Here’s a helpful hint for all MUGs out there. Have a member with a LaserWriter print out the HyperCard Help stack (it takes 52 sheets), then take that LaserWriter master to a copy shop and run off copies for the membership. Oh, yes, and if you use Ideaform’s HyperBook Maker, you can make the Help book a neat little 5-1/2x8 volume! Sell them at cost, or for a few pennies profit for the MUG coffers.
NEAT HELP STACK TRICKS
Speaking of the Help stack, Los Angeles MUG says you can do some neat tricks there. Command/click/drag across a line of text (yes, even in a locked field) and the message box will appear. You can execute any executable command from there. Play with it and find out how you can “test drive’ a technique.
Expand on this trick by pressing Command/F for Find, then Command/click/drag across the text you want to find. Bingo! HyperCard takes you there.
Yes, the Help stack is “hot.”
TEAR OFF A QUICKIE?
In HyperCard, Option/Tab toggles the tear-off paint palette to its last screen position.
BOMB SQUAD ADVICE
When you get a bomb, don’t sit there and stare at the screen. Make haste to turn off the Mac, since a very heavy drain on the power supply occurs during many bombs. Since my Mac and MacWidow’s Mac have had a total of three new power supplies, I’m not gazing at error messages much these days. (Thanks, MacNexus from Sacramento, CA MUG.)
SPACE SAVING TRICK
If you Save As… a Pagemaker 2.0a document, you save about 40% of the memory required, since the Save As… version does not retain a “Revert” copy. Of course if you start making changes, Pagemaker builds that “Revert” copy, and you lose the advantage quickly — but for storage on completion of a document — great!
ON A DIET
Word 3.01 files sometimes go on a diet after a Save As… as do Excel spreadsheets. I just Saved As… a friend’s 720k worksheet down to 495k. Not only did it get skinny, but it now runs on a one megabyte Mac -- which the 720k file refused to do.
LOCAL UNDO
In Microsoft Word, File and Excel, try clicking on the titles above groups of radial buttons in dialog boxes; the Character dialog box in Word 3.01, for instance. This gives you a Local Undo ability. Try it out.
COMING SOON FROM MS
Microsoft is saying that the next upgrade for Word 3.01 will include repagination and columns which you can edit.
GETTING COLOR NOW
Have you run multiple color out of your LaserWriter yet? Here are three ways:
• Use color paper stock, which gives you black on color instead of black on white
• Make three (or more) copies of your page — one for black, one for brown and one for blue for instance. Strip the black copy of all text and graphics which are to be brown or blue. Strip the blue copy of black and brown, and strip the brown copy of blue and black text and graphics. Run the black copy. Remove the black toner cartridge and replace it with a blue toner cartridge (they cost more!) and run the blue master hand-fed on the black output sheet. Now change cartridges once more and run the brown copy hand fed. You now have three colors on white (or on a color if you used color stock). Toner cartridges also come in red and green — other colors may also be available.
• Treat a completed black on white copy with Pizzazz color foils, attaching the desired color over appropriate areas with low-adhesive tabs. Run the sheet back through the LaserWriter manually once or twice and remove the foil and tabs. The colors include gold, silver and metallic colors. (Desktop Corporation, P.O. Box 7336, Boise, Idaho 83707, (800) 426-0306. (See article elsewhere in this issue.
A LITTLE MAINTENANCE
For several months I have gotten random messages saying that a certain file could not be copied from a disk in my internal drive to a disk in external. Also, an occasional disk would not load in internal. I got an Amaray disk drive cleaner for $5.00 and haven’t had either error message since. It appears that the drive head was dirty. I have heard a lot of conflicting advice on cleaning drive heads — think I’ll clean mine once in a while! (Amaray International Corp., 14935 NE 95th St., Redmond, WA 98052, 206-881-1000.)
GETTING YOUR OPTIONS
You never get the Options choice in the LaserWriter dialog box you get with MS Word. So hold down the Shift key while you select Pagae Setup and you'll see it again. Try this in any application which doesn't give you an Options choice in the LaserWriter Page Setup dialog box.
GOODIE FOR CANVAS
Canvas does Bezier curves, Bill Stevens of Wintson-Salem, NC says. Hold down the Option key while selecting the polygon tool. Draw the polygon. Type Command/E and Canvas will turn your polygon into a Bezier curve. In the Canvas DA, pull down the Canvas menu to Edit Polygon, since the Command key equivalent does not work in the DA.
HANG UPS
MacWrite 5.0 may hang up if you try to paste in too much. It advertises that it will import 32k, but it probably won't come close.
STACKS FOR HYPER DA
If your stack is intended to be accessed by Hyper DA, remember three things: 1) the menu bar always shows, hiding a band at the top of the screen, 2) you can't use a locked field as a "button" to perform actions, and 3) you can't treat Open Stack commands like Open Card commands for the first card of a stack. (Thanks, John van Beekum, quoted in Washington Apple Pi.
ANOTHER TEXT EDITOR
TeachText documents are showing up as documentation and ReadMe files oon disk with more and more programs. TeachText is found on Apple System disks, among other places.
You can use TeachText as a mini text editor, for notes accompanying an application, or you can convert other text files to TeachText by changing creator to ttxt (all lower case). To make it a Read Only document, change the type from TEXT to ttro.
HELPING PAGEMAKER
Pagemaker 2.0 works more smoothly with Multifinder and/or with lots of DAs if you use FEdit or MacSnoopy and change 0102 011F to 0102 01FF. (Thanks Mouse Tracks from Portland (OR) MUG.)
