Now that you have installed your copy of ProSurf or ProBasic, this tutorial will give you a quick introduction to the layout and basic functions of the program. It assumes that you know about Windows capabilities like pull-down menus, dialog boxes, scroll bars, double clicking, and window manipulation. If you have used other Windows programs, you should not have any problem with ProSurf or ProBasic. Even if your Windows experience has been limited, give this tutorial a try. The best way to learn about computers and programs is to jump right in.
Both ProSurf and ProBasic are called multi-view and multi-document programs. This means that you can open up windows to show multiple views of a boat (multi-view) and open up windows to view and edit different boats (multi-document). At first, however, you should start with displaying just one view of one boat at a time. That is what this tutorial does.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tutorial Notes:
1. Whenever the tutorial uses the "o" symbol, you should perform the step described.
2. To refer to a particular pull-down menu choice, the tutorial will list its location as a series of hyphenated command strings. For example, to perform the hydrostatic calculations, you need to first select the "Calcs" pull-down menu, followed by the "Hydro" selection, followed by the "Hydro Calcs" selection. To shorten this up for the tutorial, it will simply say: "Select the "Calcs-Hydro-Hydro Calc" menu choice.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starting the Program
To start up ProSurf or ProBasic, follow these steps:
o Open up the "Nautilus" program group containing the icons for the programs and tutorials
o Double click on the ProSurf or ProBasic icon. If you are using the Demo version of the program, then the icon will be labeled ProDemo. (By the way, the icon is a picture of a pilot schooner.)
The program will start by displaying its framework window and one empty view window inside. Notice that both windows (probably) won't take up the whole screen space. This is just the way Windows works. Some people like to leave their windows this way, but I prefer to maximize the program window to utilize the full screen space.
o Maximize the outside program framework window to use the entire screen. This is done using the standard window technique. Unfortunately, how you do this depends on which version of Windows you are using. Windows 3.1 uses up/down arrows in the upper right of the window to maximize of minimize the window, but Windows 95 places the close window symbol in that spot.
Instead of creating a boat from scratch, this tutorial uses an existing boat provided to you with the program. Another tutorial discusses the process of creating a boat from scratch. Follow these steps to open the "power23" boat.
o Close the current (empty) view window that was opened when the program started up. This is the blank window that is located inside the previously maximized program framework window. For Windows 3.1, you close the window by double-clicking the "-" sign in the upper left of the inside window. For Windows 95, you use the "X" loacated in the upper right of the window.
This leaves just the program framework window open. Notice that there are fewer menu choices located at the top of the window. This will change when we open the existing "power23" boat file using the following steps.
o Under the "File" pull-down menu, select the "Open" command. Remember that the tutorial will normally refer to this as the "File-Open" command.
The program will display the standard Windows-type of file selection dialog box. Notice that the filename field contains the pre-defined file extension ".srf". This means that ProSurf and ProBasic store all of its information about the boat in a file (using a name that you select), with the filename extension ".srf".
o To open the "power23" data file, type in "power23.srf" or double click on that filename. Note that the default file directory that is used by ProSurf or ProBasic is the "nautilus" directory (or whichever directory you used when you installed the program). This is where the sample boat data files are located. If you wish, you may put your own boat data files in some other directory. You might want to brush up on how Windows organizes files into directories and sub-directories. You should also look up information on the "default" or "current" file directory, the file "pathname", and the "Path" command. With Windows, it is very easy to misplace files unless you pay attention to the current directory (pathname) in the file open and close dialog boxes.
Once you have selected this boat data file, the profile view of the boat will be displayed in a new view window of the main program framework window.
o Maximize this window to use the entire program framework window. (For this tutorial, we will display only one boat view at a time.)
o Maximize the display of the boat in the window by selecting the "View-Resize to Fit" command. (The "Resize to Fit" command is located in the "View" pull-down menu.)
So far, there has been a lot of talk and very little progress. For the experienced Windows user, however, these steps shoud be very familiar.
The next section discusses the layout and organization of ProSurf and ProBasic.