Index
Genesis Browser

Overview
Applications
Pages
Frames
Backdrops

Linking

Resources
Menus
Script Language
GenFiler
Searching


Overview
Genesis Browser

Overview

The Genesis Browser is a tool for examining applications built with the Genesis authoring system. It allows you to navigate arround the pages by exploring the links in the application.

The Genesis authoring system is a powerful, yet simple to use system for creating pagesof information containing text, graphics, animation and sound and for linking these pages together to form Applications.

A typical page contains several rectangular areas called frames . Each of these frames may have information attached to it.For example, a frame may display text or graphics or even an animated sequence. Alternatively, it may contain an icon which, in conjunction with a Sound Blaster board, performs an action such as playing a tune or sound sample.


Genesis Applications
Genesis Applications.

What is an application

Running Applications

Closing down an Application


Pages

A genesis application is made up of a collection of Pages. Each page can be viewed in a separate window of the screen. The contents of a page consists of a number of frames which can contain various different types of information.

Each page also has a backdrop which covers the background area of the page. All the frames are then placed on top of this to build up the full structure of the page.

Each page has a title which appears in the top window  border.

See Also:-

Moving directly to a page

Printing Pages


Frames

Frames are rectangular areas of a page. They can contain various types of information such as text, graphics or even sounds! The data which they contain is held in a file known as a resource

Each frame will produce provides pop up menu. To get the menu to appear, move the mouse pointer over the frame and click the left mouse button whilst at the same time holding down the "Ctrl" key. These menus allow you to manipluate the frame and its contents in a variety of ways depending on the type of resource held by the frame..

See Also:-

Adding text


Menus
The Browser Menu bar

Across the top of each window is a menu bar. This provides a number of menus

1	Browser

2	Page

3	Backdrop

4	Help

These provide menu options for controlling

1	Things to do with the whole genesis application

2	Things to do with this particular page

3	Things to do with the backdrop of this particular page

4	Access to the help system.

In addition genesis provides pop up menus from each frame and from the backdrop.


Script language

Genesis has a powerful script language which is used to define the layout of pages and the relationships between them in the form of links etc. The script for each page is held in a resource file called "script" which is accessible via the genesis filer

A full description is given in the book "Genesis Script Language".


Running Genesis
Running The Browser

First, open the Program Manager window, if it is not already open. Next, open the group window that contains the Browser icon, by double-clicking the group icon. Then double-click the Genesis icon. The Browser icon will appear on the Desktop.

You can then run an existing application by using the menu entry which is available on the system menu. This is obtained by clicking on the genesis icon with the left mouse button.


Adding Text
Adding text to a frame

With the Browser, you can type text into any text frame which is unlocked. (Locking and unlocking requires the full Genesis Authoring system.)

Any changes which you make in this way will be lost when you leave the page. This can be useful for creating forms which can have areas which can be filled in and then printed out onto paper.


Linking

The power of Genesis comes from the linking of pages together.  Under the browser you can explore an application by clicking on the frames which have links.


Close
Closing an Application

To close an application, select the Browser icon on the Desktop. From the Control menu which appears, choose the Close Application option.

This closes down all the pages of the application and returns Browser to its "empty" state. The browser icon remains on the desktop ready to accept a new application.


Running an Application

To run an application use the "Open Application" dialog

Run browser and display the Genesis Control menu again and choose the Open App option. An Open dialog box will appear displaying all the applications you have. Choose the application and then click on the OK button. The application will start up by displaying the title page.


Backdrops

The contents of a page can be thought of as being in three layers. At the back is the background, this can be any single available colour. In front of this there can be a backdrop. This can be a drawing, bitmap, digitized picture etc which is drawn so that it fills the whole page. Finally, at the front, there can be a number of frames with data attached to them.

In the example you created, the background colour was set to the default colour of white and the backdrop was empty. This is why the pages appeared to be blank apart from the frame areas.

Resources can be loaded into the backdrop in a similar manner in which they can be loaded into frames. The only difference is that you use the Backdrop menu on the menu bar rather than a pop-up Frame menu. In many ways the backdrop acts as a special kind of frame.

See Also:-

Backdrop menu

Backdrop Links


Backdrop menus
Backdrop menu

The Browser provides a menu which allows you to extract  the contents of the backdrop as a resource file.


Backdrop Links

The backdrop may well have links attached to it which can be explored using the browser.


Pop up Frame menus
The Frame menu

The Frame menu for any frame can be obtained by pointing within the frame, holding down Ctrl and clicking the left mouse button.

With the browser you are restricted to exporting the contents of the frame. With the full authoring system there a many more options on this menu.

Exporting a Resource


Exporting a resource

The pop up frame menu provides a Resource sub menu. This has a Save As option which allows you to save the current resource to disc so that you can edit it, use it elsewhere etc. Choosing Save As displays the usual file-save dialog box. Select the destination directory and filename, the choose the OK button.


Resources

The text, graphics or sounf sample files which are attached to frames so as to build up a page are known as Resources.

The type of resource which is attached to a frame dictates the Style options which are available for the frame.

The example application !AboutGen illustrates the various types and allows you to investigate them for yourself.

To start up this application, locate its icon in the program manager group "Genapps" (assuming you have installed it). Double click on it.

The first page contains the names of several different types of data. Each of these is in a separate frame which can be double clicked on. To obtain further details of any of the types, point at the one you are interested in and double click with the left mouse button. This will display a further window giving a description of the data type and one or more examples of its use.

Note, if the Style option is greyed out, then the frame is locked. You need to unlock it by choosing the Lock option in order to proceed.

To return to the title page again, close the window by clicking with the left mouse button on the Close icon to the left of the Title bar. If you have edited the page, you will be asked if you want to save these edits. It is probably best while you are experimenting for you to discard your changes and return to the original version of the page by choosing  the NO box. After each of the sections below, you will be expected to carry out the action of closing the page and returning to the title page in this manner.


Display options

The Genesis Browser for Windows provides a number of options which affect how a page is displayed. Some of these provide temporary graphics for use whilst developing applications. Others affect how the applications themselves appear.

The grid is not of any great significance as no editting can be performed!

Frames and Links

Draw Options


Showing Links and Frames
Frames and Links

If you are making use of transparent frames which have their borders turned off, it can be difficult to remember where on the page they are. However, you can find out by using the Highlight options.

Display the Options dialog box (by selecting the Genesis menu and choosing Options). Locate the Highlight section, select the Frames option and choose the OK button. Now, all the frames on any page within your application will be highlighted using a red border.

Similarly, you can locate just frames which have links from them. To do this repeat the process above but this time select the Links option rather than the frames option. Now, all the frames which have links attached will be highlighted with a red cross running between opposite corners.

These are temporary graphics only. They will not appear when the page is printed nor will the highlights be saved as part of the page.


Drawing options

Genesis for Windows allows a choice of over 16 million colours to be specified. This may well be more than the number of colours actually avaialble on your system.

When the colour requested is not currently available then you can choose how the colour is represented. By default, the nearest available colour is chosen and used. However, if you select Dithered colours in the Options dialog box then a closer approximation to the actual colour will be obtained by using a combination of available colours. Hence instead of a solid block of a single colour, a pattern of two colours is used with the ratio between them depending on the shade required.

Sometimes this technique gives the illusion of creating the colour required. Other times the effect is very granular. The result depends on the colours available and the colour which you are trying to achieve.


The find facility

Searching with the Genesis Browser for Windows relies upon an Index file which forms part of each Genesis application.

See Also:

Searching the Index


Searching the Index

This contains a text box, labelled Find, to hold the word you wish to search for. Type LONDON into this text box and click on OK.What happens now is that the index file belonging to the application is searched to see if it contains the entry which you specified. If it does, then a page window is displayed showing all the pages which are listed for this entry. (Page viewers will be discussed in detail in the next chapter.)

In this case, the index file contains two references for London; the UK page and the London page. Therefore two page icons will appear within the page window. You can double click on either of these to display the page.

Please note that the case of the text is unimportant. You can type LONDON, london, London, LoNdOn etc and they will all match the index entry.


Moving directly to a page
Moving directly to pages

All pages have a page number, starting from zero. You can find out what the number for a particular page is by selecting the Page menu and choosing Info. The Info dialog box contains both the title and number of the page.

If you know the number of a particular page, then you can move straight to it. Display the Genesis menu and choose Go to Page. A dialog box will appear.

Enter the page number into the text box and choose the OK button. If the page exists then it will be opened.

See Also:

Pages in GenFiler

Opening a Page from GenFiler

Linking


Printing Pages
Printing

From within a Genesis application you can print out copies of any of the pages in it. However before you attempt to do so, the appropriate printer driver must have been installed and selected as the default so that the format of the output is correct for your particular make of printer. Details of how to set up and use printers are given in the Microsoft Windows User Guide provided with your computer.

To print out a copy of a particular page, select the Page menu and choose the Print option.

The name of the printer driver which is selected will be shown in the dialog box which appear. You should check that this is the correct one before continuing.

Beneath this are a set of option boxes allowing you to choose which page(s) you wish to print. By default just the current page will be printed. However, you can choose to print a range of pages or all the pages within the application.

In addition, you can choose how many copies you would like. The default is one.

If you choose the Options button, a printer setup dialog box will be displayed, providing options which are specific to your particular printer. Some of the common options which this allows you to set are the paper size, paper orientation, resolution etc. Make any changes you wish and then choose the OK button.

When you are ready to print, choose the OK button from the Print dialog box.


GenFiler
The Genesis filer

The Genesis Filer (known as "GenFiler") is the part of the Genesis system which is responsible for the general handling of the pages and resources contained within a Genesis application. Its use is fully automated; whenever it is required it will be started up.

It is used toa program for viewing the Pages and Resources which make up an Application

See Also:

Pages in Genfiler

Resources in GenFiler

GenFiler Menus


Resources in GenFiler

The usual way of adding pictures, music, speech etc to a Genesis page is to use the Frame menus to load in the data files. When you save your page, Genesis saves with it a copy of all of these files in order that it can reconstruct the page next time you look at it. These files are known as the resourcest belonging to the page.

To see all the local resources for a given page, the Genesis Filer is required. Display a page, select the Page menu and choose Show Resources. This will use the Genesis Filer to open a resource window showing all the resources which belong to that page.

To demonstrate this, an example is needed. Start up the !AboutGen application and display the Drawings page. Then select the Page menu and choose Show Resources.  The GenFiler application window will open, and within this a resource window will be created to show all the resources. Each resource will appear as an icon with the first 12 characters of its title beneath it.

These resources consist of three draw files, one text file and a script file which describes the page. This is what you might have expected since the page contains three draw frames (including the title) and one text frame providing the description.

Now, return to the Genesis application, select the Genesis menu and choose Show. This displays a cascading menu containing three options; Resources, Pages and History. Choose Resources.  Another resource viewer will open within the GenFiler window. This will show all the resources which are shared throughout the application. In this case, the resource window is empty indicating that there are no shared resources. Again, this is reasonable because all the pages are about different things.

See Also:

GenFiler menus

Resources menut


Pages in GenFiler

GenFiler can be used to display the pages of an application.

This can be seen by running a Genesis application, selecting the Genesis menu, choosing Show and then choosing Pages. This displays a page viewer giving details of the pages held within the application. An icon for each page is displayed together with the first 12 characters of its title:

See Also:

Opening pages directly with GenFiler

History

GenFiler menus

Pages Menu


GenFiler menus

The GenFiler menu bar contains four menus, these are either Application, Pages, View and Window or Application, Resources, View and Window depending on whether the active window is a page window or a resource window.

Application menu

Pages menu

Resources menu

Windows Menus


Genfiler Application menu
Application menu

The Application menu can be used to open page windows and resource windows directly from the GenFiler.

Show Pages

Choosing this option produces a dialog box which alows you to select the application you want to see the pages from and choose the OK button.

Show Resources

Choosing this option produces a dialog box which select the application you want to see the shared resources from and choose the OK button.


Genfiler Window Menu
The Window menu

The Window menu is a standard menu which provides options for arranging windows and the icons within them.

Cascade

resizes and rearranges the windows within the GenFiler application window so that they overlap, with the title bar of each being visible.

Tile

resizes and rearranges the windows within the GenFiler application window so they are side by side. Note that the windows may no longer be large enough to show all the page/resource icons at the same time.

Arrange icons

rearranges all the icons within the selected window so they are evenly distributed.

Close All

closes all the windows within the GenFiler application window.In addition, this menu provides the names of all the windows which are currently open. These are separated from the options described above by a line.


Genfiler Resources Menu
The Resources menu

This menu is available when the active window is a resources window. It allows you to select a group of resources and carry out actions on them.

You can select a single resource by clicking on it with the left mouse button. Having selected one, you can add others to your selection by clicking on them with the Shift key held down. Alternatively:

Select all

selects all the resources within the window.

Clear selection

de-selects all the resources.

When you have made your selection, there are a number of actions you can carry out. Please note that some of these are only available when you have a single resource selected.

Copy

allows you to copy the resource. Choosing this option opens a dialog box. Enter the name you want to give to the copy and choose the OK button.

Rename

lets you change the name of a resource. Note that if you rename a resource which is currently being used by a page, you should change the name of the resource which the frame thinks it is associated with  so that the two are in step.

Delete

removes the resource from the resource area.

You can also load and save resources into and out of the resource window:

Save

allows you to save a selected resource to disc and hence edit it or use it in other applications.

Load

allows you to load a resource from disc into the resource window so it can be accessed by frames on the page.

In some cases you may want a copy of a certain picture on a number of different pages. This can obviously be achieved by simply loading the picture file into the frame on each page as required. However this will waste disc space since a copy of the file will be saved with each page. To overcome this wastage, Genesis allows resource files to be shared between all the pages within a Genesis application. When you make a resource shared, it is held centrally by the application rather than once for each page.

You should share any resource which is required on multiple pages. Besides saving disc space, sharing a resource can save computer memory. If two pages which use the resource are open at the same time, then only one copy of the resource is loaded into the computers memory.

Make shared shares the selected resource. This will move the resource from the local resource viewer into the shared resource viewer. Once you have done this, you should delete copies of the resource from other local resource windows.

You can open a page window from the Resources menu:

Pages

opens a page window showing the pages in the application to which resources belong.


GenFiler pages menu
The Pages menu

This provides an easy method of manipulating pages.

Select all

selects every page within the page window.

Clear selection

de-selects every page.

Resources

opens one or more resource windows showing the resources which are local to the selected page(s).

Copy

provides an alternative method of copying pages. The new page(s) will be exact replicas of the selected one(s).

Delete

allows you to delete one or more pages. This is the only way to delete a page in Genesis. It was felt that deleting a page is such a drastic step to take that such an option should not be placed where it could easily be selected accidentally and therefore it is only available via !GenFiler.

Shared Res

opens a resource window showing the resources which are shared by all the pages in the page window rather than being local to a particular page.


Opening Pages directly
Opening pages directly with GenFiler

Another feature of the Genfiler Page window is that you can double click on any of the icons within it to make that page appear on the screen. Try this now by closing down all the pages you have open and double clicking on the Text page icon. The page describing text frames will be drawn at the front of the screen. This provides a quick method of checking the contents of any page.

See Also:

History

Pages in GenFiler

Moving directly to pages


History

There is one further option which will create a page viewer. Return to the Genesis application once more and select the Genesis menu. Choose Show and then History. This displays a page viewer. However, the pages within the viewer are those which you have viewed since starting up the application. The order of the pages indicates the order in which you viewed them, the most recent appearing first. If pages have been viewed more than once then they appear multiple times within the history window.

See Also:

Opening pages directly with GenFiler

Pages in GenFiler