You will find that once you understand the philosophy behind TurboThought (see INTRODUCTION), its use is largely intuitive. Reading through the following instructions is recommended, however, for you to fully understand the many features TurboThought provides.
PROJECTS
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The Project is the title, or statement of the problem that you want to "brainstorm" using TurboThought. There is no limit to the number of Projects you can have stored on your TurboThought application, outside of disk and memory space constraints.
ADDING A NEW PROJECT - Choose the 'New Project' pick under the File menu to add a new Project. A window appears into which you type the name you wish to give the Project. All letters you type in will be automatically converted to upper case, if they are not already.
OPENING AN EXISTING PROJECT - Use the 'Open Project' pick of the File menu, OR open the Combo box of the gray Toolbar just below the Menu, by clicking on its arrow. Either method will display a list of currently existing Projects for you to choose from.
CHANGING THE NAME OF A PROJECT - You may want to correct a spelling error in your title or completely change it. Do this by first opening the Project, and then selecting 'Change Project' from the File menu. The current Project title will be displayed in a new window, and you can edit it to any extent you wish.
SAVING A PROJECT TO DISK - You may at any time save the currently opened Project, and all Factors (see below) associated with it, to disk. Pick 'Save Project' from the File menu, OR use a mouse click to depress the leftmost button on the Toolbar (it has a picture of a diskette on it). The files are always written to the same directory that holds the TurboThought executable program. NOTE - at the time you leave a currently opened Project, if you have made any changes to the Factors or the Project title, TurboThought will ask you if you wish to save the changes. It will not ask you this if you have already saved them.
DELETING A PROJECT - This function deletes the title from the list of Projects and also deletes all Factors associated with the Project. Choose 'Delete Project' from the File menu. The Project does not have to be open for you to delete it, and in fact you may select as many as you want to delete, from the list that displays in the window. You will be asked to confirm that you want to delete each selection, before it is actually deleted.
FACTORS
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Factors are the individual ideas, facts, and elements that make up a Project. They are the "pieces of the puzzle" inspiring your free association. In the original method as described in the INTRODUCTION, Factors are what get written to the index cards. There is no limit to the number of Factors you can have within any Project, outside of disk and memory space constraints.
When a new Project is created, you are placed on the Factors screen, and you can just start typing. To get to the next free line after you have entered a factor, hit ENTER or TAB or the DOWN ARROW key. New lines will be provided even after the screen is filled up.
Remember to keep your Factors short, limited to one idea only. The shorter they are, the more easily you can see them in new contexts.
As you type in a new Factor, you will notice that a small blue box appears just to the left of it. This is called the Handle, and it will be used in some of the editing functions described below.
Once you have more than one full screen of Factors, you can scroll through them using the Scrollbar to the right of the Factors, OR the PAGE DOWN/PAGE UP keys, OR the UP/DOWN ARROW keys. You can get all the way to the bottom of the Factors by hitting the CTRL+END keys, and all the way to the top with CTRL+HOME. The HOME and END keys alone will bring you to the beginning or end of whatever Factor currently has focus.
EDITING FUNCTIONS
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Once you have Factors in your Project, you may apply the following Edit functions to them:
CUT, COPY, PASTE - You may select text within a Factor like you would any other Windows text, and move it or copy it to another Factor or a new blank Factor. The commands are under the Edit menu.
INSERT - To Insert a new, blank Factor in between two existing Factors, place the cursor anywhere within the Factor above which you wish the new one to go. Then select 'Insert' from the Edit menu.
SELECTING A HANDLE - As stated earlier, a Handle is the light blue box to the left of each Factor. The rest of the Editing functions involve 'selecting' or highlighting one or more of these Handles. This is done simply by clicking it with the mouse, OR moving to it with the arrow keys, and pressing the SPACE BAR. When selected, the Handle turns to a dark blue color. To un-select a Handle, simply do the same thing you did to select it.
MOVE - To move an individual Factor to a new location in the list of Factors, first select its Handle. Then, as in INSERT, move the cursor to anywhere on the Factor that is just below where you want to move the selected one. Then pick 'Move' from the Edit menu. Normally, only one Factor may be moved at a time. You may, however, move an entire LINK (see below) by selecting its first member.
A move can also be done by using the mouse to "drag-and-drop", but only if the Factor you want to move, AND the Factor you want to place it above, are both visible on the screen at the same time. This technique is simple: just click the left mouse button on the Handle of the Factor you want to move (it highlights), and hold the button down while you move the mouse to the text line above which you want to place the Factor; then release the mouse button.
DELETE - You may delete as many of the Factors as you wish by selecting their Handles and Choosing 'Delete' from the Edit menu.
LINKING - There may at some time be a Factor that must extend more than one line. Or, you may wish to keep certain Factors at least temporarily juxtaposed during Shuffling (see below). For these reasons, you can Link two or more Factors together. To do this, first make sure they are already placed the way you want them in relation to each other. Then select the Handle of each of the Factors you want in the Link. You complete the Link by depressing the second button from the left on the Toolbar, OR picking 'Link' from the Edit menu. Once LINKed, the Factors will remain together until you UNLINK them.
To remove a Link (UNLINK), select the Handles of the Factors that make it up, and choose 'Remove Link' from the Edit menu OR press the same button on the toolbar that you used to LINK them.
It is highly recommended that the use of Linking be kept to an absolute minimum, as it works against the efficient creation of new contexts through Shuffling.
ANCHORING - As you Shuffle or Animate (see below) the Factors, there may be certain Factors that you want to remain anchored in their current positions. You may want to do this if, say, a Factor represents a concrete component of the final problem solution. To Anchor, Select the Factor's Handle (you may Anchor more than one at a time), then depress the third button from the left on the Toolbar, OR pick 'Anchor' from the Edit menu.
To remove the Anchor from a Factor, select its Handle again, and choose 'Undo Anchor' from the Edit menu OR press the same button you used to Anchor the Factor.
Anchoring a Factor does not prevent you from moving it manually; and if you Insert or Move a Factor above it, it will move down to make room.
As with Linking, it is recommended that the use of Anchor be kept to a minimum.
OPTIONS
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The key to using TurboThought as a problem-solving tool lies in its facilities to manipulate the Factors to stimulate free association. By seeing the Factors in new contexts with each other, new conclusions are drawn which themselves become new Factors, until eventually a solution begins to take shape.
SHUFFLING - Although you can manually place the Factors into new contexts by using MOVE, Shuffling is a way to do a complete and
