Shareware 1 2 the Maxx/sw_1.zip/sw_1/DTP/EZ11.ZIP/SHOW.DOC

Text File | 1992-03-09 | 29KB | 615 lines

=== WELCOME TO EZ-SHOW Version 1.1  3/9/92 ===

EZ-Show helps you create professional desktop presentations, slide
shows, or product demos WITHOUT USING SCRIPTS.  It is extremely easy to
use, utilizing point and shoot menus, mouse support, and built-in help.
EZ-Show works with virtually anything your screen can display, from text
screens to super-VGA graphics.  It includes a screen capture program
(CAP.COM), a presentation creation program (MAKE.COM) and a royalty free
show program (SHOW.COM).  Features include picture fades, individual
picture delays, user flow control, branching, background processing, EGA
palette editor and much more.  But its biggest attraction is how little
effort it takes to create professional presentations.

=== System Requirements ===

CGA, EGA, VGA, or MCGA and DOS 2.1 or greater. DOES NOT RUN ON A MDA
OR HERCULES GRAPHICS CARD.  Hard Disk recommended.

=== How much? ===

EZ-Show is user-supported software.  This means you're freely given this
copy in order to evaluate it.  If after your evaluation you decide to
continue using it, you need to become a registered user by sending the
registration fee of $39 +$1 shipping (add $1 for 3.5 disk, $5 overseas)
to:

    EZ-Show                       Mastercard or Visa customers:
    1157 57th Drive SE            call or FAX [phone]
    Auburn, WA 98002              Compuserve: 72371,1557

An Instruction Manual containing printed documentation for all of our
shareware products (including EZ-Show) is available for an extra $5.

You are encouraged to freely distribute copies of the EZ10.EXE file as
long as you don't charge anything for the copies.  DO NOT distribute the
individual, extracted, files; only EZ10.EXE.

As a registered user you'll receive these additional benefits:

1.  Technical support
2.  Latest version of EZ-Show, PLUS a "decoder" which lets you
    turn all future versions of EZ-Show into registered versions.
3.  No more annoying messages asking you to register.
4.  Unregistered versions of some of our other critically acclaimed
    shareware for your evaluation.
5.  A sincere "Thank you" for supporting our efforts.

Those using EZ-Show in a commercial or educational environment must
register.  Site licenses are available, as well as quantity discounts.

=== Installation ===

If you haven't already, copy EZ10.EXE to its own blank floppy (if you
don't have a hard disk) or to its own subdirectory.  The subdirectory
name is not important, name it whatever you want.  "SHOW" works nice.

Move to the subdirectory, or floppy, where you copied EZ10.EXE.
Extract the EZ-Show files by entering "EZ10" at the DOS prompt.
Follow the instructions.


=== CAP, MAKE, and SHOW ===

EZ-Show consists of three important programs: CAP.COM, MAKE.COM, and
SHOW.COM.  CAP takes all the pictures while MAKE helps you group your
pictures into presentations.  Once your slide-shows are created you use
SHOW to display them.

===  CAP.COM  ===

CAP.COM is a TSR.  This means that when you run it part of it stays
hidden in memory until you need it.  It takes up about 9K of memory.

Getting CAP into memory:

1.  Move to the disk or subdirectory where CAP.COM resides.
2.  Enter "CAP" at the DOS prompt

That's it.

If you have a hard disk, you can have CAP loaded automatically when your
computer boots.  Assuming CAP.COM lives in the SHOW subdirectory you
would add these commands to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file:

CD SHOW
CAP
CD \

IMPORTANT!  Move to the subdirectory where CAP lives before entering
"CAP" at the DOS prompt.  DON'T put CAP's subdirectory in the PATH
statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and DON'T activate CAP from another
subdirectory by entering its full pathname.

* ALWAYS MOVE TO CAP'S SUBDIRECTORY BEFORE LOADING IT INTO MEMORY.

== Un-installing CAP ==

You can remove CAP from memory by entering "cap /u" at the DOS prompt.
Remember that you must remove TSR's in the opposite order in which they
were loaded else CAP may not be able to remove himself, or your computer
could lock up requiring you to re-boot.

Creating your pictures:

EZ-Show doesn't provide any tools for creating your pictures.  It just
takes a snapshot of whatever is on your screen.  You don't need to worry
about what format your tools use to save pictures because EZ-Show grabs
the picture directly from the screen.

Taking a picture:

Once you've loaded CAP into memory, all you do to take a picture of the
screen is press the Capture "hot key".  By default, this is Ctrl-C.  In
other words, when you want to take a picture of your screen, press the
Ctrl key and the C key at the same time.  MAKE lets you change this "hot
key" if you want, but we'll get to that later.

If you can't get CAP to take a picture within a certain program (games
seem the most prevalent examples) then there is an alternate way to
instruct CAP to capture a picture.  You press the left shift key, and
while holding it down you press the right shift key.  This is called
the "alternate capture hot key".  Use this method to capture screens
within MS-Windows.

If you find this alternate capture method conflicts with other TSR's
(Sidekick also uses this key combo) you can use MAKE to disable it.

Exercise:  Let's have CAP take some pictures.

1.  Go to the subdirectory or disk where CAP, MAKE, and SHOW live.
2.  Enter "CAP" at the DOS prompt
3.  Go around and take a few pictures by pressing Ctrl-C.  These
    pictures don't have to be anything interesting, they could just
    be of the DOS prompt if you want.  We're just using them to
    become familiar with the program.  You can delete them later.


===  MAKE.COM  ===

MAKE essentially does 2 things:

    *  It helps you group your pictures into presentations.
    *  It lets you change CAP's Capture hot-key.

Let's give MAKE a try.

    1.  Go to the subdirectory or floppy where CAP and MAKE live.
    2.  Enter "MAKE" at the DOS prompt.  (Enter MAKE /M if you have a
        mono display)

Terminology

I'll be using a few terms that may have different meanings than you
normally would associate with them:

Pictures: are the screen images you captured with the CAP program.  CAP
gives gives them numeric names starting with 0001 and increments for
each picture.  MAKE lets you rename your pictures to something more
sensible.

Group: is a collection of pictures that are given a name.  A presentation
may be a single Group or a collection of interconnected Groups.  The list
of Groups appears in the F1 area.

Branch: With EZ-Show your presentations can present the user with a menu
and then branch to different groups depending on the user's input.  The
key the user presses, and the group the show jumps to when the key is
pressed, is referred to as a "branch".

Screen Layout

Look at the screen.  There are 6 separate areas.  You move to a specific
area by pressing the function key associated with that area, or clicking
in that area with a mouse.  We will refer to each area by the function
key you press to get there.  For example the list of pictures will be the
F3 area, the list of Groups is the F1 area, the pictures that make up the
selected Group are the F2 area.

Each area has its own set of functions.  These are displayed in the upper
left of the screen.  To select a particular function click on it with the
mouse or press the hi-lighted key associated with the function.

You move the hi-lite bar by using the cursor keys.  If there are more
items in a particular area than can be displayed at once then use the
PgUp and PgDn keys to move around the list.

The bottom line of the screen often provides helpful explanations of
what's going on.  Keep your eyes on it as we go through these
instructions.  Much of what we say here will be summarized in this "help"
area.

== Overview ==

Areas:
F1 - list of groups
F2 - pictures (and their delays) that comprise the group selected in F1
F3 - pictures that will display on the adapter selected in F7
F4 - branching options for the last picture in the selected group.
F5 - program to run when hi-lited picture in F2 is displayed
F6 - program control keys and the fade value for the selected group
F7 - general configuration items

Functions:
F8 - preview selected group
F9 - save group data
F10- exit

Let's look at each area in detail.  We will do this by walking through
the process of creating a Group.

== F3 ==

Go to the F3 area (press the F3 function key).  A hi-lite bar will appear
on one of the picture names.  Yes, these are the pictures you just
captured.  They start at 0001 and can go up to 9999.  You'll probably
want to rename them to something that makes more sense.  So let's do it.

Notice the menu in the upper left of the screen.  You have four options:

    *  Press S to select this picture.  In other words, if you want to
       add this picture to the Group, press S for Select.
    *  Press the Delete key to delete the hi-lited picture.
    *  Press R to Rename the hi-lited picture.
    *  Press V to View the hi-lited picture.

Press V to view the picture.  The hi-lighted picture will be displayed.
Press any key to get back to the main program.  Now press R to rename the
picture to something that has some relevance.  Easy huh?

Let's create a Group, shall we?  Select several pictures from your
picture list.  (Hi-lite the desired picture, then press S for Select).

* Shortcut: If you're using a two button mouse you can select a picture
by pointing at it with the mouse and pressing the right button.

When you select a picture it's added to the bottom of the list of
pictures in the F2 area.  As it says, F2 is the list of the pictures in
the selected Group.

After you've selected your pictures, move on over to the F2 area (by
pressing F2).

== F2 ==

Notice the new menu in the upper left of the screen.  You can press:

    *  R to Remove the hi-lited picture from the list.  This doesn't
       delete the picture, it just removes it from the Group.
    *  V to View the hi-lited picture
    *  I to Increment the picture's delay
    *  D to Decrement the picture's delay
    *  PgUp or PgDn to change the ordering of the pictures.

You can change the ordering of the pictures by using PgUp and PgDn.  To
move a particular picture up the list you hi-lite it and press the PgUp
key.  To move it down the list, hi-lite it and press the PgDn key.  With
a mouse, you just "drag" the picture up or down the list by keeping the
left button depressed while you move the mouse.

F2 not only displays the picture's name but also the delay associated
with that picture, or the time the picture is displayed before the next
picture is displayed.  The delay assigned to the picture when you
initially select it from the F3 area is the "Pic Delay" value displayed
in F7.  We'll learn how to change this default value later.

Instead of having a picture delay for a period of time you may
want it to remain on the screen until the user presses a key.  Do this by
setting the picture delay to 0 which will cause the delay value to become
"PAK" for "Push Any Key".  In other words, a picture with a delay value
of "PAK" will stay on the screen until the user presses any key.

== F5 ==

In addition to assigning a delay to each picture you can also tell SHOW
to run a program while the picture is being displayed.  This lets you run
a program to generate sounds while a picture is being displayed.  When
you assign a program to a picture it shows up in the F5 area whenever you
hi-lite the picture while in the F2 area.  To attach a program to a
picture first hi-lite the picture (you must be in the F2 area, you can't
attach a program to a picture unless it is within a group) and then press
F5 to go to the F5 area.  The menu gives you three options:

   *  Press I to input the name of the program you want to run while this
              picture is displayed
   *  Press D to delete the name of the program (if one is listed)
   *  Press T to test the program now.  Use this function to make sure
              you're attaching the right program to the right picture.

It's a good idea to include the full filename, including the extension.
You may include command line options if appropriate.  I've included a
small program you can attach to one of your pictures to get an idea of
how this process works.  The program's name is SOUND.COM.  Try attaching
it to one of the pictures in your newly created Group.

== F4 ==

You can have your presentation branch off into different directions based
on user input.  The F4 area contains the list of keys to effect branching
and the groups that get branched to.  These branches do not attach
themselves to a specific picture but, rather, to the last picture of the
group.  Therefore you must make sure the last picture in the group is the
picture that explains the branching options to the user.

When you enter the F4 area your menu options will be:

   *  Press A to Add a branch to the end of the list
   *  Press R to Replace the hi-lited branch
   *  Press D to Delete the hi-lited branch

When you add or replace a branch you'll first be asked to press the key
that is to effect the branching.  The key can be 0-9 or A-Z.  After
pressing the desired branch key you'll be asked to input the name of the
group that will be branched to.  Make sure you spell the group name
exactly right.  MAKE doesn't check to see if the group actually exists,
because you may not have created it yet.   You can have up to 8 branches
per group.

You may want to chain groups together where one group automatically jumps
to another group when it ends.  This way you can break your presentation
into smaller more manageable groups.  You chain two groups together by
specifying only one branch.  Although you'll still be asked to input the
branch key, any value will do since it won't be acted upon.  After the
delay (or PAK) of the last picture in the group has expired SHOW will
automatically jump to the branch group.  You can also use this feature to
have a presentation run continuously by having only a single branch in
the last group of the presentation that branches to the first group in
the presentation.

== F6 ==

There are only two more items we need to specify for our group before it
is complete.  They are located in the F6 area.  Press F6 now.

Keys:  EZ-Show gives the user the capability to control the presentation
through the use of various keys.  You can elect which keys you want this
group to act upon and which to ignore.  The available keys and their
functions are:

Escape: causes the show to end
Home:   returns to the beginning of the presentation
End:    causes the picture to freeze until any key is pressed
 :     moves to the next picture (unless the user is at a branch)
 :     moves to the previous picture
PgUp:   moves to the previous branch
PgDn:   if the group has branches, then goes to the branch picture (the
        last picture in the group) else it goes to the first picture of
        the next group

You press the left/right cursor key to select the key you want to turn
on/off.  Then press T to toggle the key on/off.  Those keys that are hi-
lited are those that will be active for this group.  If you want the
values you've selected to be the default values given to new groups then
(as the menu instructs) press S for "(S)ave as default".

After you've selected the keys you want active, press the down arrow to
move to the Fade value line.

Fades:  If you have a VGA you can have your pictures fade in and fade
out.  You can turn this feature off or establish a fade speed of 1 to 4
with 1 being the slowest.  Press the left or right cursor keys to adjust
the value to what you want.  If you want this value to be the default
value given to all new groups then press S for "(S)ave as default".

== F9 ==

Now that you've created your group it's time to save it.  Press F9.
MAKE will ask you to verify that you want to save the changes and then,
since this is a new group, will ask you to give a name to the group.  The
name may only be 8 characters long and must be a valid DOS filename.  Do
not include an extension.

First, notice your Group has been added to the list of Groups in F1.  The
pictures in your Group are listed in F2 and an asterisk appears next to
the name of your Group in F1, indicating it is the selected Group.

You won't always need to press F9 to save your changes.  If you've made
changes to a group and try to select another group in the F1 area then
you'll be asked is you want to save your changes.  The same thing happens
if you press F10 to quit and you've made changes to the group that you
haven't saved yet.

== F8 ==

F8 lets you preview your Group.  It has a drop down menu.  You make your
selection by either pressing the first letter of the desired option, hi-
liting the desired option and pressing Return, or by clicking on the
desired option with a mouse.  You can escape by pressing the Escape key,
or clicking on the top line.

When you press F8 you'll be given these options:

Touch Change        This changes the pictures when you press any key on
the keyboard.  When you're done looking at one picture, press any key and
the next picture will appear.  This option doesn't affect the picture
delays, it just lets you see what pictures are in your Group.

As Is               This displays the group just as it will be displayed
by SHOW except that there will be no fades, RUN programs won't, and often
times the transitions between pictures won't be nearly as smooth as SHOW
will make them.

Save Delay          This is the same as "Touch Change" in that you press
a key to change pictures, HOWEVER this time the delay between pictures
is recorded.  In other words SHOW will replay the group exactly (rounded
to the nearest second) as you preview it here.  This can be very handy if
you're running your presentation with a taped sound track.  You can start
the sound track and then change the pictures at the correct time instead
of setting the delays manually in the F2 area as discussed earlier.

Press F8 to Preview your Group.  Press A (for As Is) to see how things
came out.

== F1 ==

Now let's take a look at the menu options in F1.  Press F1.  A menu
appears that lets you press R to Rename the selected Group, or press the
Delete key to delete the selected Group.

== F7 ==

F7 lets you configure a variety of items associated with EZ-Show.  Press
F7 now.

Picture Delay:   This is the default delay we talked about earlier.  This
is the value initially assigned to a picture when you select it to be in
a group.  Press the right cursor key to increase the value (notice the
menu in the upper left corner) or press the left arrow key to decrease
the value.  This only affects the delay of newly selected pictures.
Pictures that have already been put into groups are not affected.

Display type:   This tailors the list of pictures in F3 to include only
those that work on the selected display adapter.  Although it defaults to
the type of display you're using, you can select any of the others as
well.  This is useful if you're making a presentation for someone who has
a different display adapter than you and you want to make sure the
pictures you select will display on their machine.

The last item in F7 lets you change the "hot key" CAP uses for
capturing pictures.  Press the right arrow to effect a change and then
follow the instructions.  After you change the capture hot key you'll be
asked if you want to enable the alternate method of capturing pictures
where you press the left shift key followed by the right shift key.
Unless this interferes with your other programs press "Y" to enable this
alternate method.

NOTE: You MUST use the alternate capture method to capture MS-Windows
images.

If CAP is loaded in memory when you make these changes you'll have to
exit MAKE, un-install CAP, and reload it in order to notice the changes.

== F10 ==

When you're finished press F10 to quit.


== Built in EGA color editor ==

If you capture an image in one of the EGA graphics modes, it's possible
the colors of the picture won't be right (this all gets explained in the
"Problems?" section).  That's why we built an EGA color editor into
MAKE.  To activate the editor press any of the cursor keys while viewing
the picture.  Five lines of different colors will appear at the top of
the screen.  Most of the time each square will be a different color,
however, in some cases there will be duplicates.  Your picture can only
display 16 of the colors shown.  The last row of colors is the current
defined "palette", those colors your picture is currently using.

To change a color use the cursor keys to move the letter "S" to the
square of the desired color and then press S (for Select) to select that
color.  The letter P then appears in the first box on the last row.  Use
the cursor keys to move the P into the box of the color you want to
replace and press P (for Put).  The old color will be changed to the new.

For those of you familiar with the EGA you know that it is supposed to
only display 16 colors at one time.  We have to do a little magic to get
it to display all 64 colors at once.  Unfortunately it's a very inexact
science and depends greatly on the timing of your computer.  As a result,
the color rows on your machine may not line up with where the P or S is
placed.  You can adjust this by pressing the PgUp and PgDn keys.  Give it
a try.  Remember the fifth row of colors should be the row where the "P"
appears.

Once you've changed the palette (the last row of colors) to the way you
want, then press the Space Bar.  The changes will then be recorded as
part of the picture.  If you don't want to save the changes then press
"Esc"ape to exit.  Remember: Space Bar to save, Escape to exit without
saving.

=== SHOW ===

To run your presentation just move to where the pictures, group files and
SHOW.COM are located and enter "SHOW ????" where ???? is the name of the
first group in the presentation.  When transferring your presentation to
another computer make sure you copy over SHOW.COM and all the pictures
and group files contained in the presentation.

=== Problems? ===

"CAP didn't accurately capture an image"   If you have an EGA the trouble
is likely because many of the registers dictating how your computer
displays an image are Write Only registers.  This means CAP can't read
the values of these registers.  Usually this isn't a problem because
there are established video modes most programs adhere to.  But some
programs go off and re-program the video without telling anyone what
they're doing.  In these cases CAP isn't going to accurately capture the
image, whether you have an EGA or a VGA.  it just doesn't have enough
information available to know what's going on.  It'll do the best it can
with the info available, it just may not be enough.

One of the most obvious examples of this on the EGA is in the way colors
are displayed.  The registers that dictate which colors get displayed are
write only.  If the colors are not standard then CAP has no way of
knowing they are.  That's why we put the EGA color editor in MAKE.

Another example.  Several programs, including GIF viewers and others, let
you horizontally pan across a picture.  To do this they re-program the
way the video accesses its memory.  Unfortunately there is no way we can
accurately determine what they've done.  If you run into this problem you
might want to check and see if the host program can re-size the picture
to fit within the screen limits.  Many do.

CAP supports all the "standard" (I use that term loosely) super-VGA
modes, however, most super-VGA cards have other unique modes they can
also generate.  For compatibility reasons, CAP only recognizes the
"standard" modes.  The others are ignored.

"Some of the fonts in my text screens aren't the same as they were when
CAP took the picture"  Some display adapters let you change the fonts
used in text modes.  We use the default fonts used by the BIOS.  It
should be noted that usually programs that use a variety of fonts use
graphic modes and not text modes.  EZ-Show works fine in most of these
cases.

"Sometimes I get this annoying flash between pictures."  Some display
adapters flash when they change modes.  There's not anything I know of
that can change this.  CAP does its best to eliminate mode changes, but
you can't always avoid it.

===  Technical Support  ===

We provide phone support to our Registered Users.  If you need help and
can't find an answer in these instructions then give us a call at:

[phone]

Have your registration number and these instructions handy, and be able
to duplicate the problem while you're on the phone.

Please make sure the answer to your question isn't in these instructions
before you call.

=== What EZ-Show doesn't do ===

Here are some things I have no plans to incorporate.  I don't like
reinventing the wheel any more than I have too.  There are plenty of good
programs out there that perform these functions admirably:

Paint program.  If you want to modify your pictures (other than adjusting
the EGA palettes as discussed earlier), do it using a paint program prior
to having CAP take a picture of it.

Picture translators.  If you have pictures coded in any of the many and
varied graphics formats that you want to display, then find a program
that will translate that format into a screen image, and then have CAP
take a picture.  Likewise, if you'd like to change a EZ-Show picture to
one of the graphics formats then use one of the multitude of screen
grabber programs to do so.  At this time I have no intention of making a
translation program to translate these pictures into a format EZ-Show
can use.  And vice versa.

Mono Display Adapter.  I can't see any reason at all to support the MDA as
it's text only, making it a rather boring display adapter for this sort of
thing.

=== Improvements? ===

There are some things we could add to future versions of EZ-Show.  Whether
we incorporate them or not depends on the feedback we receive.

* Instead of just running a program while a picture is displayed I could
also provide the option of calling an interrupt.  If your sound board has
a software driver where you can pass it the sound file to play via an
interrupt, this feature would be most helpful.  For example putting "ah=7
si*bark.snd int57" in the "RUN:" field would move 7 into AH, put the
offset of "bark.snd" in SI and then call interrupt 57h.

* More fade and wipe options could be added.  Some slide show programs
provide demos that show some pretty fancy fades, wipes, etc..  What they
don't tell you is that these work only if the picture you're displaying
is in the same mode as the one you're replacing.  With some super-VGA
boards supporting over 20 modes, this can be a real restriction.  That's
why these programs require you to convert your pictures to a certain
format, and usually support only one or two modes.

I personally feel the information you're presenting should be the
highlight of the show, not the fancy fades and wipes.  That's why for VGA
users we provide a very unobtrusive and elegant fade.  However we could
provide more fades and wipes and still continue to support most modes if
the user understands the displayed picture would fade or wipe to black
before bringing up the new picture.

* Flashing.  It is possible to create a flashing affect by repeatedly
changing one color to another and back again.

If you would like to see any of these features added, or have additional
features you'd like incorporated, please send us a letter.  Although we
can't respond to all the letters we receive, we do appreciate all input
and seriously evaluate every suggestion.

Thank you for your time and interest.  I hope you find EZ-Show worthy of
your support.  Take care.