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- Using the Text Reader
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- Welcome to the help file for the EA text reader. Updated and
- programmed by Andrew "Mushroom" Kellett of Mushroom PD. All operations
- can be controlled via the mouse, and all page movement can also be
- controlled via the cursor keys. To exit the reader, simply click the
- left mouse button on the EXIT button.
-
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- Firstly, I best explain what the different buttons do:
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- NEXT PAGE - Goto next page of the file
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- PREV PAGE - Goto previous page of the file
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- LAST PAGE - Goto last page of the file
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- FIRST PAGE - Goto the first page of the file
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- GOTO PAGE - Goto a user-specified page of the file
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- PRINT PAGE - Print out the current page (text only)
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- PRINT ALL - Print out entire document (text only)
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- EXIT - Leave the reader
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- You can use the mouse to click on any of the movement buttons, or
- if you can move around the pages using the cursor keys. The LEFT
- cursor key acts as PREV PAGE, the right cursor key as NEXT PAGE, the
- up cursor key as FIRST PAGE and the down cursor key as LAST PAGE. To
- exit from the reader you must click the mouse on the EXIT button, or
- if you are like me and used to using a program such as DirOpus, then
- you can click the right mouse button to exit.
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- Using GOTO PAGE you can skip as many pages as you want to, just by
- entering the page number in the file that you wish to travel to. If
- the page is valid, then it will be displayed on-screen for you to
- view.
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- Graphics
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- As well as being able to display text, the program will also draw
- graphics on the screen. These can be of any resolution that the author
- selects. They are specially packed down using a unique AMOS graphics
- compactor, written by Paul Burkey, which crunches them down even
- further than a standard SPack, but explains also the way in which they
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- unpack. Once the picture is fully unpacked, it will remain on-screen
- until the mouse button has been pressed, where the picture will be
- "Cut" in order to fit into the standard viewer screen. Screens which
- unpack to NTSC size are hardly effected, but standard 256 high
- pictures tend to lose the bottom half of the picture, and take a lot
- more time to unpack if there is a lot of detail. The best screens to
- use are 320x200 with up to 64 colours, as you hardly lose any of the
- image when the buttons etc. are on-screen.
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- To limit the amount of memory used, the program will load in the
- graphics file as it needs it, so users with only 1Mb can still use the
- program properly. This also reduces the size of individual articles,
- and allows me to use the picture data in more than one article, which
- saves me from using more than one copy of any particular file.
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- If an option is called, such as PRINT or GOTO PAGE, and the screen
- is in a different resolution than the default, then the picture is
- cleared, and the screen set to the default size in order for the
- on-screen graphics to appear on the screen. This is so that the icons
- which are to be placed on the screen are in the correct size that they
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- were programmed to be. Sorry if it causes an inconvinience.
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- Well, that just about covers it. If you are still having problems,
- then why not drop me a line at the Mushroom PD address, or give me a
- call. For information oh how to create your colour articles, then
- consult the article GETTING INVOLVED where everything is explained.
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- [Andrew "Mushroom" Kellett]
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- EOF
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