Stars of Shareware: DFÜ und Kommunikation

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Text File | 1993-12-13 | 13.2 KB | 271 lines

PC Blackboard Tutorial The PC Blackboard tutorial is broken into three parts. The first deals with functions that do not require you to be connected to a remote location, the second will show you the remote capabilities, and the third section discusses the fax functionality. Local Capabilities There are three exercises for this section. 1) Drawing Tools and Attribute Menu This exercise will get you acquainted with the drawing tools and their attributes. A) Scroll through the available drawing tools by pushing the button on the pen or by hitting the right button of a mouse. You will notice that your drawing tool changes each time you hit one of these buttons. Now scroll through the tools until you come to the free hand draw icon (it is shaped like a pencil, thin and pointed at the top). You may now draw by pushing down on the pen or pushing the left button of a mouse. As you hold either of these down and move your pointing device, you will begin to draw to the screen. B) Choose the rectangle icon by pushing the button on the pen or by hitting the right button of the mouse. The rectangle icon it is your second icon, and is bigger than the square icon (the third icon). Move your cursor to your desired position and push down on the pen or push the left button on a mouse. Now as you move your pointing device while you hold down either of these buttons, a ghost box will appear. When the box attains the size you wish it to be, just let up on the pen or on the first button of the mouse. The rectangle will now be drawn. C) You need to practice cancelling the drawing of a shape. As you are moving the ghost box around on the screen, you have the capability to cancel the drawing of the box. This is done by hitting the button on the pen, hitting the right button on the mouse, or by hitting the <ESC> button on the keyboard, while you are holding down the pen or holding down the left button of the mouse. This action must be done simultaneously. Now practice this. You will find that it is difficult to do this with the pen, if you do not use the <ESC> key on the keyboard. D) Try out all the remaining tools (square, line, and circle.) All three will work just as the rectangle did. E) Change the Fill attribute of the circle tool. Scroll until the circle icon appears, then go to the main menu (hit the <ESC> key or hit the middle button of the mouse). Select attributes from the main menu. This will pop-up a window with two options. You may change your line width and/or toggle from a filled circle to a non-filled circle (and vice-versa). Change the fill option to "YES". This is done by moving your cursor into the "FILL" box and pushing down on a pen, hitting the left button of a mouse, or hitting the <ENTER> key on the keyboard. As you select on this box, you will notice that it will toggle between "YES" and "NO". Exit both the attribute menu and the main menu, draw a circle. You will notice that the circle is filled. F) Change the Line Width attribute of the circle tool. Re-enter the attribute menu (following the steps above) and change fill to "NO" and change the line width to four. This is done by moving your cursor within the grid until the box within the grid is to the far right. Now exit both the attribute and main menus, and draw a circle. (Be careful when exiting the attribute menu that you do not change the desired line width. You must move your cursor out of the grid before exiting this menu.) You will notice the circle is not filled, but its outline has a width of four. It is recommended that you test out this feature with all the tools and with different line widths. You will soon notice that draw and line only have the line width option. NOTE: If you have the pointer selected (the upward arrow), you will not be able to enter the attribute menu since it has no attributes to be set. 2) Save and Load File This exercise is meant to show you the save and load features. A) Draw some shapes and free hand draw on the screen. B) Go to the main menu and select files. Select the save option by moving your highlight bar to save and select it. A window will appear with all existing files. If no files exist, you will be notified, then a window will appear asking you for a title. In either case, type in "TEST1" followed by the <ENTER> key. Your screen is now saved. C) Exit the file menu and select the clear screen. D) Re-enter the main menu and then the files menu. Select load, and move the highlight bar to "TEST1.PCX". Then push the pen down, hit the left button of a mouse, or hit the <ENTER> key. Your image will now be loaded to the screen. It is very simple. 3) Palette This exercise describes the palette feature. This window has two features depending on the type of graphic card you have. Each will be described separately. But first, select "PALETTE" from the main menu. A) If you only have a CGA card in your machine, a window will pop-up that allows you to change your foreground color. This is done simply by pushing down on the pen, hitting the left button of a mouse, or by hitting the <ENTER> key on the keyboard. You are not constrained by the window on the screen, so you may do this wherever you cursor is on the screen. As you select, you will notice that the foreground color changes. When you reach the color of your choice, exit from the palette. B) If you have a VGA card, you may change both the foreground and background colors. When "PALETTE" is selected, a window will appear with two boxes within it. One will be marked "FOREGROUND" (the left box) and the other will be marked "BACKGROUND"(the right box). To change either of these, position your cursor within the desired box and select it. You will notice that as you select it, the given area (foreground or background) will change. Play with this until you feel comfortable with it. When you have chosen the colors of your choice, exit the palette. Remote Capabilities This section will discuss the process of connecting to another PC, as well as some strictly remote features. There are 5 exercises in this section. 1) The Configuration Menu and Communication Menu The configuration menu allows you to setup the communication parameters. Select Configuration from the main menu. A) Select the type of modem you are going to use. That is, you must change the device type to Hayes compatible, Telebit Trailblazer, or AT&T Comsphere. If you do not have a Telebit Trailblazer or AT&T Comsphere, you must select Hayes compatible. This selection is done by moving your cursor into the box to the right of device and selecting it. This will allow you to scroll through your available options. B) The next parameter to be set is the com port number. This represents which port your communication device is connected too. It is up to you to determine which com port it is connected too. C) The third option is the baud rate. Both modems must be setup at the same baud rate. It is recommended to run at the highest speed possible that is available to both modems. For this exercise, select 2400 baud (if both modems can handle this). D) Now that all the parameters are set. Leave the configuration menu. Then have one site call the other. The one who is going to receive the call, must exit the main menu. As you both exit the configuration menu, you will be informed if the modem is setting up. Once the receive PC has exited the main menu, he/she is ready to receive the call. The person who is going to make the call must now enter the communications menu and select on the connect button (position your cursor within the communication box and select it). Once the modem has setup, a window will pop-up that will wait for the phone number to be input. Type in the number and hit the <ENTER> key. The call will now be made. When the connection is made, both users will be notified. 2) Interactive Functions Now that a connection has been established, both sites may interact with one another. To do this, the calling site will need to exit the communication and main menus. Now, each site should write to one another. Have one site write the word "hello", and have the other site circle it. Now practice using all the drawing tools. You will see how easy this is. 3) Send File Have one site send the "TEST1.PCX" image, that was created in section 1, to the other PC. This is done by selecting the files menu from the main menu. Once in the file menu, select send file. This, again, will bring up all the files in the directory. For ease of use, once this window is on the screen, type in "TEST1.PCX". As you type, a window will appear with the file name. When completed, hit the <ENTER> key. A window will appear on both PCs with a running count of the sent and received packets. Once the file is there, the windows will disappear. 4) Load File Now, have one site load the "TEST1.PCX" image. Follow the steps in section 1. You will notice that the image is loaded on both machines. 5) Clear Screen, On-line, Off-line, and Send Screen A) Have one site clear their screen. Notice this clears the remote screen as well. B) Have one site go off-line. This is done by hitting the F1 key. A message will appear in the middle of your screen to notify you that you went off-line. You are connected to one another, but you are not communicating. The site that went off-line, draw on your screen and put shapes to the screen. Hit the F1 key to go back on-line. C) Select send screen from the main menu. This will send your screen to the other PC. Fax Capability This section is intended to utilize a fax/modem. In order to utilize the fax board, you must select fax board within the communications menu, just as you did for the modem in section 2. The baud rate will automatically adjust. The only change that may be required is to change the com port. Once this is selected, exit the communications menu to see if the board is found. If you are using com 3 or com 4, see the PC Blackboard documentation for necessary user input. There are 3 exercises in this section. 1) Fax Screen If you have use of a fax machine, then this exercise will be possible. A) Simply draw something on your screen (using free hand draw, shapes, and text), then select the fax menu from the main menu. B) Select fax screen from this menu. The screen will be converted to a fax format and then you will be asked to input the fax phone number. Enter this just as you did for the modem in section 2. Once the number is entered, your PC will call the fax machine and your screen will be faxed. 2) Receive Screen Again, if you have use of a fax machine, fax a document to your PC. You cannot have any menus on your screen, so make sure that none exist before you fax the document. Once you have verified this, just fax the document to your PC phone number just as you would for any other document. 3) Load Fax If you were able to fax yourself a document, select the fax menu from the main menu. Then select load. Again, this will bring up all the fax files. You will notice that the received fax has a title with six numbers and two characters. This is to insure a unique name for each file. Highlight this file and select it. The fax will now be displayed on your screen. Only a portion of the image will be displayed, therefore, a document queue will pop-up in the bottom right corner when the image is completed loading. You may now use the document queue to move around the document. Try the following exercises: A) Hit the "P" on the queue. This is done by positioning the cursor over the "P" and selecting it. Once this is selected, you will get a preview of the screen. You may interact on this image if you wish. Once you are ready to zoom back in on the image, hit the "Z" box. B) Use the scroll icons to move around the document. "B" will take you to the bottom of the document, "T" will take you to the top of the document. The arrows will scroll in that particular direction. Try all these to become used to them. If you sent a multi-page document, you may access different pages by selecting on the page number (located in the last box on the right). This will pop-up a box which allows you to change pages. Select the page you wish to display. C) Try section 2 again, but this time send your fax file instead of "TEST1.PCX". Then use the document queue to see how it becomes an interactive function also.