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-
- Welcome to SCREEN Thief! The following instructions will show you
- how to install the software and get up and running in next to no
- time. They will also contain details of any last minute changes
- not documented elsewhere.
-
-
- Installation
-
- To install SCREEN Thief, insert the disk supplied into a drive
- and then select that drive by typing "A:" or "B:" as appropriate
- followed by <ENTER>. Next, type "INSTALL", press <ENTER> and
- follow the on-screen instructions. You will be asked for a
- destination drive and path for SCREEN Thief which default to
- "C:" and "\ST" respectively. Change these if necessary, although
- it will be easier to stay with the defaults as they will be used
- in the various examples.
-
- Running SCREEN Thief
-
- To run SCREEN Thief with the default settings, change to the
- "\ST" directory and simply type "ST". SCREEN Thief will then be
- installed and you can run whatever program you need to grab a
- screen from. To actually grab a screen, press the <CTRL>, <ALT>
- and <T> keys together and you will hear a clicking noise from
- your PC speaker as SCREEN Thief is working. The image file
- produced will be in colour GIF format and given a name
- consisting of the first 6 letters of the name of the program
- currently being run followed by a number, eg, "FILENA01.GIF".
- This file will be saved to the current directory but you can
- specify a different directory when you run SCREEN Thief as
- follows:
-
- ST C:\CAPTURE
-
- This will save all captured image files to the "C:\CAPTURE"
- directory.
-
- The Command Line
-
- All of SCREEN Thief's operational characteristics are controlled
- by command line parameters, mostly switches. Once installed, all
- changes to the way SCREEN Thief operates can only be made via
- the command line. All the various command line parameters are
- covered in detail in the Reference Section of this manual, but
- the more commonly used ones will be covered here. These
- parameters are:
-
- /OUTPUT Sets the Output Image File Format to either GIF, TIFF,
- PCX or BMP. The default setting is GIF and the syntax of this
- switch is /O:TIFF.
-
- /MONO Enables and disables Mono Translation, ie, producing a
- black and white image. The default setting is disabled and the
- syntax of this switch is /M+ to enable and /M- to disable.
-
- /UNLOAD Removes SCREEN Thief from memory. This is the only way
- to correctly remove SCREEN Thief from memory; do not use
- programs such as MARK and RELEASE. The syntax of this switch is
- /U.
-
- Example
-
- To use SCREEN Thief to capture screens and output them in mono
- PCX format to a directory called C:\PICTURES, type the following:
-
- ST C:\PICTURES /M+ /O:PCX
-
- Once SCREEN Thief is loaded in this way, you could then, for
- example, change the output file format by typing the following
- from the \ST Directory:
-
- ST /O:GIF
-
- Each time you make a change, the SCREEN Thief window will pop up
- showing the new setup.
-
- The SCREENTHIEF Environment Variable
-
- If you regularly use a particular setup for SCREEN Thief that is
- not the same as the default setup, you can avoid having to type
- all the command line switches each time, as in the example
- above, by using an environment variable. This is a string
- containing the required command line parameters that is placed
- in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file using the DOS SET command as in the
- example below:
-
- SET SCREENTHIEF=C:\PICTURES /M+ /O:PCX
-
- This will then use these parameters every time SCREEN Thief is
- run, overriding the defaults so that you only need to type "ST"
- to access your most used setup. The command line parameters will
- override the environment variable so you can still run SCREEN
- Thief differently as necessary.
-
- The Help System
-
- SCREEN Thief has an extensive help system that may be used in
- one of two ways. Firstly, if an error occurs, the help system
- will be automatically started, the error message displayed and
- the correct subject highlighted. Simply press the right-arrow
- key to expand the help screen for further information. Please
- note that not all errors will produce this automatic help; some,
- such as "Directory Non Existent" that are self-explanatory, just
- bring up an error message and quit the program.
-
- Secondly, the help system may be started without actually
- loading SCREEN Thief, by typing "ST /?" from the "\ST"
- directory. You will see the SCREEN Thief window on the screen at
- this point containing a list of help subjects. Select the
- subject you require using the up-arrow and down-arrow keys and
- then press the right-arrow key to expand the help screen. Where
- applicable, use the up-arrow and down-arrow or the page-up and
- page-down keys to view the text in the expanded help screen. The
- left-arrow key will return you to the list of help subjects.
-
-