The Game Master (3rd Edition)/The Game Master 3rd edition.iso/files/windames/winwheel/editwhee.doc

Text File | 1992-07-22 | 8KB | 154 lines

WINWHEEL EDITOR




INTRODUCTION
The WINWHEEL editor allows the user to add, delete, or modify puzzles in
the database file called WINWHEEL.DAT.  You may run the editor as a
stand-alone program in Windows, or access the program while playing
WINWHEEL, just in case you find a spelling error that you wish to correct.

SETUP
A) Shareware version of WINWHEEL and EDITWHEEL:
If you installed WINWHEEL from the shareware version (unregistered
version for evaluation), then you may wish to add an icon to one of your
GROUPS in FILE MANAGER in WINDOWS 3.0 or 3.1.  The procedure is
simple and applies to adding an icon for any program used under Windows.
1. Open the program group where you wish the EDITWHEEL icon to
appear.  To do this, just double-click the left mouse button on the group
of your choice (you may have a GAMES group, for example).
2. Now from the PROGRAM MANAGER menu at top left, select the File
option and a drop down menu appears.
3. Select New...
4. Select Program Item and click on the OK button.
5. Now you can either:
i) type in the Drive:\Path\filename.ext in the Command Line box and
press the OK button.  Also type in the Drive:\Path in the Working
Directory box.
or
ii) Click on the Browse key and change to the drive and subdirectory
where you installed WINWHEEL and EDITWHEEL, and select the
EDITWHEE.EXE file.  Click on OK ,and then OK once more to add
the icon for EDITWHEEL to your GAMES group.
B) Registered Version 1.5 or later:
1. The automatic install program is run from Program Manager by selecting
File...
2. Select Run...
3. Type in the drive name where you have inserted the registered
distribution disk (labelled Disk 1: Setup Disk) followed by SETUP.EXE
and press Enter on the keyboard.
4. When asked where to install WINWHEEL and EDITWHEEL, type in the
drive name and path (default is C:\WINWHEEL) and press the OK
button.
5. The setup program will create a group called WINWHEEL and create
the WINWHEEL icon and EDITWHEEL icon.
6.  You may use the click and drag features of Windows if you wish to
move these icons to another group, such as your GAMES group if you
have one.  You can delete the WINWHEEL group after moving the icons
to another group by simply pressing the Delete key on your keyboard
when the WINWHEEL group is the active, open group, and answer Yes
to delete the group.

EDITING THE WINWHEEL DATABASE
Start the editor (referred to as EDITWHEEL here) by double-clicking the
left button on the EDITWHEEL icon in your WINWHEEL or GAMES
group, or by clicking once on the Editor menu option in WINWHEEL.
    There are 4 buttons on the main EDITWHEEL window:
1. Search
2. Add New Puzzle
3. Browse
4. Quit

Search
The search feature allows you to search for the existence of a puzzle in the
database.  When this button is pressed, a yellow window pops up.  You may
type in a puzzle and press OK to start the search or Cancel button if you
change your mind.  You may type the puzzle in all upper case, all lower
case, or a mixture of upper and lower case.  You may include punctuation
marks such as periods ".", apostrophe's " ' ", and ampersand "&" characters
if required.
    With the registered version of WINWHEEL with over 12,000
puzzles, the search may take a few minutes if the puzzle is near the end of
the database or is not in the database at all.  If the puzzle is found, then a
green editing window will apear.  You may click your mouse in the
Category box or in the Puzzle box and change the text.  Press OK to
accept the changes.  You may choose to delete the puzzle using the Delete
button or Cancel if you wish to make no changes to either the Puzzle or
Category.
Note:  Puzzles are limited to a maximum of 40 characters including any
spaces or punctuation marks, and the Category is limited to 20 characters.
You will be prompted if either of these conditions occurs.

Add New Puzzle
You may add new puzzles to the database by pressing this button on the
main EDITWHEEL window.  A green window will pop up.  The cursor will
be an "I-beam" cursor in the Category box.  Type in the Category (Phrase,
Quotation, Person, Place, Thing, Fictional Character, etc.).  Now move your
mouse cursor to the Puzzle box and click the left button once, or use the
TAB key on the keyboard to move to this box.  Type in your puzzle.  When
you have typed in both the Category and Puzzle, then you may click on the
Add button.  The new puzzle will be compared to the database to search
for duplication.  If a duplicate is found then you will receive an error
message, and you may type in a new puzzle and category or press the
Cancel button to close the Add New Puzzle window.  Puzzles will always be
added to the end of the database, and so will appear in the Browser as the
very last entry.

Browse
The Browse button will open a spreadsheet displaying the first 12 puzzles in
the database.  The menu options duplicate the Search and Add New Puzzle
options of the main EDITWHEEL program window, and adds an option to
Go To a specific puzzle if you know it's entry number.
    You may browse through the database using the buttons at the
bottom of the spreadsheet.  They function as follows:
Up button:  Moves the spreadsheet up by one entry, that is the new top
entry will one less than the currently displayed top item.
Dn button:  Moves the spreadsheet down by one entry, that is the new top
entry will be one more than the current top item.
Pg Up button:  Moves the spreadsheet up by one page (one page = 12
entries).
Pg Dn button:  Moves the spreadsheet down by one page.
Home button:  Displays the entries from 1 to 12.
End button:  Displays the last 12 entries in the database.
    When you see an entry that you wish to modify, click your mouse
on the number button at the left side of the entry.  A green pop-up window
will let you make changes as in the Search option when a puzzle is found.
Press the change button when done editing the Puzzle or Category entries,
Delete button to delete the puzzle, or Cancel button to leave the puzzle
unchanged.
    When a puzzle is deleted, the last puzzle in the database replaces
the current puzzles number, and the total number of puzzles is reduced by
one entry.  This method speeds the process of deleting a puzzle without
having to rewrite the database to disk with all entires following the one you
deleted.
    You may leave the Browse spreadsheet either by pressing the Done
button or the Exit option on the menu.

Quit
This button on the main EDITWHEEL window will end the program.  You
will see the Wheel spin, and the EDITWHEEL window will close.

TROUBLESHOOTING
1. Either searching a puzzle, or adding a puzzle locks up the computer:  The
computer is most likely not locked up, but the searching and comparison
processes do take a long time with a database as extensive as in the
WINWHEEL registered version.  You can speed this process up by copying
EDITWHEE.EXE and WINWHEEL.DAT to a RAM DRIVE if you have one.
Searching will be much quicker since the reads take place from memory
rather than from the hard drive.  Hard drive access is slow, whereas
memory access is very fast.  If you do use a RAM DRIVE with EDITWHEEL,
remember to copy the WINWHEEL.DAT file back to your hard drive when
done editing.  It is recommended that you do not run EDITWHEEL from a
floppy disk.
2. I've deleted all the puzzles in the database and now EDITWHEE.EXE
crashes:  At this time, EDITWHEEL does not support the creation of new
databases.  This option is being considered for a future release of
WINWHEEL and EDITWHEEL.

WINWHEEL and EDITWHEEL are copyrighted programs programs of:
Russell Mueller
507 Washington Gdns
Washington, NJ  07882-9205
USA