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HyperSlide AutoCAD Based Presentation System Version 1.0 May 5, 1991 User's Guide and Reference Manual Copyright (C) 1991 John Intorcio 335 Washington Street, Suite 178 Woburn, MA 01801 Help make Shareware work. Please read and abide by the license agreement contained herein. _______ ____|__ | (tm) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Profes- sionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at P.O. Box 5786, Bellevue, WA 98006 or send a Compuserve message via CompuServe mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536 Table of Contents Licensing and Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 I. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 II. Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 III. Using the Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The Presentation Designer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The Presentation Engine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The Presentation Compiler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Self Propelled Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Presentation Dump. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 IV. Mouse Emulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 V. Revision History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Licensing and Registration Full registration, a program disk containing the latest version of this program, and a license to distribute Self Propelled Presentations are avail- able from the address below for a $50 ShareWare fee. John Intorcio 335 Washington Street, Suite 178 Woburn, MA 01801 Users of HyperSlide must accept this disclaimer of warranty: "HyperSlide is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of HyperSlide." HyperSlide is a "Shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. The essence of "user supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. If you find this program useful and find that you are using HyperSlide and continue to use HyperSlide after a 30 day trial period, you must make a registration payment of $50 to John Intorcio at the above address. The $50 registration fee will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time. You must treat this software just like a book. An example is that this software may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another. Just as a book cannot be read by two different persons at the same time. Registered and unregistered users of HyperSlide may distribute the HyperSlide Presentation Engine (HYPERSLD.EXE) with their presentations without restric- tion provided that no fee is charged for it or any accompanying software. Self propelled demonstrations may be distributed ONLY by registered users of HyperSlide. It is unlawful to distribute self propelled presentations without first registering your copy of HyperSlide. Extended or modified distribution licenses are available from John Intorcio. Commercial users of HyperSlide must register and pay for their copies of HyperSlide within 30 days of first use or their license is withdrawn. Site- License arrangements may be made by contacting John Intorcio. You are encouraged to pass a copy of HyperSlide along to your friends for evaluation. Please be sure to distribute the entire package including the utilities and documentation files. Also, please encourage them to register their copy if they find that they can use it. All registered users will receive a copy of the latest version of the HyperSlide system. Upon registra- tion users will receive a laser printed manual, will become eligible for telephone support, and will be notified by U.S. Mail of future updates should they occur. Registered users of obsolete versions may upgrade to the current version of HyperSlide by sending a $5 handling charge to the address above. In return they will receive a program disk with the latest version of Hyper- Slide without the delay screens in the Presentation Designer and the Presenta- tion Engine. HyperSlide is a trademark of John Intorcio. AutoCAD is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc. Turbo C is a trademark of Borland International, Inc. I. Introduction HyperSlide is a program to create interactive presentations based on graphic images and programmed control sequences. HyperSlide 1.0 bases its graphic images on AutoCAD's slide file format. You must create slide (.SLD) files from AutoCAD using the MSLIDE command in order to user HyperSlide. HyperSlide and the HyperSlide Presentation Designer use the graphics mode of your computer. Both support Hercules, CGA, EGA, and VGA displays. Both programs will work on SVGA cards but only at standard VGA resolutions. A presentation created on one of the supported displays will work on any of them. II. Installation HyperSlide arrives as a single executable file, HYPSLD.EXE. Create a new directory on your hard disk called HYPSLD by typing the following DOS command: MD \HYPSLD Make this the default directory by typing: CD \HYPSLD Copy the HyperSlide system from the floppy drive by typing: COPY A:HYPSLD.EXE Upon execution this file expands to create the following files: HYPERPD.EXE This is the Presentation Designer. This program is used to create or edit a HyperSlide presentation (.HSL file). HYPERPD.HLP This is the help file for the Presentation Designer. HYPERSLD.EXE This is the presentation system itself or the "player". This is the application used to execute a HyperSlide presentation (.HSL file). HYPERDMP.EXE This is a utility that can be used to create a text dump of a HyperSlide presentation (.HSL file). HYPERCOM.EXE This is the HyperSlide compiler that can be used to create a compiled HyperSlide presentation (.HSL file). Compiled presentations combine all images and controls into a single file for ease of distribution. Compiled files may be edited using the presentation designer but will be saved in standard (uncompiled) format. HYPEREXE.EXE This is a utility that can be used to create Self Propelled Presenta- tions. These presentations are .EXE files that include the HyperSlide Presentation Engine as well as all of the control information and images. (Self Propelled Presentations may be distributed ONLY by registered users of HyperSlide.) HYPSLD.DOC This documentation file. DEMO.HSL A demonstration HyperSlide Presentation. DEMO.EXE The above demonstration HyperSlide Presentation after being processed by the Self Propelled Presentation utility. This is a Self Propelled HyperSlide Presentation. Note that unregistered user of HyperSlide are forbidden to distribute Self Propelled Presentations. READ.ME Up to date licensing and release information. III. Using the Programs A good way to get a brief introduction to HyperSlide is to try out the demonstration presentation. You can do this by typing DEMO at the DOS prompt while in the \HYPSLD directory. DEMO.EXE is an example of a Self Propelled HyperSlide Presentation. All of the executable code, the images, and the controls are stored in a single .EXE file. Using the presentation should prove simple. Use the mouse to move the arrow over one of the controls and press the left mouse button to activate the control. That's the essence of HyperSlide. You'll also find DEMO.HSL in the \HYPSLD directory. This is the same presen- tation before being made into a Self Propelled version. There are five main programs that comprise the HyperSlide system. Let's look at each of them: The Presentation Designer The presentation is the most complex component of HyperSlide. You can alleviate some of the complexity by taking advantage of the context sensitive help - you can press the F1 key at any time for a helpful screen. This is the program with which presentations are conceived and realized. Presentations consist of "Slides" or images, and links between them or "Controls". A good way to start building a presentation is to bring in all of the slide files that you will be working with and then to add controls to the slides which link them together. That way, as you add links that tie to other slides, they'll be available in the menu. Start the Presentation Designer by typing: HYPERPD If you were editing an existing presentation, you could start the Presentation Designer with the Presentation name specified on the command line as such: HYPERPD DEMO You can create a new presentation by selecting "New..." from the File menu. From the File menu, you can also "Open..." an existing presenta- tion, "Close" the currently open presentation, Use the "Save as..." option to save the current presentation under another name, or "Save" to disk the current presentation. You may also "Test" a presentation from this menu. Now use the Slide menu to add new slides. Select the "New..." option from this menu and choose slides from your disk to add to the presenta- tion. From this same menu, you can also "Delete" a slide from your presentation. (You might note that once you get a presentation de- signed, slides will be "linked" together. If you try to delete a slide which is linked to another, you'll be given a warning. If you delete the slide anyway, you'll end up with an invalid presentation file until you delete the link.) Also on the Slide menu is a "View" option which display an image of the selected slide and show the positions of any Control Areas associated with the slide. Use the "First..." selection from the Slide menu to specify which slide will be the first displayed when the presentation is executed. A presentation will not work properly if the "First" slide has not been specified. You can now specify "Controls" which reside with each of the slides in your presentation - when a slide is displayed on the screen its controls become active. Select a slide to work with using the "Select..." option from the Slide menu. Form the Control menu, choose "New...". You'll first be prompted for the type of control you wish to add. Press the F1 key to get the Help system to give you an up to date run down of the available control types. Select a control type. The Current control types are as follows: Link to Another Slide... When this type of control is chosen, a slide to link to is chosen and then a position for the control. When the user clicks the mouse button in the control area the screen is cleared and the chosen slide is displayed on the screen and it's controls are made active. This is referred to as a "Jump" control. Overlay Another Slide... When this type of control is chosen, a slide to link to is chosen and then a position for the control. When the user clicks the mouse button in the control area the chosen slide is displayed on the screen, overlaying the current slide, and it's controls are made active. This is referred to as an "Overlay" control. Link to Previous Slide... When this type of control is chosen, a position for the control is specified. When the user clicks the mouse button in the control area the screen is cleared and the previously displayed slide is again displayed on the screen and it's controls are made active. HyperSlide maintains a stack of the previous 16 images displayed on the screen. Thus, a "Previous" button can retrace 16 jumps. Link to an External Program... When this type of control is chosen, a DOS command string is entered and then a position for the control. When the user clicks the mouse in the control area, the specified DOS command string is executed and operation returns to the same slide. Link to an External Program and Pause... This control is similar to the above. When this type of control is chosen, a DOS command string is entered and then a position for the control. When the user clicks the mouse in the control area, the specified DOS command string is executed, the program pauses until the user strikes a key, and operation returns to the same slide. Link to DOS Shell This control is similar to the above. When this type of control is chosen, a position for the control is specified. When the user clicks the mouse in the control area, a DOS child process is spawned and the user is at the command prompt. The user may return to HyperSlide by typing "EXIT" but until that time is free to execute any DOS commands. Timed Link... When this type of control is chosen, a time delay is specified and then a slide to link to. When a slide is displayed which contains this type of control, after the delay period has passed, the specified slide is displayed and its controls are made active. You cannot put a timed control on a slide that already has other controls on it nor can you put other controls on a slide that has a timed control. Timed Overlay... This control is essentially the same as the above. When this type of control is chosen, a time delay is specified and then a slide to link to. When a slide is displayed which contains this type of control, after the delay period has passed, the specified slide is overlaid and its controls are made active. You cannot put a timed control on a slide that already has other controls on it nor can you put other controls on a slide that has a timed control. Link to Program Exit When this type of control is chosen, a position for the control is specified. When the user clicks the mouse button in the control area, HyperSlide terminates. Depending on the control type selected, you may be asked to specify a time delay, another slide to link to, or a position for the control. Time delays are entered in seconds and may include fractions. Control position are specified graphically. An image of the slide is presented on the screen with al colors displayed as a single color (red) to make the controls easier to see. Yellow boxes indicate other control on the current slide and are labeled as such. A white box is shown in the center of the image. This box represents the "Control Area" related to the control - this is the box in which the user must click to activate this control. You can reposition the Control Area by placing the mouse cursor in the center of the box, depressing the left mouse button, moving the box to the desired position, and then releasing the mouse button. Similarly, the box can be resized by placing the mouse cursor inside one of the four corner "handles" on the box, depressing the left mouse button, dragging the corner to the desired position, and releasing the button. Once you moved the Control Area to the desired location, the Enter key will return you to the main menu and the box's position will be stored. Keep in mind that a Control Area does not have to correspond to a traditional "button". For example, you might display a slide of a floorplan in which of each of the "rooms" is a Control Area. Clicking in a room might bring up a detail of the furniture layout for that room. You can implement traditional Hyper Text within HyperSlide by making specific words or phrases correspond to Control Areas. A special note on control order. For controls which require a mouse click, Control Areas may overlap. If they do, whichever control is listed first takes precedence - use the "Select..." option from the Control menu to check the order. You can use this fact by making the last control on a slide cover the entire slide. This becomes the "default" control when the user clicks in a spot that is not within any other control. At any time during your design session you can go back to the Slide menu to select another slide to work with or to add or delete slides from your presentation. There is no significance to the order in which the slides are added. Once you've specified the position of the controls, you're ready to save your presentation. Select "Save" from the File menu to update the file on disk or "Save as..." to save the file under another name. If you'd like, you can test your presentation from within the Presenta- tion Designer by using the "Test" option from the File menu. The test mode is just like the actual presentation mode with one exception: you can exit a presentation by pressing the Esc key. This function is provided to avoid being trapped within a presentation with no exit. Keep in mind that your users won't have this luxury - they will not be able to exit a presentation by pressing Esc or Ctrl-C or anything else other than a Control Area that you have defined as being linked to program exit. You'll exit the Presentation Designer using the "Quit" option. If you've made any changes that have not yet be written to disk, you'll be given an opportunity to do see before exiting the program. The Presentation Engine The presentation engine is used by starting it with the name of the presentation on the command line. For example, to execute a presenta- tion called "demo", use the following command to start the player: HYPERSLD DEMO The player works on CGA, EGA, VGA or Hercules compatible displays and works with Microsoft compatible mice. If no mouse is found on the system, a mouse is emulated. See the section "Mouse Emulation" for more information on the keys used to emulate a mouse. The Presentation Compiler When distributing a presentation, it's nice to be able to distribute a single file. The Presentation Compiler combines the presentation file and all necessary image files into a single "Compiled Presentation File". Compiled Presentation Files can be edited just like uncompiled files except that they will be saved in uncompiled format. That's important to remember if you don't have backup copies of your slide files. The Presentation Compiler is executed by specifying both the name of the uncompiled file and a name for the compiled file on the command line. For example, to compile the presentation file called "Razzle" and name the compiled file "Dazzle", execute the following command: HYPERCOM RAZZLE DAZZLE If you do not specify a name for the compiled file on the command line, the original .HSL file will be overwritten with the compiled .HSL file. Self Propelled Presentations One step beyond a compiled presentations is a self propelled presenta- tion. A self propelled presentation combines everything necessary for the show into a single .EXE file. You can make a self propelled demonstration by using the HYPEREXE program and specifying the name of your presentation file and the name of the .EXE file on the command line. For example, to make a self propelled presentation called "DemoIt" out of a presentation file called "Razzle",you'd type the following: HYPEREXE RAZZLE DEMOIT Note that the HYPEREXE utility expects to be able to find HYPERSLD.EXE in the same directory as HYPEREXE.EXE. Also, if you do not specify a name for the executable file, it defaults to the name of the .HSL file. The Presentation Dump Sometimes it's nice to see a summary of the contents of a presentation file. The Presentation Dump utility provides this. To see a summary of a presentation file, simple specify the name of the presentation on the command line. For example, to see a dump of the presentation file called "Demo", type: HYPERDMP DEMO It's possible that you'd like to see a listing of your presentation in a file. You can do that by redirecting the program's output. For example, to get the same listings created above in a file called DEMO.LIS, just do the following: HYPERDMP DEMO > DEMO.LIS If you'd rather get a listing of your presentation on your printer, you can do that to! If your printer is attached to LPT1: just type: HYPERDMP DEMO > LPT1: IV. Mouse Emulation If there is no mouse on the system you are using, the keypad is used to emulate the mouse. The arrow keys do what you'd expect moving the mouse cursor up, down, left, and right. The Home, PgUp, PgDn, and End keys move the cursor diagonally. The Ins and Del keys emulate the left and right buttons of the mouse, respec- tively. You can use the gray + and - keys to change the amount that the mouse cursor moves each time you hit one of the motion keys. V. Revision History Version 1.0 - May 5, 1991 *First public release.