3 Using HyperDoc
HyperDoc is the gateway to Axiom. HyperDoc It's both an on-line tutorial and an on-line reference manual. It also enables you to use Axiom simply by using the mouse and filling in templates. HyperDoc is available to you if you are running Axiom under the X Window System.
Pages usually have active areas, marked in this font (bold face). As you move the mouse pointer to an active area, the pointer changes from a filled dot to an open circle. The active areas are usually linked to other pages. When you click on an active area, you move to the linked page.
3.1 Headings
Most pages have a standard set of buttons at the top of the page. This is what they mean:
- Help
- Click on this to get help. The button only appears if there is specific help for the page you are viewing. You can get general help for HyperDoc by clicking the help button on the home page.
- Up
- Click here to go back one page. By clicking on this button repeatedly, you can go back several pages and then take off in a new direction.
- Return
- Go back to the home page, that is, the page on which you started. Use HyperDoc to explore, to make forays into new topics. Don't worry about how to get back. HyperDoc remembers where you came from. Just click on this button to return.
- Exit
- From the root window (the one that is displayed when you start the system) this button leaves the HyperDoc program, and it must be restarted if you want to use it again. From any other HyperDoc window, it just makes that one window go away. You must use this button to get rid of a window. If you use the window manager ``Close'' button, then all of HyperDoc goes away.
The buttons are not displayed if they are not applicable to the page you are viewing. For example, there is no Home button on the top-level menu.
3.2 Key Definitions
The following keyboard definitions are in effect throughout HyperDoc. See ugHyperScroll and ugHyperInput for some contextual key definitions.
- F1
- Display the main help page.
- F3
- Same as Exit, makes the window go away if you are not at the top-level window or quits the HyperDoc facility if you are at the top-level.
- F5
- Rereads the HyperDoc database, if necessary (for system developers).
- F9
- Displays this information about key definitions.
- F12
- Same as F3.
- Up Arrow
- Scroll up one line.
- Down Arrow
- Scroll down one line.
- Page Up
- Scroll up one page.
- Page Down
- Scroll down one page.
3.3 Scroll Bars
Whenever there is too much text to fit on a page, a scroll scroll bar bar automatically appears along the right side.
With a scroll bar, your page becomes an aperture, that is, a window into a larger amount of text than can be displayed at one time. The scroll bar lets you move up and down in the text to see different parts. It also shows where the aperture is relative to the whole text. The aperture is indicated by a strip on the scroll bar.
Move the cursor with the mouse to the ``down-arrow'' at the bottom of the scroll bar and click. See that the aperture moves down one line. Do it several times. Each time you click, the aperture moves down one line. Move the mouse to the ``up-arrow'' at the top of the scroll bar and click. The aperture moves up one line each time you click.
Next move the mouse to any position along the middle of the scroll bar and click. HyperDoc attempts to move the top of the aperture to this point in the text.
You cannot make the aperture go off the bottom edge. When the aperture is about half the size of text, the lowest you can move the aperture is halfway down.
To move up or down one screen at a time, use the PageUp and PageDown keys on your keyboard. They move the visible part of the region up and down one page each time you press them.
If the HyperDoc page does not contain an input area (see ugHyperInput ), you can also use the Home and and arrow keys to navigate. When you press the Home key, the screen is positioned at the very top of the page. Use the and arrow keys to move the screen up and down one line at a time, respectively.
3.4 Input Areas
Input areas are boxes where you can put data.
To enter characters, first move your mouse cursor to somewhere within the HyperDoc page. Characters that you type are inserted in front of the underscore. This means that when you type characters at your keyboard, they go into this first input area.
The input area grows to accommodate as many characters as you type. Use the Backspace key to erase characters to the left. To modify what you type, use the right-arrow and left-arrow keys and the keys Insert, Delete, Home and End. These keys are found immediately on the right of the standard IBM keyboard.
If you press the Home key, the cursor moves to the beginning of the line and if you press the End key, the cursor moves to the end of the line. Pressing Ctrl-- End deletes all the text from the cursor to the end of the line.
A page may have more than one input area. Only one input area has an underscore cursor. When you first see apage, the top-most input area contains the cursor. To type information into another input area, use the Enter or Tab key to move from one input area to xanother. To move in the reverse order, use Shift-- Tab.
You can also move from one input area to another using your mouse. Notice that each input area is active. Click on one of the areas. As you can see, the underscore cursor moves to that window.
3.5 Radio Buttons and Toggles
Some pages have radio buttons and toggles. Radio buttons are a group of buttons like those on car radios: you can select only one at a time.
Once you have selected a button, it appears to be inverted and contains a checkmark. To change the selection, move the cursor with the mouse to a different radio button and click.
A toggle is an independent button that displays some on/off state. When ``on'', the button appears to be inverted and contains a checkmark. When ``off'', the button is raised.
Unlike radio buttons, you can set a group of them any way you like. To change toggle the selection, move the cursor with the mouse to the button and click.
3.6 Search Strings
A search string is used for searching some database. To learn about search strings, we suggest that you bring up the HyperDoc glossary. To do this from the top-level page of HyperDoc:
- Click on Reference, bringing up the Axiom Reference page.
- Click on Glossary, bringing up the glossary.
The glossary has an input area at its bottom. We review the various kinds of search strings you can enter to search the glossary.
The simplest search string is a word, for example, operation. A word only matches an entry having exactly that spelling. Enter the word operation into the input area above then click on Search. As you can see, operation matches only one entry, namely with operation itself.
Normally matching is insensitive to whether the alphabetic characters of your search string are in uppercase or lowercase. Thus operation and OperAtion both have the same effect. If you prefer that matching be case-sensitive, issue the command set HHyperName mixedCase command to the interpreter.
You will very often want to use the wildcard ``*'' in your search string so as to match multiple entries in the list. The search key ``*'' matches every entry in the list. You can also use ``*'' anywhere within a search string to match an arbitrary substring. Try ``cat*'' for example: enter ``cat*'' into the input area and click on Search. This matches several entries.
You use any number of wildcards in a search string as long as they are not adjacent. Try search strings such as ``*dom*''. As you see, this search string matches ``domain'', ``domain constructor'', ``subdomain'', and so on.
3.6.1 Logical Searches
For more complicated searches, you can use ``and'', ``or'', and ``not'' with basic search strings; write logical expressions using these three operators just as in the Axiom language. For example, domain or package matches the two entries domain and package. Similarly, ``dom* and *con*'' matches ``domain constructor'' and others. Also ``not *a*'' matches every entry that does not contain the letter ``a'' somewhere.
Use parentheses for grouping. For example, ``dom* and (not *con*)'' matches ``domain'' but not ``domain constructor''.
There is no limit to how complex your logical expression can be. For example,
a* or b* or c* or d* or e* and (not *a*)
is a valid expression.
3.7 Example Pages
Many pages have Axiom example commands.
Each command has an active ``button'' along the left margin. When you click on this button, the output for the command is ``pasted-in.'' Click again on the button and you see that the pasted-in output disappears.
Maybe you would like to run an example? To do so, just click on any part of its text! When you do, the example line is copied into a new interactive Axiom buffer for this HyperDoc page.
Sometimes one example line cannot be run before you run an earlier one. Don't worry---HyperDoc automatically runs all the necessary lines in the right order!
The new interactive Axiom buffer disappears when you leave HyperDoc. If you want to get rid of it beforehand, use the Cancel button of the X Window manager or issue the Axiom system command )close. close
3.8 X Window Resources for HyperDoc
You can control the appearance of HyperDoc while running under Version 11 HyperDoc X Window System defaults of the X Window System by placing the following resources X Window System in the file .Xdefaults in your home directory. file:.Xdefaults In what follows, font is any valid X11 font name font (for example, Rom14) and color is any valid X11 color color specification (for example, NavyBlue). For more information about fonts and colors, refer to the X Window documentation for your system.
- Axiom.hyperdoc.RmFont: font
- This is the standard text font. The default value is Rom14
- Axiom.hyperdoc.RmColor: color
- This is the standard text color. The default value is black
- Axiom.hyperdoc.ActiveFont: font
- This is the font used for HyperDoc link buttons. The default value is Bld14
- Axiom.hyperdoc.ActiveColor: color
- This is the color used for HyperDoc link buttons. The default value is black
- Axiom.hyperdoc.AxiomFont: font
- This is the font used for active Axiom commands. The default value is Bld14
- Axiom.hyperdoc.AxiomColor: color
- This is the color used for active Axiom commands. The default value is black
- Axiom.hyperdoc.BoldFont: font
- This is the font used for bold face. The default value is Bld14
- Axiom.hyperdoc.BoldColor: color
- This is the color used for bold face. The default value is black
- Axiom.hyperdoc.TtFont: font
- This is the font used for Axiom output in HyperDoc. This font must be fixed-width. The default value is Rom14
- Axiom.hyperdoc.TtColor: color
- This is the color used for Axiom output in HyperDoc. The default value is black
- Axiom.hyperdoc.EmphasizeFont: font
- This is the font used for italics. The default value is Itl14
- Axiom.hyperdoc.EmphasizeColor: color
- This is the color used for italics. The default value is black
- Axiom.hyperdoc.InputBackground: color
- This is the color used as the background for input areas. The default value is black
- Axiom.hyperdoc.InputForeground: color
- This is the color used as the foreground for input areas. The default value is white
- Axiom.hyperdoc.BorderColor: color
- This is the color used for drawing border lines. The default value is black
- Axiom.hyperdoc.Background: color
- This is the color used for the background of all windows. The default value is white