ProWesS reader

PROGS, Professional & Graphical Software
Dr. Frans Hemerijckxlaan 13 /1
2650 Edegem
BELGIUM
tel : +32 (0)3/ 457 84 88 fax : +32 (0)3/ 458 62 07 e-mail : joachim@club.innet.be
www : http://www.club.innet.be/~year2827


Introduction

The ProWesS reader is a program which can display hypertext documentation. These are text files with some hints about proper display, and possible links between documents. The file format which is used for this is HTML, the HyperText Markup Language.

This program is mainly intended for online reading of documents, especially manuals and help files. However, it can also produce hardcopy of these documents.

The ProWesS reader is normally used for reading hypertext documents. These documents often consist of several files, which have links between them. To be able to fully use hypertext documents, you usually need to start at the main menu or table of contents. These can usually be found in a file ending in _toc_html or a file which has the program name as file name (e.g. this file : reader_html).

Menu Bar

The menu bar is the list of items just below the title bar (which contains the help, quit and sleep items), and just above the items which display the name of the document being viewed.

Although it is possible to change all the item names, I will use the default names for reference. All the items can also be indicated by pressing a key. The key which should be pressed is the first letter of the (default) item name, except for bookmarks, which can be indicated by pressing <o>.

Back

The Back items allows you to go back on your tracks. It will redisplay the file which was being viewed just before this one.

Load

Select the file which has to be displayed. A file select window is displayed to allow you to make your choice interactively. Please note that the ProWesS reader can only display HTML hypertext documents. Other files could give unexpected results.

Reload

This item will load the file which is currently displayed again. This can be useful when you resized the window (as the line width is not automatically changed).

More importantly, this allows you to reload the page easily when you are designing or modifying the contents.

Print

To allow you to read a big part of documentation more easily, you can also produce proper hardcopy by printing them on your printer. To make things readable, you should set the fontsize to a value which is suitable for printing. Values which are often used are eleven (11) or twelve (12), which match the sizes often used in books.

Of course, the device and printer driver which should be used for printing can be set. Please note that the ProWesS reader will try to make full use of the printable area of your printer. To make sure that nothing falls of the edge, your printer driver should be properly configured.

The ProWesS reader will not just print the document which is being displayed, but will try to include all subdocuments in the printout (without duplicates of course). This is done by giving hints when writing the HTML documents. All references which include the PRINT, REV="toC" or REL="SUBDOCUMENT" attribute in the reference will be included.

If you want to punch holes in the documents you are going to print, then the Margin for perforation option should be indicated. This will make sure that a one inch margin is available at the left side of the page.

Save the trees ! Remember that you can directly reuse a lot of paper by also printing on the backside of pages which were used at the other side only. This can save a lot of trees and energy on recycling. Please do not throw used paper in the bin, but have it recycled, our world has to survive for many generations to come !

Styles

This menu allows you to change the (high level) style which is used for the document, like the fontsize which has to be used on screen, and the selection of fonts. Many more can be changed by configuring the program (see config).

Please note that the typewriter font should be a mono spaced (or fixed width) font. A lot of documents representation depends on all the characters having the same width in this font. A typical example of a mono spaced font is the Courier font family.

Bookmarks

It is possible to define Bookmarks. This is a list of files which you often need, so that you can jump to them directly. The list of bookmarks is loaded from a file when the ProWesS reader is started. The name of the bookmarks file can be configured (see config).

The bookmarks menu contains the bookmarks which can be used and three items

Add current
This adds the file which is currently displayed to the bookmarks list (at the bottom). Please note that this can generate duplicates.
Load
This command will display the file select window, so that you can indicate a new bookmarks file. An error will be reported if the file which was indicated is not a bookmarks file.
Save
When you indicate this window, a window is displayed in which you can edit the filename to save the bookmarks file. You can still cancel by indicating quit or pressing <esc>.
In this window you cannot move the pointer using the cursor keys as they control the cursor in the edline object. The filename and save action are confirmed by pressing <enter>.

The bookmarks file is a human readable file. This allows you to load it in an editor and manually sort or delete items (each line is an item from the bookmarks list).

History

The History window gives the list of the files which were last displayed. This allows you to go back to one of the previous files in somewhat larger steps than by using Back.

Configuration

As could be expected, The ProWesS reader is quite configurable. The things which are configurable are be divided into three parts.

Command line options

reader [-help] [-file filename] [-pos position] [-dir directory]
help
This option indicates that the ProWesS reader is used to display the help files. In this case the Load and Bookmarks items are not available.
filename
This allows you to pass the name of the file which has to be displayed when the program starts.
position
The name of the position in the file which should be displayed.
directory
The directory where the file should be searched.

PROGS, Professional & Graphical Software
last edited October 18, 1996