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´3 to tmargin 6 to bmargin 63 to footer-line 40 to page-pos 7 to lmargin 5 to rmargin 15 to indent 78 to columns/line slow² àINTRODUCTION TO WORDWRIGHTÿ ´"Wordwright documentation" to footer-string² · Wordwright is made up of a collection of four integrated packages, a word processor, an outliner, mail merge, and a set of general purpose utilities. A few of the more unusual features of Wordwright are listed below. 1. Wordwright is fast enough that characters may be entered at the beginning of a forty page document as fast as the auto repeat feature of the Amiga allows with no noticable slowdown. 2. A table of contents may be generated automatically. 3. Cursor control is accessable from both the keyboard and the mouse. A scroll bar is included to allow easy movement over long distances. 4. User definable macros allow common phrases to be entered with a single keystroke. 5. Calculations may be embedded within text. Conditional statements allow the value of a flag or calculation at print time to determine which of two phrases to print. 6. Extensive use of color is made to distinguish between commands and text, highlight strings found in the search mode, etc. 7. An outliner is included as an integral part of the word processor, allowing the user to expand and collapse either individual sections or all sections. This makes it easy to see the structure of the entire document as it is being written. 8. The mail merge program allows multiple copies of a document to be made with automatic substitution of integer and string variables by data obtained from a merge file. In addition, decisions can be made concerning whether to print a letter or not based on tests made at print time. For example, if data in the merge file contains information concerning the employees of a company, it is possible to write a form letter to just those employees in a particular department. 9. A utilities window contains a decimal or hexadecimal calculator, a dump utility which can dump any area of memory in both hexadecimal and ascii, and access to all DOS utilities. 10. A screen saver turns off the screen after several minutes with no input from the keyboard. àCHAPTER 1: GETTING STARTEDÿ This first chapter describes a few of the basics that must be mastered before you can do anything usefull with Wordwright. After you have mastered this chapter, there is no reason to read the documentation in the order in which it is written and you are encouraged to jump around from one topic to another as your interest dictates. The information in this chapter though is of such importance that you should at least master this chapter before going any further. áBACKUP PROCEEDUREÿ The first thing that you should do when you receive any software is to make a backup. The instructions for making backups are included in the documentation that came with the Amiga. I strongly recomend that you make at least two backups and keep them in separate locations. The 3 1/2 inch disks which the Amiga uses have such a high density that a very slight difference in alignment between the disk drive used to write the information and the drive used to read the information will cause the disk to be unreadable. Since the disk which I supply was created on a different drive than the one which you are using to read it, the disk which I supply will generaly be less reliable than one which is created on your own disk drive. I have noticed that software which I receive from Commodore can be read from drive 0 but not from drive 1 on my system even though disks that I create with drive 0 can usually be read from drive 1 without any problems. Because of alignment problems, it is my policy to use drive 1 only for reading and all writing takes place on drive 0. áMAKING A CLI DISKÿ The Amiga actually comes with two different operating systems. Workbench, the operating system which normally boots up when you first get your Amiga is built on top of another operating system called the CLI for Command Line Interface. The CLI operating system is far more powerfull than the Workbench and is a more traditional operating system than the Workbench. The Workbench operating system is essentialy a subset of the CLI which has been modified to work by selecting icons with the mouse instead of typing commands from the keyboard. In addition to the fact that the Workbench contains only a subset of the commands available from the CLI, it also takes up more memory because it is so graphics oriented. Wordwright was intended for advanced users who want the maximum utility and are willing to pay the small price of typing commands instead of pointing at icons. For this reason, it is written to run under CLI instead of Workbench. A CLI disk may be made from a Workbench disk by the following steps. 1. Use Preferences to enable the CLI and save the updated selections. 2. Reboot the system. The "System" drawer will now contain the CLI icon. Select it to get into the CLI operating system. 3. Edit the Ðfile "S:Startup-Sequence", removing the lines with the commands "LoadWB" and "endcli > nil:". The file may be edited either by Ed (the editor that came with the Amiga) or by Wordwright. The disk will now boot up with the CLI instead of Workbench. 4. Erase any files which aren't needed. áSTARTING WORDWRIGHTÿ Once you have the CLI running, you can look at the directory of the disk which came with Wordwright by using the "DIR" command as shown in the "AmigaDOS User's Manual". In addition to the executable file which is labled "Wordwright", there are also some sample text files to help you get started. Start Wordwright by running the command "Wordwright". After you type "Wordwright" the computer will respond by opening a window labled "UTILITIES". It will then display the copyright notice and type a prompt (the greater than symbol ">"). The prompt indicates that the computer is waiting for user input. There are a wide variety of commands available in the "UTILITIES" window, but the one of concern at this time is the command "edit". If you still remember the name of a text file, you may read it into the edit buffer and start editting with the command "edit filename" where "filename" is the name of the documentation file. If you don't remember the name, type "dir" just as if you were still using the normal CLI. This command will open up a new CLI and display the directory. After you have found the filename you may return to the "UTILITIES" window by hitting the return key. Once you have the file displayed you may begin playing with the various commands as shown in the rest of the documentation. You will probably want to read the entire documentation file eventually, but for now, just jump from one command to another until you get a feel for the commands which interest you the most. As long as you have your backup copy stored in a safe place there's really no way to cause any damage by hitting the wrong key. The only thing you should be aware of at this time is that the print command will probably cause your printer to behave strangely until you have customized Wordwright for your particular printer. As soon as you have familiarized yourself with the editor, you should see the section entitled "INITIAL PRINTER SETUP" to see how this is done. áSTARTING A NEW FILEÿ If you want to start a new file, you must first determine whether you are in the utilities mode or the edit mode. The mode is indicated by the name of the window. If it says "UTILITIES" you are in the utilities mode. If it says "WORDWRIGHT" you are in the edit mode. If you are in the utilities mode all you have to do is type the word "edit" followed by the return key. This will clear the edit buffer and put you in the edit mode. If you are already in the edit mode, type the escape key to get into the utilities mode and then type "edit". I have predefined the function key F10 so that it types the word "edit " with a single keystroke. Unless you redefine F10 as explained in the section on macros, you may thus start a new file from the "UTILITIES" window by typing the two keys F10 and return, or you may start a new file from the edit window by typing the three keys escape, F10, and return. If you ever type the escape key from Wordwright either accidentally or to use the utilities mode for some purpose, you may return to the file from which you came by just typing ^E. (Hold the control key down and type the letter "e".) áREADING FILESÿ Files may be read in either of two ways. If you are in the utilities mode, the file may be read in at the same time the edit mode is involked by just typing the file name after the "EDIT" command. For example, to edit the file "SAMPLE.TXT", you would type "EDIT SAMPLE.TXT". If you are already in the edit mode, you may read in a new file by using the pulldown menu named "FILES". In this case, you will be given the option of reading in a new file and overwriting any file which is currently in the edit buffer or appending the new file to the end of the file currently being edited. After the menu selection is made, the computer will prompt you for the filename. áSAVING FILESÿ A file is saved by selecting the "SAVE" option from the "FILES" pulldown menu. When the computer prompts for the filename to use in saving the file, it will suggest using the name of the last file which was read. If this is acceptable, just type "RETURN" or "ENTER" and the computer will append the suffix ".BAK" to any file which has that name and then use that name for the new file. Wordwright will never delete a file unless it has the suffix ".BAK", ensuring that there is always at least one backup. It is also a good practise to keep a recent backup of any valuable file on a separate disk which is not stored near the computer. If you ever accidently select the "READ" option from the "FILES" menu when you intended to save a file, just type "RETURN" with no file name and the computer will abort the read attempt without destroying the file which you were editing. áPRINTING FILESÿ A file may be printed by selecting the "PRINT" item from the "FILES" menu. There are two options allowed from the menu. You may print from the start of the file or from the current cursor position. In either case you must supply some information before the computer starts printing. The computer will first prompt you for the name of a merge file if one is used. A merge file is used to supply data which is inserted into form letters. A description of how to use this feature is given in the chapter on mail merge. For normal text editing, the merge file doesn't apply and you may just respond with a carriage return. The next prompt is a question asking whether to send the text to both the printer and the screen or just to the screen. It is sometimes usefull to send the text to just the screen in order to see how the document will be formatted. If text is being sent to the printer as well as to the screen, you will be asked for the number of copies to print. You may either enter the number of copies that you want and then type a carriage return or you may just hit carriage return. If you just hit carriage return without telling the computer how many copies you want, the computer will assume that you just want one copy. Whenever the computer asks for input but is capable of selecting a reasonable responce of its own when no input is supplied, the input which the computer can supply is called the default responce. Thus the default value for the number of copies desired is one. The printing may be paused and restarted by hitting the space bar or may be aborted altogether by hitting the return key. áLEAVING WORDWRIGHTÿ You may leave Wordwright at any time either by hitting the escape key or selecting the quit gadget in the upper left corner of the window. This will return you to the "UTILITIES" window where you may use the utilities provided or return to the operating system by typing "quit". If you want to return from the "UTILITIES" window to the file which you were editing, just type ^E and the return key. You will return to the edit mode, the file will be redisplayed, and the cursor will be moved to the same location it was at when you left the edit mode. áINITIAL PRINTER SETUPÿ Wordwright allows the user to set the control codes which are sent to the printer in order to change fonts, begin underlining, change between draft mode and letter mode, or any other special function which the user desires. To make these changes, the user simply types the command "SETUP" from the "UTILITIES" window. A series of command strings will then be displayed and the user will be asked whether each string is correct for the indicated function. Whenever the user indicates that the string is incorrect, the computer will ask for the correct sequence. When all of the command strings are correctly set for your printer, you will be asked for a filename to use when saving the updated version. Any filename is acceptable, but my suggestion would be something short and simple like "WW" since editing programs and writing text are the most common applications used on any computer. áPROBLEMSÿ I have tried to produce the best software that I am capable of and I am continually making improvements both in Wordwright and in the documentation for Wordwright. Unfortunately however, I haven't yet achieved perfection and there are still some problems which you should be aware of. I have listed some of the most common problems below with the solutions when solutions are known. Q. After editing some text, you leave the computer for about 5 minutes. When you come back, the screen is blank. A. Wordwright contains a screen saver which automatically turns off the screen after 5 minutes of no activity. Hit any printable character on the keyboard and the screen will reappear. Q. W²hen you start Wordwright, a message appears saying that the memory is too fragmented for Wordwright to run. As soon as you hit any key, the computer returns to the CLI. A. Wordwright is designed to handle large text files with all text being held in memory instead of on the disk because of speed considerations and because I have a lack of faith in the ability of the operating system to recover gracefully in the event of disk errors. Wordwright can be set up to edit files up to 128K bytes in length in a computer with 512K. This is about 40 pages of text. In addition to the memory required to hold text, Wordwright also requires a large area for the copy buffer, and the program itself takes up about 80K. I have thus had to take over a large portion of the memory which is not being used by the operating system in order to maximize the computer's utility as a word processor. If another program has been run prior to using Wordwright, the operating system may have broken the availble memory into discontinuous fragments which are not of sufficient length to allow Wordwright to function properly. The operating system is not able to reconstruct continuous memory from the fragments and the computer must be restarted before Wordwright can be used. If a large portion of memory is being used for other purposes such as a RAM disk or a clock that runs in the background, there may be insufficient memory left for Wordwright. Some programs such as compilers are notorious for requiring a huge stack in order to run properly. It has thus become a common technique among programmers to include a line of code in the script file "STARTUP-SEQUENCE" which tells the computer to allocate a huge amount of stack space for each task. This will also cause the computer to have insufficient memory. The "setup" command which is used to set up Wordwright for your printer allows you to set the amount of memory which is allocated for the text file. If you want to run other programs concurrently with Wordwright, you have the ability to create a version of Wordwright which will require less memory than I have allocated. Due to the structure of the language which Wordwright was written in, Wordwright allocates its own stacks and makes no use of the stack which is allocated for it by the operating system. The 4K which is normally allocated for stacks is therefore more than adequate for Wordwright. If you want to try using an even smaller stack, you should first test the effect on other programs which you will want to run from Wordwright (DIR, INFO, DELETE, COPY, etc.). Q. When saving a file which has taken a couple of hours to produce you get a system message saying that the disk has an error. You are then asked whether you want to try again or abort the attempt. Regardless of what responce you make, the computer just keeps trying over and over again to save the file and will not allow you to abort the attempt or try with another disk. A. This is the most obnoxious problem that I have come across and I have no solution since the problem is in DOS itself and not in my software. When disks go bad there is very little that can be done to reconstruct the data. DON'T depend on "DISKDOCTOR"! Errors almost always occure on the track which is used to store the directory since this is the track which is used the most. "DISKDOCTOR" can generally save only a small portion of the disk. Make sure you keep lots of backup copies of any important files. If your disk drives have a tendency to cause errors, it is a good idea to reformat your disks every once in a while even before they start to cause problems. My experience has shown that a disk which has been reformated recently is much more reliable than a disk which has never shown any problems but has been used several times without being reformatted. It is also somewhat safer to print the document before trying to save it on a disk. This way you will at least have a hard copy in case the drive locks you out. Q. Wordwright just doesn't do what you want it to do. A. All software involves compromises. Wordwright was written to solve my needs and if your needs happen to be the same as mine, I believe that you will be very happy with it. If you have questions or needs which I haven't satisfied, give me a call. If I have solved the problem since you bought your copy of Wordwright, I will send you the update at minimal cost. At the present I am not charging anything for updates. This may change in the future but I don't anticipate ever charging more than $5 to $10 for an update. In any case, I welcome feedback and many of the features which are contained in Wordwright now are the result of requests from my previous customers. Wordwright also comes with a one year guarantee. If at any time within a year of purchase you decide that Wordwright doesn't satisfy your needs, send me a note saying that all copies of Wordwright have been destroyed and I will send a full refund. My address and phone number are shown below. RTL Programming Aids 10844 Deerwood SE Lowell, MI 49331 (616) 897-5672 àCHAPTER 2: THE EDITORÿ Now that the basics are out of the way, the fun can begin! In this chapter you will learn how to move the cursor around, search for strings, define macros, and start actually using Wordwright. From this point on the features of Wordwright can be studied in any order that you want so don't be afraid to jump around a little. Use the features that you need and ignore the ones that you don't need. The important thing is to use Wordwright. áCURSOR CONTROLÿ There are a wide variety of ways to move the cursor. For large cursor movements, a scroll bar is included on the right margin. If Wordwright is set up so that 128K of memory is reserved for the text buffer, the entire length of the scroll bar represents 128K bytes of text. Thus for a 64K text file only the top half of the scroll bar is used. To move to the middle of a 64K file, you would use the mouse to point to the location of the scroll bar which is 1/4th of the way from the top and press the left mouse button. If you try to move past the end of the file, the cursor will move to the end of the file and the scroll bar indicator will move to the appropriate spot to indicate the percentage of the 128K which is used by the file. For smaller movements the mouse can be used by pointing the mouse at the desired cursor position and pressing the left button. If the mouse is pointed at the first or last line of the screen, the computer scrolls in the appropriate direction. Although the mouse is an excellant tool for moving the cursor arbitrary distances, the arrow keys are usually more convenient for moving short distances such as a single character or line. The unshifted up and down arrows are used to move to the begining of the line above or below the line which currently contains the cursor. The unshifted left and right arrows are similarly used to move one character to the left or right in the file. If the shift key is held down while an arrow key is pressed, it modifies the behavior so that the up and down arrows move the cursor a screen at a time and the left and right arrows move a word at a time. If the cursor is pointing to the right location of the document but is at the top or bottom of the screen, it is sometimes usefull to be able to rewrite the screen so that the line containing the cursor is in the center of the screen. This is done by hitting Cnt-N (for normalize). Cnt-T and Cnt-B may be used to quickly move to the top and bottom of the file respectively. áSEARCH MODEÿ The search mode is entered by typing Cnt-S and is used to find a particular word or string. When the search mode is selected, the background color becomes lighter. If the background was black, it will become grey. If it was dark blue, it will become light blue. As each key is pressed the computer adds that character to the search string and searches for the first instance of that string. If the string is found the cursor moves to the string and the string is highlighted. If the string is not found the cursor remains where it is. When the search mode is first entered, all searches take place in the forward direction. The next instance of the string may be found by typing either the right arrow or the down arrow. The previous instance of the string may be found by typing either the left arrow or the up arrow. Whenever the direction is changed by typing one of the four arrow keys, the computer remembers the direction. If any additional characters are added to the search string to cause a new search to take place, the direction of the search will be the same as the last search. Characters may be removed from the search string one at a time by typing the backspace key. When you want to leave the search mode and return to the normal mode, type the escape key (labled "ESC"). áSEARCH AND REPLACE MODEÿ The replace mode is entered by typing ^R and is identical to the search mode except that the user is asked to type in a "replace string" before the computer enters the search mode. Once the replace string has been entered, type the "ENTER" or "RETURN" key to return to the text window and enter the search mode. The search mode is then used in the normal way to find and highlight strings. Each highlighted string may be replaced with the replace string by typing ^R (hold down the key labled "CTRL" while typing the upper or lower case letter "R"). áGLOBAL SEARCH AND REPLACEÿ The replace mode which was just described is the safest way to replace one string with another string since in that mode, the computer allows the user to give confirmation before each string is replaced. When you are sure that every instance of a phrase should be changed, there is a much faster way of replacing the phrase. The global search and replace command is involked by typing ^G. When ^G is typed the computer requests the user for the search string and the replace string. It then finds each instance of the search string and replaces it with the replace string. áEMBEDDED COMMANDSÿ Much of the power of Wordwright comes from the ability to embed commands in the text which will be executed when the document is printed. Commands are distinguished from normal text by the fact that commands are printed in yellow on the screen while normal text is printed in white. You can change the color to yellow in order to insert a command by typing Cnt-Y. When you want to return to the normal text mode, type Cnt-W to change the color back to white. áFORMATING COMMANDSÿ Formating is done according to the values contained in a number of variables which may be changed at any time by typing the appropriate command in yellow. The following variables are included: lmargin left margin rmargin right margin tmargin top margin bmargin bottom margin columns/line columns per line lines/page lines per page lf/cr line feeds per carriage return (for single or double spacing) In addition to these variables, the following commands affect the way text is printed: tof go to the top of form (next page) section if you are near the bottom of a page eject to the next page otherwise just insert a line feed. Cnt-J begin word wrap Cnt-K end word wrap superscript begin superscript superscript-off end superscript subscript begin subscript subscript-off end subscript fast draft mode slow letter quality mode áWORD WRAPÿ When a document is being written, it is usually important to have the maximum number of whole words on each line. This can become a problem when text is later edited and words are inserted into or deleted from the text. The result of inserting or deleting text can be some lines with only a few words on them and other lines which extend past the end of the screen (or past the right edge of the paper when the text is printed). Word wrap causes the computer to find the best places for line feeds so that the maximum number of whole words fit on each line without going over the maximum number of character which will fit on one line. When word wrap is on, the computer will recalculate the proper position for line feeds as characters are inserted and deleted from the document. The display on the screen will be optimized for the best looking display which can be generated for the given window size and the size of the characters as selected by the "PREFERENCES" program. Since the printer will often allow a different number of characters per line than the screen will allow, the locations of line feeds and spaces will be recalculated during the printing of text to correspond with the variables, lmargin, rmargin, and columns/line. Word wrap can be turned on or off by hitting Cnt-J or Cnt-K respectively. Whenever Cnt-J is typed, the background changes to dark blue to give a visual indication that word wrap is turned on. Whenever Cnt-K is typed, the background changes to black to show that word wrap is turned off. It is possible to turn word wrap on and off several times at different locations of the text. In this case the background at different locations will be different colors so that it will always be obvious whether word wrap is on or off. Word wrap is usually a desirable feature and will generally be used in all text except those portions of text when you specifically require the ability to determine the position of the line feeds yourself. Examples of these situations are the use of Wordwright to write computer programs or display columns of data. In the chapter on mail merge, it will be seen that merge files depend on the position of line feeds to distinguish between data items. áJUSTIFICATIONÿ When the computer prints your document, it can either space the words as they are written on the screen or it can insert extra spaces between some words so that the right margin is straight. Aligning the right margin is called right justification. Right justification is closely associated with word wrap and is always turned off unless word wrap is turned on. In addition, right justification also depends on the variable "justify". Thus if the variable "justify" is true and word wrap is on, then right justification will occur, but if either "justify" is false or word wrap is off, justification will not occur. Publishers generally like to perform justification themselves and therefore prefer not to have justification done by the author. The "justify" variable can be changed by the code "true to justify" or "false to justify". If you want the ability to go back and forth between these settings, you may include this code at the start of each document. If you will always use justification or will never use justification, you may enter this code from the utilities window and then run the setup command so that you may save the updated version of Wordwright. In this case Wordwright will always start with the correct setting of the "justify" variable. áPRINT STYLEÿ Italics, bold, and underlining are controled by toggling the desired functions with alternate keys. For example, to print a section in italics, you would place the cursor at the start of the section and type ALT-I (hold down one of the two the keys labled ALT and press the letter "I" or "i"). At this time all characters from the cursor until the next ALT-I will be changed to italics. You would then place the cursor at the end of the section and type another ALT-I to change back to normal characters. Bold and underlining may be performed in an identical manner using ALT-B for bold and ALT-U for underlining. When any of these print styles are turned on or off a single character control code is inserted into the text. This control character is invisible on the screen except for its affect on the print style but it can be shown to exist in the text by its effect on the left and right arrow keys. If the cursor is at a control key and the right arrow is pressed, the screen will not change because the control code doesn't take any space on the screen. A control code may be erased with the delete key or the backspace key just like any other character and the screen will immediately be updated. áHANGING INDENTÿ It is sometimes desirable to have two alternate left margins and have the active left margin toggle back and forth between them. This technique is often used when creating a glossary and is called a hanging indent for reasons which are not known to me. The following example will show how a hanging indent is used. OUTLINE MODEA mode in which only chapter and section headings are displayed on the screen. This mode allows the user to see the overall structure of the document without all the distracting details. While you are in this mode, it is possible to move entire sections with the same ease that you would move sentences or paragraphs in the text mode. A hanging indent is toggled on and off by typing Alt-M. In the example just shown, I started the hanging indent immediately after the words "OUTLINE MODE" and stopped it at the end of the indented paragraph. The variable "indent" is used to indicate how many spaces to adjust the left margin when the hanging indent is turned on. In the example just shown, I set "indent" to 15 so the paragraph is indented 15 spaces to the right of the normal right margin. Since the new left margin is positioned relative to the normal left margin, the variable "lmargin" may be changed without affecting the hanging indent. áHEADERS AND FOOTERSÿ The variables "header-line" and "footer-line" are used to indicate which line to place a header or footer on. Whenever the printer gets to the appropriate line, a header or footer is printed. If you want the header to be printed on line 3 you would set the variable "header-line" to 3 with the command "3 to header-line". The command would have to be started with ^Y and ended with ^W to show the computer that this is a command and not just normal text. If you don't want a header or footer just set the variable "header-line" or "footer-line" to zero. Since the line numbers start at one, there will never be a match between the line number and the "header-line" or "footer-line". The header will print the string contained in the string variable "header-string" which may be changed at any time with a command such as: "This is the new header string" to header-string As before, the command must be shown in yellow to be interpreted as a command. The footer behaves in a similar manner except that after the "footer-string" is printed, the printer moves to the column indicated by the variable "page-pos" and prints the page number. In order to number the pages on line 65, in column 39, with no footer message, you would start your text with the command: "" to footer-string 65 to footer-line 39 to page-pos áTABSÿ There are two ways to set tabs in Wordwright. The simplest way is to select the pull down menu labled "TABS". This will open a new window and will then prompt you for the correct tab settings. The weakness of this approach is that the tabs must be set manually each time the file is read in. The second approach is to imbed commands within the text file itself. The commands available for setting tabs in this way are: clear-tabs removes all tab settings set-tab set a tab reset-tab remove a tab The syntax for setting or removing a tab requires that the column number of the tab must preceed the command. In the next example, commands are shown which will set tabs at columns 10 and 20. clear-tabs 10 set-tab 20 set-tab If a form is being edited which has commands as shown above, the commands will be executed whenever the file is reformatted by typing ^A as well as when the text is printed. áBLOCK COPYÿ A copy buffer is used to store text which is to be copied to a different location. Text is placed in the copy buffer by one of two ways. Whenever a block of text is deleted by use of the delete mode or by the block delete command, the text is placed in the copy buffer as a safety feature to allow the recovery of the text if it is deleted erroneously. A second method of placing text in the copy buffer is to mark each end of the block by placing the cursor there and typing ^X. The background color will change to green when the first ^X is typed and will return to normal when the second ^X is typed. Once text is placed in the copy buffer, as many copies as are needed may be inserted into the file by placing the cursor in the desired positions and typing ^C. áBLOCK DELETEÿ A block may be deleted by marking the beginning and end of the block with ^X as described above in the section concerning copying of a block. After the block is marked and before any other key is pressed a third ^X may be entered to delete the block. If any other key is pressed between the second and third entry of the ^X, the block will not be deleted and the ^X will be interpreted as the first ^X in another attempt to mark a block of text and the computer will indicate this by changing the background color to green. If a ^X is entered in error and you don't want to lose the text which is already in the copy buffer, enter a second ^X without moving the cursor. When a block of zero length is marked in this way, the computer recognizes this as a mistake and the copy buffer isn't changed. áBLOCK MOVEÿ A block of text may be moved from one area to another area by combining the proceedure for the block delete with the proceedure for the block copy. The block to be moved is first deleted. Before any other block deletes are made the cursor is moved to the desired location of the block and a copy is placed there by typing ^C. áDELETE MODEÿ The delete mode allows a fast way of deleting words or lines of text. The delete mode is entered by typing ^D. While in the delete mode, the characters are changed to a particularly ugly shade of pink (chosen for good contrast not beauty) and the cursor will begin to flash on and off. In this mode the arrow keys are interpreted as special delete keys. The up and down arrows are used to delete text from the cursor to the end of the previous line or the beginning of the following line respectively. The left and right arrows are used to delete to the beginning of the previous or following word. The computer will return to the normal mode if any key except one of the arrow keys is pressed. It will also return to normal mode after about two seconds without a key being pressed. The text which is deleted while in the delete mode is saved in the copy buffer in case an error is made and replaces the text which was in the copy buffer. áMACROSÿ The 10 function keys are available as user definable macros. In order to see how the macros are currently defined or to change the macro definitions, you must select the macros option from the "MISC" pull down menu of Wordwright. The current definitions of the macros will be displayed and you will then be given the oportunity to change any macro. To change a macro, just hit the function key which you want to redefine. As soon as this is done, the computer will prompt you for the string to be associated with that macro. After the string is typed in, the macro definition is finished by typing the escape key. When a macro has been defined, the macro definitions will be redisplayed and you will again be given the oportunity to change macro definitions. When no more changes are desired you may return to Wordwright by typing the escape key when you are asked to type a function key. Any characters may be included in the macro definition except the escape key which is used to end the macro. Although macros are generally used to type frequently used text, it is also possible to define a macro as a sequence of commands. For example, a command to move the cursor down 3 screens and then search for the first instance of the word "the" could be defined as a macro by holding the shift key down, hitting the down arrow key 3 times, typing control S, and following with the word "the". It should be noted that some keys such as the arrow keys emit a string of characters starting with the special control sequence introducer 9B hex. Since this byte doesn't have a printable ascii representation, the byte 9B is represented by a tilde (~) when the macro definitions are displayed. áHELPÿ The help key is used while in Wordwright to provide on line help in the form of information screens which summarize the commands which are associated with the various control characters and display information such as the current macro definitions. To use the help key, just hit it while in the edit mode. àCHAPTER 3: THE OUTLINERÿ In addition to the word processing capabilities of Wordwright, an integrated outliner is also included. The power of an outliner becomes very apparent when a large document is being written. In the same way that a word processor allows you to easily move words and phrases around so that your sentences become clear and easy to read, an outliner enables you to move entire sections around and clarify the structure of an entire document. áOPENING AND CLOSING SECTIONSÿ The basic feature that gives an outliner its usefulness is the ability to shrink and expand sections. By shrinking all the sections so that only the section titles are shown, it is possible to shrink the text file by perhaps a 15 to 1 ratio for a clear overview of the structure of your document. Cnt-F is used as a toggle to either shrink or expand an individual section. If the cursor is at a closed section when Cnt-F is pressed, the section will be expanded. If the cursor is at an open section when Cnt-F is pressed, the section will collapse so that only the section title is shown and the cursor will be moved to the beginning of the section title. Cnt-O (the letter not the number) is similar to Cnt-F except that its effects are global. In other words, if the cursor is at an open section all sections will be closed and if the cursor is at a closed section, all sections will be expanded. áCURSOR CONTROLÿ The outliner is integrated with the rest of the word processor in such a way that cursor control is identical in both the text mode and the outline mode and is independent of whether sections are open, closed, or a combination of the two. This includes cursor control both by the mouse and by the keyboard. It is usually much easier to learn by example than it is by just reading so you are encouraged to try editing a text file at this time and experiment with opening and closing sections and moving the cursor while in the outline mode. The unshifted up and down arrow keys will still move the cursor a line at a time and the shifted up and down arrow keys will still move the cursor a screen at a time. However, since each line displays an entire section in the outline mode, the cursor will move a much greater distance in relation to the size of the file. This can be seen clearly by noticing the effect of cursor movement on the scroll bar. Moving up or down a single line in the text mode will hardly move the scroll bar indicator. However, moving up or down a single line while in the outline mode can cause the indicator to move quite a large distance if the sections are large. You should also try moving the cursor by means of the mouse. In this case, the cursor will again behave in a similar manner independent of whether the screen is displaying the file in the text mode, the outline mode, or some sections in each mode. If you enter the search mode and the computer finds a string in a closed section, the section will be opened automatically so that the string can be displayed. This is also true for text which is found by moving the scroll bar. A block of text may be moved, deleted or copied in either the outline form or the text form. If you are in the outline mode and a line of text is deleted by entering the delete mode and hitting an up or down arrow key, an entire section can be deleted at one time. If this is done by mistake, the entire section can be recovered by typing Cnt-C just as it would be in the text mode. áSTARTING A NEW SECTIONÿ In order to use the outliner, each section header should be highlighted on the screen. Wordwright allows a section header to be highlighted by placing the cursor anywhere on the section header, holding down one of the two keys labled "ALT", and pressing the letter "S" (for Section). This will cause the section to be shown in inverse video on the screen. If the cursor is placed at a section title which is already shown in inverse video and the Alt-S is pressed, the section will be indented two spaces for each time Alt-S is typed. This indicates that the title refers to a subsection. In order for your document to look right, you must ensure that the title of a section is never on one page and the begining of the text on the next page. Wordwright will prevent this from happening as long as the title of the section is written in inverse on the screen. When a text file is printed, there is a distinction between sections that are indented and sections that aren't indented. Any section which is not indented will always start on a new page. This is therefore generally used for the beginning of a chapter. If the section is indented, it makes no difference how many levels it is indented except for its appearence in the outline. Indented sections will start at whatever location of the page you happen to be at as long as there is sufficient space on the page to include the section title and at least two lines of text. If you are too close to the bottom of the page for this to be possible, the printer will eject to the top of the next page before it starts the section. The indentation is only shown on the screen to make the outline easier to understand. No indentation will occure on the paper unless spaces are typed into the section title by pressing the space bar. áTABLE OF CONTENTSÿ A table of contents may be generated automatically by simply typing the command "contents" in yellow as the last command in your text. As a document is being printed, Wordwright keeps track of the page where each section starts. The command "contents" causes the computer to use this information to generate a table of contents. Since the computer won't know what page each section starts on until after the document is typed, it is important that the "contents" command be the last command given in the document. àCHAPTER 4: MAIL MERGEÿ I hardly ever go more than a month without receiving a "personal" letter from some computer telling me what a great guy I am and how lucky I am to be one of the few priveliged people selected to receive the latest marvel of science for only $19.95 plus $3.00 for shipping and handling. The letter will invariably mention me by name at least once and it will also include some other personal information such as my address to show that the letter was written by someone who really cares about me. Mail merge allows you to write very complicated form letters in which the exact wording is modifed by data taken from a separate file called the merge file. áVARIABLESÿ Two types of variables are supported in Wordwright, integer variables and string variables. Each variable must be defined before it is used with one of the defining words declare or declare-string. The syntax for these commands is shown by the examples below. It is important to remember that commands must be shown in yellow on the screen or they will be interpreted as normal text. declare gross-sales declare-string first-name In each case the defining word is followed by the name of the variable which is being defined. The two types of variables have different properties and will therefore be treated seperately in the following sections. Any variable which is defined in a text file is a local variable. This means that the variable will be removed as soon as you leave Wordwright and any space which was reserved for the variable will be returned. áINTEGER VARIABLESÿ Integer variables are 32 bits in length. This gives a range of more than 2 billion in both the positive and negative directions. When a variable name is encountered the computer normally returns the value which is contained in that variable. For example if the variable "age" has been declared and set to 10 the code "age =" would print the number 10. The action of a variable may be changed by immediately preceeding it with the word "to" or "+to". The word "to" is the assignment operator. This causes a number to be assigned to a variable. The code "25 to age" would assign a value of 25 to the variable "age". The word "+to" behaves in a similar manner, but instead of assigning a fixed value to the variable, it adds to the number which was already in the variable. If the variable "age" had the value 25, the code "3 +to age" would change the value of "age" to 28. áSTRING-VARIABLESÿ Each string variable may hold a string up to 50 characters in length. When a string is encountered, the normal behavior is to return the address where the string is located. The command "print" is used to print a string from its address. If the string variable "animal" is declared and the string "cat" is assigned to "animal", the code "animal print" will print the word "cat". Like the integer variables previously discussed, the behavior of a string is also dependent on whether it is preceeded by the word "to" or "+to". In this case "to" is used to assign a string to the variable and the word "+to" is used to append a string to a string which was already contained in the variable. Since examples are often more instructive than explanations, the following example is offered to show how a string variable is modified by various commands. The left column shows the commands and the right column shows what would be printed as a result of each command. Again, remember that in order to distinguish between commands and text, the commands must be printed on the screen in yellow and normal text must be printed on the screen in white. The control characters ^Y and ^W are used to change the color of the text. µ declare-string name declare-string street declare-string city declare-string state "RTL Programming Aids" to name "10844 Deerwood SE" to street "Lowell" to city "MI" to state name print RTL Programming Aids street print 10844 Deerwood SE city print ", " print state print Lowell, MI · áDECISIONSÿ In order to be as flexible as possible, the computer must be able to make choices and perform different tasks under different circumstances. This requires two things. First there must be a variety of instructions which are capable of making comparisons or returning various types of status information, and second there must be control structures which are capable of making different responses as a result of these instructions. The next two sections will show how to alter the way a document is printed based on conditions which are encountered during the printing of the document. áTESTS AND COMPARISONSÿ The purpose of a test or comparison instruction is to return a flag. A flag can be thought of as a switch which represents a true or false condition. There are 6 different comparisons which can be made between numbers and 3 comparisons which can be made between strings. The following is a summary of the comparison instructions. NUMERIC COMPARISONS STRING COMPARISONS greater-than $greater-than greater-or-equal $equal equal $less-than not-equal less-than less-or-equal In each test the arguments being tested preceed the test itself. THIS IS EXTREMILY IMPORTANT. The program will not operate correctly if the order is changed. For example, if the variable "age" contains the age of a person, you could determine whether the person is 21 years old or greater with the code "age 21 greater-or-equal". áCONTROL STRUCTURES ÿ The simplest control structure is the IF ... ENDIF structure. Because Wordwright uses postfix notation, this structure behaves a little bit differently than the same structure in some computer languages. It is assumed that a flag indicating a true or false condition has been generated prior to entering this control structure. Any nonzero number is considered a true flag and a zero is considered to be a false flag. When the word IF is encountered the flag is tested to see whether it is true or false. The flag is then dropped and execution either proceeds with the next sequential instruction (if the flag was true) or execution jumps to the word immediately following the word ENDIF. In the example just given, there was no response for the case when the comparison instruction returned a false flag. Many times, there is one procedure in the case of a true flag and an alternate procedure in the case of a false flag. The IF ... ELSE ... ENDIF construct may then be used. The IF ... ELSE ... ENDIF construct tests the flag in the same way as the IF ... ENDIF construct. It then executes the clause between IF and ELSE in the case of a true flag and the clause between ELSE and ENDIF in the case of a false flag. After the appropriate clause is executed, execution proceeds with the word immediately following the word ENDIF. For those people who are familiar with the IF THEN and IF THEN ELSE constructs of BASIC, it is important to compare the differences between the BASIC version and the Worwright version of this structure. It isn't obvious at first glance, but the BASIC control structures should actually be written as IF ... THEN ... ENDIF and IF ... THEN ... ELSE ... ENDIF. The word ENDIF is not explicitly included in BASIC, but is implied by the end of the line. This means that the BASIC version of this control structure can never have a clause longer than one line and the only way to get around this arbitrary limitation is to include commands such as GOTO or GOSUB in clauses which are too long otherwise. Another difference is the fact that Wordwright requires the conditional flag to be determined and placed on the stack before entering the control structure. BASIC determines the condition from code placed between the words IF and THEN. If the conditional clause is indicated by COND?, the syntax of the two versions can be compared as follows (with the implied ENDIF of BASIC displayed). Wordwright COND? IF ... ENDIF COND? IF ... ELSE ... ENDIF Basic IF COND? THEN ... ENDIF IF COND? THEN ... ELSE ... ENDIF ´tof² áFORM LETTERSÿ In the following examples, embeded commands are used to show how a form letter may be written which will print different phrases based on the values of variables which are defined at the beginning of the letter. Both of the letters which follow were printed using the same form letter. The only change is the values assigned to the variables. µ ´declare current-gross declare past-gross declare gross-increase declare-string scapegoat 380000 to current-gross 326000 to past-gross current-gross past-gross - to gross-increase "our newest employee" to scapegoat "Z,ZZZ" to format ² ·Dear Stockholder, The gross sales for this quarter was $´current-gross =². This is ´gross-increase neg?- if "a decrease" else "an increase" endif print² of ´gross-increase abs "$" print =². This change in gross sales is due primarily to the efforts of ´gross-increase neg?- if scapegoat else "our beloved and industrious president" endif print². As the newly appointed assistant to the president it is my sad duty to inform you that the accident which my predecessor "Uncle" Ned suffered in front of my office will prevent him from resuming his duties for at least the next 3 months. Sincerely, Albert Smith (Ambitious Al) µ ´326000 to current-gross 380000 to past-gross current-gross past-gross - to gross-increase "our newest employee" to scapegoat "Z,ZZZ" to format ² ·Dear Stockholder, The gross sales for this quarter was $´current-gross =². This is ´gross-increase neg?- if "a decrease" else "an increase" endif print² of ´gross-increase abs "$" print =². This change in gross sales is due primarily to the efforts of ´gross-increase neg?- if scapegoat else "our beloved and industrious president" endif print². As the newly appointed assistant to the president it is my sad duty to inform you that the accident which my predecessor "Uncle" Ned suffered in front of my office will prevent him from resuming his duties for at least the next 3 months. Sincerely, Albert Smith (Ambitious Al) ´tof² áGETTING DATA FROM A MERGE FILEÿ The form letters which were shown in the previous section have one major fault. It is neccessary to edit the file and change the values of the variables for each letter that is printed. A much more powerfull way to generate form letters is to put the data in a separate file called a "merge file" and have the computer automatically initialize the variables from the data in the merge file at the start of each letter. This allows a large number of customized letters to be printed with no interaction required from the user. The modification neccessary in the text file in order to use mail merge consists of simply modifying each command that assigns a constant or string to a variable so that the constant or string which is assigned to the variable comes from the merge file instead of from the text file. The command which does this is called "get". Thus the in the previous example, the phrase "326000 to current-gross" would be replaced by the phrase "get current-gross", the phrase "380000 to past-gross" would be replaced by the phrase "get past-gross", and the phrase ""our newest employee" to scapegoat" would be replaced by the phrase "get scapegoat". áLOOPSÿ It is often desireable to search through the merge file for data which meets certain conditions and only print letters when those conditions are met. For example, if you want to advertise a trade show which is only of local interest, it might be nice to send letters to just those people with zip codes in a certain range. The "LOOP" structure gives you the ability to collect data from the merge file, test it, and continue going back for more data until the data satisfies your conditions so that a letter can be printed. The following example shows how code would be written to accomplish the task just described. µ begin get name get street get city get state get zip zip 45000 greater-than zip 46000 less-than and repeat-until · In the example shown, the program gets all the information from the merge file and then performs a test to see whether the information is to be used or not. If it is NOT to be used, the program will jump back to the word begin and will gather information for another person. As soon as the conditions are met the program will continue with the printing of the letter using the values just collected for the variables. The test portion of the code which was just shown needs further clarification. The test in this case indicates a true responce when the zip code is greater than 45000 and less than 46000. It should be noted that two separate tests are performed and both tests must be true for the conditions to be met. In each test the arguments being tested preceed the test itself. THIS IS EXTREMILY IMPORTANT. The program will not operate correctly if the order is changed. For example, in the code "zip 45000 greater-than" the value of the zip code comes first (zip), then the value which it will be compared to comes (45000), and finally the comparison is made (greater-than). This comparison returns a condition of either true or false. The second test behaves in a similar manner and returns a condition of true or false. The second condition will be met whenever the zip code is less than 46000. After both conditions are tested for, the word "and" provides a third test. In this case the word "and" will return a true indication if both of the previous tests returned a true indication and it will return a false indication if either or both of the previous tests returned a false indication. Again it is important to note that the two previous tests must be completed before the "and" test is made. The "or" command is similar to the "and" command. In this case only one of the previous tests has to be true for the "or" condition to be true. If the letter was to be sent to everyone in the merge file EXCEPT those people within the given zip code range, the code could be modified by replacing the word "repeat-until" with the word "repeat-while". In this case the code would look like the following. µ begin get name get street get city get state get zip zip 45000 greater-than zip 46000 less-than and repeat-while · áCREATING A MERGE FILEÿ Once the text file is modified so that it looks for input from a merge file, the text file can be saved and a separate merge file can be created. The merge file is simply a text file that contains the data needed by the text file. The data must be entered in the same order that it is requested by the document. Numeric data may be separated either by spaces or by placing each number on a separate line. Strings must be separated by placing each string on a separate line. Blank lines may be inserted if desired for readability but they will be ignored by the program. In other words, if the program tries to read the value for a numeric or string variable, it will keep skipping lines until it finds a line with data on it. When a document is being printed and a merge file is specified, the document will be printed again and again using different data each time until either the file is exhausted or the user stops the printing by typing a carriage return. àCHAPTER 5: UTILITIESÿ A number of utilities are included with Wordwright which aren't a neccesary part of the word processor but add a lot to the usefulness of it. áCLIÿ It is frequently usefull to access system utilities from within Wordwright. The most common system utility "dir" may be called from the "UTILITIES" window by simply typing in the word "dir" with an optional drive or path name. This will start a new CLI (Command Line Interface) and execute the dir command. After the dir command is executed, the new CLI will remain until a return is typed with nothing in the line. If you want to execute a system command other than dir, you may create a new CLI without first executing the dir command by typing the command "CLI". Both the dir and cli commands are also available from the edit mode by using pull down menus. áCALCULATORÿ The utilities window contains a simple calculator which is intended primarily as an aid to programmers. It is a four function calculator which works only with integers but can perform calculations in either the decimal mode or the hexadecimal mode. It can also convert from one base to another and can give the ascii representation for any key which is pressed. The calculator uses Reverse Polish Notation or RPN. RPN is the way functions are entered in calculators made by Hewlett Packard and it differs from algebraic notation in that functions are entered after numbers instead of between numbers. The following example illustrates the keys which would be typed in both algebraic notation and RPN to add, subtract, multiply, or divide two numbers. ALGEBRAIC RPN 2 + 2 = 2 2 + = 5 - 3 = 5 3 - = 3 * 4 = 3 4 * = 8 / 2 = 8 2 / = It should be noted that there must be a space between numbers and functions. The calculator works in both the decimal and hexadecimal modes and you can switch from one mode to the other by typing the words "decimal" or "hex". If you want to convert a decimal number to hexadecimal you would make sure that you are in the decimal mode, enter your number, type "hex" to enter the hexadecimal mode, and print the number by typing an equal sign. If you want to know what the ascii representation is for a particular key, you may type the word "key?" followed by a carriage return. The computer will then wait for you to press the next key and will type the ascii representation for the character or characters that are sent to the computer when that key is typed. The ascii representation can be given in either the decimal mode or the hexadecimal mode depending on which number base is selected at the time. áDUMPÿ It is sometimes usefull to see a memory dump of text to show unprintable characters such as tabs or characters which are embedded to change the screen color. The dump command is used to print the contents of any area of memory in the computer. If you know the address where you want to start your dump, you just type the address followed by a space and the word "dump". If you don't know the address, you can use a symbolic address such as sof, eof, or current. These symbolic addresses refer to the start of file, end of file, and cursor location respectively. If you wanted to start the dump 10 characters in front of the cursor, you would type "current 10 - dump". The dump may be stopped and restarted by typing the space bar. When you want to stop the dump completely and have no desire to restart it, hit the return key. áSCREEN SAVERÿ The screen saver isn't a utility that is deliberatly used, but instead is a feature that is always present in the background of Wordwright. The function of the screen saver is to monitor the activity from the keyboard to determine whether someone is actually using Wordwright or whether the computer is just sitting idle. If 5 minutes goes by with no input from the keyboard, the computer assumes that nobody is using the computer and will turn off the display except for the pointer, which will be left on as an indicator to show that the computer is still turned on. The purpose of the screen saver is to prolong the life of your monitor. If the screen turns off, you may turn it back on by hitting any key. The key will only be interpreted as a command to turn on the screen and will not affect any text which is being edited. The length of time necessary to turn off the screen is adjustable by the user. To adjust the time, go to the utilities window and type the command "N to screen-timer" where N is the number of seconds that you want to wait before the computer turns the monitor off. For example, the command "5 60 * to screen-timer" will set the timer for 5 minutes. If you plan to run another program at the same time Wordwright is running, you are likely to go for a long time without typing any input to Wordwright, but you still won't want the screen to turn off. The screen saver can be disabled by setting the screen-timer to 0. ´contents²