FrEdWriter Tips 1 ------------------------------------------------------------ TIPS ON USING FREDWRITER ------------------------------------------------------------ GENERAL TIPS o Think of the FrEd disk as two separate programs: - MAIN MENU at boot: although other items bring you back to the main menu when done, once you go into Fred, you have to uit Fred (reboot) to get back to this menu. - FRED: Once you go into FrEd, all of FrEd is in memory. The computer is FrEd until you reboot. o CONTROL RESET will take you to main (editing) screen, if you get stuck or hung up somewhere in FrEd. o Try it, if you're not sure you can do it! o Sometimes Fred boots to 80 columns, even when you choose 40 columns. This happens if you press ANY OTHER KEY after you press the 4. This is because FrEd looks for the LAST KEY PRESSED while it is loading. If the LAST KEY PRESSED is not 4, it comes up in 80 columns. Reboot. o Use copies of Fred without documentation and have students save right onto it. o To understand the PRINT MENU more clearly, pressing RETURN will do whatever item is highlighted. ESC will take you out of print menu. o You must enter a name when formatting a disk. If you don't give it a name, the program continues as if it is being formatted. But in fact it will not be. If this happens, reformat it with a name (such as: BLANK) to make it useable. o When first using copies of Fred with students, you may find a disk won't boot. Recopying Fred solves it, unless the disk is bad. o Think of spaces and returns as characters: they can be inserted or deleted as needed. o Use the SET TIME & DATE option on opening menu. This makes it easier to verify when files were saved, for current or older work. o You can move up to 256 characters at a time. When you reach the limit, it will not let you take in more. o Sometimes, in the middle of a paragraph, a sentence beginning on the left edge of the screen will display with a space that you can't remove. It's only a quirk in FrEd's screen display. It will print correctly. (c) D.Beck 2/86 FrEdWriter Tips 2 SAVING and LOADING FILES TIPS o When you type in a filename to save or load, you can type over another name already there. Any letters at or after the cursor will be chopped. You do not need to remove letters under or after the cursor. (In fact, you will notice that DELETE will not remove them.) o Acceptable filenames in ProDOS: - Up to 15 characters long - Must begin with a letter - After first character: letters, numbers, periods - NO SPACES o Sometimes FrEd may refuse to save or load without giving a PRODOS ERROR message. For some "unacceptable filenames" (symbols, commas, etc), FrEd knows they are invalid and won't continue with the save or load. So, always watch for the red light on the drive to see that FrEd does save or load. o Review saving files: students seem to get confused easily with: (1) valid names (no spaces, too long, etc.). (2) typing over old names (delete won't delete, just moves cursor to left.) (3) think they've saved when they haven't -- explain "bad pathname" remark AND remind them to always watch for the red light on the drive to go on. o If you end up in SAVE or LOAD, and you don't wish to save or load, move cursor as far left as you can and press return to get back to the editing screen. o Type = at the ave prompt if you want to save under the name already showing. o aving with the same name will save the file in memory over the file on the disk. It will ask if you really want to do this the first time in a session you do it. o Save your work every once in a while, every 10-15 min for long periods of work. o Make back-up copies of files that are important. o Loading in a file only loads a COPY of what's on disk. Saving a file only saves a COPY of memory to the disk. o Before loading in a new file, remember to clear memory with ew. With scrolling of a file up and out of view, some students don't undertand a saved file is still in memory and load in a new file: end up adding onto a file in memory, or loading several copies of the same one... o Inside FrEd you can only SAVE and LOAD files. Other disk and files utilities are available out of the opening menu. (c) D.Beck 2/86 FrEdWriter Tips 3 PROMPTED FILES TIPS o Put a title for a prompting file at the end of a file in a box. Include instructions to use to go to the beginning. When loaded, you will see the title box. o In general, make prompted files in 40 columns, to exchange with other teachers. 40 column prompting files can be used in 40 or 80 column display. With 80 columns prompt files, show it in the filename, (such as, REPORT.PET.80). 80 column prompted files can only be used in 80 column format. If loaded onto a 40 column screen, the longer lines will "wrap around", break the boxes and the cursor will stop inside boxes. o In Prompt Mode the screen looks the same. You can't tell except by using it. A quick way to see: press return... esponse and two more returns under the box for the last response. (The second return will add a blank line between paragraphs.) When you set up for paragraphs, think of how the file will be without prompts: all responses between 2 returns will form a paragraph. o Experiment with prompt boxes. You may write into boxes as you make them or make boxes first and fill them later. It is up to you. Use whichever way is simpler for you. o After removing prompts from a file, the file may appear to have extra spaces on lines. This is an idiosyncracy of FrEd's display. The easiest way to remove these stray spacings is to use idth. Use to change width and then, again, back to the default (38 for 40 columns, 65 for 80 columns). Text will be displayed as it really is, ready for final editing. o A prompt box gradually scrolls up out of view when a student types many lines below it. The reason: FrEd's cursor remains at the middle of the screen, scrolling new text up. To keep prompts in view, such as a word bank (word list), as a student types, place them in the top of the prompt box below the cursor. o Make a prompted file blank with the first and last boxes already constructed with instructions you would type again already inside. Load it in, fill in the rest of the file and save it with a new name. (c) D.Beck 2/86 FrEdWriter Tips 4 TEACHING TIPS o Using RETURN key correctly will take some explanation and practice. Students seem to understand quickly about "wrap-around", that is, not using return at the end of lines within paragraphs. Many seem to extend this to not using RETURN at all, typing spaces to get to the next line, etc. Explain that RETURN key is an instruction to the computer to: "Go to the next line NOW". When you want to go to the next line to type more text, use RETURN. o Use SET DATE/TIME option from first menu before going into FrEdWriter. This helps telling old from new files, identifying current files, etc. o LOADING/SAVING files Several problems can occur with SAVING and LOADING files. -After SAVING a file, have students catalog to see that old/new files are saved by checking: (1) size and/or (2) date. Sometimes students don't realize their file was not saved, if they used a name unacceptable to ProDOS, etc. -Have students be sure to catalog after booting with . Some have used and without thinking try to "load" a file at the Save prompt. The blank memory is then saved over their file. -When loading in another file, remind students to clear memory with for a "new document". Some load files on top of other files and end up saving "multiple" files. o W-P lets you erase/change only errors Many students want to "delete" correct writing to get back to errors, which means re-typing much text. It helps to emphasize writing in several steps. First, write to get your ideas down, without worrying about spelling. Then using go back to the beginning and go through text correcting spelling. Then, go through for sentencing and paragraphing, etc.. (c) D.Beck 2/86