



                                    OUTLINE
                          The tutorial generator
                          A Scriptol/C++ program
            Free open-source software under the OSS licence
                         http://www.scriptol.net


OVERVIEW

The simplest way to make a manual or a complete tutorial.
Outline converts a pure ascii text to a html manual with summary, 
or from a set of several text files builds a tutorial with navigation bar....

LICENCE

Licence: GNU GPL Licence
 You can use freely this program and distribute it freely  providing the 
copyright notices are unchanged. Read the Copying.txt file for details.

 Text files and images provided for the navigation bar are just  examples 
to try the program, and if you want to use outline to build  your documents  
you  MUST  replace provided texts and images, by your own files...


PREPARING YOUR DOCUMENT

There is nothing to prepare in fact. Just use some text files with conventions.
No any code is required for the format but:
- a single isolated line is considered a title or sub-title
- the indenting indicates the levels of sub-titles.
- first and centered lines are considered the main title.


USING THE GRAPHICAL INTERFACE (outgui.exe)

Run the outgui.exe file from Windows, not at command line.
Select either the TUTORIAL or MANUAL panel to build
a tutorial from several files, or a simple one-page manual from
a single file.


On the manual panel

Fill the first field with the path and name of your text file.
The generated file will have same path and name, but a html extension.
If you want a different path or name, fill the second field.
Click on the "Make Manual" button to generate the page, and on
the "View" button to let your navigator display the generated page.
The first time, you have to set the path of your browser from the
"Options" panel. If you use Internet Explorer, the path is usually:
"c:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IExplorer.exe"
but this changes according to countries and installations.


On the tutorial panel

You need for a list of files to make the tutorial.
You may either load a such list, with the "Load Project" button
(an example is furnished named demo.prj" or create one from scratch
by filling the list at left.
Click on the "Add" button, and select one or more files (hold
down the shift or control key to do that).
The "Up" and "Down" buttons allow to reorder the list.

You must save the list for building and for further use, with the
"Save Project" button: the program use the file, not the list at left.
Before to build the tutorial you have to set the path of the
text files. The generated tutorial will stand also into the same
directory.
You may also specify a model for the navigation bar. If the
field is not filled, the default "header.html" file will be used.
It must be stored into the same directory than your texts,
and the images provided in the archive also.


Options

Select the Options panel to define the appearence of your pages.
Windows represents colors with the BGR (Blue Green Red) format.
But the Web uses the RGB format. The programs accomplishes the
conversion. From the GUI, you must use the Windows' BGR format.
If you edit directly the outline.ini file, you must use the RGB
format of the Web.
You may also choose an extension for your web pages, that must
differ from the extension of the original files.


Building

Then click on the "Build Tutorial" button.
I the path of a browser is already set from the option panel,
click on "View" to display the page. (Some browsers don't process
hyperlinks on a local html page, but this works on the Net).


Problems

Most of problems you may encounter will come from errors on
paths. To avoid such problems, put your files and the files provided
along with outline into the same path... Avoid also directories with
blank spaces inside.


USING THE COMMAND LINE PROGRAM (outline.exe)

The appearance of the generated html pages is defined inside the 
outline.ini file.
This file may be configured from the graphical front-end (outgui.exe)
or may be edited directly with a text editor.

To generate a one page manual:
  outline source [target]
  ex:   outline scriptol.txt
  or    outline scriptol.txt manual.html

To generate a multiple pages tutorial:
  outline @listfile
  ex:   outline @test.prj

Open the generated html file with any browser.
For a multiple page tutorial, open the index.php or index.html file.


(c) 2003-2004 D.G. Sureau
For help, mail to:
webmaster@scriptol.net
For the last version, see at:
http://www.scriptol.net
