Software of the Month Club 1997 April/Software of the Month Club 1997 April.iso/pc/dos/sri/edu/graphmat/grmat2.hlp

Text File | 1995-08-07 | 5.8 KB | 93 lines

                   THE REDRAW QUEUE
Every time you type in an equation, the character string you typed and the
program's internal representation of that equation get stored in the redraw
queue. From this queue, or list, you can call up any of the last 25 equations
you typed to graph again with fewer keystrokes than retyping it. Or you can
redraw all of them or the just the last one you typed with even fewer
keystrokes. The equations in the queue are stored in an order that puts the
most-recently-used at the beginning and the least-recently-used at the end.
Hopefully, when the queue fills up, the equations that are bumped off the
queue at the end will be the ones you won't miss very much.

The screen clears whenever you execute Range or a successful Scale (if you
abort Scale the screen remains as it was). If you execute either of these
functions or clear the screen accidentally with the Clear menu option, you can
redraw the last equation (if AutoRedraw hasn't already) by selecting Pick
graph under the Redraw menu, or you can redraw all of the equations in the
queue using Redraw All under the Redraw menu. Note that the redraw function
does not keep track of which graphs are on the screen at any point in time so
"redrawing all" may put more (if you plotted many equations on the screen
before the last one) or fewer (if you cleared the queue) equations on the
screen than there were before the screen was cleared.

                 Press PgDn for more help on the Redraw Queue.
                   USING AutoRedraw
As its name suggests, AutoRedraw will redraw the last equation(s) you typed in
automatically when you change the scale or range. You can select the maximum
number of equations to redraw automatically; by default it is 25 (all of
them). On a 486 or faster, this saves you time since the computer can usually
recalculate the graphs faster than you can tell it to. If you don't want a
graph redrawn, you can abort graphing by pressing ESC twice.

If you want to turn off AutoRedraw completely, or reduce the number of
equations that get redrawn, select AutoRedraw from the Options menu. To turn
it off, answer "No" to the prompt; otherwise answer "Yes" and then enter the
maximum number of graphs (1-25) that you want to be redrawn automatically.

                  REDRAWING MANUALLY
The Pick Graph option in the Redraw menu allows you to graph any equation in
the redraw queue. First choose an equation from the combobox by clicking on it
with the mouse or using the down key to highlight it and pressing enter. Then,
choose Pick graph from the Redraw menu. (If you do not select an equation, the
first one in the queue is used.) You can also redraw an equation within the
equation editor by selecting the equation as above and then simply pressing
enter (do not modify the equation) while it is in the equation editor. When
you redraw a graph, it is re-inserted at the top of the redraw queue.
                 Press PgDn for more help on the Redraw Queue.
                 REDRAWING ALL GRAPHS
Select All Graphs from the Redraw menu to redraw everything in the queue. The
graphs are drawn oldest-first so that the most recent ones come out on top.

                HIDING A GRAPH
To hide a particular graph, select its equation and then choose Hide Graph
from the Redraw menu. If you have a mouse, you can select an equation just by
click on the curve. The graph is removed from the screen and will not be
AutoRedrawn, but it stays in its current position in the queue and will be
redrawn by the next Redraw All command you give.

                 DELETING AN EQUATION
To remove an equation from the queue, simply select that equation from the
combobox and choose Delete Eqn from the Redraw menu. The equation is deleted
from the queue, although its graph will remain until you clear the screen.

               CLEARING THE REDRAW QUEUE
Selecting Clear All from the Redraw menu essentially starts a new session,
except the options settings and grid size remain the same. All of the
equations in the queue are deleted, and the screen and labels (including
annotations) are cleared as well.

             Press PgDn for help on saving and loading equation lists.
               SAVING AND LOADING EQUATION LISTS
To save the equations you're working on, (as well as titles, annotations, and
options settings), select Save List from the File menu and enter a filename.
This file will be saved in the current directory with an extension of ".GR"
unless you specify differently. To save to diskette, insert A: or B: before
your filename. When asked if you want to include setup information, answer "y"
if you want to record the current size of the grid and options settings in the
file. Otherwise, only the text labels and equations in the queue are saved.
    To reload one of your equation lists (or one of the demo files), select
Open List from the File menu. You will be presented with a list of files
available. Choose a file by using the up/down arrow keys or mouse, [Cancel] to
return to the equation editor without loading a file, or [New path] to change
the current directory to look for files elsewhere. After you select a file to
open, if the redraw queue is not empty, you will be asked whether to add the
new file's equations to the existing queue or clear the queue first. Answer
"y" to clear the queue before loading the new file, or "n" to keep it. If the
file was saved with the Save setup option, the grid and special options
settings recorded in the file will be loaded and set automatically. After
loading the file, if AutoRedraw is on, Graphmatica will graph all of the
equations just loaded. You can also load a file when you run Graphmatica by
typing its name as a command-line argument. Those equations will be loaded
(and graphed) immediately after the opening screen.
───────────────End of Redraw help. Press ESC to return to menu.───────────────