
This file (qrhelp.txt) is the help file and manual for...


QRead  version 1.0.1  
Copyright  Dan Scavezze 1992

Contents

General Information

	Overview
	Installation and Quick Start
	Licensing and Distribution
	Disclaimer
	ASP Ombudsman 

Main Menu

File
	Open
	Open (continuous)
	Close
	Delete the open file
	Exit

View
	As saved	
	With adjusted type
	With adjusted lines
	Increase type size
	Decrease type size
	Repaint

Commands
	Find
	Find next
	Copy page to clipboard
	Place bookmark
	Remove bookmark
	Go to bookmark
	Launch another QRead
	Launch companion App

Options
	Fonts
	Tabs
	Entry / Exit
	Registration info
	Load default settings
	Load default settings
	Store custom settings
	Store settings for file

Help
	Help On QRead
	How to use Help
	About QRead

Miscellaneous Information

	QRead command line
	Windows Program Manager
	Deinstallation
	What's new in this version


#$+ Overview

QRead lets you read text files quickly and easily in the 
Microsoft Windows 3.1 environment. Text files can be shown 
on the screen in any font you choose, and QRead will 
automatically adjust the type size or the line structure to 
fit the window. The display changes, but not the file 
itself. QRead accesses your file in a "read only" manner.  

Qread also provides tools to help with browsing and 
management of your text files. You can search for a text 
string, place a bookmark, copy information to the clipboard, 
and delete files. You move through the file by using the 
mouse to click on the scroll bars, or by using keys, such as 
the arrow keys and the PageUp and PageDown keys.

The operation and settings of QRead can be customized and 
remembered. This customization can be remembered on a file-
by-file basis if you desire.

#$+K Installation And Quick Start

The simplest installation of QRead consists of one step - 
copy the file qread.exe to your disk. No other files are 
necessary to get started.

The first time you enter QRead it will use default settings. 
The first time you exit QRead it will save the environment 
that you have in place at the time of exit. This environment 
is stored in the file "qread.ini" in your windows directory. 
Unless you choose to store settings information, qread.ini 
will be the only file that QRead writes to your disk. (The 
sections on the Entry / Exitt menu item and the Store menu 
items explain how QRead stores settings information.) 

If you want to be able to use on-line Help, you must also 
copy the file qread.hlp to your windows directory. 

To install QRead as a program item (using icons, etc.), 
refer to the section on Windows Program Manager.

#$+K Licensing And Distribution

QRead is a Shareware program and is provided at no charge to 
the user for EVALUATION. All rights are retained by the 
author. Feel free to share this program with your friends, 
but please do not give it away altered or as part of another 
system. If you try a Shareware program and then continue to 
use, you are expected to register and become a licensed 
user.

If you are using QRead after a reasonable evaluation period 
(30 days for commercial use), send your name, address and 
the license fee of $20 to:

    DS Products
    P.O. Box 342
    Westford, MA  01886

The $20 fee will license one copy for use on any one 
computer at any one time. You must treat the licensed 
software just like a book.  An example is that this software 
may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved 
from one computer location to another, so long as there is 
no possibility of it being used at one location while it's 
being used at another, just as a book cannot be read by two 
different persons at the same time. Site License 
arrangements may be made by contacting DS Products.

Registered users will receive:
    a key that disables the registration reminder window,
    support (via CompuServe [70731,1673] or regular mail 
        for 90 days),
    notice of upgrades, and
    a clear conscience.

Anyone distributing QRead for any kind of remuneration must 
first contact DS Products at the address below for 
authorization. This authorization will be automatically 
granted to distributors recognized by the ASP as adhering to 
its guidelines for shareware distributors, and such 
distributors may begin offering QRead immediately. DS 
Products must still be advised, however, so that the 
distributor can be kept up to date with the latest version 
of QRead.

The essence of Shareware is to provide users with quality 
software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive 
for programmers to continue to develop new products. 
Shareware is a distribution method that allows you to try 
before you buy. Shareware has the ultimate money back 
guarantee -- if you don't use the product, you don't pay for 
it.

#$+K Disclaimer

Users of QRead must accept this disclaimer of warranty: 
"QRead is supplied as is.  The author disclaims all 
warranties, expressed or implied, including, without 
limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness 
for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for 
damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the 
use of QRead."

#$+K ASP Ombudsman

QRead is produced by a member of the Association of 
Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that 
the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to 
resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by 
contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The 
ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with 
an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for 
members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 
Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442 or send a CompuServe message 
via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536.

#$+K Open

When you select a file using the Open dialog box, QRead 
attempts to open the file and copy the entire file into 
memory. QRead uses this memory image to format and display 
the "open" file. No changes are ever made to the file on 
disk. Technical note: After the copy has been made, Qread 
actually closes the file. That is, the file is immediately 
closed as far as the operating system is concerned. 

QRead places no limit on file size ("huge" pointers are 
used), but the open command will fail if you do not have 
enough memory available.

Only one file is open at a time. If you ask to open a new 
file when there is already a file open, the new file is 
copied into memory replacing the memory image of the 
previously open file.

Whenever QRead opens a file, it checks to see if there is a 
file with the same name and path name but with the ".qfs" 
extension. If there is, QRead will read the stored settings 
info from the .qfs file and update the settings.

#$+K Open (continuous)

This menu item performs the same function as Open, but 
continues to display the dialog box after the Open command 
has completed. This is useful if you want to quickly browse 
through many files. It is also useful in conjunction with 
Delete. That is, you can quickly open a file, delete it if 
necessary, and then open the next file.

#$+K Close

Close "erases" the file from memory - it gives back the 
memory to Windows.

There is another effect of close. When you invoke the close 
menu item, the current settings will be stored in the ".qfs" 
file, if you have checked "On close and exit, store settings 
for file" in the Entry/Exitt dialog box. 

Scroll bars and some menu items are disabled if there is no 
file open.

#$+K Delete the open file

Delete asks you to confirm that you "really want to do this" 
before deleting the open file. If you are pretty sure 
already, for example when you are browsing through files, 
you can speed up the delete process by using the hotkey 
"Delete" and then "Enter" to confirm the deletion.

#$+K Exit

When you exit QRead, if you have a file open, AND if you 
have checked "On close and exit, store settings for file" in 
the Entry/Exitt dialog box, the current settings will be 
stored in the ".qfs" file.

#$+K As saved

QRead offers three views of your file - As saved, With 
adjusted type, With adjusted lines. Only one of the three 
views can be selected at a time, but you can switch between 
the views at any time. When you switch, your position in the 
file is preserved. You will find the same first character 
displayed in the upper left corner of the window.

The As Saved view displays the text file in the standard 
way, using the embedded new line characters to separate 
lines of text, but with the power of "fancy fonts." If a 
line is too long to fit in the given window with the given 
font, you have three choices: resize the window, change the 
font, or use the horizontal scroll bar (provided only in 
this view).

This view is good for viewing formatted text, like poetry or 
computer program listings. Don't forget to select a fixed 
pitch font, like Courier, to keep the formatting exact. If 
your text is most unformatted, but has occasional formatting 
using tab or space characters, try the "With adjusted lines" 
view.

#$+K  With adjusted type

QRead offers three views of your file - As saved, With 
adjusted type, With adjusted lines. Only one of the three 
views can be selected at a time, but you can switch between 
the views at any time. When you switch, your position in the 
file is preserved. You will find the same first character 
displayed in the upper left corner of the window.

The With adjusted type view displays the text as large as 
possible in the given window. That is, QRead automatically 
adjusts the type size to display the longest line in the 
largest type possible, within the limits of the chosen 
typeface. This view is good if you like things big.

The type size calculated may change when the window is 
resized OR when the longest line changes. As you scroll 
through a document, therefore, the type size may change. If 
this effect annoys you, you may want to use the adjusted 
type view to set a type size when you first open a file, and 
then switch to one of the other views to lock in that type 
size.

#$+K With adjusted lines

QRead offers three views of your file - As saved, With 
adjusted type, With adjusted lines. Only one of the three 
views can be selected at a time, but you can switch between 
the views at any time. When you switch, your position in the 
file is preserved. You will find the same first character 
displayed in the upper left corner of the window.

The With adjusted lines view holds the type size constant 
and reformats the lines of text to fill the window. Remember 
that the reformatting occurs only in QRead's memory, and 
that no changes are made to your text file on disk. This 
view is good for reading books and articles in the large 
type sizes without having to use large windows.

QRead fills lines one word at a time, using the space 
character (usually) to determine the end of a word. Qread 
will stop filling a line if it finds a blank line, a line 
that begins with a space, or a line containing a tab.  The 
reformatting will preserve the paragraph structure of your 
text file, therefore, if a new paragraph is denoted by a 
blank line, a line indented with spaces, or a line indented 
with a tab character. Lines containing a tab character are a 
special case.

When QRead finds a line (in the text file) containing one or 
more tab characters, it displays that line exactly AS 
STORED. The rationale is that someone put tabs in the text 
file for formatting purposes (perhaps for a table), and so 
QRead should try to preserve the format even if it means 
that a line might get clipped EVEN IN THIS ADJUSTED LINES 
VIEW.

The result of the algorithms described above is that QRead 
should handle most text files and preserve their paragraph 
structure and tables. If you are creating a text file to be 
read in QRead adjusted lines view, use blank lines or lines 
indented with spaces to denote paragraphs. Save the tabs for 
your tables.

Trivia note: QRead reformatting occurs on a page by page 
basis; the whole file is not reformatted at once. This 
causes one effect that you may find surprising. When 
scrolling backward, QRead may not choose the same word to 
begin a line as it did when you were scrolling forward. 
Don't worry, no words are lost. 

#$+K Increase type size

Choosing this menu item will increase the type size, UNLESS 
you are in the "With adjusted type" view. You can use the 
numeric key pad "+" to pump up your type size.

#$+K Decrease type size

Choosing this menu item will decrease the type size, UNLESS 
you are in the "With adjusted type" view. You can use the 
numeric key pad "-" to shrink your type size.

#$+ Repaint

If the display ever looks bogus, try a repaint.

#$+K Find

Find always starts its search from the current character 
position which, in case you didn't know, is the character 
displayed in the upper left corner of the window. The search 
string is limited to 25 characters. 

If the search string is found, QRead moves the current 
character position to show the found text at or near the 
first line, and highlights the found string. The 
highlighting remains on until there has been an 
unsuccessful search AND the display has been repainted. 

#$+ Find Next

The Find Next menu item is disabled until you have 
successfully used Find. The Find Next Search starts just 
after (or just before) the last successful Find.

#$+K Copy page to clipboard

The clipboard provides a way to get data out of QRead. This 
menu item copies the contents of the window to the clipboard 
AS TEXT. The text is copied from the memory image of the 
file, so the formatting of the clipboard text will match the 
formatting of the original file. (Remember that if you are 
in the "With adjusted lines" view, the image you are viewing 
has been reformatted.) You can then paste the clipboard text 
into a receiving program for further processing, such as 
printing.

You can also use the Windows provided copy to clipboard 
functions (using PrintScreen or Alt+PrintScreen) to copy 
QRead data AS GRAPHICS. You can then paste the clipboard 
graphics into a receiving paint program to print the screen 
with formatting and fancy fonts.

#$+K Place bookmark

There is only one bookmark and you use this menu item to 
place it just before the current character position (the 
character at the upper left of the window). Once you move 
away from the current character position, the bookmark 
disappears, but it is remembered and will be displayed if 
you choose the "Go to bookmark" menu item.

The bookmark can be remembered in a ".qfs" file. Refer to 
the "Store settings for file" menu item.

#$+ Remove bookmark

If you tire of having a bookmark and you just can't stand 
the thought of having it around, use this menu item.

#$+ Go to bookmark

This menu item moves to the bookmark and displays the 
bookmark at the top of the window. Trivia note: If you 
experiment with control panel and change your window colors 
you will find that the bookmark is not always the same color 
as the highlighted text used to show the search string.

# $+K Launch another QRead

Choosing this menu item will launch another instance of 
QRead (which might be used to read another file). The new 
instance will start up using qread.ini, so its window may 
not look exactly like the one that preceded it.

# $+K Launch companion App

This menu item will launch an application to be used in 
conjunction with QRead. For example, you can use QRead to 
browse through a file and then launch an editor to change 
the file.

The default application is the Windows editor, Notepad. 
Notepad will be launched with the file name of the open file 
as an argument. 

You can change the application that will be launched, but 
you must edit your qread.ini file to do so. Insert a line in 
qread.ini to specify the application. For example, to launch 
the application "yourapp" with the open file name as an 
argument, you would add the following line to qread.ini:

App1=yourapp %FileName%

Note: The test for %FileName% is case sensitive. Hint: You 
might want to use this feature to print (via DOS) until I 
implement printing under windows.

#$+K Fonts

Qread asks Windows for the names of all your installed fonts 
and displays those names in the Fonts dialog box. When you 
select a font, QRead finds the available sizes, or if the 
font is scalable, QRead uses a list of sizes from 8 to 24 
points. QRead then asks the Windows font mapper for a font 
with the selected name, selected size, and Regular style. 
The result is a new, beautifully formatted display with the 
font you selected, usually.

The font mapper will return substitutes for certain 
decorative fonts. As a design decision to keep QRead lean 
and mean, a minimum of font information is stored, and that 
results in the elimination of a small number (I hope) of 
fonts. Let me know what you think.

#$+K Tabs

Since QRead has no idea where the tabs were set when the 
text file was created, the Tabs dialog box allows you to 
recreate the settings.  The tabs can be set to divide the 
page into columns (as might be useful for tables), or they 
can be set every N character positions (as might be useful 
for a computer program listing).

#$+K Entry / Exit

This command brings up the Entry/Exit dialog box. The 
settings here control the entry and exit behavior of QRead. 
You can choose from the common option groups by using the 
right half of the dialog box, or "roll your own" group by 
changing the individual options on the left side.

The Entry / Exit dialog box should perhaps be marked "handle 
with care." Since these settings control the entry behavior 
of the program, if you forget what you asked for here, you 
can get totally confused about QRead's behavior. 

For example, if you normally use QRead in the "Memory-less" 
mode, QRead will come up with the default settings and it 
will not open any files. But if you forget that you checked 
"Remember last" the last time you used QRead, you could get 
confused as to why your font, tabs, or even view mode are 
different from what they normally are.

If you normally use the "Remember last" mode, you expect 
that on entry QRead will be as it was when you left it. But 
if you are opening a file that has a ".qfs" file, don't 
forget that the stored settings in the .qfs file will 
override your last settings.

The "Remember many" mode is useful if you use Qread to work 
with lots of files and you like to customize the display of 
each file. But try not to be surprised when you find .qfs 
files all over your disk. You might even say, "I don't 
remember creating that file" and you would be right. QRead 
did! To avoid creating lots of small files, use the "store 
settings for file" item on the Options menu only when you 
need it.

I recommend choosing your favorite mode of operation for 
QRead and then minimizing your use of the Entry/Exit menu 
item. If you do get confused, you can always retrieve 
default settings, and custom settings from the Options menu.

#$+K Registration info

This command allows you to enter your name and the key that 
you receive when you register your use of QRead. The info 
will be written to your qread.ini file. The next time you 
enter QRead with your registration info in qread.ini, you 
will bypass the registration reminder.

Save your registration letter, because if you destroy or 
corrupt the qread.ini file, you will have to reenter your 
registration info.

#$+K Load default settings

Choose this menu time to revert to the default settings. The 
settings affected are: View mode, Font settings, and Tab 
settings. The bookmark is not affected.

#$+K Load custom settings

If you have previously stored custom settings, you created a 
qread.cus file in your windows directory. This menu item 
loads the stored custom settings from that file. The 
settings affected are: View mode, Font settings, and Tab 
settings. The bookmark is not affected.

#$+K Store custom settings

You can customize QRead by setting up your preferred 
environment and then choosing this menu item to store the 
settings. You can then use the Entry/Exit menu item to 
arrange for loading of the custom settings, rather than the 
default settings, on entry to QRead.

The default settings are good for unformatted text files, 
such as articles or books, so you might want to set up the 
custom settings for formatted files, such as poetry or 
computer program listings. Then you could use the hotkeys 
for default and custom settings when switching between the 
two types of files.

The custom settings are stored in the file qread.cus in your 
windows directory. The settings stored are: View mode, Font 
settings, and Tab settings.

#$+K Store settings for file

Once you have the settings the way you like for the file 
that you are reading (the open file), you can store the 
settings by choosing this menu item. The settings are stored 
in a file with the same name and path name but with the 
".qfs" extension. Your text file is not modified.

Whenever QRead opens a file, it checks for the associated 
.qfs file. If one exists, QRead will read the stored 
settings from the .qfs file and update the settings. The 
settings stored are: View mode, Font settings, Tab Settings, 
and bookmark.

You can set up QRead to automatically create .qfs files on 
close or exit (by using the Entry/Exit menu item) but this 
menu item allows you to explicitly create a .qfs file.

#$+K How to use Help

This menu item takes you directly to the "how to" section of 
the Windows help program. You can also get these 
instructions after you are in the help program by choosing 
its Help menu item.

#$+K Help on QRead

This menu item lets you use the hypertext features of the 
Windows help program to read the qread.hlp file.  The same 
information is also available in the file qrhelp.txt if you 
want to print the help info and read it at a less "hyper" 
pace.

#$+K About QRead

The About dialog box displays some info about QRead 
including the copyright message, the version number, and the 
name of the user licensed to use QRead.
#$+K Qread Command Line

QRead will look for one argument on the command line. It 
will interpret the argument as a file name, and try to open 
the named file. This file specified on the command line 
takes precedence over the "open last file" setting.

#$+K Windows Program Manager

You can create a program item for QRead in the Windows 
Program Manager by using the File menu, and the New menu 
item. If you want to create many specific program items for 
QRead, one for each file you typically read, here are my 
suggested steps. 

First, make a copy of your QRead item by using the File 
menu, and the Copy menu item. Then use File, Properties to 
change the description, command line and icon. Change the 
description to mention the file name. Change the command 
line to supply the file name (using the full path name) as 
an argument. Finally, change the icon to the open file icon 
(the one with the "writing" on the book).

When you click on one of these specific program items, QRead 
will start up and open the specified file. If there is an 
associated ".qfs" file, QRead will also load the appropriate 
environment. 

#$+K Deinstallation

If you want to deinstall QRead, follow these steps. First, 
delete qread.exe from the directory where it "lives." Next, 
delete qread.ini, qread.cus, qread.hlp from your windows 
directory. Finally, delete all the ".qfs" files you or QRead 
have created.

#$+ What's new in this version

Version 1.0.1 is the first version released to the public. 
Beta test users will observe the following changes:

The SPACE bar can now be used to do a "PageDown."
The horizontal scroll bar is reset after view mode changes.
The open continuous dialog box is placed on lower right.
You can now exit Windows with the open continuous dialog up.
