Contents

General

Getting started

Some thoughts about on-line books

Support

Registration benefits and rights

Other AyeCor Software products

Free offer

Commands and methods

Opening a book

Adding a book to your personal bookshelf

Keeping information about a book

Bookmarks

Placing

Going to

Writing notes in the 'margins'

Searching the book for a word of string

Using the index

Adding to

Viewing and going to pages

Fonts for your book


Getting started

See also

If you are here, maybe you are looking for help with setup.  If not, then you will be wondering what to do first.  How to open a book perhaps?  The whole idea of this program is as an open-ended program which you can use to view many files from many sources which you will find, in the comfortable, familiar format of a real book.

You'll be able to search through the entire book for a word  or string which you are interested in, make your own custom index and write notes in the margins, figuratively.  You may also place multiple bookmarks in your book, giving them each names which you will recognize later for easy perusal of your book.

Additionally, you can open HTML as well as text files, saving the newly created file as a filtered text file.  The sky's the limit and you will no doubt find uses for Virtual Book which were unexpected at its inception.  If this is the case, and the program needs some modification to perform this task more easily, please send an e-mail to VirtualBook@ayecor.com and make a suggestion.  Feedback is always very welcome at AyeCor Software.


Setup

Some thoughts about on-line books

Registration


Some thoughts about on-line books

See also

Knowledge is power.  Education is the only way out of poverty.  The pen is mightier than the sword.  These axioms are no less true today, in the information age, than ever before, and probably more so.  Books;  both the symbol of and a fundamental tool in our understanding of the world we live in, will never go away but merely change form.  The form which most knowledge is being recorded in today is the computer file, yet we still have few tools for viewing these comfortably and in a human fashion.  Virtual Book aims to correct this slight oversight.

On the internet you will find an incredible array of information sources, The On-line Books Page, The Gutenburg Project, The US Library of Congress, University of Virginia Electronic Text Library are but a few of this author's favorites.  Some time ago I heard that Mr. Gates himself was throwing a little fun money ($400 million) at the task of getting library materials, which we have read for years, into a format which can be read via computer.  Kudos to Mr. Gates.  However, this has been the goal of the above mentioned sources for some time now and huge numbers of classical and modern texts are now available for your perusal any time, day or night.

Save trees, learn more, support new authors... read virtual books.


Opening a book

Registration


Support

See also

Any questions, comments or suggestions concerning this program may be directed to VirtualBook@AyeCor.Com.  Additionally, you may visit the AyeCor Software web site at http://ayecor.com any time for the most recent version.  Your feedback is always welcome and encouraged.


Registration


Registration

See also

Note:  This program qualifies for a free offer.

Registration will:

1.  Get rid of that splash screen which comes up when the program starts.

2.  Allow you to store many books on your personal book shelf.  The shareware limit is 3.

3.  Allow you to store many bookmarks in each book.  The shareware limit is 3.

4.  Entitle you to free upgrades in the future.

Price:  $19.95

You can register by:

Visiting the AyeCor Software web site at:  http://ayecor.com.  There you will find on-line registration methods, including credit card or 1-900 purchase, both through secure servers.

Or you may send a check or money order directly to:

AyeCor Software

2115 Pillsbury Ave. S.

Mpls., MN  55404

Checks or money orders must be in US dollars, and checks drawn on a US bank.

Please be sure to note which program you are purchasing.  If you would like your registration data sent back via e-mail, please include your e-mail address with your order.

Which ever way you choose to register, your personal registration key and username will be sent beck to you as soon as the order is processed.  For on-line registration methods, this will be only a matter of hours, for regular mail methods, this will be the amount of time to process your check.

How to register your copy of Virtual Book

Once you have received your personal registration key and username you may select the option entitled "Register Now" in the pull-down menu under "About".  Then press the "Next" button and enter your information exactly as it appears in the letter or e-mail you received.  Once you have done this, press OK and the program will be fully registered.


Support

Free offer


Other AyeCor Software products

See also

Cookie Cutter PC

Each time you go to a web site, your browser may be storing information about you, on your own hard drive, at the request of the web site administrator.  This information is stored in files called cookies, and can contain much information about you, when you visited, where you visited before coming there, how long you were there, what you did while there...  If you also feel that this is a threat to your privacy then you will want to cut those cookies and the Cookie Cutter PC is the perfect tool for you.

According to on-line software reviewers, it's just fun to use.

Registration: $14.95

Global Diary

Success takes planning.  Planning requires an understanding of where you are now.  To understand fully where you are, you must first study where you've come from.

All of these sentences, taken together, say "keep a journal", and Global Diary offers itself for your use.  It is meant to be comfortable to look at, easy-to-use, intuitive and useful.  You may access your entries through several methods; searching for a string, via a calendar, a list of entry memos, and more.  The controls are hidden in the background (a right mouse click brings them up) so you're not bothered with looking at them while you ponder the times.  Your diary will be saved in an encrypted form if you wish.

Registration: $17.95

The Cryptogram Challenge!

Do you like mental challenges?  If I were to take a sentence and switch all the letters so that, say an "E" was represented by a "Y", and I did that with all of the letters... could you decipher it?  Go ahead, take The Cryptogram Challenge!

The shareware version comes with over 70 challenging puzzles.  The registered version has over 200, with your choice of themes; bible proverbs, chemistry, dictionary definitions.

Registration: $14.95


Free offer

Registration


Free offer

See also

AyeCor software is author of Cookie Cutter PC, which has been reviewed highly on-line and off.  With registration of any of the qualifying titles from AyeCor Software, you will receive a copy of Cookie Cutter PC as a free gift.

Please make sure that you mention it when ordering via mail, or send an e-mail message to VirtualBook@AyeCor.Com when you have completed your on-line order.  Just mention this offer.


Registration

Support


Opening a book

See also

Opening a book is done by clicking the button in the top left of the user interface, which brings up your book shelf.  When you bring the mouse over this button the words "View the reading list" pops up beneath it.

You may already have placed books on it so you need only double-click on the title on your book shelf which you'd like to open now.

Note:  If you have many books on your shelf, you'll want to be sure to name the book in a way which will differentiate it from the others.  See notes on the shelf form to discover how to do this.

If the book isn't already on your shelf, you will need to open it by selecting the "Browse" button, find and select the HTML or ASCII text file which you wish to open and click "Open".  When you make a selection, you will be asked whether you want to copy or move the file into the Virtual Book's book directory or not.

When you open a book that is not on the book shelf, it opens using Virtual Book's default font.


Starting out

Placing books on your personal book shelf

Virtual Book Fonts

Some thoughts about on-line books


Adding a book to your personal book shelf

See also

You may add a book to your book shelf by first opening it, and then clicking on the button with the fire on it.  The shareware limit is 3.  You will be prompted for a name for the book.  The book's title is a good starting name, though the default is the file name (without the extension), and you may change it at any time later.

Your book shelf contains the list of books on the shelf plus some special tools for identifying them and keeping notes about a given book.  These tools are accessed by clicking on the book which you have added to your book shelf as described above, then clicking on the "Summary information" button. Here, you may rename the book and read or enter any notes which you may make on the book.


Opening a book

Keeping information about a book


Keeping information about a book

See also

An occasional personal quandary

Sometimes I read a book and I want to make some notes about it in an easily accessible place, not in the margins, I'll never find them again.  Inside the front cover?  Not enough room, besides, what if I meet the author and want to get it signed?  A slip of paper will fall out and several sheets of paper, folded and placed in the book, may damage the binding.  This is why the notes option is built into Virtual Book.

When you go to open a book you'll be shown your book shelf.  Clicking on the book, which you need to have entered on your book shelf, will highlight the "Summary information" button.  Now click that button.  You will be given a place for an entry of Title, Author and Notes.

The title, as you enter it here, will appear on your book shelf.

The note box here can store up to 64k of information on your book, enough to write a small book about  your book!  This translates to roughly 50 note boxes full of words.


Viewing your book shelf and opening a book

Adding to your book shelf


Bookmarks

Please choose from:

Placing a bookmark

Going to a bookmark

Writing notes in the margins


Placing a bookmark

See also

To place a bookmark in your book, it must first be in the bookshelf.  Once it is, you may place a bookmark to the currently opened page by clicking on the Bookmarks button on top of your Virtual Book, it's the one with the yellow note and a thumb tack.

Your bookmarks will be shown to you and to add this page to them you click on the "Add current page" button.  You will then be prompted for a name for this bookmark.  Call it something which will remind you of this mark if you plan to have many, though you may rename it any time by selecting the bookmark and then selecting "Rename bookmark".


Going to a bookmark

Writing notes in the margins

Using the index


Going to a bookmark

See also

Going to a bookmark requires that a book be on the bookshelf and that you have placed one.  To go to a bookmark, click on the bookmark button on top of your Virtual Book, it's the one with the yellow note and a thumb tack.  Then select the mark, from the list, which you wish to go to and click "Go there" or double-click on the mark.


Placing bookmarks

Writing notes in the margins

Using the index


Writing notes in the margins

See also

Of course, you can't literally write a note in the margin, there isn't room, but the next best thing is that you may write a very large amount about a page on its bookmark.  To do this, you first add the book to the book shelf , if it's not already there, and place a bookmark.  Then, on the bookmark form for the page you've just entered, you may write up to 64K of information on that page!


Placing a bookmark

Going to a book mark

Adding a book to your book shelf


Searching the book for a word of string

See also

To search for a word or string within the book, click the button with the magnifying glass on it.  This will bring up a form with a box for you to enter the word or string you wish to search for.  Type the word.  The default is for the search to take place from the beginning of the book and not to care about case (upper or lower) in your search string.  These are parameters which you can change right there, either before the search or after you have searched a bit.

Once the search has found a word, looking more for the word or string takes place from the next page forward.  Only one occurrence of a word or string will be found on a page, the first.  Also note that all past searches which were successful, will be a the pull-down from the text box in which you entered your search text.  This is to speed up searches that you may do multiple times.

The string or word that was found on a page will be in all capital letters.


Using the index

Adding a bookmark


Using the index

See also

One of the true strengths of Virtual Book is in its ability to create an index of words which you are interested in.  Almost like having a book written just for you and it is a great study tool.  An index can only be kept on a book which is on your book shelf.  Once you have added it you may either add words to your index or view the index and go to words that you have previously stored in it.


Adding to your index

Going to pages in the index


Adding to your index

See also

Adding words to the index is as easy as double-clicking on the word which you want to add.  This will bring up a box with a guess at the word you would like to add, which you may need to modify.  Once you hit "ok", the word will be added to your index.  The second way to add a word to the index is to view the index, then select the "Add " button.  In the box that comes up you may type any word of interest, if it exists in the book, it will be added, if it doesn't exist, you will be told this.


Viewing the index

Using the index


Viewing and going to pages in the index

See also

To view the index from the main book, click on the index button, the one with the image of a hand turning to the back of a book on it.  This will show you the index, completely loaded with all of the words that you have chosen to be in your index.  In the center box you will see all loaded words followed by their occurrences within the book.

Note that if a word appears on more than one consecutive page, this number pointer will read <first page> - <last page>.  For example, if "restful journey" appears on pages 23, 25, 45, 46, 47, and 63, this line will read:

restful journey - 23, 25, 45 - 47, 63

If you then click on a word in this box, the right-hand box will list the pages in one long column.  The page numbers following a dash in the description above will not be there.  In the above sequence, for example, you will see pages 23, 25, 45, 47 and 63 as options here.  You can go to that page by double-clicking on the page number in this box.


Using the index

Adding words to the index


Fonts for your books

See also

For each book you have on your book shelf, you may have any font your system contains.  The default is MS Serif as it is an easy to read font for this purpose, but you can change this if you discover a better one or even have your own which can be used.  Another nifty possibility is that you can choose a really big font size for ease on the eyes... or reading from across the room.  And you lucky ones with the extra large monitors may even like to make the font size a bit smaller so you can fit more of the book into the current page.

When no book is open, selecting a font will set the default for any book you open which is not on the book shelf.


Opening a book


The book shelf


Setting up

See also

Complete with setup

If you downloaded the program complete with setup and have unzipped the it, you will need to run the file called "setup.exe".  This will install Virtual Book into a directory, make a program icon for you and install any other files that you may not have already.

Small file

If you have downloaded the small file, you will need to add your own program icon to run this from the desktop.  In 32-bit version this is done with a right mouse click on the screen.  Select "New" and point to the program's location.  If you are using Win3.1 or workgroups you select the program group which you wish the icon to be in, then select "File" and "New" from the Windows' pull-down menu.

The small file downloads faster true, but it doesn't have the run-time libraries with it.  You may have gotten this file because you are upgrading from a previous or the shareware version.  This will work fine.  However, if you aren't upgrading and you run into a problem with a missing file warning at run-time, you can get the files needed at many sites on-line.  You'll need to do a search with keywords such as "Visual" and "Basic" and "Run-time" and "Libraries", download them, unzip them and put them into your Windows' system directory.  It's not as hard as it may sound and if you have difficulties with this, feel free to drop a note for a bit of assistance.


Support

Registration benefits


Windows 95 and  Windows NT are 32-bit platforms while Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups are 16-bit platforms.


The username and registration key are both case sensitive with respect to any letters they contain.