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UTILITY1
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HOTBSW.ZIP
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MANUAL.DOC
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1994-05-03
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HOT Button for Windows
Copyright (c)1994 Ultimate Software
============
INTRODUCTION
============
Welcome to HOT Button for Windows. The idea behind HOT Button was
to create a collection of frequently needed utilities and programs
and organize them in a way that would make it easy for you to get
to them quickly. Once you begin using HOT Button, you will want to
open it up and move it to a corner of your Windows screen each time
you go into Windows. When opened, HOT Button takes up very little
screen space (just a little bigger than an icon). Leaving HOT
Button opened in this way also takes up a minimum of your Windows
resources. When you realize how useful HOT Button is, you will
always want to have it handy.
========
FEATURES
========
The small HOT Button opening window has four tiny buttons. The
first button is a file viewer. Click on it to view graphic files
(icons, bitmaps, .GIF, .PCX, .WMF, .TIF), spreadsheet files (Lotus
1-2-3, Excel, Quattro), Database files (dBASE, FoxPro, Access,
Paradox, Works), word processor documents (Word, Word Perfect, AMI
Pro, WinWord, Works, QA Write), text files, binary files, and even
a listing of the files contained in a compressed file (.ZIP, .LZH).
You can view files individually or as part of a self-running
slideshow. You can view a whole directory of icons at one time.
You can view "thumbnails" of a whole directory of bitmap images and
then enlarge a bitmap to full size with a single mouse click. The
file viewer alone would make HOT Button a very useful utility for
any Windows user, but there's a whole lot more!
Click the second button to bring up the HOT Button Disk Utilities.
This is a collection of frequently needed file and disk utilities.
Use the HOT Button Disk Utilities to copy, rename, delete, edit,
search for, and view information about files on your hard and
floppy drives. There is also a pop-up diskette format utility
which will format either high or low-density diskettes in your
floppy drives.
Click on the third button to bring up the HOT Button WAV and MIDI
Sound File Player. If you have a sound card, you will find the WAV
player very useful. You can load and play a single sound file or
automatically play all the .WAV or .MID files in an entire
directory. The WAV player also has a repeat function, so you can
automatically play a sound (or a whole directory of sound files)
over and over.
Click on the fourth button to bring up the HOT Button Audio CD
Player. This is a programmable CD system. The CD player can
automatically detect an inserted CD that you have previously
programmed. You can save the names of tracks and a play list of up
to 50 songs. Your play list may include any or all of the tracks
on the CD in any sequence you choose.
One other useful feature of HOT Button is the built-in digital
clock. When you open HOT Button, the tiny opening window includes
a digital clock which updates itself every minute. If you move the
mouse pointer over the HOT Button window, the display toggles
between the time and date. Even if you minimize the HOT Button
window (which you probably don't need to do since it is so small)
it continues to update and display the current time.
=========
SHAREWARE
=========
HOT Button for Windows is a copyrighted program currently marketed
as shareware. This means that you can evaluate it for up to 30
days with no obligation. However, if you use HOT Button after 30
days of your first use, then you are legally obligated to register
the program directly with Ultimate Software.
Registration of HOT Button brings many benefits including a much
enhanced version of the program, technical support, and the removal
of all the advertising messages which pop-up as you use the
shareware version.
The registered version includes a much improved search routine
which finds files as much as eight times faster than the shareware
version. The improved search routine also allows you to stop or
continue searching after finding the first matching file. Another
handy option in the registered version is the ability to delete any
of the files found during the search. After the search is
complete, you can point and click on duplicate file names to delete
them.
The registered version also supports additional file formats for
the viewer and includes a diskette formatter (see Special Notes for
more information). Read the "Registration" topic for more
registration information.
=====================
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
=====================
NOTES CONCERNING THE SHAREWARE VERSION
The shareware version is a very functional, but scaled-down version
of HOT Button. You will notice that there are a number of
advertising messages that pop-up at various points in the program.
These are to inform you of the features available in the registered
version of HOT Button and to remind you to register. If you plan
to use HOT Button after an up to 30-day trial period, then you must
register. If you decide not to register, then do not continue to
use HOT Button. To do so is a serious copyright violation (and
more importantly, it's just plain dishonest).
Besides all the (annoying) advertising messages being removed, the
registered version is much more complete and powerful than the
shareware version. The registered version includes a diskette
formatter, a MIDI sound file player, a faster file search routine
(up to 800% faster), an improved bitmap file viewer which allows
you to view thumbnails of several bitmaps at a time, as well as
file viewing support for several additional file formats (including
AMI Pro, LZH contents, Paradox, QA Write for DOS and Windows,
Quattro and Quattro Pro, Works, and Lotus 1-2-3).
Since the shareware version doesn't support the file formats listed
above, if you try to display them, you will see the binary code
rather than a viewable graphic image or report.
DITHERING ERRORS
If you do not have a monitor capable of displaying over 16 colors,
or if your windows video driver is set at the default VGA setting
rather than for your specific VGA, SuperVGA or higher monitor, you
may get an error message when viewing graphic files with more than
16 colors.
Even yours truly, the author of this program, got such an error
before finding out that the default VGA setting that Windows setup
chose for my video driver only displays 16 colors. You see, I
bought Windows after purchasing my system. When I ran the Windows
setup, the setup program recommended a VGA setting for graphics.
I wrongly assumed that would at least support a 640 X 480 display
with 256 colors. So after Windows was installed, I'm sitting there
with a 486-66 DX2 system with an XGA graphics card displaying a
measly 16 colors! When I found out about this, it wasn't too
difficult to reconfigure the graphics driver portion of my Windows
setup with a driver for my specific graphics card.
Your system is probably set up correctly, however, if you get a
"Dithering" error when viewing a graphic file with the HOT Button
Viewer, you may want to obtain a driver specific to your graphics
card. Please do not call our technical support department with
this type of problem because we cannot help you obtain a driver for
your graphics card. You should check with the place that sold you
your computer system, or you may wish to see if you can find one on