Alpha Draw is a general purpose drawing package that is used to create custom
drawings and graphs. It is object oriented, so drawings are composed of
individual objects (segments). Each object may be edited and manipulated with
the provided function tools. Groups of objects may be manipulated by selecting
the 'edit' or 'extras' menu first. If an object is selected prior to the 'edit'
or 'extras' menu, only the selected segment is manipulated.
Alpha Draw also allows you to import graphs and charts. This makes Alpha
Draw an extension to Alpha Chart. Multiple graphs may be included into the
drawing.
Alpha Draw requires a 2 or 3 button mouse. The right most button is called the
'select button' and is used for menu selection, object selection, and drawing
parameter changes. The middle button is called the 'special button' and may
be used to change the line color and finish some drawing functions without
actual termination of drawing mode. (i.e. pick up the pen in line drawing mode).
The special button may also be used to select the previous object underneath
the current selected object. The left button is called the 'cancel button'
and is used to terminate a drawing function or menu request.
Either the special or cancel buttons may be used to release from a menu. The
letter 'Q' may also be used to quit from a menu.
When entering character fields, the left arrow or escape keys may be used to
exit from the input without continuing the function. An example is entering
a file name when loading or saving a drawing.
All standard AlphaVUE editing control keys may be used to edit a character
field. Control-U goes to the beginning of the field and Control-N goes to the
end of the field. Control-D deletes the character at the current cursor position
and Control-Y deletes all characters from the present cursor position to the
end of the field.
The mouse may be clicked on the top command line to release from all nested
menus. If the mouse is clicked in the outer rectangular menu area, it will
release from one single menu. This may be done with a two button mouse to
substitute for not having a cancel button.
When printing drawings, the drawing must be loaded prior to being printed.
The printer name may be entered as 'NOPRIN' if no actual spooling is to take
place. The first letter of each parameter may be entered to change the printing
parameters. NOTE: The graphics device driver must be loaded into system or
user memory before printing.
The 'freehand braking' attribute is used to 'slow down' the response of the
mouse when tracking for freehand lines and polygons. This is a number from 1
to 9999 and is used to effectively reduce the number of points per segment and
to increase the accuracy of the mouse. Setting this value less than 100 will
effectively disable the braking. The value of this attribute is dependent on
the speed of the system and the amount of activity currently taking place.
The automatic redisplay may be set to one of three different settings. 'OFF',
'NO', and 'YES'. When set to 'OFF', no automatic redisplay is ever performed.
When set to 'YES', a redisplay is performed after every edit function. When
set to 'NO', a redisplay is only performed for certain functions, such as the
front-to-back and back-to-front editing functions.
The grid type and ruler display options may be selected as desired.
The margins should be turned off unless text wrap-around is desired within a
defined column area. Up to two sets of left, right, top, and bottom margins
may be defined. The special button may be used to ignore the current setting
and the cancel button may be used to terminate margin definition.
The 'automatic directory' option allows a directory menu to automatically pop-up
whenever selecting the 'load' or 'save' functions from the filing menu.
The 'drawing limit' option should be set before creating a drawing. This limit
sets either 100 objects with 100 points or 200 objects with 50 points.
Depending on the application, a limit of 200 objects may be neccessary.
The 'display clipping' option is used only for scaling objects. When an object
is scaled so as to not within the drawing area, this option is checked to see
if the object should be fully displayed or clipped to the drawing area.
The 'execute a script' function processes a script file (similiar to a keystroke
memory) and returns control to Alpha Draw when complete. The 'demonstration'
function continuously executes a script and will never return control to Alpha
Draw. The only way to interrupt a demonstration or script file is to position
the mouse (without clicking) on the '/Abort' function on the top command line.
The mouse may be used to create a script, but it is recommended to use the
keyboard for menu selections and top command line requests. Using the key-
board for menu responses is more efficient during replay of the script.
The 'data import' function is used to import text files or graph definition
definition files (.GDF files). This is also used to remove a graph or change
the name of a graph. No other mechanism is available to edit or remove a
graph.
To change the size or angle of text on the screen, first select the object and
then click in the appropriate menu area on the right lower portion of the
screen. To change the character font, click on the desired font in the far
right menu area. To change the character color, click on the desired color.
To create multiple paged drawings, the 'page' menu is used to set the page
number, clear, load, and save individual pages to and from the drawing.
The clear page function only clears the working drawing space and does not
physically clear the page on disk. A save page must be requested to update
the most recent page in the working area. The outline function will show a
list of page numbers in the drawing.
