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What's new in version 1.1 ? ----------------------------------------------------------- If you are a former VR 1.0 or 1.05 user eager to know details on the new features that V1.1 offers, simply search for the string 'V1.1:' - all new features have been marked in this way. For an overview, check the file WHATSNEW.DOC. Introduction and marketing hype ----------------------------------------------------------- VR stands for 'vertical reader' and will add another use to your palmtop: reading 'electronic texts'. (In short, etexts - these are simply ASCII files and can range from short-stories to entire books and novels.) Read a book or short-story wherever you have your palmtop with you: on the train, on the plane, in that boring conference - no need to carry piles of paper along. VR allows you to hold your palmtop like you would hold a book: upright, in one hand. Text is much easier to read this way - the distances the eye has to travel are reduced. VR further increases readability through the use of proportional fonts and on-the-fly word wrapping. It comes with its own little menu system and 'GUI' - all navigation and control keys are conveniently located near your thumb. Installation ----------------------------------------------------------- Installation is described in VRINST95.DOC for the HP95 version of VR, and VRINSTAL.DOC for the HP100 (and CGA compatibles) versions. You will have only one of these files, depending on which archive you got. A sample run ----------------------------------------------------------- Unless you already registered your copy of VR, it will first display a shareware reminder. You can get a brief overview of the registration alternatives (including author's address for sending a postcard, and the SWREG id) by hitting the [R] key at this moment. Otherwise, hit [F10] and the list of available texts will appear. Select one of the available texts with the cursor keys, and hit F10 to accept your choice. (F9 in VR always means CANCEL or QUIT, while F10 is the 'OK' or SELECT key. It also doubles as a MENU key.) (You can also change drive or directory by selecting the corresponding entries. The '<..>' entry brings you up one directory level. You can directly select the <..> entry by hitting the '.' key. Additionally, hitting '*' will show all files regardless of the settings in your CFG file. A letter will select the corresponding drive.) You should now see the first page of your selected text. (Unless you previously opened this text, in which case VR would put you at the page where you left off. Hit [-] in this case to get to page one). Now, hit the [*] key a few times to select a font that you find pleasing to read. Use the cursor keys to page forward and backward. You may quit VR by hitting [F9], then [F10] to confirm. (VR also supports the more conventional quit sequence [MENU][Q], if your palmtop has a [MENU] key). To quit immediately with no questions asked, hit [Q]. A word about word wrap, page positions and rescan ----------------------------------------------------------- Unlike other reader programs, VR doesn't have an 80 column screen at its disposal and can't output lines from the original text verbatim. It must break them down into smaller units by using word wrap and proportional fonts. To save memory, VR doesn't read the whole text into memory, but works directly on the file level. VR also tries to gain more space on the screen by reducing horizontal and vertical whitespace (blanks and empty lines) a bit. While you are reading, VR remembers the file positions of the pages you have visited, so that you can get back to previous pages. Because of this, VR can't directly jump to the end of your text, for example, if it has not seen the last page yet. This is also the reason why you can confuse VR by changing fonts while reading. When you change the text font, the amount of text that fits on a page is very likely to change. This in turn invalidates the page positions VR has remembered - they were valid for the font previously used. The effect is overlap or gaps (depending on the new font chosen) between pages. Don't worry, this will only happen when paging backwards, and is easy to fix. The solution is called 're-scan'. VR can be instructed to re-read your text without actually displaying it, storing updated page positions as it scans along. This will result in consistent pages, and will allow you to jump to the last page of the text. Because scanning may take a long time for large texts (it can process about 3 pages per second on an HP100LX), this operation is not automatically done but is available from the menu. VR command overview ----------------------------------------------------------- All VR commands are directly accessibly via keystroke, but we'll access them through the menu first. Hit [F10] to pop up VR's main menu. To select a command from the menu, move the selection bar using the cursor keys, and hit [F10] or [Enter] to accept. You may also select a command by its hotkey (displayed in angular brackets). The hotkey will work whether there's a menu displayed or not. Commands that have the ellipsis (the three dots) in the menu will pop up further choices (with another chance to cancel), while the others will execute immediately. To cancel the main menu without a selection, hit [F9], [ESC] or the [MENU] key. (Note that you can also pop up the menu again using the [MENU] key - it acts as a toggle). Let's look at the various commands in turn. (NOTE: the hotkeys in angular brackets will reflect the current keyboard layout. This file shows the default layout, and may not show the correct hotkeys if you used VR's keyboard redefinition feature to change them) + About VR ... [?] This command will issue some information on your VR version and its author. Other stuff may be hidden here ... give it a try if you just registered. + New Text ... [/] Will pop up a menu of texts in the VR text directory. (If your VR version is unregistered, the registration reminders will be displayed again at this moment) Select a text from the list and hit [F10] to accept your selection, or cancel using [F9]. If you select a new text, the page positions, current page, text font and bookmarks (see below) of the current text are saved first, unless you disabled this feature in the configuration file. Then, VR tries to recover the above information for the newly opened text. (These are stored in *.VPG files that have the same name as the text file they refer to.) Note: The [.] key will take you up one directory level - same as selecting the <..> entry. The [*] key will show all files, regardless of the filter settings in the config file. This corresponds to selecting the '*.*' entry. Hitting a letter will switch to the corresponding drive, if available. The 'Drives' option in the config file controls which drives are listed as available. (See 'Configuration' below). + Del Text ... [Del] Be careful with this command, as it actually deletes text files. It will prompt for a text to be deleted, and ask for confirmation first before actually doing so. (In order to make you notice that you're doing something potentially dangerous, the main text window gets inverted before the confirmation dialog is displayed. If you confirm the deletion, VR deletes both the text file and the corresponding *.VPG file (if present). (The VPG file holds page start positions and other information for the next time you would open this text.) [Text files - especially books - can use up quite a bit of disk storage. I usually transfer texts from the desktop to the palmtop, and delete them there as soon as I've finished reading one. This is the reason why the delete command is there. Deleting a text file via VR is usually faster than doing so via the filer. VR will delete an existing VPG file, too. (VPG files are files that VR creates in order to remember page positions and bookmarks of texts you already opened). In addition, VR notices if you delete a file that's still being displayed, and closes this text first. You will immediately get the text selection dialog in this case.] + Sel Font ... ["] This command will pop up a menu of text fonts currently present in your VR directory. Select a font to be used, and accept it using [F10] or cancel the menu with [F9]. Be sure to read the section entitled 'A word about word wrap, page positions and rescan' above. Also refer to the chapter on font nomenclature (naming of fonts) below. If you upgraded from VR 1.0 or 1.05, also see the chapter on 'new font management' below. + Nxt Font [*] This command simply cycles through your text fonts without any further interaction - it is probably most useful when directly accessed on the keyboard (by pressing [*]), but was included in the menu for completeness. (In this way, the menu is also a handy quick-reference for the keyboard assignments. The menu always reflects the current keyboard layout, btw.). See the chapter on 'new font management' for a more detailed description of the 'Next Font' function. + First Page [-] Jumps to the very first page of the current text, as you would expect. + Last Page [+] This is less obvious, as this command does _not_ necessarily jump to the very last page of your text. Instead, it can only jump to the last page VR has ever seen of this text. For an explanation of this behaviour, refer to the section entitled 'A word about word wrap, page positions and rescan' above. The last page that VR currently knows is displayed in the status window, see below. + Drop Bmk ... [.] + Goto Bmk ... [=] These two commands are used to drop bookmarks and jump to them. A bookmark is simply a saved position in the text file that you can later return to. Ten bookmarks are available - they are all initialized to the start of the file. When you select 'Drop Bmk', the list of all existing bookmarks with their current page numbers is displayed. Select the bookmark you wish to use, and hit [F10] to deposit it on the current page. You can later go back to that spot using 'Goto Bmk'. Note that while the bookmark menu is displayed, you can hit the digits from 0 to 9 to quickly select from the list without having to move the cursor. This works with 'Goto Bmk' as well as with 'Drop Bmk'. When you press a digit with _no_ menu displayed, the corresponding bookmark is dropped on the current page. Note also that bookmarks really remember file positions, not pages. Suppose you're reading a text in a rather tiny font, drop bookmark 1 on page 7 and then later decide to switch to a larger font and do a rescan (see section entitled 'A word about word wrap, page positions and rescan' above). The page number of bookmark 1 will now be higher because pages contain less text. Also, bookmark 1 will probably not be on the top of a page any more. When you jump to bookmark 1, VR will try to find the correct location regardless of current page size. + Full rescan [<] + Scan to end [>] These two commands scan your text as if you were reading it very fast - without displaying the pages (the status window is updated though, watch it to see the scan progress). A full rescan starts at page 1, while a rescan to end starts at your current page. You would do a full rescan to ensure correct page positions after a font change, for example. A reason for a 'scan to end' might be that you want to be able to go to the last page of the text. + V1.1: Search ... [s] + V1.1: Search Next [n] These functions permit searching for a pattern that you enter, or predefined patterns that have been previously set up in the configuration file. (See the description of the [Patterns] section for details) 'Search' will pop up a selection dialog, while 'Next' will search again for the previous pattern. Both can optionally use 'regular expressions' ('regex', in short). If you are not familiar with these, refer to TREX.DOC - regular expressions are explained in detail there. TREX.EXE is a small program that you can use to experiment with regular expression searching. NOTE: Regular expressions are off by default, until you activate them. Use the [R] command (described below) to switch regex usage on or off. Note also that searching is case insensitive when regular expressions are off. To illustrate regex versatility, lets have some examples here, though. This regular expression: Searches for: [0-9]+ any sequence of digits 95|100 95 or 100 HP(95|100)LX HP95LX or HP100LX [pP]almtop palmtop or Palmtop [a-zA-Z]+ lowercase or uppercase word NOTE: the search function searches in the original file, using the line structure of that file. It _starts_ searching at the current top of page, however (actually, it starts with the _second_ display line, to be precise). This may cause two effects that one has to be aware of to understand the behaviour: 1.) If 'search' finds an occurence of a pattern in the file, it stops searching and displays that line on top of the page. Due to wrapping, the actual pattern match may be displayed further down on the VR page, and not in display line one. VR will highlight the line containing your search pattern. 2.) If you use 'Search Next' after such a case, VR will start searching with the second line of the VR display. Therefore, it can eventually find the same occurence again. The match will move up display line by display line. NOTE: A successful search will position the next page to the location in the file where the pattern was found. You can go back to your previous position with the 'Prev Page' command. + V1.1: Extras ... [x] The 'Extra' menu contains a collection of options and commands that are more rarely used, and are mostly configuration options. You can go directly to the extra menu by hitting its 'hot key': [x]. The various extra menu items are listed below: + V1.1: Set regex ... [r] (on extra menu) This function enables or disables regular expressions in the search command. If you disable regular expressions, searching will be a bit faster, but all the regex special characters loose their meaning and will be used 'as is'. (This is also true for predefined patterns from the config file!) With regular expressions disabled, the search command will behave like the traditional search function of text editors. Note that the 'set regex' function will ask you whether to enable or disable regex. The default choice will always be the opposite of what is currently selected - making toggling this switch easy. Also note that this setting is saved in VR.SAV, thus survives from one VR session to the next. + V1.1: Rotate 180 [c] (on extra menu) This will rotate the VR display by 180 degrees - a very popular request from VR 1.0 and 1.05 users. Here it is - you can now hold your palmtop in the 'other' hand, or even switch orientation dynamically from time to time. VR has two separate keyboard tables for normal and rotated mode, so you can redefine the keyboard layout to your likings in both modes independently. VR will remember the orientation that you used the last time you ran it, and will come up in this mode the next time. Btw, while the [c] hotkey might mean '[c]hange orientation' this key was really chosen for the nice mnemonic (CALC) legend that is has on the HP100LX. + V1.1: Autoscroll [}] (on extra menu) This will start autoscroll (acts as a toggle). While autoscroll is active, a 'single line scroll' command will be automatically generated every few seconds. (See 'Scroll Delay', below). You can stop auto-scroll by issuing this command a second time. + V1.1: AutoJmp ... []] (on extra menu) This will set the 'jump' increments used in auto-scroll. Values available are 1, 2, 8 and 16 pixel lines at a time. 1 will yield a nice but slower soft scroll, 16 will give a fast but 'jumpier' whole line scroll. + V1.1: LineJmp ... [{] (on extra menu) Basically the same as 'AutoJmp', but sets the increment used in the manual 'Line +' command. (described below) + V1.1: Scrl Dly ... [;] (on extra menu) This will influence auto-scrolling speed. The higher you set this delay parameter, the slower the scroll will be. The value controls the time that passes between two 'single line' commands automatically inserted by the scrolling logic. Note that you can still issue all VR commands, even when auto-scroll is on. Note: To get the approximate delay in seconds, divide the value you selected by 18. + V1.1: Def Key ... [k] (on extra menu) This functions allows customizing the VR keyboard layout to your gusto. You can also use it to create a situation where you'll be completely lost as to where what function is, so be careful - you have been warned. (See the 'Hints' below if you came to this spot with that problem) The redefinition command works in three stages. First, you will be asked to hit the 'current' key - the one that you want to 'move', i.e. whose function you'd like to be elsewhere in the future. Of course you have to hit a key that _has_ a function assigned to it currently. Then, you will have to hit the key you would like the function on. (The 'new' key). This key may _not_ have a function assigned to it already. Finally, you'll have to provide a name for the new key. If you hit a letter or digit key, just use that. If you selected a non-printing key, use a mnemonic abbreviation (four letters max) that you'll be able to associate with the key later. (Examples: PDN for Page Down, LF for Left, RT for Right, etc.). After you redefined a key, VR will ask if you want to save your definitions to the VRKEYS file. (Making them permanent) If you just wanted to try the redefinition feature, answer no, and the new definition will be active for the current session only. Some keyboard redefinition hints: - choose meaningful names for your new keys. You can always find out where a certain function is by looking at the menu - provided that you can remember the names you gave to your keys, and what keys were meant. - don't include the angular brackets ([]) in a key name - VR will provide them in the menues itself. - if you change the location of the 'Menu' key, be sure to remember where it is - this key is not listed in the menu, of course. - there is no direct way to swap two keys - you'll have to use an unassigned key as a temporary. (If you need to swap keys [A] and [B], which are both used, move key [A] to [X], move key [B] to [A], and finally [X] to [B]. [X] should be and unused key) - You can change the name you gave a certain key by redefining this key to itself (select 'define key', then hit it twice), and then entering the new name for the key. - if your keyboard assignments get completely messed up, delete the VRKEYS files. This will cause VR to revert to its built-in defaults the next time it is started. If you use rotated mode, you will need to swap the 'Page Up' and 'Page Down' keys after this. You can of course also use a backup of the VRKEYS files to recover the original assignments. - if you don't use VR in rotated mode, you can delete VRKEYS.ROT to save some space. - if you hit ESC during key redefinition, VR asks if you mean the [ESC] key as such, or want to back out of the redefinition. Redefining the [ESC] key is not recommended, though. + V1.1: Del Font ... [BSP] (on extra menu) This function permits to delete the currently selected text font. It is useful if you want to evaluate fonts: copy them to your HP100LX, use the 'Select Font' (["]) function to position to the first font, and delete those that you don't want to keep. (You can switch from one font to the next one using the 'Nxt Font' ([*]) function) Note: 'Delete font' is on the backspace key in the original keyboard layout. It will first ask if you actually want to delete the current font, inverting the text window in the same way as 'Delete Text' does, to get your attention. If you successfully delete a font, the first one of the VR directory will be used instead - unless you delete all fonts, in which case an internal 'emergency' font gets activated. + V1.1: Next Page [RT] (on extra menu) Positions to the next page. This function is on the menu for completeness. Note that the 'Next Page' function is also available via the space bar. You can separately move these two keys elsewhere using keyboard redefinition if you want to - they will always do exactly the same, though. + V1.1: Prev Page [LF] (on extra menu) Positions to the previous page. This function is on the menu for completeness. + V1.1: Line + [p] (on extra menu) Scrolls a single line. While you scroll 'into' a page, VR displays the number of lines that scrolled off the top of the page in the status window (separated by a dot from the page number.) It also remembers the corresponding file offset positions so that you can back up using the 'Line -' command. + V1.1: Line - [l] (on extra menu) Backs up a single line - until at top of the current page. You can't back up beyond the page top. + Quit [Q] Well, the quit command leaves VR. There are actually two quit commands: hitting the CANCEL key ([F9]) with no menu displayed will ask for confirmation before quitting. Hitting [F10][Q] or [MENU][Q] or just [Q] will leave VR no questions asked. The status window ----------------------------------------------------------- VR uses two lines on the bottom of the screen to display some status information. The first line looks like this: 26/27 (50%) SPAB0015 B3 The first number pair gives the current page number, and the number of the highest page that VR can currently go to. (It will do so when you hit the [+] key or select the corresponding command from the menu). V1.1: If you used the single-line scroll command, or if you have autoscroll active, the number of lines scrolled of the top of the current page will be displayed also, like this: 26.4/27 (52%) SPAB0015 B3 Here, the single-line scroll command has been used four times. Note that you can use the single-line backscroll command [L] only if there's a value displayed after the decimal point. You cannot single-line scroll back beyond a page boundary. The percent value displayed in parentheses is an indication of your position in the file. A low percentage means near the start of the text, a high percent value is near its end. This value does not, unlike page numbers, depend on fonts. V1.1: The field after the percent value shows the currently selected text font name (without path or extension). Refer to the chapter below for details on the new font management - if you are a V1.0 or V1.05 VR user. B<#> only shows up if there's one or more bookmarks on the current page. It will only show the first bookmark, though - the one with the lowest number. (All ten bookmarks (numbered 0 to 9) are initially on Page 1) The second line in the status window gives information about VR version number and author. V1.1: Under new management: fonts and wrapping ----------------------------------------------------------- + Font management has been greatly simplified in VR 1.1. There is one disadvantage: you can no longer specify the fonts to be used for the status line or menues in the config file - default fonts will be used. The advantages outweigh, however: - built-in fonts ensure that VR can use an emergency strategy and work even if only VR.EXE has been copied to the palmtop or all fonts have been deleted. - VR versions before 1.1 loaded all text fonts at startup. This is no longer necessary - only one font is loaded and kept in memory. This both frees up memory and accelerates startup. - Fonts copied to the VR directory are immediately available for selection. Fonts deleted disappear from the selection menu, V1.1 in fact has a 'Delete Font' function (originally on the backspace key) to help you eliminate fonts that you don't want to keep on the palmtop. - The whole concept of font number no longer exists, the entire [Fonts] section of VR 1.0 and 1.05, with its complicated and error-prone settings has been eliminated. The [*] key (Next Font function) now tries to find the currently used font in the VR directory, and if found, uses the next one in the list (wrapping to the first one on the list if necessary). If the current font is not found, the first one in the list is used too, unless there are _no_ fonts at all in which case the built-in emergency font (named INTERNAL) is used. + Wrapping has been enhanced to detect paragraph breaks. A line starting with blanks will cause VR to start a new line. VR can now be used to read poetry, provided the poems are indented at least one space. In addition, you can define 'force wrap' strings that will simplify reading email, for example. See the paragraph on 'Wrap.<Ext>' entries in the chapter on configuration ([Texts] section) below for details and an example. Starting VR from MSDOS ----------------------------------------------------------- You can launch VR from the DOS commandline. It accepts an optional argument, the file to be displayed. You can either specify a file in the currenty directory, or use a complete path with an optional drive specifier. Don't use relative or incomplete paths, though. VR will show the directory contents in its file selection box, and will highlight the selected file, so that you can confirm it by simply pressing [F10] or [Enter]. Note: your file must match the TextExt patterns from the config file, or it won't get displayed. (In this case, hitting [*] while in the file selection dialog may cause it to show up) Configuration ----------------------------------------------------------- Customization of VR is done in VR.CFG, an ASCII file that can be modified with any editor - MEMO for example (if you have an HP palmtop). Note that changes in VR.CFG will not take effect while VR is still running - you have to quit and restart it in this case. HP95 users: the configuration file is named VR95.CFG in your case. VR.CFG consists of sections, comments and assignments. If you ever saw a WIN.INI file, you will know this format. A line starting with a semicolon (';') is a comment - these are simply ignored by VR. A section is simply a name enclosed in angular brackets. It defines the 'topic' that the following assignments belong to. All assignment lines following a section belong to that section. An assignment has the form 'Name = Value'. Let's have a look at the most important sections and assignments: The [User] section This section will contain your registration information. Basically, the 'UserName' variable will get hold your name, and 'Serial' will be an activation code that I'll send to you as soon as I get your registration (either postcard, SWREG registration (Id 1719), or confirmation of P.G. donation) Please refer to the 'REGISTER.DOC' file for details on VR registration. The [Options] section As the name implies, some general options can be set here. + 'InvStat' determines whether the status window gets inverted. Set InvStat to 1 if you want this, 0 otherwise. + 'TextFrame' controls wether a frame is drawn around the text window. This looks nices, but costs a few pixels horizontal display space. Setting both TextFrame and InvStat to 0 is not recommended. (Hard to read) + if 'SaveStatus' is set to 1 (recommended), VR will try to remember the current settings status next time you start it. It will record the page positions, current page number, bookmarks and current font of the texts visited, the directory and file name of the last loaded text and the scroll delay and jump settings as well as the last orientation (normal or rotated) used. Text-specific information (like page positions and bookmarks) is saved to a file with the same name as your text, but the extension 'VPG'. This file will be created in the same directory as the text file. If you want VR to create all the VPG files in the VR directory instead, set 'SaveStatus' to 2. + V1.1: the 'Drives' variable controls which drives will be selectable in the file selection dialogs in VR. It should be a semicolon-separated list, like this: Drives = 'A:;C:;D:' This would make drives A, C, and D selectable. The default (if 'Drives' is not present) is 'A:;C:'. + V1.1: if you like, you can put all your font files in a separate directory. Use the 'FontDir' variable to tell VR where to look for fonts. Example: FontDir = 'F:\VR\FONTS\' VR will look in the directory where its executable resides by default. The [Patterns] section V1.1: This section holds the default patterns for regular expression searching. Each entry consists of the actual pattern (regular expression), and an optional name. The entries are of the form P<number> = '<regex>' N<number> = '<name>' <number> starts at 1, must be consecutive, and 10 at most. The 'P<Number>' is the actual regular expression that will be searched for, while the corresponding 'N<number>' string will be displayed in the search menu. This allows giving meaningful names to the somewhat cryptic-looking search patterns. See the config file for some examples. Regular expressions are explained in TREX.DOC. The [Text] section + 'TextExt' will control which text files are displayed in the file selection dialog. It is a semicolon-separated list, like this: TextExt = *.txt;*.doc;*.mes;*.sav This would instruct VR to only display files with the extension TXT, DOC, MES and SAV. (Note that you can always get all files by hitting [*] while in the file selection dialog) + 'DefFont' Specifies the default font to be used when loading a new text. V1.1: Note that DefFont now refers to a font name, (without path or extension) no longer to a number as in V1.0 or 1.1. + 'Wrap.<Ext>' entries. V1.1: These entries allow you to specify, per file extension, a number of strings that will, when encountered in column 1 of the original text, cause VR to 'wrap' too, i.e. start a new line. Sounds complicated ? It isn't, though. Imagine reading a CompuServe message file (or other news or email). Each message starts with a header like this: #: 0 S11/Saved Msg <REP 73299> 27-Aug-93 08:46:14 Sb: VR - Vertical Reader Fr: Gilles Kohl 100114,3146 To: fred kaufman 72560,36 It would normally be wrapped by VR, looking somewhat like this #: 0 S11/Saved Msg <REP 73299> 27-Aug-93 08:46:14 Sb: VR - Vertical Reader Fr: Gilles Kohl 100114,3146 To: fred kaufman 72560,36 Using a 'Forced Wrapping' string, you can tell VR to start a new line when it encounters '#:', 'Sb:', 'Fr:' or 'To:' at the start of a line in the original file. If your message files have the MES extension, you would do this that like this: Wrap.MES = '#:|Sb:|Fm:|To:' Use the vertical bar character to separate the various strings from each other. Font nomenclature ----------------------------------------------------------- VR fonts are named using the following system: letter 1: identifies the 'family'. s: sans serif font ('helvetica' style) f: font with serifs ('times roman' style) letter 2: monospaced or proportional m: monospaced p: proportional letter 3: character set a: ascii only (characters from 32 to 126 available) x: extended set letter 4: type n: normal b: bold letters 5-6: width in pixel for a monospaced font, 00 for a proportional font. letters 7-8: depth in pixel for a monospaced font, approximate point size for a proportional font. Contacting the author ----------------------------------------------------------- You can contact me via e-mail under Compuserve: Gilles Kohl 100114,3146 Internet : 100114.3146@compuserve.com FidoNet : 2:244/1106.3 CompuServe is the preferred way to reach me. Please don't send large email (i.e. more than 5K or so) from the Internet, as I have to pay for it. If you need to use mail or want to send a postcard, the address is: Gilles Kohl, Rudolfstrasse 12 D-76131 Karlsruhe GERMANY Troubleshooting, Q & A ----------------------------------------------------------- Q: I can't launch VR from AppMgr using the hotkey (on HP100LX) A: Check if there's another application using the same hotkey that comes first in the list of AppMgr icons. Also check if the 'Name' field in the VR entry has an '&' character preceeding the desired hotkey. Suggested hotkey for VR is V. If you get a message saying 'A DOS application is already open', press <Ctrl>-[123] to switch to this application (which might be VR in which case your problem is already resolved) and terminate it. Then try to start VR again. Q: I get the message: "Not enough memory to open application" (HP100LX) A: This message comes from Application Manager. Close some open applications, and try again. You may also try to reduce the amount of memory allocated to VR - see 'to change the path field in the VR AppMgr entry' below. Q: I get the message: "Insufficient memory" A: When started, VR checks if sufficient memory is available. The message issued indicates that this was not the case. To make more memory available for VR, you can either change the amount of memory allocated to DOS applications in general, or specify the memory required in the path field in the VR AppMgr entry. (HP100LX) + To change the amount of memory allocated to DOS applications: (HP100LX) Start the Setup application (hit Ctrl-Filer), and enter [Menu]<Options> <System>. Then select <Advanced>. Enter at least 90 in the 'DOS' field. This may affect other of your DOS application. + To change the path field in the VR AppMgr entry: (HP100LX) Start Application Manager (hit [&...]). Highlight the VR icon and press [F3] and TAB to the 'Path' field. Add a '|' vertical bar character (Shift '\', near the [ESC] key) and the number 90 to the contents of the 'Path' field. If there already is a '|' and a figure, make sure it is at least 90. Q: I get a 'Quit VR ?' prompt when loading a text. A: Something seems wrong with the text you're trying to load. Switch to filer and check if there is a VPG file with the same root name as your text, and in the same directory. Delete it, and try again. Q: The page up key doesn't seem to work right (Note: the 'Page Up' key in VR is actually the 'Cursor Left' key of your palmtop - be sure you're using that key.) A: VR may get confused if you change font size in the middle of a text. See the section entitled 'A word about word wrap, page positions and rescan' above for a description of the problem and its solution. Q: VR doesn't seem to remember the last text I opened A: VR usually does this, and places the highlight bar in the text selection menu on this text. If the directory where VR is stored is write-protected, this will not work however. VR stores the last text in a file called VR.SAV in this directory. Also, if the directory where your texts are stored is write-protected, VR will not be able to remember the last page and bookmarks of your texts. Q: I need to save some disk space A: Try to delete unneeded fonts. You can delete a font using the backspace ([<--]) key in VR. If you don't use rotation, you can delete VRKEYS.ROT. If you are happy with the standard key assignments, VRKEYS.NRM. As an absolute minimum, only VR.EXE (resp. VR95.EXE) is required to run VR. Q: Some texts look weird when viewed using VR A: The wrapping routines in VR try to fit text into the space available as well as they can. They succeed pretty well at this with normal linear text, but will fail on tabular data where the original line breaks have to be preserved. Q: My old texts (opened with VR 1.0 or 1.05) don't come up in the font they used to. A: Yes - this is due to the new font management. Your old VPG files contain the font _number_ to use, as older VR versions used a numbering scheme. The new version can directly use font names. There is an easy workaround for this problem. Edit the CFG file, and assign DefFont (in the [Texts] section) to the default font name you'd like to have. (Ex.: DefFont = FPAB0013). When detecting a numerical font reference in an old VPG file, VR will use your default font instead. Q: My problem is not listed above. A: If you're on CompuServe, describe your problem in the HPHAND forum, section 'HP100LX General'. You can also send an email to one of the addresses listed above. (Using the forum might be slightly faster because one of the other VR users might have a solution for your problem before I even see it). I do not monitor HP95LX sections, or comp.sys.palmtops - if you post a question there, other VR users may be able to help you, but I won't see it. Where to find more etexts ----------------------------------------------------------- There are several sources for etexts that can be read with VR: + The Literary forum on CompuServe (GO LITFORUM) The libraries of this forum have a wealth of etexts available for download. I'd suggest getting an overview by downloading the summary files first. A good author to try is George Alec Effinger, for example. + The Science Fiction and Fantasy Forum on CompuServe (GO SCI-FI) Lots of etexts here too. I read (and liked) SOUL.TXT by Mike Resnick in Section 3, and BARB.TXT by John Thompson in section 14. + The Travel Forum on CompuServe. (GO TRAVSIG) More non-fiction here of course. You'll find travel diaries, saved forum threads discussing issues important to the frequent traveller, member-written reports and tips, etc. If you're in a hurry, download the files relevant to your destination, and read while on the plane. + CDROMs. If your PC or Mac is equipped with a CDROM drive, you can get entire collections of etexts on CDROM. Here's a short list - those that I have. * "World Library's 171 Stories of Murder, Mystery, Magic, Terror &more..." Definitely a must if you like Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft ... Has a complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. Contact (from the back of the CD): WORLD LIBRARY INC., 12914 Haster Street, Garden Grove, CA 92640. (714)748-7197 or (800)443-0238 * Bureau Development's "Great Literature" CDROM. (Runs on both Mac and PC.) Has the texts of 1896 literary classics. Impressive list of authors and texts. Contact (from the back of the CD): Bureau Development, Inc., 141 New Road, Parsipany, NJ 07054. (201)-808-2700 * Walnut Creek's "Project Gutenberg CDROM" This CD has a wealth of etexts, both zipped and unzipped. The texts are all from Project Gutenberg (read more about P.G. below) and include classics like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide, Moby Dick, The Time Machine ... Contact address: Walnut Creek CDROM 1547 Palos Verdes Mall, #260 Walnut Creek, CA 94596 +1 510 674-0783 email: info@cdrom.com + Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg was initiated by Prof. Michael S. Hart. Their goal is to make a maximum of free electronic texts available to everybody. Send e-mail to dircompg@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu for details on the project. (Also see the file 'register.doc' for more addresses.) To retrieve etexts via FTP: FTP mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.201.12), (login 'anonymous', password 'your@login') cd etext and snoop around. To get etexts via e-mail, send the following line by itself to almanac@oes.orst.edu send gutenberg catalog then follow the instructions from the Almanac server in Oregon. (Attention CompuServers: receiving huge e-mail from the Internet may be dangerous to your CIS bill) Information on contacting P.G. via mail both for information and donations is contained in the file REGISTER.DOC. Appendix A: VFN Font file format ----------------------------------------------------------- (This is probably dull stuff if you aren't into programming) VFN files have a simple structure: a header directly followed by the bitmap defining the characters. A.1: VFN file header ----------------------------------------------------------- typedef struct { int maxwidth; int vbytes; int minchar; int maxchar; int isfixed; } VFNHDR; /* Font header as read from file */ * maxwidth gives the number of bytes (or words) in each character. Each character starts with a byte (or word) giving the actual width. To speed up address calculations, every character has 'maxwidth' bytes (or words), even in a proportional font. * vbytes is either one or two. It gives the height of the font. VFN fonts come in two flavors: one byte (eight pixels) or two bytes (a word, 16 pixels) high. * minchar is the lowest character in the font. For fonts covering the ASCII range, this is usually 32 (a space). To find the definition of character C, subtract minchar from it, then multiply with maxwidth and index (via a byte or word pointer, depending on vbytes) into the bitmap. * maxchar is the highest character in the font. For a font covering the ASCII range, this is usually 126 (the tilde). * isfixed is purely informative - it indicates if this is a monospaced font or not. isfixed could also be computed by looking at the width byte (word) for all characters - if they are all the same, isfixed should be 1. A.2: VFN character bitmap ----------------------------------------------------------- The bitmap immediately follows the VFN header. If vbytes is 1, it consists of bytes, if vbytes is 2, it consists of words. For every character between minchar and maxchar, the bitmap has vbytes * maxwidth bytes. The very first byte (resp. word) of these tells how many of the following are actually part of the character and should be output. Appendix B: VRKEYS.* keyboard table file format ----------------------------------------------------------- (This is probably dull stuff if you aren't into programming) There are two VRKEYS files: VRKEYS.NRM und VRKEYS.ROT. The first one is used in normal, the second one in rotated orientation. The keyboard table is loaded at startup and each time the 'rotate' command is executed. It is written when a keyboard redefinition command is executed. When either file isn't present when it is accessed, the current internal settings are used. A VR keyboard table consists of single entries - each entry represents one function, and looks like this: typedef struct { WORD Key; char Desc[5]; } KEYTABENTRY; Key is the scancode, and Desc the description (legend) of the key. It is user-supplied - prevents problems with keyboards having a different layout or different key naming. Each keyboard table entry is seven bytes long. The position of the entry in the file determines which function is bound to the corresponding key. The VR functions are: typedef enum { CMD_NONE = -1, CMD_UP /* #0 KEY_UP */, CMD_DN /* #1 KEY_DN */, CMD_LF /* #2 KEY_LF */, CMD_RT /* #3 KEY_RT */, CMD_ESC /* #4 '\033' */, CMD_RET /* #5 '\r' */, CMD_SPC /* #6 ' ' */, CMD_MENU1 /* #7 KEY_MNU */, CMD_MENU2 /* #8 KEY_F10 */, CMD_NEWTXT /* #9 '/' */, CMD_DELETE /* #10 KEY_DEL */, CMD_SELFNT /* #11 '\"' */, CMD_CHGFNT /* #12 '*' */, CMD_GTOMRK /* #13 '=' */, CMD_DRPMRK /* #14 '.' */, CMD_GTOTOP /* #15 '-' */, CMD_GTOBTM /* #16 '+' */, CMD_CANCEL /* #17 KEY_F9 */, CMD_ENDSCN /* #18 '>' */, CMD_FULSCN /* #19 '<' */, CMD_QUIT /* #20 'q' */, CMD_ABOUT /* #21 '?' */, CMD_DIGIT0 /* #22 '0' */, CMD_DIGIT1 /* #23 '1' */, CMD_DIGIT2 /* #24 '2' */, CMD_DIGIT3 /* #25 '3' */, CMD_DIGIT4 /* #26 '4' */, CMD_DIGIT5 /* #27 '5' */, CMD_DIGIT6 /* #28 '6' */, CMD_DIGIT7 /* #29 '7' */, CMD_DIGIT8 /* #30 '8' */, CMD_DIGIT9 /* #31 '9' */, CMD_INCLIN /* #32 'p' */, CMD_DECLIN /* #33 'l' */, CMD_SCROLL /* #34 '}' */, CMD_EXTRAS /* #35 'x' */, CMD_SCRJMP /* #36 ']' */, CMD_LINJMP /* #37 '{' */, CMD_SCRDLY /* #38 ';' */, CMD_ROTATE /* #39 'c' */, CMD_SEARCH /* #40 's' */, CMD_SRCHNX /* #41 'n' */, CMD_DEFKEY /* #42 'k' */, CMD_DELFNT /* #43 '\b' */ CMD_DOREGX /* #44 'r' */ } CMDTYPE; Note: -1 is not a function, the keyboard table starts with function zero at byte zero. Credits ----------------------------------------------------------- Many thanks to Tom Rundel for valuable suggestions, ideas and continued betatesting since the very first (baby) VR versions. Lots of thanks to Craig Payne for the fast assembly language softscroll routines in VR 1.1, betatesting, and lots of helpful hints, tips and suggestions. Thanks to Everett Kaser and Fred Kaufmann for the hidden limericks. Thanks to Bob Graham for permission to include BEARS*.TXT in the VR distribution archive. If you liked it, drop him a note at >INTERNET: bgraham@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.edu Thanks to Robert Williams for contributing VR loader programs for the HP95. (Contained in the HP95 distribution archive) Thanks to the Executive Director of Project Gutenberg, Prof. Michael Hart, for making a wealth of etexts available to the general public, and for providing information on this organization. Thanks to Dave Marsh and family for the 'impatient user' beta test <g>. Last but not least, thanks to those who registered version 1.0 or 1.05 of VR, and to the HPHAND community on CompuServe for their suggestions, help and support.