Thankyou for trying SLIDE 1.1 for the Psion Series 3a ------------------------------------------------------ Note for upgraders from v1.0 : there are a number of important changes for this new version, so please read on. New for version 1.1: Sound clips (.WVEs) and pictures (.PICs) can be on any disk and in their own directories or in a \SLIDES\ directory, all files found automatically. Main slide-show files now live in \SLIDES\, to avoid confusion with address books etc. New title and slide reference font/styles. Standard generated backgrounds and sounds available, to save effort and space. Pause control and a variety of slide navigation hot-keys. SLIDE editor now has its own DATA alias. Hint line can be in any corner. Full-screen black+grey PIC file displaying available. Sound can be turned off. The registration patch can be on any disk. Synopsis -------- SLIDE 1.1 is a database-based slide-show/demo/tutorial system for the 3a, wuth graphics, WVE sound files and special effects. Registration etc (please read) ------------------------------ SLIDE 1.1 is (C) UK 1994 Steve Litchfield and is released as shareware. The program is NOT free, and anyone making serious use of it should register with the author (address at end) by sending the appropiate amount in Sterling, US dollars, German Marks or French Francs, cash is most welcome if other methods of payment don't appear suitable. This program is NOT heavily nagged, and the only indication of having an unregistered version is the welcome screen displayed at the start of each running slide show. Upon payment of the registration fee, a patch method will be supplied to disable the welcome screen. Registered users will receive updates, upgrades etc and, perhaps most importantly, will have their suggestions listened to and implemented in future versions. Cost ---- For home users (having fun, distributing rolling presentations of your services or just being willing to help support future development of SLIDE) the registration fee is 10.00 UK pounds of equivalent in $, DM or ff. For business users the registration fee is 20.00 UK pounds (or equivalent in US $, DM or ff) for use of the product. In a business environment it is likely that you will be contacting me anyway to discuss further program improvements etc, so I'll wait for your call! Half-price registration goes automatically to those ordering from 3-Lib at the same time (see the end of this text). Installation of the SLIDE program --------------------------------- (i) Simply copy SLIDE.OPA and SLIDES.ALS into an \APP\ directory of your choice on any drive and use Psion-I to install each of them, as usual. (ii) Make a \SLIDES\ directory on your working disk and copy the STEMPLAT.DBF file across into it. The above-mentioned files are all that are needed to use SLIDE 1.1, but see the following section for extra files you'll want to also look at ... Installation of the SLIDE example demo -------------------------------------- The best way of appreciating what SLIDE 1.1 does is to view the two sample slideshows I supply in the ZIP with the main program. These samples include the two shows themselves, SDEMO.DBF and 3LIB.DBF, and assorted sound clips and picture files, as listed below. All of these files should go into a \SLIDES\ directory on any drive that's handy. SDEMO.DBF 3LIB.DBF INTRODUC.WVE THISCOUL.WVE WELCOME.WVE WORLD1.PIC SCREEN.PIC 3LIB3D.PIC CITY1.PIC SLIDE.PIC SLIDEDIT.PIC Of course, the WVEs could always go in a \WVE\ directory and the PICs in a \PIC\ directory, but you'll probably want to keep all these files together so that you can delete them when you've viewed the demo slide-shows and gotten the hang of SLIDE 1.1. After refresshing your system screen, SDEMO, 3LIB and STEMPLAT should all appear in the list under both SLIDEDIT and SLIDE icons, and can then be run. ========================================================================== Reference: How to use SLIDE 1.1 ------------------------------- First of all, run the example slide-show to get a feel for the end result. You will notice that the three main components of the show are a database file with all the relevant slide information, some optional PIC files and some optional WVE sound files. OK, so you've seen what SLIDE v1.1 can do, so let's try creating a new show of your own. The database files are in the usual DATA format and can be edited as normal in the SLIDE editor installed alias of the built-in DATA application. On the system screen, use Psion-C to copy the template file STEMPLAT.DBF to, say, MYSHOW.DBF, ready for editing. Under the SLIDE editor icon, open up MYSHOW.DBF . You will see a selection of text fields, Slide ref, title, etc. The actual field names are not critical to SLIDE, but the content and order *is*, so I do suggest that you start off each time with a copy of the supplied template file, as above. So, you're in the SLIDE editor, with a blank-looking entry screen. Let's imagine we're going to do a rolling slide tutorial to guide someone through using your custom software, GRABDATA (apologies if someone's actually got a product of that name!). Enter the fields as shown below: Field name You type in ---------------------------------------------------------------- SLIDE REF: A TITLE: GRABDATA tutorial TEXT: Welcome, dear user! You will find GRABDATA an invaluable tool in helping you gather and sort through your processed data items. Graphs and reports will be simple after today! TEXT HINT: PIC FILE: \SLATTED WVE FILE: SAMPLE1.WVE PAUSE: 4 EFFECT: Fade ---------------------------------------------------------------- Note1: The slide reference is important because prior to each slide show, SLIDE does a sort on your show, using the reference as its guide to the correct order for display. This is necessary as the SLIDE editor application (i.e. DATA) messes the order up well and truly if you make any updates or edits, as you will have noticed on your standard DATA address book databases in the past. Thus, your show gets sorted prior to display. Notice that I use an alphabetic reference, rather than numbers. If numbers are used, then the order gets confused once you go over 9, so for less than 27 slides stick to single letters, more than that use AA, AB, AC.... AZ, BA, BB etc etc, or A1, A2, A3, B1, B2 etc etc. That way, a simple alphabetic sort will see the show stays in the right order. Note2: Title text is limited to 45 characters, and is shown in a double-height font. If you want to force single-height text, you can add in \S at the start of the line, e.g. TITLE: \SMy title in single height! Note3: There is a limit of 252 characters for the text field. If you need more than this, then you should split the content across two slides. SLIDE will intelligently scale your font up or down if you try to use less or more characters repectively in your text. Note4: If you don't want a feature acted upon, e.g. you don't want a flashed 'hint' to show on this particular slide, then just leave the field blank. This applies to all the fields, which can all cope with being left blank and have suitable defaults etc. If you would like your 'hint' displayed in a different corner, you can use \B for 'Bottom Left' or \L for 'Top Left' or \R for 'Top Right', e.g. HINT: \LTop-left hint! Note5: You have a choice of using one of your own PIC files or using one of the predefined patterns (\SLATTED, \BRICKED or \NULL). If using a PIC file, you have the option of adding \G ('Gallery') at the start of the name, which tells SLIDE 1.1 to display the PIC as Black/Grey plane, instead of the default 'Black displayed as Grey', if you see what I mean. For example, valid entries in this section might be: {nothing at all} OR "\SLATTED" OR "grbtitle" OR \Gscreen.pic. Note that PIC file names should be left without all the drive and directory information (or even the '.PIC' on the end, if you wish), SLIDE 1.1 will look for your chosen named file in \PIC\ and \SLIDES\ directories on each drive in turn (M, then A, then B). Similarly for the WVE file, which should exist somewhere in a \SLIDES\ or \WVE\ directory. SAMPLE1.WVE might in this case be, for example, a sample of you saying "Welcome to GRABDATA". Note6: PIC files wider than 80 pixels will be centred on the screen and displayed for 'background' effect in the grey plane unless the \G 'Gallery' option is used, as shown in the example slide shows. PIC files less than 80 pixels wide will remain in the black plane and will appear on the left of the slide text. Note7: Sound files in WVE format can be specified, as mentioned above, but there is also the option of a built-in effect, called with \B, e.g. WVE FILE: \B More sound effects will be available in the next version of SLIDE. Note8: The pause is the wait time in seconds at the end of each slide before the screen is cleared and the next slide shown. The user can press any key to go directly to the next slide without waiting for the time delay to expire. If no pause is specified, the default is 5 seconds. If the user wishes to pause for longer on a particular slide, pressing 'Psion-P' will pause the slide-show until another key is pressed. Note9: The screen clearing effect is limited (at v1.0) to Top wipe, Left wipe, Vanish and Fade mosaic. If no effect is chosen, the screen is just cleared in the normal way. Having typed your first slide, press TAB in the usual way to save it and progress to the entry screen for your next slide. An example of what your second slide might look like is shown below: Field name You type in ---------------------------------------------------------------- SLIDE REF: B TITLE: GRABDATA tutorial TEXT: Please note that GRABDATA is available from all good local stockists or for free download from CIX and Compuserve. TEXT HINT: (C) MyCorp 1994 PIC FILE: GRBTITLE.PIC WVE FILE: \B PAUSE: 5 EFFECT: VAN ---------------------------------------------------------------- Press TAB again, and you're onto the third slide. Again, for example, Field name You type in ---------------------------------------------------------------- SLIDE REF: B2 TITLE: TEXT: TEXT HINT: This screen-shot shows the opening screen of GRABDATA PIC FILE: \GSCREEN00.PIC WVE FILE: CATCHTHO.WVE PAUSE: 6 EFFECT: FADE ---------------------------------------------------------------- And onto the fourth slide, and so on .... When you've finished, save the file with Psion-X and you're ready to try running the show. Refresh your system screen (if necessary) and move to the SLIDE icon. Move the cursor down to MYSHOW and press ENTER. Your slide-show will now run. If there are any problems, then simply go back into MYSHOW under the SLIDE 1.1 editor icon and make the appropiate changes. Again, don't worry about the way the SLIDE 1.1 editor reorders your slides. When SLIDE 1.1 runs, it will use your nice logical slide references (e.g. A,B,C etc) to reorder the slides back how they should be. If you have more than 30 slides, SLIDE 1.1 will realise it make take a short while to sort them at run-time, so it will give you the option of sorting then and there, continuing without sorting or quitting the program altogether. When viewing your show, use the MENU key or the Psion hot-keys to control movement around the show. Try it, and you'll see what I mean. [Note: if anyone can help me with quicker ways to sort the file, then free SLIDE and FAIRWAY registrations await their contributions...] Slide-show distribution ----------------------- If you want to upload your slide-shows to bulletin boards etc for others to try, please keep them separate from the SLID11.ZIP file that you obtained this program in. If you wish, send me a copy as well (with your registration fee !! 8-] ) Quick reference guide --------------------- MENU options: Back one slide Psion-B Go to slide no. Psion-G Jump to slide ref. Psion-J Pause Psion-P Sound control Psion-S Help Psion-H Exit Psion-X Title font: \S means 'single-height text' Wipe Effects: Left, Top, Fade, Vanish (First letter only is significant) Backgrounds: \SLATTED, \BRICKED, \NULL (\ and first letter only is significant, or else specify a PIC file. \G displays the PIC on the normal black/grey planes. Sounds: \B does built-in effect, or else specify a WVE file. Hint lines: default is Bottom-Right, \B is BL, \L is TL, \R is TR. Summary ------- That's about it. I do hope you find SLIDE 1.1 useful and that you will want to support development of this and other 3a products by registering. I can be contacted as follows: Steve Litchfield 8 Grove Farm Mytchett Surrey GU16 6AQ ENGLAND email: slitchfield@cix.compulink.co.uk Tel: 0(252) 515431 NB: Reverse engineering of SLIDE.OPA v1.1 is strictly forbidden and illegal. If you really want a say in what the code of SLIDE does, then please contact me and discuss your requirements. If the suggestion is helpful to the product I may consider registering you free of charge anyway! If you suspect the copy of SLIDE that you received has been hacked or altered in some way, please contact the author at once, stating where you received the program. NB2: Please note also that I run *the* public domain/shareware library for Series 3 and 3a users, called 3-Lib and established since January 1993, please send me a stamped addressed envelope for a free catalogue. 3-Lib distributes on SSD and/or floppy disk. Cost is 8 pounds for the entire collection of latest shareware/PD (around 400 programs/items).