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1992-01-12
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HIGHLITE
Another Sound Alternative
USERS GUIDE
January, 1992
Copyright (c) 1992
All rights reserved.
by
KANSYS, Inc.
1016 Ohio St.
Lawrence, KS 66044
Telephone: 913-843-0351 or 800-279-4880
USERS GUIDE
January, 1992
Introduction
A blind student whom I know was convinced that she was
inferior to other students because she was unable to "highlight"
important passages in a textbook the way her friends did. To
"highlight" a book is to disfigure it by discoloring interestingt
passages slightly with a felt tipped pen or "magic marker" so
that they will later catch your eye when reviewing the material.
How does one "highlight" audio tapes or braille books? The answer
is not obvious.
As more and more blind students and other persons turn to
the personal computer for their reading, writing, and information
needs, a marking facility similar to highlighting would be
useful. How can one "highlight" an interesting phrase, an
important sentence, a relevant passage, or a puzzling column of
numbers displayed on a computer screen for later reference? The
KANSYS, Inc. HighLite utility is designed to perform that task.
HighLite is a small program for IBM compatible Personal
Computers that is run once when your computer starts up, and
remains available in the background thereafter. As you proceed
with your work and notice something memorable on the screen, you
"bring up" HighLite with the press of a hotkey combination, move
the cursor to one end of the desired passage and mark it, then
move it to the other end, press the enter key, and the passage is
copied to a clipping file in your current directory. Each
repetition of this process adds additional clippings to the file.
If you change directories, a new clipping file will be created
there also, when you first bring up HighLite to mark and preserve
information.
Description
The HighLite program requires only 6k of your computer's
memory, and in fact if your computer has expanded memory, only 1k
of conventional memory is used. It does not modify the display
screen or any of your files in any way. All its messages are
"beeps" produced in the PC speaker. It is "brought up" and "put
down" with a hotkey which may not be changed by the user. The key
is the control-underscore combination (^_). It is easy to
remember that control-underscore is used to highlight passages on
the screen, saving them in a clipping file. The file is called
CLIPPING.BOX, and again the user may not modify that name. Of
course it may be copied to another file or renamed later if
desired, but HighLite will always look for a file called
CLIPPING.BOX to put its clippings in, and create one if it cannot
find one in the current directory. HighLite will never delete a
clipping file; you must do that yourself.
The sounds made by HighLite to guide user input are of three
different tones: high, medium, and low; in this manual we shall
call them beep, bop, and boop, respectively. When you press the
hotkey to bring up HighLite, you will hear a rising sequence of
tones: boop bop beep; when you press it again to put it down, you
will hear a falling series: beep bop boop. While the program is
activated, the following commands are available:
(1). Arrow keys (Left, Right, Up, Down). These keys move the
HighLite cursor in the expected direction. When in column one and
you press left arrow, you hear bop beep and the cursor moves to
column 80 of the line above. When you are in column 80 and you
press right arrow, you hear bop boop and you are in column one of
the line below. You may use either the arrow keys on the numeric
keypad or the separate cursor keys if available on your keyboard.
(2). Control-Left, Control-Right. These keys move the cursor
to the start of the previous or the next word, just as they would
in a word processor. A "word" is defined as any continuous
sequence of non-blank characters. If the HighLite cursor moves to
another line while searching for a previous word or a next word,
you will hear bop beep or bop boop. You may use control-left or
control-right either on the numeric keypad or on the separate
cursor keys.
(3). Home, End. These keys move the cursor to the left end
or to the right end of the current line, respectively, and say
bop. If already located there, they move the cursor to the top
left corner or the bottom right corner of the screen,
respectively, and say bop beep, or bop boop. You may use home or
end either on the numeric keypad or on the separate special
keypad if available.
(4). Page-Up, Page-Down. These keys move the cursor to the
top of the screen or to the bottom of the screen without changing
the horizontal location of the HighLite cursor. You may enter
these keys either on the numeric keypad or on the separate
special keypad if available.
(5). Function keys F1, F2, F3. These keys mark one end of
the desired selection. Function key F1 is used to mark one end of
a string of characters, F2 is used to mark one end of a set of
whole lines, and F3 is used to mark one corner of a rectangular
area of the screen. The other end of the string of characters or
the set of lines, or the diagonally opposite corner of the
rectangular area, are marked either with the enter key or with
the shifted versions of F1, F2, or F3, as explained later. You
may mark either end of the passage or any corner of the rectangle
with the appropriate function key. You may change the location of
the marked end of the selection simply by moving the cursor and
retyping the same key. These keys will say beep when pressed.
(6). Enter. This is the action key, which saves a marked
selection to the clipping file. If you have marked one end of the
selection with function key F1, F2, or F3, then moved the
HighLite cursor to the other end, you may complete the marking
and save the selection by simply pressing the enter key. You will
hear beep beep beep and existing marks will be removed. If you
have not yet marked one end of a selection, the enter key does
nothing. You may use the enter key either on the numeric keypad
or on the main keyboard.
(7). Escape. This key cancels a marking which you have begun
but do not wish to complete. For example, if you select the start
of a string of characters with F1 but then decide you should be
marking a set of whole lines instead of a string of characters,
you must first press escape before you can press F2. Selecting
one of the three function keys makes the other two unavailable
until you either complete the process you have begun by pressing
the enter key, or cancel it with the escape key.
(8). Function keys Shift-F1, Shift-F2, Shift-F3. These keys
allow you to mark the other end of a string of characters, the
other end of a set of lines, or the diagonally opposite corner of
a rectangular screen area, without simultaneously saving it to
the clipping file. You may want to do this in order to double
check the boundaries of your selection before proceeding with the
save. The shifted function keys are therefore optional. The enter
key will eventually have to be pressed in order to complete the
saving of the selection marked with the plain and the shifted
function keys. These keys also say beep when pressed.
(9). Equals. This key says bop and must be followed by a
second keystroke to reposition the HighLite cursor to a
previously marked position. The very next keystroke must be a
plain or a shifted F1, F2, or F3, or a second press of the equals
key. For example, if you have marked the beginning of a string of
characters with F1 and later want to return your cursor to that
same position, you do so by pressing equals followed by F1. If
you have not already pressed a function key, the function keys
will not respond. If you follow a press of the equals key with a
second press of the equals key, the HighLite cursor will be moved
to the position of the true system cursor. The second keystroke
says beep if the cursor is repositioned, or boop boop boop if you
make an error.
(10). The Digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. These keys
may be entered either on the main keyboard or on the numeric
keypad, in a two key sequence, to move the HighLite cursor to the
left end of the desired screen line. You would enter 01 for the
top line and 25 for the bottom line. The two digit sequence says
bop beep. An error says boop boop boop.
(11). Control Underscore (^_). This combination of keys
makes the HighLite program dormant or inactive. It does not
"terminate" the program in the usual meaning of that term; there
is no way to do that. Please note that you must press CTRL and
hold it down while you press underscore. You do not need to
include the shift key to obtain this combination. The underscore
and the minus share the same key on the top row of the main
keyboard, but the minus is usually also available on the numeric
keypad, in which location it is not combined with underscore. The
key you must use is the one in the top row of keys on the main
keyboard.
(12). All other keystrokes are errors, and if you press one
you will hear boop boop boop.
Command Line Options
When the HighLite program is run with no options given on
the command line, two actions take place which you may wish to
suppress. One action is to search for the presence of expanded
memory on your computer, and to use one block of it (16k) if it
is available. The size 16k is the minimum amount of memory that
can be assigned by DOS to a requesting program. HighLite will
require only 1k of conventional memory if expanded memory is
available. If it is not available, or if you prefer not to use it
for HighLite, it will require only 6k of conventional memory. To
suppress the use of expanded memory, include the switch /C (or
/c) on the command line.
The other action you may wish to suppress is the activity of
the now famous KANSYS, Inc. "WatchDog" buzzing speaker. By
default, the HighLite WatchDog begins buzzing (or growling) in
the PC speaker when a selection is first marked. The buzzing
stops when you have pressed enter, escape, or exited HighLite
with the hotkey, control-underscore (^_). It is recommended that
you use the WatchDog for a while until you become accustomed to
the operation of the program. If you wish to suppress (or muzzle)
the WatchDog, include the switch /Q (or /q) on the command line
when HighLite is run.
Limitations
HighLite will not work in a graphics environment such as
Windows 3.0 or the OS/2 Presentation Manager. It requires 80 by
25 character text mode displays. Screens of different dimensions
are not presently supported by HighLite.
The HighLite program is available in a demonstration version
which is fully functional to a limit of saving 25 clippings. In
order to obtain another set of 25 saves, your PC must be
restarted and the program executed again. The permanant version
of HighLite offers an unlimited number of saves.
The KANSYS, Inc. software installation program, KINSTALL
V2.1 or later, is used to install the software on your computer.
If you have a demo version you can also simply copy the file
HIGHLITE.COM to your computer. The KINSTALL program must be used
if your version is a permanent copy, since only your copy of
KINSTALL can convert a demo copy to a permanent copy with your
user identification included.
KINSTALL will not modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to provide
for automatic program loading upon startup. You must do that
manually. If you use other TSR programs and have difficulty
making HighLite work properly, experiment with the relative
position of the HighLite program command line within your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file. HighLite daisy chains on three interrupts: INT
8 (IRQ0, the system clock), INT 16H (keyboard service requests),
and INT 2FH (the DOS multiplex service). While every effort has
been made to provide a "well behaved" TSR program, it has not
been possible to test HighLite in all system configurations, and
yours may be unique.