Thankyou for trying SLIDE 1.1 for the Psion Series 3a
------------------------------------------------------

Note for upgraders from v1.0 : there are a number of important changes
for this new version, so please read on.

New for version 1.1: Sound clips (.WVEs) and pictures (.PICs) can be on any
disk and in their own directories or in a \SLIDES\ directory, all files found
automatically. Main slide-show files now live in \SLIDES\, to avoid confusion
with address books etc. New title and slide reference font/styles. Standard
generated backgrounds and sounds available, to save effort and space. Pause
control and a variety of slide navigation hot-keys. SLIDE editor now has its
own DATA alias. Hint line can be in any corner. Full-screen black+grey PIC
file displaying available. Sound can be turned off. The registration patch can
be on any disk.

Synopsis
--------
SLIDE 1.1 is a database-based slide-show/demo/tutorial system for the 3a,
wuth graphics, WVE sound files and special effects.

Registration etc (please read)
------------------------------
SLIDE 1.1 is (C) UK 1994 Steve Litchfield and is released as shareware.
The program is NOT free, and anyone making serious use of it should
register with the author (address at end) by sending the appropiate
amount in Sterling, US dollars, German Marks or French Francs, cash is
most welcome if other methods of payment don't appear suitable.

This program is NOT heavily nagged, and the only indication of having
an unregistered version is the welcome screen displayed at the start
of each running slide show. Upon payment of the registration fee, a
patch method will be supplied to disable the welcome screen.

Registered users will receive updates, upgrades etc and, perhaps most
importantly, will have their suggestions listened to and implemented in future
versions.

Cost
----
For home users (having fun, distributing rolling presentations of your
services or just being willing to help support future development of
SLIDE) the registration fee is 10.00 UK pounds of equivalent in $, DM
or ff.

For business users the registration fee is 20.00 UK pounds (or
equivalent in US $, DM or ff) for use of the product. In a business
environment it is likely that you will be contacting me anyway to
discuss further program improvements etc, so I'll wait for your call!

Half-price registration goes automatically to those ordering from 3-Lib at the
same time (see the end of this text).


Installation of the SLIDE program
---------------------------------
(i)   Simply copy SLIDE.OPA and SLIDES.ALS into an \APP\ directory of
      your choice on any drive and use Psion-I to install each of them,
      as usual.
(ii)  Make a \SLIDES\ directory on your working disk and copy the
      STEMPLAT.DBF file across into it.

The above-mentioned files are all that are needed to use SLIDE 1.1,
but see the following section for extra files you'll want to also look
at ...

Installation of the SLIDE example demo
--------------------------------------
The best way of appreciating what SLIDE 1.1 does is to view the two
sample slideshows I supply in the ZIP with the main program.

These samples include the two shows themselves, SDEMO.DBF and
3LIB.DBF, and assorted sound clips and picture files, as listed below.
All of these files should go into a \SLIDES\ directory on any drive
that's handy.

SDEMO.DBF        3LIB.DBF          INTRODUC.WVE      THISCOUL.WVE
WELCOME.WVE      WORLD1.PIC        SCREEN.PIC        3LIB3D.PIC
CITY1.PIC        SLIDE.PIC         SLIDEDIT.PIC

Of course, the WVEs could always go in a \WVE\ directory and the PICs
in a \PIC\ directory, but you'll probably want to keep all these files
together so that you can delete them when you've viewed the demo
slide-shows and gotten the hang of SLIDE 1.1.

After refresshing your system screen, SDEMO, 3LIB and STEMPLAT should
all appear in the list under both SLIDEDIT and SLIDE icons, and can
then be run.

==========================================================================

Reference: How to use SLIDE 1.1
-------------------------------
First of all, run the example slide-show to get a feel for the
end result. You will notice that the three main components of the
show are a database file with all the relevant slide information, some
optional PIC files and some optional WVE sound files.

OK, so you've seen what SLIDE v1.1 can do, so let's try creating a new
show of your own. The database files are in the usual DATA format and
can be edited as normal in the SLIDE editor installed alias of the
built-in DATA application. On the system screen, use Psion-C to copy the
template file STEMPLAT.DBF to, say, MYSHOW.DBF, ready for editing. Under
the SLIDE editor icon, open up MYSHOW.DBF . You will see a selection of
text fields, Slide ref, title, etc. The actual field names are not
critical to SLIDE, but the content and order *is*, so I do suggest that
you start off each time with a copy of the supplied template file, as
above.

So, you're in the SLIDE editor, with a blank-looking entry screen. Let's
imagine we're going to do a rolling slide tutorial to guide someone
through using your custom software, GRABDATA (apologies if someone's
actually got a product of that name!). Enter the fields as shown below:

Field name    You type in
----------------------------------------------------------------
SLIDE REF:    A
TITLE:        GRABDATA tutorial
TEXT:         Welcome, dear user! You will find GRABDATA an invaluable
              tool in helping you gather and sort through your
              processed data items. Graphs and reports will be simple
              after today!
TEXT HINT:
PIC FILE:     \SLATTED
WVE FILE:     SAMPLE1.WVE
PAUSE:        4
EFFECT:       Fade
----------------------------------------------------------------

Note1:   The slide reference is important because prior to each slide
show, SLIDE does a sort on your show, using the reference as its guide
to the correct order for display. This is necessary as the SLIDE editor
application (i.e. DATA) messes the order up well and truly if you make
any updates or edits, as you will have noticed on your standard DATA
address book databases in the past. Thus, your show gets sorted prior to
display. Notice that I use an alphabetic reference, rather than numbers.
If numbers are used, then the order gets confused once you go over 9, so
for less than 27 slides stick to single letters, more than that use AA,
AB, AC.... AZ, BA, BB etc etc, or A1, A2, A3, B1, B2 etc etc. That way,
a simple alphabetic sort will see the show stays in the right order.

Note2:   Title text is limited to 45 characters, and is shown in a
double-height font. If you want to force single-height text, you can add
in \S at the start of the line, e.g. TITLE: \SMy title in single height!

Note3:   There is a limit of 252 characters for the text field. If you
need more than this, then you should split the content across two
slides. SLIDE will intelligently scale your font up or down if you try
to use less or more characters repectively in your text.

Note4:   If you don't want a feature acted upon, e.g. you don't want a
flashed 'hint' to show on this particular slide, then just leave the
field blank. This applies to all the fields, which can all cope with
being left blank and have suitable defaults etc. If you would like your
'hint' displayed in a different corner, you can use \B for 'Bottom Left'
or \L for 'Top Left' or \R for 'Top Right', e.g. HINT: \LTop-left hint!

Note5:   You have a choice of using one of your own PIC files or using
one of the predefined patterns (\SLATTED, \BRICKED or \NULL). If using a
PIC file, you have the option of adding \G ('Gallery') at the start of
the name, which tells SLIDE 1.1 to display the PIC as Black/Grey plane,
instead of the default 'Black displayed as Grey', if you see what I
mean.
For example, valid entries in this section might be:
{nothing at all}  OR "\SLATTED" OR "grbtitle" OR \Gscreen.pic.

Note that PIC file names should be left without all the drive and
directory information (or even the '.PIC' on the end, if you wish),
SLIDE 1.1 will look for your chosen named file in \PIC\ and \SLIDES\
directories on each drive in turn (M, then A, then B). Similarly for the WVE
file, which should exist somewhere in a \SLIDES\ or \WVE\ directory.
SAMPLE1.WVE might in this case be, for example, a sample of you saying
"Welcome to GRABDATA".

Note6:  PIC files wider than 80 pixels will be centred on the screen
and displayed for 'background' effect in the grey plane unless the \G
'Gallery' option is used, as shown in the example slide shows. PIC files
less than 80 pixels wide will remain in the black plane and will appear
on the left of the slide text.

Note7:   Sound files in WVE format can be specified, as mentioned above,
but there is also the option of a built-in effect, called with \B,
e.g. WVE FILE: \B More sound effects will be available in the next
version of SLIDE.

Note8:   The pause is the wait time in seconds at the end of each
slide before the screen is cleared and the next slide shown. The user
can press any key to go directly to the next slide without waiting for
the time delay to expire. If no pause is specified, the default is 5
seconds. If the user wishes to pause for longer on a particular slide,
pressing 'Psion-P' will pause the slide-show until another key is
pressed.

Note9:   The screen clearing effect is limited (at v1.0) to Top wipe,
Left wipe, Vanish and Fade mosaic. If no effect is chosen, the screen
is just cleared in the normal way.

Having typed your first slide, press TAB in the usual way to save it
and progress to the entry screen for your next slide. An example of what
your second slide might look like is shown below:

Field name    You type in
----------------------------------------------------------------
SLIDE REF:    B
TITLE:        GRABDATA tutorial
TEXT:         Please note that GRABDATA is available from all good
              local stockists or for free download from CIX and
              Compuserve.
TEXT HINT:    (C) MyCorp 1994
PIC FILE:     GRBTITLE.PIC
WVE FILE:     \B
PAUSE:        5
EFFECT:       VAN
----------------------------------------------------------------

Press TAB again, and you're onto the third slide. Again, for example,

Field name    You type in
----------------------------------------------------------------
SLIDE REF:    B2
TITLE:
TEXT:
TEXT HINT:    This screen-shot shows the opening screen of GRABDATA
PIC FILE:     \GSCREEN00.PIC
WVE FILE:     CATCHTHO.WVE
PAUSE:        6
EFFECT:       FADE
----------------------------------------------------------------

And onto the fourth slide, and so on ....

When you've finished, save the file with Psion-X and you're ready to try
running the show.

Refresh your system screen (if necessary) and move to the SLIDE icon.
Move the cursor down to MYSHOW and press ENTER. Your slide-show will now
run. If there are any problems, then simply go back into MYSHOW under
the SLIDE 1.1 editor icon and make the appropiate changes. Again, don't
worry about the way the SLIDE 1.1 editor reorders your slides. When
SLIDE 1.1 runs, it will use your nice logical slide references (e.g.
A,B,C etc) to reorder the slides back how they should be. If you have
more than 30 slides, SLIDE 1.1 will realise it make take a short while to
sort them at run-time, so it will give you the option of sorting then
and there, continuing without sorting or quitting the program
altogether.

When viewing your show, use the MENU key or the Psion hot-keys to
control movement around the show. Try it, and you'll see what I mean.

[Note: if anyone can help me with quicker ways to sort the file, then
free SLIDE and FAIRWAY registrations await their contributions...]


Slide-show distribution
-----------------------
If you want to upload your slide-shows to bulletin boards etc for
others to try, please keep them separate from the SLID11.ZIP file that
you obtained this program in. If you wish, send me a copy as well
(with your registration fee !! 8-] )


Quick reference guide
---------------------
MENU options:   Back one slide       Psion-B
                Go to slide no.      Psion-G
                Jump to slide ref.   Psion-J
                Pause                Psion-P
                Sound control        Psion-S
                Help                 Psion-H
                Exit                 Psion-X

Title font:  \S means 'single-height text'
Wipe Effects:  Left, Top, Fade, Vanish (First letter only is significant)
Backgrounds: \SLATTED, \BRICKED, \NULL (\ and first letter only is
             significant, or else specify a PIC file. \G displays the
             PIC on the normal black/grey planes.
Sounds:  \B does built-in effect, or else specify a WVE file.
Hint lines:  default is Bottom-Right, \B is BL, \L is TL, \R is TR.

Summary
-------
That's about it. I do hope you find SLIDE 1.1 useful and that you will want
to support development of this and other 3a products by registering. I
can be contacted as follows:

Steve Litchfield
8 Grove Farm
Mytchett
Surrey
GU16 6AQ
ENGLAND

email: slitchfield@cix.compulink.co.uk
Tel:  0(252) 515431

NB: Reverse engineering of SLIDE.OPA v1.1 is strictly forbidden and
illegal. If you really want a say in what the code of SLIDE does, then
please contact me and discuss your requirements. If the suggestion is
helpful to the product I may consider registering you free of charge anyway!
If you suspect the copy of SLIDE that you received has been hacked or
altered in some way, please contact the author at once, stating where
you received the program.

NB2: Please note also that I run *the* public domain/shareware library
for Series 3 and 3a users, called 3-Lib and established since January
1993, please send me a stamped addressed envelope for a free catalogue.
3-Lib distributes on SSD and/or floppy disk. Cost is 8 pounds for the entire
collection of latest shareware/PD (around 400 programs/items).
