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!ChartDraw
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!Help
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1992-03-19
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!Chartdraw, © by Chris Johnson, 1990
====================================
*********************************************************
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
THIS PROGRAM WAS COMPILED USING THE DABS PRESS ARCHIMEDES
BASIC COMPILER (ABC)
*********************************************************
This fully multi-tasking application allows the production
of a range of charts from data that can be entered and
edited. The program plots line graphs, stacked and grouped
barcharts and piegraphs. The current implementation allows
only 2D-representation of the bars and pies, which is
sufficient for most needs.
This application now gives full support to Acorn's !Help
application, displaying information on the various icons
and windows when the !Help window is open.
Starting the program
--------------------
Double clicking on the !Chartdraw directory installs the
application on the icon bar. Clicking on the icon on the
iconbar opens a scrolling edit window into which the data to
be displayed can be entered. Labels to append to the axes
etc. are also entered. Loading in one of the demonstration
data files should show how the edit window operates.
If the program is freshly started, or any previous data has
been cleared, then the edit grid will be empty. If the
program has been used previously, any data already entered
and not cleared will be displayed. It is possible to enter a
main title for the chart, and subtitles for up to four
groups of data. Text labels for the individual data can be
entered into the left hand boxes as required. Note that the
label applies to each corresponding data in the data sets.
The caret can be placed in any box by pointing and clicking
SELECT on the mouse. Pressing return will automatically move
the caret into the next box of the edit window (the caret
need not be at the right hand end of the text) with
automatic scrolling as necessary. All editing is carried out
in the standard fashion of the RISC OS WIMP environment.
Note these changes from previous versions. There are a
number of changes to the key strokes. You can now move
around the edit window using the arrow keys, together
with SHIFT for sideways movement.
You can DELETE the complete row of data at the cursor
using either CTRL X or SHIFT/CTRL/COPY.
You can insert a blank row using SHIFT/CTRL/INSERT, with
the data from the current line being all moved down one
row. If all the rows already have data in them, the last
row of data will be lost.
Function key F3 will bring up the "save as" dialogue
box, except when a chart is displayed, when the "save
drawfile" box will be displayed instead.
Function key "Print" will print the chart (if the edit
window has input focus).
************************************************************
WARNING: All the editing is carried out on strings of
characters. These strings are converted to numerical values
only when the charts are drawn. The application does not
check these strings for non-numerical content before it
converts using the VAL function. It is up to the user to
check the data entered for mis-typing etc.
**********************************************************
The Iconbar Menu
----------------
This provides the standard information window, an
opportunity to QUIT the application, and a dialogue box
to set a range of default preferences, which can be
saved in the application and will be reloaded at
startup.
The Edit window menu
--------------------
Clicking the menu button on the edit window will allow six
choices.
Clear data
----------
This will clear the data (screen display and memory buffer)
ready to begin entering the data for a new chart (NB. Once
its gone its gone!!!).
Save file
---------
This acts in the standard RISC OS way. You can enter a file
name and drag the save icon to an open directory viewer, or
if the full path name is set up (e.g. the data was loaded
from disk) then it is necessary only to click on OK. When
data is saved to disk it is given a defined filetype so that
the application is able to recognise datafiles to load back
in. The filetype number is easily changed if it clashes with
any other application filetypes.
Note that there are some differences between this later
version of ChartDraw and the previous release. The label
text is not now saved as part of the data file and so the
new files are not compatible with the old.
Pie Charts / Line Graphs / Stacked Bars / Grouped Bars
------------------------------------------------------
These options cause the plotting of the chosen type of
chart. In the case of the piechart, a sub-menu allows you to
choose between plotting a single large pie, or up to four
small ones. Line graphs and grouped bargraphs also allow a
similar choice of one or all of the data sets, but stacked
bargraphs always uses all the data sets.
Chart window menus
==================
Once a chart has been drawn, clicking on its window with the
menu button will present a number of choices. Some of these
are common to all charts, others are specific to a
particular type of chart. All the actions are summarised
below.
Common choices
==============
Pie Charts / Line Graphs / Stacked Bars / Grouped Bars
======================================================
Some actions are fairly clear. It is possible to replot the
chart in an alternative form by choosing the new chart
format. If pie charts, line graphs or grouped barcharts are
chosen, then you may again choose to plot one or all of the
sets. The barcharts can be toggled between vertical and
horizontal bars as the user wishes. In release one of this
program it was possible to use hatched fills as well as
solid fills. Since the draw module, which is used in this
new version for all plotting, does not support hatched
filling, this facility has now been removed. If users feel
especially agrieved at this, then I will consider
reintroducing it, but screen redraws would probably become
very lethargic.
Print chart
-----------
Selecting this option will print the chart directly, using
whichever printer driver is installed. Note that either the
!printerDM or !printerPS must be installed on the iconbar
before hardcopy can be obtained. The printed output should
be the whole chart as displayed on the screen, but without
any window borders etc.
Make Drawfile
-------------
This option will allow a copy of the chart to be output to
disc as a draw file, which can subsequently be loaded into
!Draw to allow additional annotation or various enhancements
to be undertaken. The modified chart may then be printed
from !Draw in the normal way.
This option leads to a standard "save as" dialogue box, and
the file may be saved in any of the normal RISC-OS ways,
i.e. by dragging the icon to a directory display, or, if the
full path name is set up, by simply clicking on OK.
Add Label
---------
The labels option is one way in which extra annotation can
be added to the charts. You can add a maximum of TEN labels.
When you choose "add label" from the graphic menu, a
writable icon box will appear near the top of the screen (Do
not panic if it appears to overwrite part of the chart). You
can add the label text up to a maximum of forty characters.
When you press <RETURN> the text is converted to a writable
icon. This icon can be dragged to anywhere in the graph
window for positioning. If you later click on the text with
SELECT a caret appears and the text may be edited in the
usual manner. If the text becomes longer than it was before,
it will scroll out of view as with many writable icons -
never fear - when you press <RETURN> the icon will be
replotted and all the text will become visible.
If you click MENU on the label text, rather than on the
general window area, then a menu will appear giving four
options.
BORDER will toggle a border on/off around the text
FILL will toggle the solid background on/off (useful if the
label overlays part of the chart)
DELETE is self explanatory. However, note that it is
preferable to simply edit the text even if you wish to
change it completely, rather than to keep deleting and
recreating labels, since the program has limited storage for
the label text, and it cannot always reclaim the space when
a label is