This tutorial may be accessed with any text editor but is designed for use within the TRIANGLE program. Please refer to the README.TXT file in the same directory as this file for information on loading this tutorial into TRIANGLE.
The Basic Editor Tutorial is designed to guide you through several of the most important and basic features of the TRIANGLE program. There is a survey of seven questions at the end of the tutorial. We would be most grateful if you would send responses to the survey to the address indicated below.
The tutorial topics include:
Section 1. Basic Editor movement.
The cursor movement in the TRIANGLE text editor window is similar to other editors. The left, right, up, and down arrow keys will move the cursor left or right by one character or up and down by one line respectively.
Other cursor control features are pressing the Control (Ctrl) key and the left or right arrow key at the same time will move the cursor to the beginning of the previous or next word. A speech screen reader should read the word that the cursor is moved to. Ctrl and the up or down arrow keys should read the current line if you are using a speech screen reader.
The Page Down key (PgDn) will move the cursor down one page of text. A page of text is 23 lines on the screen. The Page Up (PgUp) key will move the cursor up one page of text. Pressing Control and Page Down (Ctrl-PgDn) will move the cursor down to the beginning of the next paragraph. Ctrl-PgUp will move the cursor to the beginning of the current paragraph, or if the cursor is currently at the start of a paragraph, to the beginning of the previous paragraph.
The Home key will move the cursor to the start of a line and the End key will move the cursor to the end of a line. Ctrl-Home will move the cursor to the start of the document, and Ctrl-End will move the cursor to the end of the document.
Exercise 0: Move the cursor by a word, line, paragraph, and page now.
Typing standard keyboard characters in TRIANGLE is very similar to any other editors. Typed text is displayed on screen lines 2 through 25. All characters on the keyboard behave normally except the "tab" key which inserts 8 spaces. The editor will always insert characters at the location of the cursor.
Note: if you move the cursor to a character in a line, the screen reader will read that character. When you type, your text is inserted and the character (and any subsequent text) is moved to the right.
Exercise 1: Insert the word "very" in the following line:
TRIANGLE is easy to use.
Section 2. The Help Area (F1).
TRIANGLE includes a built in Help area that can be accessed by pressing the F1 key. The help area is displayed as a full screen page with a list of help topics. You can move the cursor with the up and down arrow keys. When the cursor is on a line with a bulleted item, the topic contains more information that can be accessed by pressing the Enter key or Alt-down arrow. Alt-up arrow returns you to the previous help page.
The help viewer is exited by pressing the escape (Esc) key. The user is returned to the screen view that was present before pressing F1. Accessing the help menu subsequent times while the focus is in one of the editor buffers will return you to the top of the help section that was last displayed. Pressing F1 while in any of the special viewers (such as the plot, table, or figure viewer) will bring up the help viewer with the section displayed relating to that viewer.
Exercise 2: Press F1 to call up the Help file. Explore the Help file. Press the escape key (Esc) when done.
Section 3. The Main Menu (F10).
The most important navigational aid in TRIANGLE is the Main Menu. This menu is accessed from the Editor by pressing the F10 key. In case you forget, the top line on the screen (line 1) has a reminder for which key to press to get the menu. You can return from the menu at any time by pressing the Esc key. The menu is designed to be friendly to screen readers.
When the menu is called, a list of 8 items appears on the screen (lines 2 through 9): File, Edit, View, evAluate, Options, Print, Help, and eXit. The menu options can be selected by pressing the down arrow to that item and then pressing Enter, or by pressing f for File, e for Edit, a for evAulate, o for Options, p for Print, h for Help, or x for eXit. Several of the menu options have submenus that replace the option choices of the Main Menu. Submenu options will be explored in later sections of this tutorial and in other tutorials.
Exercise 3: Explore the functions of the Main Menu. Call up the menu with the F10 key, and choose one of the menu options to see that item's submenu. Press the Esc key to leave the submenu without choosing any item. Explore the other menu functions in this manner.
Section 4. Multiple editor buffers.
TRIANGLE contains five editor buffers numbered 0 through 4. Buffer 1 is the default editor. This is the buffer that is displayed when you first start TRIANGLE. The presence of multiple text buffers allows a user to edit multiple documents at the same time. Buffer 0 is reserved as a scratch pad where calculations are placed. The scratch pad is discussed in more detail in the calculator section in tutor2.ext. Each buffer will display up to 32 kb of text.
To move between the various text buffers, use the View option in the Main Menu. When choosing the View option, a 9 item submenu is displayed showing the Scratch Pad, the four text buffers, the plot, table, and figure windows. Choose the desired buffer by using the up or down arrow keys and enter or by typing 0 for the scratch pad, 1, 2, 3, or 4 for one of the four buffers, p for the Plot window, t for the Table window, or f for the Figure window.
A short-cut for switching between the text buffers is available by pressing Ctrl-F1. A menu showing the buffer choice is displayed on line 25. The buffer is changed by pressing the up or down arrow keys or by pressing the desired buffer number and pressing Enter.
Exercise 4: Switch to another editor buffer using the menu method, and then switch back to the current buffer (Buffer 1) using the short-cut method.
Section 5. New, Open, and Save File.
The first item in the Main Menu is File. This option gives a submenu relating to file operations such as creating a new file, opening existing files, saving the text in the currently displayed editor, setting the path name for files to load from, and loading data into or exporting from TRIANGLE's various viewers.
The first item in the File submenu is New. When you choose this option, a dialog line appears on line 25 asking if you want to save the current file. Choosing Yes will allow you to save the file in the current editor buffer before the text is cleared. Choosing No clears the text in the editor buffer.
The second item in the File submenu is Open. This will load a previously
saved document. If you have typed any text, a dialog appears on line 25
asking if you want to save your current file. Answering Yes allows you to
save the file. Otherwise, the dialog line displays:
Filename: C:\TRIANGLE\*.ext
If the file you want is in the current directory (the default directory is the one with the ta.exe program, in this case C:\TRIANGLE\) you can type the file's name and extension or press enter and use the arrow keys to scroll through the file choices.
It is important to note the desired file's extension, that is, the three letters following the period. TRIANGLE's files are denoted with the .ext extension. The extension .ext is used for standard TRIANGLE files to indicate that the text is EXTended, since it includes characters other than the usual 95 printable ASCII characters used in .TXT files. The open dialog assumes that the files you are looking for end with the .ext and will look for all files of that type in the noted directory.
If you want to load a file from a different directory, type the full path name and filename. For example, if you had a text file named hello.txt in your FILES directory on your D hard drive, you would replace the C:\TRIANGLE\*.ext with D:\FILES\hello.txt so the line 25 on the screen would read as:
Filename: D:\FILES\hello.txt
When the Enter key is pressed the file is loaded into the current editor buffer. As mentioned above, the editor buffers allow file with sizes up to 32 kb. If a file is greater than the 32 kb limit, the next 32 kb of the file will be automatically loaded into the subsequent editor buffer (buffer 2 if the start of the document is loaded into the first buffer) and so on until the entire file is loaded. Files up to 128 kb may be loaded in this manner into TRIANGLE's four text editors.
Exercise 5: Load the file tutor2.ext into TRIANGLE's second editor buffer
and return to this editor buffer.
First switch to the second editor buffer by: F10, v (for View), 2 (for the
second buffer). Then load the file by: F10, f (for File, or just press
Enter), o (for Open), type the following:
C:\TRIANGLE\MANUALS\tutor2.ext
To return to this buffer: F10, v, 1
Section 6. Find, Cut, and Paste.
You can find text in the currently displayed editor by going to the Main Menu (F10), choosing the Edit submenu (e), and choosing the Find (f) option. A dialog on line 25 asks what characters you want to find. Simply type the desired text to find, and press Enter. The find feature is also accessed by pressing the F3 key.
Similarly, you can find and replace text by F10, e, r (for Replace) or by pressing Ctrl-F3. In this case, the dialog on line 25 firsts asks for the text to find, and then the text to replace it with. You will need to confirm your choice.
Exercise 6: Use the find and replace feature to change a gnu to a widget.
TRIANGLE contains a clip-board for copying, cutting, and pasting text. The clip-board is accessed in three ways.
The first method is by using the menus. First, highlight the desired text by holding down the shift key while moving the cursor with the arrow keys, next press F10, e, o (for cOpy). The text is now copied into the clip-board. The Cut (c) option will remove the selected text but it will still be available to paste. To retrieve the text, move the cursor to the desired point in the file, press F10, e, p (for Paste).
The second method for accessing the clip-board is by selecting the text, pressing Ctrl-c to copy, Ctrl-x to cut, and Ctrl-v to paste. The third method is to select the text, press the F12 key to copy, Ctrl-F12 to cut, and Alt-F12 to paste.
In addition to the clip-board, TRIANGLE contains 10 register buffers that can hold text for copy and paste. Each register buffer has separate memory space so 11 (the 10 registers and the clip-board) different text items can be stored for pasting purposes. To access the registers, select the desired text, press the F11 key to copy or Ctrl-F11 to cut. A dialog on line 25 will ask which register buffer (0-9) you want to copy the text to. To paste, press Alt-F11 and type the register buffer number of the text.
Exercise 7: Copy the first line of text below into the clip-board. Copy
the second line into one of the register buffers. Then paste from the
clip-board and the register.
Copy this text into the clip-board.
Copy this text into one of the registers.
Section 7. Survey for the Basic Editor Tutorial.
In order for us to evaluate TRIANGLE's advantages and weaknesses, we would be most grateful if you would take a moment to answer the following questions about the TRIANGLE program and the Basic Tutorial.
Questions:
1. Which features of TRIANGLE's editor do you like or find most helpful?
2. Which features of TRIANGLE's editor do you dislike or find least helpful?
3. What software do you currently use that has features similar to those in TRIANGLE's editor?
4. How does TRIANGLE compare to that software in terms of features, ease of use, accessibility, etc.?
5. What additional information would you like included in the help file?
6. Did you find this tutorial helpful?
7. What changes should be made to the Basic Editor Tutorial?
There are several ways to send your responses to us:
1. You can send e-mail directly to us. The e-mail address is:
triangle@dots.physics.orst.edu, please mention that the responses are for
the Basic Editor tutorial.
2. You may type your response to the questions with TRIANGLE's editor,
save the file, and then send it as an e-mail attachment to:
triangle@dots.physics.orst.edu
3. You can copy the file to a floppy disk and send the disk to:
Steve Sahyun
Science Access Project
Physics Dept.
301 Weniger Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331
Please try at least one of the other tutorials located in the
C\TRIANGLE\MANUALS\ directory. The tutorials are:
Still have questions about TRIANGLE? Send e-mail to: triangle@dots.physics.orst.edu