All About Planes & All About Handwriting

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + + ALL ABOUT HANDWRITING & ALL ABOUT PLANES - CD ROM by TOPOLOGIKA SOFTWARE + + + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ !PLANES and !WRITING are by Christopher Jarman ⌐ Copyright 1996-97. !ARMOVIE, !SYSMERGE and !SYSTEM are ⌐ Copyright Acorn Computers Ltd. !BROWSER and !GENLIB are ⌐ Oak Solutions Ltd. !TEView is ⌐ Copyright Softease Ltd. Various demos ⌐ Copyright their authors and/or Topologika. Various fonts ⌐ Copyright Christopher Jarman. All pictures and other graphical resources used on the CD are ⌐ Copyright the artists and photographers concerned. All efforts possible have been made to find and acknowledge the copyright of all material used. The Author and Publisher apologise for any omissions which may be found. CD ROM Mastered by Uniqueway Ltd 01222 4640202 http://www.uniqueway.co.uk. Published 1997 by Topologika Software - address below. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of The Publisher. However, teachers and pupils in recognised educational establishments may extract pictures, text and audio resources for educational purposes only. They may not be copied or distributed to any Third Party by any means, electronic or otherwise, on any medium or any network including the Internet without the written permission of The Publisher. ++++++++++++++ + + + DISCLAIMER + + + ++++++++++++++ The software is provided "as is"; the Authors and Publisher make no warranty, express or implied, of the fitness of the contents of this CD for any particular purpose. In no circumstances shall any contributor or The Publisher be liable for any damage, loss of profits, or any indirect or consequential loss arising out of the use of this software or inability to use this software, even if they have been advised of the possibility of such loss. This statement does not affect your statutory rights. +++++++++++ + + + LICENCE + + + +++++++++++ This CD is supplied with a Single User licence which entitles you to use the software on just one machine at a time. For precise details of your Licence, please refer to the documentation supplied separately. If you wish to run the program on a network or on more than one computer at a time, you need either to purchase extra CDs or a Network Licence - see later. +++++++++++ + + + PREFACE + + + +++++++++++ I first met Christopher Jarman in 1981 after I'd written a program for the BBC micro called 'Letters'. This attempted to show children how to form his style of cursive letter shapes. Reviews in various magazines claimed we'd sell a copy to every primary school in the UK. It didn't happen. What did happen was that the sound effects that 'Letters' (and I) made while I was debugging it caused my wife to lose sleep for several nights.... When Christopher saw 'Letters' he expressed great delight but - at that time - little interest in computers. Now he owns a StrongArm RISC PC, scanner, video digitiser, etc, and is not just one of Britain's leading exponents of 'proper' Handwriting (see section on !CDFONTS, below) but also an expert font designer, computer artist and multimedia author - and I bet that wouldn't have been the case had he bought himself a 'proper' PC. So well done Acorn for producing such an easy-to-use machine, and well done - and thanks - Christopher. Brian Kerslake, TOPOLOGIKA Penryn, Cornwall 20th April 1997 ++++++++++++++++ + + + INTRODUCTION + + + ++++++++++++++++ Many thanks for purchasing this CD. We hope you enjoy it and that you find it useful. We value your comments which should be addressed to Topologika at the address at the bottom of this file. If your computer: - has 4mb of memory with at least 2.5 mb free - runs RISC OS 3.1 or higher - has a monitor that can display 800 x 600 or 640 x 480 screen modes, with 256 colours - runs other RISC OS CDs satisfactorily then you shouldn't have any trouble running !PLANES or !WRITING or anything else on the CD. WRITING ------- !WRITING is a reading and research activity for 7 to 13 year olds. It contains advice on the skill of Handwriting plus detailed information about where our alphabet came from, how ink and paper are made, etc. It will be of use in school libraries and as part of primary/middle school Communications topic work. It should also be a valuable resource for school INSET and teacher training. The program is meant to be browsed through in any order. Text is not spoken. Clicking on some of the pictures (eg the Scribe, the Sister, Titivillus) or on small animations will often produce a sound effect, and clicking on particular parts of some pictures will often produce an unexpected animation. The Main Menu (Contents Page) can be returned to at any time by clicking on the 'open book' icon. An alphabetical Index is available from the Main Menu. A visitor to a recent exhibition suggested that his school would not be able to buy this CD because the person who would make the purchasing decision would disapprove of the use of the word 'devil' (Titivillus, the Scribes' Devil) in !WRITING. We wonder if they refuse to purchase cookery books explaining how to make 'devilled eggs', and have left the little devil in! PLANES ------ Planes is designed to motivate children to read simple captions under illustrations. By clicking on the earphone icon they can have most of the text read aloud. The average reading level is 9.8 years (FOG index). In general, however, it is rather lower than that - only the inclusion of essential long names takes the score above about 8 years. The interest level for the program is between about 9 and 14 years. We expect that some pupils whose interest is not often held by conventional readers will enjoy PLANES. The program is meant to be browsed through in any order. Each page closes automatically after one minute, so that any pupil who loses concentration can wait a minute and start again. A viewer of the pre-release version of !PLANES expressed the opinion that there was too much material on 'war' planes and not enough on 'passenger' planes. Well, Christopher Jarman RN finds 'warplanes' fascinating (take the Quit option from the Part 2 Menu to see him) and believes that children of the type he hopes to motivate by this package will be interested in the kind of aircraft that stimulate him. However we have changed the title of that section from 'War Planes' to 'Military Planes' in order to de-emphasise the offensive (in military terms) aspects of the material. GETTING STARTED --------------- 1 Quit !Edit and any other applications that you have running. 2 Switch the computer into a 256 colour mode, eg 28 (640 x 480) for !WRITING, or, preferably, 800 x 600 for !PLANES. 3 Click on the CD ROM drive icon. 4 Double-click on !CDFONTS. (How to avoid this is explained later.) 5 Double-click on the blue PLANES or WRITING directory. When the application icon appears (!PLANES or !WRITING), double-click on it. 6 If the application you double-clicked on doesn't load - or if some of the animations don't work correctly - quit, double-click on !ARMOVIE, and try again. NAVIGATION ---------- You normally click Select - the left mouse button - on the small jet plane in Planes or on the 'turn page' icon in Writing to turn the page. However you can skip the Intro and Teachers' Notes in Planes by clicking on the picture of the Mirage jet to go straight to the beginning of the program, and in Writing by clicking on the open book. ANIMATIONS ---------- Many of the animations are under the user's control. They can be stopped, restarted, paused and stepped through frame by frame by clicking on appropriate buttons. Always STOP animations before clicking on earphone icons to hear the text. If you try to run some animations and the audio commentary at the same time, you may lose sound altogether, and in low memory situations sound may echo and/or distort. The Author and Publisher have no control over this. If you have a problem with sound/animation or losing a page, just quit and start again. Always STOP animations before you turn a page. If nothing seem to happen when stepping, click again - some animations contain sequential identical frames. PRINTING -------- Provided that you've loaded a printer driver it may be possible to print out any page using the Menu (middle mouse) button to select Print Page. However, some parts of both applications use a great deal of memory and unless you set up 4 mb machines carefully you may find that when you come to print they run out ('insufficient memory for this request'/'internal error, no writable memory at this address' etc). Ways of dealing with this are outlined later. In general on 4mb machines we recommend NOT loading a printer driver unless you definitely want to print. NB. 'Full page'/'Portrait'/'Retain shape' are the best options, using less ink and taking less time. QUITTING -------- To quit either application: - point at !PLANES or !WRITING on the desktop - click Menu - click on Quit This leaves the Genesis Browser icon on the desktop. You'll need to quit that in the same way unless you plan to load the other application. When you've finished using the CD, double-click on !FONTREMOV to remove the CDFONTS from your machine's memory. WHAT ELSE IS ON THE CD? ----------------------- See the next section. The CD contains lots more handwriting resources and some great demos of other Topologika software. ++++++++++++ + + + CONTENTS + + + ++++++++++++ The CD contains the following items: !ARMOVIE -------- This is Acorn's movie software, which !PLANES and !WRITING use for many of the animations. If !PLANES and !WRITING run OK, you can just ignore !ARMOVIE, but if they don't, double click on it as described above, before running the main applications. You can, of course, copy !ARMOVIE onto a hard disc. If you do that, make sure you copy it over any other copy of !ARMOVIE (in order to update it), by dragging the icon from the CD to the icon on the hard disc. If your computer has RISC OS 3.1, !ARMOVIE could be anywhere on your hard disc. If you have RISC OS 3.5 or above it should be in $.!Boot.Resources. !BROWSER and !GENLIB -------------------- All About Handwriting and All About Planes are Genesis applications. !BROWSER and !GENLIB are the bits of Genesis that 'read' the main applications. They have to be 'seen' by the filing system before you can run !PLANES or !WRITING. This shouldn't be a problem as we've put them in the root directory of the CD, ie the part which is first 'seen' by the filing system when you click on the CD icon. !CDFONTS -------- Double-click on this before you load any of the applications to be sure they can find the fonts they need. The following are supplied: Jarman Strictly speaking this is not a Font but a simulation of the cursive handwriting as seen in "The Development of Handwriting Skills" (a handwriting scheme for schools) by Christopher Jarman now published by Stanley Thornes Ltd, Ellenborough House, Wellington St, Cheltenham Glos GL50 1YD (Tel 01242 28888). The font is provided so that teachers and pupils will be able to write out their own copy sheets for handwriting practice using their own words, to supplement the Scheme. As a RISC OS outline font, however, it will load into any suitable program and can be used to produce documents with a hand-written appearance when required. Jardotty Jardotty provides a dot to dot font if used at very large point sizes, say 70pt or more. Children can then copy over the top of the letters to learn in which direction they should be formed. Topo A variant of 'Jarman', specially produced for Topologika by Christopher Jarman. Fewer joining 'flicks'. The Other Fonts Ghost, Jotter, Quilltalic and Winchester are the other fonts we thought you'd like to have. Tip: Provided that you have double-clicked on !CDFONTS or have installed the fonts on your hard disc (see below), you can try out all these fonts right now by clicking Menu, pointing at Display and following the arrow, pointing at Font and following the arrow, then clicking on the font you want. To get back to the way this file looked before you started getting clever, do all that again, but click on System, which should be at the top of the Fonts list. Tip: If you have a hard disc and you want to avoid having to double-click on !CDFONTS before loading the other applications, copy the fonts into the !Fonts folder on your hard disc, then reset your computer. How to do this is explained in the documentation supplied with your computer. Tip: Many teachers prepare 'tramline' exercises for children, ie large 'hollow' letters or words for children to follow. An easy way to speed this up - providing you know how to use !Draw - is like this: 1 Load !Draw. 2 Using the font Jarman (or indeed any non-System font) use the text tool to write something on the screen. 3 Select what you've written as an object and click the middle mouse button. Point at the 'Select' option, slide the mouse to the right, then click on 'Convert to path'. 4 With your text still selected give it Black as its Line Colour and 'None' as its Fill Colour, then enlarge it. You will see that it has become a hollow shape, ideal for childen who are learning to write. !FONTREMOV ---------- After using the CD, double-click on this to make your computer forget CDFONTS. EXTRAS ------ This directory contains: RISCOS3 Various System files etc which should only be of interest to users with machines running RISC OS 3.1. TOPODEMOS Demos of best selling software from Topologika: For RISC OS 2 and 3: Music Box, MathMania For RISC OS 3 only: Talking Clocks, Talking Nursery Rhymes, MathsBook. Please note that the demo version of MathsBook doesn't talk, and that it only covers addition and subtraction. A multiplication and division edition of MathsBook is due for release mid '97. PLANES ------ This directory contains the main !PLANES application together with a directory called PLANEPICS. !PLANES This is described above. PLANEPICS Many of the images used in !PLANES are Artworks files, since this is the most economical way (in terms of memory) in which to store them. You may want children to search for and export images directly from Planes. Unfortunately, directly exporting them may not be a practical proposition unless you have lots of room on your hard disc and a copy of ArtWorks. There are two solutions to this: (i) have children grab images as screenshots using !Paint, or (ii) let them find the images they want in the following directories, which contain most of the resources used in the main application - and some that aren't! DRAWFILES A set of Draw files which will load into !Draw or into DTP packs such as Textease (recommended), Ovation, Impression, etc. JPEGS A set of photographs which can be used in that form if you have the tools - eg !ChangeFSI, !ImageFS or !Translator - but which are also supplied as sprites. SPRITES A set of Paint files which will load into !Paint or into any program that can load Paint files. WRITING ------- This directory contains the main !WRITING application together with three other directories: !WRITING This is described above. JOINUP Contains the application !JOINUP which can be used to demonstrate how to join the letters in just about any word or phrase. LETTERING Contains !LETTDEM (an extract from a follow-up CD ROM due for release in Autumn 1997: 'All About Lettering/All About Movement'), and !TEVIEW (a Browser from Softease Ltd, whose Multimedia Textease Christopher Jarman is using to develop this new CD). WRITEPICS Some of the more interesting images used in !WRITING. See above for reasons why some of the images used in !WRITING are Artworks files and how to get round this if you want users to search for and export images. +++++++++++++++++++ + PRINTER DRIVERS + +++++++++++++++++++ Planes and Writing depend on Genesis and your printer driver for their ability to print. The Author and Publisher have no control over the way in which these programs interact with !PLANES and !WRITING, and we have not, of course, been able to test the applications with all combinations of OSæs, printers, and printer drivers. Because Planes and Writing use nearly all the available memory we only recommend loading a printer driver on 4 mb machines if you definitely want to print. At the time of writing (20.4.97) the latest drivers available are !Printers 1. 53 for RISC OS 3.11, 3.5 and 3.6, and 1.54 for RISC OS 3.7. However we are aware that there are three versions of !Printers 1.53 in circulation: the original version, and one which has been prepared by ART for the 1997 Tesco promotion. The latter is identified as 1.53a in a ReadMe file inside the application - it only differs from the original version by the fact that it contains additional printer definition files. There is also an upgrade kit for !Printers 1.53 that repairs problems some users have encountered relating to slow printing when using the newer Hewlett Packard printers, and errors when used with some applications that printed without problems under !Printers 1.28. The upgrade can be obtained from ftp://ftp.acorn.co. uk/pub/riscos/patches/printers153, from your local dealer or perhaps your local Teachersæ Centre/IT centre. USING YOUR PRINTER DRIVER ------------------------- Whenever you want to use a printer you must load a printer driver BEFORE loading the program. To load a printer driver, point at the driver icon, and double-click. After a few seconds the driver will install itself on the left hand side of the icon bar. You now need to ensure that the driver is correctly set up. Click Menu over the printer icon on the icon bar, and select ÉPrinter Controlæ from the menu which pops up. Now click Menu over the highlighted printer in the Printer Control window, and select ÉConfigureæ from the menu. The configuration dialogue box contains a ÉResolutionæ field (if the printer can do more than one resolution) and a ÉQualityæ field. Set the resolution you want, then click on ÉOKæ, point at the driver icon on the icon bar and click Menu. Point at Save and click. If you experience memory problems, click Menu over the driver icon, then click on Quit. This removes the driver icon from the desktop icon bar, freeing up some memory, but still leaving the main part of the driver in memory so that you can still print. We've had trouble printing some pages, particularly '0: Mosquito' in Planes which on 4 mb machines can give 'Overflow while transforming point: print cancelled' (it has run out of memory). Try switching to a lower resolution screen mode just before you print: the lower (fewer colours and pixels) the better; you can always switch back to your working mode straight after the print. One other thing we've noticed is that if you try to stop a printout by pressing Escape you may find that the next time you try to print you get the message 'Can't open printer'. the only way out of this one seems to be to reset or switch off your computer. If its a driver problem, contact the supplier of your driver and/or printer. If you're sure the driver is OK (ie it works with all other software), please contact Oak Solutions, publishers of Genesis. +++++++++++++++++++ + PROBLEM SOLVING + +++++++++++++++++++ !PLANES and !WRITING won't run at all ------------------------------------- See the Introduction for details of the kind of machine you need in order to run these programs successfully. If you've got the right kind of machine but they still don't work... Did you double click on !CDFONTS and !ARMOVIE before loading !PLANES or !WRITING? If you're using RISC OS 3.1, try upgrading your System files. Use !SYSMERGE (in EXTRAS.RISCOS3) to make sure that your RISC OS 3 System files are up to date. Double click on !SYSMERGE then follow the instructions on screen. (A7000 or RISC PC users DON'T need to do this.) The programs work OK, but the colours seem wrong ------------------------------------------------ !PLANES and !WRITING are designed for 256 colour screen modes. If you're using a screen mode which offers less than 256 colours (eg 27), the colours will be wrong. I'm using a 32,000 colour screen mode, and some animations don't work --------------------------------------------------------------------- That's right, they don't. Use a 256 colour mode, as recommended above. The menus in 'Planes' are always hidden --------------------------------------- In a screen mode such as 28 (640 x 480) they will be. This isn't a problem, since you can always get back to the last menu by waiting for one minute in Planes (see above) or by closing the page you're on by clicking on the 'close' (X) icon top left. Planes works best in an 800 x 600 screen mode, so that the menus appear at the left of the screen with the pages to the right. However its perfectly usable in a narrower screen mode. The sound keeps going wrong in Planes ------------------------------------- Sound effects or speech can distort or terminate early if you don't have enough free memory (see below) or if you turn pages without stopping animations. The Author and Publisher have no control over this. The computer keeps running out of memory ---------------------------------------- The CD has been tested on typical machines, in particular on the 4mb A7000 range. Your machine must have a minimum of 4mb, preferably more. Remember that although it may be fitted with 4 mb RAM, if you have a 'Pinboard' full of applications and other programs displayed, the computer may already have lost over 2 mb of that capacity. Similarly if you have saved a desktop boot file your system may be pre-loading the icons for many applications, including some that you may not even be loading. It's easy to restore your computer's boot sequence to the way it was when it was supplied. A7000 computers and recent RISC PCs come with a special application to do just that; look this up in the documentation supplied with your computer (its usually tucked away in 'Diversions' and is called 'ResetBoot'). Boot sequences for older machines must be reset by hand; how to do this is clearly explained in your hardware documentation. Try these solutions in succession until you get the applications to work: (i) Quit any other applications. If you've a printer driver loaded and you definitely want to print, set the resolution you want (the lower the resolution the less memory will be used), then quit it (see above) - you'll still be able to print. However if you don't want to print we suggest you restart your machine without loading a printer driver. (ii) Make sure you're using a recommended screen mode. 640 x 480 x 256 colours (mode 28) uses less memory than 800 x 600 x 256. The former is best for !WRITING, the latter for !PLANES, but if you can't get Planes to run in 800 x 600 x 256 colours, try it in 640 x 480. (iii) Remove the Pinboard, if you have one, and reset your Boot sequence, as described above. (iv) Phone/fax or email us (details below) (v) If you can afford it, buy more RAM. To have plenty gives a really luxurious feeling! I get the message 'Not open for update' when I click on the X icon ------------------------------------------------------------------ This happens on the Notes and Flying Certificate pages in Planes, because Genesis is trying to save your modified page to the CD, which is, of course, impossible. If you do want to save a modified page, open up the directory where you want to put the saved file, then click Menu over the page and drag the icon into directory you just opened. Some of the animations run a bit too fast! ------------------------------------------ Try switching your computer's cache off. Press F12, then type: *CACHE OFF (Return> This slows some machines down a bit, which may help children to see what's going on in some of the animations on some of the faster machines. Unfortunately it also slows down other things like the speed at which screens draw. You can always turn it back on with: *CACHE ON <Return> or by resetting your computer, or by switching it off then on. A better solution may be to step through animations - see above. I get the message 'Please locate Genesis' ----------------------------------------- You'll get this message if Planes or Writing doesn't know where to find !BROWSER and/or !GENLIB. Locate them, then double-click on each in turn before loading the application you want. This can't happen if you run Planes or Writing from the CD. If you copy them onto a hard disc, put !PLANES and !WRITING and the two Genesis applications (!BROWSER and !GENLIB) all in the same directory - then Genesis will always be 'seen', and you won't have to double click on them. The Talking Rhymes demo quits when I click on a piece of the jigsaw ------------------------------------------------------------------- This can happen if you have used !WRITING or !PLANES before loading Twinkle. Either reset your computer, or switch off and start again, and all should be well. I can't get any sound in !LETTDEM --------------------------------- See previous point. +++++++++++++++++++++++ + + + MULTI-USER UPGRADES + + + +++++++++++++++++++++++ If you wish to use the programs on more than one machine at a time you must either purchase extra CDs (ú15 + VAT each) or a Network Licence (ú35 + VAT). +++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + + MONEY SAVING VOUCHERS + + + +++++++++++++++++++++++++ The pack contains Vouchers allowing you to claim discounts off ALL ABOUT LETTERING/MOVEMENT and other Topologika programs. To claim your discounts you MUST return the vouchers DIRECT to Topologika with your order. They may not be used with any other special offer or via any other dealer or distributor. +++++++++++++++++++ + + + CONTACT DETAILS + + + +++++++++++++++++++ TOPOLOGIKA SOFTWARE Waterside House Falmouth Road PENRYN Cornwall TR10 8BE tel 01326 377771 fax 01326 376755 email: sales@topolgka.demon.co.uk help@topolgka.demon.co.uk web site: www.topolgka.demon.co.uk +++++++ + + + END + + + +++++++