Before you start to use PipeDream, you should be familiar with the RISC OS desktop.
You should know how to:
You should also understand terms such as dialogue box, directory and directory viewer.
If you are not familiar with any of the terms or techniques above, please refer to your RISC OS User Guide.
The three mouse buttons are referred to as follows:
Pressing and releasing a mouse button is described as clicking. Mouse buttons are usually referred to by name. For example, click Menu means that you should press and release the Menu button. Click Select means that you should press and release the Select button. Click without any button name is shorthand for click Select.
Pressing and releasing a mouse button twice in quick succession is described as double-clicking. Again, the mouse button is usually specified. For example, double-click Adjust means that you should press and release the Adjust button twice in quick succession without moving the mouse. Double-click without any button name is shorthand for double-click Select.
Pressing and holding down a mouse button while you move the mouse is described as dragging. Once again, the mouse button is specified. Drag Select means that you should press and hold down the Select button while moving the mouse.
It is very important that you understand clearly the distinction between these two features:
To position the caret, you use the mouse to move the pointer to the required position and click the Select button.
When you are asked to press a single key on the keyboard, it will be expressed as follows:
Press A.
This means that you should press and release the key which has the letter 'A' on it.
Some keys can appear to be ambiguous. For example:
O
is the letter 'oh', whereas 0
is the figure
zero. On some RISC OS systems, zero may be shown on the keyboard as 0 with a
slash through it.l
is the lower case letter 'el', whereas 1
is
the figure one.x
means that you should press and release the letter 'ex',
whereas *
is what you use to express multiplication.|
is used to represent the character which appears as a
broken vertical bar on some keyboards and a solid vertical bar on the
screen.When you are asked to press one of the keys on the keyboard which has a word written on it, this will be expressed as follows:
Press Esc.
This means that you should press and release the key which has 'Esc' written on it.
Note the following:
↵ refers to the key on the right-hand side of the main keyboard which is usually used to complete an operation. You may know this key either as Enter or Return.
Pressing the Backspace or ↤ key deletes anything to the left of the caret. You can also use the Delete key.
The Alt key is found on the left-hand and right-hand sides of the keyboard, and is used to generate characters which do not appear on the keyboard, such as é.
The Esc key can usually be used to abandon an operation. It is sometimes known as the 'ESCAPE' key.
Note that the End key may also have 'Copy' written on it. In PipeDream, this key is generally used to move to the bottom of a column.
The ← ↑ → ↓ keys are the arrow or caret keys which you can use to move the caret about the document as an alternative to using the mouse.
Ctrl and Shift are held down simultaneously with other keys to modify their effect.
For example:
Press Ctrl-O means:
Anything that you type is shown in a computer typeface.
For example:
Type lesson ↵ means that you should type the word 'lesson' and then press the Enter key.
Words shown in italics are not to be typed in literally, but indicate that you should substitute what the word represents.
For example:
filename
would represent the name of your file.