---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SpellView v5.00 (Fri. 09/22/95), Putting powers at your fingertips. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to SpellView, the best (And probably the only :) mass spell/prayer viewer/printer/editor for the PC & Compatibles. Where our motto is "It doesn't matter if you're running a 686/400mhz or a 386/16mhz, you still need the 1gb of memory to run the software" * Introduction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- For years players have been playing role playing games, especially the well known AD&D (second edition). And for years Wizards, Priests & Psionists had to roam through 1000's of spells/prayers & powers to find out a particular detail about a certain spell/prayer or power. With computer technology moving forward at great strides, at last we come to a time in which computers can help make the job of reading/searching/editing through a spell/prayer/power book easy to use, and much Much MUCH FASTER!. And another nice feature is the ability to create customized spell/prayer/power books in seconds, by simply selecting the spells/prayers/powers, and printing them as an index or as a full spell/prayer/power book. * Hardware Requirement ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm afraid that SpellView requires quite a bit of hardware to work : 1. A 386 or better CPU will work just fine. 2a. A lot of memory! (4mb for the Mage Spells, and an additional 4mb RAM for Priest Prayers) 8mb to display all spell/prayers at once. 2b. A lot less memory if Indexed Viewing mode is used (See Below). 3. About 6mb of Hard Disk space (Probably will take slightly less). 4. A somewhat VGA compatible card. 5. DOS v5.0+ or compatible recommended (Older versions might work). 6. Microsoft mouse or compatible (Optional). 7. Fast hard disk for loading the spells/prayers (Recommended). * The Run Menu program (MENU.EXE) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- With the use of this program, you may create parameter files with a simple point and click mouse interface. The usage is very simple. A mouse driver is required to be in memory before loading the run menu. Notice that th run menu program tries to disallow stupid problem causing options to be toggled. For example: Trying to force usage of Only Wizard Spells and Only Priest prayers won't work in SpellView, so the when you select one, the other is automatically turned off. The most obvious feature is Indexed View mode, which disables most of the other options. After you finished your settings, select "Execute" or press ENTER, and a parameter file will be created (Default parameter file = "SPELL.PRM"). The Run Menu will automatically load the SpellView program with the selected parameters. The parameter file will not be erased, and you may use it in future batch files, or manually (See Above). The full source code for the Run Menu program is provided giving you a sneak preview to programming Direct Video writes, Simple Mouse Control and other simple programming feats. The code was written in pascal, and should compile on both TP6 and BP7 with no problems. (I repeat : SHOULD). * Usage ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The main usage of the SpellView program is very simple, You just move around with the keyboard arrows, and press ENTER to view the detailed spell. While the BAR is moving over the spell/prayer names you see some general information about the spell/prayer in the right hand side of the screen. Ofcourse the Page Up, and Page Down keys also function, to help you skip whole screens at a time. You may notice that the top screen line of the screen contains the prompt "Quick Search :", this prompt is used to quickly go to a spell anywhere in the list. Just type in the name of the spell, and Zappo, you're there. While there is text in the Quick Search, pressing any arrow key, or ESC, the text will be cleared. Notice that if you press ESC with NO text in the Quick Search, you will exit the program. By pressing Insert (INS), you may mark a spell/prayer/power. Notice that the background color of the spell's/prayer's/power's level changes, This means that the spell/prayer/power is marked. By pressing "*" you may Inverse the mark selection. By pressing "?" you will enter the System Information Screen. The System Information screen gives you vital (And not so vital) information reguarding your system. By pressing ALT+A, you will enter the Screen Saver without waiting for it to be started automatically. This command will also enable the screen saver if it was disabled by the "/Z" parameter, and enable the screen fades if it was disabled with the "/F" parameter. By pressing ALT+B, you will be prompted to enter a file name to save the entire list in the quick-read format. By pressing ALT+C, you will clear all the spell/prayer/power selected. By pressing ALT+D, you will only see the Psionic's Discplines. By pressing ALT+E, you will enter the Current Spell/Prayer/Power Edit menu. By pressing ALT+H, you will see a help screen telling you all the keys used within the SpellView spell/prayer/power listing area. This help screen is scrollable using the UP and Down arrow keys, or the left and right mouse buttons. By pressing ALT+I, you will only see the Psionic's Informations. By pressing ALT+M, the list will minimize showing ONLY the spells/prayers that were marked. By pressing ALT+N, you will enter the New Spell/Prayer Edit menu. By pressing ALT+O, you will enter the Options menu (See Below). By pressing ALT+P, you will enter the Print Engine (See Printing) By pressing ALT+Q, the SpellView program will exit to DOS, even if you have text in the Quick Search prompt and all parameters telling SpellView to save files to disk will be ignored. This is useful if you edit a spell/prayer and mess things up. By pressing ALT+R, you will be prompted to enter a file name to save the marked list in the quick-read format. By pressing ALT+S, you will only see the Psionic's Sciences. By pressing ALT+T, you will be prompted to enter a file name to save the minimized list in the quick-read format. By pressing ALT+X, the SpellView program will exit to DOS, even if you have text in the Quick Search prompt. By pressing ALT+Z, you will ERASE all the marked Spell(s)/Prayer(s). If there is nothing marked, the current Spell/Prayer would be erased. The erasing is only temporary (Unless the /S parameter is used), and you will be asked to confirm the erase. Remember, without the "/S" parameter to tell the program to save the main data file, this option will not have any permanent effect. By pressing CTRL+C, you will only see the CREDITS (Most Important). By pressing CTRL+S, you will be prompted for a file name in which the entire list will be saved to the quick-read format. By pressing CTRL+N, you will be prompted for a file name in which the minimized list will be saved to the quick-read format. By pressing CTRL+A, you will be prompted for a file name in which the marked entries will be saved to the quick-read format. SpellView contains some more powerful features: By pressing [F1] the "Quick Search" prompt turns into a "Topic Search" prompt, now just type in any word, and only the spells/prayers that contain that word somewhere within the Spell/Prayer NAME will remain in the list. Example: By typing "FIRE" at the "Topic Search" prompt only the spells/prayers that contain the word fire in their Name will remain on the displayed list. By Pressing [F2] the "Quick Search" prompt turns into a "Description Search" prompt,now just type in any word, and only the spells/prayers that contain that word somewhere within the Spell/Prayer DESCRIPTION will remain in the list. By Pressing [F3] the "Quick Search" prompt turns into a "Desc. & Topic Search" prompt,now just type in any word, and only the spells/prayers that contain that word somewhere within the Spell/Prayer NAME or DESCRIPTION will remain in the list. By Pressing [F4] the "Quick Search" prompt turns into a "School Search" prompt,now just type in any word, and only the spells that contain that word somewhere within the Spell's WIZARD SCHOOL will remain in the list. By Pressing [F5] the "Quick Search" prompt turns into a "Priest School Search" prompt,now just type in any word, and only the prayers that contain that word somewhere within the Prayer's PRIEST SCHOOL will remain in the list. By Pressing [F6] The list will only show Wizard Spells from the minimized list. [ALT-F6] Will show from the full list. By Pressing [F7] The list will only show Priest Prayers from the minimized list. [ALT-F7] Will show from the full list. By Pressing [F8] The list will only show Psionic Powers from the minimized list. [ALT-F8] Will show from the full list. By Pressing [F9] The list will be sorted by Casting Level of the minimized spell/prayer list. [ALT-F9] Will sort from the full list. By Pressing [F10] The list will be sorted by Color of the minimized spell/prayer list. [ALT-F10] Will sort from the full list. The default color for Priest prayers is bright green, and wizard spells is bright cyan, so by using this function, you can separate the different type of spells/prayers. By Pressing ALT+Any number (NOT the keypad numbers!), only that level will show in the list, ALT+0 will show level 10 ALT+"-", The character => - <= without the "" will show only the cantrips. Notice that the Priest's quest spells are considered 10th level priest spells. A nice feature while doing the list minimizing by a search string, is that you can tell the search engine to look for more than one string. For example, by pressing "F2" and writing down "FIRE&WATER", after the search completes, only spells/prayers/powers that contains either the word water or fire will remain in the minimized list. You can of course use more complex sentences, such as "FIRE&WATER&STEAM&HELL", this will work fine, but some things that would NOT work are: 1: FIRE &WATER <- The command will look for "FIRE " and not "FIRE". 2: &FIRE&WATER <- This won't work at all. 3: FIRE&WATER& <- This won't work either. Remember that you could use this feature on any search prompt except QuickSearch which searches for a starting part of a spell's/prayer's name. While viewing a Spell/Prayer/Power you have several more keys: The Up and Down arrows to scroll around in the spell description, The Page Up and Page down keys to move down/up whole screens at a time, and the Home,End keys will move to the begining/end of the description text. By Pressing the SPACE or ENTER or ESC keys you will return to the spell/prayer listing screen. By Pressing the "N" key, you will be moved to the next spell/prayer on the list. And By pressing the "P" key you will move to the previous spell/prayer on the list. By pressing the ALT-M key you will enable/disable the multi-color description view. * Using the Options Menu ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The options menu allows you change some of the run-time parameters from within the SpellView program. It also allows you an easier way to use some of SpellView's options. Simply move around with the keyboard arrows, or double click with the mouse to select whatever you want. To exit the menu, either select one of the options (Other than parameter options), or press ESC. You may also press the mouse off the menu to exit. * Using the Mouse ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the spell/prayer selection screen : Simply point to a spell/prayer, press the left mouse button to move the bar over the spell/prayer, double clicking will display the spell. Press the left mouse button on the top/bottom lines of the screen to scroll the list up/down. Press the right button on the spell/prayer to select/unselect it. Press the right button on the "ALT-H for Help" screen to view the help screen. Double click the right button on the Credits to see a nice screen. Windows, OS/2 users should be maximize the screen before doing this!. In the spell/prayer/power full screen view : 1. Press the left mouse button to scroll the description down. 2. Press the right mouse button to scroll the description up. 3. Press both buttons to return to the selection screen. * Editing and Creating Spells/Prayers/Powers ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- For editing functions to work, there must be at least 100kb FREE memory. You may press "ALT-N" to create a new Spell/Prayer, or "ALT-E" to edit the currently selected Spell/Prayer. While in the Edit menu, you may press "F1" to make the Spell/Prayer/Power into a Wizard Spell, "F2" to make it a Priest Prayer and "F3" to make it a Psionic Power. By pressing [TAB] you may switch from the Data entry to the Description entry. Use the arrows to move around the prompts, DEL or Backspace to erase text. You may also use the mouse to move around the prompts. Pressing ESC will exit and save all changes. * Printing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since v2.10 SpellView supports Printing of spells/prayers. Although you can't compare it's printing ability to any strong word processor, it does allow you to do certain nifty stuff. By pressing "ALT+P" in the Spell/Prayer viewing area, you will get to the Printing Engine (Area), there you have several options to choose which would be explained here. First of all, you would notice that each printing options contains two selections: - With Descriptions: When printing with descriptions, each spell will take AT LEAST one printer page, depending on the size o the description. - Without Descriptions Only the spell's/prayer's name will appear, and an indicator if it's reversible. This option is useful when compiling spell/prayer books for players. There are three printing categories: - Marked/Current Spell(s)/Prayer(s)/Power(s) This will print/save only the spells/prayers marked with the Insert (INS) key previously in the Spell/Prayer viewing screen. All spells/prayers marked will be printed/saved, even if they seemed to disappear when you minimized the list!. If no spell is marked, the current spell (The one you were standing on) will be printed. - Minimized List This will print/save the minimized list. - Entire List This will print/save the entire list. You might have notices that i've said "Print/Save", and not only Print, since you can re-direct the output to a file rather than printing it right away. You can do this by selecting "Change output file name". The default name is "PRN" which indicates the printer, other valid printer numbers are the "LPT" ports. Any other value is considered a file name, and no form feeds will be placed. Another option you will see is the "Lines Per Page" option. This option only refers to Printing and not saving, it will tell the program to send the form feed character to the printer every several lines (Default = 60 lines). You may change this to better fit your printer. And the last option you will see is the "Change Extra Lines". This option tells the print engine how many empty lines to place as separators on "File Saving with Description" between each spell/prayer (These lines are inserted right after the description). * Windows & OS/2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- OS/2 - As of now this software was tested to work on OS/2, but as we do not have a copy of this operating system, we can not compile the best suitable running profile for this operating system. If you are running this OS, and found that one setup works better than another, please write me an email at the address below. Windows - This software has been tested to work under Windows for workgroups v3.11. My suggestion is creating a PIF and giving the program at least 6mb of XMS memory. And for better performance, run it in a full screen window. Since v2.10 SpellView detects windows, and automatically disables the screen fades and screen saver, and changes the screen sync routine into a timer counter for better stability within a window. But remember, since windows take A LOT of memory itself, you might not have enough memory to run it under windows with less than 16mb ram. You may also want to use the /! parameter so the program will run with A lot less memory giving your other programs more memory to run. Windows does not work well with timers and screen syncs, so the mouse may become very hard to use under windows. One thing you can do is to disable windows detection with the /T parameter, and use SpellView in full screen mode, and not as a window. This way you can use the fades and graphic screens while remaining under windows. Win95 - SpellView DOS works just fine under Windows 95 if you have enough memory, but if you are a big time windows user, just run the SpellView windows. * Typos ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Any typos existing in this document are figments of your Emajinatiyon. * Copyright ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The SpellView program is Copyrighted by Yaron Gur (Programmer) and Tal Barkey (Minor Programming, and Spell Conversion). The Spells/Prayers are a part of the Great Net SpellBook and the Great Net PrayerBook and each spell is copyrighted by it's author (Internet E-Mail contained within the Spell's/Prayer's description if the author is known). AD&D - is a registered trademark of the TSR Corp. 4DOS - is a registered trademark of the JP Software inc. NDOS - is a registered trademark of the Symantec Corp. OS/2 - is a registered trademark of the IBM Corp. Windows - is a registered trademark of Microsoft. Windows 95 - is a registered trademark of Microsoft. HIMEM.SYS - is a Microsoft Corp. product. BP, TP & Delphi - are Borland Pascal 7 and Turbo Pascal 6 which are copyrighted products from Borland. The TSR mentioned in the memory management is not the company, but the term : Terminate & Stay Resident! * Licence ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are hereby allowed to give this program free of charge to any single person as long as the following terms are kept: 1. The SpellView archive must not be changed/altered. 2. The SpellView program must not be Included in any commercial product without prior written consent of the Authors of this program. 3. The SpellView program must not be Included in any shareware product (Such as a Shareware CD-ROM) without prior written consent from the Authors of this program. 4. The Spells/Prayers included within the SpellView program must not be sold in a commercial product without the written consent of the Great NET Spell Book/The Great NET Prayer Book editor. 5. The Powers included within the SpellView program must not be sold in a commercial product without the written consent of the Great NET Psionic Power Book's editor. The authors of SpellView and the Editor of The Great Net Spell/Prayer book & Psionic Power Book take no responsibility for direct or indirect damage caused by the use of these program or any misuse of the provided code. Since this program and source codes are FREEWARE, use them at your own risk. You ask how damage may occur? well, if you're stupid enough to redirect output to any of your system configuration files... Well... Crash. But otherwise, this software was tested to be stable. * Credits ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- We the authors of SpellView would like to acknowledge the following people for their contribution to the making of the SpellView program and Both the Great NET SpellBook and the Great NET PrayerBook. Not to forget the Psionic NET book from doppleganger software. Yaron Gur..................: SpellView DOS lead Programmer and Documentation Writer . 3D Rendering for both SpellView DOS and SpellView Windows. Some of the icon graphics in SpellView Windows. Virtual War-Room lead Programmer. Tal Barkey.................: SpellView Windows lead Programmer, Converting the spells/prayers/powers into a readable format, and for programming some of the psionic code in SpellView DOS. Ezra Van Everbroeck........: Who is the current editor of both the Great NET SpellBook and the Great NET PrayerBook, not to mention the distributer of this program. Doppleganger Software......: Who is the current editor of the Great NET Psionic Power book, who's name i do not know (Doesn't write it in his email !?!) Boudewijn Wayers...........: Who was the editor of both the Great NET SpellBook and the Great NET PrayerBook. Reid Bluebaugh.............: Who is?/was the editor of the NET Carnal Knowledge guide and the NET Guide to Alcohol. John Martz.................: Who is?/was the editor of the NET Dark Sun Resource Book. Jim Lewallen...............: Michael Lerner.............: Thanks go to both Jim & Michael for helping start the Spell/Prayer books. The following list contains people that the Great NET SpellBook/Prayer Book would like to thank for E-Mailing and posting, or somehow helping even though their name could not be connected to the spells/prayers they might have posted/written, i'm sure some names are missing here, and if they are we're truly sorry. Name Unknown...............: Gary Brewerton.............: Jon Broadfield.............: Julian Coleman.............: Brain Dawson...............: Address unknown Matthew D. Goldman.........: David Krikorian............: Phrixus....................: Mark A. Robinson...........: Ronald P. Sater............: Ed Semeniuk................: The above names other than Yaron Gur, Tal Barkey and Ezra Van Everbroeck. are in no way linked to the SpellView program, but were some of the helping force in creating either the Great NET Spell/Prayer books or the NET Psionic Power book. Notice that most author's names are contained within the description of the actual entries. * Contributions & Contact ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- We worked long and hard to make this program quick, easy to use, and user friendly without asking for any registration fees. But we do ask that if you find this program worth paying for please send what ever you feel this program is worth to the address below. For any Comments, Questions or requests write to Yaron Gur at Internet E-Mail: gioragur@netvision.net.il For any contributions for our effort send any currency (no cheques) to: Yaron Gur If you don't have any money to spare, Hatishbi 17 We would like to get a postcard of Haifa, Israel your home town to show us that someone Zip : 34527 is actually using this program. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- * The End * Author note: Writting dox sux. Especially on FREEWARE products.