Connections 1.0 --------------------------------- Interactive Multimedia Networking Copyright 1992, David Becker Compuserve 73030,3562 GEnie D.Becker8 Welcome to Connections! If you want to run multimedia families and you are not interested in creating any yourself then this quick start documentation is for you. Connections is freeware. You may distribute it, copy it, share it, sell it through the user group or upload it to the local BBS. Please make sure the files and documention remain intact and unchanged. Connection version 1.0 requires a monochrome monitor. You should have at least one megabyte of memory and a hard drive. A Connections multimedia family is an interactive collection of graphics, sounds, animations and text presented for your enjoyment and education. You simply click the mouse over top of icons and areas on the screen that in turn bring forth information. Lets imagine a theoretical Connections family as an example. A class of school children wish to introduce themselves to other ST users through a Connections family. You would first be presented with a parent screen containing a title and a class picture. Each one of the individual students within this screen would be defined as a point and click button. When you click over top of any student, the connection is made to another parent screen about that specific student. This second parent screen will be displayed and has icons painted on it that when clicked upon will reproduce the students voice, an animation of the student in gym class or perhaps some smaller pictures of the students pets and hobbies. A text file would also be presented describing this students home life or other interests. Finally you would click on an icon that would return you to the very first parent screen, so that another student could be chosen. Parent screens are the main graphic screens that contain the icons and buttons that you click on top off. There can be many parent screens within a Connections family. Here is a brief overview of some of the different multimedia children you may encounter when clicking different areas on a parent screen: Sound Child =========== Connections can reproduce digitized sounds. Turn up the volume! Sounds can play in the background while other graphics, text or animations are shown. Sometimes wiggling the mouse will cause a sound sample to exhibit "wow and flutter" (slow down and speed up) if the computers processor is being overworked. This won't hurt anything but best to wait for the sample to finish playing rather than use the mouse and degrade the sound reproduction. If you use a 16Mhz or faster computer, this won't be a problem. Animation Child =============== Animations are a sequence of graphic blocks that when cycled, create the illusion of motion. They can be video snapshots, line drawings, cartoons, etc. Use the up and down arrow keys to speed up and slow down animations. Click the mouse button to exit an animation. Text Child ========== Text files are displayed inside their own window and they centre themselves automatically. You can use the up and down arrows to scroll one line at a time. Use the SHIFT-ARROWS to scroll one page at a time. You can also hit B to jump to the bottom of your text file or T for the top. The mouse buttons will also scroll the text up and down if the mouse pointer lies within the text window. If the mouse pointer is any place else, clicking will exit the window. Graphic Child ============= Graphic children are picture blocks of any size. One or more can appear at preset locations on your screen. Click the right mouse button to exit them. Executable Child ================ Clicking on an icon can run an external program. Exit as you would normally to return to the Connections family. __________________________________ Running a Connections family is easy. Simply double-click on CONNECT.PRG and choose RUN from the main dialog. When the fileselector appears, choose START.PI3 from the correct folder and away you go! You can press the right mouse button from an empty parent screen and you will be presented with a dialog box. From this box you have the following options available: Buttons ------- You can view all the point and click buttons. All the defined areas will flash inverse. Press a mouse button to exit this option. Tree ---- By clicking on this button you can view a flowchart of every parent screen within the family with every multimedia child that is attached. You can even choose to view individual types of multimedia children by clicking the left mouse button or pressing any key. Press the right button to exit. Print ----- You can press P on the keyboard or choose PRINT to send a hard copy of the current graphic screen to your printer. This screen dump is Epson 9 pin compatible but there are many PD AUTO programs online that configure screen dumps for other makes and models. You can press P within text windows to print ASCII files, within running animations to print one of the cells, while graphic children are displayed or within any parent screen. Previous -------- This button takes you to the parent screen that was displayed just before this current screen. Start ----- Click this button to return to the very first parent screen. Exit ---- You will have the option to quit to the desktop or exit to the main dialog and run or create another family. ____________________________________ Auto Running Families --------------------- You can use INSTALL APPLICATION from the Atari desktop so that the Connections program will auto-run when you click on any START.PI3 file. TOS 2.05 and 2.06 users should highlight CONNECT.PRG from the desktop and then click on "install application" from the menu "options". The dialog should then be set to: Application name: CONNECT.PRG Arguments: ___________ Document type: PI3 Install as: F__ Boot status: Normal Application type: GEM Default dir: Application Parameter: Full Path Click on INSTALL and then save your desktop to make the changes permanent. Users of the newdesk TOS 2.06 can also "drop" START.PI3 right on top of the Connections program icon and have it auto-run. The last method of auto-running a family is to place CONNECT.PRG and CONNECT.RSC within the folder that contains START.PI3 and your family. If Connections finds START.PI3 within the same folder/directory as itself, it will immediately run that family. In Closing ---------- I hope you enjoy Connections. Don't hesitate to contact me on GEnie (D.Becker8) or Compuserve (73030,3562). Please see the main documentation for further information on Connections.