^^ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- QUICK REFERENCE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Index - Esc Next - Right Cursor Key Prev - Left Cursor Key First - Up Cursor Key Last - Down Cursor Key GoTo - Space Bar Print - Shift & P About - A Search - F Colours - C Music - M Secret - S CLI/DMC - Left Amiga & A Quit - Shift & Esc Time - T (Keyboard Only) Pointer - R (Keyboard Only) You can click on any of the buttons on the panel using the mouse or use the keyboard shortcuts above. Please note that the TIME feature can not be accessed from the panel. Only from the keyboard! The same applies to the pointer function. No keyboard option - sorry :( IMPORTANT NOTES: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When viewing a `Scrolling Article' (like this one) then please note that you can use both mouse buttons on the NEXT and PREV buttons. Left Mouse Button will scroll forward/back a page. Right Mouse Button will scroll forward/back a line. You CANNOT use the GOTO function on these type of articles :( DETAILED INFORMATION: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PAGE FUNCTIONS ============== DMC consists of an Index of various pages which can be flipped. The Index pages are where you select to load an Article or IFF file from. You can check at anytime to see how many Index pages there are by looking at the top right hand side of the screen. It will display something similar to this: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Index Page 1 of 11 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Which should tell you that there is 11 Index Pages to view! :^) If you have loaded an article, like you have now, then obviously it will have the article name in place of Index above. (you have already loaded an article if you are reading this!!!) There are, however, four different types of articles that can be viewed with DMC and these are: Paged - Complete with coloured text and clipart images. Split - Two columns to each page with coloured text and clipart. Scroll - Like this one. No Clipart or coloured text (mono). Secret - Can be any of the above types. When you are on the Index Pages, you will see a list of items which you can click on with the mouse. Only the items which are hi-lighted will load an article. When you load an article (which you have obviously done), the top info bar will change to say either: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Article Name Page 1 of 11 ------------------------------------------------------------------- or ------------------------------------------------------------------- Secret Page 1 of 11 ------------------------------------------------------------------- or ------------------------------------------------------------------- Article Name Line No: 0024 000% ------------------------------------------------------------------- The last one will mean that a `Scroll' type article is being viewed and you will be able to see the line number and percentage. All others will be similar to the Index Pages info bar. The only major difference being that `INDEX' is replaced with the name of the article. Right! Just as with the Index Pages, you can flip through pages of each article (or scroll). First check to see how many pages there are (or percentage). To view the next page, all you have to do is click on `NEXT' and the next page will be shown (if there is a next page). You can keep doing this until all pages have been shown obviously. If you feel that you want to retrace back to the previous page, simply press the `PREV' Button. It's as simple as that really. Now here comes a more in-depth description of each button: PAGE VIEWING/FLIPPING ===================== To view either an Index Page or Article Page, first check to see how many pages there are by looking at the top right of the screen. You can either press the NEXT, PREV, FIRST, LAST or GOTO buttons on the panel to move your way through an Index or Article or use these shortcut keys instead. NEXT - Right Cursor (arrow) Key PREV - Left Cursor (arrow) Key FIRST - Up Cursor (arrow) Key LAST - Down Cursor (arrow) Key GOTO - Space Bar Let's say you are on the last page of an article and you decide to choose NEXT, DMC will not allow you to do this as there are no more pages. The same applies to the LAST function. Of course it also applies to the PREV and FIRST functions if you are on the first page. The GOTO function is a little different. It allows you to manually enter the page you want to, erm, GoTo! Simply type in the page number and you will be shown that page if it exists. If you type in a silly number DMC will not try to access that page! (This function is NOT available when viewing `Scroll' type articles!) PRINTING ARTICLES ================= You can either press the PRINT button on the panel or simply press Shift and P on your keyboard. This won't function if an article is not being viewed. You will be presented with a requestor asking you if you want to print with these settings: NLQ On/Off Normal/Small Size Print Current Page/Full Article NLQ stands for Near Letter Quality and uses twice as much ink as DRAFT (NLQ Off) uses, but you do get a better print out. The other two options don't need discussing here as they are self explanatory. Please note that for the first two functions to work correctly, you MUST be using the correct printer driver. They won't work with the `Generic' driver. The best way to print via DMC is to load via your WB or else set up your own printer driver on the DMC Boot Disk's `Devs:' Dir. (use preferences if supplied on this disk) Before I go any further, I must point out that the Index Button will only work if you are viewing an article or small IFF picture (the pictures shown between the top info bar and the panel) You can either click on the Index button on the panel or simply press Escape on the keyboard. Obviously you know how to load Articles and Pictures from the Index Pages by now because you are reading this, but just in case: If an item on the Index Pages is hi-lighted when the mouse pointer is over it, you can either press the mouse button to load the file or press the RETURN key on the keyboard instead. OK, that's the top row out of the way. SPECIAL FUNCTIONS ================= The bottom row of buttons contain some special functions, but there are some special functions that can only be accessed by the keyboard (see end of this article). The ABOUT button will tell you about DMC and F1 Software etc. Simply click on it or press the A key on the keyboard. The SEARCH feature will only become available when viewing an article and can be accessed by clicking on it's button or by pressing the F key on the keyboard. When the search screen appears, you can type in the word you want to find. This can be typed in either UPPERCASE, lowercase or MixTUre! Simply follow the on-screen instructions. If a match is found, DMC will tell you on which page and even on which line. (Scroll type articles will function a little differently) If you choose to view the page containing the match, DMC will even show you exactly where it was found on-screen via a flashing bar. You can only search forward through an article - not backwards! Sorry, but DMC searches from page 1 of an article each time you select SEARCH no matter which page you are currently viewing at the time. However, if no match is found, DMC will simply return you to your current page. Please also note that the search may take some time on large articles on low-end Amiga's - sorry :( (Scroll type articles - The search feature works, but you will automatically be shown where the word is - if a match is found. If you want to continue searching for other occurrences, simply select SEARCH again and enter in the same word. Scroll type articles are searched from the current position only. No backward search available!) The COLOURS function is only available when viewing articles also. Shortcut keyboard option is C. It simply toggles the colours in case you find them hard to see on your TV or Monitor :) The MUSIC function can be accessed from the panel or by pressing M. It will bring up a display. From here you can load three music modules or switch them off to free memory. If a music module is missing from disk and you select to load it, your selection will be ignored. If you choose to free a module from memory (it also turns the module off) and you want to switch it back on, then it must be loaded from disk, so simply click on the module button you want to hear or press F1-F3 instead. Select OK when done (or press RETURN) The SECRET function can be accessed from the panel in the usual way or by pressing S on the keyboard. This will attempt to load a secret encrypted article if one is supplied. If so, you will be prompted to enter the correct password before you can view the article. You will be told how many letters are in the password to try and help you. You cannot type in anymore letters than is required either (DMC is very intelligent :) If you get it wrong, you'll have two more chances! If you get it right, you get to view the article - simple as that really. (secret articles cannot be read via a text editor. They can only be read via DMC as they are fully encrypted!) The CLI button can be used to flip DMC into background mode to let you work in either CLI or WBench depending on where you loaded DMC from. All processor time will be returned to your system so other `real' multi-tasking programs run at their normal speed. You can also use the Left Amiga and A to toggle this option. When in CLI/WB, you MUST press Left Amiga and A to return to DMC. (The Left Amiga key is next to the Left ALT key - on your `Amiga' Keyboard) Any music that is playing via DMC will still play when in CLI/WB mode. Please note that due to Amos being crap! DMC will not multi-task with Amos programmed titles :( The QUIT button will let you quit DMC back to either CLI or WB depending on where you loaded DMC from. It can also be accessed from keyboard by pressing SHIFT and ESC at anytime. Please note that no requestor/prompt is given, DMC simply quits. OTHER KEYBOARD ONLY FUNCTIONS ============================= Pressing T will bring up the date and time and let you check out your memory etc. You will require a battery backed up clock in your Amiga before this function will be of any real use. Some past users of DMC asked for this, so here it is. It will also display some messages on certain dates, but you'll see 'em when the time comes!!! Pressing R will change the mouse pointer for you and there are is a total of 5 to choose from. Simply press R until you see one you like. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-