Turbo Vision Workshop
                             Version 1.0
                    (Code writer for C++ and Pascal)

        Professional Turbo Vision control designer and code writer

                        (C) Copyright 1993/94
                                 by
                    Mark Timmings and Mark Buchanan

"Design dialogs, menubars and statuslines for use with Turbo Vision, then
 get the designer to automatically write the code, code may be written in
 functions or allow the designer to write the code as a derived class".

"Worth programming in DOS for..."


Introduction

   The Turbo Vision Workshop (TVWork) was designed to allow us to become
lazier than we already were and to allow us to produce user interfaces
within Turbo Vision in a simpler way. Anyone using Turbo Vision will
realise that after positioning their dialog box that it never looks
quite right so they must recompile again (and again...). Also when
dealing with user's its better to be able to demonstrate what something
will look like, or to allow the user to actually design their interface
themselves and then allowing us to get the designer to produce the
source code for us. Thus we decided that it was time to design a Turbo Vision
designer, something which would allow us to design the basic components
of a Turbo Vision interface visually. There are three basic parts to
TVWork, a Menu Bar designer, Status line designer and Dialog designer,
each is currently independent of each other, each process may be defined
visually, for verification of the look and may also be edited with
respect to its coding, i.e. allowing the code to write derived classes
or functions and implement help contexts and commands etc. We have NOT
allowed the user of TVWork to produce resource files with TVWork, except
those specific to TVWork. The reasons for this are simple, firstly as almost,
if not all code needs to have functionality added, you would still need to
code the functionality into the resource yourself and secondly we would need
to produce resources for TVWork and for your application because of the
excess data witin the TVWork resources (specific to TVWork), but as with
most things, this may change in the future.
   Code writing is very versatile, especially within the dialog writing.
Functions (ala C style) may be written to return TDialog pointers, or if
the TDialog designed by you has another class name (i.e. derived from
TDialog) then not only will its class be designed, but the TViews within
it will be put in the constructor, if any of them are derived types, then
they will also contain class definitions, an overloaded handleEvent may
also be included within the derived class, ready for you to append your
own code. Needless to say (although we shall), there becomes many possible
variations that are created with derived and non-derived types being
written.

System Requirement

   Borland Turbo Pascal version 6 or above with Turbo Vision 1.0
   and/or
   Borland C++ version 3.1 or above with Turbo Vision 1.0

   We have tested TVWork on a 286, 386SX, 386DX and 486. But TVWork like's
   its memory, we have not yet verified its minimum requirement.

   A mouse is essential within the dialog desiging part of TVWork, as
   not everything is keyboard enabled.


Getting Started

   As default TVWork comes with a desktop pattern and colour to suit me
(MT), very few like my desktop's colours so I've allowed you to alter
your TVWork to suit. Also as default, TVWork is set to C++ source, this
may be reset using the Options pulldown menu. Once information is
changed in options you will need to actually save the environment,
otherwise TVWork will default back prior to your changes next time you
load it.
   From the main menu you will see several fairly self-explanatory
menu options, although hints will appear on the statusline for each menu
item. Each designer is independent of one another, so you may start
designing a menu, statusline or dialog boxes in which ever order you
wish to.


Menu designing

   The menu designer submenu has two options, create menu or restore
(restoring a previously saved menubar). We will only look at the create
function. It should be noted that using the keyboard the menu designer
reactes exactly as it would in the final program (except on enter of
course), but with the mouse you will need to doubleclick on items to
view the sub menu etc. the reason for this is that originally one mouse
click would immediately open a submenu, this made editing the main menu
a bit of a mess, using the mouse and keyboard to choose a main menu
option (if you play with the mouse in a Turbo Vision app. you'll see
what we mean). The status line shows all the possible options on a menu
when in menu creation mode, most are self-explanatory, except possibly
the hints option. This will display a statusline hint editor, if and
only if a menu or submenu has a non-hcNoContext helpCtx.


StatusLine designing

   Ths statusline menu is similar to the menu designer's in that you may
both create or restore statusline resources. To design a statusline we
simple choose the create option, this brings up a dialog box which also
enables you to view a dummy statusline (just above the real one), a
simple item exists already for you to start from. The TStatusDef listboxes
show the current TStatusDef's which exists (default is from 0 to 0xFFFF).
You simple click or press enter on this to begin editing any part of the
TStatusDef, such as the start and end numbers and the items within the
statusline, when altering the statusline items the dummy statusline
alters with you, thus showing the current upto date look of the
statusline. Most, if not all command options exists upon the real
statusline for editing any TStatusDef or TStatusItems.


Dialog designing

   Unlike the last two designers this one certainly has more options. To
begin with many are disabled (greyed out), so are obviously of no use
unless you begin by creating a dialog box (you may restore a previous
one also). Once created a simple looking dialog box is put on the
screen, it is modeless so that you may alter/edit more than one at the
same time, this is very usefull, especially if one dialog is to call
another prior to closing, thus you can see how to fit the chain of
dialogs together better. The template dialog always has a grow/shrink
border, but this is just for designing, if you require this on you final
dialog then the appropriate option will need to be set. You may edit the
title of the dialog and its code writing information, such as its class
name etc. The next thing to do is actually add the parts to make up the
dialog box, all basic Turbo Vision views are included here. Each view
may be positioned using the mouse (no keyboard interface exists for
this), and you may use enter or doubleclick to edit each views settings.
Once the dialog is completed you may reset the tab ordering (if
neccesary) or test the dialog if you wish. When you've finished the fine
tuning simple save the dialog to disc. Note: all designing types, i.e.
menubar, statusline and dialogs need to be saved to disc prior to code
generation. Along with the possibility of creating dialogs and views
derived from the TV types, you may also give the related data structures
individual variable names, the default is field(n), where the n is
translated into a numeric (indicating the fields position within the data
structure), you may give you own name to the variable, but if you wish to
return the variable name back to the automatic name definition, then simply
return this field's text to field(n) (you'll see what we mean).



Build the code

   The build menu option is fairly obvious, each type may be recalled
from disc and the code generated for either C++ or pascal (as set within
options), you will be prompted for the filenames that you wish all files
saved as, i.e. in C++ the source and header files and that's basically
that. But a note about the coding, firstly the code will be written in a
style fairly much as Borland's examples, mainly because we kept arguing
as to which one of our indentation and code writing styles was nicest.
There are bits where we have done things differently, mainly due to ease
of use, such as TScrollBar's on TMemo's and TListBoxes, these are added
after the TMemo or TListBox has been created. Obviously not everything
will work by just including the source files in you project, for example
the hints designed in the menubar designer will be given a class name
which will need to be changed to suit you, but simple cutting and
pasting of the code (or a few modifications) will get your programs up
and running in no time.

Please note: currently the help screens are minimal, a full help file
will be shipped with registered copies of TVWork, this is not our
attempt at forcing you to register, it is just that currently the full
help is still being designed.


Registration

   This software is a fully working package thus allowing you to use
every feature and enabling you to truly test it to its full. However the
package is NOT free, you are entitled to a free trial period of thirty
days (in true shareware style) but after this period you are required to
register the software. You may only use one copy of TVWork per user.
For the price of œ39.95 (Pounds Sterling), we can only except cheques or
postal orders, we will promise to send you the latest version of TVWork
with full help file and documentation and you will also be eligible for free
upgrades for your first year of registration or one free upgrade if
there were no upgrades within your first year of registration.
To register please reply using REGISTER.DOC.

Licence

   The software is supplied as is, no reponsibility can be accepted for
consequential damage caused. The code written by TVWork is totally of
your reponsibility and is in all instances royalty free (except under
any conditions set down by Borland) and no responsibility can be acceptd
for code generated by TVWork. We do NOT guarantee the software to be
error free or the code generated by it.

Support

   We have tested the workshop as fully as possible and used it within
our jobs to produce user-interfaces and code for work project, we cannot
guarantee it being bug free (although we have cleared any that we
found). We would, however, be happy to hear from you if you have any
problems with the software or would like any other features added or
just to say "Hello".

   We may be contacted in writing:

                       101 Send Road
                       Send
                       Woking
                       Surrey
                       GU23 7HN
                       England

   or during work hours on 071 250 1842
   or via CIS, ID:100111,1105