Informática Multimedia 1995 April

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Text File | 1990-01-31 | 12.9 KB | 296 lines

RALPH THE READER DOCUMENTATION Version 2.0 February, 1990 Copyright (c) 1988 1989 1990 by Kansys, Inc. 1016 Ohio Street Lawrence, KS 66044 Telephone: (913) 843-0351 RALPH THE READER is a shareware program, written and distributed by Kansys, Inc. If RALPH is valuable to you, and you find yourself using it regularly, please honor the shareware concept by paying for the program. The cost is only $10.00. You can find information on making this payment at the end of this file. We hope that you enjoy RALPH THE READER as much as we do. Thanks for taking the time to download the program and trying it out. Please feel free to share it with others. David Andrews Vice-President of Sales and Marketing Kansys, Inc. FEATURES RALPH THE READER is what is generally called a "text file reading program." However, there is one twist. In addition to reading standard ASCII text files, RALPH will also directly read WordPerfect Version 4.2 and 5.0 and Wordstar Professional Versions 4.0 and 5.x files. While not all attributes such as boldfacing and underlining will be shown, RALPH will still display each file type on-screen, allowing you to read, search and/or jump around the file at will. RALPH THE READER will allow you to do the following things: display an ASCII text file, WordPerfect or Wordstar file to your computer's monitor and/or speech synthesizer a screen at a time, jump to the beginning or end of any file immediately, jump to any line number within a file, read in a continuous or "nonstop" mode, search forward or backward in a file for any text string, search forward or backward for the beginning of a paragraph, and search forward or backward for control characters. While RALPH THE READER is very easy to use and little explanation is needed, the following brief documentation should explain all features. STARTING THE PROGRAM To start RALPH THE READER simply type ralph from the DOS prompt with the program ralph.exe located on a disk in your default drive and sub-directory. However, if RALPH is located on a drive or sub-directory on your computer's path, it is not necessary to make that drive and/or sub-directory your default. As an added time saver, it is also possible to load the file to be read at the same time you execute RALPH. To do so type ralph a space and the filename of the file to be read. It is permissible to use the MS-DOS wildcards, question (?) and star (*) when specifying files. Thus it is possible to read multiple files one after the other or to read a file for which you do not know the entire name or spelling. You can also supply RALPH with full drive and/or path specifications for the data file to be read. For example, if RALPH THE READER is in your default drive or path, you could read this file located in your "docs" sub- directory by typing the following line and a carriage return, from the DOS Prompt. The quotation marks, which are included for clarity, should not be typed. "ralph c:\docs\ralph.doc." The command "RALPH *.DOC" would allow you to read all the files ending with the .doc extension located in the sub-directory into which you are presently logged. If RALPH THE READER cannot find the file you specify, it will notify you and prompt for another filename. RALPH THE READER will use all available computer memory to hold the file currently being read. Consequently, it is possible to read very large files with RALPH. The percentage of memory being used is displayed on the top line of the "Control Panel." If the file is larger than available memory, RALPH will load as much as possible and tell you that 100 percent has been used. You may wish to rename RALPH to something shorter and/or easier to type. This could be "RTR" for RALPH THE READER or anything you choose. Consult your DOS manual for instructions on renaming a file. Just be sure that your new name is followed by a period (.) and the three letter extension (exe). MOVEMENT WITHIN A FILE Once a file has been loaded, RALPH THE READER will automatically display the first 22 lines of that file. To see the next 22 lines, just press the PAGEDOWN key. You can page through the file by repeatedly pressing the PAGEDOWN key. Conversely, to display the previous 22 lines, just press the PAGEUP key. The use of these two keys will allow you to page forward or backward through any file. In addition, there are ways to make larger moves. A press of the HOME key will take you to the top of the file and a press of the END key will take you to the bottom of the file immediately. You can jump to any line within a file by pressing the (j) key and typing the line number desired followed by a carriage return. This type of move is also immediate in its execution. It is also possible to jump forward or backward to the beginning of a paragraph with the "J" command. To jump forward, enter "JF" and to jump backward, enter "JB." For these commands to work properly the text must be single spaced and paragraphs must be separated by a blank line. Finally, a press of the question mark will always show you a list of available commands once a file has been loaded. NONSTOP READING Starting with Version 2.0, RALPH THE READER supports a continuous or "nonstop reading" mode. This mode is invoked with a press of the letter "n" once a file has been loaded. RALPH will then send your speech synthesizer a continuous stream of data. This command will make it easy for you to sit back and read a file without having to press the pagedown key. For the "n" command to work properly, your screen review package must support some kind of buffered reading mode or most of the data will be lost. Further, once you have initiated nonstop reading, there is no way to stop it. The only thing you can do is to kill speech and wait for the data to silently pass through. SEARCHING It is possible to search for any string of characters within a file, once it is loaded into RALPH THE READER. To search forward from your present location, press "f." To search backward from your present location, press the "b" key. You will then be prompted for the search string. Enter the search string and press return. The search process is not case sensitive so proper capitalization is not important. The search string can be up to 72 characters long and any control characters passed through by DOS can be included. However, it is not possible to include a carriage return in the search string as this terminates the string entry and initiates the search. Consequently, the search string must be on one line. The search string can be edited with the backspace key. It is also possible to include the extended ASCII or graphics characters in a search string. Consult your DOS manual for details on typing these characters from your keyboard. If the search is unsuccessful, you will be told, "not found." You will then be given the -> RALPH prompt, which means that he is waiting for any valid command. It is also possible to repeat a search without re-entering the string. Just press "f" or "b" depending on whether you want to search forward or backward. Then hit the carriage return key to repeat the search for the previously entered string. Once a string is entered, you can search forward or backward for it at will. EXITING THE PROGRAM It is possible to terminate the reading of a file at any time by pressing the escape key, unless you are in the nonstop reading mode. In that case, you will have to wait for RALPH to reach the end of the file. Once reading has been terminated with the "Escape" key, you have two options: exiting the program completely or reading another file. To exit, press the return key and then "y" to exit to DOS. To read another file, just type in its name followed by a return. If you previously used wild card characters which selected more than one file, you will automatically be presented with the second and any subsequent files. THE CONTROL PANEL RALPH THE READER divides the screen into two sections. The top three lines are the control panel and the bottom 22 lines are used for the display of text. The first line will give you information on the file that RALPH is reading including: file type and name, number of lines and percentage of computer memory used. The second line contains the RALPH prompt, "->" as well as search strings as they are being entered. The third line of the panel normally tells you the line number of the first line being displayed. It will also display various prompts throughout the program. DESIGN GOALS RALPH THE READER is a MS-DOS program written in C. Consequently, it should run on any IBM or compatible computer using DOS 2.x or 3.x. Version 1.5 of RALPH THE READER fixed some display anomalies which prevented the program from running on certain computers, namely Toshiba laptops. The program should now run on any IBM or compatible computer. If you use Articvision or Artic Businessvision as your screen reading software, you will need to turn off Speech Autoclear when using RALPH. If you don't, RALPH will not be able to read you all of each screen as Artic's slow response time in autoclearing speech will wipe out part of each screen after RALPH updates it. An important consideration in the design and implementation of RALPH THE READER was to come up with a program that could be used equally well by sighted computer users as well as blind persons using screen review programs and speech synthesizers. RALPH strives to combine the advantages of both screen and line oriented programs. Many modern programs write directly to your computer's video output, bypassing the BIOS. This makes updating the screen very fast, however, as those of you who use screen review software and speech synthesizers know, it also makes their use by blind persons somewhat more problematic. For this reason, RALPH THE READER uses all normal DOS function calls. Further, the control panel is designed to display its information in a consistent manner, making the program easy to use for blind persons. Kansys, Inc. is currently working on a line of other software products employing this design philosophy. We would appreciate your feedback on the success of this approach. The next section will provide you with information on how to contact us. RALPH AS SHAREWARE In order to get RALPH THE READER to the maximum number of people who can benefit from it, and to hold the cost down, we have decided to distribute it as shareware. This also means that you can try out the program before you pay for it and if you don't like it, you don't have to pay for it. However, if you do like and/or use the program, please pay for it. We also encourage you to share copies of RALPH with your friends and to upload it to bulletinboards. The cost of RALPH THE READER is $10.00, (ten dollars.) This is a small cost to pay for a program that you will probably use every day. While RALPH looks very simple to the end user, believe us when we tell you that many hours of coding and testing have gone into its design, implementation and distribution. In order for us to continue to produce programs for the blind and general markets, we need to receive some return for our efforts. Please make all checks payable to Kansys, Inc., and send them to: Kansys, Inc. 1016 Ohio Street Lawrence, KS 66044 Telephone: (913) 843-0351 Please write or call us if you have any problems, questions, feedback or other needs. You can also contact us via electronic mail. The addresses include: CompuServe 72157,3547 GENIE d.andrews OTHER KANSYS, INC. PRODUCTS In addition to RALPH THE READER, Kansys, Inc. also writes and sells other software products. These include: PROVOX, a screen review program--$295.00 NAMES, a program for managing lists of names and addresses-- $79.00 TURBO BRAILLE, a program for translating and formatting Grade II braille from ASCII, WordPerfect or Wordstar files--$249.00. WATCHDOG, a shareware utility for audibly monitoring output to your computer's screen--$10.00. In addition to these programs, we also sell speech synthesizers, produce custom braille materials and provide a variety of consulting services in the computer field. For more information, please contact us. We hope that you find RALPH THE READER to be as enjoyable and useful as we do!