NewDeal Technical Support Document 275
Instead of presenting 3D Font Demo in a strictly "command and function" format, we provide here a hopefully logical "tour" of the program. This article will take you through the Demo's tricks as well as its keyboard and mouse command sequences with one caveat: we're not sure we've discovered all of them. We'll be looking at a lot of things in the Demo while it is in OFF Status, so don't turn the Demo on until the instructions request you do so.
To start 3D Font Demo, double click its icon in the Extras folder, or choose it from the Express menu.
The 3D Font Demo consists of the STATUS: ON/OFF BUTTONS display, the TEXT FIELD BOX and the MAIN VIEWING SCREEN. When you first start 3D Font Demo, its STATUS is set to OFF and the word NewDeal appears in two places: once in the TEXT FIELD BOX to the right of the ON/OFF buttons and again in the MAIN VIEWING SCREEN.
Use the tab key to activate, or the mouse to select, the TEXT FIELD BOX. A cursor will appear in the box. Using standard NewDeal editing commands, delete the word NewDeal.
You are now ready to type in any word or words you'd like, up to 20 characters. You can include spaces, standard punctuation and even extended keyboard character commands. After you have typed in your text, hit the ENTER key. The text you typed in the TEXT FIELD BOX automatically appears in the MAIN VIEWING SCREEN, replacing any text that was previously there.
EXTRA SPECIAL FUN: Please note that you are not limited to changing text while in OFF mode. You can change text mid-stream, as well. While the Demo is running, simply change the text in the text field box and hit the ENTER key.
Let's leave the text field box for a moment and take a look at the MAIN VIEWING SCREEN. While the STATUS is OFF, each time you edit the text in the TEXT FIELD BOX and hit the ENTER key, the demo advances one frame.
Let's go back to the TEXT FIELD BOX one more time. As I mentioned, you can type in any text you like including spaces. In the Demo, however, SPACE is also used to control how the Demo runs. This is one of the Demo's most intriguing features. If you changed the text in the text field box in one of the sections above, delete that text and replace it with the word NewDeal.
While deleting text in the text field box and before typing any new text, it is important to make sure you have deleted the entire text string, including any spaces to the left or right of your text string. You can do this by highlighting the text with the cursor and pressing DELETE or, if you use the keyboard, press the RIGHT ARROW KEY to bring the cursor to the last character in the text box, which may or may not be a space. Then, use the BACKSPACE KEY to erase all text. When you are finished, the cursor should be resting flush with the left side of the box.
With the word NewDeal now typed in the box, hit the ENTER key to move the word onto the main viewing screen.
Start the Demo by clicking once on the ON button.
As the Demo starts up, pay particular attention to the SPIN AXIS, or center of spin. In the NewDeal example, the center of spin is the "D," which is just about the center of the word. You can change the center of spin by adding and deleting SPACES to the left and right of your text string. Let's stop the demo and try this now.
You can STOP the Demo by clicking once on the OFF button.
The Demo should now be OFF. Activate the TEXT FIELD BOX and, if it is not already there, move the cursor to the left side of the box. You do this by clicking once with the cursor, or just use the HOME key. Using the SPACEBAR, place 5 spaces to the left of the word NewDeal and hit ENTER. Start the Demo again. Notice that the CENTER OF SPIN is no longer on the "D" but on the "e" in New. By adding SPACES to the LEFT of the text string, we effectively moved the SPIN AXIS to the LEFT.
So far, we have used 13 characters out of a maximum of 20. Since we have room for 7 more characters, let's add 7 more spaces to the left. After you are finished, hit ENTER and run the Demo again. This time, our SPIN AXIS is on the letter "N"! Likewise, placing spaces to the RIGHT of the text will move the center of spin RIGHT. To spin the word NewDeal on the letter "l," simply add 12 spaces to the right of the word instead of the left!
IMPORTANT NOTE: You do not have to stop the demo to change the center of spin. Just the follow the instructions for changing text mid-stream, which is outlined above.
To begin the display, choose ON. To pause the display, choose OFF. To switch between circles or squares, choose either radio button next to the word Draw.
To exit the application, choose Exit from the File menu.
3D Font Demo was designed to test the font rendering and display of NewDeal Software. You can also launch multiple instances of 3D Font Demo.
People in our office (non-engineers) and people at trade shows commented that they really liked 3D Font Demo and Bounce and since it didn't cost anything to include them (except a little disk space) we decided to do it.
We don't spend our days concocting little sample applications, but we do sometimes need to write test programs. When these test programs are of interest to our users it makes sense to release them.
To start Screen Dumper, double click its icon in the Extras folder, or choose it from the Express menu.
Detailed instructions for using Screen Dumper are available in the on-screen help file. Click the help button (question mark) to read the instructions.
Note: When using Screen Dumper to generate graphics files directly, you must use a 16-color video driver. Video drivers with higher color resolutions will generate an error when you try to capture the screen with Screen Dumper, but you may still capture screen images to the clipboard.
To start Stopwatch, double click its icon in the Extras folder, or choose it from the Express menu.
Stopwatch creates a plain text file document which contains the starting and stopping times and any marks you set while the application is running. You can open an existing document or a new document, change the name of a document, back up a document, and perform most of the same file functions as in other applications by using the controls in the File menu.
To start timing, press the Start button. The date and time are entered into the document for you.
To mark elapsed time, press the Mark button. The elapsed time is entered into the document for you.
To add comments, edit the document as you would any text file.
Note: Stopwatch will only track time while it and NewDeal are running. When you exit Stopwatch, it prompts you to save your file. You can examine or edit your saved files later with Stopwatch, Text File Editor, or any other text editor.