Tech Arsenal 1

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Text File | 1992-04-22 | 18KB | 555 lines

Introduction Menu Bar Diagram Menu Search Menu Action Menu Object Menu Option Menu Language Menu MSDOS Finishing a Diagram Edit Session Contracting or Expanding Display Dragging Brackets Deleting and Inserting Blocks Deleting and Inserting Lines Increasing and Decreasing Exit Level Exporting a diagram Using the Mouse Word Wrap INTRODUCTION This is the ACTION DIAGRAMMER Help System. Use the cursor keys or mouse to select a topic. and press return. You may return to the topic list by pressing Enter. Return to the main menu by pressing ESC. MENU BAR Active items on the Menu Bar are accessed by pressing the ALT key and the highlighted letter of the desired choice. Some choices will present a pull down menu with further choices. Select from these menus by pressing the highlighted letter of your choice or by using the cursor key or mouse to select a choice. Note that certain menu items will always be available. For example, you may not save a diagram when none is being edited. Unavailable choices are displayed with their characters in reverse video. DIAGRAM MENU NEW Create a new diagram. You must supply a file name for the new diagram. OPEN Load an existing diagram. You may supply a diagram name (with or without the .AD extension) OR press TAB and select a diagram from the scrollable list of diagrams in the default directory. CLOSE Close the current diagram and return to the main menu. SAVE Save the current diagram. The diagram may be saved under another name. The current name is used by default. Whenever a diagram is saved, a backup copy is created automatically. SAVE AS Save the current diagram under a new name. No backup is created. RENAME Rename the current diagram. You will be asked to supply a new name for the diagram. PRINT Print the current diagram or another on the printer. In this version, you must have opened an existing or new diagram for editing. You may print with or without control brackets. EXPORT Print the current diagram or another to a file. It will appear in the file exactly as displayed - without page headings or page breaks. In this version, you must have opened an existing or new diagram for exporting. You may print with or without control brackets. EXIT Leave AD and return to DOS. Prompt to save the diagram if it has changed. NOTE: all diagrams are stored in files with '.AD' as an extension (i.e., DIAGRAM.AD). You may supply just the name without the extension when asked. SEARCH FIND/REPLACE This option will display a dialog box consisting of two fields and four buttons. Enter the text to be searched for in the Find Text field. You may want to enter a regular expression (see REGULAR.TXT for details). To replace the text searched for, enter the replacement text in the Change To field. Select one of the three buttons whose menu equivalents are described below. Subse- quent searches for the same text may be performed with the following menu choices rather than by redisplaying this dialog box. FIND NEXT Find the text or regular expression in the Find Text field. REPLACE NEXT Replace the next occurance of the text or regular expression in the Find Text field with the text in the Change To field. REPLACE ALL Replace the all following occurances of the text or regular expression in the Find Text field with the text in the Change To field. ACTION MENU The action menu presents a list of control structures which may be inserted at any appropriate point in a diagram. While editing a diagram, press ALT_A to display the menu. Select an item from the menu by pressing the highlighted letter in the item you wish to select or use the mouse or cursor keys to highlight your choice and press Enter. If the object can be inserted at the point of the cursor, it will be and the display will be updated. Some hidden blocks may be hidden as required. OBJECT MENU The Object menu presents a list of EXPERIMENTAL Object-Oriented Analysis control structures which may be inserted at any appropriate point in a diagram. While editing a diagram, press ALT_O to display the menu. Select an item from the menu by pressing the highlighted letter in the item you wish to select or use the mouse or cursor keys to highlight your choice and press Enter. If the object can be inserted at the point of the cursor, it will be and the display will be updated. Some hidden blocks may be hidden as required. Please read the accompanying file OBJECTS.TXT for details regarding this experimental function. OPTION MENU PROJECT DOS path to the subdirectory where PATH diagrams are stored. You may wish to use separate directories for each project. Reset this path to switch projects. SUPPORT DOS path to the subdirectory where PATH language specifications, the help file and the configuration file are stored. You will want to enter this directory in your environment: SET ADDIR=<support directory> PRINTERS The default printer driver for your printer. Use the up and down arrow keys in the printers list window to display your printer. Then press TAB to accept the displayed printer and procede to the next option. USE Control brackets will (will not) be BRACKETS used when a diagram is printed or exported. Press the spacebar to toggle this checkbox. REPORT Number of lines per printed report LINES page. This entry MUST correspond to your printer's lines per page setting. TAB SIZE Number of spaces in a tab stop. LANGUAGES The default language specification for your diagrams. Use the up and down arrow in the languages list window to display the desired language. Then press TAB to accept the displayed printer and procede to the next option. LANGUAGE MENU LOAD Load an existing language specification and make it the default. You may supply a language specification name (with or without the .LN extension) OR press TAB and select a language specification from the scrollable list of language specifications in the suppport directory. You may load a new language while editing a diagram (i.e., switch from Structured English to "C" and back). NEW Create a new language specification. You must supply a file name for the new language specification. OPEN Load an existing language specification. You may supply a language specification name (with or without the .LN extension) OR press TAB and select a language specification from the scrollable list of language specifications in the default directory. CLOSE Close the current diagram and return to the main menu. SAVE Save the current language specification. The language specification may be saved under another name. The current name is used by default. Whenever a language specification is saved, a backup copy is created automatically. SAVE AS Save the current language under a new name. No backup is created. RENAME Rename the current language specification. You will be asked to supply a new name for the language specification. PRINT Print the current language specification or another on the printer. In this version, you must have opened an existing or new language specification for editing. NOTE: all language specifications are stored in files with '.LN' as an extension (i.e., LANGUAGE.LN). You may supply just the name without the extension when asked. MSDOS Exit from AD and create a DOS shell from which you may execute other programs and commands. Most (all but about 23K) of AD will be swapped out of memory to allow for the maximum possible amount of free memory. From the DOS prompt, enter EXIT to return to AD. If you experience difficulties - AD reports unsafe interrupts - run tsrint (include) before running AD. This small program requires about 1.5K of memory. FINISHING A DIAGRAM EDIT SESSION In order to stop editing the current diagram, use one of the following options. DIAGRAM MENU Choose Close or Exit. You may want to save your diagram first. ESC When you are ready to stop editing, press ESC. You will be given the option of saving or abandoning your changes. Whenever a diagram is saved, a backup copy is created automatically. CONTRACTING OR EXPANDING DISPLAY C_LEFT or CLICK LEFT SCROLL ARROW Contract display 1 level. C_RIGHT or CLICK RIGHT SCROLL ARROW Expand display 1 level. Pressing these keys will increase or decrease the amount of data displayed. Each press of the C_LEFT (LEFT SCROLL ARROW) key will hide the most deeply nested control blocks. Hidden blocks will be displayed with the text on the block's first line thus: SELECT next in the series ... To reveal hidden blocks, press the C_RIGHT (RIGHT SCROLL ARROW) key until the desired display is obtained. S_LEFT or CLICK RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON Contract display of a control block. S_RIGHT or CLICK LEFT MOUSE BUTTON Expand display of a control block. Pressing these keys will increase or decrease the amount of data displayed for the control block at which the cursor is pointing. To contract a block, move the cursor to the first line of the control bracket and press S_LEFT (RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON). The block will contract, a special symbol "" will appear to the left of the contracted block. The block will remain contracted until explicitly expanded by pressing S_RIGHT, RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON or F8 or F9 (described below). Hidden blocks will be displayed with the text on the block's first line thus: SELECT next in the series ... To expand a block, move the cursor to the line above a contracted block marked with the "" symbol and press S_RIGHT (RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON). Only that block will expand. F6 Expands all blocks contracted by pressing C_LEFT (LEFT SCROLL ARROW). Contracted blocks marked with "" are NOT expanded. F7 Expands all blocks contracted by pressing S_LEFT (RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON). Contracted blocks marked with "" ARE expanded. F8 Expands ALL blocks regardless of how contracted. NOTE: All blocks marked with "" will remain when the diagram is saved. Thus you may create a particular view of your diagram and retain it for future use and printing. DRAGGING BRACKETS F1 Moves bracket start/end or case/else downward. F2 Moves bracket start/end or case/else upward. To use either key, move the cursor to the start or end of the bracket you wish to drag up or down and press the appropriate function key. DELETING AND INSERTING BLOCKS F3 Delete block at cursor to scrap buffer. Place the cursor on the first line of a block. Press F3 and the block and all data contained within it will be deleted to the scrap buffer. You may relocate a block by first deleting it to scrap and then reinserting it elsewhere as described for the SH_DEL key. You may copy a block by deleting it, immediately reinserting it by pressing SH_INS and then inserting a copy elsewhere. F4 Delete bracket from around block; leave text intact. The brackets may be removed from a control block leaving intact everything contained inside of the block. Place the cursor on the first line of the block and press this key. DELETING AND INSERTING LINES SH_INS Insert block or lines from scrap buffer following current line. Blocks or lines which have been deleted to the scrap buffer may be reinserted at any point in the diagram by locating the cursor at the desired insertion point an pressing this key. Note that you may insert only at lines which are not part of a control block - interior lines. That is, locate the cursor on a line which is not at the beginning or end of a block, a case or exit. CTRL_ENTER Insert a blank line at cursor. Place the cursor on the line above the point at which the a new line is desired and press the key. Blank lines may also be inserted by pressing the Enter key. If the cursor is on a control structure member, a blank line will be inserted just as if S_INS had been pressed. Pressing Enter in the middle of ordinary text, will break the line at that point. S_DEL Delete entire current line or selected block of lines to scrap. Pressing this key while the cursor is on an interior line will delete the line to the scrap buffer. In some cases, a blank line will replace the deleted line in order to maintain the required separation between control structures. A block of interior lines may be marked and deleted by using the following 2 keys to highlight the lines to be deleted. Deleted lines may be reinserted in the diagram by pressing SH_INS so long as no other deletions are performed before the insertion. S_UP Extend selection of a block one line up. S_DOWN Extend selection of a block one line down. INCREASING AND DECREASING EXIT LEVEL CTRL_+ Increase exit level. CTRL_- Decrease exit level. Use these keys to increase or decrease an exit level. Place the cursor on an exit line and adjust the arrow as needed. EXPORTING A DIAGRAM You may wish to export a diagram to a text file for inclusion in another document or to use as source code - assuming that you used a programming language specification. The diagram will be exported to a file of your choosing, with or without control brackets. This file may be used as you see fit. AD doesn't know of its existance. In fact, AD will overwrite a preexisting file without warning. To export, select the export option from the Diagram menu. USING THE MOUSE A mouse may be used to select menu options, position the cursor within text and to control the vertical scroll bar. An item may be selected from a list box by clicking on it and then pressing Enter or by double clicking on the desired item. The mouse may also be used to expand and contract the the display. See Contracting or Expanding Display. WORD WRAP AD will automatically word wrap at the end of a line as you type. If insertions in the middle of a line force the end of the line past the right side of the screen, the line will extend itself beyond the right margin. Then, when the cursor leaves the line, the line will break at a point which ensures that there is no hidden text. You may find it necessary to join two lines by placing the cursor at the end of the first line and pressing DEL. The opening and closing lines of a control structure WILL NOT wrap.