Games People Play 2

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------------------------------------------------------------------- English documentation with the Shareware Program Glance Version 1.0 January 1992, by J.Schipperheijn Alard du Hamelstraat 53 5622 CC Eindhoven The Nederlands ------------------------------------------------------------------- RUNNING GLANCE Copy ALL five Glance files to one directory on your harddisk. Run by typing GLANCE [RETURN] ------------------------------------------------------------------- GOALS Glance is a program-starter. Glance can contain a maximum of 84 specifications of application programs. Each of these programs can be run by Glance. Running a program from Glance takes up only 5808 bytes of the memory available to your application program. The main goal of Glance is to provide an attractive graphic program-starter that people actually use. Therefore it had to be easy to work with, have a good looking user interface and, most important, it had to be fast. That's why all graphics-routines and most of the rest of the source code is written directly in assembly-language, specifically to fit the needs of Glance. I didn't use any existing procedure- libraries or standard BIOS-functions. Glance is as fast as it can possibly get. ------------------------------------------------------------------- SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Glance works on all IBM's and true compatibles with 256 Kb free memory, a VGA-card and DOS 3.0 or higher. DOS 3.0 or higher is only needed to provide the Glance startup directory, which Glance needs to be able to (re)load the Glance overlay files and load/save your data. DOS versions with a lower version-number will cause Glance to report a error and exit to DOS, so watch your SETVER-setup. ------------------------------------------------------------------- GLANCE GENERAL Glance can be controlled with both mouse and keyboard. The standard setting for the mouse cursor is a fly. This cursor may blink a bit on slower computers, because it is quite a complex drawing. If the blinking bothers you, switch to the arrow cursor by pressing Alt-A. The hot spot of the fly is right between his eyes. It is IMPORTANT to know that within Glance the right mouse button is identical to a SHIFT key. By pressing a shift key you will be able to select from the lower half of one of the menu's. The setting of the three main switches of Glance -check the task screen- are saved automatically too the EXE file when you quit Glance. So you don't have to do that yourself. The menu data will not be saved automatically, of course. When you save your data with F2, Glance will first back up your old data file. This means that the old DAT file will be renamed to GLANCE.BAK. So if you make a mistake and you want your old data back, just go to DOS and rename GLANCE.BAK to GLANCE.DAT. Because Glance has to read the same files from disk quite often its performance will increase drastically if a disk-cache is installed. ------------------------------------------------------------------- COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS MONO : start up in monochrome mode. VGA : force Glance to "detect" a VGA card. Pass any combination of these parameters to Glance if you discover that Glance is not able to detect a setting automatically at start up (which is very unlikely to ever happen). 99.999% of all Glance user's will never have to use these parameters. ------------------------------------------------------------------- PROGRAM SETUP Glance can contain up to 84 program specifications. These specifications are divided into 2 menu's. You can switch from one menu to the other by pressing TAB or SPACE. Every menu, containing 42 specifications, is split in an upper and a lower half. In between the upper and the lower half there are five function buttons on your screen. Normally, regardless of the setting of the CAPS LOCK key, only the upper half of a menu is visible on your screen. If you press a shift key -or the right mouse button- the lower half will become visible. The function buttons are always on the screen. Glance has a task screen, on which ten functions and their corres- ponding [function] keys are displayed. This screen is only programmed for mouse addicts. Keyboard users can call all functions directly from one of the menu's by pressing the function key. ------------------------------------------------------------------- GLANCE FILES Glance exists of five files. As said before, ALL files have to be in ONE directory. The documentation file as well, since it can be read from within Glance [by pressing F8]. Glance is... │ GLANCE.EXE │ GL0192.EXE │ GL0192.OVL │ GLANCE.DOC │ GLANCE.DAT │ One way of deleting all program specifications at once is deleting the file GLANCE.DAT. This is the file in which Glance stores its data. However, it is better to clear the menu's from within Glance by using the Reset function [F7]. ------------------------------------------------------------------- MENU SCREENS After the introduction screen you will see the upper half of Menu One appear on your display. You can start up any program from this part of the menu structure by pressing the corresponding letter on your keyboard. With the mouse: click on the screen button that displays the name of the program you want to run. To run a program from the lower half of a menu, hold down a shift key or the right mouse button, then press the letter [a..u] or click on the screen button with your mouse. If you are in Menu One -for example immediately after start up- the lower left corner of the screen shows a button saying "Menu Two". This does NOT mean that Menu Two is currently displayed, but that you have to click on that button to switch to Menu Two. It is advisable to be very much aware of that, especially when you are resetting the menu's with the Reset function. You can press the "Menu One" or "Menu Two" button with the mouse, or by pressing TAB or SPACE. Before Glance runs a program it always switches the current DOS directory to the directory that contains the program, according to your specification. This way the program has a better chance of finding its data and/or setup files. ------------------------------------------------------------------- MAIN FUNCTIONS The menu screens contain four function buttons. You can press these buttons with the mouse, or by pressing ALT and the underlined letter in the function name. The state of any of the shift keys is not important. The available functions are... Alt-E │ EDIT │ Add or edit a program specification. This function will be explained into detail in the next section. Alt-H │ HELP │ This function can also be called with F1. It shows a screen with the most important information for a starting Glance user. TAB toggles between main help ad help on the Task screen. Alt-T │ TASK │ Switches to the Task screen. Press Escape or Return to return to the Menu screen. Alt-X │ EXIT │ After Glance made sure your data is saved it returns to DOS. ------------------------------------------------------------------- THE EDIT FUNCTION After you pressed the EDIT button you are supposed to select the button you would like to edit. You can select any button from any menu, just like you do when you want to run a program. After you selected a button, Glance asks for three things... MENU NAME │ The name you enter here will be displayed in the menu. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone but you (you have to know what program the name refers to). For example, type "Word Perfect 5.1" for WP. Maximum string length: 20 characters. MENU NAME │ Enter the exact location and name of the file you want Glance to run, In the usual format: [drive:] [\path\] filename [.extension]. Example: "C:\WORD\PERFECT\WP.EXE". You don't HAVE to enter anything in between square brackets, but it is highly recommendable to do so. For example, if you only enter "WP", Word Perfect will only run if c:\word\perfect is the current DOS directory. PARAMETER │ Enter the parameters you want Glance to pass to the program (for example the name of a document). When you are editing text, the following functions are available: (only functions with a button on the screen can also be called with the mouse. By the way: the cursor is white and does not blink) - ARROW UP : line up - ARROW DOWN : line down - ARROW LEFT : character left - ARROW RIGHT : character right - CTRL-Y : delete line - HOME : go to the first character of the line - END : go to the last character of the line - RETURN : confirm line, go to next line - INSERT : confirm line, stop editing, update menu - ESCAPE : stop editing, do not update the menu With Alt-C, the Check function, you can check if the file name you entered is correct. That is: if Glance can find the file. This function is very strict: when you run a program and the file name is not fully specified (for example, you did not enter the extension because you forgot whether it was EXE or COM), Glance will try to add all the missing information. Most of the time Glance will be able to trace down what file you mean and run it. The Check function however, does not accept incomplete file specifications. So when you do not enter the extension of a file, the Check function will say 'File not found'. ------------------------------------------------------------------- TASKS Pressing Alt-T opens the Task screen. As said before, all tasks can be called from the menu screen as well, by pressing their function key. The following tasks are available... F1 │ Help │ Guess... Press TAB to toggle between the two available screens. F2 │ Save Entries │ Writes the Glance data to disk. First it renames the old data file to *.BAK F3 │ Load Entries │ (Re)loads the Glance data. Glance loads the data automatically at start up, but you may want to use this function to undo editing you regret. F4 │ Go to OS Shell │ Creates a DOS Shell by running COMMAND.COM. Type Exit [Enter] to return to Glance. F5 │ View OS Screen │ Shows the DOS screen. Press any key or mouse button to return to Glance. F6 │ Blank Screen │ Surpresses the display to prevent it from burning in. Press something to return to Glance. F7 │ Reset Part of Menu │ Removes all program specifications from one half of a menu. F8 │ Read Documentation │ Switches to a textmode to enable you to quickly check out this documentation file. Mouse available. F9 │ About Glance │ Read the "Okay" section for a juicy detail about this screen. Press a key or button to return. F10 │ Park Hardddisks │ Parks all connected harddisks. Do not forget to save you data before you turn off your computer. ------------------------------------------------------------------- SETTINGS On the Task screen you can set any of the three available switches. What ever is on the button goes if the corresponding picture appears "deep". All changes to these setting will be saved to the EXE file automatically when you quit Glance. Toggle the settings with the keyboard by pressing Alt-M, Alt-A or Alt-P. The Prevent Mistakes switch enables you to have your actions verified by Glance. The mainly comes down to having to answer the question "Are you sure ?" when you run a program or quit Glance. The names of the other switches are self-explaining. ------------------------------------------------------------------- OKAY While I was programming Glance, I meant to reserve this option for registered users only. At second thought I realized it can be a major contribution to ease with which you work with Glance. So I decided to give it away to those users who managed to dig into this documentation file this deep. Here it is... By pressing Ctrl-Enter when you are in the About Screen [F9] you can choose to skip the introduction screen at start up. The drawings needed to build that screen will also not be loaded, so this will again speed up the process. ------------------------------------------------------------------- HISTORY Glance is the follow up of Glimpse, a Shareware program starter I wrote for textscreens, that also works with the Shift-concept. The programs are called Glimpse and Glance because after you have worked with them for a while, you will be able to locate the keys of the most-used programs so fast that the menu screens will hardly become visible. The functionality of Glimpse is almost identical to that of Glance. The implementation of course, differs quite a bit. Glimpse only uses text screens. Therefore, it will work with all videocards and is very much faster than its handsome brother. If you still think Glance is too slow, or you just want to get to know the razor-sharp predecessor of Glance, then get Glimpse. Copy it from a friend, or order it. I will send you a copy of the latest version of Glimpse. ------------------------------------------------------------------- REGISTERING If you use Glance and enjoy working with it, you should register your copy. It encourages me to carry on. Of course, there is also something in it for you. As a registered user you are the first one to know about updates, which you can order for a small amount of money. I will also help you when you are facing problems with Glance (or anything else for that matter). TO REGISTER send a cheque, $20,- or foreign equivalent suggested, do not forget to mention "GLANCE", to J.SCHIPPERHEIJN ALARD DU HAMELSTRAAT 53 5622 CC EINDHOVEN THE NETHERLANDS Please check the address with the About Glance screen before you send anything. THANK YOU VERY MUCH! ------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS If you have any questions, suggestions, remarks or problems: just send them to me. You will always get a reply. If you managed to find a bug in Glance, you will get a corrected version right away, whether you are a registered user or not. ------------------------------------------------------------------- CONDITIONS Glance is a Shareware program. You can freely copy it and pass it on to friends if you want to, ONLY if you make sure Glance is complete and unchanged. Glance may not be distributed or sold by anyone for any amount of money higher than the duplication/dispatch costs. The author is not responsible for any damage claimed to be caused by Glance. ------------------------------------------------------------------- End of file -------------------------------------------------------------------