Copyright: NETpresenter ® 1995, 1996 NETpresenter B.V.ushnaq


Contents
NETpresenter Contents

Welcome to NETpresenter. Click on the underlined text to see a specific topic.

Overview

Menus

Toolstrip

Slide and Object Properties

Adding Objects to a Slide

Creating a Presentation

Tips for Designing Presentations

Technical Support

Index


Overview

A presentation consists of one or more slides. The slides can contain text, graphics, and multicolor gradients. You can control how long the slide is displayed, choose a visual effect to display the slide, and select a sound that is played when the slide appears during the presentation.

The editor consists of two views: Slide and Organizer. In Slide view, the editor displays the slide and updates its appearance as you change its attributes. In the Organizer view, you can rearrange the order of the slides and select the current slide. Here is a picture of the Organizer view of the editor:

This picture of the editor shows a presentation with four slides. The second slide is highlighted in yellow and is the current slide. To select another slide for editing, click on the slide and it will turn yellow. If you want to change the order of the slides, pick up a slide and move it to another position. the editor will instantly update the order of the slides.


Menus

File

New

Create a new window and channel document.

Open...

Open an existing channel file. If the active window is not yet associated with a document, the editor will use the window for the channel. Otherwise, the editor will create a new MDI client window for the channel.

Close

Close the active channel.

Save

Save the active channel.

Save As...

Save the active channel using the name that you select in a standard Windows file dialog.

Save All

Save changes to any of the channel files that are currently open.

Preview...

Preview the current channel. The presentation will appear in a full screen window just as it does on remote computers on the network.

Copy...

Copy the active channel and any associated files to the destination selected in a standard Windows file dialog. This is useful for moving an entire presentation to a network server so that it is available to other computers on the network.

Screen Saver Options...

Open the screen saver configuration dialog. The settings are only useful for the computer you are using. They are not valid on other computers playing the channel.

Exit

Exit the editor. The program will ask you whether you want to save changes to any of the open channels.

Edit

Cut

Cut the selected object or text to the clipboard.

Copy

Copy the selected object or text to the clipboard.

Paste

Paste the contents of the clipboard to the current channel. If the clipboard contains an object, the editor will paste the object onto the current slide. If the clipboard contains a slide, the editor will insert the slide after the current slide in the channel.

Clear

Delete the selected object without copying it to the clipboard.

Cut Slide

Copy the current slide to the clipboard and remove it from the channel after asking for confirmation. The editor will not permit you to remove a slide if it is the only slide in the channel.

Copy Slide

Copy the current slide to the clipboard. This is useful for copying slides from one channel to another. Use the "Paste" menu item to paste the slide into other channels.

Character Map...

Opens the Windows Character Map application for creating text strings using any character in a font. The string is copied to the clipboard and you can use the editor's "Paste" menu item to insert the text into the field for entering slide or object text. This is useful for entering foreign language characters or symbols that are difficult to enter from the keyboard.

View

Organizer

Select the slide organizer view of the channel. This view allows you to choose the current slide and arrange the order of the slides within the channel.

Slide Editor

Select the slide editor view of the channel. This view allows you to edit the current slide.

Properties

Toggle the visibility of the property sheets. These sheets are used for changing the attributes of slides and objects. You can hide the property sheets if you want more area to edit a slide.

Slide

Next

Go to the next slide in the channel.

Previous

Go to the previous slide in the channel.

First

Go to the first slide in the channel.

Last

Go to the last slide in the channel.

Add Slide

Add a new slide to the channel.

Delete Slide

Delete the current slide from the channel. The editor will not permit you to delete a slide if it is the only slide in the channel.

Text

Bold

Italics

Underline

Toggle the style attributes of the text that is rendered on an object or on the slide background. You can select any combination of text attributes.

Left Justify

Center

Right Justify

Set the horizontal justification of the text that is rendered on an object or on the slide background.

Top

Center

Bottom

Set the vertical justification of the text that is rendered on an object or on the slide background.

Object

Bring to Front

Move the selected object to the top of the object order. After executing this item, the selected object will appear on top of all other objects.

Send to Back

Move the selected object to the bottom of the object order. After executing this item, the selected object will appear beneath all other objects.

Bring Closer

Move the selected object closer to the top of the object order.

Send Farther

Move the selected object closer to the bottom of the object order.

Tool

Select

Choose the Selection tool. Use this tool to select, move, and size objects.

Rectangle

Choose the Rectangle tool. Use this tool to create new rectangles.

Ellipse

Choose the Ellipse tool. Use this tool to create new ellipses.

Rounded Rectangle

Choose the Rounded Rectangle tool. Use this tool to create new rounded rectangles.

Polygon

Choose the Polygon tool. Use this tool to create new polygons. To create a polygon, move the mouse to the first point in the polygon and press the mouse button. Move the mouse to the second point in the polygon and release the button. Continue to add sides to the polygon by moving the mouse to new points and clicking the mouse button. To close the polygon move the mouse to the location of the first point in the polygon and press the mouse button.

Window

Cascade

Position the channel windows into a cascade format of overlapped windows.

Tile Horizontal

Size and position the channel windows in the client area. The windows are tiled so that they are wide rather than tall.

Tile Vertical

Size and position the channel windows in the client area. The windows are tiled so that they are tall rather than wide.

Arrange

Rearrange the positions of minimized windows.

Close All

Close all channels.

Restore All

Restore all channel windows to their current size and location.

Minimize All

Minimize all channel windows.

Help

Contents...

Display the table of contents of the help document.

Search for Help on...

Search for a term in the help document.

How to use Help...

Open a document for help on using the Windows help system.

About...

View the About dialog that includes copyright information about the program.


Toolstrip

Presentation Tools

Preview the presentation. The presentation will appear as it does when played by the screen saver.

Toggle the property sheets on and off. These sheets are used to set the appearance and behavior of individual slides and objects.

Toggle between the Slide and Organizer views of the editor.

Move to the previous slide. If the current slide is the first slide in the presentation, move to the last slide in the presentation.

Move to the next slide. If the current slide is the last slide in the presentation, move to the first slide in the presentation.

Add a new slide to the presentation.

Delete the current slide from the presentation. The editor will not allow you to delete the slide if it is the only slide in the presentation.

Save the presentation to a disk file.

Object Tools

Selection Tool. Use this tool to select, move, and size objects.

Rectangle Tool. Use this tool to create rectangles on the slide.

Ellipse Tool. Use this tool to create ellipses on the slide.

Rounded Rectangle Tool. Use this tool to create rounded rectangles on the slide.

Polygon Tool. Use this tool to create polygons on the slide.

Color Tool. Click on this button to choose a color for drawing an object. You can later change the color of the object using the Colors property sheet.

Font

Combo box for selecting the current typeface of the slide or selected object.

Combo box for selecting the height of the font used for rendering text on a slide or object.

Help

Displays the Contents page of the help document.


Slide and Object Properties

The appearance and attributes of slides and objects are controlled by property sheets. These sheets appear on the left side of the editor frame window. You can toggle the property sheets on and off by clicking on the Property button (second button from the left on the toolstrip).

There are five property sheets available for slides. To choose one of the property sheets, click on one of the five tabs.

Click on the tab or the underlined text for information about a property sheet.

General

Colors

Text

Effect

Media

When you create a new object or select an object with the selection tool, The editor changes the tabs and property sheets to reflect the appearance and attributes of the object. There are four property sheets available for objects.

Object

Colors

Text

Effect

Media


General

Name

You can name each slide in the presentation. The name will appear in the Organizer view so you can reposition individual slides within the presentation.

Seconds

You can control the number of seconds that the slide is displayed. The default is five seconds. Use longer times when there is more information on the slide.

Options

•	Hide Slide

If the option is selected, the screen saver will not display the slide. This is useful for slides that are only used occasionally. You can keep them in the presentation and turn them on when necessary.

•	Alert

If this option is selected, the player will blink a red box around the slide when it is displayed. It is useful for calling attention to important information. For this feature to be effective, you should use it sparingly. Otherwise, people might ignore it when you really need them to see the slide. In other words, you should not cry wolf unless you mean it.

•	Set Name to Text

If this option is selected, the editor will automatically change the name of the slide to the slide's text (up to 24 characters). This may make it easier to keep track of a slide because the name is related to the contents of the slide. If you do not want the name to change, turn off this option.

Background Image

You can designate a bitmapped image to use as a the background. Type in a path to the image or click on the Browse button to display a file dialog for choosing an image file.

You can also select how the image is positioned on the slide:

•	Stretch

Stretch the image to fill the entire slide.

•	Stretch (Keep Aspect)

Stretch the image to fill as much of the slide as possible and still maintain the aspect ratio of the image.

•	Tile

Replicate the image across the entire slide. This is particularly useful with small seamless tiles and allows you create nice looking backgrounds with a minimum of network bandwidth and storage space.

•	Center

Center the image in the middle of the slide. The program does not scale the size of the image at all.


Colors

Use this property sheet to modify the colors of a slide or selected object. You can also use it to create a background gradient for the slide. As you modify the color, the current color is updated in the Preview rectangle. If the Slide view is currently selected, the appearance of the slide will also be updated.

Color Pots

Use the row of buttons that are located at the lower right-hand corner of the sheet to select the current color pot. The first eight pots are used to render the slide or object. The last four pots control the text color and optional outline, shadow and extrusion colors. In this example, white text will be drawn on a slide with a blue to black vertical gradient.

Hue, Saturation, and Value

You can change a color by clicking down the mouse and dragging it within the Hue-Saturation rectangle. Move the mouse left and right to adjust the hue and move it up and down to change the saturation of the color. You can change the value (brightness) of a color by clicking within the Value rectangle and moving the mouse up and down.

You can also enter new values for a color in the fields labeled Hue, Sat., Value, Red, Green, and Blue.

Type

A slide or object does not have to be a solid color. By changing the color type, you can quickly create multicolor gradients.

•	Solid

The entire slide or object is rendered with a single solid color.

•	Vertical

A multicolor gradient that starts at the top of the object and changes colors as it reaches the bottom of the object. This is usually the gradient that NETpresenter can render fastest.

•	Horizontal

A multicolor gradient that starts at the left side of the object and changes colors as it reaches the right side of the object.

•	Box

A multicolor gradient consisting of progressively larger rectangles.

•	Concentric

A multicolor gradient consisting of progressively larger ellipses.

•	Radial

A multicolor gradient that spins the colors around the center of the object and returns to the original color.

•	Transparent

The object is not drawn at all. This is useful for creating transparent objects with text that you can overlay over the background or other objects.

•	Test Pattern

A video test pattern that is probably not that useful but might be fun for some presentations.

•	Shaded

The selected color is halftoned so the area beneath the object shows through the object. This is particularly effective for creating an area to render text when there is not enough contrast between the background and the text.

Colors

This value controls the number of base colors used to render an object. A value of one is a solid color. A value of two is creates a gradient that begins with the color in the first pot and ends with the color in the second pot. NETpresenter creates intermediate colors between these two colors. As you increase the number of colors, you will need to adjust the colors in the corresponding color pots.

Steps

This value controls the coarseness of a gradient. For instance, a two color gradient will consist of the colors contained in the first two color pots plus enough intermediate colors to equal the number of steps. The greater the number of steps, the smoother the gradient will appear.


Text

Text

You can add text to a slide or selected object by typing text into the field labeled Text. The text will be centered on the slide or object using the current font, text color, and text attributes.

Insert File at Runtime

The player can open a disk file and substitute the contents of the disk file when it renders text on the slide or object.

Outline

You can change the thickness of the outline that the player can draw around characters. If the outline is set to zero,the player will not draw an outline.

Shadow

To create a shadow beneath the text, change the shadow numbers. If the "x" shadow is negative, the program will draw the shadow to the left of the character. If the "x" shadow is positive, the program will draw the shadow to the right of the character. If the "y" shadow is negative, the shadow will appear above the character and if "y" is positive, the shadow will appear beneath the character. The player will not draw a shadow if both values are zero.

Extrude

To create extruded text, set the "x" and "y" extrude values to a position relative to the normal position of the text. The player will extrude the text from this position. If both values are zero, the player will not extrude the text.

Character Space

This value controls the amount of space between characters. Increase this value to spread the letters apart. Decrease this value to move the letters closer together.

Line Space

This value controls the amount of space between lines. Increase this value to add space between the lines. Decrease this value to move the lines closer together.

Text Menu

You also adjust some text attributes from the Text menu.

•	Bold

•	Italics

•	Underline

•	Left Justify

•	Center Justify

•	Right Justify


Effect

Type

You can select a visual effect that the player uses to display a slide. The choice of effects includes wipes, reveals, and flows. If the effect is "None", the player displays the slide at once without a visual effect. If the effect is "Random", the player randomly chooses an effect from the list before displaying the slide.

Alphabetical

Complexity

You can view the list of visual effects in two ways. If "Alphabetical" is selected, the list appears in alphabetical order. If "Complexity" is selected, the effects are listed in order of complexity. Effects near the top of the list are simpler and require less processing than effects near the bottom of the list. If your presentation will appear on slower machines, you should use effects near the top of the list.

Minimum Duration, ms

Maximum Duration, ms

You can set the minimum and maximum length of time the player uses to display a slide. The purpose of using a range of time is to allow for speed differences in computers on a network. Because the transition will not go faster than the minimum duration, faster machines will not create blindingly fast effects that you cannot see. Slower machines might take longer than the minimum duration but will do the best they can unless the player calculates that the visual effect will take longer than the maximum duration. In this case, the screen saver will not use a visual effect at all rather than try to display an effect that looks too slow on a particular computer. Think of the minimum duration as the preferred speed of the transition and think of the maximum duration as a limit to how slow a visual effect can appear. These values are in milliseconds: a one second transition equals 1000 milliseconds.

Block Size

Many visual effects move around blocks of the slide in chunks. You can adjust the size of these chunks by changing the block size. For instance, you can use this value to change the size of the square used by the checkerboard transition.


Sound
Multimedia

The program can play multimedia files using the Windows Media Control Interface (MCI). This allows you to play sound files, MIDI music files, MPEG video streams, AVI digital video files, and animations.

File Path to Multimedia File

To play a multimedia file when the object appears, enter a path to a file into the file path field. To open a file dialog and look for a file, click on the "Browse" button. The file dialog will configure the file filter to only search for files that can be played on your system.

Multimedia Event

•	No Event

When the object appears, there is no change to the status of sound or video. If the player is playing a multimedia file, it continues to play it if this event is selected.

•	Play Once

Play a multimedia file just once when the object appears.

•	Play and Loop

Start the multimedia file when the object appears and continue to play it until it is stopped or replaced.

•	Stop

Stop playing the designated multimedia file when the object appears.

•	Stop All

Stop all multimedia that is currently playing.

Section

Use these controls to select a section of the multimedia file to play. By default, the player will play the entire file. In this case the controls are set to zero. To play only a section of the file, enter the beginning and ending times. The times are measured in seconds.


Object Properties
Object

Delay before rendering object, ms

Use this setting to control the number of milliseconds that elapse between the appearance of the slide and the appearance of the object. If the value is zero, the object appears when the slide appears. If the value is greater than zero, the player renders the object separately using the visual effect that you can select in the Effect property sheet.

You can use this setting to create more interesting presentations. A common design technique is to render the slide background first and then overlay the text a moment later. To do this, create an object, enter some text, and set the color type to transparent. The text of the object will overlay the slide background. Set the delay to 500 ms (one half of a second) and select a visual transition. When you preview the slide, the background will appear and a half second later, the player will render the text on the slide.


Objects
Adding Objects to a Slide

More Complex Slides

It is easy to create a presentation by just adding slides and entering information into the property sheets. However, you may wish to create more complicated slides by adding objects to the slide. The editor includes some object-oriented, draw tools for creating and modifying these objects. Objects are very efficient in terms of network bandwidth and storage space because they are stored in the channel file as single lines of text. They also allow you to position text anywhere on the screen because objects can have text just like the slide itself.

Creating an Object

The draw tools are enabled when you are in the Slide view of the editor. To create an object, first click on one of the draw tool buttons in the toolstrip:

Rectangles

Ellipses

Rounded Rectangles

Polygons

Position the mouse over the slide and click down. Drag the mouse to another position and release the mouse. The editor will create a new object on the slide.

Selecting an Object

To edit an object, it has to be selected. When you first create an object, the editor selects the object for you. You can also select an existing object by clicking on it with the Selection tool which you activate by pressing this button on the toolstrip:

Selection Tool

Changing Object Properties

When you select an object, the editor will update the property sheets. You can change the appearance of an object by changing the data in these sheets just as you would change the properties of a slide. Unlike a slide, an object only uses two property sheets:

Colors

Text

Moving and Sizing Objects

To move an object, click on it with the mouse and drag the object to a new position as you hold down the mouse button. Release the button, and the editor will draw the object at the new position.

When you select an object, the editor will draw rectangular handles on the four corners of the object. To size the object, click on one of these handles and drag it to a new position. The editor will size the object and redraw it on the slide.

Changing the Depth of an Object

You can change the order in which the editor draws objects on the slide by changing the depth of an object from the Object menu:

•	Bring to Front

Show the object on top of all other objects.

•	Send to Back

Show the object beneath all other objects.

•	Bring Closer

Bring the object closer to the top of the slide.

•	Send Farther

Send the object farther from the top of the screen.


Create a Presentation
Creating a Presentation

Follow this list to create a simple presentation:

1 	Select "New" from the File menu.

2 	If the property sheets are not displayed, click on the Properties button (second button from the left on the toolstrip).

3 	If you do not see a slide in the editor, click on the Slide button (third button from the left on the toolstrip). You should now see a blank slide with no text.

4 	Click on the "Colors" tab. The Colors property sheet will appear.

5 	Use the "Type" combo box to select a vertical gradient.

6 	Click on the "Text" tab. Enter text into the field.

7 	Change the font height by selecting a new value in the toolbar's second combo box. The editor will update the appearance of the text on the slide.

8 	Click on the "Effect" tab. Select a visual effect. This effect will be used to control how one of the players displays the slide.

9 	Click on the Add Slide button in the toolstrip (sixth button from the left). A new slide will appear.

10 	Repeat steps 4 through 9 to create new slides.

11 	Click on the Preview button (first button from the left in the toolstrip). The editor will play your presentation. Click the mouse when you want to return to the editor.

12 	From the File menu, select "Save". Select a name for your presentation and press "OK".


Techniques
Tips for Designing Presentations

•	Use the background gradients when possible.

You can minimize the bandwidth and storage demands on your network by using the built-in color gradients instead of bitmaps. These gradients only require one line in the channel script and will take up much less room than equivalent backgrounds which have to be downloaded on the network and stored on each machine that uses the presentation.

•	Use small bitmap tiles when possible.

You can instruct the program to tile small bitmaps to create a background. This can mean smaller network bandwidth and storage requirements. You can create a tiled background by entering a file path to a tile in the General property sheet and choosing the Tile option.

•	What if a muliticolor object appears as a solid color?

To create objects with multicolor gradients, the system uses Windows region clipping. Occassionally, the program will render a multicolor object as a solid color because there may be insufficient Graphics Device Interface (GDI) heap space to create the region. This can sometimes occur when the program tries to render a large polygon with a lot of points or if some of the points are located outside of the slide. It is much less likely to happen when the computer is running Windows 95 because the GDI memory heap can grow beyond the 64K limitation of previous versions of Windows.

•	What if the player takes a long time to show a slide that includes a 24 bit image?

You are probably trying to display the 24 bit image in a 256 color display mode. To display the slide, Windows must first convert the 24 bit image to a bitmap that uses a 256 color palette. This conversion is often time-consuming. You can eliminate this process by converting the image to 256 colors. It will not look any different but the computer will be able to display the slide much faster. To convert an image, you can load the image into Paintbrush and save out a copy of the image as a 256 color bitmap.

•	Use Microsoft Plus! for better looking text

Microsoft Plus! is an inexpensive companion product to the Windows 95 operating system. It includes a Font Smoothing option that can improve the appearence of text on a slide. After installing Plus!, you can activate the font smoothing by opening the Control Panel and then selecting "Display." When the Display Properties window appears, click on the "Plus!" tab. Check the option that is labeled "Smooth edges of screen fonts." When you select "OK," all large screen fonts on your system are smoothed including the fonts you use in this program. This feature is only available with Windows 95.


Technical Support

Technical Support is available from:

NETPRESENTER  B.V.

    Adsteeg 10
    NL-6191 PX Beek(L)
    The Netherlands

    PHONE:  + 31(0)464 370 886
    FAX:        +31(0)464 360 188

    Email:   netpresenter@eureka.nl
    WWW   www.eureka.nl/netpresenter

    In the United States, contact:

    Netpresenter
    P.O. Box 555
    Lightfoot, VA  23090

    PHONE: (804) 220-3111
    FAX:  (804) 220-2411
    Email:  cindy@eureka.nl


Index

C

Colors

Contents

Create a Presentation

E

Effect

G

General

I

Index

Installing

M

Menus

O

Object Properties

Objects

Overview

S

Slide and Object Properties

Sound

Sound

T

Technical Support

Techniques

Text

Toolstrip


Sound
Multimedia

The program can play multimedia files using the Windows Media Control Interface (MCI). This allows you to play sound files, MIDI music files, MPEG video streams, AVI digital video files, and animations.

File Path to Multimedia File

To play a multimedia file when the object appears, enter a path to a file into the file path field. To open a file dialog and look for a file, click on the "Browse" button. The file dialog will configure the file filter to only search for files that can be played on your system.

Multimedia Event

•	No Event

When the object appears, there is no change to the status of sound or video. If the player is playing a multimedia file, it continues to play it if this event is selected.

•	Play Once

Play a multimedia file just once when the object appears.

•	Play and Loop

Start the multimedia file when the object appears and continue to play it until it is stopped or replaced.

•	Stop

Stop playing the designated multimedia file when the object appears.

•	Stop All

Stop all multimedia that is currently playing.

Section

Use these controls to select a section of the multimedia file to play. By default, the player will play the entire file. In this case the controls are set to zero. To play only a section of the file, enter the beginning and ending times. The times are measured in seconds.