default, Flipper will look for two types of cursor.  The first
cursor that Flipper will look for is an inverse video cursor.
The next cursor Flipper try is where DOS says it is, and one of
these two usually works.

Finding cursors is one of the more important parts of being able
to use different programs.  A cursor is simply the point on the
screen that a programmer is calling attention to, by blinking
something, using a special color, or using an arrow. Flipper will
look for many different kinds of cursor, and you will sometimes
need to give it instructions as to what kind is used for a
particular program or a particular mode.

Press D for define and C for cursor and you can choose a
simple DOS cursor, hardware cursor or enhancement cursors of
many different styles.  You can control the searching pattern,
and the specific appearance of acceptable cursors, if you wish.
You can also pick the area of the screen where the cursor should
be.

Flipper can remember up to ten different kinds of things to look
for at a time, and it will use whichever one it finds first, in the
order that you select.

The DOS cursor is the most efficient and fastest cursor, if it is
available.  The DOS cursor appears as a blinking underline or
block to a sighted person.  The hardware cursor is similar in
appearance, and is usually in exactly the same place, but it may
not be under some circumstances.  For example, Lotus 123 and
some mainframe emulators need the hardware cursor.

At the DOS prompt, the cursor is naturally at the location where
DOS thinks it is.  In word processors, this still usually works,
but in special modes, such as the spelling checker of
WordPerfect, an inverse video cursor is used for the location of
the misspelled word, which is the important point on the screen.
The normal cursor is just sitting down on the status line, waiting
for your choice of what to do about the misspelled word. In this
case, you will want to tell Flipper to forget about the normal
cursor, and put you on the misspelled word using the
enhancement cursor.  Some applications may use an arrow
pointing to an item.

If you give Flipper a first cursor which is an enhancement
cursor and a second cursor which is the DOS cursor, this tells
Flipper to use the enhancement cursor if there is one, so if you
leave the spelling checker and there is no enhancement cursor,
Flipper will track the normal cursor.  In other words, Flipper
will work correctly inside and outside of the spelling checker if
you tell it to look for an enhancement cursor, and then if it can
not find it, use the DOS cursor.

One important use of different cursors is that Flipper can
recognize the mode of operation of a program by the changes in
the cursor.  By defining cursors separately for different areas of
the screen, or for different colors that it might be on, you can
have Flipper behave differently.  For example, in Lotus 123,
when the hardware cursor is on a black on white location, it is
in a cell and it is appropriate to read the whole cell after the
arrow keys.  If it is on a white on black location, then you are
most likely editing within a cell, and Flipper should read
characters when the left or right arrow keys are hit.  Another
thing that can be useful includes whether the cursor is in a box.

You can either do some action when the cursor is selected or
moves, or you can change how the actions go after a key press
by defining a cursor as a lightbar or not a lightbar.  Whether a
cursor that you have described is a lightbar or not is purely your
choice, simply setting a flag so you can refer to it later when
defining keys or other actions.  Calling a cursor a lightbar or not
does not change in any way how Flipper looks for a cursor.
Cursors can also be activated or deactivated as an action.

It may be necessary to use searches for enhancement changes,
moving around in review mode, and using the E command to
locate the enhancement changes that are being used for a cursor
in a program.  Once you have found the enhancement that you
want to track, you can use the shift C command to create a
cursor of the color where the review position is.  Once you have
found the cursor enhancement, you may also need to change the
search that Flipper uses for the enhancement cursor from top to
bottom or bottom to top, or make other changes from the define
menu.  The enhancements that a program uses may change
depending on how it is set up, and on whether it is being used
on a color system or on a system with a monochrome monitor.
When asks if you want to require the enhanced area look like a
cursor, it means if there might be any status lines or similar
things that might have the same enhancement that you would not
want Flipper to use as a cursor, similarly, if there is more than
one patch on a particular line, they might be a row of titles or
something else that may not be appropriate as a cursor.

If you press alt C, Flipper will tell you which cursor it is using,
which is helpful when you are trying to set up several cursors.

In the default configuration, what Flipper reads after the arrow
keys is determined by the kind of cursor Flipper decided to use.
If the cursor is normal, then Flipper reads a character after the
left or right arrow keys, and it reads the whole line after the
up and down arrow keys.  If the cursor that Flipper decided to
use was an lightbar cursor, however, then Flipper will read that
enhanced area after any of the arrow keys.  This results in
automatically reading the appropriate material when using pull
down menus, as described below.

One very common use of enhancement cursors is for pull down
menus.  These menus, which are similar to those used with mice
in the Macintosh computer, are becoming more and more
common. In general, these menus consist of a row of keywords
across the top of the screen, and when a item is selected, a list
of choices appears below it.  One item of the list is usually
highlighted, and you can move up and down the list using the
arrow keys.  If the item is highlighted using inverse video, or if
you select the proper enhancement using the shift C command,
then Flipper will track up and down the menu as you move the
selected item.  If the cursor keys are set as they are in the
default configuration, then the selected item will be read as you
move onto it.  This makes use of these menu systems very easy
and natural.  You simply move through the menu with the up
and down arrow keys until you get to the choice you want, and
you then select that item by using the return key.