Magnum One/Magnum One (Mid-American Digital) (Disc Manufacturing).iso/d21/qw12.exe/QWHITE12.EXE/QWHITE.TEC

Text File | 1990-10-08 | 18KB | 358 lines

ID:QW Quarterdeck White Papers
Quarterdeck Technical Note
by Daniel Travison

   Welcome aboard the Quarterdeck White Papers!  The White Papers
   originated as separate documents prepared by our Technical Support
   Staff.  Each one explores a single topic of importance to users of
   Quarterdeck products. They were originally written as independent items
   in response to inquires by our users. Previous versions have been
   distributed by mail and FAX as one avenue of supporting our customers.
   Over a period of time these papers tend to change; there are additions
   and deletions all the time as products evolve.  Rather than distribute a
   paper version, we hope you will enjoy our diskette version, which
   respects the environment.

   The Quarterdeck White Papers program (QWHITE.COM) is a DESQview-specific
   program for viewing these technical notes within DESQview.   QWHITE.COM
   is NOT designed to replace your favorite file viewing utilities.  It is
   written specifically to provide quick access to Quarterdeck's technical
   notes or your own, using an interface similar to DESQview's Open Window
   menu.

Using DESQview's Add A Program:

   > Place all of the technical notes and QWHITE programs in the same
     subdirectory.  This is normally done by the install program.

   > Select Open Window from the DESQview menu

   > Select Add A Program from the Open Window Menu.

   > Select 'Other (Add Program Not in List)' by pressing the O key or by
     clicking on the selection with the mouse.

   > Type the drive and subdirectory where QWHITE.COM is located in the
     path field.  For Example: If you have installed the Quarterdeck White
     Papers to the subdirectory QWHITE on the C drive, type in the following
     and press the enter key:

           C:\QWHITE

   > An entry, 'Quarterdeck White,' will be displayed. Move the cursor to
     this entry, press the space bar, then press enter.  The Quarterdeck
     White Papers program is configured to use QW as the keys to use on
     the open window menu. If QW is already in use, you will be prompted
     to provide a different two-key combination.

Change A Program:

   Conventional Memory: 95k
   System Memory:       20k

   QWHITE.COM requires 95k to run.  If you have expanded memory available,
   QWHITE.COM will automatically load the technical note into expanded
   memory, reducing its conventional memory overhead to 31k. This allows you
   to set the Memory Size field in Change A Program to 31.  QWHITE.COM will
   automatically notify you if it cannot allocate enough memory to run
   correctly.

   QWHITE.COM also requires about 20k of System Memory to function
   correctly.  System memory is a block of memory DESQview allocates on
   behalf of a program that uses DESQview's Applications Programming
   Interface (API).  This memory is used to store some of the program's
   DESQview-specific data.  For example, when you select HELP for the
   program, the help screen is stored in system memory.

   The System Memory field is found on the Advanced Options screen of
   Change A Program.  DESQview will notify you if it runs out of system
   memory for the program at any point.  If you receive an error message
   from DESQview indicating there is insufficient system memory for the
   program, increase the System Memory field by 1 and run the program
   again.

   Maximum Height: QWHITE detects the value you specify for MAXIMUM HEIGHT
   Change A Program to determine the number of lines to use for the file
   view window.  If you run DESQview in 43,50, or 60 line mode you can have
   QWHITE use the entire physical screen by specifing an appropriate
   starting HEIGHT.  QWHITE also will adjust the number of lines it uses
   for PgDn or PgUp when you have used DESQview's resize option.

The Main Menu:

   The main menu contains 5 selections:

   Open Technote: Displays a menu of technical notes in a format similar to
      DESQview's Open window menu. This menu can contain up to 256 entries.

   Search Technote: Allows searching all technotes for a character string.

   Create New Open Menu: Tells QWHITE.COM to scan all files in the current
      directory for files that contain a specific header record.

   Help: Displays a help screen describing each menu option.

   Quit: Allows quitting the Quarterdeck White Papers.

Getting Help:

   QWHITE.COM has two methods for obtaining help.  The first uses
   DESQview's help system.  Normally, when you bring up the DESQview menu
   you see an option called 'Help for DESQview'.  When you bring up the
   DESQview menu while QWHITE.COM is the foreground program, you will see
   an entry 'Help For Program'.  You may press the ? key at this point to
   activate QWHITE.COM's help.  Additionally, you can press the ? key from
   most screens to display help specific to the screen.

Open Technote:

   The Open Technote menu option provides a menu of technical notes in a
   manner similar to DESQview's Open Window menu.  However, instead of
   opening a window to run a program, this option allows you to open
   a window to read a technote.

   To read a technote, highlight the entry with the mouse and click either
   mouse button, -or- highlight the entry with the Up and Down cursor keys
   and press the spacebar, -or- type the two letters to the right of the
   entry. If two or more entries displayed have the same two-letter
   combination, you will need to select the second, third, etc. entry with
   the mouse or cursor keys.   The PgDn and PgUp keys are used to display
   the entries on other screens.

Two-key limitations:

   QWHITE.COM will only accept files that use the letters A through Z and
   the numbers 0 through 9 for the two-key combination when building the
   Open Technote list.  QWHITE.COM will allow you to specify the same
   two-key sequences in more than one technical note.  Although this allows
   some flexibility, it does provide certain limitations for the Open
   Technote menu.  Here is a description of how QWHITE.COM decides which
   technote to view when you select a two-key combination that appears two
   or more times in the Open Technote list:

   a) When the first key is pressed, QWHITE.COM searches its internal list
      for any entries that start with the key.  If none are found, you will
      hear a beep and the key will be ignored.

   b) When the second key is press QWHITE.COM starts with the first entry
      on the current Open Technote screen when searching for a matching
      two-key selection.

   c) If the two-key combination you type is on the screen, QWHITE.COM will
      open that technote.

   d) If the two-key combination is not on the current screen, QWHITE.COM
      will search to the end of the Open Technote list to find an entry
      that matches.  If none is found, it will go back to the top of the
      list and search from there until if finds a valid entry and opens it.
      If none are found, you will here a beep when you press the second
      key.

   e) If two or more entries with the same two-key combination appear on
      the same screen, QWHITE.COM will ALWAYS open the first.  You will
      need to select the second (third, fourth, etc) manually by using the
      cursor keys to highlight the entry and pressing enter -or- by
      clicking on it with the left mouse button.

Search Technotes:

   The Search Technotes option allows scanning all technical notes on the
   Open Technote menu for the character string you specify.  It is not case
   sensitive and it will also ignore trailing spaces when scanning the
   files.  The START SEARCH option ALWAYS starts with the first entry in
   your Open Technote list.  After a match has been found two additional
   options will be available: "Continue Current File  F2" and "Continue
   Next File  F3". The "Continue Current File" option continues searching
   from the point of the last successful match.  The "Continue Next File"
   option skips the file where the last match occured and starts searching
   the next file.  This option is useful when you have a search string that
   occurs more than one time in the same file and you want to go on to
   other files.   If any of the above search options reach the last entry
   in the Open Technote list the Continue Search options will be disabled.
   If any of the search options find a match, the file will be loaded into
   the list window.  The page that contains the match will be displayed and
   the line that contains the match will he highlighted.  If you select
   either of the Continue Search options and no match is found, the last file
   containing a match will be reloaded and positioned to the line you
   had last viewed.

Create new Open menu:   Adding new technical notes to the Open Technote menu

   The Create new Open menu searches all files in its directory for files
   that have a specific ID line at the beginning of the file (NOTE: See
   Technical Note Header).  The file should be normal ASCII files without
   special control codes in it. Your editor or word processor may refer to
   it as Non-Document, Text, or ASCII files.  See the notes on Technical
   Note File Types.

   Your own technical notes may be added to the Open Technote menu by
   inserting an ID line at the beginning of the file.  Your file should be
   copied to the directory where QWHITE.COM is located and the Create
   option should be selected from the menu.

   QWHITE.COM can only display 256 options on the Open Technote menu at a
   time.  If you have more than 256 files you will need to create a second
   subdirectory and divide your technical notes between the two
   subdirectories and place a copy of QWHITE.COM in each.  Run DESQview's
   Change a Program and modify the Directory field to point to the new
   subdirectory and change the 'Keys to Use on Open Menu' create a second
   entry for the new subdirectory.

Technical Note Header:        Example: See the first line of this file

   QWHITE.COM checks the first line of a file for a specific character
   sequence to identify the file as a technical note for including in the
   Open Technote menu.  The first three characters should be 'ID:' (NOTE:
   the single quotes should not be not included).  The next two characters
   are the two keys used on the Open Technote menu.  This is similar to
   DESQview's own Open Window menu except QWHITE.COM allows duplicates. The
   next character MUST be a space.  Finally, the next 35 characters will be
   used on the Open Technote menu to describe the file,  much as the
   Program Name field of Change A Program is used to identify the entry on
   DESQview's Open Window Menu. Also, it is not necessary to provide all 35
   characters,  QWHITE.COM will automatically stop if it finds a linefeed
   character.

Technical Note File Types:

   QWHITE.COM will attempt to display ANY file that contains a valid
   header. However, for best results you should use an editor or word
   processor that can create normal ASCII format files.  Your editor/word
   processor may refer to this type of file as NON-DOCUMENT, ASCII, TEXT,
   or some similar name.

   QWHITE.COM processes the following control codes, all others are ignored
   and not displayed.

   LINEFEED    - indicates the end of a line.  If you experience trouble
                 viewing your document, make sure your word processor is
                 creating a TEXT file instead of its own DOCUMENT file
                 format.

   TAB         - moves the 'cursor' 8 positions before printing the next
                 character.  This is a non-standard method of displaying
                 the TAB character.  It is designed to allow you to
                 compress a file that is 'slightly' larger than 64k by
                 replacing sequences of 8 blanks with a tab character.

   END OF FILE - indicates the end of the file.  If no END OF FILE marker
                 is found, the physical file size will be used.

   OTHERS      - All other control codes will be ignored and not displayed.

   Additionally, QWHITE.COM will display a maximum of 78 characters/line
   and drop any characters found after that position.

Reading Technical Notes:

   The view mode of QWHITE.COM provides a simple interface for reading a
   technical note.  The following keys are active when reading a technote:


                P      Print

                Up     Scroll up

                Down   Scroll down

                PgUp   Previous page

                PgDn   Next page

                Home   Top of the file

                End    End of file

                Esc    Exit window

             *  F2     Continue Current File

             *  F3     Continue Next File

   * The F2 and F3 keys are invisible options.  These options are available
   only when the search option displays a file.  It allows you to select
   either Continue Search option without having to return to the Search
   menu.

File Size limits: 64k

   QWHITE.COM will not display files that are larger than 64k.  Since the
   technical documents are written to answer specific questions or solve
   specific problems, by nature they should be concise and we have found
   they often fit on a single sheet of paper. The 64k limit we choose is
   merely a convenience from a programming standpoint.  In actuality, 64k
   is generally too large for a technical note.  See the note on TAB in the
   section discussing Control Codes above for a file that exceeds 64k.

Printing:

   The List window provides the option for printing a technical note.  This
   option is here for those times when you want to quickly print the
   technical note you are viewing.  If you have need for extensive printing
   or printer specific options, you may want to open a separate window
   and perform your printing from there.  When you select the Print field
   or press the letter P, a window will pop up indicating the name of the
   file that will be printed.  You may press Esc at this time to cancel the
   request or Enter to start printing.  A running total of lines printed
   will be displayed as the file prints.  You may press Enter or Escape
   while the file is being printed to abort the print. QWHITE.COM will send
   a formfeed character at this point, or when it finishes printing the
   file to the printer and returns you to the list window.  QWHITE.COM
   prints to the standard printer device. In other words, whatever printer
   is currently assigned to PRN will be used by QWHITE.COM.  This will
   allow your print spooler loaded before DESQview to capture the output
   from the White Papers.

Printer Setup:

   QWHITE.COM does not attempt to perform any printer setup commands.  If
   you wish to have the printer set up a particular way, you have two
   options:

   1: Many printers provide setup capabilities from a control panel on the
      printer.  If you use this method, do so before selecting Print from
      the list screen.

   2: There are numerous utilities available that allow the user to set up
      the printer from software.  If you have DESQview configured to manage
      printer contention, you may need to run your utility prior to running
      the White Papers.  If you do not have DESQview configured to manage
      printer contention, you can open another window and run the utility
      prior to selecting the Print option from QWHITE.COM's list screen.

Using the Quarterdeck White Papers on a Network:

   QWHITE.COM does not make network specific calls.  If multiple users will
   be running QWHITE.COM from a network drive, the network administrator
   will need to establish some constraints for file access:

   a: Generally, only ONE user should have create rights to the file
      QWHITE.WPO.  All other users should have read-only access.
      QWHITE.COM checks the read-only file attribute on startup and will
      disable the Create New Open Menu option for users with this file
      attribute set.  When a new technical note is added to the directory
      QWHITE.COM is run from, the user with create rights should choose the
      Create New Open Menu option to generate a new QWHITE.WPO file.  Other
      users can then restart the program to see the new Open Technote
      entry.

   b: Users that do not have the read-only attribute set for QWHITE.WPO and
      also do NOT have create rights will be able to select the create
      option.  QWHITE will scan the files and create the Open Technote menu
      in memory but will generate an error message when it attempts to
      write the file to disk.

   c: QWHITE.COM attempts to open technote files in read-only mode.  If the
      file has been locked by a user then QWHITE.COM will not be able to
      display the file.  Some word processors and file viewing utilities
      disable read access to files being edited. Technical notes are loaded
      completely into memory when selected and closed immediately.  These
      files are not left open.

   d: QWHITE.COM loads QWHITE.WPO at startup and then closes the file.  It
      does not leave the file open after it has been loaded.


               Copyright (C) 1990 by Quarterdeck Office Systems
                    * * *   E N D   O F   F I L E    * * *