Preferences defined

[marc01]

Is there by anychance a PDF that describes all of the features of GF gold?

Some are easier than others to really understand. It would be great if there were some type of visual guide to describe all of the great features.. thanks.

[JayPro]

I've been thinking about that myself. Perhaps someone among us might work on that shortly, or it may be a backburner priority of Andy's that'll come up sometime soon. Interesting idea, though. I invite you to expand on how you'd wanna se it done.

[marc01]

Sorry it's taken a while to reply..here's what would be helpful:

a pdf that goes through each of the menu items that show up when you hit H. it should define what the options are, the effect it creates, etc.

There are also a lot of variables per menu option (frame rate, resolution, etc.) It would be great to know the impact each of these settings have, perhaps even a line drawing of what the effect does.

Also, i find that the help isn't displayed long enough to actually browse the list.. any insight on that?

Thanks.. I know this would help tons of users..

M

[JayPro]

I'd say two of the three points you raise will be addressed with the creation of an actual GUI/pulldown menu. This has long been in the works. I'm sure that the specifics you cite here will be considered as part of the whole thing.
I would add that the PDF idea would be good as a supplement to the GUI, sort of an expansion of the simple GUI keystroke command/hotkeys (as I understand your intent here).

[marc01]

Yea.. anything that in plain english describes the various terms, and the impact the settings have on what one images sees on screen, or how the settings affect various style elements of the images..

Let me know if I can be of any further assistance..

Thanks so much.

[andy55]

Is there by anychance a PDF that describes all of the features of GF gold?

Some are easier than others to really understand. It would be great if there were some type of visual guide to describe all of the great features.. thanks.

Please give us feedback on how the HTML docs that we supply fall short (and suggestions that we could perhaps use).

Thanks,
andy

[marc01]

Hi Andy/Jay-

What I thought would be helpful is a stand-alone, PDF, that explains all of the help and user controlled settings. When it appears on screen when pressing command H is good, but it is fleeting after a few seconds. Also, for newbies to what G-Force can do, it would be helpful if each of the "terms" were briefly explained and/or how the settings effect the visualize results.

I think in having a document like this, users can create their own configurations that work best for them.

Let me know what other feedback is helpful in doing this.. Thanks again..

Marc

[andy55]

Hi Andy/Jay-

What I thought would be helpful is a stand-alone, PDF, that explains all of the help and user controlled settings. When it appears on screen when pressing command H is good, but it is fleeting after a few seconds. Also, for newbies to what G-Force can do, it would be helpful if each of the "terms" were briefly explained and/or how the settings effect the visualize results.

I think in having a document like this, users can create their own configurations that work best for them.

Let me know what other feedback is helpful in doing this.. Thanks again..

Marc

Try pressing SHIFT H. This will cause the HTML docs to pop up.


Andy

[marc01]

What about a html doc that explains each option? is that possible or does that exist?

[andy55]

What about a html doc that explains each option? is that possible or does that exist?

It's in there--all the prefs are explained.

andy

[JayPro]

Hi Andy/Jay-

What I thought would be helpful is a stand-alone, PDF, that explains all of the help and user controlled settings. When it appears on screen when pressing command H is good, but it is fleeting after a few seconds. Also, for newbies to what G-Force can do, it would be helpful if each of the "terms" were briefly explained and/or how the settings effect the visualize results.

I think in having a document like this, users can create their own configurations that work best for them.

Let me know what other feedback is helpful in doing this.. Thanks again..

Marc

Try pressing SHIFT H. This will cause the HTML docs to pop up.


Andy

But wouldn't that in some cases cause GF to crap out, i.e. to call up the on-line Docs while the app is running? I believe it's happened to me on occasion, hence my being wary of doing just that whenever I get my GF fix.

[marc01]

That's why i suggested a downloadable PDF.. This way it can also serve as a visual guide when working onscreen with the help feature.

Let me know what you think..

Thanks.

[halberstadt]

If you really, really want a PDF, how about:

With visualizer running, Shift-H
Click on "Advanced" "Customizing"
Print, using "Save as PDF"

and Bob's Your Uncle!

[Mad Sentinel]

I'll take a semi-wild stab at clearing this one up...

Here's what I think is being asked for:

1) The four-character variable standins (or "Macros", as I believe they're referred to in the documentation) that are specifically tweakable in the Prefs files.

2) The Macros' corresponding full-length variable names as listed in the boot file.

3) The effect tweaking each of these variables will have.

I've seen the "Customizing" page that does this, to a degree, in the available documentation both online and the copy of that that gets downloaded with the application. In fact, I've seen it a LOT .

That page makes a specific reference to the prefs file format being explained on the Config Programming page ("Its file format is intended to be learned extremely quickly—the format is described in the config programming section"). Unfortunately, when one transits to the Config Programming page, there's bupkus on the format of the Prefs file. Extensive and very useful info on how to start tweaking individual configs, but nothing on how config programming relates to the overall Prefs files.

I think this is where some folks are getting hung up in their quest for info on how to do simple config tasks in GForce. If one hasn't yet parsed out how to do what is certainly a no-brainer task or tweak to many experienced programmers and/or GForce veterans, one could easily trace through these two documentation pages and hit a brick wall on the Config Programming page and not know where to go next.

Also, noting that both the Prefs files and the documentation pages list the variables in a specifically mentioned "No Particular Order", this makes it hard for n00bs to really grok what's going on in the file.

Especially in a windows system where one doesn't get a simple and highly useful shell command like "sort -o <filename>"

I think what might also help is a short explanation on variables that have full names in the boot file but are not represented y corresponding Macros in the Prefs file, if such an animal exists. I can attest to a minor amount of frustration when I attempted to use the full variable "PREF_TEXT_SIZE" in the Prefs file, only to have it truncated to the final four characters of that string to simply "SIZE", wihch of course, means both diddly and squat to the Prefs file interpreter.

... I think...


Anyway, I hope that makes some sense to someone.

Thanks for your time.

[Mad Sentinel]

Just had a miniscule epiphany on this one --

Question: Does the Boot file allow a user to define the four-character "Macro" representations attached to each variable?

I mean, I totally see the section in Boot that defines a significant chunk of them already, but not being an experienced programmer (other than rinky-dink shell scripts), I'm generally skittish about adding to anything that starts with a pound sign and no space immediately following.

If so, that may be the key piece of the puzzle I, at least, have been missing all along. I could just define a variable fullname as any four-character "Macro" I wanted, providing, of coure, it didn't clash with existing variables or macros.