!Help file for !DrawChem (version 1.00 17th January 1998)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Public Domain  Stephen Brown 1998.

Conditions of Use:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This application is Public Domain and may be copied freely subject to the
following conditions being obeyed at all times.
 - Copyright and all rights remain the property of Stephen Brown (the
author)
 - All files are copied in their entirety without alteration.
 - Usage of this application is entirely at the users own risk. No
responsibility will be taken for any loss of data from usage of this application.

Purpose
~~~~~~~
To enable the user to produce diagrams of chemical structures and reaction schemes
both quickly and easily, and be able to paste these diagrams into any application
that will accept a draw file as input.  (Rather like Chem Draw on the Apple macs 
and PC's)

~~~
Simply double-click on the !DrawChem application to load the program
onto the icon bar.

Once loaded, a new document window opens automatically which can be scaled
and moved like any other window.  If you happen to close the main window then
to recover your document simply click once with select on the icon bar icon.
The total work area of the window is that of a portrait A4 sheet of paper.

At the moment this is a very early version of DrawChem and some of the functions
in the menus don't work as yet but it is still a usable program if all you want to
do is produce a few chemical structures for a report.  Why force yourself to use
a mac or a PC when you can now use your Acorn to do all the work.

A few keys to note
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

F3              Save file in native format.
Shift F3        Save file in drawfile format.
F5              Set variable length and variable angle.
F6              Set variable angle but fixed length.
F7              Set variable length but fixed angle
F8              Set fixed angle and fixed length.
CTRL C          Copy currently selected item to clipboard
CTRL V          Paste clipboard contents
CTRL X          Cut Selected objects ( text only at the moment )

when inputting text only.
F9              Select subscript.
F10             Select superscript.
F11             Select Normal script.
RETURN          Start new line of text immediately below current one.
CTRL UP cursor  Start new line of text immediately above current one.
SHIFT+cursors   Manually adjust the position of the text.

When drawing double bonds, the default setting is to have both lines equidistant
from an imaginary centre line between the two atoms, however, this is not always
satisfactory and it it is much more presentable to have one of the lines
joining the two atoms, with the other line slightly shorter and to one side.  
This can be done, simply by redrawing a double bond over the existing double bond.

It is possible to change the font style in the middle of a line of text.

When typing molecular formulas, if the padlock icon (on the bottom toolbar),
is locked then any number typed after a letter will automatically be set as
subscript.  If the padlock is unlocked then you have to manually switch between
sub/super/normal script.

The menu option Edit-->Clear, will erase the current page!

Notice for Ovation Pro users.

If you are using OP 2.48 then you can force OP to load the native files produced by my software. To do this you must append the file !OvnPro.AutoRun.!Custom with the line:

impexcopy(0xAFF, 0x3A3, "Chemistry");

For users of earlier versions of OP, OP will accept my native files but you have to save the file to disc first, then change the file type to &AFF (DrawFile).  If all this seems too much hassel then you can simply export the file as a !Draw file in the first place but this has the disadvantage of, the resulting file NOT being editable by my software.


Known problems in version 1.00.

There is a slight problem with the copy to clipboard routine, however this
problem should only surface if you try to copy a small fragment of a structure as
opposed to the whole entity.

At the moment, the text is editable but if you make a mistake or want to change
something at the beginning of a line then I'm afraid you will have to delete all
the characters up to the correction and then retype the rest of the line.  Hopefully
this problem will be sorted out in the future.

There is a slight problem with the font management system and that is:
If you select a font and try it in your document, then that font name is permenantly
added to the fontlist, reguardless of whether that font is actually used in the
final document. However, this will only cause problems upon trying to add more
than 255 different fonts to your document, which is very unlikely.  Anyway this
problem will be sorted because it also adds unnecessary length to your files.

The program sometimes crashes whilst manually adjusting the postion of the text
at the end of a bond, using Shift + cursors.


Contacting the author
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
!DrawChem was written by Stephen Brown, who can be contacted at:

                Stephen Brown
                Chemistry Department
                UMIST
                Manchester
                M60 1QD


or via Email:  stephen.brown@argonet.co.uk
               
