Chip 1996 September/CHIP 1996 szeptember (CD07).zip/CHIP_CD07.ISO/sac/utiltext/dw12b7.exe/README.1ST

Text File | 1996-07-27 | 15KB | 393 lines

DEMO WORKSHOP V1.2 Beta 7

    Demo Workshop is a tool for creating software demonstration and
    tutorial programs.  Demo Workshop uses actual screens recorded during
    execution of the program being presented.

    *********************************************************************
    Version 1.2 Beta 7 is a pre-release containing the capability for
    handling large presentations, VGA graphics, and execution of DOS
    commands during playback.

    Note that v1.2 Beta 7 cannot read or process presentations prepared
    with v1.2 prereleases earlier than beta 2 or with DW v1.1.

    BE SURE TO READ THE V1.2 B2 RELEASE NOTES BELOW FOR IMPORTANT
    INFORMATION REGARDING VGA GRAPHICS FEATURES. THE DOCUMENTATION AND
    HELP INFORMATION HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED FOR V1.2 B7.
    *********************************************************************


INSTALLATION

    Create a directory on your hard disk called DW and change directory
    to it like this.

    C:\> MKDIR DW
    C:\> CD DW
    C:\DW>

    Copy the DWRK.ZIP or DWRK.EXE file into this directory.  If you have
    the .ZIP file, unzip it.  If you have the .EXE file, execute it.

    The following files are created:

    SR.EXE        The Demo Workshop screen recorder TSR
    DW.EXE        The Demo Workshop presentation editor
    DW.HLP        The presentation editor help file used by DW.EXE
    DWGUIDE.TXT   The Demo Workshop v1.1 Users Guide
    DEMOWKSH.P2   File required by DW.EXE to create standalone
               presentation programs
    DWDEMO.EXE    Demonstration DW presentation
    ORDER.FRM     The Demo Workshop registration and order form
    FILE_ID.DIZ   BBS description file
    WAV.EXE       A program to play .WAV sound files through the PC
               speaker
    README.1ST    This file


    To view the demo, execute DWDEMO.EXE.

    You might want to create an environment variable called DWDIR and
    equate it to the directory where you unpacked Demo Workshop.  This
    will allow you to use Demo Workshop from another disk/directory it
    you wish.  To do this, place a line like the following in your
    AUTOEXEC.BAT file:

      SET DWDIR=C:\DW

    You will need to reboot for this change to take effect.

    If you do not do this, and you execute DW from another directory,
    you will not be able to access help information or create
    .EXE output files.


PLEASE NOTE:

    You must create a recording file before you can use DW, the
    presentation editor.  You can create an empty recording if you
    wish by invoking SR twice.  The first time, a file called SCREEN.REC
    will be created, and the second time SR will remove itself from
    memory.

    Type SR /? to display a brief help screen for the screen recorder.


RELEASE NOTES

    V1.2 Beta 7
    This release fixes a problem where scene speed settings
    were inadvertantly set to zero when a DOS command was
    assigned to a scene. This would ultimately cause a Divide
    error message to be displayed when the command completed
    execution.

    V1.2 Beta 6
    This release fixes the following bugs present in beta 5:
    Exe files produced for presentations containing scenes
    produced with earlier 1.2 betas could fail to display
    scenes properly. Scene speed settings were not reliably
    saved with the presentation. No shortcut key for "Set
    Scene Speed" was provided.

    In addition, an optional command line parameter has been
    added to the .EXE files produced by DW. If the word "test"
    is provided as a command line argument, the presentation
    plays in test mode. In test mode, all menus are set to
    auto-increment, all text window and menu timeouts are
    set to 1 second, all pauses are set to 0, and playback
    occurs at high speed. This allows you to quickly test
    a final presentation (except, of course, for timing
    accuracy).

    V1.2 Beta 5
    This release adds the capability to assign a DOS command to a
    scene. The command will be executed just after the scene is
    displayed during playback of the presentation. The program
    WAV.EXE is supplied to allow .WAV sound files to be played during
    a presentation using this mechanism. Note that WAV.EXE plays the
    sound through the PC speaker and does not take advantage of any
    multimedia hardware which may be present. Thus, the sound
    quality is somewhat poor.

    WAV expects at least two command line arguments: the volume
    level (1-64) and the name of the WAV file to play. Additional
    files may be specified, in which case they will be played in
    turn.
    Example: D:\DW> WAV 30 TADA

    DOS commands which may be specified for a scene include native
    commands such as DIR as well as the name of .BAT, .COM, and
    .EXE files. Arguments may be supplied as well.

    V1.2 Beta 4
    This release fixes a problem with adding scenes from another
    file which was introduced in Beta 3.

    V1.2 Beta 3 Changes
    This release fixes a problem with saving files introduced in
    Beta 2.

    V1.2 Beta 2 Changes
    Support for VGA graphics snapshots has been enabled in this
    release. No Super-VGA modes are yet supported. A subsequent
    release will support VESA-compliant SVGA graphic cards. We
    do not intend to attempt to support the myriad different and
    incompatible SVGA cards in the market. The following graphics
    modes are supported (HORIZONTALxVERTICALxCOLORS):

        320x200x16
        640x200x16
        640x350x2
        640x350x16
        640x480x2
        640x480x16
        320x200x256

    CGA modes (300x200x4 and 640x200x2) are not supported. Snapshots
    only are supported. No motion is recorded by SR when in graphics
    mode.

    When SR detects the transition into a graphics mode, if recording
    is in progress, it is paused for the period of time that the
    screen is in graphics mode. The pause is signalled by a series
    of descending tones, and the return to recording is signalled by
    a rising series of tones. If recording is not in progress when
    graphics mode is entered, SR takes no actions.

    While in graphics mode, if the mode is one of the supported
    ones, pressing Alt-S (or whatever the snapshot key has been
    set to in SR) will result in a snapshot of the screen contents.
    As the snapshot can take some time (seconds), it is advisable
    that there be no motion occurring on the screen when the snapshot
    is taken. The process of taking the snapshot is started with a
    high tone and ended with a low tone.

    Two files are created by DW 1.2, a file with a .REC suffix,
    containing the non-graphics recording, and a file with a
    .GFX suffix containing the graphics snapshots. Both files must
    be present for the DW presentation editor to process the
    recording.

    Pop-up windows and menus may be added to graphics screens with
    horizontal resolutions other than 320.That is, pop-up windows
    and menus may not be added to 320x200x16 and 320x200x256 snapshots.

    When 320x200 screens are encountered in the DW presentation editor
    they are displayed briefly and then erased to display the DW
    menus. The image may be re-displayed using the Show Graphics
    Scene menu option which replaces the Hide Workshop Windows option
    for 320x200 graphics scenes.

    When a graphics screen is cloned, the graphics information is not
    duplicated and does not increase the size of the resulting
    presentation significantly.

    V1.2 Beta 1 Changes
    Hundreds of scenes are now supported. DW uses a swap file to
    store information on disk during processing. This file is
    created in the directory designated by the TEMP or TMP
    environment variable. If neither is defined, the current
    working directory is used.

    Beta 1 allows the playback speed of individual scenes to be
    adjusted to a percentage of the recorded speed.

    For other new features use the F1 key to obtain help when
    the menu selection of interest is highlighted.



    The following is a cronologically ordered list of changes between
    DW versions. It is included here because the documentation does
    not describe many of the features listed here.

    V1.1 Changes
    V1.1 fixes bugs which caused program and system crashes when
    using the presentation editor DW.EXE.  Our apologies to all who
    endured these problems.  The flaw in our release procedure which
    allowed these bugs to be included in a released version has been
    corrected.

    V1.1A Changes
    V1.1A adds the "Save as Default" menu item to the Text Window
    Options and Menu Display options menus.  This selection makes
    the attributes (color, border style, position, size) of the
    current text window or menu the initial defaults for new menus
    or text windows created for the presentation.  The defaults
    are saved across DW sessions in the presentation file.  Note
    that DW V1.1A presentation files may *not* be processed with DW
    V1.1 or V1.0.

   V1.1B Changes
    V1.1B allows entry of special characters using the ALT-keypad
    method of entry supported by MS-DOS. Previously, entry of
    special characters was not supported for titles, menu items,
    or scene names.

   V1.1C Changes
    V1.1C fixes a bug which prevented pop-up windows from remaining
    visible while the background recording was in motion.

   V1.1D Changes
    V1.1D incorporates changes which make playback timing more accurate
    in instances where there is fast screen motion, such as rapid
    movement of the mouse cursor.

   V1.1e Changes
    V1.1e fixes a bug introduced in 1.1D which the first playback after
    startup to fail if Normal speed was selected.

   V1.1f Changes
    V1.1f fixes another bug introduced in 1.1D which caused the DOS
    system clock to be modified during playback.

   V1.1g Changes
    V1.1g fixes yet another bug introduced in 1.1D which caused slow
    and single-step playback to misbehave.

   V1.1h Changes
    V1.1h adds support for EGA/VGA extended colors (as used by
    CA-Clipper) in recordings.

   V1.1i Changes
    V1.1i fixes a bug wherein query dialogs were not properly
    refreshed after help displays.

   V1.1j Changes
    V1.1j fixes a bug which, under certain circumstances, caused
    text windows to appear garbled after being saved.

   V1.1k Changes
    V1.1k adds the Custom border style to menus and windows. The
    Custom border style allows you to specify the characters to
    be used for the borders on menus and windows. In addition,
    V1.1k adds support for the DWBORDER environment variable. If
    DWBORDER is defined, the characters specified are used for the
    borders of DW menus, dialog boxes, and display windows. The
    format of the DWBORDER environment variable definition is:

        SET DWBORDER="12345678"

        where   1 = upper left corner
            2 = upper right corner
            3 = lower left corner
            4 = lower right corner
            5 = horizontal line
            6 = vertical line
            7 = left junction (tee)
            8 = right junction (tee)

    Here is an example DWBORDER definition which you might place in
    your AUTOEXEC.BAT:

        SET DWBORDER="++++-|++"

    The custom border features are provided to facilite the use
    of Demo Workshop in countries where character codes above 127
    are used to represent special language characters.

   V1.1m Changes

    Executables created with v1.1m now accept the R parameter, which
    inhibits the restoration of the screen which normally occurs when
    the demo executable terminates. This leaves the last demo image
    visible on the screen. When used with a sound-playback program
    in a .BAT file, this allows the sound to play back while the
    image is visible.

    The CURSOR.EXE program is supplied to save the cursor before the
    .BAT file initiates the first demo executable and restore the cursor
    when the .BAT file is complete, since when the screen image is
    not restored by the demo executable, the cursor remains invisible
    as well.

    Here is an example .BAT file assuming your demo executables are
    mydemo1.exe and mydemo2.exe and the program sound.exe (not included
    in this kit) plays sounds contained in the 1.wav and 2.wav files:

        @echo off
        cursor
        mydemo1 r
        sound 1.wav
        mydemo2 r
        sound 2.wav
        cursor

    CURSOR.EXE creates a 4-byte file in the default directory called
    CURSOR.SAV which is deleted the second time the program is run.

   V1.2X Changes
    Maximum number of scenes greatly increased. Memory limitations
    removed. Goto Scene Number item added to main menu. V1.2X may
    create a swap file called DWSWAP.$$$ if memory runs low. This
    file is created in the directory defined by the TEMP environment
    variable if it exists, otherwise the TMP environment variable
    is used. If neither is defined, the current directory is used.
    The swap file is deleted on exit.

   V1.2Y Changes
    V1.2Y correctly processes presentation created with the later
    releases of V1.1.

   V1.2Z Changes
    V1.2Z fixes a bug which caused presentation .EXEs to fail with a
    memory allocation failure after a number of text windows or
    menus had been displayed.

   V1.2Za Changes
    V1.2Za fixes a bug which caused memory corruption and unpredictable
    failures when scenes were added to an existing presentation.

   V1.2Zb Changes
    V1.2Zb adds additional support for EGA extended colors. Extended mode
    is now set/cleared on screen entry as well as when the recorded
    program performed the set or clear. This allows recordings where
    extended mode is turned on and off by the recorded program to be
    edited without losing the extended colors.

    V1.2Zb also provides support for .PRE files. .PRE (presentation)
    files are created from the File menu just as are .EXE files. .PRE
    files are much smaller than .EXEs because they contain no run-time
    display code. .PRE files are displayed using the DWRUN program. This
    allows a number of presentations to be provided without the overhead
    of the run-time code in each .EXE file. DWRUN.EXE is created by
    copying DEMOWKSH.P2 to DWRUN.EXE. The P parameter is required to
    execute a .PRE file. For example, to display the presentation
    contained in MYDEMO.PRE, the following command would be used:
    DWRUN P MYDEMO.PRE. The DWRUN.EXE file may be distributed by
    registered users together with .PRE files without restriction.

V1.2Zc Changes
    V1.2Zc fixes problems with creating new scenes and cloning scenes
    which could occur when memory is low and/or a large number of
    scenes have been modified in a single DW session. This release also
    fixes a problem in which the first scene was deleted from
    presentations when an .EXE file was created.

V1.2Zd Changes
    V1.2Zd corrects a problem where characters with ASCII codes
    over 127 were not accepted for custom window border characters.

V1.2Ze Changes
    V1.2Ze adds support for 8x8 VGA fonts. This allows recording
    and editing of recordings of programs which display 50-line
    screens. Note that if the actual entry into 50-line mode is not
    recorded, it may be necessary to use the EGA/VGA Options
    selection from the Scene Operations menu to manually set the
    correct mode from within DW.

V1.2Zf Changes
    V1.2Zf corrects a problem with stack size in output .EXE files
    which caused hangs after the presentation was viewed on some
    computers.

V1.2Zg Changes
    V1.2Zg makes the 50-line support more robust, with more methods
    of mode change supported. A problem with help menu displays
    is also corrected.