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Text File | 1994-09-24 | 17.0 KB | 515 lines

Instruction Manual Dynamic Menu System (c) Copyright 1993, Dynamic Software Solutions P.O. Box 850307 Westland, MI. 48185-0307 Table of Contents Requirements .....................Page 1 Description .....................Page 2 Installation .....................Page 3 Windows User's .....................Page 4 Dynamic Menu Instructions .....................Page 5 Dynamic Editor Instructions .....................Page 7 ════════════════════════════[ Requirements ]═══════════════════════════════ Page 1 The Dynamic Menu System will operate on a 8086, 8088, 286, 386, 486+ with CGA, VGA or SVGA graphics, DOS 3.0+, and a hard drive with at least 400k of free disk space and 540k of memory. ═════════════════════════════[ Description ]═══════════════════════════════ Page 2 The Dynamic Menu System is the easiest menu system to use and maintain for your DOS personal computer" The menu system has a main menu that holds up to 26 sub menu titles and each of the sub menus will hold up to 26 program entries. This makes for a total 676 entries! The menu system includes a programmers editor that has features of 15 available printer fonts, and has 15 text colors and 15 background colors. The editor also includes: a DOS shell, execute DOS commands. If you are a computer programmer you can compile and link your source code from within the editor and even run DOS BATCH files from within the editor for testing! The menu includes a graphic screen saver that simulates outer space, and A keep an eye out for a Star Ship to make a fly by appearance! One of the greatest features of the Dynamic Menu System is the ease of use. When you add a program to the editor, instead of typing in the path to the directory where the program exists. You simply type in the program name then the menu system will show you all the available drives for your system and the files in each directory, then all you have to do is select the program name and the menu takes care of the rest! The menu also has Password protection, many available colors, and a selection of tiles to change the look of the menu background, and on line Help! ════════════════════════[ Installation Instructions ]═══════════════════════ Page 3 The menu system installation program will create all the directories and copy all the files to your hard drive. For the menu system to operate properly the INSTALL program must be ran! It will be necessary for the menu system to update your AUTOEXEC.BAT file by adding the Dynamic Menu directory to the path statement. Once the menu system is installed all you need to do is reboot your computer and if you selected in the installation program, the menu will start up automatically after your computer is booted up. If you exit the menu system to start it again type DYMENU or M at the prompt. Please note that if you presently have a program that starts after you boot your computer up, but now you want the menu to come up automatically, you must now remove that program's name from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. This may be the case for Windows users. You can use this menu system to launch Windows, but if you want the menu to start up after boot up you must remove the command WIN or C:\WINDOWS\WIN or C:\WINDOWS\WINDOWS from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Do this by using the DOS 5.0 editor or the Dynamic Editor included in the menu system. To install type INSTALL at the prompt. ═══════════════════════════[ Windows User's ]═══════════════════════════════ Page 4 If you want to increase the available memory for your DOS applications use the Dynamic Menu to launch all your DOS applications. The best way to optimize your computers memory is by having the Dynamic Menu come up when your computer is turned on, and use it to start Windows. In this way you are not losing available memory by having Windows running a DOS shell eating up memory to run your DOS applications. To put it simply any DOS applications should be ran from DOS and this menu system is the best way to do that! ══════════════════════[ Dynamic Menu Instructions ]════════════════════════════ Page 5 ▒▓ Main Menu ▓▒ All the help you find here can be found by pressing F1 at anytime in the menu system. The main menu holds all menu titles called sub menus. The sub menus hold all the program titles. The Main Menu can hold up to 26 Sub Menu Titles, and each sub menu can hold up to 26 program entries. A total of 676 entries! All the entries that you will need to type in such as menu names etc... will be on the last line of the screen. To add a Sub Menu press the insert key and then you will be prompted to add a Sub Menu title. After the Sub Menu title is entered you can press the letter that corresponds to the menu of the title you entered, this will then display that Sub Menu on the screen. Once you display the Sub Menu you can again press F1 to show more Help on adding Sub Menu items. To change a Sub Menu title press F4, to delete an entire Sub Menu removing all the program items press F5. Then in each case you will be prompted for the menu item to change/delete. Press F6 for the Options Menu to change colors or the style of the background tiles or enter, change, delete your password. When you have a password active, you can make your Sub Menus secure by enabling the password protection when you add or change a Sub Menu. Press F2 and you will be shown a graphics screen saver, then while the screen saver is shown press a key you will be returned to the Main Menu." Press F3 and you can use the Dynamic Editor. The editor even has options for programming use! Activate the Menu Security by pressing Ctrl and Page Up. This will hide the options for changing, deleting menu items, and the Option Menu. Press Ctrl and Page Up again to show the items that were hidden. Page 6 ▒▓ Sub Menus ▓▒ To add a program to the Sub Menu you created, press the insert key and you will then be prompted to enter the program name. Once you type in the program name, you will be shown an entire directory listing of every available drive on your system. When this directory is shown you simply select the file name of the program you want to execute. The Dynamic Menu will only allow you to select files with the extensions of .EXE, .COM, or .BAT. Once the file name is selected you can even add command line options to the program. Lets say you use a spreadsheet program and you have your monthly bills listed on a spread sheet. If you chose to, you would simply enter the file name such as BILLS, as a command line option, then each time you use this menu entry your BILLS file will be loaded automatically! Example the program name you entered is Edit, when the directory listing is shown you would select the DOS directory and select the file EDIT.COM. (Edit is a DOS 5.0+ text editing program.) Now you will be promoted to enter a command line option, if you choose yes, then lets say that you want to load a letter you have been writing now you would type in the name of that file JOE.DAT, and press enter. Now each time this menu entry is pressed that you just created the EDIT program will automatically load the file named JOE.DAT. To change a Sub Menu program press F4 on the Sub Menu, and you will prompted to change the program name. To Delete a program from a Sub Menu press F5 on a Sub Menu, and then select the Sub Menu program you want deleted. ══════════════════════[ Dynamic Editor Instructions ]══════════════════ Page 7 To start the editor from the menu press F3. The editor has options so to compile and link form within the editor. Other options include full file directories when opening files, block lines of text for deletion, copying, or moving, or set a wide verity of fonts. There 15 foreground and 8 background colors available for editing, and 15 printer fonts. The Dynamic editor also has on line help by pressing F1 at any time. If you program and use the ASCII box characters for creating screens, or use these in your documents, the editor is equipped with "HOT KEYS" to make using these characters easier. In addition to these features you can also execute other programs, and DOS commands from the editor, or exit it temporarily by using the DOS SHELL. ▒▓ Help ▓▒ To obtain on line help at any time press F1. The on line help is set to what ever menu is pulled down at the moment. If no menus are pulled down pressing F1 will give you a general use of the editors features, but for more detail use on each function such as blocking lines of text or so on, pull down the appropriate menu and press F1. ▒▓ MENUS GENERAL USE ▓▒ To access any of the menus press Alt + the menu letter, for example for the file menu press Alt + F, then the file menu will be pulled down. To access any of the options on the menus, you can press the Yellow highlighted letter. ▒▓ Marking/Coping/Moving/Deleting Blocks of Text ▒▓ Marking Blocks of text: To Mark blocks of text press F2 starting line and use the down arrow keys to mark more lines of text. Once all the lines that you wanted marked are highlighted press F2 again to save this blocked text into memory. Copy block of text: Once the text is marked, move the cursor to where out want the text moved then press F3 and the current marked text will be move to this location but if there is text on the screen at the location, it will be overwritten. Page 8 Move Block of text: This will do the same as coping blocks of text, but the text in the old location is moved to the new location. This feature will also overwrite any information presently loaded in the current location on the screen. Copy Character: Great for making copies of special character. Use F5 to mark the character, and F6 to copy the character in the new location. Coping characters does not overwrite the characters on the screen unless you have the cursor in overwrite. Delete Blocks of Text: Once you have followed the steps above in blocking lines of text, you press F9 and the block that is marked will be deleted moving all the remaining text up to the deleted location. ▒▓ FILE MENU ▓▒ New File: The new file command unloads the current file from memory and you can begin typing a new text or copy text to this new file that was copied from the last file that was active in the editor. Open File: When you press the O or scroll down to the Open File selection and press enter, you will then see a directory listing of the current drive starting with the root directory. To open any file here simply scroll down the file list the file you want to access, then press enter. If you have a long list of entries you can press the first letter in the file name to navigate through faster. To change directories, or drives use the Tab key to place the highlighted selection over the directory or drive you want to access and hit enter. Page 9 Save File: This selection will save the current file you are editing. If the file that you are editing is new you be prompted for a file name to enter. Save File As: In this command, you can enter a valid file name and/or the path or the directory you would like the file saved to. If you omit the path the file is saved in the current directory. DOS Shell: This feature allows you to temporally leave the editor to work in DOS, since the current working file is not unloaded from the memory, the available memory may be between 75k to 135k, depending on how large of a file that you are editing and you config.sys file set up, and total PC memory. IF you need added memory when shelling to DOS and you have at least one meg of memory add the line to your config.sys: DOS=HIGH at the last line in the config.sys Exit: If any changes were made this command will prompt you if you want to save any current changes. ▒▓ Run Menu ▓▒ Run A BATCH File Loaded in Editor: This original feature of this editor is great for anyone who uses BATCH Files. A simple BATCH could be as Follows: @echo off echo off cls echo This is sample BATCH file that shows some of the echo editors features. pause cls echo This BATCH file copies all the records in the current echo to Drive A:, Hit Ctrl + C (Control Break) to exit. pause copy *.* A: After this program is created chose Alt + R from the Menu and then select run from the Menu. Once the BATCH file is finished running, you will see a message that says Hit A Key..., once you do hit a key you will be returned to the editor, and you can modify the BATCH file or edit a new file. Page 10 Set Compiler Command: This command is used to compile any programs your are currently editing. If you are coding a COBOL program for example you would type in the command box: compiler Command: COBOL PROG1 After the command is stored you can compile the saved source file by using the Compile Source option on the Menu. Ensure that before you compile your program that you save the source, because the is cleared from memory before the program is compiled, then reloaded from the Disk. You will be prompted to save any current changes before the compile is executed. Once the compile is complete you will be prompted to return to the editor. Set Linker Command: This option is used to store the linker command until you are ready to link the compiled source into an executable file. Then use Link Object to Link the compiled source into an executable file. To use Linker Command: LINK PROG1 When the Link is complete you will be prompted to return to the editor. Execute a DOS Command: You can use this option to run other programs or execute DOS commands. This option is great to run a program you have been coding, so that after the program is ran you can be returned to the editor to make any changes. Your source code is not unloaded from the editor so the program you execute from this options cannot be over 100,000 bytes ▒▓ PRINT MENU ▒▓ Print: Select this option when you are ready to print you the file that is loaded in the editor. You will be prompted for how many copies to print. To increase the number of copies use the Down Arrow, to Decrease use the Up Arrow. Page 11 Set Left Margin: Sets how far from the left edge of the you want to begin printing. Once you select this option you use the arrow keys to increase/decrease the size of the left margin. Select A Font: There are up 15 fonts to chose from. Once you select this option you will be promoted to set the font for the printer, or for a block of text that is marked. Chose <M> To set a font to a line or block of text you must first mark the text explained earlier in this manual. Once you have selected <M>, for the marked block you will shown the Font Menu with 15 fonts to set the block text. Chose <P> to set the printer to a font. After pressing <P> you will shown the Font Menu to Make you Selection. Inset Page Break: This option will tell the printer to skip to the next page when the option is set in the currently loaded file. Clear all Fonts: Press Alt + C, to remove all the fonts set to any block of text that had fonts set to it. Reset Printer: Press Alt + P, to reset the printer to the standard printer font. Page 12 ▒▓ OPTION MENU ▒▓ Click On/OFF: This option will turn the cursor clicking on or off. Text Color: Up to 15 text colors available. Background Color: 8 Background colors available. Read documentation: Displays this file Once any changes are made you will prompted to save these changes to the disk, so that you next use will reflect these changes.