How to Gloss up excellence! v2.0  


		    A Tutorial on the Glossary Feature


			     by John Varcoe


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   One of the best features of excellence! from Micro-Systems Software in my
  opinion, is the Glossary feature. It allows you to set up your program
  with as many short cuts as you like. In effect it's a macro key system.

   Amiga Users are blessed with a simple and effective operating system using
  icons, menus and mice. Sometimes it becomes a real drag to have to pull
  down a menu every time you want to execute something.

   This is where the Glossary feature comes into its own. With the press of
  a button/s you can emulate pull down menu features, plus anything else you
  want to set up as a shortcut. I have extended my Glossary to include a
  button which opens a screen, and types in a memo, the cursor then travels
  to the top of the screen again and waits for me to type in the first name
  after To:.... I have also set up a screen for a Facsimile transmission
  cover sheet.

   Before I work through how I have set up my own Glossary, I will run
  through how the Glossary works and how you can make it work for you.

   Using the Glossary

   O.K. have a clear excellence! window open with no text in it.  Select
  Document Menu then Glossary. A small window will pop up and sit on the top
  left of the screen.  On the right of this box is a window with names in it.
  By clicking on the arrows to the left of this box the names will scroll up
  and down. Click on a name. This name will appear in the Name: box and its
  contents will be displayed below. It will also te ll you what key/s have
  been selected to activate the macro.  On the left are 5 boxes.
  Insert- If you click this it will put the contents onto that blank page I
  asked you to have ready. By having the contents in a window it makes it
  easy to alter it if you want.
  Define- You click on this when you have set up how you want your shortcut
  and are ready to tell the Glossary to recognise it.
  Key- after you have defined your macro, you must select the shortcut key/s.
  Remove- If you no longer want a shortcut, this deletes it.  For permanent
  deletion then click on Save.
  Save- After you have created a new macro or deleted one click on this and
  it will save the changes permanently.

   Let's work through making a macro.
  You have the Glossary box open and a blank screen.  Let's set up a macro to
  open the preferences menu.

   On the blank screen type a curly bracket { .This is the next key to the
  right of the P key on your keyboard. You access this character by holding
  down the shift key while pressing that key. This character { tells the
  Glossary to recognise everything within these brackets.

   After the curly brackets type Menu Project, Preferences... close curly
  brackets. It doesn't matter whether you use upper or lower case. When
  including a menu like project or format, you must include the word Menu
  before it, otherwise the Glossary will not recognise it.

   It should look like this {Menu Project, Preferences...}

   O.K. now let's add it to the Glossary list.

   Click in the NAME: box in the Glossary. Delete all the text in the box
  and type the name that you intend to call this shortcut, for our example we
  will call it Pref. After you have typed Pref, press your return key.

   Now go back to your window, (you may need to click in the window to
  activate it). Highlight what you have typed. Once highlighted go back to
  the Glossary and click on DEFINE. You will see the text appear in the
  Glossary. Go back to your window and un-highlight the text.

   Back again to the Glossary and click on the KEY button. This changes
  colour to show it is activated. Now select which keys you want to be the
  shortcut keys. For this tutorial lets select Alt Q. Hold down the ALT key
  and then press Q. You will see these appear in the Glossary box as KEY:
  {alt} q.

   Now click on SAVE and you should be the proud owner of two keys to open
  your preferences menu.

   Now let's see if it works.

   Click in the window and press Alt Q and up should pop the Preferences box.



   Below are the short cuts I use. Maybe you can use some of them, or adapt
  them as you want them.

Glossary name-Date Insert
Shortcut key- Cntrl D
Description: Puts the current date in your document. Equivalent to Format -
  Insert Date.
Glossary Format- {menu format, insert date}

Glossary name- Diamond
Shortcut key- Cntrl 8
Description- a variation on a bullet point. (I noticed they used it in the
  PageStream manual and it looked great). You need to have the adapted PPage
  fonts in your excellence! fonts directory, this includes Zapfdingbats.
Glossary Format- {Menu font, Zapfdingbats}v

Glossary name- Fax Form
Shortcut key- Left Amiga F
Description- I have a blank open window for this and it sets up the header
  page for a fax message. Note the spaces from the start of the format to
  the words Facsimile Transmission. The Glossary will not recognise
  centering, Justify etc, so you have to space the words to the centre of the
  page by using the space bar, which the Glossary will recognise.
Glossary Format-{Menu font, Times, 18 point}{Menu style, bold} FACSIMILE
  TRANSMISSION{menu font, Times, 14 point}{Menu style, plain}

	TO:


	FROM:   John Varcoe

	DATE:   {Menu format, Insert date}

	NUMBER OF PAGES (including this):

	SUBJECT:


	COMMENTS:       {up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}

Glossary name- Font12Times
Shortcut key-F8
Description- Changes text in a highlighted block from current font to Times
  12 point. Note the Glossary will not recognise the leading. You will have
  to change this manually, if you want to.
Glossary Format- {menu font, Times,12 point}

Glossary name- FooterNew
Shortcut key- Cntrl F
Description- Opens a footer, ready for you to add whatever you want.
Glossary Format- {menu format, insert footer}

Glossary name- FooterShowExisting
Shortcut key- F1
Description- Opens existing footer in your current document ready so you may
  amend it. Glossary Format- {Menu view, footer view}

Glossary name- Glossary
Shortcut key- F3
Description- Opens the Glossary. Note some menus have dots after them, for
  some silly reason, if you are adding any of these to your Glossary, make
  sure that you have the exact number of dots as per the menu, otherwise the
  Glossary will not recognise th at command.
Glossary Format- {menu document, glossary...}

Glossary name- HeaderClose
Shortcut key- Cntrl H
Description- Closes a Header that you would have just entered information
  into. Note: I have found that by clicking on the close window gadget on
  the top left of the screen, this also has the same effect as this macro.
  This works equally as well in clos ing a footer. I have not tried it on a
  footnote, but I see no reason why it would not work.
Glossary Format- {Menu view, page view}

Glossary name- HeaderNew
Shortcut key- Alt N
Description- Opens a new header
Glossary Format- {Menu format, insert header}

Glossary name- HeaderViewExisiting
Shortcut key- Left Amiga H
Description- Opens an existing header, so you can make amendments to it.
Glossary Format- {Menu view, header view}

Glossary name- Margins\MarkersHide
Shortcut key- F7
Description- Hides the carriage return marks etc and the page margins
Glossary Format- {menu view, hide margins}{menu view, hide markers}

Glossary name- Margins\MarkersShow
Shortcut key- F5
Description- Shows the Margins and carriage returns etc.
Glossary Format- {menu view, show margins}{menu view, show markers}

Glossary name- Memo
Shortcut key- F4
Description- With an open blank window, I can set up a memo with the touch
  of a key. This could be just as easily a letterhead that you frequently
  use.
Glossary Format- To:


From: John Varcoe

Date:   {Menu format, insert date}

Subject:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{up}{right}{right}{right}

Glossary name- OpenShowMarkers
Shortcut key- F6
Description- This is one of the most used short cuts, by pressing F6, I open
  a new window and set the margins to show and carriage return symbols etc
  to show.
Glossary Format- {menu project, new}{menu view, show margins}{menu view,
  show markers}

Glossary name- PageNew
Shortcut key- Alt P
Description- Forces a new page in a document. Uses the same two keys as
  Platinum Works! Force New Page feature.
Glossary Format- {menu format, insert page break}

Glossary name- PageNumbers
Shortcut key- F10
Description- Another of those `used all the time' shortcuts. By pressing
  F10, I add a page numbering system to my document. This is great if the
  document you are writing has grown to a number of pages. You just press
  this key, the macro activates, opens the footer, adds the page numbering
  and closes the footer. You press Right Amiga and S to save the document to
  include the page numbering and carry on with your writing. Note: my page
  numbering uses 12 point Times, if you don't have a Postscript printe r then
  you will need to select a font that you can use. Experiment- that's half
  the fun.
Glossary Format- {menu format, insert footer} {menu font, Times, 12 point}- {menu format, insert page #} - {menu view, Page View}

Glossary name- PageSetUp
Shortcut key- F2
Description- Opens the Page SetUp menu without having to use the mouse.
Glossary Format- {menu project, page setup...}

Glossary name- RulerCopy
Shortcut key- Alt R
Description- Copies the ruler settings you have set without using the mouse. (First highlight the paragraph you want to copy.)
Glossary Format- {menu edit, copy ruler}

Glossary name- RulerPaste
Shortcut key- Cntrl R
Description- Pastes the ruler setting you have previously copied. You have
  to highlight the text first.
Glossary Format- {menu edit, paste ruler}


   Note: See the manual for more advice about the Glossary. On a ReadMe file
  on one of the three disks, there is information about updated features of
  the Glossary. They have increased the power of the macros by allowing you
  to daisy chain two macros together. Personally I keep my macros simple,
  but it's up to each of you to do as you want.

   There are a few changes to how the macros work in version 3.0 of
  excellence! mainly related to the selection of fonts but the majority of
  my examples will work with this version. You should read the v3.0 update
  pages for the latest info.

   If anybody has any questions or cannot make their own macro work, send it
  via Tim and I will see what I can do.  Happy Glossing.



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