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PRESENT A Slide Presentation System (C) Copyright Fernando Pertuz 1985 INTRODUCTION System Description. The PRESENT Slide Presentation System is a set of easy to use programs that allow you to save screen images to a disk or diskette, arrange those images in any desired order and turn your Personal Computer into a full featured Slide Projector to display those images on a color monitor. PRESENT consists of three main programs and two utilities: The CAMERA program, once installed will remain in memory and will allow you to save screen images of just about any program that runs under DOS. The PREPARE program allows you to arrange those screen images or pictures into a "Slide tray file" in the desired order to be used by the PRESENT program. The PRESENT program turns your Personal Computer into a Slide Projector to make professional presentations. Two utilities are provided to enhance compatibility between PRESENT and other programs that store screen images in Basic's "BSAVE" format. These utilities are used to convert Present's Compressed picture files into BSAVE type files and vice-versa. Features. PRESENT has many features that make it very well suited for making presentations on a personal computer. These features are best appreciated when using the programs. * PRESENT can be run in manual or unattended modes. * PRESENT will support high or medium resolution graphics images, and 40 or 80 columns text screens. * Slide colors can be set for each slide with 16 different background colors and up to 6 palettes (4 on color composite monitors). * The transition from slide to slide can be selected from 12 different dissolve types for all slide types. * Slide timings and the dissolve type can be set for each individual slide in unattended presentations. * If joysticks are attached, these can be used to control your presentation and to move an on screen pointer. * If both monochrome and color monitors are attached to the system, you can "Look aside" at supporting slides without disrupting the order of your presentation, skip over a part of it or re-show a sequence of slides. * PRESENT slides are stored in a compressed format which allows for about 100 slides to be stored in a 360k diskette. * PRESENT is compatible with standard BASIC BSAVE type image files. Package Contents. PRESENT consists of the following files: Files Description PRESENT DOC This document PRESENT.COM PRESENT program PRESENT.HLP PRESENT Help file PREPARE.COM PREPARE program PREPARE.HLP PREPARE Help file CAMERA.COM CAMERA program COMPRESS.COM COMPRESS utility EXPAND.COM EXPAND utility GRAPHELP.PIC Graphics Help File TEXTHELP.PIC Text Image Help File *.PIC Picture files DEMO. Demonstration file System Requirements Minimum Requirements - DOS 1.1, 2.0, 2.1 or 3.0 - An IBM PC, PC-XT, Portable PC, PC Jr. or PC-AT (*) (*) The PC-AT may require the Game control card. - 128K bytes of memory - One diskette drive - Color Display Optional: - IBM monochrome display - Joysticks RUNNING THE DEMONSTRATION The demonstration can be run in either manual or unattended modes. To run the demonstration in unattended mode place all the .PIC files described above into a single diskette together with the DEMO.PRS file, place the diskette in drive A, make sure that PRESENT.COM is in the default drive and when the DOS prompt appears enter: PRESENT A:DEMO * A title screen will appear for a few seconds and in a short while, the first slide will appear on the color screen and you will hear a beep. The beep is an indication that the presentation was started in the unattended mode and that it is ready to begin. Press the Esc key to begin the show. Each slide will remain on the screen for approximately 8 seconds and then proceed to the next When the presentation is running in unattended mode you may stop it at any time by pressing the Esc key. The presentation will stop and may be resumed by pressing the Esc key. To end the demonstration you must first stop it as described above and then press Ctrl-End, or wait until the last slide (which has been programmed to stop the show), press Ctrl-End and you will return to the DOS prompt. The demonstration may also be run in the manual mode, to do this, type: PRESENT A:DEMO In a short while, after the Title screen, the first slide will appear on the color screen, press the space bar on the keyboard to continue to the next slide. Pressing the space bar or the plus (+) key (either one) will advance the presentation to the next slide, pressing the minus (-) key, will return to the last slide. Pressing the letter "A", will turn the Auto dissolve feature on and off. When auto dissolve is on, the slides will be dissolved according to the dissolve type programmed in the presentation. When it is off, the slides will simply be replaced. If you have joysticks connected to the system you may use the stick on joystick A to move an on screen pointer. Pressing the letter "P" will turn the pointer on and off. You may also advance to the next slide or return to the last slide by pressing buttons 1 and 2 on joystick A respectively. To end the presentation when running in the manual mode, press Ctrl-End and you will return to the DOS prompt. If you have both a monochrome and a color monitor, you will see that the monochrome will have some information displayed. This information is needed for using PRESENT's advanced features which will be described later. HOW TO USE PRESENT Using PRESENT is similar to what you would do to prepare a slide show on a slide projector. You must first either take your own pictures with a camera or use pictures that you already have. You then gather all the slides together and put them in the desired order, place them on a slide tray, put the slide tray in your projector and off you go. With PRESENT you do exactly the same. You use the CAMERA to take pictures, PREPARE to put them together and assemble a "tray" and PRESENT is your projector. I. GATHERING PICTURES FOR YOUR PRESENTATION PRESENT has been designed to use the most common form of storing graphics images, the BSAVE format. However, this method it rather inefficient in the use of disk space as a graphics image requires 16K bytes of disk space for each picture. Compressed pictures are more efficient both in their use of space as well as in the speed with which they are read. To gather picture images you can use just about any file generated by a program than stores its pictures in a BSAVEd format. However, you must first rename the file with a .PIC extension so that it can be recognized by the system as an image file. As for text image files, there is really no common protocol other than possibly a BSAVE type. Text images on the other hand cannot be easily compressed, so the PRESENT system will only handle them in an expanded form. When PREPARE or PRESENT encounters an uncompressed file, it will use its size to determine the type of image. If the file size is between 4096 and 4351 bytes (1000H and 10FFH) in length, the system will assume that the file is an 80x25 text image. If the file is greater than 4351 bytes long a graphics image will be assumed. If the file size is lower than 4096 bytes, a 40x25 text file will be assumed. If you intend to use your own text image files please make sure that they comply with the above conditions of size and that the files have the .PIC extension. The CAMERA program was designed precisely to aid in the gathering of all types of picture images and it's use is especially recommended for getting text image files. In order to make a better use of disk space (and speed) it is advisable to compress your graphics pictures. This can be accomplished by using COMPRESS which will not only compress the pictures but it will also allow you to copy them into a single diskette. II. USING THE CAMERA To use the camera, it must first be installed. The program when installed will remain resident in memory. The program is invoked by pressing Alt PrtSc which will take the contents of the currently active screen's buffer and save it in a file, the contents of the mode and color registers will also be saved so that the image will be displayed with the settings in effect when its picture was taken. If the image on the display screen is a graphic image it will be stored in a compressed mode. Text screens will be saved "as is", in other words a 40x25 screen will use 2048 bytes of storage and an 80x25 screen will use 4096 bytes. The camera's "film" consists of a file name pattern with an optional drive address. The name pattern is a valid file name only 6 characters long. Pictures will be stored in a file whose name begins with the 6 characters of the pattern followed by a two digit number which will be incremented every time a picture is taken. The extension will always be forced to .PIC. If less than 6 characters are specified in the pattern, zeroes will be added to the right. However, the count will always be between 00 and 99. If more than 100 pictures are taken the number will be reset to 0. Command syntax: There are two options for the Camera command: Option 1: CAMERA [Drive:]Pattern Where: Drive (optional, if not present the default will be used) is the drive letter where the pictures will be stored. Pattern is a one to six character field (no wildcards) that will become the first six characters of the filenames of the pictures to be stored. If less than 6 are given, the remainder will be filled with zeroes. Note: Path names are not permitted. Option 2: CAMERA (enter) Option 1 is used to install the camera or to change the drive and filename pattern. (to change its "film") Option 2 is used to toggle the camera on or off. If the camera was on it will be turned off and vice-versa. (when the camera is turned off it will remain in memory but it will not take pictures) TAKING PICTURES When the camera is installed and active, two key combinations can be used to take pictures. Pressing Alt-PrtSc will store the contents of the currently active screen buffer into the specified file and pressing Alt-Shift-PrtSc will store the contents of the color screen buffer into the specified file and assume that a graphics picture is being taken. This command can be given at either the command level or at an application program level. Although I have taken the necessary precautions to allow its use at anytime, I would recommend that you take "still pictures". That is to say that there be no disk activity in progress when a picture is being taken. The camera will not signal when it has finished taking a picture, you will simply notice that the disk in use light goes off. On the other hand if CAMERA encounters a problem while taking a picture, it will beep to indicate that something went wrong, either that the disk was full, the drive was not ready, the disk was write protected, or that there was another error related to a disk I/O operation. Because of this audible signal, I would urge you to be on the lookout when taking a picture while the speaker is making sounds. Because of the way CAMERA is interfaced with DOS the picture taking may not always be immediate and the program may have to wait for an interrupt to occur before storing the display contents into a disk, so be patient. One of these occasions occurs when taking pictures from the DOS prompt, when you press the keys nothing will happen but if you press the enter or enter a command, the picture will be stored. NOTE: When CAMERA's graphics shutter (Alt-PrtSc) is released, it will look at the BIOS Video Display Data Area to determine the current mode setting in order to take the correct graphics, 40x25 text, 80x25 text or monochrome picture. However, there are some programs that do not update the BIOS Video Display Data Area when changing modes directly without using BIOS. These tend to be camera shy when displaying text screens and CAMERA may not be able to take the right picture. One of these programs is 1-2-3 (TM Lotus Corp.). Pressing Alt-PrtSc will take a picture of the text screens, pressing Alt-Shift-PrtSc will take the picture of the graph when it is being displayed. If you press Alt-Shift-PrtSc when the color screen is displaying text, the result will be a "compressed" garbage file. The pictures taken by CAMERA will always have file sizes that are multiples of 512 bytes to make the best use of a diskette. Text files will either be 2048 or 4096 bytes in size depending on whether they are 40 or 80 columns texts respectively. Graphics picture sizes will vary from 512 bytes to 16K depending on the pictures complexity. Obviously, CAMERA's pictures will be compatible with the PRESENT system programs. The CAMERA program behave like a single lense reflex camera in the sense that what you see is what you get. Technically speaking this means that if you are displaying a text screen on the color monitor, CAMERA will point to the buffer currently being used so if what is on the screen is one of the 8 buffers of a 40 column image, CAMERA will get the right buffer. MESSAGES The camera program has two types of error messages; visual and audible. Visual messages are displayed following a CAMERA command at the command level. The audible message, a beep, will sound when a picture is being taken and a problem was found while trying to write it on disk. The following messages are self explanatory: Using option 1 to install. Invalid file mask, cannot install. Camera installed and ready. Pictures will be stored in D:XXXXX00.PIC Using option 1 to change output. Invalid file mask (The current file mask will be unchanged) New file set and ready. Pictures will be stored in D:XXXXX00.PIC Using option 2 No file mask specified, cannot install. (You cannot use option 2 if the camera is not installed) Camera OFF. Camera ON. III. USING THE PREPARE PROGRAM Once you have created or taken all the screen images that you want to have in your presentation put them all together in the same diskette and make sure that they all have the .PIC extension. This task can also be accomplished by using the COMPRESS program to transfer them to the presentation disk in a compressed form. (see below) Please make sure that PREPARE.COM and PREPARE.HLP are in your default drive. If PREPARE.HLP is not available, the program will run, but you will get a message saying that help is not available. Now type: PREPARE filename (where filename is the drive, name and extension of the slide tray file you wish to create or modify) The system will then read all the names of the .PIC files in the selected diskette (up to 100) and display them on the left half of the screen. If a tray file did exist, the names in that file (up to 80) will be displayed on the right half of the screen. This is the main editing screen. Assuming that you are creating a new file, the screen should look something like this: Available picture files D:NAME.EXT IMAGE01 IMAGE21 IMAGE41 IMAGE01 IMAGE02 IMAGE22 IMAGE42 . IMAGE03 IMAGE23 IMAGE43 . S IMAGE04 IMAGE24 IMAGE44 . L IMAGE05 IMAGE25 IMAGE45 . I IMAGE06 IMAGE26 IMAGE46 . D IMAGE07 IMAGE27 IMAGE47 . E IMAGE08 IMAGE28 IMAGE48 . IMAGE09 IMAGE29 . T IMAGE10 IMAGE30 . R IMAGE11 IMAGE31 . A IMAGE12 IMAGE32 . Y IMAGE13 IMAGE33 . IMAGE14 IMAGE34 . A IMAGE15 IMAGE35 . R IMAGE16 IMAGE36 . E IMAGE17 IMAGE37 . A IMAGE18 IMAGE38 . IMAGE19 IMAGE39 . IMAGE20 IMAGE40 (--------- Message area ------------) Delay Dissolve (------ Function key display area ----) IMAGE01 (Time) ( Type ) The top legends will appear underlined on a monochrome display (blue on a color display). The legend on the right is the name of the slide tray file that you are creating. A Bright (bright green on a color display) block cursor will appear over the first name of the image list. Using the arrow keys on the numeric pad, the cursor may be moved up, left, right or down, pressing Home will take the cursor to the first name on the list and End will take it to the last name. The name pointed by the cursor is called the "cursor" name. On the bottom part of the screen there is an area for messages from the program as well as an area where a "Delay and Dissolve indicator" will appear whenever the block cursor is on the right part of the screen or "Slide Tray Area". The last line of the screen will display those function keys that are currently active. You will also notice that when the block cursor is not on the first name, it will be darker (white on a color display) and the first name will then be brighter (light green) than the others. This indicates that the first name is currently the "selected" name. The use of the selected name will be described further on when explaining the SELECT, INSERT and MOVE functions. The cursor movement keys will only move the cursor within the names in the image list or within the names in the slide tray. The Tab key is used to switch the cursor between the two lists, it will not work if the tray list is empty. When the cursor is on the slide tray, a delay and dissolve indicator will appear on the lower right side of the screen and will look something like this: Delay Dissolve FILENAME 4 secs. Sweep This indicator displays the time setting for the slide currently under the cursor and the type of dissolve that will be used to place that slide on the screen. In the above example, the slide "FILENAME" will have a 4 second time delay and when that slide is displayed, it will be placed on the screen with a "Sweep" type dissolve. More on this later. The commands that follow describe how you can fill the tray, organize it, select slide colors and resolution, select a slide's dissolve type, and if you are preparing a stand alone slide presentation, set the individual slide timings. COMMANDS There are several single key commands that allow you to ADD, DELETE, INSERT, MOVE or SAVE the names in the tray file, a command to LOOK at a slide in either the image list or the tray file, a command to set a slide's dissolve type and a command to set the timing delay for each slide for unattended slide presentations. HELP (F1) If you started up PREPARE with the PREPARE.HLP file available, you will be able to press F1 and get a summary of these commands on the color screen. If you are only using the color monitor, you must press the Escape key to return to the main editing screen. If you are using both a color and a monochrome, the help screen will remain displayed. When using both monitors and a picture is being display with the 'LOOK' command, the monochrome screen will provide an additional help panel with a summary of the keys used for setting a screen's colors. The system will determine what type of screen is being displayed and show the appropriate panel. If you have only the color screen, this help facility is provided by two picture files GRAPHELP.PIC and TEXTHELP.PIC . To use this facility, copy these two files onto the disk you will be using, and LOOK at them as required. (see the LOOK command below) ADD (+) The ADD command will add the name currently under the cursor (the cursor name) to the end of the tray file (if the tray file is empty, the added name will be placed as the first name in the tray file). This is accomplished by pressing the plus "+" key (either one). The cursor name will be added regardless of whether the cursor is in the image list or the tray list and only while the number of names in the tray file is less than 80. In this fashion, if the cursor is currently in the tray list, the cursor name will be repeated at the end of the list. SELECT (enter) The SELECT command will select the name to be used by an INSERT or MOVE command. This is accomplished by placing the cursor over the name you wish to select and pressing the enter key. You will notice that the color of the previously selected name will change to normal and that the cursor will become bright (light green). The select command will operate regardless of whether the cursor is in the image list or the tray list, however, names that have been selected in the image list may only be used by the INSERT command. INSERT (Ins) The INSERT command will insert the selected name at the current cursor location provided the cursor is in the tray list. It will not operate with the cursor in the image list as such list cannot be modified. This is accomplished by first selecting from either list the name you want to insert then placing the cursor at the location in the tray list where you want the name inserted and pressing the Ins key. The selected name will then be placed at the location and the remaining names will be moved down. MOVE (Backspace) The MOVE command will move the selected name in the tray list to the current cursor location in the tray list. It will not operate if either the selected name or the cursor is in the image list. To move a name, take the cursor to the tray list (tab key), SELECT the name to be moved, move the cursor to the new location where you want the name moved and press the Backspace key (large left arrow in the top row). The selected name will be removed from its old location and inserted at the current cursor location. You will also notice that the cursor will change to bright as it will now be over the currently selected name. DELETE (Del) The DELETE command will remove the cursor name from the tray list. It will not operate with the cursor on the image list as such list cannot be modified. To delete a name, place the cursor over the name in the tray list you want removed and press the Del key. The cursor name will be removed and the remaining names moved up. If the deleted name was a selected name, the name then resulting under the cursor will become the selected name. By the same token, if the name removed was the last one on the tray list, it will be removed and the cursor will also move up. If only one name is left on the tray list the delete command will not operate. SAVE (S) The SAVE command will write the tray file to disk. To save the file press the S key and the tray file will be saved. You will notice that the disk drive "in use" light will go on while the file is being written. However, if no changes were made to the file since the last save (with ADD, DELETE, MOVE, INSERT, SET DELAY or SET DISSOLVE), the unnecessary save will not be executed. The save command may be given regardless of where the cursor is located. SET DELAY (F7 - F8) The timing delay is the amount of time a slide will remain on the screen when the PRESENT program is run in the unattended mode. When the cursor is in the tray area, the delay and dissolve indicator in the bottom right of the screen will display the name of the slide pointed to by the cursor and the time currently set for the slide. Every time you move the cursor, this information will change to show the setting for each slide. To set or change a slide's time setting, point to the slide in the tray area and press F7 or F8 to scroll to the setting desired. Every time you press one of theses keys, a new setting will appear indicating the new delay. Delays are expressed in second with the following exceptions: Delay Comment -------- ----------- Flash The slide will flash on the screen during the time it takes the system to read the next slide from the disk. STOP When the presentation reaches this slide it will stop, the *STOPPED* message will appear, and the system will beep. To resume you MUST first advance manually to the next slide and press escape. OTHERWISE IT WILL DISPLAY THE SLIDE AGAIN AND STOP AGAIN Default The time will default to the one set when starting PRESENT. Whenever a slide is added to the list, its timing will be set to "default". If a slide is inserted from the list area its timing will also be "default". If a slide is moved to another place, its timing will go with it. SET DISSOLVE TYPE (F9 - F10) The dissolve type is the method used to place a slide on the screen when it is to be displayed. When the cursor is in the tray area, the delay and dissolve indicator in the bottom right of the screen will display the name of the slide pointed to by the cursor and the dissolve type that will be used for that slide. Every time you move the cursor, this information will change to show the setting for each slide. To set or change a slide's dissolve type, point to the slide in the tray area and press F9 or F10 to scroll to the desired type. Every time you press one of these keys, a new dissolve type will appear. PRESENT offers 12 different dissolve types as follows: Name Description --------- ----------- Replace The slide will immediately replace the old one. Fade in The slide will slowly fade in and the previous slide will gradually fade out. Pull Down Starting from the top of the screen, the slide will be pulled down over the old one. Pull Up Same as pull down but starting at the bottom and pulled up Close The slide will start to appear on both sides of the screen moving toward the center and closing in the middle. Merge The slide's image is divided evenly into two sets of lines, each set will start to appear on one side of the screen moving toward the other and form the new image as they merge in the middle. Pull Right Same as pull down but starting on the left side of the screen moving right. Pull Left Same as above but right to left. Open It is the opposite of Close, the image starts in the center and moves out to the side like an opening curtain. Sweep Simulating a radar screen, the slide will begin as a line going from the top center of the screen and sweep around over the old slide. Squeeze The slide will start at all the screens edges moving towards the center squeezing out the old slide. Expand The opposite to squeeze, the slide starts in the middle of the screen and expands out to all the edges. Whenever a slide is added to the list, its dissolve type will be set to "Replace". If a slide is inserted from the list area its dissolve type will also be "Replace". If a slide is moved to another place, its dissolve type will go with it. LOOK (L) The LOOK command displays the picture image of the cursor name. To look at a picture, place the cursor over the name of the picture you want to see, press L, and the color screen will display the picture. If you are using both the monochrome display and a color display, and the PREPARE program was brought up from the monochrome display, the monochrome provide you with a help screen with the commands that are available to change the color settings of the type of picture being displayed. If PREPARE.HLP was not available, the message: Color keys active, press Esc to end will appear in the message area. This is to indicate you are now in the display mode and that the keyboard will only respond to commands that affect the displayed picture. To return control to the list screen, press the Esc key, the picture will remain on the color display but the message will disappear indicating that the keyboard now controls the list screen. If on the other hand, you are using only the color display, the editing screen will be saved and the picture will be shown. However, although the above message cannot be seen, it still hold true. In other words, you are now in the display mode and the keyboard will only respond to commands that affect the displayed picture until the Esc key is pressed. When the Esc key is pressed the picture will be cleared and the editing screen restored. Once in the display mode you may change the color settings and if you wish, place the new settings in the selected picture image file. Changing the background color (Border color on text screens) The standard 16 background colors are available. Three keys can be used to change the color as follows. Pressing the left arrow key will decrease the color (change it to the previous color). Pressing the right arrow key will increase the color (change it to the next color). Pressing the up arrow key will change the color's intensity (change from light to dark or vice-versa) Changing palette colors (Graphics screen) PREPARE and PRESENT provide six different color palettes to chose from as follows: 1. Cyan, Magenta, White 2. Lighter shades of palette 1 3. Green, Red, Brown 4. Lighter shades of palette 3 5. Cyan, Red, White 6. Lighter shades of palette 5 NOTE: Palettes 5 and 6 are only available in RGB monitors. To change palettes, press the down arrow until the desired palette of colors appears. Switching Resolution (Graphics screens) The system normally assumes that a picture file is a medium resolution picture image. Pressing the Home key will change the screen to a high resolution display mode and back. High resolution pictures will always have a black background and the foreground color may be any of the 16 colors available as background for medium resolution. therefore, you may change the foreground color of a high resolution picture by pressing the left, up and right cursor arrows described above. You will notice that the screen may sometimes go black, this will happen when the medium resolution's background color was black and thus will be the pictures foreground color. To remedy this, press the left, up or right arrow keys to change the foreground color. Reversing a picture (Graphics screens) Pressing the PgUp key will "Reverse" the displayed image producing the effect of a negative image. In high resolution the result is that the background color becomes the foreground and vice-versa, in medium resolution, color 3 will switch with the background color (color 0) and color 2 will switch with color 1. On text screens this key will be ignored. Reversing a picture image may produce interesting results in some pictures. Keep in mind however that switching the background color in a reversed image will have the effect of changing one of the foreground colors. Changing the blink attribute (Text screens) You will notice that on some text screens, you will get either an odd blinking pattern or a background color that doesn't quite match the surroundings. This is due to the setting of the blink bit on the color graphics card. Pressing the down arrow will toggle the blink bit on or off. Saving the color settings Once you have changed the colors to the one you desire you may place the colors into the picture image file by pressing the letter "S". ENDING THE SESSION Once you have finished creating you slide tray and made all the modifications you wished press the letter "S" to write out your file and then press Ctrl-End. SUMMARY OF COMMAND KEYS Editing Screen KEY COMMAND ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Arrow keys Move the block cursor around a list of file names. Home Move the block cursor to the first file name on the current list. End Move the block cursor to the last file name on the current list. Tab Switch the cursor to the other list area. Plus (+) Adds the file name currently under the cursor to the end of the tray file. Enter (return) Selects the file name currently under the block cursor Insert Inserts the selected file name at the current cursor location. Delete Deletes the file name at the current cursor location Backspace Moves the selected file name to the current cursor location F1 Display Help information. F7, F8 Scroll time delay. F9, F10 Scroll Dissolve type. S Save the tray file. L Look at the picture at the current cursor location. Picture Screen (Color keys) Left arrow Change background color (foreground color in high resolution, border color on text screens ) to the previous color. Right arrow Change background color (foreground color in high resolution, border color on text screens ) to the the next color. Up arrow Change background color (foreground color in high resolution, border color on text screens ) intensity. Down arrow Change medium resolution palette. Change blink bit setting in text images. Home Switch graphics resolution. PgUp Invert graphics image. S Store current picture color setting in the displayed picture's file. MESSAGES The following messages may be encountered when running PREPARE: Incorrect file name This message indicated that you either omitted a file specification when starting the program, or the file specifications were not accepted. You must re-enter the PREPARE command. (path names are not allowed) Bad Tray file This message indicates that the file you specified is not a valid tray file. No picture files on disk This message appears when the drive specified in the file specification does not contain any .PIC files. You must transfer the picture files to the diskette that will hold the tray file and restart. Help not available This message will appear after starting PREPARE and the PREPARE.HLP file was not found. F1 will not operate and it's prompt will not appear. Picture not found This message will appear when you attempt to LOOK at a picture and it is not in the diskette. This may happen when after having created a tray file you deleted one of the picture image files, and then tried to look at it. NOTE: Some utility programs that assign paths to data files (i.e. a PATH command to look for files in other directories and/or disks) may also cause this message to appear whenever the Disk Not Ready condition occurs. Are you Sure ? (Y/N) This message will appear when you try to end the program and changes were made to the tray file after the last save. Pressing the "Y" key will force the program to end without saving the changes, pressing any other key will clear the message and resume normal operation allowing you to save the changes. No room for file, Directory full An error occurred while trying to open the tray file for output because there was no room in the directory. Press any key to clear the message then exit the program. You cannot use another diskette as the picture files and the slide tray must reside on the same disk. No room for file, Disk full An error occurred while trying to write the tray file because the disk was full. Press any key to clear the message then exit the program. You cannot use another diskette as the picture files and the slide tray must reside on the same disk. It is strongly suggested that you save the pictures in a compressed form to save disk space, expanded files take up 16K of space allowing you to fit only 21 image files on a 360K diskette leaving room for the tray file. Disk media error This is a disk read/write hardware error meaning that the disk operation was not successful due to either a defective disk or diskette or a device malfunction. Retry the operation and if still unsuccessful try another diskette. Drive not ready The drive door has not been properly closed. Disk Write Protected You are attempting to write on a write protected disk, remove the write protect tab. File allocation error You are in trouble, DOS has detected that the file allocation table is incorrect. Try starting over again, if the error continues, you must try another diskette. Standard DOS messages will appear in lieu of the last 4 above during the initial phase of the program before the main screen appears, please refer to the DOS manual for recovery. IV. USING THE PRESENT PROGRAM The PRESENT program is very straight forward in its use. Once you have created a Slide Tray file, place the diskette containing the slide tray file as well as the required picture files in the desired drive, connect the joystick(s) if any (if you only have one make sure it will be stick A otherwise don't use it). If you want to be able to print hard copies of any slide during the presentation, make sure that a screen dump program is installed before starting the PRESENT. If both a monochrome screen and a color screen are available, PRESENT will allow you to use an extended set of commands for controlling the presentation. If you have both screens, you should start the program from the monochrome screen making sure that the PRESENT.HLP file is available in the default drive. Command format Option 1: Manual Mode PRESENT filename Where filename is the drive, name and extension of the slide tray file you wish to present. Option 2: Unattended Mode PRESENT filename *n Where filename is the drive, name and extension of the slide tray file you wish to present. The asterisk (*) MUST be entered. n is a number from 0 to 8 that will indicate the system's default delay number. If n is not present or it is not within the indicated limits, a default value of 4 (8 second)will be assumed. The following are the available delays numbers and their significance to the PRESENT program: Number Time Comment ------- ------- ----------- 0 Flash The slide will flash on the screen during the time it takes the system to read the next slide from the disk. 1 1 sec 2 2 sec 3 4 sec 4 8 sec 5 16 sec 6 32 sec 7 64 sec 8 128 sec Either way it is started, the PRESENT will begin by reading the first, second and last pictures into the buffers and displaying the first one. A. UNATTENDED MODE Before starting the unattended mode, please make sure that you have set the desired slide timing for each slide as described above. If you did not set any timings, the system will use the default setting. Start PRESENT using option 2. The value entered for "n" will be determine the default timing for those slides whose setting is the default. If nothing is entered, or if the value entered is not between 0 and 8, a setting of 4 will be assumed (8 seconds). After the first slide appears on the screen you will hear a loud BEEP. This is to indicate that the system is ready to begin and that it is in a stopped state. The program will always begin in a stopped state regardless of the first slide's time setting, this is to give the user control of when he wants to begin the show. To begin the show, press the Escape key, this will start the timer for the first slide and then proceed sequentially slide after slide. When the last slide is reached, the show will automatically begin again without stopping. When the system is running unattended, the on screen pointer will be forced off. It may be turned back on when in the stopped state but resuming will again force it off. At any time during an unattended presentation, the show can be stopped by pressing the Escape key and you will again hear a loud BEEP acknowledging your command. The presentation can also be stopped from within the presentation itself by setting a slide's timing to stop. When PRESENT encounters one of these slides it will BEEP and enter a stopped state. However, considering that when Escape is pressed to resume a presentation, the timing used will be the one of the slide currently being displayed, to resume a presentation that has been stopped by a slide's time setting, you must first advance to the next slide manually and then press Escape. The stopped state. As mentioned above, there are several conditions that will result in stopping an unattended presentation. In other words, it enters a stopped state. When PRESENT is started up in the unattended mode and it has entered a stopped state, it's operation is then the same as if it had been started up in the manual mode. In the stopped state, all the manual commands are operational. The manual commands are described below under MANUAL MODE. The only difference is that the Escape key will resume unattended mode whenever it is pressed while being in a stopped state. The Escape key will not be operational in the manual mode. B. MANUAL MODE The manual mode is entered by either stopping an unattended presentation or starting up the PRESENT program with option 1. However, if the program was started with option 1, the Escape key will have no effect. To describe the operation of the manual mode the commands have been separated into two categories; basic and dual monitor commands. Basic commands are always available and do not require the monochrome screen to be used. Dual monitor commands on the other hand will only be available if you have two screens and you start the program from the monochrome monitor, these commands allow you to move around the presentation, look aside at supporting slides, change the dissolve types and therefore require that you be able to see what you are doing. 1. Basic Commands As mentioned above, the standard commands do not require the use of a monochrome monitor, these commands are pretty much straight forward and will operate as indicated. KEYBOARD JOYSTICK A JOYSTICK B ------------ ------------ ------------ NEXT SLIDE + or Space Button 2 * PREVIOUS SLIDE - (minus) Button 1 * BLACKOUT (1) Ctrl-Home * * POINTER ARROW ON/OFF Letter P * Button 1 AUTO DISSOLVE ON/OFF (2) Letter A * Button 2 MOVE POINTER * Stick * QUIT Ctrl-End * * STOP or RESUME (3) Esc (1) Blackout will blackout the screen (it will NOT clear the display) pressing Blackout again or displaying another slide will turn the screen back on. (2) When Auto dissolve is on, the slides will appear on the screen with the dissolve type set in the tray file. Turning it off, will set the dissolve type to "replace" to allow you to advance or go back faster. Turning it back on will resume the programmed type of dissolve. (3) The Esc key will Stop or Resume an unattended presentation. The speed with which you may advance depends on the drives you are using, although the pictures may change instantaneously (if auto dissolve is off), the next or previous slide must be read into memory before it can be displayed. This is fairly fast, but not fast enough to achieve a motion picture effect even with a RAM disk. If you are using the joysticks and the arrow pointer is turned on, the arrow will serve to indicate when you may change slides as the system turns it off while the disk is reading and turns it back on when finished. The arrow pointer on texts screen is the ASCII 27 character (an arrow pointing left) this character will be placed on the screen in lieu of the underlying character and will assume the underlying character's screen attributes (it may disappear if the underlying character has a non-display attribute). Notes on the use of joysticks The arrow pointer will only be enabled if there is a joystick in position A. Holding a joystick button down will not produce a typematic effect. When the program starts, it checks to see if any button is pressed or continuously on. If it finds this condition it will assume that the buttons are defective or not available and they will be disabled so please make sure you are not pressing any buttons when starting the program. Hard Copies To print a hard copy, first turn the arrow off then press PrtSc. When the printer is finished you may turn the arrow back on. Please make sure that a screen dump program was loaded prior to starting up PRESENT. Messages Messages will always appear on the monochrome screen (except during the initial startup phase as described later). However, PRESENT will always BEEP when a message is given, all messages are explained below. 2. Dual Monitor Commands The dual monitor commands are those that allow the user to alter the sequence of the presentation or to include slides that are not in the presentation file but present in the disk. The latter is particularly useful in those situations where you may want to have supporting slides but only show them if the need arises, such as to answer questions or to cover a particular subject in depth etc. When in dual screen mode, you can also change the dissolve types of the following slides or set a constant dissolve type for the entire presentation. Help will also be available. In order to be able to accomplish this, you must be able to see what is going on during the presentation. In particular, you need to know at any point in time what slide will be shown next, which one is on the screen, which was the last one shown, as well a to be able to point to a slide you want to show or to where in the sequence you want to jump to. If a monochrome display is attached, it will do just that. When the program is started up, the monochrome screen will look something like this: Available picture files D:NAME.EXT IMAGE01 IMAGE21 IMAGE41 SLIDE01 IMAGE02 IMAGE22 IMAGE42 SLIDE02 IMAGE03 IMAGE23 IMAGE43 SLIDE03 IMAGE04 IMAGE24 IMAGE44 SLIDE04 IMAGE05 IMAGE25 IMAGE45 SLIDE05 IMAGE06 IMAGE26 IMAGE46 SLIDE06 IMAGE07 IMAGE27 IMAGE47 SLIDE07 IMAGE08 IMAGE28 IMAGE48 SLIDE08 IMAGE09 IMAGE29 SLIDE09 IMAGE10 IMAGE30 SLIDE10 IMAGE11 IMAGE31 IMAGE12 IMAGE32 IMAGE13 IMAGE33 IMAGE14 IMAGE34 IMAGE15 IMAGE35 IMAGE16 IMAGE36 IMAGE17 IMAGE37 IMAGE18 IMAGE38 IMAGE19 IMAGE39 IMAGE20 IMAGE40 *STOPPED* ---------------- Message area ------------------- ** AUTO ** Look Aside: IMAGE01 Last: SLIDE10 Showing: SLIDE01 Next: SLIDE02 F1:Help Merge As you will notice, this resembles the PREPARE screen, all the picture files on the disk (up to 100) are listed on the left under the Available Pictures Files label, and the presentation pictures list will appear on the right under the name of the presentation file. You will notice two block cursors, one of them will be on the first name of the image list and the other will be brighter and will be on the second name of the tray list. You will also notice that one of the title legends, (most likely the Available Pictures Files legend) will appear to be brighter than the other one (adjust your monitor if not). Along the bottom, in the next to the last line, you will see the Status line showing several slide names. The first one labeled "Look Aside" shows the name of the slide pointed to by the cursor on the image list. The second one shows the last slide of the tray list as this will be the slide that would be shown if you were to go back one slide. The third one shows the name of the slide on the screen and is in reverse video. The fourth and last shows the name of the next slide to be displayed if you were to advance in the presentation. In the screen shown above, this would coincide with the name under the cursor in the tray list. Above the status line is an area reserved for messages. In the screen shown above, the legend "*STOPPED*" appears to the left of the message area, this legend only appears when the program is running in the unattended mode and it is in a stopped state, otherwise if the presentation is running, "*RUNNING*" will appear instead. If the program was brought up in the manual mode, neither will appear. To the right of the message area the legend "** AUTO **" appears only when Auto dissolve is ON. The area below the status line is reserved for help information. If the PRESENT.HLP was available the prompt F1:Help will Appear. To the right and below the Next Slide's name, the dissolve type of the next slide will appear. The cursor arrow keys are used to move the cursors around the list where they are located. Home and End will move the cursor to the first and last names of the list. What cursor moves depends on the shift status of the cursor keys. When the cursor keys (numeric key pad on the right of the keyboard) are in their base state (Num Lock off and unshifted) you will notice that the "Available Picture Files" legend will be brighter, this means that pressing the cursor keys will move the cursor in the image list. If you press the Num Lock key you will notice that the top legends will interchange brightness, now the cursor keys will move the cursor on the tray list. The same is true when a shift key is pressed, the legends will also interchange brightness but only while the shift key remains depressed. When you move the cursor on the image list, you will notice that the 'Look Aside' in the status line will always show the name under the cursor. On the other hand if you move the cursor on the tray list, you will notice that the cursor will lose its brightness but one of the names in the list will be highlighted. The highlighted name in the tray list points to the name of the 'Next' slide to be shown, if the cursor happens to be on the highlighted name, the cursor will go bright. When a slide is advanced, you will see that the status line changes. The name that was on the screen will go to the 'Last' name, the 'Next' name will go to the 'Showing' name, a new name will appear on the 'Next' name and the 'Look Aside' name will be unchanged. You will also see that the cursor in the tray list will be on the highlighted name and will be bright. This will also happen if you go back in the presentation, the status line however will change the other way. LOOK-ASIDE To 'Look-Aside' at a slide, move the cursor in the image list to the slide you want to look at, it's name will appear in the status line. Now press the letter "L" and the slide will go on the screen. Now look at the status line, you will see that the slide that was on the screen will have moved to the 'Last' name and the next name will be unchanged. If you now pick another slide and 'Look-aside' at it the last name will remain unchanged. In other words, 'Look-Aside' slides will never go into the 'Last' name. This will preserve the sequence of the presentation meaning that if you go back, the 'Last' name will go to the screen, the 'Look-Aside' slide that was on the screen will disappear and the 'Next' name will remain unchanged. Conversely, if you go forward after a 'Look-Aside' the 'Last' name will remain unchanged and the 'Next' name will go on the screen. All Look-Aside slides will 'replace' the slide currently being displayed. The dissolve feature is not available for looking aside. SKIPPING Skipping is jumping within the sequence of the presentation to either skip over a series of slides or to go back to a certain point and reshow a sequence of slides. To skip, move the tray cursor to the slide you want to skip to. You will notice that the cursor loses it's brightness and one of the names will be highlighted, the highlighted name is the current 'Next' name. To make the name under the cursor the next name press Enter. Three things will happen, 1) the in-use light goes on as the disk reads that image into the 'Next' buffer, 2) the status line will be changed to show the new 'Next' name and 3) the cursor will go bright and the previously highlighted name will lose its brightness. The system will now respond to the forward command by jumping to the 'Next' slide. HELP Help will only be available in the dual command mode if the PRESENT.HLP file was in the default drive when starting PRESENT. To ask for help, press F1 and both the tray and image lists will be replaced by a help screen. To return to the main screen, press the Esc key. DISSOLVE SETTING When PRESENT starts, the dissolve type for each slide will be set automatically to the type that was given to that slide with the PREPARE program. This is called the 'Auto-dissolve' operation and it is indicated by the ** AUTO ** legend appearing above the 'Next' name in the status line. The type of dissolve to be used for the NEXT slide will be shown below the 'Next' name in the status line. In other words, when the ** AUTO ** legend appears, the type of dissolve that will be used for the NEXT slide will be taken from the tray file and will be displayed below the next slide's name. If you go back a slide, the dissolve type that will be used will be the one set for the slide you go back to (it is not displayed). If you want to override the displayed setting, press F9 and F10 to scroll through the different types of dissolve available until the desired one is shown. The new setting will be the one used next slide ONLY. The following types will be taken from the individual settings. If you want to override ALL the settings, turn Auto-Dissolve off by pressing the letter 'A' (for Auto-dissolve). The legend ** AUTO ** will disappear and the dissolve type displayed will changed to 'Replace'. If you now scroll in a new type of dissolve, that new type will be used for all slides (except Look-Aside) until you manually change it. To return to the automatic dissolve settings, press the letter 'A' again. MESSAGES During execution, there are two phases in which messages appear, the startup phase which ends when the first slide is displayed, and the running phase. Startup phase messages (These messages appear on whatever display the program was started on): File not found This message will appear if the specified tray file cannot be found. The program will be terminated. Incorrect file name This message indicated that you either omitted a file specification when starting the program, or the file specifications were not accepted. Your must re-enter the PRESENT command. (Path names are not allowed) No picture files on disk This message appears when the drive specified in the file specification does not contain any .PIC files. You are using the wrong disk. Initial picture load failed This message is an indication that there was a critical error during the loading of the first pictures. This would be due to either a picture file not found, a hard read error, disk not ready etc. Bad Tray file This message is an indication that the tray file you specified was not a proper tray file (i.e. PRESENT PRESENT.COM). Tray file too short Tray files must have at least 2 pictures to be used, if only one picture is in the list, this message will appear. DOS messages DOS messages for critical disk errors will appear if such an error occurs in the startup phase. Please refer to the DOS manual. Running phase messages (these messages will only appear on the monochrome display) *RUNNING* Press Esc to stop This message appears when an unattended presentation is running. Press Esc to return to Main Screen This message appears when the help screen is being displayed Help not available This message indicated that the file PRESENT.HLP was not found. The Help function (F1) will not be available. Basic Commands only, Help not available This message will only appear if you start PRESENT from the color monitor and you have both screens. It tells you that the dual screen commands nor Help will be available. The following messages will only appear on the monochrome display and will produce a BEEP. *STOPPED* Press Esc to resume This message appears whenever the program, when running in unattended mode enters a stopped state. The word *STOPPED* will remain on the screen to indicate this condition until the program is resumed, the rest of the message will be cleared. Picture not found Quit (Ctrl End) or Ignore (any key) This message indicates that a picture in the tray file was not found in the diskette. Make sure that once you created a tray file you do not erase any of its component picture files. Pressing any key will continue the presentation and the file will be skipped (you will notice this on the status line). The other alternative is to terminate pressing Ctrl-End. NOTE: Some utility programs that assign paths to data files (i.e. a PATH command to look for files in other directories and/or disks) may also cause this message to appear whenever the Disk Not Ready condition occurs. Disk media error Quit (Ctrl End) or Ignore (any key) This is a disk hardware read error meaning that the disk operation was not successful due to either a defective disk or diskette or a device malfunction. Pressing any key will continue the presentation and the file will be skipped (you will notice this on the status line). If the operation that was interrupted was a Skip or a Look-Aside, ignoring the error will simply cancel the command. The other alternative is to terminate the program by pressing Ctrl-End. File allocation error Quit (Ctrl End) or Ignore (any key) DOS has detected that the file allocation table is incorrect. Pressing any key will continue the presentation and the file will be skipped (you will notice this on the status line). If the operation that was interrupted was a Skip or a Look-Aside, ignoring the error will simply cancel the command. The other alternative is to terminate the program by pressing Ctrl-End. Drive not ready Quit (Ctrl End) or Retry (any key) The diskette drive door is probably not properly closed, press any key to retry the interrupted operation or press Ctrl-End to end the program. V. USING COMPRESS AND EXPAND COMPRESS and EXPAND are similar in their operation to the file copy utility and allows you to specify input and output drives. The command format is as follows: To Compress COMPRESS [drive1:]filename [drive2:] To Expand EXPAND [drive1:]filename [drive2:] Where: [drive:1] is the source drive letter (optional, if not present the default drive will be used) [drive:2] is the target drive letter (optional, if not present the default drive will be used) filename is the name of the file you wish to convert. The filename may contain "wild-card" characters to indicate a filename pattern or simply an asterisk (*) to select all the files. An extension need not be specified as it will be ignored, the program will only select files with a ".PIC" extension. NOTE: Path names are not supported When the program starts, the following message will appear: Picture Image Compress *********** WARNING ************ ORIGINAL FILES WILL BE OVER-WRITTEN Press Y to compress, N to skip, Esc to stop NOTE: The warning message will only appear if the source and target drives are the same. The program will search for the first file matching the pattern and ask you if you wish to convert that file thus: Compress X:NNNNNNNN.PIC to X: ? Typing a "Y" or "y" will compress the picture, "N" or any other key will skip to the next file and pressing the Escape key will terminate the program. The program will continue until all the matching picture files are prompted or until the Escape key is pressed. When compressing a file, the program will check to see if the file is a text image file or if it is already in a compressed form and if so, it will simply copy the file onto the target drive. Conversely when expanding a file, if the file is not in a compressed form, it will simply copy it onto the target drive. If the source and target drives are the same, the resulting compressed or expanded files will be written over the original files. The program was intended for compressing and expanding "BSAVEd" picture files only, but it will NOT check for their validity as such, it will simply read a maximum of 16K bytes and proceed to compress. If an extraneous .PIC file is present, the result will be garbage. MESSAGES The following messages may appear Invalid drive(s) specified This is to indicate that a drive specified in the command line is invalid. No files found This indicates that no files were found that matched the pattern. Remember, the programs will only search for files with a ".PIC" extension. No room in directory Your disk's directory is full. Unable to write This indicates that the target diskette is full and that it was unable to write the complete file. Standard DOS messages may also appear to indicate other errors, if these messages appear, please refer to your DOS manual. USER-SUPPORTED SOFTWARE If you are using PRESENT and find it of value, your contribution ($40 suggested) will be appreciated. The $40 license fee (per system) is requested from COMMERCIAL USERS if used in a place of business or incorporated into another product. This contribution is voluntary and will entitle you to become a registered user. As a registered user you may: A. Write us if you need help, B. Receive free updates to the program (you pay only for the diskette and postage). C. Receive free notice of new programs released by us. If you wish to register as a user, please send your check, name, address and phone number to: SML Services, Inc. 6095 River Chase Cir.,NW Atlanta, Georgia 30328 Regardless of whether a contribution is made, the user is encouraged to copy and share PRESENT with others. Payment for use is discretionary on the part of each subsequent user. A limited license is granted to all users of PRESENT, to make copies of PRESENT and distribute them to other users, on the following conditions: 1. This note be included in all copies, 2. The name "PRESENT" must be retained, 3. The Copyright and authorship notices contained in the programs and documentation are not to be altered or removed. 4. The programs are not to be distributed to others in modified form. 5. No fee is to be charged for copying or distributing the program. User groups, clubs and BBS's are encouraged to distribute the program and documentation, subject to the above limitations. All we ask is that you encourage contributions to our cause so that it remains worthwhile to develop new programs. IN ANY CASE NO COMMERCIAL OR MONEY MAKING VENTURES WITH REGARD TO SOFTWARE SALES OR MODIFICATION AND THE SUBSEQUENT SALE OF THE PRESENT PROGRAMS IN WHOLE OR ANY PART IS PERMITTED BY THE AUTHOR. Fernando Pertuz