Gazelle Viewer "Help" index

To obtain information, click on the desired subject

General presentation of the Viewer:

Principles of the program

Commands:

Menus

Command bar

Use of keyboard

Some advice for starting:

Navigation and data access

Editions Gazelle:

Presentation


This Help file corresponds to version 2.0, September 1996

Thank you for all suggestions helping us to improve it.


Menus

In non full-screen mode, the Gazelle Viewer menu bar contains the following menus:

File

Options

Window

Context menus open with a right click:

- in the application background	Application context menu

- in the Table of Contents band	Book context menu

- in a page in the Table of Contents	Book Page context menu

or with Shift+right click:

- in a page background	Page context menu


File

Open:

Opens a file in GZL format.

Close:

Closes the book currently open, if there is any.

Exit:

Exits Gazelle Viewer.


Options

Application Properties:

Permits configuration of the parameters for program execution, the most important of them being the drive letter corresponding to your CD-ROM drive. See: Application dialog box.


Window

This menu contains most of the classic MDI (Multiple Document Interface) norm commands, i.e. the convention adopted by Windows for the presentation and handling of windows within an application presenting several documents simultaneously.

It also contains a certain number of commands specific to Gazelle Author (Iconize All, Duplicate Page...).

Cascade:

Arranges the open windows in such a way that the title bar of each one is visible.

Tile:

Arranges the open windows side-by-side in such a way that all are visible

Arrange Icons:

Aligns the icons of present pages on the worktop.

Iconize All:

Reduces to icons all the windows currently open.

Close All:

Closes all the windows currently open on the worktop.

Duplicate Page :

Duplicates the currently selected page to allow it to be kept.

Table of Contents:

Opens the "Table of Contents" window of the book currently open.


Application Context Menu

Open Book:

Opens a book in GZL format.

Close Book:

Closes the book currently open, if there is one.

Exit:

Exits Gazelle Viewer.

Table of Contents:

Opens the "Table of Contents" of the book currently open.

Keyword Index:

Opens keywords search window for the book currently open.

Iconize All:

Reduces all currently open windows to icons.

Close All:

Closes all the windows currently open on the worktop.

Properties:

Permits configuration of the parameters for program execution, the most important of them being the drive letter corresponding to your CD-ROM drive. See: Application dialog box.


Book Context Menu

Open Book:

Opens a book in GZL format.

Close Book:

Closes the book currently open, if there is one.

Contents Page:

Opens the Contents Page of the book currently open.

Keyword Index:

Opens keywords search window for the book currently open.

Historic List:

Presents the list of pages previously consulted and permits opening them with a double click.


Book Page Context Menu

Open Page:

Opens the page currently selected.

Develop/Contract:

Displays the child pages of the page currently selected or alternatively eliminates their display.


Page Context Menu

To obtain the context menu it is necessary to press the "Shift" key on the keyboard at the same time as right clicking in the page background. This access mode is slightly different because it could be that the right click in the page has been associated to another event.

Anyway, it may also happen that the author has associated the right click to the command of opening the Page context menu...

Close Page :

Closes the currently open page, if there is one.

Iconize:

Reduces the window of the page to an icon.

Contents Page:

Opens the Contents Page of the book currently open.

Table of Contents:

Opens the "Table of Contents" of the book currently open.

Keyword Index:

Opens keywords search window for the book currently open.

Historic List:

Presents the list of pages previously consulted and permits opening them with a double click.

Exit:

Exits the application.


Application dialog box

Access to this dialog box is via the menu command Options/Application Properties.

Default Drive:

The default drive letter, which will serve for accessing the various files by substitution of this letter in the file paths.

When a book is open directly using the menu command Open, it is the drive containing the .GZL file which is used for this substitution. So, if you access information presented within a book, you don't have to take care of this parameter.


Command bar

The Gazelle system proposes a command bar containing tools giving rapid access to the most important menu functions, as well as navigator buttons permitting the user to browse through the book, and functions of backspace, search...

This command bar can be hidden if you are consulting a full-screen book.

These functions are, in order:

- display the "Help" file index

- open a book in GZL format

- duplicate current page so as to be able to keep it for future consultation

- open a page in GZP format

- return to Contents Page of book

- open "Table of Contents"

- open dialog box permitting a keywords search

- go back to previous page

- open window showing historic list of pages consulted, with possibility of returning to any of these by means of double-clicking the appropriate line

- go up in the hierarchy to page above the current page in the book's arborescent structure.

- go down the hierarchy to page below the current page in the book's arborescent structure.

- go to previous page, at the same hierarchic level as current page.

- go to next page, at the same hierarchic level as current page.

You can also obtain information on the diverse functions of this command bar directly from within the program. By right clicking in one of the elements of the bar, a context "Help" menu appears.

For the previous and next button, when disabled, you can double click on them to access the page of higher level situated before or after in the "Table of Contents" list.


Use of the keyboard

Some keys have particular functions:

F1:	opens online Help file

F2:	visualization of objects offering information via clicks.

ESC	exits application

Alt+F4	exits application


Some advice for getting started

Each book has its particularities, each author has a certain conception of the interface he or she wants to offer to users.

The important thing is to know how to navigate in the book and to know where to find the data in each page and how to access it. Generally handling is fairly intuitive, but certain information may escape the reader.

The author usually gives indications to readers in the form of short texts accessible from the Contents Page. These must not be forgotten.

To access data

To navigate in the book

To know more about these you can consult the section explaining the principle of the program.


To access data

The first important thing is to know how to use the mouse to access data.

It is also very important to know which parts of the page to act on to obtain information not immediately visible.

Use of the mouse

The writing of books is based on the meaning and effects associated with a small number of actions.

Single Click

Double Click

Drop

Mouse Enter and Mouse Leave

Access to data

To access data, the user will perform the preceding actions on the different objects. But to know which objects and which actions will deliver the data the user can refer to:

the change in form of the cursor

the key F2.


To navigate in the book

The interest of an electronic book is that there are several ways of reading it and the consultation route is not uniquely sequential.

On one hand the hypermedia reading mode:

For purposes of navigation the author will have placed "jumps" allowing the user to jump from one page to another, usually by means of a left mouse click. There may be a very great number of jumps per page.

On the other hand a more global method of reading:

1. If the author has not chosen to make a full screen book, the Gazelle interface will appear in the form of a menu bar and a toolbar containing several buttons permitting direct access to the Contents Page, direct consultation of the Table of Contents, a page search as a function of keywords. Buttons with arrows permit going up or down in the book's arborescent structure, going to the preceding page and the following page on the same level of the arborescent structure.

If the author has chosen to make a full screen book, he or she will probably have opted for a small interface (buttons...), giving access (at least partially) to the preceding functions.

2. From the Table of Contents the user can double click in the page which interests him. This will open immediately.

3. The keywords index permits direct access to the pages indicated.


Editions Gazelle

Our objectives

Discover and reveal the possibilities of CD-ROM

Subjects to be covered

How to contact us

Our address


The possibilities of CD-ROM

The tremendous storage capacity of CD-ROM permits full exploitation of the wonders of computer technology as far as access to knowledge is concerned.

Firstly, we can benefit from the facility of navigation which the computer proposes. To have immediate access to the equivalent of a thousand text books without having to change even once the disk inserted in the drive opens up fantastic perspectives.

But the CD-ROM is also the possibility of conjugating different sources of information which have never previously been found combined together. With text, image and sound giving mutual enlightenment and being totally available to the reader, the CD-ROM clearly presents a new way of transmitting and receiving knowledge.

To sum up, it is these two aspects of navigation and hypermedia which are the strengths permitting us to dream about all that this new mode of communication holds in store for us. The exact form of what is to come is still indistinct, but there is very certainly matter for discovery.

It is our belief that the CD-ROM will become a vital complement to traditional reading as far as transmission of knowledge is concerned. Tomorrow, not only will we continue to read paper books, but we will also benefit from a new source of knowledge. Just like the monastic scribes seeing the first printed book, we can say that tomorrow will undoubtedly be richer than today.

Discovering these new possibilities of transmission with our authors and revealing them to our readers is our principal objective. More knowledge available to more people can only, despite the objections of a few pessimists, be a good thing.


Subjects to be covered

CD-ROM is particularly suitable to instructional books in the fields of languages, sciences (physics, biology, history, geography...), the arts (painting, photography...).

To put it briefly, we want to put on CD-ROM all this knowledge which it has never been possible to put in a book and all the knowledge which lies dormant in magnificent books which decorate our bookshelves but which are practically never opened.

The rise of the CD-ROM will certainly be via the appearance of a sufficiently wide range of works of quality. We hope to be able to contribute to the build-up of this critical volume.


Our address

If you want more information about our products please contact us at:

Editions Gazelle

7 route de Montesson

B.P. 08

78110 Le Vésinet

or send a fax to:

(33) 01.39.57.00.87

or you can e-mail us at:

Email : 100130.740@compuserve.com


General presentation of Gazelle Viewer

Principles of the program

The program permits to present a coherent interface for accessing data of diverse natures (text, sound, image) which, grouped together, gives a richer and more palpable form to information.

The book metaphor

Gazelle Viewer takes up the familiar metaphor of book. Thus a book is naturally made up of a collection of pages, but, unlike its paper equivalent, this does not follow a linear order. It is in fact a vast and rapid navigation which is open before us. What is more, each page does not limit itself to presenting information in homogeneous forms, but a combination of text, images and sounds combining to give us more complete information.

The role of objects

Presentation revolves around the notion of object, whether this is in the sense of the software programming in an object-oriented language, or in the sense of Interface Objects which appear on the screen.

It is indeed the perfect harmonization of a program language (in this instance C++) and the desired form of knowledge representation which permits giving a homogeneous interface to information as diverse as text, sound and images.

The different actions

Writing in the book is based on the meaning and the effects associated to a small number of actions.

single click

double click

drop

Mouse Enter and Mouse Leave

Data access

To access data, the user will perform the previous actions on the different objects; but to know which objects and which actions the data will deliver, he/she may rely on:

change in cursor form

the F2 key


Books on CD-ROM

Reading a paper book requires no utensils, except possibly a good pair of glasses. Most of the decoding is performed by our brain which has, it should be remembered, acquired the formidable ability to read.

Reading a book on CD-ROM requires the support of a machine capable of physically reading the coded information on the compact disk, this is the CD-ROM drive. It is also necessary to have the support of software capable of reading logically this same information in its crude form, this is the Electronic Book Viewer or Navigator.

To counterbalance this double constraint, the book on CD-ROM offers us an entire universe of new possibilities. We have rapid access to a mass of facts which otherwise would require whole libraries of paper works to be contained. Images, text and sound unite to communicate enhanced concepts to us. Our brain will be presented with information for decoding covering a wider range than the simple reading of alphabetic characters.

To come back to the processing necessary before the information is offered to our brain, the physical and logical processes are not at the same stage of standardization. Although  it can be said that the standard for CD-ROM drives is well established, the same is not true of Viewers for Electronic Books. There is currently no Universal Viewer and no doubt some time is necessary before the form of such a viewer becomes established. Compared to the elaboration process governing the standardization of word processors which we have today, the route on which we have embarked is characterized not only by a total absence of previous reference but also by a much wider domain of possibilities.

This absence of Universal Viewer means that each Electronic Book has to "carry" its own Viewer. It is thus possible to envisage as many Viewers as Books.

In the face of this, Editions Gazelle has designed its software in modular fashion to conjugate the solidity and the reliability of a reusable core program and the flexibility of peripheral modules specific to each Book. In this way can be built a vast number of Books offering both the facility of a homogenous and familiar interface and the richness of new developments necessary for the transmission of a particular message.


Pages

As with a paper book, an electronic book is made up of pages. But unlike the first, these are not necessarily arranged in an absolute linear order. It may also be noted that they are potentially much vaster than the paper equivalent. A page can in fact contain the text of a whole printed work.

Pages are built on at least two levels. Firstly they contain a background object, usually given the task of conveying the global sense of the page. They then contain a collection of Interface Objects with the job of contributing to the messages delivered.

In addition an Interface Object can itself serve to insert the contents of another page. It can thus be seen that a page can be constituted of an endless refinement of successive levels.


Interface Objects

Interface objects constitute the means of accessing the information which will be provided by Data Objects. By clicking in them, by dropping another object on them, or simply by introducing the cursor into it, an action is triggered. This action consists usually of the playing of a data file.

Interface Objects therefore generally have the job of incarnating a concept which is explained via the information transmitted to us by the Linked Data Objects.


Data Objects

Data Objects are objects encapsulating data, usually stored inside a file. They thus propose a common interface of commands (load, display, play...) for information in forms as different as images, text, sounds.

These data objects are solicited by interface objects to deliver the information which will contribute to enlightening the concept presented. So it can be seen that an interface object is associated to a collection of data objects to construct a message. More specifically, it is by associating a particular data object to each event which may occur to it (click, double click, object drop...) that an interface object brings to concretion an idea to be transmitted.


Software programming

Gazelle Author and Gazelle Viewer have been programmed entirely in the object oriented language C++. Choice of object programming was straightforward for applications of this kind. Quite apart from the fact that object languages (and notably C++) have revolutionized all sectors of programming, they are particularly in their place in the multimedia domain. Here, even more than elsewhere, the intricacy of data and its processing takes on the most meaning. In the same way as the data appears particularly heterogeneous (sound, image, text), so the actions which can be applied to them appear to be common (load, display, play...).

It can thus be said that the object programming incurs very few of the constraints on creativity imposed by a very special syntax. It is more of a natural support for expression of a new form of communication.


A language is said to be object oriented if it organizes its programming syntax in such a way that the data and the processing applied to them are tightly imbricated within structures called objects.


Single click

The single click, corresponding to one press on the left or right mouse button, causes an action to be performed, which will generally be the appearance of a text, an image, a sound, or which may be a whole series of operations specific to the book being consulted (arithmetic calculation, simulation...). The choice of the type of response associated to the right click or left click is left entirely to the appreciation of the author.

However, to conform with the logic of the operating environment, it can be affirmed that the left click will generally be the principal means of accessing information which the presented object has available for us. In this perspective, if further enlightenment or complementary information has to be communicated, it is to be envisaged that this will be by means of the right click.

As an example, it can be imagined that in a language book an object appears to the reader in the form of an image. The left button could give the name of the object in the language being studied and the right button could give the English equivalent and its scope.


Double click

The double click, corresponding to two successive presses then release, of the left or right mouse button will, in the same way as the single click, cause an action to be performed consisting of the playing of a sound, an animation or a video.

The type of action executed is chosen by the author. It can, however be considered more logical for it to be dynamic actions which are associated to this double click, such as playing a sound file or a video. It can also be said that it will be the left double click which will be used more than the right double click. As in the case of the single click, it can be envisaged that the left button will deliver a direct form of the information and the right double click a complement or an explanation.

In the example of the language method, the left double click in the pictured object could give the pronunciation in the language being studied and the right double click could give the word pronounced in English.


Object drop

The possibility of moving an interface object and dropping it above another object for a certain action to be applied to it demonstrates clearly the very palpable aspect which information can take on by means of computer techniques. "Drag and drop" enables the hand and the concept to meet; the user can manipulate, in all senses of the term, the data proposed.

An object drop can thus be associated to copying, printing or transforming the shifted object.

In the example of the language method, it can be envisaged that the drop will permit testing the comprehension of certain phrases. It could also offer the reader an efficient means of noting the words and their translation which will then be printed for revision.


Mouse Enter and Mouse Leave

Entry of the mouse into a sensitive zone (Object) can, like the mouse click, give rise to an action such as change of display, appearance of text, playing of a sound or any other type of action.

It can be envisaged, for example, that the mouse entering an object will cause the display of an image representing an enlargement of a portion of the image presented in the object, which will give a magnified effect; and that the mouse leaving will restore the previous display.


Cursor form

The form of the cursor is a mean of indicating that the object pointed by the user can provide information.

A distinction can thus be made between objects which conserve the default form of the north-west pointing arrow, which will not deliver any information other than their aspect, and objects which transform the cursor into a hand with a pointing index finger, which conversely will supply data when provoked.


F2 key

To know all the objects possessing actions associated to mouse clicks, the user can press the key F2 successively. The picture of a mouse will appear on each triggerable object, and the spots on the mouse indicate respectively single or double click, left or right.