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Software Vault: The Gold Collection
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Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO
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QFORM.DOC
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1993-06-10
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88 lines
QFORM December 1992 William Barden, Jr.
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Purpose: QFORM.BAS is a QBasic program that helps you
design forms and dialog boxes.
Format: QBASIC /RUN QFORM.BAS
Remarks: Load the program as shown above. The screen will
clear, and you will see a cursor in the upper
left-hand corner. It will blink to show that the
program is running.
To navigate about the screen, use any of the arrow
keys. The cursor will move with each keypress as
long as it's moving within the parameters of the
program's page.
The program's screen shows 24 lines of the form at
any given time. You cannot scroll beyond the 80-
character width to the left or the right of the
screen, but you can scroll down to the next segment
of the form. A complete form may have up to 66 lines
and is divided into three horizontal segments, each
up to 22 lines deep. As you move the cursor to
the bottom of the screen, the next segment of the
page pops up and the cursor zooms from the bottom
of the screen to the top. This is not a bug, but
a feature. Since each screen can display 24 lines,
and each segment of the page is 22 lines, there's
some overlap which serves as a useful guide when
you're positioning lines on a form.
When you start the program, you move the cursor
solely to navigate; but entering single-letter
commands, you can use the cursor to draw double
lines onscreen. Press P (for pen-down mode), and
press any of the arrow keys to add the lines to
the screen. When you press a different arrow key
to change the direction of the line, the program
will select the appropriate ASCII intersection
character such as a double-line corner. The
intersections that the program inserts are more
sophisticated than mere corners, however. You'll
notice that whenever you cross a vertical line
with a horizontal one, or vice versa, QFORM
automatically makes a cross-line segment. You
can also draw a line perpendicular to an existing
line, forming a T-line segment.
Since it's extremely unlikely that you will get
through a drawing session without making any
mistakes, there's a need for the ability to
delete, a function the C key is programmed to
handle. If you make a mistake, press the C key
to clear the character at the current cursor
position. To clear multiple characters,
alternately press C and the appropriate arrow
key.
Because drawing only connected lines is restric-
tive, QFORM has a pen-up mode that restores your
ability to move the cursor without drawing lines.
Press the cursor without drawing lines. Press the
P key a second time to lift the figurative pen from
the screen and to move the cursor without leaving
a trail. The pen-up mode stays in force until you
press it again to begin drawings.
To save the form you're currently working on to
your hard disk, press W (for write mode). On the
bottom line of the screen, the message "Save file
as (press Enter to cancel):" will appear. To save
the file to disk, enter a filename (including a
path) to save the file to a different directory
and press Enter. If you've pressed the W key by
accident, simply press Enter on a blank line to
return to the screen.
Once you've finished with a QFORM session, press
X to exit and the program will return you to the
DOS prompt.
Files created with QFORM are pure ASCII files that
can be processed by most other word processors and
text editors.