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-
- Words
-
- The Words notebook is designed for storing and looking up words and their
- meanings. This version of the notebook contains a small selection of obscure
- and often-misunderstood words; other specialized vocabularies could be set up
- just as easily.
-
- Browsing
-
- The List on the right-hand side of the first page lets you scan through all
- the words defined on the other pages of the notebook. Clicking on any word
- causes a jump to the page where the word is defined. (You can return to the
- first page with the RETURN gadget on the main control panel.)
-
- Across the bottom of the first page are twenty-six buttons labelled with the
- letters of the alphabet. Clicking on one of these takes you to the first page
- of definitions for words beginning with the corresponding letter.
-
- Adding new definitions
-
- In this version of the notebook, adding new vocabulary is done in several
- steps. For each new word that you wish to add, the first step is to navigate
- to the page where the word's entry should go, or to create a new page if the
- existing pages for words with the same initial as the word to be added have
- no more room. If a page is created, its name should begin with the word's
- initial letter, followed by a number to indicate its position within the set
- of pages for that letter. For consistency with the current version of this
- notebook, if the created page is not the last page for that letter, the name
- should end with "...".
-
- Each of the next three steps requires the invocation of a macro. The macros
- are attached to F1, F2 and F3 function keys; they can be executed by pressing
- the function key and the right Amiga key simultaneously.
-
- · The F1_New definition macro asks you, by means of a string form requester,
- to enter the data for a new definition. The requester prompts (Word, Part
- of speech, and Definition) should be self-explanatory; though notice that the
- Part of speech input line offers a default (n, for noun), while the others do
- not. After you have entered the data, there will be a new Note, in the bottom
- right corner of the page, containing the word and its definition.
-
- · The F2_Set word heights macro lets you resize the new Note to the number of
- the lines in the word's definition. While this macro is active, clicking on
- the right-hand half of any Note will increase its height to accommodate an
- extra line of text; clicking on the left-hand half will decrease the height
- by one line. Clicking on the page terminates the macro, except that you can
- go backwards and forwards one page by clicking on the extreme left and
- extreme right of the page respectively.
-
- · The F3_Organize page macro can now be used to tidy up the page, since the
- new Note is probably in the wrong place. This macro does not require any user
- input. The reformatting is limited to the current page. If there are more
- Notes on the page than can be formatted in the available space, the excess
- ones will pile up at the top right of the page.
-
- More words can be added at this point, using the same steps. They can also be
- deleted, with the F4_Delete definition macro, which lets you select (from an
- Object List Requester) the object to be deleted. When you have finished
- adding and deleting words, the database is again ready for use.
-