Chapter C 1 : Introduction to the Online Tutorial

Advanced Revelation’s online Tutorial is the perfect way to learn how to use Advanced Revelation. Once you get started, almost everything you need to know is right there on the screen for you. As a result, this chapter simply tells you how to start and end the tutorial and explains the keystrokes that you will use throughout.

If you are a new user of Advanced Revelation, the perfect place to begin using Advanced Revelation is the online Tutorial. The Tutorial provides you with a complete overview and guided tour of the major capabilities of Advanced Revelation. Even if you have used Advanced Revelation before, you can take advantage of the Tutorial. If you can’t remember how to accomplish a task, you can have the Tutorial show you how.

The Tutorial consists of about two dozen self-contained lessons. Each lesson shows you one major feature of Advanced Revelation. For example, one lesson shows you how to paint a new window, while another explains how you can create a new menu. As each lesson proceeds, the Tutorial makes sure that you enter the proper keystrokes for the task you are accomplishing — you cannot make a mistake.

Each lesson takes about five to ten minutes to run. If you like, you can speed up or slow down the Tutorial to suit your own taste.

The Tutorial is written entirely in Advanced Revelation. As you run the Tutorial you will be executing the same commands and entering the same keystrokes that you would if you were building and using an application. In fact, you can even interrupt the Tutorial at any point and explore Advanced Revelation on your own — the files, windows, records, and data that you create in the Tutorial will all be available.

Because each lesson is self-contained, you can start anywhere you like. If you are inter- ested in one of the later lessons, begin there. The Tutorial makes sure that everything you need is available for each lesson. You can repeat each lesson as often as you like.

The instructions below explain how to start and end the Tutorial, and explain what keystrokes you need for the Tutorial. Most of what you need for the Tutorial, however, will be right on the screen in front of you. The best way to learn about the Tutorial — and about Advanced Revelation — is to start it right up.

You can access the Tutorial any time that you are logged in to Advanced Revelation. This section explains how to enter and exit the Tutorial and how to start and stop a Tutorial lesson.

To log on to Advanced Revelation, begin at the operating system prompt. If you are not already there, change to the drive or subdirectory where Advanced Revelation is installed. Then enter AREV to log on to Advanced Revelation.

For example, if you have installed Advanced Revelation on the C:\AREV subdirectory, you might enter these commands from the operating system prompt:

C: 
CD \AREV 
AREV 

If you normally log on to Advanced Revelation using an account or user name, continue to do so. You can start the Tutorial as described below.

Once you log on to Advanced Revelation, there are two ways to access the Tutorial:

• From the Advanced Revelation Main menu.
• From The Command Level window (TCL).

Only one user can run the Tutorial at a time. If you try to access the Tutorial while another person is running it, a message similar to the one below displays. You are returned to the Advanced Revelation Main menu or to TCL.

The Tutorial is in use elsewhere. 
Try again later. 

..-Press any key to continue... 

You can display the Advanced Revelation Main menu by pressing from a Menu [F10]. At the Advanced Revelation Main menu, select the options Access-Tutorial.

The Tutorial begins and the first Tutorial message displays. Press any key to clear this message from your screen and display the Tutorial Lessons popup.

All menus in Advanced Revelation work alike. To choose an option, highlight it and press [Enter] or [F9] (Save). Use any of these methods to move the highlight:

• To go directly to any option, type the first letter of the option you want.
• To go to the next option in a list, press [Spacebar].
• To move through the options, use the arrow key that points in the direction you want to move.
• To go to the first option, press [Home].
• Togo to the last option, press [End].

A brief message displayed at the bottom of the menu explains the purpose of the highlighted option.

You can display the Command Level window (TCL) by pressing Window ([F5]. At the TCL window, enter:

TUTORIAL 

The Tutorial begins and the first Tutorial message displays. Press any key to clear this message from your screen and display the Tutorial Lessons popup.

The Tutorial Lessons popup lists all of the lessons provided in the online Tutorial. This is a two-page popup. Only part of the lessons are listed on page one. Press [PgDn] to see the lessons listed on the second page. Press [PgDn] again to redisplay the first page.

To start one of the lessons listed on the popup, type the number of the lesson and press [Enter].

Use this popup to start any lesson. Each lesson stands alone — it is not necessary to complete them in any particular order.

If you do not have enough memory available to run a lesson, a message displays.

You can interrupt any lesson by pressing the [Esc] key. When you press [Esc] a message like this one will display:

Leave the Tutorial lesson? 
Are you sure? 

(Y/N) 

Enter “Y” to exit to the Tutorial Lessons popup. If you want to continue the current lesson, enter “N”. The lesson will resume.

While running the Tutorial, you can quit at any time. If you prefer, you can temporarily interrupt a lesson to pursue another task in Advanced Revelation and then return to resume the lesson where you left off.

Advanced Revelation is designed for multilevel activity: you can Temporarily interrupt one task, pick up another, then return to your place with a few quick keystrokes.

Both the [F10] (Menu) and [F5] (TCL) keys enable you to stop a Tutorial lesson temporarily to try out a process in Advanced Revelation, and then return to resume a lesson. This means that you can use the TCL window or the Advanced Revelation menu system for some hands-on practice with the tools you are learning about.

To suspend a Tutorial lesson and pursue another task, press [F5] to go to The Command Level (TCL) or press [F10] (Menu) to enter the menu system. The Tutorial displays a message similar to this one:

Temporarily leave the Tutorial? 
Are you sure? 

(Y/N) 

Type Y and press [Enter] to confirm that you want to leave. If you want to continue the current lesson without interruption, type N and press [Enter]. The lesson will resume.

If your environment does not allow you to access TCL, you will not be able to use [F5] to display the TCL window.

When you are ready to return to the suspended lesson, press [Esc] to return to the Tutorial level.

When you leave the Tutorial temporarily, Advanced Revelation continues to view you as a Tutorial user. This means that Tutorial files are substituted for some of the files that are normally available to you. For example, when you use Paint, you will access the Tutorial’s TEMPLATES file.

Warning! To preserve the integrity of the Tutorial, do not make any changes to existing records in Tutorial files. Doing so may cause unpredictable results when the Tutorial is run.

You can quit the Tutorial at any time by pressing [Esc]. Stop the current lesson as described above. Then press [Esc] at the Tutorial Lessons popup to leave the Tutorial.

Depending on how you started the Tutorial, you will return to Advanced Revelation at either the Advanced Revelation Main menu or at the TCL window. When you quit the Tutorial in this way, the Tutorial Lessons popup is no longer available unless you restart the Tutorial.

When you enter the Tutorial, Tutorial files are substituted for some of the files that are normally available to you. To regain access to the set of files that you usually use, you must log out of Advanced Revelation and log back on to the system.

You can leave Advanced Revelation either through the Exit menu or by entering the OFF command directly at The Command Level (TCL).

• To leave through the Exit menu, choose the options Exit-Logoff from the Advanced Revelation Main menu.
• To enter a command at TCL, press [F5] (TCL) from anywhere in Advanced Revelation and enter the command on the command line.

The lessons in the online Tutorial use a series of messages and screens to show you how Advanced Revelation works. You can press special function keys to get more help and to control the speed at which the lessons run.

There are two help keys that you can press in order to see more information about the current process.

In some lessons, the Tutorial asks you to make an entry at a prompt or make a selection from a popup. If you want more information, you can press [F'1] to display detailed help text. This help text is provided by the Advanced Revelation online help system.

To see information about the process a window or tool performs, press [Ctrl-F2]. Throughout Advanced Revelation you can rely on (Ctrl-F2] for information that will help you to run a process and tell you what to expect when you do.

Much of the information in the Tutorial is presented in messages that display on your screen. Each of the messages is set to display for a fixed amount of time. When the time elapses, the current message clears automatically and the next message or action in the lesson occurs.

You can increase the pace of the Tutorial by clearing any message yourself. Press any key to clear the current message and move on to the next step in the lesson.

As a lesson progresses, you will be asked to enter specific keystrokes. Directions about what keys to press will display near the bottom of the screen in a message response window that looks similar to this one:

Press the following keys: 
CUSTOMER [Enter] 

When a message like this displays, the Tutorial lesson waits for your keystrokes. Each keystroke is checked as you enter it. If you enter a keystroke that is unaccep- table, a beep will sound to indicate that the wrong key was pressed.

Sometimes a Tutorial lesson will automatically play a series of keystrokes for you. The [+] and [-] keys enable you to control how fast the keystrokes play back. The speed control keys are available any time a Tutorial message displays. To increase the speed of keystroke playback, press the [+] key. To decrease the speed of keystroke playback, press the [-] key.

Each time you press the [+] or [-] key it speeds up or slows down the playback speed by 1/100 of a second. By holding the [+] or [-] key down, you can make a significant change.

Adjustments that you make to playback speed will remain in effect, during the cur- rent session in Advanced Revelation. When you log out of Advanced Revelation the playback speed returns to the default setting.

The table that follows lists the keys that you can use when running the Tutorial.