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Text File | 1992-04-24 | 38KB | 834 lines

Windows Online(tm) "the Weekly" April 25, 1992 - Issue 38 ═════════════════════════ Windows Online "the Weekly"(tm) (WOLW) is published electronically every Saturday and distributed through many well known on-line services. WOLW contains articles and weekly columns by WOL's staff and freelance writers. Subject matter includes all aspects of MS Windows(tm) and its associated applications and utilities. Also covered are OS/2, Computer News, Communications and other GUI subjects. If you are interested in writing for "the Weekly" contact us through the numbers listed at the end of this publication. ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ WINDOWS ONLINE(tm) NEWS Written for WOL by Randy Wong Computer News Notebook Prices Dropping ──────────────────────── Starting in June, the prices on notebook computers will be dropping as more vendors begin to ship their products. As the new 386 SLC based notebooks hit the streets, vendors with the 386SX based notebooks will be dropping their prices. As 486 and color products begin to trickle out, 386 SLC prices will then drop in price. It is going to be a series of price drops, as vendors try to stay below each other with the best price. Leading will be IBM, with notebooks that will start at $1,800. Since IBM prices mark the spot, vendors will generally price their products at or below IBM's prices. Shipping in April, Dell Computer Corp., will be pushing the model NL25 notebook, powered by a 80386SL 25 MHz processor, and priced at $1,999. Other vendors, such as Leading Edge Products and the Beaver Computer, will be pushing notebooks under $3,000. As more and more vendors deliver their notebook products to market, end users will be getting better equipment at better prices than what is being sold at the moment. Open Database Conductivity ────────────────────────── With the shipping of Microsoft Excel 4.0, (included secretly) is Microsoft's initial version of a new standard relational database access method, called Open Database Conductivity (ODBC). Microsoft plans to include ODBC technology in Excel and its Cirrus Database product. Excel 4.0, at this moment, includes a partial and starter of the ODBC technology. A fully developed version of ODBC will probably be available in Microsoft's products by the end of the year. ODBC is based on the SQL Access Group's Call Level Interface specifications, which is based on the Structured Query Language (SQL). Several vendors have announced future plans to support ODBC already, such as Digital Equipment Corp., NCR Corp., Novell Inc., Oracle Corp., and others. AutoCAD Extending To Windows ──────────────────────────── Autodesk, Inc. began its move towards Microsoft Windows, by way of adding an extension to AutoCAD, called AutoCAD Release 11 Extension for Windows. This is the first step for Autodesk for their mainstream computer-aided design product, to merge into the Windows Streamline. The Extension will sport such features as a tool bar, clipboard functions, Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), and Help functions, but it must be running in conjunction with the main DOS AutoCAD. A full pledge Windows AutoCAD is in the works, but for many CAD programs, it requires 32-bit capabilities, which can only come from Windows NT, which might be appearing at the end of the year. AutoCAD Release 11 Extension for Windows is available now, and the cost is $99.00. Waiting For OS/2 2.0 ──────────────────── IBM has quietly spread the word to users of all versions of OS/2 (meaning version 1.0 through 1.3) that they are eligible for a free upgrade to the new 32-bit OS/2 2.0 product. From what IBM is saying, if you want to upgrade now, call IBM OS/2 hotline 1-(800)-3-IBM-OS2, and they will explain to you how to download it electronically, for immediate upgrade, on the same day, if need be. OS/2 1.3 Extended Edition users will also qualify for an upgrade to OS/2 2.0 plus a newly released Extended Services 2.0 product, call Gratis. As for the rest of us users who want to purchase or upgrade to the 32-bit operating system, be they Microsoft Windows users or DOS users they will have to wait until the end of this month for the product to reach the retailers. Visual Basic Connects Mainframes ──────────────────────────────── Wall Data, Inc. has announced the release of Rumba Tools For Visual Basic. The set of tools was designed to work with Microsoft Visual Basic development environment for creating Windows graphical front-end designs to mainframe and minicomputer applications. Included tool kit adds several Custom Controls to Visual Basic's standard control tools. With these new controls, a developer can begin creating a 3270 screen, text fields, PF keys, and menus, which are translated from the original 3270 screen display. Rumba Tools for Visual Basic is priced at $195, but Rumba for 3270 and Rumba for AS/400 must be purchased separately. Developers who purchased the Microsoft's Professional Tools for Visual Basic should have received a coupon good for an evaluation copy of Rumba for 3270 or AS/400 and a free copy of the Rumba Visual Basic tool kit, plus source code samples. WordStar Buys Delrina ───────────────────── WordStar International, Inc. will be acquiring Delrina Corp., in a stock deal valued at $50 million dollars. Wordstar will issue between 11.5 million and 13 million of its shares for all outstanding Delrina stock. Even with the buy out, Delrina's development and operations will remain in Toronto. Delrina's has two main product groups, Perform for creating forms and Winfax for sending and receiving faxes from within a Windows application. Winfax would probably be integrated into Wordstar product lines, but Perform, may or may not stay. As for the financial standings, both companies had reported losses in the last quarter. Wordstar currently holds a mere 5% of the Word Processing market. ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ New Product Press Release Compiled for WOL by Rich Young SoftCraft Presenter v1.0 SoftCraft, Inc. announced that it is shipping SoftCraft Presenter(TM), a next-generation presentation graphics product that allows casual business users to easily produce high-impact, artistic business graphics. This Windows 3.x application is available immediately for $595. directly from SoftCraft. With SoftCraft Presenter, business users without artistic talent can quickly produce professional-looking, artistic slides and overheads, with no more effort than other presentation products What's more, for the first time on any platform, animated, multimedia business presentations are available with a single menu selection. Advanced Technology Presenter's unique "intelligent" clip art is what allows such sophisticated animation and artistic graphs at the click of a mouse. Intelligent clip art is made possible by advanced graphics technology that forms the core of Presenter. This technology is known as "constraint management" or relationship management. Presenter's constraint management technology applies the concepts of a spreadsheet program to graphics objects. That is, any attribute of an object, such as position, color or size, can be related to attributes of other objects in the presentation as well as to external data. These relationships are defined using formulas similar to spreadsheet formulas. With constraint management technology at its core, SoftCraft Presenter compares to other graphics programs much like a spreadsheet program compares to a calculator. Users are shielded from details, such as attributes and formulas, by intelligent clip art, templates, styles and menus, but have complete access to the full power of the technology if they desire. Key Features Features in SoftCraft Presenter made possible by constraint management technology are: Data-driven pictures: Memorable business graphs are automatically produced from spreadsheet data and modified as the data changes. Artistic intelligent objects are used to represent the user's data. As an illustration of the use of an intelligent object, think of a column graph where the columns are represented by pencils of various lengths (as might be used in a graph depicting school funding). If such a pencil were simply stretched along its length, the angle of the sharpened pencil tip and the length of the eraser would vary on each pencil. With Presenter's intelligent pencil, the tip angle and eraser length are preserved, resulting in a more realistic and higher quality presentation. Another example is a speedometer-type indicator where the needle angle, and even its color, depends on the associated data value. Data-driven Animation: Graphs with artistic pictures can be animated automatically and exported in standard Windows animation format. Data can be entered directly into Presenter's data sheet or linked to another application via Window's DDE. Intelligent Clip Art: Presenter provides a variety of business clip art that is more easily customized for a presentation than is conventional clip art. For example, artwork retains the proper subtle shading relationships when the user changes its color. Other key features of SoftCraft Presenter that are seldom found in other presentation graphics products include: Multimedia interface: In addition to the animation's produced by Presenter, other multimedia components, such as sound, animation clips and even video clips, can be added to a presentation via the Windows Multimedia extensions or Windows 3.1. Style sheets: To record and apply graphic attributes to objects to create a consistent look and make it easy to change the graphic appearance of the entire presentation. Bi-directional DDE data links and warm links: Warm links to data files with automatic or user-initiated updates. DDE hot links to other Windows applications with both import and export data links. With DDE export data links, users can drag or animate a column in a graph with the mouse to change the corresponding data in the remote application. Powerful drawing tools: Graduated fills of all shapes, shape and color blends, Bezier curves with full edit capability, typeface manipulation, rotate and skew, variable zoom and others. In addition, SoftCraft Presenter provides all the features expected in a state-of-the-art presentation graphics product: Outliner: The text for the entire presentation is entered (or imported from a word processor), edited and easily rearranged in the outliner, then automatically poured into place on the slides in the format specified by a template. Text can then be edited either directly on the slide, in the outliner or both. Word processing features include embedded text formatting, search and replace, and spell checking interface. Slide templates: Presenter ships with professionally designed templates. Templates define the general appearance of a presentation and provide a consistent look among slides. Each template file provides multiple slide types (title, word chart, graph, etc.), multiple color schemes and can be used for any output form factor or device. If desired, the user can easily customize existing templates or create new ones. Slide sorter: Visually rearrange slide sequence, copy or delete slides, or merge slides from multiple presentations using thumbnail images. Merged slides automatically take on the design and colors of the current presentation. Slide show: The on-screen slide show features include sound, animation, transition effects, overlays (builds) and hyperlinks. Presentation support materials: Output options include speaker notes, audience handouts and thumbnails (multiple slides per page). Fully editable graph components: All of the components of a graph can be customized just like any other graphical objects and yet the components remain linked to the data. The components even have intelligence to make them easy to modify; for example, the shading on the different faces of a 3D column is updated automatically if the column color is changed. Data import/export: Imports and exports industry-standard graphic, text and data formats. On-line, context-sensitive help: Appropriate documentation for each procedure, menu, dialog and even individual clip art objects is accessible with a mouse click. SoftCraft has been developing and publishing PC software since 1982 and is best-known for its award-winning font products, Fancy Font and the Font Solution Pack. SoftCraft, Inc. is located at 16 N. Carroll Street, Suite 500, Madison, WI 53703; or phone (800) 351-0500, (608) 257-3300 or FAX (608) 257-6733. ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ WINDOWS SOFTWARE REVIEW Written for WOL by Brian Parks FAXGrabber CALERA RECOGNITION SYSTEMS When is a fax not a fax? When you receive it with your fax card. If you, like I, own and use a fax card you have a problem. In the past fax card users have only been able to print or view received faxes. This is because they are captured by your card as graphic images. For me this was a major headache, as I often receive faxes that I would like to save into other text files, not to mention the amount of hard drive space each fax image may take up as a graphic image. Calera Recognition Systems has created the most promising solution to the problem of the "fake fax". Utilizing Calera's omnifont OCR technology, FAXGrabber converts large fax images received from your PC fax card into smaller text files that can be edited, indexed or re-routed. Your fax documents are automatically delivered into a form you can use with your favorite word processor, spreadsheet, or desktop publishing application: With FAXGrabber, your faxes can be reviewed, edited and faxed right from your desktop. And, you can integrate faxes into other documents or distribute them to others through e-mail. All of this SOUNDS really good but my question is, does it work? The answer is YES and very well. FAXGrabber delivers exactly what it promises, no questions asked. But of course there is always a catch. The catch here is that FAXGrabber really wants to do all of it's work in the background but DOS and Windows aren't willing to allow true multitasking (how many times have you heard that before) so the end result is that during the recognition process, everything else slows down. While I haven't found the reduced speed a real problem, it is somewhat annoying. This is an easy program to install and use but before you do, you need to make a few decisions about how you want it to run and when. For instance, if you really don't expect a lot of incoming faxes, why have it automatically launch or monitor for incoming faxes? Remember that as it scans your in box for new faxes (about every 16 seconds) your system slows down. FAXGrabber does not have a "group" of it's own. In fact it only shows you one icon when it is running. But with this icon, you can perform the following functions: Click the icon once and display the setup dialog box. This houses the commands for changing the setting and closing down the program. Double clicking the icon causes FAXGrabber to send a request to your fax board for any new faxes and then processes them. Shift-double-click, causes the program to display a file selection dialog box where you can select a file for processing. There are three other icons that FAXGrabber uses in its program to call-up other Windows applications. These icons remain hidden until FAXGrabber processes a fax. These "mini-apps." are: Preview Queue Clicking this icon brings up a graphic application that you specify, to view the fax image. From here you can cut or copy a portion of the file to be submitted for recognition. FAXGrabber works with a variety of graphic file formats including PCX, TIFF uncompressed and packbits as well as others. Postview Queue Click this icon to open an editor, like Windows Write, to edit the file (text can be saved in one of many supported formats, anything from Ami Pro to XyWrite III +) Clipboard Queue Clicking this icon does much the same as the Postview Queue icon. It loads one document page into the clipboard allowing it to be pasted into an editor. Although this is a great product, FAXGrabber's accuracy leaves a lot to be desired. Actually, let me restate that. The better the fax being sent, the better the end results will be. As with most OCR products, FAXGrabber worked better with some fonts and worse with others. Although, in most cases, it was still faster than typing whole document by hand. Would I recommend this product to fax card users? You betcha. The shortfalls that I have discussed were not those of FAXGrabbers', and none were bothersome enough to make me give up on the whole idea. FAXGrabber is an excellent product that may be just a litttle ahead of its' time or technology. Features include: Background Processing allows you to work in your word processor, spreadsheet or any other application while the conversion process occurs. Auto-monitoring of your fax directory for immediate conversion of fax images to text. Preview Fax lets you check the fax image and determine whether you want to convert the document to your application or clip out a portion of the text to be read. File Compression takes large fax files and converts the fax images to smaller text files for quick printing and easy retrieval. "Cut and Paste" utilizes the Windows clipboard feature for easy fax routing to most popular e-mail programs. Auto-Orientation determines page size or orientation automatically. Image Enhancement allows you to recognize faxes sent in standard and fine mode. System Requirements 2 MB memory, 6 MB hard disk space, DOS 3.1 or later, Windows 3.0 or later, mouse. Supported fax boards include: Intel Co-Processor and SatisFAXtion, Frecom96, The Complete PC Fax 9600 CAS-Compatible Fax Cards and any fax card that is supported by Alien Computing's FAXit software when FAXit is installed. FAXGrabber is shipping now with a list price of $149.00 For more information on FAXGrabber, contact: CALERA RECOGNITION SYSTEMS 475 Potrero Avenue Sunnyvale, CA. 94086 1 800 544-7051 If you've unearthed a rare find, take a minute and drop me a line. Brian Parks c/o WINDOWS ONLINE. Copyright (c) 1992, Brian A. Parks ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ ╒═══════════════╕ │ Visual Basics │ └───────────────┘ by Barry Seymour I've talked before in this column about fit and finish, look and feel. The little touches go a long way towards establishing the professional appearance of a program, even if the user isn't consciously aware of many of them. It doesn't matter if the program is written by John Doe in Small-town, Kansas; if it looks and feels professional, it'll sell and be respected. This is especially important for a program written in Visual Basic, since many computer types look down on anything written in any kind of Ba sic. One of these little 'touches of class' is for a program to remember it's position on the screen from session to session. Again, this is a matter of both taking advantage of Windows' flexibility and having to prepare for the user doing the same. Everyone likes to set up their Windows a little differently; if your program can remember it's location and size you save the user some work every time they load it. This week we have a form that does just that. VBEX10 demonstrates saving a form's Height, Width, Left, Top and WindowState properties to an INI file using the API calls GetPrivateProfileString and WritePrivateProfileString. We also use GetWindowsDirectory to determine where to store the INI file. The wrapper functions Windir(), StringtoINI() and StringFromINI() are included and have been discussed in previous Visual Basics columns. Two additional functions contain the heart of what we're talking about here. WindowPosFromINI and WindowPosToINI have names which are self-explanatory, so let's just get down to those first. As always, code statements should all be on one line. If they're too long here, I've indicated a 'line join' with the piping symbol ( | ). Sub WindowPosFromINI () 'Read the form's WindowState, Height and Width from the file named in the 'INIFileName string. Default to 0, 4000 and 4000 if not found. VBEX10.WindowState = Val(StringFromINI ("WindowPosition",| "WindowState", "0", INIFileName)) VBEX10.height = Val(StringFromINI("WindowPosition",| "Height", "4000", INIFileName)) VBEX10.Width = Val(StringFromINI("WindowPosition", "Width",| "4000", INIFileName)) 'If the form is minimized or maximized, exit without setting screen position. If VBEX10.WindowState <> NORMAL Then Exit Sub End If 'Calculate variables which contain the desired Left and Top values 'for a centered form and convert to strings in preparation for API call... L$ = Format$(((Screen.Width - VBEX10.Width) / 2), "##") T$ = Format$(((Screen.height - VBEX10.height) / 3), "##") ' Read the Left and Top properties from the INI file, ' defaulting to the values established above if not read. VBEX10.Top = Val(StringFromINI("WindowPosition", "Top", T$, INIFileName)) VBEX10.Left = Val(StringFromINI("WindowPosition", "Left",| L$, INIFileName)) End Sub WindowPosFromINI takes everything into account elegantly. If the INI file is present and meaningful values are read, it applies them to the form. If not, defaults are used. You can change the defaults to match whatever size you think your form should be upon startup. WindowPosToINI saves these values when the program is shut down. The call to this function in two places; in FileSavePos_Click and in FileExit_Click. Also note that there's a call to FileExit_Click in the Form_Unload sub. This ensures that the proper procedure is executed regardless of whether the user ends the program with File Exit or by double-clicking the system box. Sub WindowPosToINI () Result% = StringToINI("WindowPosition", "WindowState",| Format$(VBEX10.WindowState, "##"), INIFileName) 'Don't update restore size if minimized or maximized. If you do, the 'Height and width values may not make sense when the window is next 'restored. If VBEX10.WindowState <> NORMAL Then Exit Sub Result% = StringToINI("WindowPosition", "Top",| Format$(VBEX10.Top, "##"), INIFileName) Result% = StringToINI("WindowPosition", "Left",| Format$(VBEX10.Left, "##"), INIFileName) Result% = StringToINI("WindowPosition", "Height",| Format$(VBEX10.height, "##"), INIFileName) Result% = StringToINI("WindowPosition", "Width",| Format$(VBEX10.Width, "##"), INIFileName) End Sub If your form is minimized or maximized and you allow WindowPostToINI to record the height or width, your program may look a little strange when next it's run. If the form is maximized, for example, the Height and Width will equal Screen.Height and Screen.Width. If the program is restored, it'll still fill the screen. If the form is minimized when these values are saved, you'll get a real tiny footprint on your form when restored, or a run-time error if the form is smaller than Windows will allow. As always, this column plus sample code is available on the Windows Online BBS in Danville, California, phone 1 510 736-8343. This column and source code is in VBEX10.ZIP, and may be distributed as freeware. ╒════════════════════════════════╕ │ Barry Seymour │ │ Marquette Computer Consultants │ │ San Rafael, CA 415/459-0835 │ │ Windows OnLine 510/736-8343 │ └────────────────────────────────┘ ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Desktop Publishing Color vs. Black and White by Rob Weinstein With the advent of Windows 3.X and VGA or SVGA monitors, color computing has become the rage. Computer monitors, once limited to amber or green, now flash with 256 colors. Color computing is far less tedious, and far more fun. But how has that translated into desktop publishing? Are the artists and designers who use desktop publishing technology for their pre-print preparation actually flooding the market with full color work? Well, as with most things, the answer is both yes and no. With the advent of full color laser and dot matrix printers, for example, color printing has become possible. However, most color systems are still expensive, and laser printing is simply not practical for even moderate printing runs (virtually anything over 50 copies). Still, in specific environments or situations where five or ten copies of a report are printed for meetings or circulation, color laser or dot matrix printing can be used very effectively. But to understand the impact (or lack of impact) of color on materials that are actually printed (taken to a printer and reproduced by the hundreds or thousands), it is important to understand the printing process. A printer takes a camera ready paste-up, shoots a negative, and makes a plate, a thin piece of metal (or paper or plastic) that is photosensitized so that ink will stick to specific areas (one step is eliminated by desktop publishers who print negatives directly to film). The plate is attached to a roller on the press, is automatically inked, and then the inked image is transferred to the paper. Each roller can handle one color of ink, so a four color print job requires four rollers. The graphic below shows the normal setup on a four color press. The colors are generally applied from the most dense--black--to the least dense--yellow (this order might be changed depending on the print job, or the individual preference of the printer). Unlike traditional primary colors, printers work with process colors--black, cyan, magenta and yellow. The actual cost of a print job is largely determined by the setup requirements of the printer. A one color job, for example, includes one negative, one plate, and one press unit. A two-color job requires making two of each item, a four-color, four of each and so on. This doesn't mean that a four color job costs four times as much as a one color job. But each additional color can add as much as one-quarter or one-fifth additional to the price of the job. Actually, additional color can cost more depending on what printer you sue, and their equipment. To run a four color job on a one unit press, for example, means running the job through to apply the black ink, then cleaning the press, setting up and running the job through to apply the cyan ink, then cleaning the press, setting up and running the job through to apply the magenta ink, and so on. Cleaning and setup are time-consuming and expensive. Most printers don't run four color jobs on one-unit presses, though it is common to run four colors on two-unit presses. What all this means is that full color desktop publishing does not dramatically reduce actual printing costs--and those costs have always been the primary consideration when determining whether a job will be color or black and white. So while full color computing seems to be the norm, full color printing is still and expensive process. The one exception to this is in separating full color photos. Printing a four-color photograph is difficult and exacting, and has traditionally been used only by the high end of the printing market (four color magazines, quarterly reports, expensive glossy advertisements and brochures, catalogues, etc.). There are several reasons for this. First, you have to run a four-color job, and the registration (alignment of each of the four colors) has to be exact, or the photo looks blurry. We've all seen four color newspaper photos where the registration is off, and you can see different colored edges throughout the photograph. This need for precision makes the printing process expensive. But until recently the pre-press process was even more expensive. Because of the printing process, each color requires a separate plate. Everything that is going to be printed in black has to be on the black plate, everything that is to be printed in cyan has to be on the cyan plate, and so on. This is relatively easy when working with line art, and can be done either by hand or with a simple graphics program. But the separation process is extremely complicated for full-color photographs. One touch of color in a small corner of the photo, for example, might be made up of 20% yellow, 20% cyan, 5% magenta and 10% black, a combination impossible to judge by eye.. About 20 years ago, a four-color magazine cover photo required several steps. First you took the photo, using various settings, and sometimes even various films, to try and get a close to the colors and contrasts you wanted. Then the file was processing into a color slide, and sent of a company in Utah with a full color scanner (these machines were very few and far between). The scanner--a large stand alone computer--scanned each color in turn, filtering out everything in the photo but yellow and producing a negative, then filtering out everything in the photo by cyan and producing a negative, and so on for each of the four colors. If you knew what types of adjustments you wanted before the slide was shipped off, you could ask the processor to cut the yellow by 10 percent, or brighten the cyan by 10 percent. But since the process was being done hundreds or thousands of miles away, you had no control over the result. You got back a separated photo, which cost between $200 and $500 each, depending on the work you had done. Then, using overlays, you added what text, graphics, etc., you wanted and shipped it to the printer. The process was labor intensive, complicated, time consuming, and EXTREMELY expensive. Programs such as the soon to be released Ventura Scan, Ventura Separator, Ventura PhotoTouch, and Ventura ColorPro, have eliminated much of this hassle. You can now scan in your own photos, retouch them as necessary, color correct them, and produce color separations all on your PC. While the cost still isn't cheap--the total Ventura including Ventura Publisher and its add-ins lists for over $3,000, not counting hardware (of course the street prices will be substantially discounted)--it is within reach, and it will pay for itself quickly for anyone doing a lot of color work. So as I said at the beginning, the answer to whether color computing will change the publishing world is both yes and no. For the newsletter, flyer or small desktop publisher, full color work still remains an occasional luxury, although the process of preparing color work in substantially easier. But for the upper end of the printing market, color work is becoming substantially simpler, more controllable and less expensive. And as we have all learned, what is high-end today is commonplace tomorrow. ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Windows Tips, by Hugh Hardie The Key to Characters in a Font Uncle Bill's Tip of the Week Using Icons to Identify Programs The Key to Characters in a Font With the advent of True Type fonts, the options for fonts open to all Windows users has greatly increased. While it is easy to choose a character in the normal range of A through Z and 0 through 9 plus the regular special characters such as * and ?, there are many more characters which may be used but are not accessed in the same way. There are two options in Win 3.1 to access these other characters. You can input a value from the keyboard by pressing the ALT key and a string of numbers. You can also use a new program which comes with 3.1 called Character Map or CHARMAP.EXE which resides in your Windows directory. As you can see, CHARMAP shows all the characters available in the font selected. In the lower right corner of the dialog box shows the keystrokes used to input a copyright symbol. Typing in the keystrokes results in ⌐ being printed on the page. Double clicking on the copyright symbol in the CHARMAP screen causes the symbol to appear in the CHARACTERS TO COPY box in the top right of the dialog box. A single click on the symbol and another click on the SELECT button will achieve the same thing. Pressing the COPY button results in the all the characters in the CHARACTERS TO COPY box being placed in the CLIPBOARD. From there, they can be pasted into any application. Needless to say, the drop down list box in the top left hand corner, titled FONTS, allows you to select any of the fonts installed in your system. The Character Map is a useful and easy to use tool for retrieving all the characters and symbols that do not appear on the keyboard. Uncle Bill's Tip of the Week This is the second Windows 3.1 tip from Bill Gates as announced at a recent Win 3.1 Seminar. Setting up new applications in a program group can be really tedious. You have to open the group, select FILE NEW and enter all the data about the application. Uncle Bill recommends the following: Open the FILE MANAGER as well as the PROGRAM MANAGER. Open the group into which you wish to insert the new application. Click on the file in FILE MANAGER that you want to include in that group. Hold the mouse button down and drag the file name into the open group and release the mouse button. The application will be automatically set up for you in the group. No more data need be provided. This is too easy. Thanks Bill! Using Icons to Identify Programs Most Windows programs come with a catchy icon. Some don't and certainly DOS apps. don't come with any most of the time. Help is at hand! In Win 3.0, you had to buy Icon Libraries or use public domain icons. They were all very good but you had to make that extra step to find them. In 3.1 Windows itself provides a file with additional icons which can be used with any application. The file is called MOREICONS.DLL and it resides in the Windows directory. The above is the dialog box for setting up an application in a Program Group. the program above is a communications program called Robocomm and its current icon, seen in the lower left hand corner is the default icon for DOS apps. It is hardly inspiring or memorable. The fourth icon down on the right hand side is the CHANGE ICON button. Perhaps we can find a better one for Robocomm. Clicking on the CHANGE ICON button brings up another dialog box which allows us to select the file from which to select an icon. The default file is PROGMAN.EXE and, while it does have an excellent selection of icons, I chose to press the browse button and select MOREICONS.DLL as the file I wanted. You can use the scroll bar to view all the icons available. When you find one you like, simply double click on it and press OK. The icon will now appear above the program name in the group in which the program is installed. The same technique is used if you use the default file PROGMAN.EXE. Experiment with CHANGE ICON and review all the icons in PROGMAN.EXE and MOREICONS.DLL. You could revolutionize the look of your desktop. ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ "the Weekly" is a product of, Windows Online(tm), (WOL), an on-line service dedicated to the MS Windows(tm) operating envoirnment and to other GUI subjects. WOL prides itself on having the most complete and up-to-date library of Windows shareware in the world. WOL currently has over 3,300 Windows 3.x programs and files for download. Call today for your free trial. Consider membership with the Worlds premier Windows on-line service. No reprinting of this document is permitted without the written permission of Windows Online. All articles are copyrighted by their authors. Opinions presented herein are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect those of WOL or "the Weekly." Call Windows Online today! (510) 736-8343 BBS Frank J. Mahaney Publisher and Editor Windows Online(tm) Box 1614 Danville, CA 94526-6614 (510) 736-4376 Voice/Fax Copyright 1992, Windows Online(tm)