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- APPENDIX K
-
- DesqView
-
- ~Heading~ The Concept of Marked "Lines"
-
- The key to marking disjoint information is using the Mark End command to
- create entities within the transfer buffer, which we call "lines."
-
- If you have marked a block containing more than one line, DESQview Transfer,
- as might be expected, will see each end-of-row in the block as a separate
- line. However, each mark you terminate with the Mark End command is also seen
- as a separate "line," as well as the last item marked which might be
- terminated by selecting DONE. The concept of a marked "line" means that you
- can tell Transfer to handle each line differently, by specifying keystrokes
- to execute both before and after each marked "line" is transferred. The
- keystrokes can consist of navigation keys (arrow keys, Home End, Page Up and
- Page Down), carriage returns, any character on the keyboard or a combination
- of any of these keys. You may even delimit transferred keystrokes with
- control characters, if your application requires it. The only restriction is
- that you may not use the DESQ key by itself.
-
- When you select "Type keys to begin each line" from the DESQview Transfer
- menu, you may specify keystrokes to insert before the line you are about to
- transfer. By selecting other transfer options from this menu, you can specify
- keystrokes to be appended to the line or lines you are about to transfer.
- This means that, by selective marking using these advanced techniques, you
- can insert formatting instructions in text, place numbers in specified
- spreadsheet cells or perform operations in the destination program in
- between transferring disjoint sections of a marked block ~dash~ even automate
- the whole process with a DESQVIEW script.
-
- In the examples below, where we are marking database fields and spreadsheet
- cells as discrete lines, you will see how DESQview discriminates between
- marked lines and remembers a pattern of intervening keystrokes. You specify
- a pattern of intervening keystrokes, such as a right arrow after every
- spreadsheet cell ~dash~ except at the end of a row, where you want to
- navigate to the beginning of the next spreadsheet row. Once that pattern is
- set up, you can tell DESQview to transfer the rest of the information ~dash~
- and the rest of the marked text will be transferred to the destination
- program according to the pattern you established by specifying intervening
- keystrokes for the first set of marked "lines" transferred.
-
- In addition, DESQview Transfer will handle numbers exceptionally, if you tell
- it to. Transfer knows that programs which expect numeric data will generate
- an error if any non-numeric data is embedded in the numeric string, so it
- recognizes and strips everything but periods and minus signs from numbers and
- translates left parentheses to minus signs. By selecting "Transfer the first
- number" or "Transfer the next number," you tell DESQview to edit (filter) any
- non-numeric characters from the string of numbers.
-
- Combined with keystroke macros and embedded learns, advanced mark and
- transfer can add data-sharing power and automated formatting of transferred
- data to your DESQview applications.
-