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File:  geninfo.txt
Name:  General Information Text File For OmniMedia Electronic Books
Rev.:  1.0
Date:  20 March 1996
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---------------------
1.  Table of Contents
---------------------

This information text file is divided into the following sections:

 1.  Table of Contents  (this section)
 2.  Introduction
 3.  System Requirements
 4.  Files That Must Be Included in the Distribution Package
 5.  How to Obtain This Electronic Book
 6.  Viewing/Installation Instructions
 7.  How to Use This Electronic Book and Some Useful Features
 8.  Copyright Notice and Other Terms
 9.  What If the Password Becomes Invalid?
10.  Refund/Warranty Policy
11.  Known Bugs
12.  How to Contact OmniMedia
13.  Thank You!



----------------
2.  Introduction
----------------

OmniMedia is a leading publisher of electronic books for Windows.  This text
file will hopefully provide you with answers to most of the questions you may
have, and problems you may encounter, with our electronic books.

Currently, our electronic books are formatted using the Windows 3.1 Help
compiler ("WinHelp"), with added enhancements not normally seen in most
WinHelp files.  Although developed under Windows 3.1, feedback from many of
our customers indicates that our electronic books are upward compatible and
functional under Windows 95.  It is not yet known how well our electronic
books work under Windows NT.

Most of our electronic books employ SoftLock technology.  SoftLock gives us
the ability to read-lock certain portions of any electronic book, requiring
the end-user to purchase a machine-unique password to unlock and read.

However, it is OmniMedia's policy to always keep a substantial portion of
our e-books unlocked so you can adequately try them out before buying, which
our customers find to be a very nice feature -- sort of like browsing in a
bookstore!  And there is *never* any obligation or requirement to purchase a
password when you download and try out any of our SoftLocked electronic
books!  (Further information about SoftLock, including several convenient
options to purchase a SoftLock password, many of them right over the
Internet, is given in the password registration window which "pops-up"
whenever you attempt to read a read-locked section.)



-----------------------
3.  System Requirements
-----------------------

To read all of our electronic books, you must have an IBM-compatible PC (386
or higher is recommended), with color VGA (or better) video resolution.  It
must have Microsoft Windows 3.1 installed (see note in section 2 above about
Windows 95 and Windows NT.)  In addition, 256 color illustrations are
included with many, but not all, of our electronic books.  To properly view
these illustrations, your system must have 256 color capability.

All of our electronic books have been tested using the common color video
resolutions of VGA, 640x480x256, 800x600x256, and 1024x768x256.  For maximum
clarity and readability, it is recommended that you use as high of a video
resolution as your system allows, up to 1024x768x256, or even higher
(however, resolutions higher than 1024x768x256 have not been tested.)  For
the very high video resolutions, you should consider using large size fonts
if that option is available to you.  Consult your Windows documentation for
how to increase your resolution if that is possible for your particular video
card and monitor combination.  (If you feel the font size is too large on
your system, read the paragraphs about font size in section 7.)

Most, but not all, of our electronic books are primarily typeset using the
Arial TrueType font (a sans serif font), which is part of the default
installation for all Windows 3.1 systems.  If you have removed this font from
your system, for whatever reason, the file will not appear as it was authored
(though it may look similar, or at least readable.)  It is recommended that
you reinstall the Arial TrueType font if you *know for a fact* that it has
been removed from your system (if you are not sure, then it probably is
there -- refer to your Windows documentation for further information.)

All further technical details mentioned in this general information file are
specific to Windows 3.1 installations, though many may be applicable to
Windows 95 and possibly Windows NT.



-----------------------------------------------------------
4.  Files That Must Be Included in the Distribution Package
-----------------------------------------------------------

Each of our electronic books is comprised of several files.  The number and
type of files depend on the features included with the particular title.  If
one or more of these files are missing or corrupted, you will probably have
problems, some of which could cause the electronic book not to work at all.
The solution to one or more missing or corrupted files is to download a fresh
copy of the electronic book title from OmniMedia's electronic archive and
extract the needed file(s).

All of our electronic books will include the following files (note:  '*'
refers to a file name prefix given to a specific electronic book title, for
example, the hypothetical electronic book, "Lust in the Dust", may have
'*' = 'lustdust'):

*.hlp          --  The electronic book title in WinHelp 3.1 format
geninfo.txt    --  This file
read1st.txt    --  How to get started
book.ico       --  A book icon that can be used for permanent installation
file_id.diz    --  A short description file used by most BBS file archives


Most, but not all, of our electronic books employ OshTools to add several
enhancements not found in "vanilla" WinHelp 3.1, for example 256 color bitmap
and in-text button capability.  If so, the following file will be included:

oshtools.dll   --  Dynamic Link Library for OSHTools -- adds many features


Most, but not all, of our electronic books employ SoftLock password
protection.  If so, the following files will be included:

slregist.exe   --  SoftLock registration executable
sl16-20.dll    --  A required SoftLock Dynamic Link Library
*.sla          --  A text file for the SoftLock registration executable


Some of our electronic books use a Full Text Search engine.  If so, the
following files will be included:

*.ind         --  Full Text Search index
ftengine.dll  --  A Dynamic Link Library for Full Text Search
ftui.dll      --  (same)
mvapi.dll     --  (same)



--------------------------------------
5.  How to Obtain This Electronic Book
--------------------------------------

There are, at present, three ways by which you can download our electronic
books.  Each of our titles is compressed and archived into a single ZIP
file, the current "standard" on the Internet for distributing shareware and
freeware.

(Note:  To extract the electronic book from the the ZIP archive file, you
        will need to use an "unzipper."  If you don't have one already, we
        recommend that you use the authentic DOS shareware utility called
        PKZIP (version 2.04g), by PKWARE, Inc.  There also exist several
        other "clone" unzip utilities (shareware and freeware) for both DOS
        and Windows, obtainable from many BBS and Internet sites.


1)  Via the World Wide Web

    http://www.awa.com/library/omnimedia/

    Follow the links to OmniMedia's "Bookstore".


2)  From the Internet Via Anonymous FTP.

    For those who do not have Web access, OmniMedia maintains an anonymous
    FTP archive at

    ftp.awa.com  /pub/softlock/pc/products/OmniMedia

    In order to directly download the files from this archive, you need to
    have access to an Internet site with FTP capability.

    If you do not know how to use anonymous FTP, consult with someone who
    does or study the helpfile or manual at your site.  Be sure to type
    "binary" before issuing the "get" or "mget" command.


3)  From Your Local BBS.

    Our electronic books are now distributed through several BBS and online
    services around the globe.  No list is currently available.  Of course,
    we encourage you to upload our e-books to your favorite BBS, as long
    as you upload the most current ZIP version downloaded from our archive.



-------------------------------------
6.  Viewing/Installation Instructions
-------------------------------------

There are several ways to view, and if desired, install our WinHelp formatted
electronic books on your Windows 3.1 system.  Two will be given below.  If
you are not very familiar with Windows, it is recommended that you print out
this section for step-by-step instructions.  Of course, it is also
recommended that you consult your Windows manual should any questions arise
or these instructions not work for you.  No matter what approach you use to
view our electronic books, you must NOT change the name of the *.hlp file as
you received it.  If you do inadvertently change the filename, you will not
be able to unlock the SoftLocked topics, even with a valid password (error
messages will be generated warning you something is wrong).


*****************************************************************************
1) The Quick and Easy Way -- If you simply want to view one of our
   electronic books without permanent installation (e.g., for evaluation
   purposes), place ALL the files of that electronic book (the list of files
   is given in section 4 above), into a directory anywhere on your hard disk
   (it is recommended you put the files into an empty directory to later
   make it easy to delete them).  Then, from File Manager within Windows,
   locate the *.hlp file and click on it.  The Windows Help file viewer will
   be executed and the electronic book will be displayed.  Enjoy!
*****************************************************************************


2) For a more permanent installation with a convenient icon, it is advisable
   to first create a special directory on your hard disk and copy all the
   files into that directory.  If you acquire more books from OmniMedia in
   the future and copy their files into the same special directory, you will
   save on disk space since some of the files are shared in common by all of
   OmniMedia's electronic books.  As an example, which will be used for the
   explanation below, this directory path will be named C:\BOOKS , but you 
   can place it wherever you want.

   The next step is to either select or create the program group into which
   you will place the electronic book.  If you don't already have a special
   program group for OmniMedia's electronic books, you need to create one.
   To create a new program group which could be called, for example,
   OMNIMEDIA BOOKS (it need not be all in caps -- from here on caps are only
   used for clarity depending on the context), simply go to the FILE menu of
   your Program Manager, select NEW , PROGRAM GROUP , OK , and then in the
   box labeled DESCRIPTION, enter the string OMNIMEDIA BOOKS (or whatever
   else you want to call the program group), then press OK (leave the GROUP
   FILE box empty.)

   Once the program group, whether old or new, is selected, then from Program
   Manager select FILE , NEW , PROGRAM ITEM , OK .  At this point, you have
   three text boxes to fill.  For the DESCRIPTION box enter the name of the
   electronic book you want to use;  for the COMMAND LINE box enter
   C:\WINDOWS\WINHELP.EXE LUSTDUST.HLP (the actual *.hlp file name entered
   here will NOT be 'lustdust.hlp' but something else -- 'lustdust.hlp' is
   used for illustrative purposes only in order to avoid any confusion);  for
   the WORKING DIRECTORY box enter C:\BOOKS .  Then to select the icon, click
   on CHANGE ICON and attach the file BOOK.ICO from the directory C:\BOOKS to
   this application using BROWSE to locate it.  Then, click OK twice to
   finish.

   Now, your selected program group should contain an icon of a book with the
   name of the electronic book you entered underneath it.  Just click on the
   book icon whenever you want to read it!  Enjoy!


Carefully note that when you purchase and enter a SoftLock password for any
of our electronic books, the file called 'softlock.ini' will be created and
placed into your Windows' home directory (and not the directory where you
keep your electronic books.)  This file includes the password for each
electronic book you register, as well as related information.  Do NOT delete
this file (in fact, back it up!) unless you decide to delete all of
OmniMedia's electronic books from your system, as well as any other SoftLock
software that will be using the same file (note that SoftLock is now being
used more and more in various types of commercial software and shareware, and
not only for electronic books.)



-------------------------------------------------------------
7.  How to Use This Electronic Book and Some Useful Features
-------------------------------------------------------------

Using the WinHelp viewer is intuitive and very easy.  Once you are viewing
any of our electronic books on your computer, you can learn much of what you
need to know by simply experimenting with the toolbar buttons, menu commands,
etc.  If you do need more help in reading and using this electronic book,
refer to "How to Use Help" which can be selected from the "Help" menu item
found near the top of the viewing window.

Some useful features of our electronic books include:

1) Bookmark -- You can place one or more bookmarks at any location so you
               can later return to that location, even after exiting this
               book.  The Bookmark feature is found in the menu section.

2) Annotate -- You can add notes and comments to any topic displayed in a
               window (excepting temporary pop-up windows.)  The Annotate
               feature is found in the menu section under 'Edit'.

3) Topic Copy -- You can copy the entire text of a topic (including the
                 portion not visible in the window) to the Windows Clipboard,
                 and from there it can be pasted into most Windows-based word
                 or text processors.  This feature is done by holding down
                 the 'Ctrl' button and pushing the 'Insert' button, i.e.,
                 'ctrl-Insert'.  Do keep in mind copyright restrictions
                 regarding redistributing what you copy with this feature
                 (see section 8.)

4) Hypertext -- Hypertext is nothing mystical.  It is simply text (or a
                button) which has been linked to text elsewhere in the
                electronic book -- clicking on hypertext will move you to the
                text the hypertext is linked with.  In our electronic books,
                much effort has been made to make it clear which text is
                hypertext.  To verify if a word or phrase is hypertext, the
                mouse pointer will switch from an arrow to a small hand with
                a pointing finger when placed on top of hypertext.

5) Full Text Search -- (This feature is not implemented in all of our
                       electronic books!)  You can do a word/string search of
                       the entire electronic book.  Very powerful at locating
                       that hard-to-find text or subject.  This feature is
                       found in the toolbar as the button named 'WordSrch'
                       or 'FTSearch'.  (Our version of FTS will be "turned
                       off" under Windows 95, which instead will use its own
                       version.)

One note about scrolling should be mentioned for those newcomers to Windows
who are totally unfamiliar with the purpose and use of scroll bars.  You may
notice in our electronic books that for most windows (i.e., topics), there
is a scrollbar at the right-hand-side (and sometimes at the bottom) of the
viewing window.  The scroll bar is there because the text of the topic is too
long or too big to fit completely within the visible window.  By clicking
your mouse on various parts of the scroll bar, you can move ("scroll") either
up or down in the text.  Specifically, clicking on either the up or down
arrows (which are found at the top and bottom respectively of the scroll
bar), will move you either one line up or one line down in the text.  You can
also scroll a full window or page if you click anywhere in the scroll bar
between the up or down arrows and the slider (the slider is the plain
rectangular "button" that slides in the scroll bar, and indicates where the
viewing window is positioned with respect to the topic text.)

Another note concerns the aspect of font size.  If you are using VGA (or
640x480) resolution, you may find the font size to be quite large, especially
on bigger monitors.  One solution is to make sure the window is maximized,
done by clicking on the upper right-hand button, and read the window from
further away -- maximizing the window size (to fill the whole screen) will
also make the electronic book look better at the 640x480 resolution with
respect to the number of characters per line being similar to a typical book.

(One of the reasons why this larger font was selected was to insure that our
electronic books would be easily readable on laptop/notebook-sized screens as
well at very high resolution -- WinHelp 3.1 unfortunately does not allow
variable font sizes depending on the video parameters, though OmniMedia is
working hard with programmers to be able to do this.  Windows 95 does allow
you to change the font size by plus or minus 2 points, which is enough in
most instances to please just about everybody.)

If you still feel the characters are too large for your taste, consider going
to a higher screen resolution if you can (since that will decrease the font
size.)  You might even want to consider testing the large/small font options
for the higher resolutions if available to you for your particular video card.
Higher resolutions will also make our electronic books look cleaner and
sharper and thus will be easier to read.



------------------------------------
8.  Copyright Notice and Other Terms
------------------------------------

The full copyright notice to each of our electronic books is given in the
electronic book itself.  By reading any portion of our electronic books, as
well as reading this text file, you are agreeing to abide by that electronic
book's copyright and other terms.

The most important commonality among all our electronic books is that they
are copyrighted either by OmniMedia or by the author.  They are NOT Public
Domain.  We do give you permission to redistribute any of our electronic
books as long as you use the full, unaltered and most current ZIP version
found at OmniMedia's archive.

Except for the allowance given in the previous paragraph, it is a violation
of U.S. Copyright Law to redistribute to anybody else, any portion of our
electronic books, in any format or media, in excess of Fair Use.  In
addition, it is a violation of our rights to bypass or disable the SoftLock
protection software.



------------------------------------------
9.  What If the Password Becomes Invalid?
------------------------------------------

If you reformat or replace your hard disk, the SoftLock password you purchase
will probably become invalid.  Should this occur, contact either OmniMedia
or SoftLock Services, Inc.



---------------------------
10.  Refund/Warranty Policy
---------------------------

Sorry, all sales are final.  The "try before you buy" feature of SoftLock
should help you decide whether or not to purchase the password necessary to
read the SoftLocked portions of our electronic books.  Contact OmniMedia if
you have any difficulties either before or after purchasing a password.  We
want you to be satisfied!



---------------
11.  Known Bugs
---------------

We'd like to say that our electronic books are completely bug-free, but like
everything in life, Murphy's Law seems to hold sway over the affairs of the
human race. 

Listed below are the known bugs.  OmniMedia would appreciate any feedback if
you encounter any error conditions when reading our electronic books.

1.  A very small percentage of readers have noticed that special characters
    are not being reproduced properly.  These characters include left and
    right single and double quotes ("curly quotes"), copyright and trademark
    symbols, bullets and em/en-dashes, etc.  The source of this problem is
    not completely understood, though the evidence, and the rarity of this
    problem, points to bugs in a very early release, maybe even pre-release,
    of Windows 3.1.  If you observe this error condition, consider upgrading
    your Windows to the most current version.

2.  A General Protection Fault (the infamous 'GPF') may occur when you click,
    in the main window, on a hypertext jump to a SoftLocked topic while the
    password registration window is being displayed.  Since doing this is not
    a necessary action, and undoubtedly rare (it is virtually impossible to
    read our electronic books anyway when the password registration window is
    covering most of the window), this error condition will occur for only a
    very small percentage of users, and mostly by accident (an errant click
    of the mouse at just the wrong place.)  The source of this error may be
    an incompatibility between OshTools (which we use to enhance our
    electronic books) and SoftLock.  OmniMedia and SoftLock are working on a
    fix around this problem.



---------------------------------
12.  How to Contact the OmniMedia
---------------------------------

     OmniMedia
     c/o Jon E. Noring
     9671 South 1600 West Street
     South Jordan, UT 84095

     (801) 253-4037
     (801) 253-4036 (fax -- not always online)

     Internet:  omnimedia@netcom.com

OmniMedia's electronic books are available both via the Web and by
anonymous FTP:

WEB:  http://www.awa.com/library/omnimedia/

FTP:  ftp.awa.com  /pub/softlock/pc/products/OmniMedia



---------------
13.  Thank You!
---------------

OmniMedia thanks you for downloading and reading our electronic books, and
we hope that you will sooon drop by and visit our Web site again!  New titles
are continually being added.

And we welcome your feedback, even critical feedback, on our electronic books
and service.



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Windows, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and Windows NT are registered trademarks
of the Microsoft Corporation

SoftLock is a trademark of SoftLock Services, Inc.

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