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________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 23 ________________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 2: FUNDAMENTALS OF USING HYPERPAD This chapter describes the elements of a HyperPAD screen and tells you how to perform the procedures most commonly used in working with HyperPAD. In short, it covers all the essential terminology, concepts, features, and operations. Although this chapter is geared toward first-time HyperPAD users, it will also be helpful to experienced users who have recently updated to HyperPAD 2.0 or who need to refresh their memory about HyperPAD basics. Here's a friendly warning to all HyperPAD users: The fundamental terminology, concepts, features, and procedures are described at length only in this chapter. In subsequent chapters, we'll simply use the terminology, refer to the concepts and features, and tell you to perform the procedures--without explaining them in detail again. That is, we'll assume you know what we're talking about. If you forget anything, just return to this chapter for a quick review. (To make it easier for you to look up the major topics covered here, we've listed them below. By the end of the chapter, you'll be quite comfortable with the terminology in these lists, so don't be concerned if there's anything here that you can't immediately understand.) The components of a HyperPAD screen, which are discussed in the first section of Chapter 2, include: 0 Menu bar 0 Title bar 0 Buttons 0 Fields 0 Command line 0 Message line 0 Status bar ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 24 ________________________________________________________________________ The fundamental HyperPAD procedures, which are discussed in the second section of Chapter 2, include: 0 Selecting commands from menus 0 Selecting buttons 0 Selecting commands from the command line 0 Working with fields 0 Selecting from list boxes 0 Filling out dialog boxes 0 Navigating within HyperPAD 0 Accessing the on-line Help system 0 Exiting from HyperPAD COMPONENTS OF THE HYPERPAD SCREEN The following illustrations show the elements most commonly found on HyperPAD screens. This section will help you make sense of these elements. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 25 ________________________________________________________________________ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You should be aware that some of the components of a HyperPAD screen only display information (i.e., there's nothing you actually have to do with these components other than understand what information they present), whereas other components let you perform certain tasks (i.e., you have to know how to operate them). We'll explain the purpose of both types of components in this section, but we'll save the how-to procedures for the next section of the chapter, "Basic HyperPAD Tasks." MENU BAR A menu is a group of related HyperPAD commands. By selecting a command from a menu, you instruct HyperPAD to carry out an action. The names of the currently available menus are listed on the menu bar, a horizontal strip at the very top of the HyperPAD screen. In the second half of this chapter, you'll learn how to use the keyboard or the mouse to open a menu (i.e., make the menu display its commands) and then select a command from the open menu. If you decide you don't want the menu bar displayed, you can toggle the menu bar on and off by holding down the ALT key and pressing SPACE (ALT+SPACE). ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 26 ________________________________________________________________________ ADDITIONAL MENUS When you first start working with HyperPAD, you have access to five menus: File, Edit, Database, Go, and Workspace. If you start working with HyperPAD's design capabilities, discussed in the second half of the HyperPAD User's Guide, you'll learn how to gain access to three more menus Tools, Objects, and Block as well as to expanded versions of the File, Edit, and Workspace menus. TITLE BAR The title bar appears below the menu bar. On the left-hand side, the title bar shows the name of the current pad. In those few cases where a particular screen within a pad has its own name, the screen name is displayed in the center of the title bar. The pad name and the screen name (if any) are just there for your information, so you'll always know where you are in HyperPAD. However, on the right-hand side of all HyperPAD title bars (except those in the on-line Help system), there appears a box labeled "F1=Help." This box is a device called a button. Selecting the F1=Help button takes you to the Help system. In the next subsection, you'll learn a bit more about buttons, and in the second half of this chapter, you'll learn how to operate them. BUTTONS Buttons are rectangular areas on a HyperPAD screen that usually display a name indicating their function. Buttons might look unimpressive, but they're actually powerful devices that can, among other things, link you to different points both within and beyond HyperPAD. Suppose you're working in a pad and want to hop straight to another pad, or run one of your other software programs, or go to the Index for the Help system and pick a topic. No problem! Selecting a button can take you from where you are to where you want to go in a single easy operation. In the second half of this chapter, you'll learn how to select buttons using simple keyboard and mouse techniques. FIELDS A field is a rectangular area on a HyperPAD screen into which you can type information. In the page from the Phone pad shown at the start of this section, John Smith's name, address, and phone numbers are displayed in fields. Fields can range in size from small enough to hold ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 27 ________________________________________________________________________ only a single character to large enough to cover the entire screen. In the second half of this chapter, you'll learn how to enter information into fields. COMMAND LINE The command line, a new feature in HyperPAD 2.0, appears as a row of numbered commands near the bottom of many HyperPAD screens. It displays both commands that are specific to the current pad and selected menu commands that you'll use often in working with the pad. Since the command line's numbered commands are actually buttons, picking a command from the command line will be explained together with using buttons in the second half of this chapter. MESSAGE LINE The message line, another new feature in HyperPAD 2.0, is a strip at the very bottom of the HyperPAD screen that presents a brief reminder of how to perform one or more basic procedures required to work with a particular HyperPAD screen. As indicated in the next subsection, you could have HyperPAD replace the message line with the status bar, depending on which information you prefer to have visible. STATUS BAR The status bar is a strip at the very bottom of the HyperPAD screen that appears in place of the message line--but only if you turn it on. Its purpose is to display important information about the pad you're working with. On the left-hand side of the status bar, you can see the name of the current pad and the number of the page you're viewing within that pad. On the right-hand side of the status bar, you can see the name of the HyperPAD tool you're working with. (This will probably be the Browse tool, which HyperPAD automatically selects when you're simply using the pads rather than redesigning existing pads or designing new pads.) On the far right edge of the status bar, special symbols appear if you have the CAPS LOCK and/or NUM LOCK key locked. If you were using HyperPAD's design capabilities (discussed in the second half of the User's Guide), you might see additional information on the right-hand side of the status bar. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 28 ________________________________________________________________________ Later in this chapter, we'll show you how to turn on the status bar during a particular HyperPAD session. If you'd like to save yourself the trouble of having to activate the status bar, the "Customizing HyperPAD" section in Chapter 3 tells you how to tailor HyperPAD so it automatically displays the status bar rather than the message line. When first learning to use HyperPAD, you may want to leave the status bar off so you can see the message line, with its brief reminders about how to perform basic tasks associated with the current screen. However, once you start working with pads that have a number of pages (such as the Phone pad), you'll probably want to keep the status bar displayed so you can see the page numbers. If you have the status bar displayed and want to shut it off in order to see the message line, hold down the ALT key and press SPACE (ALT+SPACE). Doing this causes both the menu bar and the status bar to toggle on and off together. Now that you understand what you're seeing when you look at a HyperPAD screen, let's check out the HyperPAD operations you'll need to perform most often. BASIC HYPERPAD TASKS This section explains the procedures for operating some of the elements you've already seen on the HyperPAD screen, including how to open up menus and select commands from the open menus, how to select buttons and choose a command from the command line, and how to use fields. This section also introduces you to a number of other common HyperPAD procedures, including how to use list boxes, how to fill out dialog boxes in order to give HyperPAD vital information, how to navigate from one place to another within HyperPAD, and how to reach HyperPAD's on- line Help system. The last part of this section reviews the information on exiting from HyperPAD presented in Chapter 1 and also introduces another way to exit. This section is your first real opportunity to play with HyperPAD, so we suggest that you take the time to try out each of these key procedures as you read about them. Hands-on experience is the best way to get a feel for how any new program works, and HyperPAD is no exception. Since we'll be showing you how to perform each of the basic HyperPAD tasks both with the keyboard and with the mouse, we'll begin this ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 29 ________________________________________________________________________ section with a brief summary of the mouse procedures used in working with HyperPAD. If you don't have a mouse, skip the "Using a Mouse" subsection and proceed to "Selecting Commands from Menus." USING A MOUSE When you work with HyperPAD, you'll be using the mouse procedures shown in the accompanying table, which are performed with the left and right mouse buttons. (If you have a three-button mouse, you can ignore the middle button.) Mouse Procedure: Explanation: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Point and click Place the mouse pointer on the desired item, then press and release the left or right mouse button. (In the User's Guide, we'll specify which button should be used.) Point and double-click Place the mouse pointer on the desired item, then rapidly press and release the left mouse button twice. Point and press Place the mouse pointer on the desired item, then hold down the left mouse button. Point, press and drag Position the mouse pointer at the desired starting point, then hold down the left mouse button and slide the mouse, releasing it when you reach the desired spot. There are many HyperPAD operations that can be done with either the keyboard or a mouse. In some cases, it's faster to use the keyboard; in other cases, it's faster to use a mouse; and in still other cases, the two methods are equally fast. You'll soon develop your own preference for which method to use in carrying out each task. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 30 ________________________________________________________________________ SELECTING COMMANDS FROM MENUS Giving orders to HyperPAD is a simple two-step process. All you have to do is open the menu that contains the command you want and then select the command from the open menu. When you open a menu, a list of the commands it contains appears below its name on the menu bar, as shown here. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You can use either the keyboard or a mouse to open a menu and select a command from the open menu. Here's how. To select a command from a menu: 1. To open a menu: With the keyboard: Press ALT and the first letter of the menu name. For example, to open the Go menu, press ALT+G. With the mouse: Point to the menu name on the menu bar and click the left mouse button. 2. To select a command: With the keyboard: Press the key matching the highlighted letter in the command. For example, to choose the Home command from the Go menu, press H. With the mouse: Point to the command and click the left mouse button. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 31 ________________________________________________________________________ In the first step of the above procedure, you learned how to open a menu by holding down ALT and pressing a keyboard letter. That keyboard letter is called an accelerator key. As you'll see later in the chapter, menus aren't the only HyperPAD elements that can be activated by pressing ALT and an accelerator key. The following are two optional command-selection methods you might want to try: Once you've opened a menu with the keyboard or the mouse, you can select a command by pressing the up and down arrow keys until the desired command is highlighted and then pressing ENTER. And you can select a command with a mouse by pointing to the menu name, pressing the left mouse button, dragging the highlight bar down to the desired command, and then releasing the button. (To avoid selecting the wrong command, make sure the highlight bar is correctly positioned before you release the button.) If you're not sure which menu lists a particular command, use the following procedure to browse through the menus. To browse through the menus: 1. To activate the menu bar, press ALT or F10. The name of the last menu you used is highlighted. 2. To highlight the name of a different menu, press the left or right arrow keys. 3. To open the menu whose name is highlighted, press ENTER. 4. To open other menus, press the left and right arrow keys. As you open each new menu, the previously opened menu automatically closes. To open different menus with the mouse, point to the name of each menu and click the left mouse button. Every time you open a new menu, the previously opened menu automatically closes. If you open a menu and then decide that you don't want to pick a command, here's how to close the menu without making a selection. To close a menu without selecting a command: Press the ESC key, click the right mouse button, or place the mouse pointer anywhere on the screen other than the menu bar or the open menu and click the left mouse button. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 32 ________________________________________________________________________ To check out some of the keyboard procedures, start by pressing ALT+W to open up the Workspace menu, then press S to select the Status Bar command. The menu closes, and the message line at the bottom of your screen is replaced by the status bar. To turn off the status bar, just reopen the Workspace menu and select the Status Bar command again. Not only is this a good example of how to select a command, but in the process you learned how to activate the status bar! Now, let's try some more keyboard procedures. With the Workspace menu closed, press ALT or F10. Workspace (the name of the menu you opened most recently) is highlighted on the menu bar. Use the left and right arrow keys to move the highlight around the menu bar. When File is highlighted, press ENTER to open the File menu. Practice using the up and down arrow keys to move the highlight bar through the File menu's list of commands. Then use the left and right arrow keys to open other menus. Once you're comfortable with these techniques, press ESC to close whatever menu is now open. If you have a mouse, point to Workspace on the menu bar and click the left mouse button. When the Workspace menu opens, turn on the status bar by pointing to the Status Bar command and clicking the left mouse button. Practice opening different menus by pointing to the menu names on the menu bar and clicking the left mouse button. Point to File on the menu bar, press the left mouse button, and practice dragging the highlight bar up and down the File menu's commands. (If you accidentally select a command, press ESC to cancel it.) When you're through practicing, click the right mouse button to close whatever menu is now open. USING KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS HyperPAD gives you the ability to select certain commands and carry out certain actions by using a keyboard shortcut. A keyboard shortcut can consist of either a single keystroke or a keystroke combination. If a keyboard shortcut is available for a menu command, it appears to the right of that command on the menu. The Go menu, shown at the start of this subsection, contains some examples. The Help command is followed by F1, which means you could press F1 to access the Help system without opening the Go menu. *F5 appears after the Home command, meaning you could press ALT+F5 ("*" means "ALT") to return to the Home pad from anywhere in HyperPAD. ^PGUP appears after the First command, meaning you could press CTRL+PGUP ("^" means "CTRL") to go directly back to the first page in a pad. And so on. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 33 ________________________________________________________________________ To try it out, keep all the menus closed and press the F1 key. The Help system appears. Press the ESC key to exit from Help and return to the page you were on when you pressed F1. Once you become more experienced in working with HyperPAD, you'll begin to remember the keyboard shortcuts and use them to save yourself time. INACTIVE COMMANDS In the course of exploring the menus, you may have discovered that you're unable to highlight some commands with the keyboard or the mouse. These commands even look different: They may be dimmer than the other commands, and they don't have a highlighted accelerator key. What's going on? There are some commands that HyperPAD won't let you select until you're actually ready to carry them out--for example, the Edit menu's Cut, Copy, and Delete commands. These commands (which you'll learn about in Chapter 9) are for editing text, and in order to use them, you must first select a specific block of text that you want to cut, copy, or delete. If you haven't done so, HyperPAD "knows" you're in no position to perform those particular operations and therefore prevents you from selecting the commands. But once you take whatever preparatory action is needed, HyperPAD enables the commands related to that operation so you can select them. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 34 ________________________________________________________________________ SELECTING BUTTONS In the first section of the chapter, we explained that many buttons are navigation devices that you can use to travel from the page on which the button appears to another pad or page within HyperPAD or to somewhere outside of HyperPAD. To start the journey, you have to select the button that links you to your desired destination. Here's how to do it. To select a button: With the keyboard: Press the TAB key and/or the arrow keys until the button you want to select is highlighted (pressing SHIFT+TAB moves the highlight backward); then press ENTER. With the mouse: Place the mouse pointer on the button you want to select and click the left mouse button. If you're ever unsure which items on a HyperPAD screen are buttons, press CTRL+ALT. A dotted border will be displayed around all the buttons and fields on the current page. To check out how buttons work, go to the Home pad, which was shown at the start of the first section in this chapter. (If you aren't at the Home pad right now, hold down the ALT key and press F5 [ALT+F5] to go directly to the Home pad from anywhere in HyperPAD.) Use TAB, SHIFT+TAB, and the arrow keys to move the highlight from one button to another on the Home pad. In the course of moving the highlight around, you'll discover that the rectangles in the "What would you like to do?" box get highlighted, as do F1=Help on the title bar and Shut Down and ESC=Exit in the lower right corner of the screen. These items are all buttons. Once you're comfortable using the keyboard to move the highlight from one button to another, use the keyboard or the mouse to select the Go to a pad button. A screen appears with even more buttons! ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 35 ________________________________________________________________________ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You've just used the Go to a pad button to travel from the Home pad to the Pads screen, from which you can access many of the pads that come with HyperPAD. In Chapter 3, you'll learn more about this screen, but since we're just sightseeing right now, use the keyboard or the mouse to select the Home button in the lower right corner of the screen to make the return journey from the Pads screen to the Home pad. SELECTING COMMANDS FROM THE COMMAND LINE In the first half of this chapter, you were introduced to the command line, a feature that appears on many HyperPAD screens to display not only commands that are specific to the current pad but also menu commands used frequently in working with the pad. Use the following accelerator key method to select a command from the command line. To select a command from the command line: Hold down ALT and press the number on the keyboard that matches the number in front of the command. Note: You must press the appropriate number on the keyboard, not on the numeric keypad. You may recall that we said the commands on the command line are actually special numbered buttons. So if you wanted to, you could select ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 36 ________________________________________________________________________ them just as you would select any other button--i.e., by pressing TAB, SHIFT+TAB, and the arrow keys to highlight the command you want to select and then pressing ENTER or by pointing to the desired command and clicking the left mouse button. However, you'll find the accelerator key method is much faster. To check it out, go to the Home pad (ALT+F5) and select the Manage files button. A pad called the DOS Shell appears. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The DOS Shell lets you perform a wide range of file-management tasks, as you'll see in Chapter 4. But for the moment, all you're going to do is get a taste for the kinds of things that can happen when you select a command from the command line. Start by pressing ALT+1 to select the Sort command. A list called a pop- up appears, offering you a choice of different ways to sort your files. Close the pop-up by pressing the ESC key or clicking the right mouse button. Now select the Tree command (ALT+2). A list (called a tree view) appears showing the breakdown of directories on one of your local drives. (Notice that the tree list has its own command line.) Press the ESC key to exit from the tree view and return to the DOS Shell. And finally, select the Browse command (ALT+8). A rectangle (called a dialog box) is superimposed on the screen, asking you which file you'd like to browse. Press the ESC key or click the right mouse button to close this dialog box. Then press ALT+F5 to return to the Home pad. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 37 ________________________________________________________________________ USING FIELDS Many HyperPAD screens have fields--rectangular areas into which information can be entered. On the page from the Phone pad shown in the first section of this chapter, you saw a number of fields, with John Smith's name, address, and phone numbers typed in. (If you ever have trouble telling which areas of a page are fields, remember the tip we gave you earlier in the chapter: Press CTRL+ALT to make a dotted border appear around all the buttons and fields on the current page.) Using fields requires two skills: First you have to know how to get the cursor into the field you want to work with; then you have to know how to add new information or edit existing information. To enter and type into a field: 1. To enter the field where you want to type: With the keyboard: Press the TAB key until the field is highlighted (pressing SHIFT+TAB moves the highlight backward); then press F2 to unhighlight the field so you can start typing. With the mouse: Move the mouse pointer to the spot in the field where you want to start typing and click the left mouse button to place the cursor there. 2. To move the cursor around the text in the field, either use the arrow keys or reposition the cursor with the mouse; to delete text, use the BACKSPACE key. 3. To go to the next button or field when you're done, press TAB or point to the desired item and click the left mouse button. To check it out, go to the Home pad (press ALT+F5 ) and select the Go to a pad button. When the Pads screen appears, select the Phone button. John Smith's page, which you saw earlier in this chapter, appears. To get a fresh page that you can experiment with, select the New command from the command line (ALT+7). When the new page appears, try using TAB and SHIFT+TAB to move the highlight from one field to another. Once you're comfortable moving the highlight around, either press the F2 key or place the cursor in a field with the mouse and then type in some information. Use the keyboard or the mouse to enter a couple of more fields and type in additional information. Then use the keyboard or the mouse to reenter the fields into which you've already typed text and practice pressing the arrow keys to move the cursor around within the text. Try using the BACKSPACE key to delete some text. When you're finished, press ALT+F5 to return to the Home pad. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 38 ________________________________________________________________________ Scrollable fields: Some HyperPAD screens, such as the one shown here, have scrollable fields. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The important thing to realize about a scrollable field is that it's capable of containing far more information than what you see displayed at one time. You can use the keyboard and mouse techniques shown in the accompanying tables to "scroll" (move) up and down through the information until the material you're after is displayed in the field. Key(s): Action: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Arrow keys Move the cursor in the direction of the arrows by pressing the up/down arrow keys, you can scroll the cursor up/down through the text. PLUS key (keypad) Moves the cursor down one page. MINUS key (keypad) Moves the cursor up one page. HOME key Moves the cursor to the start of the current line. END key Moves the cursor to the end of the current line. CTRL+END keys Moves the cursor to the end of the field. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 39 ________________________________________________________________________ To get some practice with a scrollable field, let's go to the Daily Planner's Notes for the day field, which you saw earlier in this subsection. Start by returning to the Home pad (ALT+F5) and selecting the Go to a pad button; then select the Daily Planner button. When the Daily Planner page appears, place the cursor in the Notes for the day field and type in a numbered list 15 items long. As you get to about item 9, you'll see the field scroll up to give you more room to type. Once you've entered all 15 items, try using the keyboard and mouse techniques presented in the tables to move around through the text in the field. When you're finished, press ALT+F5 to return to the Home pad. Mouse technique: Action: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Point to the up/down scroll Moves the cursor up/down one arrow and click the left mouse line at a time. button. Point to the up/down scroll Moves the cursor up/down arrow and press the left mouse continuously. button, releasing the button when the desired text comes into view. Place the mouse pointer on the Moves the cursor up/down field, press the left mouse button, extremely rapidly. and drag the mouse up/down, releasing the button when the desired text comes into view. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 40 ________________________________________________________________________ SELECTING FROM LIST BOXES Sometimes you'll ask HyperPAD to perform a particular operation and HyperPAD starts by telling you what your available options are. You might, for example, select the Home pad's Run a program button because you want to launch one of your other software programs. Since HyperPAD can't take any action until you specify which program to run, it displays a list box (a new feature in HyperPAD 2.0, an example of which is illustrated here) showing the programs that can currently be launched, so you can pick the one you're after. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ A list box, then, is simply a device that HyperPAD uses to let you select from a large number of choices. In order to work with list boxes, you have to know how to perform three operations. First, you have to know how to use the keyboard or the mouse to highlight an item on the list. Then you have to know how to either select an item or mark one or more items. (Whether you select an item or mark items depends on what type of operation you want to perform in a particular list box. You can select only one item at a time from a list box, but you can mark as many items as you want.) As you can see from the illustration, list boxes are scrollable. This means that in many ways list boxes work like scrollable fields. List boxes often contain more information than what you see displayed at one time, and you can use a number of keyboard and mouse techniques to move up and down through the information until the item you're after is displayed in the list box. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 41 ________________________________________________________________________ Key: Action ------------------------------------------------------------------- Up/down arrow keys Move the highlight up/down one line. A...Z keys Move the highlight directly to the first item on the list starting with that letter. PLUS key (keypad) Moves the highlight down one page. MINUS key (keypad) Moves the highlight up one page. HOME key Moves the highlight to the first item on the list. END key Moves the highlight to the last item on the list. To use a list box with the keyboard, press TAB until the highlight enters the list box you want to work with (if the highlight isn't already on one of the items there). Now that one of the items in the list box is highlighted, you can use the keys presented in the accompanying table to move the highlight bar to the desired item. Some of the same keys are used to move around within list boxes as to move around within scrollable fields; however, notice that there are some differences. If the list you're working with exceeds the length of the list box, you can make the list scroll up to reveal additional items by continuing to press the down arrow when the highlight reaches the last item displayed in the list box or by pressing the plus key on the numeric keypad. You can make the list scroll down by continuing to press the up arrow when the cursor reaches the first item displayed in the list box or by pressing the minus key on the numeric keypad. Once you've highlighted the desired item with the keyboard, press ENTER to select it or press SPACE to mark it. When you mark a list box item, an arrow appears in the left margin of the list box beside the item. (To unmark an item, just highlight it and press SPACE again.) If you have a mouse, you can scroll through a list box using the same techniques presented earlier in the chapter for moving through a scrollable field. Once the desired item is visible in the list box, you can select the item by pointing to it with the mouse and double-clicking ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 42 ________________________________________________________________________ the left mouse button. You can mark an item by pointing to it with the mouse and clicking the right mouse button. (To unmark an item, just point to it with the mouse and click the right mouse button again.) To check it out, select the Run a program button on the Home pad to display the Programs list box shown at the start of this subsection. If necessary, TAB or use the mouse to move the highlight into the list box; then practice using the keyboard and mouse techniques presented in this chapter to move the highlight through the list. Try using the keyboard and the mouse to mark and unmark a few items on the list. If you're feeling adventurous, launch one of your other software programs by selecting it with the keyboard or the mouse. When you exit from the program, you'll come right back to the Programs list box. Press ALT+F5 to return to the Home pad once you're through practicing. FILLING OUT DIALOG BOXES Whenever HyperPAD needs to communicate with you--i.e., to send you a message or get some information from you--it displays a special window, called a dialog box. Every dialog box has one or more controls, which are devices you can use to specify information or change a setting. The most basic type of dialog box is the error message, an example of which is shown here. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This error message explains why HyperPAD can't carry out your command. <<Ok>> is already highlighted, so all you have to do is press ENTER to acknowledge that you've received the message. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 43 ________________________________________________________________________ Selecting the Printer Setup command from the File menu calls up the following more complicated HyperPAD dialog box, in which there are three types of controls: a list box, a group of option buttons, and a text box. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If you use the Print command on the File menu to tell HyperPAD you want to print columns, you also get a relatively complicated dialog box, shown here, in which, in addition to the controls you saw earlier, there are some option buttons. (In a minute, we'll explain the difference between option buttons and option button groups.) ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Earlier in the chapter, when you practiced opening menus and viewing their lists of commands, you may have wondered why some of the commands are followed by three periods (called ellipses). For instance, ellipses appear after many of the commands on the File menu, shown here. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 44 ________________________________________________________________________ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Ellipses after a menu command are a tip-off that HyperPAD is going to need certain information from you in order to carry out that command-- i.e., that HyperPAD will present a dialog box if you select the command. To fill out any kind of dialog box, you must know three things: how to move the highlight between and within controls, how to operate each type of control, and how to tell HyperPAD that you're through with the dialog box. NAVIGATING BETWEEN DIALOG BOX CONTROLS Moving the highlight between dialog box controls is simple. Just keep pressing the TAB key until the control you want to work with is highlighted. (Press SHIFT+TAB to move the highlight backward.) Once you've reached the desired control, how you move the highlight from one item to another within it depends on what type of control it is. Therefore, navigating within dialog box controls is discussed in the following subsections on the various controls. TEXT BOXES Text boxes are one dialog box control you should have no trouble operating, since typing into a text box is just like typing into a field, which you learned how to do earlier in this chapter. When ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 45 ________________________________________________________________________ you're through entering information in a text box, move to the next control either by pressing TAB or by pointing to it with the mouse and clicking the left mouse button. LIST BOXES List boxes, another HyperPAD feature discussed earlier in this chapter, can also appear within dialog boxes, where they're used to let you quickly choose from a list. For instance, to change the name of the current printer in the Printer Setup dialog box, illustrated at the start of this subsection, just select the name of another printer from the list box (by highlighting the name with the keyboard and pressing ENTER or by pointing to it with the mouse and double-clicking the left mouse button). The newly selected name is now shown as the current printer. OPTION BUTTONS AND OPTION BUTTON GROUPS An option button is a dialog box control that can be turned on (selected) or turned off (unselected). To toggle an option button from selected to unselected or vice versa, either TAB to the option button and press SPACE or point to it with the mouse and click the left mouse button. When an option button is selected, an "X" appears within the brackets in front of the button. Once you've changed the option button's setting, TAB to the next control. An option button group is an interconnected set of mutually exclusive options--i.e., only one option from the group can be selected at any given time. For example, in the Print Column Report dialog box, shown earlier, the Spacing list is a group of two option buttons--Single and Double. Clearly, you can pick just one of these options, since a report can't simultaneously be both single- and double-spaced. (In contrast, the option buttons in the Names column of this dialog box are not grouped--i.e., they're not mutually exclusive. In the illustration, both Field and Page are selected in the Names column, since there's no reason why you can't simultaneously print field names and page names in your report. Or you could have told HyperPAD to print only one of these two names or neither name.) To select an option from an option button group, TAB to the group of option buttons and then use the up and down arrow keys to move the highlight through the options. As you highlight each option, an "X" appears in the parentheses in front of the option. When the desired option is highlighted, press TAB to select that option and proceed to the next control. Or point to the desired option with the mouse and click the left mouse button. When you click on an option, an "X" appears ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 46 ________________________________________________________________________ within the parentheses in front of the option and the previously selected option in the group is automatically unselected. You've probably noticed that option buttons and option button groups look pretty similar and that a single dialog box can contain a number of option buttons as well as one or more option button groups. So the question is, how do you tell whether a control is an option button (which can be selected or unselected independently of other option buttons) or whether it's part of an option button group (which functions as an interconnected set of options from which you can make only one selection at a time)? Here's an easy way to tell at a glance: Each option button is preceded by a pair of brackets [ ], whereas each option in an option button group is preceded by a pair of parentheses ( ). Just look for the parentheses or the brackets, and you'll know how to operate the control. CLOSING DIALOG BOXES After you've typed in all the required information and made any necessary changes to a dialog box's settings, TAB to <<Ok>> and press ENTER or point to <<Ok>> and click the left mouse button. This tells HyperPAD that you're through with the dialog box and that it can now close the box and carry out your instructions. If you want to exit from a dialog box without changing the status of any of the controls, either press the ESC key, TAB to <Cancel> and press ENTER, or point to <Cancel> and click the left mouse button. Even if you've already typed information into a text box or changed some of the dialog box's settings, this tells HyperPAD to ignore these changes (i.e., leave the dialog box the way it originally was) and just close the box. DEFAULT SETTINGS In some cases, you'll open a dialog box and find that HyperPAD has already chosen certain options and values to save you the trouble of doing so. These preselected settings, which are the settings HyperPAD "expects" you to choose, are called default settings. For example, in the dialog box used to set up pages for your printer, one of HyperPAD's default settings is for letter-size paper measuring 8.5 inches by 11 inches--the most common choice. If HyperPAD failed to guess your intentions correctly, you can easily change these default settings. ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 47 ________________________________________________________________________ For practice, you can work with the dialog boxes shown in this subsection. To access the Printer Setup dialog box, open the File menu and select the Printer Setup command (ALT+F, U). Use the keyboard or the mouse to select different printers from the Available printers list box and watch how your selections change the name of the Current printer (displayed above the list box). TAB to the Print to control (a group of option buttons) and use the up and down arrow keys to move the highlight within the group. If you have a mouse, try selecting different options in this group. When you're through practicing, close the dialog box by selecting <Cancel>, pressing the ESC key, or clicking the right mouse button. To call up the Print Column Report dialog box, you must be on a page with fields (HyperPAD won't present this dialog box unless it knows you're working with a page on which printable information could be typed). Go to the Home pad, select the Go to a pad button, and then select the Index Cards button. When the Index Cards pad appears, select the Print command from the File menu (ALT+F, P). This brings up the Print dialog box, which has only one control--an option button group. Use the up and down arrow keys or the mouse to select the Columns option. When you select <<Ok>> or press ENTER, the Print Column Reports dialog box appears. Move the highlight to the Names column and practice selecting both of the option buttons, or only one of them, or neither. If you want more practice with an option button group, work with the options in the Spacing column. If you want more practice with text boxes, type in new information for the header and footer and for the margins. When you're finished with the dialog box, close it as indicated above. NAVIGATING WITHIN HYPERPAD When we talk about navigating within HyperPAD, we're referring to the techniques you can use to travel around a HyperPAD screen, to travel within a pad, and to travel between pads. This subsection will review some methods you're already familiar with and introduce a number of new methods. NAVIGATING AROUND A HYPERPAD SCREEN You've already seen how to use the arrow keys, TAB, and SHIFT+TAB to move the highlight around the buttons on a HyperPAD screen and how to use TAB and SHIFT+TAB to move between fields. You've also seen how to ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 48 ________________________________________________________________________ move the highlight to the name of the most recently selected menu on the menu bar by pressing the F10 key. You've also learned how to save yourself time by using accelerator keys to open menus and to select commands from the command line (i.e., hold down the ALT key and press either the highlighted letter in the menu name or the number of the command on the command line), as well as to select commands from an open menu (i.e., just press the highlighted letter in the command, without holding down ALT). However, you may not have realized that other HyperPAD elements can sometimes have accelerator keys, too, such as dialog box options and buttons that are not on the command line. To identify the accelerator keys on a particular screen, press ALT and see which letters and numbers become highlighted. You can select any of these items simply by pressing the highlighted letter or number while holding down ALT (i.e., without bothering to move the highlight around). To check it out, select the Printer Setup command from the File menu to call up the Printer Setup dialog box again. (You saw this dialog box and experimented with it in the preceding subsection of this chapter.) Press ALT and watch the dialog box for highlighted accelerator keys. In this case, 1, 2, F, O, and C become highlighted, so you could select the LPT1 option in the Print to group by pressing the accelerator key 1 while holding down ALT (ALT+1); you could select the File option in this group by pressing ALT+F; you could select <<Ok>> by pressing ALT+O; etc. NAVIGATING WITHIN A PAD When you work with pads that have more than one page (such as the Phone pad, which you saw in the first section of this chapter), you need to know how to get from one page to another within the pad. You could always open the Go menu and select the Next, Previous, First, and Last commands to get to the following or preceding page in a pad or to the first or last page, but HyperPAD also offers some considerably faster navigation techniques. Earlier in the chapter, you learned about keyboard shortcuts--single keystrokes or keystroke combinations that you can press to activate a command without even opening a menu. The keyboard shortcuts for navigation are PGUP and PGDN (to go to the previous page or the next page in a pad) and CTRL+PGUP and CTRL+PGDN (to go to the first page or the last page in a pad). ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 49 ________________________________________________________________________ You can also travel between pages by selecting one of the on-screen paging buttons, shown here. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Selecting the left-hand paging button moves you back one page within the pad; selecting the right-hand paging button moves you forward one page. The paging buttons are just like any other HyperPAD buttons, so you can select them with the same keyboard and mouse techniques for button selection that you learned earlier in the chapter. If you want to create a new page within the pad, press the F3 key. The new page is inserted right after the page you were on when you pressed F3, and the remaining pages in the pad are renumbered accordingly. You can now use the methods described above to travel to and from your new page. To check it out, go to the Notes pad. (To get there, go to the Home pad, select the Go to a pad button, then select Notes from the Pads screen.) Start by selecting the Status Bar command from the Workspace menu if you don't already have the status bar displayed. That way, you'll be able to see the page numbers on the status bar as you move around within the Notes pad. Press F3 several times to create some new pages, since you won't get much navigational practice if your pad only has a page or two. Practice using the PGUP and PGDN keys to go from one page to another. Try pressing PGUP and PGDN while holding down the CTRL key to skip straight to the first and last pages in the pad. Move between pages by selecting the paging buttons with the keyboard or the mouse. When you're through experimenting, return to the Home pad by pressing ALT+F5. NAVIGATING BETWEEN PADS You've already learned that you can move from one pad to another if the page you're on has a button that links it to another pad. A couple of very common HyperPAD buttons are F1=Help (which appears on all title bars except those in the Help system) and Home. You could also reach the Help pad and the Home pad by selecting the Help and Home ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 50 ________________________________________________________________________ commands from the Go menu or by using the keyboard shortcuts F1 (for Help) and ALT+F5 (for Home). When you experimented with the Notes pad in the preceding subsection, you might have noticed the following little angled double arrow near the bottom of the page. ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ **** The Printed Documentation has a picture or screen shot here **** │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This arrow, called the return button, takes you back to the place in HyperPAD from which you originally accessed the current pad. For example, if you select the return button on the Notes pad, you'll go to the Pads screen again, which is where you were when you called up the Notes pad. Return buttons are most often found on pads that you reach via the Pads screen, and they provide a quick way to come back to that screen so you can pick another pad. On some HyperPAD screens, you'll see a button that reads ESC=Done, which serves a similar purpose. Selecting ESC=Done returns you to wherever you were when you called up the current screen. Pressing the ESC key on the keyboard has the same effect as selecting the on-screen return button or the ESC=Done button. It takes you from one screen in HyperPAD to the place from which you accessed that screen. For example, if you're in a dialog box, pressing ESC takes you back to the screen from which you called up the dialog box. If you're in a pad that you reached from the Pads screen, pressing ESC takes you back to the Pads screen. From there, you could press ESC to return to the Home pad, which is the screen from which the Pads screen is accessed. Once you finally reach the Home pad, pressing ESC starts the procedure for exiting from HyperPAD. NAVIGATING BOTH WITHIN AND BETWEEN PADS If you ever want to retrace your steps through HyperPAD, just press the F5 key repeatedly. This takes you back through the pages you've just viewed, one page at a time--regardless of whether the pages are in the same pad or in different pads. (You could also backtrack by selecting the Back command from the Go menu over and over again.) To check it out, try pressing F5 a few times. You'll see the pages you've just been using, starting with the most recent and working ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 51 ________________________________________________________________________ backward from there. Whenever you get tired of backtracking, just press ALT+F5 to return to the Home pad. GETTING HELP HyperPAD's on-line Help system is discussed in detail in Chapter 6. But just in case you get into trouble (or simply get curious) before then, we'll tell you how to access this feature. Pressing F1 on your keyboard calls up a Pad Help page that summarizes key information about the screen you were just viewing. You can then get even more information by selecting the summary screen's Index button (which appears on all Pad Help pages except Indexes) to access a list of Help topics for the current pad. Once you're in Pad Help, pressing F1 a second time calls up the Index for General Help; you can select from the topics listed there to get further information about basic HyperPAD operations. Whenever you're done using Pad Help or General Help, just press the ESC key to return to the page you were working on when you accessed Help. EXITING FROM HYPERPAD In Chapter 1, you were firmly cautioned not to turn off your computer until you first follow one of several very simple and quick procedures for exiting from HyperPAD. Two of these exiting methods are to press the ESC key when you're on the Home pad or hold down CTRL and press Q (CTRL+Q) from anywhere in HyperPAD. HyperPAD then asks you to confirm your intentions by presenting a dialog box with the question "Are you sure you want to exit?" You can reply by selecting <<Ok>> or <Cancel>. Another approach is to select the Home pad's Shut Down button, which calls up a dialog box advising you that "You may now turn off your computer safely." The reason this step is so crucial is that when you give fair warning that you're about to end the current session, HyperPAD immediately saves your data, whereas if you shut off your machine without announcing your intentions in advance, you could lose important data, including whole pads! ________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2: Fundamentals of Using HyperPAD 52 ________________________________________________________________________ Another way to exit (besides the ESC, CTRL+Q, and Shut Down methods) is to select the Exit command from the File menu. When you leave HyperPAD in this manner, HyperPAD does not present a dialog box asking you to verify your decision but instead immediately returns you to DOS once you select Exit. CONCLUSION After reading this chapter, you should recognize the elements that are common to all or most HyperPAD screens and know how to perform basic operations in HyperPAD, including accessing Pad Help and General Help, selecting buttons, and selecting commands from the command line. You should also be able to use a mouse (if you have one) for basic HyperPAD tasks, navigate within HyperPAD, type into a field, open up a menu and select from the commands displayed there, and use list boxes and dialog boxes to communicate your intentions to HyperPAD. And finally, you should know how to exit from HyperPAD. Armed with this information, you're all set to start using HyperPAD!