May 10, 1986 PC-OUTLINE Version 1.08 These are some of the files on this disk: PCO.EXE - executable file for running PC-OUTLINE README.1 - the latest notes about PC-OUTLINE not included in the manual README.2 - descriptions of the utility programs included on the disk GLOBAL.COM - utility program #1 (see README.2) CPY.COM - utility program #2 (see README.2) DIRS.COM - utility program #3 (see README.2) MOVE.COM - utility program #4 (see README.2) MEM.COM - utility program #5 (see README.2) BEEP.COM - utility program #6 (see README.2) PUSHDIR.COM - utility program #7 (see README.2) POPDIR.COM - utility program #8 (see README.2) DOC.PRN - brief documentation in printable form DOC.PCO - brief documentation in a PC-OUTLINE file EPSON.CFG - the epson printer driver IBM.CFG - the ibm printer driver BLANK.CFG - a dummy printer driver that will ignore all print codes PRINTDOC.BAT - a batch file that will print DOC.PRN to LPT1 PCPRINT.COM - a program for changing printer drivers KEYSET.COM - a program for customizing the PC-OUTLINE invoke key PCOPRN$.CFG - a printer substitution file for correctly printing graphics characters on non-IBM printers. CREATE.PCO - an outline describing how to create new outline elements. MENUS.PCO - an outline describing how to use the menus. HIDING.PCO - an outline describing how to hide and unhide outline elements. MOVE.PCO - an outline describing how to rearrange outline elements. GOODCLK.COM - a program to make the time display in PC-OUTLINE work correctly on some compatibles (AT&T, EPSON, and others). To use it, just run it in your autoexec.bat file (or any time before loading PC-OUTLINE). Last minute notes about PC-OUTLINE: A couple new features have been implemented which are not included in the manual. 1) NEW WAY OF SPECIFYING WHERE THE CONFIGURATION FILE IS FOR USE ON A HARD DISK: Instead of using the /l= as a command parameter option, you may put the command SET PCO= in your autoexec.bat file. PC-OUTLINE will first look in the current directory for the configuration file PCO.CFG. If it is not found there and there was no /l=..... command parameter, then PC-OUTLINE will try the file/path set in the environment with the dos SET command. By using this feature, you can start PC-OUTLINE from anywhere on your hard disk simply by pathing to the directory that contains PCO.EXE. PC-OUTLINE will do the rest of the work, automatically finding its configuration files. 2) NEW /d COMMAND PARAMETER FOR CONTROLLING THE STARTING CURRENT DIRECTORY IN PC-OUTLINE: The configuration file PCO.CFG (created from the ADVANCED CONFIGURATION menu) can contain a starting directory. If it does, then each time PC-OUTLINE starts it will automatically start with that directory as the current directory for outline files. If it does not contain a starting directory, (the entry in the ADVANCED CONFIGURATION menu for starting directory is blank), then PC-OUTLINE will use the current DOS directory as its starting directory. If you set a current directory in the above menu because you keep most of your outline files in one particular location, but sometimes you want to start up PC-OUTLINE with a different directory, then you can log to the directory you want and type PCO.EXE /d. The /d will tell PC-OUTLINE to ignore the starting directory set in the configuration file and use the DOS current directory. 3) Although it is not mentioned in the documentation anywhere, PC-OUTLINE supports the creation of a printer substitution table allowing you to print graphics characters on some printers. Note: Graphics characters will print exactly as seen on the screen on an IBM printer. On epson printers and most other printers, however, you must do a little extra work to get some graphics characters to print correctly. For example, if you choose bullet numbering for your outlines, an epson printer will not correctly print the bullet. To fix this, create an ascii file named PCOPRN$.CFG and place the following line in it (this file exists on the PC-OUTLINE system disk): char(254)=143 The bullet character on screen is 254 and the epson printer character for a bullet is 143. This command tells PC-OUTLINE that whenever it is about to print a character 254, print a 143 instead. You can place as many printer substitutions as you like. The string to substitute can be more than one character if desired. For example you could redefine the tilde character (~) to turn boldface on (for an epson printer) by inserting the following line. char('~')=27,'E' This would substitute ESC G for every occurence of a tilde character. Note that there are two ways to insert a value, by placing a character in single quotes ('D') or by entering the decimal representation for the ascii value of the character (123). Each entry must be separated by a comma. Following are some valid entries: char(132)='a' char('f')='ABC',32 char(34)=255,'abc',27,'G' Any line in the file that begins with a semicolon will be ignored (useful for inserting comments). Lines in the substitution file may be no longer than 80 characters. To continue a line on the next line, end the line with a plus sign. For example: char('~')='ABCEFGHIJKLMNOP',+ 'QRSTUVWXYZ' This command would print the entire alphabet everytime the tilde ('~') was encountered in a file. PC-OUTLINE will look for the file PCOPRN$.CFG in the same directory as the configuration file. If you have not used either the l= command parameter or the SET PCO= command to specify where the configuration file is located, then PC-OUTLINE will just look for PCOPRN$.CFG in the current directory. ITEMS ADDED TO PC-OUTLINE SINCE THE DOCUMENTATION RELEASE. ---------------------------------------------------------- ADDED IN VERSION 1.02: 1) DE-INSTALL - While using PC-OUTLINE in memory resident mode, you may deinstall it from memory by pressing Control-Backspace three times in a row from the main editing mode. If there were no memory resident programs loaded after PC-OUTLINE, you will recover all the memory that PC-OUTLINE was allocated. If you load any memory resident programs after PC-OUTLINE, the memory PC-OUTLINE occupied will be freed, but it will not be available for dos to use to run other programs in. Note: ONLY USE THE DEINSTALL COMMAND AFTER INVOKING PC-OUTLINE FROM THE DOS PROMPT AND ONLY AFTER YOU HAVE SAVED ALL OF YOUR OUTLINES. YOU MUST BE IN THE MAIN EDITING MODE OF PC-OUTLINE FOR THE DEINSTALL TO WORK (not the opening menu). ADDED IN VERSION 1.03: 1) The "Lose Changes" prompt now looks at all open windows. It used to only look at changes in the current window. 2) With the /K command parameter option you can force PC-OUTLINE to take its keys directly from the keyboard buffer without going through BIOS. This allows you to bypass keyboard enhancers. MAIN USE: If you have a whole bunch of keys redefined for your word processor and you don't want those key definitions for PC-OUTLINE, you can use the /K option and the keyboard enhancer will be active in your main program, but not when you invoke PC-OUTLINE. When you return back to your word processor, the keyboard enhancer will automatically be active again. It is likely you will only find use for this option when using PC-OUTLINE in its memory resident mode. For those of you following the progression of versions, all non-memory resident versions get their keys through BIOS. For the memory resident version, 1.00 and 1.01 got keys directly from keyboard buffer, 1.02 got keys through BIOS and 1.03 gives you the choice with /K (default through BIOS). ADDED IN VERSION 1.04: 1) A few small changes to make 1.03 work how it was supposed to. ADDED IN VERSION 1.05: 1) DELETE OUTLINE ENTRY PROMPT: The delete outline entry command now contains a prompt that asks you to confirm whether you really want to delete the entire outline family. This was added in response to complaints that the ^D command was too dangerous. You could delete your whole outline with a single keystroke. If you do not want this prompt, then you can use the command parameter /P when first loading PC-OUTLINE and the prompt will be skipped. Note you could also define a macro for ^D to be ^DY (^D and then a Y to answer yes to the delete prompt). 2) SNOW ON MONITORS: The /T command parameter will fix a problem with snow on the screen that some monitors may have. On some IBM color graphics adapters, you may see a small amount of snow on the left edge of the screen. Using the /T command parameter should eliminate that. The problem also occurs on some Hercules clone video cards. If you have the IBM monochrome adapter, an EGA card, or a COMPAQ card, you should not need this option. Using the /T parameter has a slight disadvantage (so you should not use it unless you need it). With /T enabled, the on screen time and the CAPS and NUM indicators will only be updated whenever you press a key. Consequently, the time and the shift status may not be correct if you have not pressed a key for a while. Note: this option is not the same as video retrace in the ADVANCED CONFIGURATION menu. If you see snow on the screen, you should first make sure that this option is set to YES. Only if that does not fix the problem should you use /T. You may also want to use this option if you have a Hercules clone and you see unwanted background snow all the time. 3) LOW INTENSITY VIDEO: The /I command parameter will force PC-OUTLINE to use low intensity video instead of high intensity video (in response to users with a monochrome display). 4) SAME KEY INVOKE/DE-INVOKE: When using PC-OUTLINE in memory resident mode, the same key that you use to invoke PC-OUTLINE (the default is Control-Backslash, but you can change it using KEYSET.COM) will also exit PC-OUTLINE and return you back to your other application. 5) CORRECT TIME ON COMPATIBLES: A utility program called GOODCLK.COM is now included on the disk that will allow PC-OUTLINE to correctly display the time on some compatibles. To use it, just run it any time before loading PC-OUTLINE (preferably in your autoexec.bat file). It does not remain memory resident so you lose no memory by running it. All it does is set the BIOS time to be the same as the DOS time. PC-OUTLINE gets its time from BIOS (because it is so much quicker), but some compatibles with clock cards (AT&T, EPSON, ...) set the DOS time correctly on boot up, but not the BIOS time. You should not need this if you have an IBM or a COMPAQ. 6) Pressing the ESC key after hitting the menu key ("/") will now just cancel the menu key instead of asking you if you want to quit PC-OUTLINE. ADDED IN VERSION 1.06: 1) A few small changes to make the memory resident version work with more programs. 2) Bug fixes in the key re-definition part of the program. ADDED IN VERSION 1.07: 1) Small bug fixes relating to hiding and unhiding text. 2) New shareware policy (on the opening shareware screen). ADDED IN VERSION 1.08: 1) You can now set all 8 levels of numbering in the Global Outline Style menu. Also fixed some problems with getting the numbering saved correctly to the PCO.CFG file. 2) Fixed bug that occurs only when copying move than 255 outline elements from one window to another. 3) Fixed bug that can occur only on an 80286 machine (we discovered one of the incompatibilities between the 8088 and 80286) in the following situations: a) Adding text to a lower window number outline with more than 64k of outlines above it in higher window numbers. b) Copying text or outline elements from a higher window # down to a lower window # with more than 64k of outlines in between.