ASP Advantage 1994 2nd Q2

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Text File | 1993-12-07 | 15.5 KB | 402 lines

========================================================== TREECHRT.TXT: Introductory Information ========================================================== WHAT CAN TREECHART DO FOR YOU? TreeChart is a comprehensive Windows package for preparing Organization Charts or illustrating other hierarchical (or nearly hierarchical) information. No drawing skills are required: box sizing, positioning, alignment and the routing of connecting lines is all done automatically whenever you make a change. The package offers a wide choice of chart styles, box shapes, shadows and line routing options. Full color and font support. A border and titles can also be added. For Company Organization Charts, it automatically positions and connects boxes you indicate as being assistants or shared employees. TreeChart assists you in achieving consistent-looking charts with Layouts. Layouts control how boxes look, and how they connect to boxes below them. You can define any number of Layouts; when you change a Layout, it automatically affects every box using the Layout. Layouts are like style guides found in more sophisticated word processors. When you add a box it will initially use the Layout you select as most likely needed, given its position in the chart. Layouts, default Layouts and other chart settings can be saved as Template Files. Preparing one chart is easy; preparing further similar charts is easier still. Using Templates, you can import text from another program and produce attractive charts almost instantly! TreeChart offers outlining facilities, to let you view only parts of your chart, and hide the rest of it. You can view, change or print the whole chart, certain levels of management, or just single departments. If you wish, TreeChart will automatically scale your chart to fit on a single sheet of paper. You can also preview printing. TreeChart will import text (and automatically create boxes) from other Windows programs, and can export text or fully- scaleable WMF pictures. Pasting pictures into word processor documents and resizing them is simple. Includes online manual & tutorial (Windows Write format), full context-sensitive help and sample charts. ========================================================== SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS TreeChart requires a PC-compatible running Windows 3.1 or better. IT WILL NOT RUN UNDER WINDOWS 3.0. A mouse is not required, but is recommended. A small number of non-essential operations are unavailable without a mouse. Details in Appendix 2 of the User Guide. Use of TrueType fonts, or comparable third-party font technology such as Adobe Type Manager is highly recommended. Section 3.1.15 of the User Guide goes into more detail on these issues. ========================================================== ONLINE DOCUMENTATION The TreeChart User Guide (TREECHRT.WRI) and Tutorial (TUTORIAL.WRI) are both in Windows Write format. If you feel the need to print these documents, be warned that they total about 170 pages, and are formatted for using a 9" by 7" region of an A4 page. Additionally, TreeChart has full online help using the standard Windows Help facility. This file is TREECHRT.HLP. The file SAMPLES.TXT describes the sample charts included in the package. A quick way to view any of these is to use the Windows File Manager, and double-click on the file name. Section 2.1 of the User Guide contains a list of all files included in the TreeChart release. ========================================================== WHAT IS SHAREWARE? TreeChart is not free. It is not public domain. Just like a program costing ten times as much, it is copyrighted by its owners, and you must purchase a license to use it. Unlike a program costing ten times as much, you have a chance to try the program before you commit yourself to purchasing the license. This 'try before you buy' concept is termed Shareware. We are granting you a limited-time trial use license to evaluate this program to determine if it meets your needs. If, after 30 days, you wish to continue using this program you must purchase a full license for continued use. If you continue using this program beyond the 30 day trial use license we have granted, you are doing so without a license. This is illegal. See Appendix 5 of the User Guide for our license agreement. Purchasing a full license is termed 'Registering the program'. Registration brings many benefits over and above the right to continue using the program. See Appendix 6 of the User Guide for the benefits of registration. ========================================================== REGISTRATION: PRICES AND PROCEDURES From the Help menu, choose Register. The Registration dialog box allows you to see our prices, and allows you to print a pro-forma invoice / order form. The basic price is US$42 or STG£27.56. To this must be added postage (varies) & (for E.C. customers) VAT. Credit card (Visa / Mastercard) orders are accepted. U.S. & Australian customers can order through local agents. The benefits of registration are described in Appendix 6 of the User Guide, and in the online help. ========================================================== INSTALLATION & DE-INSTALLATION Simply create a new directory on you hard disk, then copy all of TreeChart's files into it. No further installation is needed. TreeChart can be run directly from a floppy disk, but you'd have to leave the disk in while TreeChart was running, and performance would suffer. See sections 2.2 and 2.3 of the User Guide for more details. ========================================================== GETTING STARTED One quick way of starting TreeChart is to use the Windows File Manager, and double-click on TREECHRT.EXE. Section 2.4 of the User Guide describes a number of other ways of starting the program. Pressing F1 will present Help on what to do with that intimidating blank window. Section 2.5 of the User Guide and section 1.4 of the Tutorial both describe the various other ways of getting online help. We recommend that you prepare your first chart by working through the tutorial. ========================================================== CHANGES SINCE VERSION 1.00 Changes since v1.00 fall into three categories: 1. Faults Fixed 2. Things that work differently 3. New features The changes listed here range from very minor to very major. We aim to identify all changes, since sometimes things that seem very minor to us are really irritating for you. NOTE: The .TCF file format used by v1.10 is basically identical to that used by v1.00. Any charts you have saved using v1.00 can be opened by v1.10. Some new features take default settings. If you save a chart using v1.10, then open it in v1.00 the new features are ignored. If you then save it under v1.00 some of the settings associated with the new features may be lost. FAULTS FIXED ============ 1. The Define Layouts dialog incorrectly had two default buttons. Now it only has one. 2. In the Edit Layout dialog and the Edit Border Layout dialog, hiding a text field (or selecting a hidden text field) incorrectly disabled (grayed) the Text group control. This no longer happens. 3. In the Edit Border Layout dialog, certain text/margin selections could result in a zero-sized sample, making it impossible to see the background color. The sample is now always drawn large enough to see the background color. 4. Under some circumstances, the program scrolled the display, then immediately redrew the whole screen. This unnecessary 'double-refresh' is now avoided. 5. If you double-clicked on a box that was partially off-screen, the box was scrolled into view, but the double-click was 'lost'. Now its not. 6. If you CTRL+clicked on a box that was partially off-screen, the box was scrolled into view, but the selection status wasn't toggled. Now it is. 7. If you used Outlining to Focus on a sub-tree, then deleted all visible boxes, the outlining (correctly) pops you up to the next level, but the Current Box wasn't indicated. Now it is. 8. When fitting a border to the diagram for Copy as Picture or Save As Windows Metafile, box shadows were ignored when calculating the diagram size. Small border margins could therefore cause some shadows to be cropped. This no longer happens. 9. The Top and Bottom margins of boxes (and the Border) were misinterpreted when drawing. Top- and Bottom- aligned text was drawn relative to the center line of the border rather than the inside edge. Choosing small margins and a thick border therefore caused the text to overwrite the border. This no longer happens. 10. During a region-select drag operation, the chart window automatically scrolls if you move the mouse outside the chart window. If the chart and application windows were both maximized, you couldn't automatically scroll left. Now you can. 11. If you chose Setup from within the Print dialog, chose OK to Setup, but then Canceled the Print dialog, the Program would be unable to show either the Print or Print Setup dialogs unless you re-started the program. This no longer happens. THINGS THAT WORK DIFFERENTLY ============================ 1. The Toolbar has changed: The Clear Selections button has been removed (it was always simpler to click on the chart background to achieve the same effect). Two buttons have been added, corresponding to the Mark Boxes command and the Define Layouts command. 2. Some of the ALT+ keyboard shortcuts in the Edit Layout dialog and the Edit Border Layout dialog have been changed to accommodate new controls. 3. Text above & below boxes now obscures any connecting lines. 4. If you enter text into a box marked as Invisible, the text is now shown, obscuring any connecting lines. You might use this to annotate lines. 5. The Insert Below command works differently. It used to always insert a new box as the first subordinate. Now it inserts the new box as a 'middle manager' between the Current Box and its subordinates. For the first subordinate of a box, there is no visible difference in the operation. 6. The Paste Below command works differently. It used to always insert the Clipboard contents (possibly a sub-tree) as the first subordinate. Now it inserts the Clipboard Contents between the Current Box and its subordinates. If you Paste a single box, it will be a 'middle manager' under the Current Box. If you paste a sub-tree, the FIRST pasted box is the 'middle manager'. The remainder of the pasted sub-tree is relative to the first pasted box (as it used to be). 7. After opening a text-format file, all created boxes were regarded as newly-inserted, and you could choose Undo Insertion, which deleted all the boxes. Now opening a text-format file is like opening a native file: undo is disabled until you insert or delete boxes. 8. When Pasting boxes from one chart into another, the program creates new text fields if the new boxes have more fields than the chart they're being pasted into. These new fields used to default to being visible in every Layout. All existing boxes typically became taller to accommodate a blank line. Now newly-added fields are initially hidden. Existing boxes are no longer affected, and you choose which Layouts should show the new fields. This change also applies to differences between a Template File and a text-format file you open. 9. You can no longer Collapse a box that doesn't have subordinates. 10. A restriction has been added to how you can use File Manager to open a new chart. Drag & drop and double click still work, but both are disabled if TreeChart is in Print Preview mode or showing a dialog box. 11. Template Files now normally have the filename extension .TCT, to indicate that they serve a different purpose to normal chart files (.TCF). 12. When entering a filename in the Open, SaveAs or Select Template dialogs, you can now omit the filename extension. TreeChart automatically adds one dependent on the file format you select. NEW FEATURES ============ 3D-LOOK DIALOGS AND MESSAGE BOXES TreeChart now defaults to showing dialog boxes and message boxes with a 3D appearance. This is only available if you have a VGA or better display. You can choose to retain the normal Windows look: see Appendix 4 of the User Guide for details. BETTER CLIPBOARD SUPPORT Copying or pasting boxes or text was limited in v1.00 to about 64,000 characters. Now the only limit is the amount of available memory. ADDITIONAL MOUSE SHORTCUTS Two mouse shortcuts have been added: Double-Click on chart background Edit Border Text Shift+Double Click on chart background Edit Border Layout ADDITIONAL CONNECTIONS STYLES Two box positioning options have been added which enable you to have boxes which surround (frame) their subordinate sub-trees. Two other options have been added which enable you to have some subordinates placed across, while other subordinates are listed. See section 3.4.3 of the User Guide for details. IMPROVED BOX SIZE-MATCHING You can now mark individual boxes to be omitted from whatever size-matching rules you have selected, allowing you to choose to 'match widths, except for this particularly wide box', etc. See section 3.6 of the User Guide for details. IMPROVED SUPPORT FOR COLOR There are a number of improvements which make it easier to use color in your charts: 1. The chart window and the sample in the Edit Layout dialog used to draw the chart using the default Windows client-area color (normally white) as the background color. Now, the chart background color is used, and you can choose box/line/font colors in their true context. Using Outlining to Focus on a sub-tree which is framed (using the new Connections Styles mentioned above) means that the background color of the visible boxes 'should' be the frame color: you can choose whether to adopt the frame color as the background, or preserve the chart background color. 2. You can now choose Transparent as the box Fill Color. The box Fill Color is then determined automatically. This is particularly useful when boxes are shown only as text, with no border. It saves you from having to change a box's Fill Color if its background color changes. ========================================================== VENDORS If you intend charging for providing copies of TreeChart, the file VENDOR.DOC describes our distribution license terms. If this file is missing, please contact me: Steve Kearon FineLine Software Newtown, Kinvara, Co.Galway Republic of Ireland voice/fax: +353 091 37560 email: 70624.462@compuserve.com