User's Choice Windows CD/User's Choice Windows CD (CMS Software)(1993).iso/win_q_t/qread.zip/QRHELP.TXT

Text File | 1993-02-13 | 25KB | 643 lines

This file (qrhelp.txt) is the help file and manual for...


QRead  version 1.0.1
Copyright  Dan Scavezze 1992

Contents

General Information

    Overview
    Installation and Quick Start
    Licensing and Distribution
    Disclaimer
    ASP Ombudsman

Main Menu

File
    Open
    Open (continuous)
    Close
    Delete the open file
    Exit

View
    As saved
    With adjusted type
    With adjusted lines
    Increase type size
    Decrease type size
    Repaint

Commands
    Find
    Find next
    Copy page to clipboard
    Place bookmark
    Remove bookmark
    Go to bookmark
    Launch another QRead
    Launch companion App

Options
    Fonts
    Tabs
    Entry / Exit
    Registration info
    Load default settings
    Load default settings
    Store custom settings
    Store settings for file

Help
    Help On QRead
    How to use Help
    About QRead

Miscellaneous Information

    QRead command line
    Windows Program Manager
    Deinstallation
    What's new in this version


#$+ Overview

QRead lets you read text files quickly and easily in the
Microsoft Windows 3.1 environment. Text files can be shown
on the screen in any font you choose, and QRead will
automatically adjust the type size or the line structure to
fit the window. The display changes, but not the file
itself. QRead accesses your file in a "read only" manner.

Qread also provides tools to help with browsing and
management of your text files. You can search for a text
string, place a bookmark, copy information to the clipboard,
and delete files. You move through the file by using the
mouse to click on the scroll bars, or by using keys, such as
the arrow keys and the PageUp and PageDown keys.

The operation and settings of QRead can be customized and
remembered. This customization can be remembered on a file-
by-file basis if you desire.

#$+K Installation And Quick Start

The simplest installation of QRead consists of one step -
copy the file qread.exe to your disk. No other files are
necessary to get started.

The first time you enter QRead it will use default settings.
The first time you exit QRead it will save the environment
that you have in place at the time of exit. This environment
is stored in the file "qread.ini" in your windows directory.
Unless you choose to store settings information, qread.ini
will be the only file that QRead writes to your disk. (The
sections on the Entry / Exitt menu item and the Store menu
items explain how QRead stores settings information.)

If you want to be able to use on-line Help, you must also
copy the file qread.hlp to your windows directory.

To install QRead as a program item (using icons, etc.),
refer to the section on Windows Program Manager.

#$+K Licensing And Distribution

QRead is a Shareware program and is provided at no charge to
the user for EVALUATION. All rights are retained by the
author. Feel free to share this program with your friends,
but please do not give it away altered or as part of another
system. If you try a Shareware program and then continue to
use, you are expected to register and become a licensed
user.

If you are using QRead after a reasonable evaluation period
(30 days for commercial use), send your name, address and
the license fee of $20 to:

    DS Products
    P.O. Box 342
    Westford, MA  01886

The $20 fee will license one copy for use on any one
computer at any one time. You must treat the licensed
software just like a book.  An example is that this software
may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved
from one computer location to another, so long as there is
no possibility of it being used at one location while it's
being used at another, just as a book cannot be read by two
different persons at the same time. Site License
arrangements may be made by contacting DS Products.

Registered users will receive:
    a key that disables the registration reminder window,
    support (via CompuServe [70731,1673] or regular mail
        for 90 days),
    notice of upgrades, and
    a clear conscience.

Anyone distributing QRead for any kind of remuneration must
first contact DS Products at the address below for
authorization. This authorization will be automatically
granted to distributors recognized by the ASP as adhering to
its guidelines for shareware distributors, and such
distributors may begin offering QRead immediately. DS
Products must still be advised, however, so that the
distributor can be kept up to date with the latest version
of QRead.

The essence of Shareware is to provide users with quality
software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive
for programmers to continue to develop new products.
Shareware is a distribution method that allows you to try
before you buy. Shareware has the ultimate money back
guarantee -- if you don't use the product, you don't pay for
it.

#$+K Disclaimer

Users of QRead must accept this disclaimer of warranty:
"QRead is supplied as is.  The author disclaims all
warranties, expressed or implied, including, without
limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness
for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for
damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the
use of QRead."

#$+K ASP Ombudsman

QRead is produced by a member of the Association of
Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that
the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to
resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by
contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The
ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with
an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for
members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545
Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442 or send a CompuServe message
via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536.

#$+K Open

When you select a file using the Open dialog box, QRead
attempts to open the file and copy the entire file into
memory. QRead uses this memory image to format and display
the "open" file. No changes are ever made to the file on
disk. Technical note: After the copy has been made, Qread
actually closes the file. That is, the file is immediately
closed as far as the operating system is concerned.

QRead places no limit on file size ("huge" pointers are
used), but the open command will fail if you do not have
enough memory available.

Only one file is open at a time. If you ask to open a new
file when there is already a file open, the new file is
copied into memory replacing the memory image of the
previously open file.

Whenever QRead opens a file, it checks to see if there is a
file with the same name and path name but with the ".qfs"
extension. If there is, QRead will read the stored settings
info from the .qfs file and update the settings.

#$+K Open (continuous)

This menu item performs the same function as Open, but
continues to display the dialog box after the Open command
has completed. This is useful if you want to quickly browse
through many files. It is also useful in conjunction with
Delete. That is, you can quickly open a file, delete it if
necessary, and then open the next file.

#$+K Close

Close "erases" the file from memory - it gives back the
memory to Windows.

There is another effect of close. When you invoke the close
menu item, the current settings will be stored in the ".qfs"
file, if you have checked "On close and exit, store settings
for file" in the Entry/Exitt dialog box.

Scroll bars and some menu items are disabled if there is no
file open.

#$+K Delete the open file

Delete asks you to confirm that you "really want to do this"
before deleting the open file. If you are pretty sure
already, for example when you are browsing through files,
you can speed up the delete process by using the hotkey
"Delete" and then "Enter" to confirm the deletion.

#$+K Exit

When you exit QRead, if you have a file open, AND if you
have checked "On close and exit, store settings for file" in
the Entry/Exitt dialog box, the current settings will be
stored in the ".qfs" file.

#$+K As saved

QRead offers three views of your file - As saved, With
adjusted type, With adjusted lines. Only one of the three
views can be selected at a time, but you can switch between
the views at any time. When you switch, your position in the
file is preserved. You will find the same first character
displayed in the upper left corner of the window.

The As Saved view displays the text file in the standard
way, using the embedded new line characters to separate
lines of text, but with the power of "fancy fonts." If a
line is too long to fit in the given window with the given
font, you have three choices: resize the window, change the
font, or use the horizontal scroll bar (provided only in
this view).

This view is good for viewing formatted text, like poetry or
computer program listings. Don't forget to select a fixed
pitch font, like Courier, to keep the formatting exact. If
your text is most unformatted, but has occasional formatting
using tab or space characters, try the "With adjusted lines"
view.

#$+K  With adjusted type

QRead offers three views of your file - As saved, With
adjusted type, With adjusted lines. Only one of the three
views can be selected at a time, but you can switch between
the views at any time. When you switch, your position in the
file is preserved. You will find the same first character
displayed in the upper left corner of the window.

The With adjusted type view displays the text as large as
possible in the given window. That is, QRead automatically
adjusts the type size to display the longest line in the
largest type possible, within the limits of the chosen
typeface. This view is good if you like things big.

The type size calculated may change when the window is
resized OR when the longest line changes. As you scroll
through a document, therefore, the type size may change. If
this effect annoys you, you may want to use the adjusted
type view to set a type size when you first open a file, and
then switch to one of the other views to lock in that type
size.

#$+K With adjusted lines

QRead offers three views of your file - As saved, With
adjusted type, With adjusted lines. Only one of the three
views can be selected at a time, but you can switch between
the views at any time. When you switch, your position in the
file is preserved. You will find the same first character
displayed in the upper left corner of the window.

The With adjusted lines view holds the type size constant
and reformats the lines of text to fill the window. Remember
that the reformatting occurs only in QRead's memory, and
that no changes are made to your text file on disk. This
view is good for reading books and articles in the large
type sizes without having to use large windows.

QRead fills lines one word at a time, using the space
character (usually) to determine the end of a word. Qread
will stop filling a line if it finds a blank line, a line
that begins with a space, or a line containing a tab.  The
reformatting will preserve the paragraph structure of your
text file, therefore, if a new paragraph is denoted by a
blank line, a line indented with spaces, or a line indented
with a tab character. Lines containing a tab character are a
special case.

When QRead finds a line (in the text file) containing one or
more tab characters, it displays that line exactly AS
STORED. The rationale is that someone put tabs in the text
file for formatting purposes (perhaps for a table), and so
QRead should try to preserve the format even if it means
that a line might get clipped EVEN IN THIS ADJUSTED LINES
VIEW.

The result of the algorithms described above is that QRead
should handle most text files and preserve their paragraph
structure and tables. If you are creating a text file to be
read in QRead adjusted lines view, use blank lines or lines
indented with spaces to denote paragraphs. Save the tabs for
your tables.

Trivia note: QRead reformatting occurs on a page by page
basis; the whole file is not reformatted at once. This
causes one effect that you may find surprising. When
scrolling backward, QRead may not choose the same word to
begin a line as it did when you were scrolling forward.
Don't worry, no words are lost.

#$+K Increase type size

Choosing this menu item will increase the type size, UNLESS
you are in the "With adjusted type" view. You can use the
numeric key pad "+" to pump up your type size.

#$+K Decrease type size

Choosing this menu item will decrease the type size, UNLESS
you are in the "With adjusted type" view. You can use the
numeric key pad "-" to shrink your type size.

#$+ Repaint

If the display ever looks bogus, try a repaint.

#$+K Find

Find always starts its search from the current character
position which, in case you didn't know, is the character
displayed in the upper left corner of the window. The search
string is limited to 25 characters.

If the search string is found, QRead moves the current
character position to show the found text at or near the
first line, and highlights the found string. The
highlighting remains on until there has been an
unsuccessful search AND the display has been repainted.

#$+ Find Next

The Find Next menu item is disabled until you have
successfully used Find. The Find Next Search starts just
after (or just before) the last successful Find.

#$+K Copy page to clipboard

The clipboard provides a way to get data out of QRead. This
menu item copies the contents of the window to the clipboard
AS TEXT. The text is copied from the memory image of the
file, so the formatting of the clipboard text will match the
formatting of the original file. (Remember that if you are
in the "With adjusted lines" view, the image you are viewing
has been reformatted.) You can then paste the clipboard text
into a receiving program for further processing, such as
printing.

You can also use the Windows provided copy to clipboard
functions (using PrintScreen or Alt+PrintScreen) to copy
QRead data AS GRAPHICS. You can then paste the clipboard
graphics into a receiving paint program to print the screen
with formatting and fancy fonts.

#$+K Place bookmark

There is only one bookmark and you use this menu item to
place it just before the current character position (the
character at the upper left of the window). Once you move
away from the current character position, the bookmark
disappears, but it is remembered and will be displayed if
you choose the "Go to bookmark" menu item.

The bookmark can be remembered in a ".qfs" file. Refer to
the "Store settings for file" menu item.

#$+ Remove bookmark

If you tire of having a bookmark and you just can't stand
the thought of having it around, use this menu item.

#$+ Go to bookmark

This menu item moves to the bookmark and displays the
bookmark at the top of the window. Trivia note: If you
experiment with control panel and change your window colors
you will find that the bookmark is not always the same color
as the highlighted text used to show the search string.

# $+K Launch another QRead

Choosing this menu item will launch another instance of
QRead (which might be used to read another file). The new
instance will start up using qread.ini, so its window may
not look exactly like the one that preceded it.

# $+K Launch companion App

This menu item will launch an application to be used in
conjunction with QRead. For example, you can use QRead to
browse through a file and then launch an editor to change
the file.

The default application is the Windows editor, Notepad.
Notepad will be launched with the file name of the open file
as an argument.

You can change the application that will be launched, but
you must edit your qread.ini file to do so. Insert a line in
qread.ini to specify the application. For example, to launch
the application "yourapp" with the open file name as an
argument, you would add the following line to qread.ini:

App1=yourapp %FileName%

Note: The test for %FileName% is case sensitive. Hint: You
might want to use this feature to print (via DOS) until I
implement printing under windows.

#$+K Fonts

Qread asks Windows for the names of all your installed fonts
and displays those names in the Fonts dialog box. When you
select a font, QRead finds the available sizes, or if the
font is scalable, QRead uses a list of sizes from 8 to 24
points. QRead then asks the Windows font mapper for a font
with the selected name, selected size, and Regular style.
The result is a new, beautifully formatted display with the
font you selected, usually.

The font mapper will return substitutes for certain
decorative fonts. As a design decision to keep QRead lean
and mean, a minimum of font information is stored, and that
results in the elimination of a small number (I hope) of
fonts. Let me know what you think.

#$+K Tabs

Since QRead has no idea where the tabs were set when the
text file was created, the Tabs dialog box allows you to
recreate the settings.  The tabs can be set to divide the
page into columns (as might be useful for tables), or they
can be set every N character positions (as might be useful
for a computer program listing).

#$+K Entry / Exit

This command brings up the Entry/Exit dialog box. The
settings here control the entry and exit behavior of QRead.
You can choose from the common option groups by using the
right half of the dialog box, or "roll your own" group by
changing the individual options on the left side.

The Entry / Exit dialog box should perhaps be marked "handle
with care." Since these settings control the entry behavior
of the program, if you forget what you asked for here, you
can get totally confused about QRead's behavior.

For example, if you normally use QRead in the "Memory-less"
mode, QRead will come up with the default settings and it
will not open any files. But if you forget that you checked
"Remember last" the last time you used QRead, you could get
confused as to why your font, tabs, or even view mode are
different from what they normally are.

If you normally use the "Remember last" mode, you expect
that on entry QRead will be as it was when you left it. But
if you are opening a file that has a ".qfs" file, don't
forget that the stored settings in the .qfs file will
override your last settings.

The "Remember many" mode is useful if you use Qread to work
with lots of files and you like to customize the display of
each file. But try not to be surprised when you find .qfs
files all over your disk. You might even say, "I don't
remember creating that file" and you would be right. QRead
did! To avoid creating lots of small files, use the "store
settings for file" item on the Options menu only when you
need it.

I recommend choosing your favorite mode of operation for
QRead and then minimizing your use of the Entry/Exit menu
item. If you do get confused, you can always retrieve
default settings, and custom settings from the Options menu.

#$+K Registration info

This command allows you to enter your name and the key that
you receive when you register your use of QRead. The info
will be written to your qread.ini file. The next time you
enter QRead with your registration info in qread.ini, you
will bypass the registration reminder.

Save your registration letter, because if you destroy or
corrupt the qread.ini file, you will have to reenter your
registration info.

#$+K Load default settings

Choose this menu time to revert to the default settings. The
settings affected are: View mode, Font settings, and Tab
settings. The bookmark is not affected.

#$+K Load custom settings

If you have previously stored custom settings, you created a
qread.cus file in your windows directory. This menu item
loads the stored custom settings from that file. The
settings affected are: View mode, Font settings, and Tab
settings. The bookmark is not affected.

#$+K Store custom settings

You can customize QRead by setting up your preferred
environment and then choosing this menu item to store the
settings. You can then use the Entry/Exit menu item to
arrange for loading of the custom settings, rather than the
default settings, on entry to QRead.

The default settings are good for unformatted text files,
such as articles or books, so you might want to set up the
custom settings for formatted files, such as poetry or
computer program listings. Then you could use the hotkeys
for default and custom settings when switching between the
two types of files.

The custom settings are stored in the file qread.cus in your
windows directory. The settings stored are: View mode, Font
settings, and Tab settings.

#$+K Store settings for file

Once you have the settings the way you like for the file
that you are reading (the open file), you can store the
settings by choosing this menu item. The settings are stored
in a file with the same name and path name but with the
".qfs" extension. Your text file is not modified.

Whenever QRead opens a file, it checks for the associated
.qfs file. If one exists, QRead will read the stored
settings from the .qfs file and update the settings. The
settings stored are: View mode, Font settings, Tab Settings,
and bookmark.

You can set up QRead to automatically create .qfs files on
close or exit (by using the Entry/Exit menu item) but this
menu item allows you to explicitly create a .qfs file.

#$+K How to use Help

This menu item takes you directly to the "how to" section of
the Windows help program. You can also get these
instructions after you are in the help program by choosing
its Help menu item.

#$+K Help on QRead

This menu item lets you use the hypertext features of the
Windows help program to read the qread.hlp file.  The same
information is also available in the file qrhelp.txt if you
want to print the help info and read it at a less "hyper"
pace.

#$+K About QRead

The About dialog box displays some info about QRead
including the copyright message, the version number, and the
name of the user licensed to use QRead.
#$+K Qread Command Line

QRead will look for one argument on the command line. It
will interpret the argument as a file name, and try to open
the named file. This file specified on the command line
takes precedence over the "open last file" setting.

#$+K Windows Program Manager

You can create a program item for QRead in the Windows
Program Manager by using the File menu, and the New menu
item. If you want to create many specific program items for
QRead, one for each file you typically read, here are my
suggested steps.

First, make a copy of your QRead item by using the File
menu, and the Copy menu item. Then use File, Properties to
change the description, command line and icon. Change the
description to mention the file name. Change the command
line to supply the file name (using the full path name) as
an argument. Finally, change the icon to the open file icon
(the one with the "writing" on the book).

When you click on one of these specific program items, QRead
will start up and open the specified file. If there is an
associated ".qfs" file, QRead will also load the appropriate
environment.

#$+K Deinstallation

If you want to deinstall QRead, follow these steps. First,
delete qread.exe from the directory where it "lives." Next,
delete qread.ini, qread.cus, qread.hlp from your windows
directory. Finally, delete all the ".qfs" files you or QRead
have created.

#$+ What's new in this version

Version 1.0.1 is the first version released to the public.
Beta test users will observe the following changes:

The SPACE bar can now be used to do a "PageDown."
The horizontal scroll bar is reset after view mode changes.
The open continuous dialog box is placed on lower right.
You can now exit Windows with the open continuous dialog up.