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Shareware Extravaganza - Disc 4
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Shareware Extravaganza - Over 25,000 Programs (The Ultimate Shareware Company)(Disc 4 of 4)(1993).iso
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READ.ME
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========= NEW Ver. 1.51 ==========
*** DRAFT CHOICE Ver 1.51 (C) Copyright 1988 - 91 ***
------------------------------------------------------
TRIUS, Inc., P.O. BOX 249, North Andover, MA 01845
Tel.(508)794-9377 FAX.(508)688-6312 BBS:(508)794-0762
This file, READ.ME, contains a variety of recent changes, and other
useful information that did not make it into the Ver 1.5 printing of
the users manual. Please READ IT THOROUGHLY! It contains very
important information with regards to Ver. 1.5 and 1.51 and reading it
now will probably save you time and trouble later on!
You can print this file by COPYing it to your printer with the
following command: copy READ.ME prn, or, you can view it on your
screen with the command: type READ.ME
For more information on technical support for DRAFT CHOICE, please see
the user's manual.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shareware and the Association of Shareware Professionals
----------------------------------------------------------------------
_______
____|__ | (tm)
--| | |-------------------
| ____|__ | Association of
| | |_| Shareware
|__| o | Professionals
-----| | |---------------------
|___|___| MEMBER
The shareware concept has made it possible for you to obtain extremely
powerful software at a price you can afford, and it gives you the
opportunity to try the software before you register.
Shareware is kept alive by YOUR support.
Evaluate the program for 30-days and give copies to your friends for
evaluation. If, after the 30 days, you continue to use the program,
then register it by sending us the registration form included in this
help file or by calling 508-794-9377. You will receive the Latest
version, Printed manual, Symbol Libraries, 90-day free Technical Phone
Support and newsletter, BBS Technical Support and Reduced price
Upgrades. Help support new developments in DRAFT CHOICE, register
your copy today!
TRIUS, Inc. is 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 member's
products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at:
ASP Ombudsman
545 Grover Road
Muskegon, MI 49442-9427
or send a Compuserve message via easyplex to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ordering Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have not already ordered your registered copy of DRAFT CHOICE,
you may do so using the order form in the ORDER.ME file, or by calling
TRIUS, Inc. and charging your purchase on your credit card.
You may also order your copy on-line by calling our TRIUS Support BBS
at (508) 794-0762 [2400,N,8,1 - 24 hrs].
If you live outside the US and Canada contact TRIUS, Inc. for a dealer
in your country. Purchasing through these dealers can save you the
delay and inconvenience which may be involved in dealing with currency
conversions and international shipping and in many cases will provide
you with faster technical support.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
INSTALLATION
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The DRAFT CHOICE Disk should contain the following Files:
DINSTALL.EXE - DRAFT CHOICE Installation Program
DRAFTC.FLS - Archive used by DINSTALL
LHARC.EXE - Compression Program (c) Haruyasu Yoshizaki, 1988-89
LHARC.MAN - Documentation for LHARC.EXE
READ.ME - This File
ORDER.ME - Registration/Order form
VENDOR.DOC - Info on Distributing Shareware Copies
LICENSE.DOC - Please Read This!
........... - Other files from time to time
To install the program follow the instructions below:
1. Start your computer and make sure you are at the dos prompt.
2. Insert the DRAFT CHOICE diskette in Drive A or B.
3. Type A: (or B:, depending on step 2, above) and press ENTER
4. Type DINSTALL, press ENTER and follow the on-screen instructions.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
STARTING THE PROGRAM
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The information provided below is to help you start the program for
your hardware configuration. For more details about the operation of
the program press the F1 (function) key once you have started the
program.
DRAFT CHOICE is started from DOS using the command:
A> DC /Option1/Option2/Option3/..... [ENTER]
Available Command Line Options
------------------------------
/H - Enables graphics for Hercules
/E - Enables graphics for EGA
/ATT - Enables ATT display graphics
/EV - Enables VGA (640x480) Graphics
/Q - Quick screen updating for CGA
/V1 - Force CGA mode on VGA monitor
/NT - No Keyboard Turbo (Eliminates conflicts with some programs
that directly manipulate the keyboard registers)
/MONO - Used with monitors that do not display shades properly
/NE - Do not use Expanded memory even if it is detected
/VM=NN - Use the disk drive to emulate EMS RAM. NN=number of 16K pages
/VP=d:\Path; - Path for the Virtual Memory (Note the ; at the end)
For more Command line options, refer to the user's manual.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW in Ver. 1.51
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(a) F5 - De-Select Entity Toggle
Pressing F5 now toggles the entity selection mode from ADD to
SUBTRACT. For example, if 10 entities had been selected for copying
and the second selection made had to be de-selected, press F5 to
toggle the SUBtract mode ON, go to the desired second entity and de-
select it by using either the window or the pick mode.
(b) Draft Choice now features two types of fill patterns. Bit
mapped and vector based. The bit mapped patterns are basically the
fill patterns that where available in version 1.5, and they are meant
to be used when plotting will be done on a dot matrix or laserjet
printer. Vector based fill patterns, on the other hand, are
constructed from complex line entities and are to be used when
plotting will be done on a pen plotter. Please, note that both fill
pattern types can be mixed in the same drawing....
An attempt was made to match the two types of patterns closely,
however, this is not always possible. The user will have to convert
some of these patterns manually when going from one type to the
other.
(c) A new printer driver was added to the program for the OKIDATA
182+ series of 9-pin Dot Matrix Printers. The driver, based on the
printer documentation, should also work for the 24-pin OKI printers
but is has not been tested on such printers explicitly. Any comments
would be appreciated. CAUTION: This driver assumes that the OKIDATA
printer is in the OKIDATA graphics mode. The EPSON printer drivers
should be selected if the EPSON graphics mode is set on your OKIDATA
printer.
(d) In order to facilitate navigation through large symbol
libraries, a Previous [page] and Next [page] commands were added
under the Symbol, Use dialog window.
(e) The MEASURE, DIMENSION command now has two options, Place and
Setup. Place, of course, is self evident, it places a dimension
line. Setup, on the other hand, now gives the user the capability to
select one of the following options:
Parallel
Toggling this option ON, indicates that the dimension text will be
placed above a solid dimension line, and parallel to the line.
3.5 FT
──────────────────────
Horizontal
This option indicates that regardless of the orientation of the
dimension line, the dimension text will be horizontal and the
dimension line will not be solid.
─────── 3.5 FT ───────
Arrow
Arrows will be used to define the end of the dimension lines.
3.5 FT
<────────────────────>
Slash
Small line segments, perpendicular to the dimension line, will be
used to signify the precise end of the line.
3.5 FT
│────────────────────│
(f) The Measure, Query submenu now contains a new command, INFO.
Invoking this command provides you with information about the current
RAM usage, the number of entities that may be handled with the
current configuration, etc.
(g) The OPTION, COLOR command now gives you the ability to change the
color of many options:
MENU - Change the color of the menu pull-down window
LETTER - Change the color of the first letter in each menu option
HILITE - Change the color of menu highlight bar
SCREEN - Set the color of all entities, text, etc. that will be
placed on the screen. Note that the bottom (background) color
bar has no effect on the color while changing the screen color
attributes. The background will always be black. If you select
a different background color, then entities might become
temporarily invisible, while they are drawn, although they become
visible again when an Image, Update command is executed.
Also, note that because of the multicolor scheme used,
selecting Blue, Red, Purple, Light Gray or High Intensity
Blue, might result in symbols temporarily overwriting the
screen when the Symbol, Used command in invoked.
PROMPT - Change the color of the input prompt line
ACTIVE - Change the color of the currently selected default
option in dialog windows
INACTIVE - Change the color of options not selected in dialog
windows
When one of these options is selected, the user is presented with two
color bars, one displaying the foreground and the other the
background color options. on both sides of each bar, there are
arrows pointing to the left and right respectively. Clicking on one
of these arrows, moves the small, double-block selection cursor
through the various colors. The block titled 'COLOR' displays a
sample of the current foreground/background combination.
(h) The option OPTION, TOGGLE menu displays a new option, WHITE.
This option is currently disabled.
(i) User font editing and new font definition has been made much
simpler by allowing the use of any entity (not just simple line
segments) in creating characters. The user defined elements are
automatically converted by the program when the new character
definitions are created and saved. (see note at the end for info on
creating/editing font characters).
(j) Pressing the home key will now place the cross-hair cursor in
the middle of the screen. This should eliminate the problem in
trying to figure out where the cross-hair cursor is in complex
drawings or when the cursor is off to one of the sides.
(k) The program detects if a mouse driver is active and disables the
Keyboard Turbo mode. This was done to avoid problems that had been
reported with the Turbo mode interfering on systems with certain
keyboard BIOS versions.
(l) A new toggle option was added, DEPTH, under the Options, Toggle
sub-menu. This option toggles the 3-Dimensional look of options in
the dialog windows ON/OFF.
(m) When output to a plotter has been selected, the user is given an
opportunity to specify an X,Y offset, right before plotting begins.
In most cases, the default offsets (0,0) should be used. In cases
where the 0,0 coordinate point of your plotter is not the lower left
corner, these offsets may be used to position the plotted image
correctly on your paper.
(n) The File, OShell command will now allow you to specify a path
and file name, before executing the child process.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
User Notes
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A. Users have commented that the instructions on creating new font
characters, or editing existing ones, are not very clear. As a
response, here is a step by step description of the process to
edit/create font characters.
1. Invoke File, New.
2. Click on the Units box to select Real Units = M (meters).
3. Make sure the DWG units are inches.
4. Select drawing size None
5. Select Draw, Text, Setup.
6. Set both width and height to 256.
7. Select Options, Grid
8. Set X and Y grid to 16 and set X and Y snap to 4
9. Select Options, Toggle and make sure MARK is toggled ON
10. Select Draw, Text, Place and enter a single character (e.g. A)
11. Select Image, All.
12. Select Draw, Line and place a horizontal line through the very top
of the letter A. Repeat the process and place a horizontal line
through the construction mark at the lower left portion of the
character.
13. Select Draw, Line and place two vertical lines, slightly outside the
left and right portions of the character.
14. You may, at this point, erase the character. The box that is left,
may be used as the working area for defining your own character.
15. Please note that when the Symbol, Font, Create command is invoked
and you are asked to specify the elements making up the character, the
vertical and horizontal lines you drew above should NOT be included!
------------
B. The user's manual incorrectly states that ONLY symbols used in a
drawing are saved as part of any symbol libraries used to create
the drawing. The COMPLETE symbol libraries, however, are saved
with the drawing, contrary to the information in the user's manual.
Once a drawing is finished, unused symbols in the libraries may be
deleted, if necessary, to free up some additional RAM for the drawing.
WARNING: Deleting a symbol from the library, when it is used in the
drawing, will delete the corresponding symbol(s) from the
drawing!
------------
C. Draw, Circle, Setup, Aspect
The aspect ratio is the ratio of the HORIZONTAL to the VERTICAL
diameter. For a circle, this ratio is 1.0.
------------
D. Draw, Text, Setup
The angle is measured in degrees, counterclockwise from the
vertical axis. If the alignement option FIT is selected, the
character size will be automatically adjusted so that the typed
text will fit between the left and right boundaries defined by the
user.
------------
E. Edit, Other, Array
LINEAR - Perform a linear Array operation. Generate the specified
number of copies at the user selected distance (offset) from each
other.
CIRCULAR - Perform a circular Arrray operation. Generate the
number of user specified copies, arranged in a circular array,
about a rotation point selected by the user.
ANGLE - Only applicable if the circular array command has been
selected. This is the angle of rotation about the user specified
center (when all selections are completed). It is normally
calculated automatically.
SCALE - The user may select to have each successive copy scaled up
or down by the desired scale factor.
ROTATE - Note that this is an angle of rotation about the element
axis (for each created copy) not about the user specified center of
rotation, (i.e., totally different than angle, above).
----------
E. Edit, Other, Rubber
This command is used to 'Stretch' lines attached to complex
entities. For example, if two lines are attached to a box the
lines may be stretched as the box is being moved around, fixed at
the end points that are not attached to the box. In order to do
that, however, you need to select the box including the corners to
which the lines are attached.
----------
F. Edit, Scale
The user may select the scaling to be LOCAL or not. If LOCAL
scaling is selected, then each of the selected elements is scaled
about its reference point rather than about a global reference
point selected by the user.
----------
G. Edit, Xtend
When extending to complex entities, the extension is up to the
first boundary of the complex entity.
After all selections have been made, the user is prompted to
specify INNER or ANYWHERE. If INNER is selected, only the lines
that will physically intersect the extend boundary will be
extended. If ANYWHERE is selected, all lines, including those that
would intercept the imaginary line defined by the extend boundary
will be extended.
----------
H. The codes for Raster type printers refer to the HP Laserjet/Deskjet
and 100% compatibles.
** E N D **