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Object-Oriented Application Development with VisualAGE for C++ for OS2.iso
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1995-09-07
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VISUAL AGE C++* CD Demo ------ README ------
Contents:
---------
Installation Instructions
How To Improve the DEMO's Performance
Navigation Hints
Hardware and Software Requirements
Other Tips and Hints
-------------------------
Installation Instructions
-------------------------
You need Microsoft's Video for Windows* * drivers installed on your system to play the
demo. If the demo stops, or you see a "black box" on the opening screens with nothing
happening, you need to install the video drivers. See Installation Notes (following) for
instructions on how to set up Video for Windows.
If you already have Video for Windows installed, you can run this demo in a variety of ways.
To run the demo completely from the CD (copying nothing to your hard drive) you can:
Run the Demo from Program Manager:
1) Place the CD into your CD-ROM drive
2) From Program Manager, select the FILE pull-down menu, then select RUN...
3) On the command line, type the full path to the demo, including the drive letter (you can
use the Browse button to help you find the correct directory)
4) type PRESENT.EXE VISUAL.IWM
For example, type x:\[path]\PRESENT.EXE VISUAL.IWM
where x is the CD-ROM drive letter and [path] is the location of the demo on the CD-ROM.
5) Select OK to run the demo.
You can also run the demo from File Manager:
1) Locate the PRESENT.EXE in the demo's directory on the CD ROM
2) Double click on the PRESENT.EXE file
3) When Present loads, choose the FILE pull-down menu, then OPEN...
4) Select VISUAL.IWM
5) Click on the OK button to start the demo
>>Note: because File Manager makes demands on limited Windows resources, you should
close the File Manager after launching the demo.
-------------------------------------------
Installation Notes
------------------------------------------
SOUND AND MOVIE DRIVERS
>The demo requires the use of Microsoft's Video for Windows 1.1 runtime, as well as a
valid sound driver for sound.
If you are not sure whether or not you have these drivers installed, you can check in the
Windows Control Panel:
1) From the MAIN program group, open the Control Panel by double-clicking on the icon
2) When the Control Panel opens, double-click on the DRIVERS Icon. If you have the
necessary drivers, you should see lines that say:
[MCI] Sound
[MCI] Microsoft Video for Windows
If you have these drivers, you should be able to run the demo without any trouble.
If you DON'T have these drivers, you have to install them for the demo to play properly:
1) For sound card drivers, you should consult your sound-card installation manual. To actually
install the [MCI] Sound drivers, you may also need your original Windows Installation
diskettes.
2) The Video for Windows Drivers are included with the Demo. You can install them directly
from the CD-ROM. These drivers require about 2mb of disk space on your Windows boot
drive (usually C:\):
a) From the Program Manager's FILE menu, select RUN...
b) Type the your CD's drive letter, and add the VFW11\DISK1\ directory.
c) Type SETUP.EXE on the command line (don't forget the path!)
For example, type x:\VFW11\DISK1\SETUP.EXE
where x is your CD's drive letter.
d) Click on OK to begin the installation
e) Follow the on-screen instructions.
SETTING UP A DEMO ICON IN A PROGRAM GROUP:
>>You can set up a program icon to launch the demo from the CD automatically:
1) From File Manager, you can click and drag the PRESENT.EXE icon form its location on
the CD to a Program Group.
2) Once you've copied the icon to the group, highlight it by single-clicking on the icon.
3) From Program Manager's FILE menu select PROPERTIES...
4) In the COMMAND LINE box, add a single space, then type VISUAL.IWM
6) Select OK to save your changes.
--------------------------------------------------------
How To Improve the DEMO's Performance
--------------------------------------------------------
This demo has been designed to run with minimum use of your system's
hard disk. The only extra files you require on your hard disk are Windows multimedia (MCI)
drivers (see SOUND AND MOVIE DRIVERS note above). The rest of the demo's files reside
on the CD-ROM.
You can improve the performance of the demo in three ways, however:
- by tweaking Window's system settings,
- installing portions of it on your hard disk, or
- installing the entire demo on your hard drive.
WINDOWS AND MULTIMEDIA
============================
As a general rule, your system is only as stable or as fast as the drivers you use for various
components.
>>Make sure you are using the most recent versions of your video and sound card drivers.
Make sure your CD driver is also up to date. You can do this by contacting the manufacturer
of your peripherals.
>>Windows allows you to change the memory buffering of the [MCI] SOUND driver. If the
demo's sound is breaking up too much, try changing this setting to its maximum:
1) From the MAIN program group, open the Control Panel by double-clicking on the icon
2) When the Control Panel opens, double-click on the DRIVERS Icon.
3) Highlight the [MCI] Audio driver by single clicking on it
4) Select the SETUP button.
5) Move the slider all the way to the right (9 seconds)
6) Choose OK.
>>In MS-DOS or PC-DOS 6.0 or above, you can use SMARTDRIVE to cache your CD-ROM.
If you have RAM available, try giving the CD 1024k (1mb) or more of cache space. See
the online help for SMARTDRIVE for help on how to do this.
>>You can increase the number of buffers of your DOS CD-ROM driver (MSCDEX). This line is
in your autoexec.bat file; change it with CAUTION. See your DOS documentation for more on
MSCDEX.
=================================
>> INSTALLING ONLY PRESENT FILES TO YOUR HARD DRIVE (+- 4mb)
First, to improve the speed of the PRESENT software, you can install certain files to your hard
drive and set up a program icon for the demo. This requires about 4mb of hard drive space.
1) Copy the files from the root directory of the demo, as well as the contents of the IWARE
directory, to your hard drive. Make sure you maintain the directory structure. The only thing
that should be missing from the CD demo is the MEDIA directory.
2) With Notepad or any other ASCII editor, edit the IAUTHOR.PTH file found in the demo's
subdirectory. >>You may have to change it's "READ-ONLY" attributes to save the file!
Replace the entries for the various parts of the demo. Since you've moved information to your
hard drive, you need to tell PRESENT where the Demo files are.
a) For example, any entry that reads MEDIA will need to be changed to the full path of the
CD-ROM. For example, the Graphics path might look like this:
@_GRAPHIC_PATH
media
You will need to change this as follows:
@_GRAPHIC_PATH
x:\[path]\media
where x is the letter of your CD drive and [path] is the directory path to the Demo's
directory on the CD-ROM.
Make sure you change all MEDIA entries to this path.
b) Similarly, you need to change the path for the IWARE entries as well, but this time, point
the path to where you've copied the files to your hard drive. For example, any entry that
reads IWARE should be changed. The ICONWARE path might look like this:
@_ICONWARE_PATH
iware
You will need to change this as follows:
@_ICONWARE_PATH
x:\[path]\iware
where x is the letter of your hard drive and [path] is the directory path to the hard drive
directory where you copied the files. For example, if you copied the files to a \DEMO\
directory in your C:\ drive, your path entry for all the IWARE entries would read:
c:\DEMO\iware
3) Save this file as IAUTHOR.PTH
4) Set up a program icon to launch the demo from your hard drive automatically:
a) From File Manager, you can click and drag the PRESENT.EXE icon from its new
location on your hard drive to a Program Group.
b) Once you've copied the icon to the group, highlight it by single-clicking on the icon.
c) From Program Manager's FILE menu select PROPERTIES...
d) In the COMMAND LINE box, add a single space, then type VISUAL.IWM
e) You can also add a new icon for the demo, which is included in the same directory
as PRESENT, and is called VISUAL.ICO
f) Select OK to save your changes.
5) When you double-click on the program icon, make sure the CD-ROM is still in your CD drive!
=============================
INSTALLING ALL THE FILES TO YOUR HARD DRIVE (+- 32mb)
If you have the disk space, this will greatly improve the demo's performance.
1) Copy the contents of the entire CD-ROM demo directory to a target directory on your hard
disk. Maintain the directory structure of the CD-ROM by using an option with your copy
program, such as the "/s" option with XCOPY.
2) With Notepad or any other ASCII editor, edit the IAUTHOR.PTH file found in the demo's
subdirectory. >>You may have to change it's "READ-ONLY" attributes to save the file!
Make sure this file reflects the new hard drive and directory path information--the path needs
to be explicit for the demo to run. Save this file as VISUAL.PTH
For example, if you moved the entire demo contents to a directory named CPPDEMO on
your C:\ drive, then all your path entries will read either:
C:\CPPDEMO\media
or
C:\CPPDEMO\IWARE
depending on what they were originally.
3) Save this file as IAUTHOR.PTH
4) Set up a program icon to launch the demo from your hard drive automatically:
a) From File Manager, you can click and drag the PRESENT.EXE icon from its new
location on your hard drive to a Program Group.
b) Once you've copied the icon to the group, highlight it by single-clicking on the icon.
c) From Program Manager's FILE menu select PROPERTIES...
d) In the COMMAND LINE box, add a single space, then type VISUAL.IWM
e) You can also add a new icon for the demo, which is included in the same directory
as PRESENT, and is called VISUAL.ICO
f) Select OK to save your changes.
5) When you double-click on the program icon, the demo will run entirely from your hard drive.
You will no longer need to have the CD in your CD drive.
Navigation Hints
----------------
To end the demo quickly and return to your desktop, press the ESC key at any time during the
demo.
The first graphic which is displayed by the demo is that of a spinning globe. To go to the the
main menu, just click the right or left mouse button anywhere within this window.
The main menu has 3 major topics:
- What's New
- Attractions
- Ordering Information
Clicking on the <-' graphic on the lower right corner of the window will always return you
to the MAIN MENU. The <-- and --> graphic will move you backward and forward though
the demo. Clicking on any of the MAIN MENU items will take you to those items. The small
red door graphic on the left-hand side of the window is the EXIT button. Click on this if
you wish to end the demo.
The ATTRACTIONS section has a sub-menu to allow you to navigate through the various
features of VisualAge C++. At the end of each Features section, the demo will pause for
10 seconds, and then return to the sub-menu. If you wish to continue to the next section,
click on the --> graphic.
Hardware and Software Requirements
----------------------------------
The minimum system requirements for this demo are:
- Windows 3.x (with DOS) and multimedia device drivers (See above note on Video for
Windows drivers)
- Double speed CD-ROM drive
- Audio Card
- 8 Megabytes of memory
- 486DX processor, running at 33 MHz
>>This demo has been designed to run in 256 colors. It will run with more
colors on the screen, but with some video cards you may notice some image degradation.
Other Tips and Hints
--------------------
Online Product Info:
>>If you run the demo full screen (640 x 480), and select any of the product information
files, make sure you EXIT them when you're done reading. If you minimize them, you will
need to use the Windows task list (CTRL-ESC) to select the files again (and the WRITE
program) to exit them before you can continue with the demo!
Copyright 1995 International Business Machines Corporation
All right reserved.