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Night Owl 6
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Night Owl's Shareware - PDSI-006 - Night Owl Corp (1990).iso
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029a
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masview.zip
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READ.ME
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1991-10-23
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MASTERVIEW Demo Disk
--------------------
This disk contains a demonstration version of MasterView. While
all features of MasterView are active, the demo program works
only with the supplied target files (TTT*.C).
You can get the general feel of MasterView by taking a "self-
guided demo tour". This will only take a couple of minutes and
will cover the main functions quickly. It may be handy to print
this file and refer to the hardcopy as you go. (It is only a
couple of pages long).
To show off MasterView's user interface, we have assumed you are
using a mouse and a color monitor. If you are not, MasterView can
be operated using the ALT-keys, ALT-S for Search, etc. Your mouse
driver should be loaded before starting MasterView.
In the following text, the lines starting with --> are actions
you should take.
--> To get ready for your tour, make a new directory on your hard
disk, and copy all files from the MasterView demo disk into it.
Start the MasterView program...
--> type MV and press Enter
MasterView starts and displays the file screen.
You should have a display of six files (one .h file and five .c
files). These files contain the C source code for a Tic-Tac-Toe
game. You, of course, are completely unfamilier with the contents
of these files.
The yellow diamond at the upper left is the mouse cursor.
--> put the mouse cursor on 'Search' and click the left button
to go to the Search screen. Your screen will clear and show
MasterView ready to search the files. Let's say we are interested
in changing the screen display of the game but don't know
anything about this particular implementation of it.
Since we know that Tic-Tac-Toe is played with O's and X's, we
will search for an X to see how and where the program prints.
(Notice that we are using a capital X (in upper case) here...)
--> type X <Enter>
MasterView searches for 'X'...
We see that 'X' is found in two files. The 'X' in TTT1.C is some
kind of greeting, and the 'X' in TTT2.C looks like it prints the
Tic-Tac-Toe board. Notice that it uses the C function 'printf()'.
If that's how it prints, let's try to get an overview of printing
by finding all of the printf() calls.
--> type printf <Enter>
MasterView searches for printf...
We see that 'printf' is used in four files. We can easily see the
greeting, where moves are announced, and what looks like the Tic-
Tac-Toe board display in TTT2.C. Want a closer look?
--> put the mouse cursor inside the TTT2.C window and click left
Now we have Zoomed in on TTT2.C. The lines containing 'HUMAN' and
'COMPUTER' look interesting...
--> click left mouse on HUMAN or COMPUTER
We can now see the heart of the code that prints the playing
board. A variable named 'board' is being used...
--> click your right mouse button...
--> click your right mouse button again...
and you are back at the Search screen.
--> type board <Enter>
and you can see all uses of 'board' in the program. Some are for
our variable and some are functions called 'print_board()' and
'set_up_board()'. You can Zoom on anything interesting and check
it out, or search for other things you notice. (If you happen to
find your way into the editor, you can exit by pressing ESC.)
--> exit by clicking right mouse button repeatedly
When you are finished looking around, clicking the right mouse
button will back you out from wherever you are one step at a
time, until you are at the File screen. MasterView then asks if
you are ready to exit... press 'Y' and you are done.
This is the basics of how we use MasterView to build our
knowledge of an unfamilier program. Note that we have been able
to explore without worrying about program organization, about
what the various files are named, where things are kept, or any
other messy details... and we haven't had to type any command
lines to do it. When we are ready to make a change we can quickly
find the area we are concerned with; and if we need to alter a
variable or function, we can see everywhere that it is used and
won't miss any references.
MasterView can help you do your job more quickly, more
accurately, and with less frustration. It is available from:
CodeWorks, Inc.
PO Box 47-334
Plymouth MN 55447
(612) 557-9358
Thank you for trying this demonstration.