Software of the Month Club 1996 August

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Text File | 1994-04-14 | 24KB | 553 lines

Columbus.txt Text of the Columbus Demo ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Welcome to MAPIT's Columbus Demo To gain an overview of MAPIT, click each successively numbered triangle with the Left Mouse button to follow MAPIT's Columbus Demo. Data behind a triangle is called "hidden text" and can be viewed by clicking on the triangle with the Left Mouse button. Clicking again hides the text. You can also print and follow along from the text of the demo found in the file COLUMBUS.DOC. The data you are now reading was copied from the file COLUMBUS.MP3 into EXTENDED.MP3 for display by MAPIT. When you've finished with the Columbus Demo, remove it by deleting EXTENDED.MP3 The top of the screen has Mouse-activated pull down menus. The bottom of the screen holds the MAPIT status line displaying Zoom Factor, the approximate map scale, the distance across the center of the screen, and the Latitude/Longitude of the Mouse pointer. Sometimes command instructions or information are written to this status line. Click the Mouse once to exit this window and again on triangle 2 to begin the Columbus Demo. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Let's follow Columbus's 1492 journey by zooming in on the Atlantic Ocean bounded by points 3 and 4 (Hudson Bay and The Sahara). Choose menu option "ZOOM/In by Corners" and DRAG the Mouse from point 3 through point 4. Dragging the Mouse involves moving the mouse to a point (corner), depressing the Left Button, dragging the mouse with the button STILL PRESSED to the second point (corner), and finally releasing the button. (If you press and release the button without moving the mouse, nothing happens.) Now zoom in between points 3 and 4. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Zooming in reveals additional details: major rivers, national borders, and state borders in the US. The status line shows a zoom factor between 3 and 4 and a central screen width covering about 5000 miles. Measure the distance of Columbus's total journey from Spain to the Canaries to the Bahamas by choosing TOOLS/Distance and depressing and dragging the mouse from one point to the next, releasing at each point. (This gives a Great Circle distance, not that of a constant-compass-bearing straight line.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- 4. If you should want to express the distance of Columbus's transatlantic leg, some 3600 miles, in either nautical miles or kilometers, choosing DISPLAY/Statute Miles gives you the alternates in a third-level menu. Note that choosing one immediately updates the status line. You'll have to make the distance measurement over. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 5. MAPIT enables you to navigate over the face of the globe by ZOOM and POSITION. ZOOM controls the zoom factor - the width of the displayed area and POSITION, where the displayed area is centered. You can POSITION by Centering, Dragging, or by entering explicit Latitude/Longitude coordinates. Choose POSITION/Center and click on the New World end of the Columbus voyage (approximately 24 N, 74 W according to the status line). ----------------------------------------------------------------- 6. The background latitude/longitude grid, which is painted on your screen in gray, can be hard to see unless your terminal controls are adjusted just right. This grid can be toggled on and off with DISPLAY/GRID. Toggle it off, noting that the command takes effect immediately. Similarly turn off the Political labels from the DISPLAY menu. Country and state names don't immediately disappear. Choose ZOOM/Redisplay to redraw the screen. Go to 6A. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 6A. Draw a circle 2,000 miles in diameter centered on Cuba using the TOOLS/Circle menu. (Tools/Fast circle may work better if your computer doesn't have a math coprocessor.) As you drag the mouse increasing the circle's radius, notice that the radius appears in the foot's lower left corner. The area within the circle is also displayed. (You are witnessing a fact which disturbed the President during the early 1960's.) Why isn't the circle circular as it increases in size? You are witnessing distortion in the higher latitudes due to the map's Mercator projection. Later try measuring large circles and distances at the Standard World (Zoom = 1). As curves flip over the poles, they do strange things. Go to 6B. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 6B. MAPIT supports two forms of output: .PCX screen dumps and HP-GL/2 plotter output. Create a .PCX file by choosing TOOLS/Plot PCX. You can plot either full or partial screen and can, if you so desire, invert (turn black to white) before plotting the screen. At a later time (or now if you're running MAPIT in a Windows' DOS box and opt to ALT TAB to another task) you can import the newly created .PCX file into a paint brush program for further processing or output to your printer. (Children love flood-filling the oceans blue in paint.) Plot HP-GL/2 supports more detailed pen plotter type output to either files, HP LaserJet III laser printers, or pen plotters. You can import HP-GL/2 files into more advanced word processors (e.g. MS Word for Windows ver 2.0c) to create high-quality compound documents. Go to 6C. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 6C. There are several ways to ZOOM. You've already ZOOMed/In by Corners which changes both the zoom factor and the center of the screen. You can ZOOM/In by or Out by a Factor, such as 2. You can ZOOM/To Standard World, the initial whole-world display centered on lat/long 0 0. Don't confuse ZOOM/To Factor X with ZOOM/To Scale X. Scale is an inverse relationship with respect to zoom factor and will give unexpected large zooms if small numbers are entered. Choose ZOOM/To Factor X and enter "40" to move in. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 7. The first thing you probably noticed was the lack of detail in the islands. They look like narrow triangles! A considerable amount of data is required to support even a moderate zoom of 40. The shareware version you're using supports a world-wide zoom of only 6. Even the MAPIT Basic World Data supports only zoom 24. (These islands, however, look much better at that detail.) Notice that Cuba, supporting detail to approximately 750, is provided as an example of the Detailed Data optionally available by continent with MAPIT. The Morrison Track of Columbus's voyage supports the traditional landfall on San Salvador (Watling Island). See hidden text following the landfall date for the source of the alternate site and Judge Track. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 7A. You can move figures (simple line drawings) to new locations quite easily. Move Columbus's ship figure by choosing the EDIT/Change/figure menu options, dragging a rectangle around the ship to select it, and selecting Move from the figure change menu. Cross hairs appear at the "origin" point of the ship figure. If you pressed the left mouse button without moving the mouse, the ship would go right back where it originally was. Move the cross hairs to a new location and press the left button. You've moved the ship! Choose POSITION/Drag to move that portion of Cuba at the lower left of your screen where Columbus landed to the center of your screen. Do this by clicking on your point of interest and dragging it to the screen's center. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Notice the cities of Cuba. The ones marked by stars are provincial capitals. (Havana, the national capital, is off the screen to the north west.) Selecting a city with the Left Mouse button displays that city's population. If cities of all sizes were always displayed, they would clutter the screen beyond recognition. Therefore cities are made visible by zoom factor according to size. zoom min size 10 500,000 or national capital 30 50,000 300 5,000 750 all (Italic font) You can display city markers only or completely ignore cities altogether. Choose DISPLAY/Cities and "City markers only" from the third menu level. Then repaint the screen by choosing ZOOM/Redisplay. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 9. The Tab key has a special meaning in MAPIT. It will toggle you back and forth between your current position and your last one. Enter the Tab key twice. You can also save up to 36 locations with the regular alphabetic and numeric keys. Choose "POSITION/Save as" and enter the letter "A". The current location is now saved in "A". Tab to the last location and then enter "A". You will find yourself right back "here". Unlike the tab key, however, "A" will always bring you back to "here" unless you redefine "A". ZOOM/In by Corners on the small bay on the southeastern shore of Cuba south of Guantanamo near 20N 75W. (You may need to select cities of all sizes back on.) ----------------------------------------------------------------- 10. The US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, American's toe-hold in Cuba, is delineated by a red international border. ZOOM/In by Corners to that the naval reservation fills the entire screen. This will put you at a zoom factor of about 2500. Zoom in and investigate the two areas named Fonts and Colors. Then look at hidden text 11. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 11. You can choose from one of seven different style type faces each time you enter stroked text. Face One, because of its simplicity, is the default. Face Seven is a complex Old English face requiring more time to display, especially for those without a math chip. One of 16 colors is assigned to each of the 256 layers on which MAPIT entities are written. Find out which is the "current layer", the one onto which new objects will be drawn, by choosing EDIT/Current Layer. The status line gives the current layer and its color. Type a return by itself to retain the same current layer. You can assign any color to any layer or turn layers on or off with EDIT/Set Layers. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 12. You can tailor a map to a certain use by choosing which features to display. Turn off the display toggles DISPLAY/Grid and Major Rivers. They're off when the check mark isn't visible. Major Rivers won't disappear until the next screen repaint. Reposition to mid-US by choosing POSITION/Lat/long and entering Latitude 40N, Longitude 95W, and Zoom 5. Don't forget the Zoom! Then click on Go. The Lat/long method of positioning may not be quick the first time, but the last settings are remembered making it an easy way to return to a precise location. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 13. Without rivers, the display of the US and southern Canada emphasizes the political. Now overlay rivers onto this display by toggling ON DISPLAY/Major Rivers and OFF DISPLAY/National Boundaries and State Boundaries. Be careful to choose ZOOM/Overwrite to overlay the current display WITHOUT first deleting it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 14. The rivers are now emphasized over the political boundaries by overlaying them. Without making any changes to the DISPLAY options, choose ZOOM/Redisplay to contrast the results when a clear is done first. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 15. Different mapping objects are assigned to different layers. You can achieve the same toggle effect in a more round-about way with EDIT/Set Layers/off. You can even make the rivers turn to blood as in Moses's day by EDIT/Set Layers/color and entering the Major Rivers layer 1 and setting it to color 12 (noting its default color 9). Zoom/Redisplay for full effect and then set layer 1 back to color 9. Don't forget to toggle on DISPLAY/State and National Boundaries and Grid. Use ZOOM/In by Corners to zoom in on the Havana, Cuba area (near 23N 82W) at a zoom factor of 300. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 16. EDIT/Insert brings up a third-level menu of objects which you can insert into your personal database. MAPIT uses two databases: the main database (world.mp3 or demo.mp3) and a personal database defaulting to "extended.mp3". When you add objects to the map, they are appended to the extended database. Choose EDIT/Insert/figure using the figure "truck". (Figures must be preloaded by program FIGEDIT into the file "std.fig".) The figure appears in temporary graphics for sizing purposes. Accept the default scale factor of 10%. Insert truck figures at three locations south of Havana using the Left Mouse button. Quit when finished with the Right button. Note that the figure was entered on the current layer in that layer's color. You can organize and color your objects by entering them on different layers. (There are 14 colors defaulting to different layers.) Layers 120 through 255 are reserved for the user. The lower layers are used for objects in the main database. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 17. EDIT/Delete is a DANGEROUS command. With it you can delete objects from only the extended database. Choose EDIT/Delete DRAGGING a rectangle around one of your three truck figures. All objects to be deleted will be highlighted in bright white. If only a single truck is highlighted, answer "Y" to the question "Are you sure?" The truck is removed. The deletion frame remains in case you are working with multiple complex objects. ZOOM/Redisplay to get rid of it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 18. There are two types of text in MAPIT: Stroked and Hidden. Choose EDIT/Insert stroked text. You are asked to select a temporary location to view text as you enter it. Enter "Special Havana Shipment". If you make a mistake, the backspace key deletes back a character-at-a-time. The Enter (return) key is accepted as text taking you to the left margin of the next line for multi-line entry. End text entry with the Escape key. A number of menu selections are displayed. The Min and Max Zoom Factors refer to the range of zoom factors for which the text is visible. Leaving them at 0 defaults visibility to the threshold zoom at which the text becomes legible. Valid Fonts are 1 - 7. Note that complex fonts take longer to display. The Size is a magic number related to the current zoom factor. Remember the default size (0.0167) so you can go back to it. Map Relative Text can't be larger than 10. Try making it 0.1 and changing the font to 7. Map and Screen Relative refer to fixing the text relative to the map so that zooming will change its size or to the screen so that text size will be zoom invariant. Stroked text can be rotated at any angle, positive or negative, about its origin (rounded to the closest 2 degrees). Go to 18A. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 18A. The text origin is important in inserting, displaying, or capturing (copying/deleting) text. The origin is at the baseline left of the first character - the point you select when you insert text. For text to be displayed, the origin must be on the screen. This explains why long text, whose front end is no longer in view on the screen, disappears, and why you can't see more than the lower left corner of the first letter of text which is too large. When you delete text, the rectangle must be around the text's origin, not necessarily around the text itself. Choose Location to insert a single instance of your "Special Havana Shipment" text below the trucks. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 19. Choose EDIT/Insert hidden text. A full screen window is presented into which you can type up to a whole page of information. (Scrolling is not supported.) You are actually in a mini editor with the arrow keys allowing you to navigate through your text to make changes. This editor supports word-wrap. If you change the window's width, lines within paragraphs automatically adjust to fill the line measure. Because of this feature, you shouldn't type "Enter" (return) at the end of each line. The return character is the paragraph delimiter. End text entry with an Escape. The Min Zoom Factor is that point at which the Hidden Text marking triangle, which is screen relative (constant size), becomes visible. Visibility defaults to about 2/3 of the zoom factor in effect when the hidden text was entered. A value of 0 insures it is always visible. Window Width and Height display two values each. The first is the current and the second, the computer's "suggested" setting. There is interaction between width and height. The computer calculates the minimum width based on the longest line and the screen width, and given that width, calculates the required height. If you enter a new width or height, the computer recalculates its suggested values. Sometimes several iterations are necessary to fill the page as you want. At any time you can View/Edit Text to review the current arrangement or to edit the text. VIEW/Edit (Autosize) resets actual values to computer preferences. Go to 19A. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 19A. For the purpose of this demo, enter text describing the contents or logistics of the Special Havana Shipment. Choose Location inside one of the truck bodies and Right click to exit. Verify that your hidden text is as you've entered it by clicking with the left button. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 20. Choose EDIT/Insert line. Enter a multi-segmented line between Havana and Guines representing a road. As you move the cursor during this command, notice that the latitude and longitude on the status line are continually updated to aide in accurate line positioning. Hold down the Left Mouse button and notice the temporary rubber band graphics tying the starting point to the current Mouse position. Releasing the Left button fixes that line segment. If, while you are close to the end of that last segment, you press the Left button again, you'll begin a new segment connected to the last. If, on the other hand, you click the Left button when you are a distance from the end of the last segment, the line is ended and temporary graphics replaced by a permanent line. If instead of clicking the Left button you click the Right, one segment of temporary graphics is deleted for each press and release. If you try to back up beyond the start of the first line segment, the entire command is aborted. There are limits of approximately 100 feet to the accuracy of data entered into the database. If you try to enter data more closely spaced than this, the temporary graphics will look good but will not be reflected in the database. Now enter the "road" between Havana and Guines. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 21. Congratulations! You have completed your overview of MAPIT and have exercised most of the commands. One last exercise will show the usefulness of the EDIT/Copy command. The instructions for the MAPIT demo were supplied in COLUMBUS.MP3 and copied from there to EXTENDED.MP3. You have inserted your own text and graphics into EXTENDED.MP3 mixing it with the demo text and graphics. We will separate the two. Exit out of this program and at the command prompt > ren extended.mp3 combo.mp3 > mapit combo Zoom back into the Havana area with a zoom factor of 300. EDIT /Set Layers off 133, the layer on which the demo graphics resides. EDIT/Copy DRAGGING a rectangle to encompass your Special Havana Shipment objects and answering "Y" to the prompt. This command copies objects from the main database (COMBO) to the extended database. Exit MAPIT, compare the sizes of COMBO.MP3 and EXTENDED.MP3, and run MAPIT with DEMO.MP3 to show that you've successfully separated your Special Havana Shipment. This also shows how easy it is to share custom graphics and text with others.