Club Amiga de Montreal - CAM/CAM_CD_1.iso/files/498b.lha/HyperText/Using

Text File | 1991-04-08 | 10KB | 227 lines

\help Ht.help
\fgcolor 2
\center
\bold \ital Using HT - What's involved? \ital \bold

\format
     The user interface to \it HT \it is very simple.  The interface is
clean and smooth, and not loaded down by intricacies.  There are no silly
distractions, and you can concentrate on what you are reading, not HT.

     Basic usage of \it HT \it is trivial.  Scrolling through the text
you are reading is done by using the arrow keys, the mouse and the scroll
bar on the right side of the window, or the arrow Gadgets in the bottom
right corner.  To move down through the file you are viewing, press the
arrow key that has the down arrow on it. To move up press the key with the
up arrow on it.  Using the scroll bar is a matter of clicking the left
mousebutton on it, and dragging it to wherever in the file you would like
to be.    The arrow Gadgets work the same as the same key press, but use the
mouse instead.    You can hold down the left mouse button to scroll
continuously.

     If you would like to get somewhere quickly, you can also use the \bold
shift \bold and \bold control \bold keys with the arrow keys to speed
things up.  When you press the \bold shift \bold key and an arrow key (up or
down), you will move one screenfull at a time through the file.  The \bold
control \bold key with an up or down arrow will move to the beginning or
end of a file.

     So far, so good.  However there is a lot more you can do with HT.
There are several subtle features you can take advantage of that will make
using HT even better.

     A quick hint first.  If you are stuck, and don't know what to do or
where to go next, pressing the \bold Help \bold key may be of assistance.
If the author of your document has defined help for this window
(which he/she/it should have \link { SetUpCommands \HELP } using the
\\help keyword) \endlink then that help file will be brought up.  If
(unfortunately) there is no help, you'll be told and that will be that.
Remember though, \it each \it window can have its own help file defined, so
although one window may not have help, another may.



\center
\under The "Electronic Notes" Feature \under

     With HT, it is possible to "take notes" on the document you are
reading in much the same way you highlight sections of a book.    Doing it
electronically however gives you a lot more options.  You can Print, Edit,
and Save your notes all very easily.  This makes it easy to look up
documentation, highlight the section you need, and print it.

     You do this by clicking the left mouse button and dragging the mouse
to highlight the region of text you would like to "highlight".  When you
have finished highlighting the section you want, let go of the left mouse
button.  HT will flash the highlighted area to let you know those are your
notes, and then everything will go back to normal - mostly.

     HT remembers which sections you have "highlighted", so that you can
edit, save, or print the notes that you have taken.  If you decide that you
don't want to take notes after you have started, simply hit the \ital space
bar \ital or \ital ESC \ital key to tell HT to stop taking notes.

     Go ahead and try it now.  Point the mouse at the top of this page,
then click the left mouse button and drag the mouse down.  See how HT
inverts the area you cover?  When you let go of the mouse button, HT will
flash the area to let you know everthing is o.k. and then you can continue.

     Of course you can take notes on many different sections of the file
you are reading, exactly the same way you would highlight/underline parts
of a book can now be done with HT.

\ital Good, now that I've taken these "notes" what can I do? \ital

     Once you have taken your notes, you can do one of three things with
them.  You can save the notes as a smaller document for later retrieval,
you can edit the notes directly, or you can print the notes (assuming you
have a printer attatched to your computer).  Read on and see how this is
all done.



\center
\underline Printing the Document you are Viewing\underline

     \it HT \it also allows you to get a printout of parts or all of the
file you are viewing.  This is especially useful if you need to save it for
later or need to show someone else the information you are reading.

     Most likely you will be interested in getting a copy of the notes you
have taken.  Rather simply, all you have to do is choose Print/Notes from
the Special menu.  HT will boogie for a second or two, and then you should
hear your printer start up, and voila, instant hardcopy (with a little bit
of dramatization :-)

     If you only want to print the current page, you just have to choose
Print Page from the Special menu, and then what you see on the screen will
be printed out.  Note, that screen fonts aren't printed out, only the text,
styles (if your printer does them), and formatting.

     Supposing you would like a hardcopy of the whole file you are reading,
HT accomodates your greediness with a Print/All menu function from the
Special menu.  This will simply dump the whole file out to your printer.

     HT will try to convert style changes to something your printer will
handle so that what you get on paper will be reasonably like what you had
on the screen.    Of course this all operates within the limitations of the
printer you have attatched to your computer.




\center
\bold \underline Editing the File you are Viewing\underline \bold

     Instead of just being passive about what you are reading, \it HT \it
also allows you to actively take part in it.  Suppose you are reading a
Hypertext document on Medieval history for a history class, and you have
taken notes on several parts of the file.  Now suppose you would like to
use your notes as a quote in your report?  Retype the information in?  Bah
humbug, all you have to do is choose Edit/Notes from the Special menu.

     This will launch an editor you have defined (\it c:ed by default\it )
and will save the file directly into the editor (which will be setup to
load it in).  Doing this you can actively work with a document and annotate
it or include it in a report as a reference.

     If you would like only to edit the current page of the document, then
choose Edit/Page from the Special menu.  If the document you are using is
just so mind blowing that you want to use the whole thing, choose Edit/All.

\freeformat
\center
For this to work, you \bold must \bold have T: assigned somewhere.  T: is
the Amiga "temporary" directory for programs to store transient files.
Usually T: is assigned somewhere in your startup-sequence, so you should
not have to worry about this.


NOTE :    To accomplish this in a way that is acceptable to most editors
    on the market, a small window will also be opened when the editor
    is run.  This window is where any printed output from the editor
    will go.  For the techies out there, this window is the standard
    I/O channel for the editor.  It is normally unused, but some
    programs, like CED Pro, die if STDIO doesn't exist (and will
    actually crash the entire system if it isn't there!).

\format
\center
\underline Saving Parts of Your Current Document. \underline

     HT will also let you save your notes or current page as a smaller
document.  What this means is that you can highlight sections of text and
still retain link information and style changes.  This way you can keep
small parts of a larger document for future reference and still be able to
refer back to any original links.

     Whenever you have taken notes (just as you would from any of the
above parts), you simply choose Project/Save/Notes from the menu bar (that
means the Notes sub-item from the Save item in the Project menu).  HT will
put up a file requestor asking you for a file name to save the notes in.
HT will append ".notes" to whatever name you give the file.

     You can also Save the current page on the screen.    This works the same
exact way as Saving Notes.

\center
\bold Remember saving notes will overwrite the existing file!\bold



\center
\underline Other stuff you can make HT do\underline

    Using the HTConfig program, you can configure where HT finds things and
what it does.  HT relies on several external programs, so it must know
where to find them.  If you have installed HT on the disk you are using,
with the \bold HTInstall \bold program, then there should be no problems in
finding anything.  If you need to however, you can use the HTConfig program
and completely specify where each needed program exists.

    In addition, there are two other features of HT which you can modify
using the HTConfig utility.  The full documentation on HTConfig is in
the file \link { HTConfig.doc } HTConfig.doc.\endlink


\underline Using a custom screen with HT\underline

    HT can open its own custom screen to do all work from.  If you would
like this to happen, you can use the HTConfig program to turn the "Use
custom screen" option on.  This particular option only takes affect each
time you start HT for the first time.

    HT will then open a 640x200 custom screen on which all HT windows will
appear.  This can be useful if you don't want to clutter your Workbench
screen.


\underline Checking before external programs are run: \underline

     If you tend to be paranoid that someone might do something devious in
a document (such as \\run { delete dh0: ALL } Click here! \\endlink) you
can set the option ASK FIRST.    If this option is turned on, HT will pop up
a requestor that contains the command about to be executed.  If you
confirm, HT will go ahead and execute the command.  Cancelling the
requestor will simply return things to normal.    This should protect against
most things that someone might do to you.

     You can set and unset this option while HT is running and the changes
will take affect immediately.



\center
\underline The End\underline

    What you have just read is all there is to know about using HT.  You
should now feel comfortable going through and using HT effectively.  We
covered how to take notes and then print, save, and edit them.    You also
know a little bit about configuring HT.  If all this doesn't seem like
much, play with HT more and you will see that you do have a useful tool.
You'll see that HT is a powerful \ital information navigating tool \ital
which is at your disposal.  With good use, HT can make using your computer
even more enjoyable and easy.