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Text File | 1993-09-21 | 33KB | 606 lines

This is the instruction manual for HyperRead and HyperRead Generator. It is also a demonstration HyperRead file. You can flip through this document one page at a time using the <PgUp> and <PgDn> keys. You can move one line at a time by holding down the Ctrl key as you press <PgUp> or <PgDn>. You can also move through the document by pressing the up or down cursor key. If the screen cursor gets to the top or bottom of the screen and you continue pressing the cursor key, the text will scroll. You can move to the top of the document by pressing the <Home> key on your keyboard, or go to the end of the document by pressing the <End> key. You also can jump around in the document using the link words or phrases. Link phrases look like this. To jump to a section of text containing more information on a link phrase, use the cursor keys to move the screen cursor to the link phrase, then press the <J> key on the keyboard. You may do this repeatedly, going from one link word to another. You can backtrack along this path by pressing the key on the keyboard. There is more information on this "jumping" later in this document. You can also control HyperRead Generator using a mouse if you have one installed. This will be explained later (or you can jump to this subject now by jumping from the word "mouse" and then backtracking to this page when you are done). You may now read the manual. Enjoy, and feel free to experiment with the link phrases. Every few years, a new concept comes along that offers a whole new use for personal computers. Typical examples have been word processing, telecommunications and BBS's, spreadsheets, and desktop publishing. The latest new idea is hypertext. What is hypertext? It is an indexing system that allows people to use their computers to read computer text files quickly and easily. It does this by allowing them to jump from one part of the file to another, following whatever train of thought they want. In an ordinary printed document, the reader must read the document linearly. That is, the person must read from the beginning to the end, one page at a time. Sometimes the person can jump around a little by using the index or the table of contents, but this is very limited. The index can only list a few key words, and the pages listed for those words are usually simply where the word is defined or first mentioned. The table of contents points only to broad areas of the document where a general subject is discussed. In any case, flipping through the pages is time-consuming and tedious. With hypertext, the author of a document can create "tunnels" or links within a document that allow the reader to jump from one area of the document to another. The reader uses a computer to read the text on the screen. When he or she finds an important word or phrase in the text that needs clarifying, the computer can jump to the part of the text that explains the term or gives more information. For example, suppose you are reading a story about the history of the electric light bulb. The story mentions that it was invented by Thomas Edison. If you get curious about Edison, you can jump directly from that part of the text to the part that tells you more about Edison. That part of the text might mention some of Edison's other inventions. If you see one that looks interesting, you can jump directly to the part of the text that describes this invention. This can vastly increase the speed at which you can find information. HyperRead Generator and HyperRead are programs that allow you to create and distribute hypertext documents. HyperRead Generator allows you to convert an ordinary ASCII text file into a hypertext document, which you may then use or distribute. This program is shareware. It can be downloaded from various Bulletin Board Systems or ordered directly from Leithauser Research or a qualified distributor. HyperRead is the program that allows you to read the hypertext documents. This program is freeware, and you may distribute it freely with any HyperRead files you create. Both programs can be used with or without a mouse. Before explaining how to use HyperRead Generator, an explanation of how to operate HyperRead will be helpful. This is partly because the person who reads the document will be using HyperRead, so a thorough understanding of HyperRead is important to anyone who plans to use HyperRead Generator to create HyperRead files. It is also helpful to understand HyperRead because HyperRead Generator operates almost identically to HyperRead, except that it has some extra functions and is missing a few minor ones from HyperRead. Using HyperRead To read a HyperRead file, you need only run HyperRead and load the desired HyperRead document. There are two ways you can do this. You can simply type the program name (HR4) at the DOS prompt. If there are more than one HyperRead files in the current default directory, the computer will then display a list of HyperRead files and ask you which file to load (Otherwise it simply loads the one file). Type the name of the file and press the ENTER key. Note: All HyperRead documents actually consist of two files. There is a text document file that can have any name and extension. There is also a control file that has the extension HRF. It is not necessary to type this extension to load the file. For example, to load the file GENERATE.HRF, just enter the name GENERATE. Another way to run HyperRead and load a file is to type the program name (HR4) followed by the name of the file to load at the DOS prompt. For example, this file is called GENERATE.HRF. You can run the program and load this file at the same time by typing HR4 GENERATE at the DOS prompt (it is not necessary to include the extension). This feature makes it easy to create a batch file that automatically runs the HyperRead program and loads a HyperRead file. When the program has loaded the file, it will display the first page of the file. At the bottom of the screen, you will see a list of options. These options are PgUp, Home, Help, Load, Quit, Jump, Backtrack, Search, Print, End, and PgDn. For the PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End options, press these keys on the keyboard. For the other options, press the first letter of the option. These options are explained below. PgDn Pressing the <PgDn> key moves the page of text on the screen to the next page. That is, it scrolls down 23 lines. If you hold down the <Ctrl> key while pressing the <PgDn> key, however, the screen will scroll only one line. PgUp Pressing the <PgUp> key scrolls the text up 23 lines. If you hold down the <Ctrl> key while pressing this key, however, the text will scroll only one line. Home Pressing the <Home> key moves you directly to the first page of the document. If you are in the middle of a long document, this can be a faster way to get to the beginning than repeatedly pressing <PgUp>. End Pressing the <End> key moves you to the last page of the document. If you want to get to a page near the end, you can press <End> and then <PgUp> a few times. This is sometimes faster than pressing <PgDn> repeatedly. Cursor Keys You can move the screen cursor with the cursor keys and also scroll through the document by moving beyond the top or bottom of the screen. Help This option displays a Help screen. This screen gives a short summary of the other options and how to use them. After viewing this help screen, you can press the space bar to return to the HyperRead document. Load This loads a document file into memory. The computer will display a list of HyperRead documents in the current directory. Type the name of the file and press ENTER. It is not necessary to include the extension. This option allows you to read several documents without returning to DOS to reload HyperRead and load a new document. Quit This option ends the programs and returns you to DOS. Jump This is the function that allows you to move directly to another area of the document that is pointed to by a link word or phrase. If you have a color screen, the default color for link words is blue on a black background. If you have a monochrome screen, default color for link words is black on a white background. You can change these at program startup. To select a link word, use the keyboard cursor keys to move the flashing screen cursor until it is somewhere on the link word. Then press the <J> key. The computer will then display the page of text pointed to by the link word. Once you have moved to this page, you can move normally through the document using the <PgUp> and <PgDn> keys. You also can jump to other areas of the document from there using other link words. For example, suppose you jumped to a page using the link word "Thomas Edison" and that page contained the link word "light bulb." You could then jump directly to the page pointed to by "light bulb." If the link word is the name of a PCX picture file, "jumping" to it displays that picture on the screen. For example, moving the screen cursor to the word SATURN.PCX and pressing the <J> key will display a sketch of Saturn. Pressing any keyboard key (except control keys like Shift, Ctrl, or Alt) or either mouse button will return you to the document text. If the link word is an executable file name with an EXE, COM, or BAT extension, "jumping" to it will cause HyperRead to run that program (assuming that it exists in the current directory). For example, jumping from the word NOTHING.COM will run the NOTHING.COM program. When the program or batch file finishes running, HyperRead will come back and display the page it was on before you ran the program. Backtrack This function allows you to reverse the effects of the Jump function. When you press the key, the computer will take you back to the page containing the most recently used link word. For example, if you jumped to a destination page using the link word "Thomas Edison," pressing the key would take you back to the page containing "Thomas Edison." You can use the backtrack function repeatedly. For example, suppose you jumped to a page pointed to by "Thomas Edison" and that page contained the link word "light bulb." You then used the "light bulb" link word to jump to another page. Pressing the key twice would jump back to the page containing "light bulb" and then to the page containing "Thomas Edison." You can repeat this process until you reach the page containing the first link word you used. Search This option allows you to search the document for a specific text string, such as a name. It is handy if you want to find information on a subject, and there is no link word on the screen that would take you to that subject. When you pick this option, the computer will ask you for the string of text to search for. Type the string and press ENTER. If you have already used this option, the default will be the last string you searched for. This allows you to easily continue the search if you want more information on the string. The computer will always begin the search at the line the screen cursor is on in the document. It does not find any appearances of the string that occur before this in the document. The search is case-insensitive. That is, it disregards capitalization. If you asked the computer to search for "home," it would find "home," "Home," and "HOME." The program searches each line of text for the search string. It will not find the string if it is broken by the end of a line. For example, if the string were "George Washington," the program would not find it if the text contained the word George on one line and Washington on the next. For this reason, it is best if you limit your search string to one word if possible. When the program finds the search string, it displays the page of text containing the string. The line containing the string will be at the top of the screen. If the document does not contain the string after the current screen cursor position, the program will display a message saying "String not found. Press space bar to continue." When you press the space bar, the text will be at the same point where you started the search. Print The Print function will send a copy of the document to the printer. If the document contains page feed characters, HyperRead will use those to format the document. Otherwise, HyperRead will create its own formatting. It will print out the document with margins at the top and bottom of the page and a page number at the bottom of each page. To use this feature, set the printer at the top of a page of formfeed paper, turn it on, and press the key on the keyboard. This is intended primarily for people who are distributing HyperRead instructions for their Shareware or public domain programs. This makes it unnecessary to include a separate ASCII file of the instructions to print. Mouse Support If you have a mouse driver installed, HyperRead will support the mouse. If you have a mouse driver installed, you will have two cursors on the screen. One is controlled by the mouse and one is controlled by the keyboard cursor keys. The mouse cursor is somewhat darker in color. You might need to move the mouse around a bit to help you find the mouse cursor. You can use the mouse to operate the HyperRead navigation functions. Moving the mouse cursor to the word PgUp at the bottom of the screen and pressing the left mouse button (known as "clicking on it") has the same effect as pressing the <PgUp> key. Clicking on PgUp with the left mouse button has the same effect as <Ctrl-PgUp>. Clicking on PgDn at the bottom of the screen with the left mouse button has the same effect as pressing <PgDn>. Clicking on it with the right mouse button has the same effect as <Ctrl-PgDn>. Clicking on Home or End at the bottom of the screen with either mouse button has the same effect as pressing the <Home> or <End> buttons. Clicking on a link word with the left mouse button causes HyperRead to jump to the information referenced by that link word, just as pressing the <J> key does. Pressing the right mouse button causes HyperRead to backtrack through the links just like pressing the key does, regardless of where the mouse cursor is located. Other functions, such as Load, Quit, and Search, cannot be controlled using the mouse. In some cases this is to prevent you from accidentally activating the function (like Quit) with the mouse. In other cases it is because the function requires keyboard input anyway, such as the word to search for. Using HyperRead Generator HyperRead Generator creates the HyperRead control file that allows HyperRead to read a HyperRead file. First, you must create the document you want to convert to hypertext on your own word processor or text editor. Almost any word processor will do, provided it can create and save a file with the following characteristics: 1) The file must be saved in plain ASCII. 2) There must be a carriage return at the end of each line 3) Each line of the file must be less than 80 characters long. If your word processor saves a document with lines longer than this, you must use some text editor or other program to break up the lines into lines of 79 characters or less. The EDIT function that comes with DOS 5.0 and above will serve nicely for this purpose. 4) The document may contain page feed characters (ASCII character 12) to force page feeds. However, it must not contain tab characters (ASCII character 9). Convert any such characters in your document to a series of spaces. 5) The lines of the document may not contain any embedded line feeds other than those that accompany carriage returns. 6) The document may not contain any nonprinting characters, such as bells or Esc characters. It may contain printable ASCII characters, such as graphic characters (ASCII 129 and above). What all this really amounts to is that the document must be pure ASCII. When you run HyperRead Generator (HRG4.EXE) or select the Load option, HyperRead Generator will ask if you are loading a new file. A new file would be an ASCII document that you have not yet created a HyperRead control file for. If you press Y, HyperRead Generator will display a directory of all documents in the correct directory and ask you which one to load. Type the full name and press ENTER. HyperRead Generator will then load the file. If you press N when the program asks you if it is a new file, HyperRead Generator will display a list of HyperRead control files. Type the name of the file you want to load and press ENTER. You can then add new links to the old document. Once you have loaded a file, HyperRead Generator operates very much like the HyperRead program. You load and view files the same way as with HyperRead. HyperRead Generator simply has several additional options that allow you to create the link words and save the new document to disk. The Print and Help HyperRead options are omitted from HyperRead Generator. You do not need these options with HyperRead Generator, anyway. You do no need the Help option, since you can print out the manual using HyperRead. You also can use your copy of HyperRead to print the file, if you want to see how it looks printed out by HyperRead. The additional options for HyperRead Generator are Mark, Unmark, and Disk. These options are explained below. Mark This is the option to create the HyperRead links that allow the reader to jump from one part of the document to another. You can create up to 1000 links in each document. If you try to create more, the computer will just beep at you. To create a link, move the document with the <PgUp> and <PgDn> keys so the word or phrase you want to turn into a link phrase is on the screen. Then use the cursor keys to move the screen cursor to the beginning of the word or phrase. Press the <M> key. Use the right cursor key to move the cursor to the end of the desired link word or phrase. You will notice that the word becomes blue (or reverse video with a monochrome display) as you move the cursor. You can use the left cursor key to backtrack if you go too far. When you have marked the entire link word or phrase, press the ENTER key. That ends the marking. Now move the document to the part of the document that you want the link word to point to (called the destination page). You can use all the normal movement techniques, such as PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End, to move within the document. You can even use the Search or Jump options. When you have found the beginning of the destination page, move the screen cursor (with the cursor keys) to the desired first line of the destination page. That is, the line that you want to be at the top of the screen when the user selects the link word. With the cursor on that line, press the <M> key again. The link is now established. The computer will then go back to the page with the link word. You can abort the marking process at any time until you have marked the destination page. Just press the <Esc> key to abort marking. The entire link word or phrase must be on one line. That is, once you have marked the beginning of the link phrase with the <M> key, you cannot move to the next line. Suppose you want to mark a phrase that is split at the end of a line. To do this, first mark the phrase up to the end of the first line. Hit the ENTER key, go to the destination page, and mark it with the <M> key just as you normally would. Then go back to the link phrase, mark the rest of the phrase starting at the beginning of the second line. Point this link phrase at the same destination page. What you are actually doing is creating two link phrases that point at the same page. It will act, however, as if the link phrase extended over several lines. If you want to create a link to a PCX file so that jumping from that link displays the file, simply include the name of the file in your ASCII document. Then mark the entire file name including the .PCX extension. After you have marked the word and pressed ENTER, simply press M to link the word to itself. If the link word ends in ".PCX", HyperRead automatically assumes that it is a PCX file and tries to load it. For example, the file name SATURN.PCX has been included in this document and linked. Clicking on it with the left mouse button or pressing the <J> key while the screen cursor is on it will display the picture. If the program cannot find this PCX file, it will display an error message. If you want to create a link to an EXE, COM, or batch file so HyperRead will run that program, simply put the name of the program in your ASCII text document. You must include the ".EXE", ".COM", or ".BAT" extension in the name. You may include command-line parameters. Mark the full name of the file (including command-line parameters) and link the word to itself. For example, NOTHING.COM has been marked in this document. If HyperRead cannot find the file when you try to jump to it, HyperRead will return to its original state with no error message. Unmark This function allows you to remove a link. Use the keyboard cursor keys to move the screen cursor to the link phrase you want to remove. Then press the key. The phrase will no longer be a link phrase. Disk Pressing the <D> key causes the program to save the HyperRead control file on disk. If this is the first time you have saved this file, HyperRead Generator saves the file with the same name as the original ASCII text file, but with the HRF extension replacing whatever extension your ASCII file had. If you loaded a document that already had a control file, HyperRead Generator will use the same name the control file had when you loaded it. You should always save the control file before ending the program if you have made any changes in it (marked or unmarked any link words). HyperRead Generator does not modify the original ASCII document file in any way. Only the control file is changed or created. PCX graphics For HyperRead or HyperRead Generator to display a graphic, it must be in the 16 color, 640 by 350 pixel format. There are basically two ways to generate such pictures. You can use a scanner to scan existing hard copy pictures, or you can create such pictures using a paint program such as Windows Paintbrush. If you use the scanner, you must be careful to set the scanning program to generate the proper type of file. If you use a paint program, you must be sure to set the palette and picture properties correctly. The easiest way to do this is to load the BLANK.PCX file provided with HyperRead Generator into the paint program. This will automatically configure the paint program to the proper settings. You can then draw on the blank screen. When you are finished, save the picture using the Save As option and give the picture a different name. If you do not change the name, you will overwrite the BLANK.PCX file, making it harder to create pictures in the future. Note: Some paint programs, including Windows Paint, create pictures that are slightly distorted (thinner) when viewed by HyperRead. To compensate for this, you might want to draw the pictures a little thicker horizontally than you want them to appear on the screen. The pictures will then look correct when displayed by HyperRead. You might want to create a few sample pictures of circles and squares and load these into HyperRead to check this out before you create any elaborate pictures with your paint program. Modifying HyperRead documents Once you have created a HyperRead control file for a document, you should not change the ASCII text file. Doing so can mess up your link pointers or cause other undesirable results. In particular, any change that decreases the total number of lines in the file will cause HyperRead to crash when trying to load the file. If you add lines, the new lines will not be read in when you load the document into HyperRead. If you add lines in the middle of a document, all links after the added lines will be in the wrong places. Adding text in a line will cause all links on that line after the added text to be wrong. About the only changes you can make to the ASCII file are minor corrections to lines that contain no links, provided the corrections do not change the number of lines in the file. (Of course, you could unmark the links and then restore them after you make the corrections.) For these reasons, it is strongly recommended that you thoroughly proofread your document before you run it through HyperRead Generator. Of course, in a worst case scenario, you can delete the control file for your document and start all over with the linking process by loading the modified document into HyperRead Generator as a new file. Mouse support HyperRead Generator uses the mouse the same way as HyperRead. System Requirements Both HyperRead and HyperRead Generator should run on any IBM compatible computer with at least 256 K of memory. The text portion of the document will display on any display system, even an old MDA card with a monochrome display. To display the PCX files, you must have an EGA or better graphic card. The Print option will work with any type of printer, even a daisy-wheel. Distributing HyperRead Documents To distribute a HyperRead Document, you need to include in the package the following items: 1) Your original ASCII text file. 2) The HyperRead control file for that document with the HRF extension. 3) The HyperRead program. This is a freeware program, so you can distribute unlimited copies. It is suggested but not required that you include the READER.DOC and READER.HRF files with the program itself so the user can fully understand the features of the reader. Otherwise, your document itself should include considerable instructions on how to use HyperRead. 4) Any PCX, COM, EXE, or BAT files that you have linked with your document. Uses for HyperRead You can use this program to create any type of easy-to-read document you like. For example, you can create a HyperRead instruction manual. The users can quickly zero in on any problems they have by using link words to go to more and more specific descriptions of the problem. This document is an example of such a file. Instruction manuals for shareware programs are a particularly good use for HyperRead. HyperRead reference "books" can also be easy to use. Consider a HyperRead cookbook. The first few pages of the HyperRead file could be a list of recipes. The name of each recipe could be a link word or phrase. The user could jump directly to the recipe by pointing to it with the cursor and pressing the <J> key. Within the recipes, some of the more unusual ingredients could be link words. These links could take the reader to a section at the end of the "book" that gives information on the ingredients. In a similar fashion, you could make each item in a table of contents of any file a link phrase. The reader can then jump directly to that page using the link phrase. A more entertaining use of the HyperRead function is interactive fiction. This is an increasingly popular form of literature. In such a book, the reader does not read the book from start to finish. Instead, the book offers the reader choices on what to read. A typical story might say something like, "If you want to explore the cave, turn to page 38. If you want to continue on the path, go to the next page." With HyperRead, you could have the reader select which action to take by selecting the proper link phrase. The program would then take the reader to the proper page. This is similar to text adventure games. Registering HyperRead Generator HyperRead Generator is shareware. You are free to experiment with it and create test documents for as long as you like. However, before you may distribute any HyperRead documents you create with HyperRead Generator, you are required to register it by sending $25.00 to: Leithauser Research 4649 Van Kleeck Drive New Smyrna Beach, FL 32169 This is a one-time fee. Once you have registered HyperRead Generator, you may use it on one computer to create as many HyperRead documents as you like without paying any additional fees.