Section 11: The Second, Page, and Starting Menus

Up to now, you've concentrated on the Editor, Print formatter, and Grade 2 braille translator. While these options form the heart of BEX, there are many other utility functions provided on the Second, Page, and Starting Menus. Before we explore those menus, however, we want to provide you with an overview of how you select chapters in BEX.

Several methods are available for choosing which chapter or chapters to work with. We use the term default data drive to refer to the number that appears as the default when you press D at any menu. When you have a 2-drive system, your default data drive is always drive 2. When you have a 1-drive system, your default data drive is always drive 1. At the Master Level, you can have up to eight drives; knowing your default data drive becomes quite important.

Part 1: Specifying Chapters

When BEX needs to know which chapter you wish to work with, it prompts Drive number or chapter name: When you receive this prompt, BEX has loaded any program it needs from disk into the Apple's memory. When you have a 2-drive system, you can now insert a data disk in drive 1, if you wish.

When presented with the Drive number or chapter name: prompt, you have two choices. When you know the name of the chapter, just type it in and press <CR>. When you want to work with more than one chapter, or when you're not sure of the chapter's name, enter the drive number (1 or 2) where your data disk is located, followed by <CR>. BEX presents a numbered list of the chapters on that disk. We call this method of specifying chapters scanning the disk.

Part 2: Choosing from a Numbered List of Chapters

When you work with the Editor and all of the Page Menu options, you work with just one chapter at a time. In this situation, BEX prompts you to enter the number of the one chapter you want to use.

For all other options, you can work with an entire disk of chapters. When you scan the disk for chapters, BEX presents a numbered list of your chapters, and then asks you if you want to use the entire list in order. The default is N since you usually don't want to work with the entire list. Enter Y <CR> when you do want the whole list of chapters in the order presented. Otherwise, accept the default by pressing <CR>.

After you get a numbered list of chapters, BEX prompts you to pick one or more chapters by entering their numbers. After you enter a number followed by <CR>, BEX responds with the name of the chapter you've picked. When you want to cancel this chapter, enter a minus sign (the hyphen) followed by <CR>. BEX announces that the chapter is canceled. When you're done entering chapter numbers, enter <CR> alone to the Chapter number: prompt.

What Happens Next?

You have just specified a list of source chapters for BEX to use. What happens next depends on the option. When the result of the option is writing one or more chapters on disk, then you have to tell BEX how to name the chapters. BEX prompts Target chapter naming method: For an online summary of target chapter naming methods, press ? <CR> at the prompt. Target chapter naming methods are explained in Part 3.

BEX prompts for multiple chapter names with options G - Grade 2 translation and R - Replace characters on the Main Menu, and with options A - Adjust size of pages, C - Copy chapters, M - Merge chapters, N - Name change for chapters and R - Read textfile to chapter, on the Second Menu. We discuss these in detail in the next Part.

When the option doesn't involve writing new files on disk, then after you specify the source chapter list, you're asked for other information. With option P - Print chapters, the next step is answering the Which printer: prompt. When you aren't sure of the printer number, you can press ? <CR> at this prompt for a list of printers you have in your configuration. A sample of this dialogue appears in Section 5. For option D - Disk catalog, the next questions is Which drive? Again, you can press ? <CR> after this prompt for further help. With option K - Kill chapters, the next question is OK to Proceed? N

Part 3: Target Chapter Naming Methods

Many BEX options created modified copies of your chapters. We refer to these new chapters as target chapters. Options G - Grade 2 translation and R - Replace characters on the Main Menu, as well as many of the options on the Second Menu, ask you how you wish to name the target chapters you create.

Working with One Chapter

When you are only working with one chapter, BEX prompts for the Target chapter name: You must type in a new name for the chapter that is created. If you use the name of a chapter that's already on the disk, then the text in the new target chapter overwrites the existing chapter, and you lose whatever text you had in the existing chapter.

The rules for naming chapters stated in Section 4, Part 2 still apply: the chapter names cannot exceed 25 characters; the first character must be a letter they must never contain periods, commas, colons, or semicolons; and they must never end with a space.

When you have two disk drives, BEX assumes that all your chapters are read from and written to drive 2, your default data drive. You can tell BEX to write your target chapter on drive 1 by starting your target chapter name with the digit 1, as we did in the preceding example. If you have a 2-drive system, you can copy and modify chapters from one disk to the other.

() Caution! When you use an option that creates a target chapter, you must consider if there's enough room on your disk for it.

At all BEX menus, you can press number sign # to get the number of sectors free on the disk. If there isn't enough room when BEX is creating a new chapter, BEX crashes with a DISK FULL error. This is much less serious than it sounds. Full details on how to recover are in Section 13.

Working with More than One Chapter

When you specify more than one source chapter, BEX prompts for you to enter one of the target chapter naming methods, as shown in the example above. This is a handy shortcut that allows you to create target chapter names by systematically changing the source chapter names. Enter ? <CR> to receive a summary of your options. In the following list, the letters X, Y, and Z, stand for any characters of your choosing.

When you make your choice, enter the characters that define your naming method, and press <CR>. You've probably noticed that the target chapter naming methods all concentrate on changing the final characters of the source chapter names. At the User Level, you'll learn how you can use the last character of a chapter name to select a subset of chapters on the disk.

For example, suppose you want to copy the LETTERHEAD and JOAN chapters on the BEXtras disk onto your data disk, so that you can experiment with format commands with those chapters. You go to the Second Menu and proceed like this:
Second Menu
Enter Option: C
Copy chapters
Drive number or chapter name: 2 <CR>
BEX presents you with a numbered list of the chapters, then asks:
Use entire list? N <CR>
Select chapters by number
Chapter number:
Enter the number of the LETTERHEAD chapter. BEX confirms your choice by repeating the name of the chapter. Then BEX prompts again:
Chapter number:
Enter the number for the JOAN chapter. Again, BEX confirms your choice, and asks for a chapter number. Press <CR> when you are finished specifying chapters:
Chapter number: <CR>
(enter question mark for choices)
Target chapter naming method: ? <CR>
Naming methods are:
S = Same name as source chapters
I = Individually name target chapters
AX = Add letter X to make target names
LX = Last character changes to X
Precede naming method letters with 1 for drive 1
(enter question mark for choices)
Target chapter naming method:
You want to make the target chapter names slightly different so you know which are the unaltered chapters and which are your experimentation chapters. You use the A target chapter naming method, with the letter B added to the end of the chapter names. You have your BEXtras disk in drive 2, so you put your data disk into drive 1, and add the digit 1 to the beginning of the target chapter naming method, to write the chapters onto that drive:
(enter question mark for choices)
Target chapter naming method: 1AB <CR>
The disk drives whir as the copies are being made. BEX tells you when the copies are finished:
Chapter LETTERHEAD done
Chapter JOAN done

Using the Same Names for Source and Target Chapters

We briefly mentioned above that BEX allows you to use the same name for source and target chapters. This characteristic of BEX comes in very handy as you advance to the Master Level, but it has its drawbacks. There's no danger at all when you are simply copying a chapter from one disk to another, as when you make back-up copies of your chapters. But when you specify the same name for source and target chapters) on the same disk, the data in your source chapters is forever lost to you: it's overwritten by the data in the target chapters. Sometimes this is just the effect you're seeking, and it saves you a lot of time. We give more examples of this in Section 12.

Whenever you instruct BEX to save data on a disk with a particular name, BEX carries out your instructions to the letter. BEX doesn't check to see if that name already exists on the disk. For example, you have a chapter named CONTRACT and you use option G - Grade 2 translator to translate it into braille. You use the A2 target chapter naming method to make CONTRACT2 the target chapter. If CONTRACT2 is already on the disk, the new data replaces the old. While this feature saves a lot of time killing chapters, it's your responsibility to use option D - Disk catalog periodically so you know what chapter names are already used on a disk.

Part 4: Manipulating Chapters with the Second Menu

All the options on the Second Menu allow you to change how information is saved on disk. Section 12 demonstrates using some of these options to accomplish a specific task. In this Part we detail the features of each option. Most of the options allow you to work with many chapters at once.

Second Menu Options

Part 5: Manipulating Pages with the Page Menu

The Page Menu allows you to reorganize pages in many, many ways. Section 12 shows some examples. All the options assume you are working on one chapter. When you Zip to the Page Menu and choose an option, you're prompted Drive number or chapter name: to specify which chapter you want to concentrate on. The Page Menu "remembers" this chapter until you use option C - Change current chapter or leave the Page Menu.

Part 6: Starting Menu Utilities

In Section 2, we explored some items on the Starting Menu. In Section 3, we discussed two options relevant to configuring. For your reference, here's a complete list of all Starting Menu options. To move from the Main Menu to the Starting Menu, insert the Boot side of BEX in drive 1 and press <space>.

Section 12: Manipulating Data

In Section 11, we detailed all the ways you can specify source chapters and name target chapters. We also described several of the options on the Second and Page Menus. In this Section, we demonstrate how you might combine these features to accomplish a specific task.

BEX's ability to manipulate information is like a Swiss army knife: there are many, many tools available. These examples are neither exhaustive nor prescriptive. As you gain experience, you'll develop your own work patterns. For example, you'll recognize when it makes most sense to use Copy chapters and when Adjust pages or Merge chapters is more efficient. To give yourself a better "feel" for the possibilities on the Page Menu, use option F - File list on every chapter you edit.

() One Disk Drive: While BEX has many features that let you reformat information, they are pretty clumsy to use with just one drive. The following discussion assumes you have two drives. You can still do these things with one drive, but all the manipulations have to fit on one disk. Only option C - Copy chapters on the Second Menu allows you to swap between two data disks with a one-drive system.

Part 1: Dealing with Textfiles

Option R - Read textfiles to chapters on the Second Menu allows you to copy information from one type of file into another. Textfiles are information stored on disk differently than BEX chapters. Apple software that creates textfiles which can be read by BEX include AppleWorks, ProTERM, AppleWriter, ASCII Express, and a host of others. At the User Level, we explain how BEX creates textfiles.

Textfiles have a format different than BEX chapters, and often require some internal changes before they are workable with BEX. Option R reads textfiles, which many other Apple programs can manipulate, into BEX chapters, which are unique to BEX. The EchostCricket Training Disk contains textfiles full of useful information. In this Section we demonstrate reading textfiles with the EchostCricket Training Disk in your BEX binder.

There are two ways to locate a textfile on disk. In a DOS catalog, the letter T in the second column of the catalog indicates a textfile. On the Second Menu, option R - Read textfiles to chapters lets you scan a disk for textfiles in the same way you scan a disk for BEX chapters. Instead of prompting Drive number or chapter name: BEX simply prompts Textfile: Enter the drive number followed by <CR>.

When no textfiles are present, BEX responds with
There are 0 textfiles
Textfile:
You can insert another disk and enter the drive number here, or press <CR> to get back to the Second Menu prompt.

When there are textfiles on the disk, BEX presents a numbered list. Respond by entering the textfile number as you would with a numbered list of chapters. After you specify the source textfiles, BEX prompts for target chapter names; use the same techniques as always. However, you can't use the S target chapter naming method. Your new chapter must have a different name than the textfile, even if it's on a different disk.

After you specify the names, BEX gets to work. The BEX chapter uses slightly more room on a disk than the textfile it's read from: it's generally a good idea to read textfiles from one disk to chapters on another disk.

Part 2: Transforming a Textfile into a BEX Chapter: An Example

If you use the Echo synthesizer, you've probably already explored the EchostCricket Training Disk. Even if you don't use the Echo, however, there's some useful information on the disk, stored as textfiles. To examine it with BEX, you must copy the textfiles to BEX chapters. To do this, you need your EchostCricket Training Disk, your BEXtras disk, and an initialized data disk.

Insert the EchostCricket Training Disk in your data drive. Use option D - Disk catalog at any BEX menu; there are two BEX chapters named MENU and LESSONS that contain what their names imply. Press <space>, and you are presented with a very full disk. There are three type T (for Textfile) files on the disk, but it's hard to pick them out from such a full catalog.

Using Option R - Read Textfile to Chapter

The first step is to change the textfiles into BEX chapters. Press S to get to the Second Menu, proceed as follows:
Second Menu
Enter Option R
Read textfile to chapter
Textfile: 2 <CR>
There are 3 textfiles:
1 HELP TEXT
2 ECHO COMMANDS
3 APPLE RESOURCES
Use entire list? N

When you don't want to use the whole list, you press <CR> here to accept the default answer. BEX then prompts:
Select textfiles by number
Textfile:
At this point, you can remove your BEX disk from drive 1, and insert your initialized data disk in drive 1. Enter the numbers of the textfiles you want. When you choose only one textfile, BEX prompts: Target chapter name: and you must type in the target chapter name.

But here we are interested in the whole list, so when BEX asks Use entire list? N change the default answer to Y and press <CR>.

You must use different names for the BEX chapters you're creating. When BEX prompts: Target chapter naming method: enter 1A-C <CR> to add the characters -C to the end of the target chapter names. Because you precede the naming method with 1, the target chapters are written on drive 1. It takes a few minutes for BEX to read and write all that data. When this step's completed, you receive the Second Menu prompt.

Reformat the BEX Chapters with Option R - Replace characters

Put your BEX disk in drive 1 and your data disk with the newly created chapters in drive 2. Jump back to the Main Menu, and edit one of the chapters you've just created.

You'll notice that there aren't any format indicators or format commands in the text, but there are lots of spaces and hard returns. This is true of almost all textfiles you encounter: they are usually formatted as if they had been printed to disk. You could reformat these chapters by hand, but it would be very dull and time-consuming. Anyway, one of BEX's most powerful features is option R - Replace characters on the Main Menu. Replace characters can reformat these chapters for you automatically.

Quit the Editor and press R for Replace characters:
Replace
Drive number or chapter name: 2 <CR>
There are 3 chapters:
1 HELP TEXT-C
2 ECHO COMMANDS-C
3 APPLE RESOURCES-C
Use entire list? N Y <CR>
Target chapter naming method: S <CR>
Enter transformation chapter name:

At this point, you can remove your BEX disk from drive 1 and insert your BEXtras disk.

A transformation chapter is a BEX chapter that has a list of changes to make. We supply several transformation chapters on the BEXtras disk. One is named FIX TEXT and it's designed to reformat textfiles for print-oriented BEX chapters. At the User Level, you learn how to write a transformation chapter yourself. At the Master Level, we explain how FIX TEXT works.

FIX TEXT is on the BEXtras disk in drive 1, so this is how you proceed:
Enter transformation chapter name: 1FIX TEXT <CR>
The last prompt allows you to load a transformation chapter from disk, then remove that disk and insert a data disk:
Continue? Y <CR>

() Large Print Screen: When BEX uses a transformation chapter from disk, you temporarily lose large print screen display at this point. As soon as Replace chapters is finished, BEX returns to large print display. The last prompt, Continue? Y is shown in 40-column screen, so you will have to assume its there, and respond accordingly.

Now the Apple's speaker starts making all sorts of noises. Replace characters makes a click for every replacement. One of the replacements going on is getting rid of extra spaces. There are so many extra spaces that the clicks turn into a moan.

Notice the target chapter naming method code of S. As we explained in Section 11, Part 3, this tells BEX to use the same name for source and target chapters, and to write chapters on drive 2. This is a good example of when you want your target chapters to overwrite your source chapters. The reason we're using Replace characters is because the format in the source chapters is not what you want to work with. You have no further use for this data. If you use a different target chapter naming method, you create modified copies with Replace characters. You would have to use option K - Kill chapters to get rid of the source chapters at some point. Using the naming method S is a shortcut.

Replace characters takes some time. When you no longer hear any clicks, BEX is finished replacing, and you get the Main Menu prompt.

Now edit one of the transformed chapters, and you see paragraph ( $p ) indicators and $$c centering commands.

Writing BEX chapters into textfiles

At the User Level, we explain option W - Write chapters into a textfile. This option enables BEX to print DOS 3.3 textfiles to disk. Raised Dot Computing also distributes a ProDOS utility called the Quick Textfile Converter, or QTC. This utility copies BEX chapters into ProDOS textfiles. It has on-line documentation that's stored as a ProDOS textfile, which you can read into a BEX chapter if you want. Contact us for further details.

Part 3: Manipulating Pages

The Page Menu allows you to manipulate individual pages within a chapter. Because page numbers can easily change as you use the options available, we recommend you frequently use option F - File list to keep track of your work. To understand File list, you need to learn a little bit about the structure of BEX chapters.

How BEX Keeps Track of Pages

Insert your BEXtras disk and choose option D - Disk catalog at any BEX menu:
Enter Option: D
Which drive? 2 <CR>
Chapters located:
BEX lists the chapters on the BEXtras disk, including the QUANDARY chapter. BEX then prompts:
Press space for DOS catalog: <space>
There are many files on the disk, including the five files that make up the QUANDARY chapter:
B 013 QUANDARY.A
B 014 QUANDARY.B
B 014 QUANDARY.C
B 010 QUANDARY.D
B 003 QUANDARY

For every BEX chapter, there is one directory file and additional page files. The file named QUANDARY above is the directory file. The directory file is a table of contents for each chapter. BEX internally generates the directory files so the software knows exactly where to find each page on the disk. You cannot create directory files; BEX generates them for you.

The files named QUANDARY.A, QUANDARY.B, QUANDARY.C, and QUANDARYDDD are the page files. The page files contain the information in each BEX page. BEX adds a two character extension to each page file as a label for the directory. The extension is period followed by a letter. This is why you can't use a period in a chapter name. BEX recognizes page files by the period and letter extensions in their names.

Use File List To Keep Track of BEX Pages

Every time you choose option F - File list on the Page Menu you get the page number, the size of the page, and the extension letter for each page file for the specified chapter.

Here's how to get a file list of the QUANDARY chapter:
Page Menu
Enter Option: F
File list
Drive number or chapter name: QUANDARY <CR>
Chapter QUANDARY
4 Pages
Page 1 Size 3064 A
Page 2 Size 3281 B
Page 3 Size 3307 C
Page 4 Size 2223 D
Total of 11875
There are three columns: page number, size, and the letter in the extension. You can easily change the page number; the letter extension stays the same.

Manipulating Pages: An Example

Here's the task: you want to send a friend some excerpts from the QUANDARY article. You think that what's said is fine, but feel it could be better stated if the three main points were rearranged.

Make a working copy

Use option C - Copy chapters on the Second Menu to make a copy of the QUANDARY chapter. You will be typing the name of this chapter a lot, so make it easy to enter. Here we call it WC for Working Copy.

Chop the pages into logical units

Jump to the Main Menu and edit chapter WC. At this point it has four pages. From previous examination, you know it has five headings: the main title, and four sub-titles. The sub-titles are centered, so you can find them by Locating for the $$c format command.

On page 1, enter control-L $$c control-A. The first occurrence is the author's names. Enter control-L control-A again, and you arrive at the first sub-title, Aids Can Play Three Roles. Enter control-Z control-P to zoom back to the previous paragraph ( $p ) indicator. Now enter control-C control-P to cut the page at this point. There's a slight pause while the new, shorter contents of page 1 is saved to disk. BEX announces page 2 and your cursor is at character position 0 of new page 2.

Enter control-L control-A again, and you go to the first subtitle again. Enter control-L control-A once more, and you receive a high error beep because there are no further centered sub-titles in this page. Move to the beginning of the next page (page 3) with control-P 3 <space>

Enter control-L control-A and you advance to the next sub-title, Training. Enter control-Z control-P to zoom back to the previous paragraph ( $p ) indicator. Enter control-C control-P to cut the page again. Wait as the new page 3 is saved to disk; when BEX announces page 4 your cursor is at character position 0 of that page.

Enter control-L control-A twice to locate the next sub-title, Expertise Needed for Prescribing Aids. You get the high error beep, because it's not on page 4. Enter control-P 5 <space> to get to page 5.

You see#[_$]#$p#[_$]#$$c as the first characters on the page. Enter control-L control-A to locate the last sub-title, The Quandary Summarized. Go through the control-Z control-P, control-C control-P routine one last time. Quit the Editor with control-Q and Zip to the Page Menu.

Rearranging the pages

Since you have put each of the three main points (delineated by subheadings) onto separate pages, you can use options M - Merge pages and R - Rearrange pages to manipulate them. Here's how:
Page Menu
Enter Option: F
File list
Drive number or chapter name: WC <CR>
Chapter WC
7 pages
Page 1 size 795 A
Page 2 size 2269 E
Page 3 size 908 B
Page 4 size 2373 F
Page 5 size 2316 C
Page 6 size 991 G
Page 7 size 2223 D
Total of 11875

As you created the new pages, BEX automatically renumbered them, and added the extension letters shown in the third column. The new page 1 contains just the introduction; pages 2 and 3 contain the Aids Can Play Three Roles discussion; page 4 contains Training; page 5 contains Expertise Needed; and the summary spans pages 6 and 7.

Merge pages into topics

To make the task of rearranging easier, use option M - Merge pages to make each topic one BEX page. Merge pages lets you merge two pages together--the opposite of control-C control-P in the Editor:
Page Menu
Enter Option: M <CR>
Merge pages
Enter first Page: 2 <CR>
Enter second Page: 3 <CR>
BEX reads the contents of both pages into the page buffer and then writes them to disk as one page. Next, press F for File list:
Chapter WC
6 pages
Page 1 size 795 A
Page 2 size 3177 E
Page 3 size 2373 F
Page 4 size 2316 C
Page 5 size 991 G
Page 6 size 2223 D
Total of 11875

When you merge pages, the new page uses the extension letter of the old first page. Page 2 is still Every, while B (old page 3) has disappeared. Use Merge pages again to merge the last 2 pages. The first time you did file list, they were pages 6 and 7, but since you've merged two pages, they are now pages 5 and 6. Their extension letters are the same however: still G and D. Enter page 5 as the first page and page 6 as the second page. Use option F - File list again with this result:
Chapter WC
5 pages
Page 1 size 795 A
Page 2 size 3177 E
Page 3 size 2373 F
Page 4 size 2316 C
Page 5 size 3214 G
Total of 11875

The last step: rearrange the pages

At this point, each page of chapter WC contains one topic: the Introduction is page 1; Three Roles is page 2; Training is page 3; Expertise is page 4; and the Summary is page 5. You want to present the information in this order: Introduction, Expertise, Training, Three Roles, Summary. Use option R - Rearrange pages. Here's what happens:
Page Menu
Enter Option: R
Rearrange pages
Move a range of pages? N <CR>
List the new order of the pages
For new page 1 use old Page: 1 <CR>
For new page 2 use old Page: 4 <CR>
For new page 3 use old Page: 3 <CR>
For new page 4 use old Page: 2 <CR>
For new page 5 use old Page: 5 <CR>

The disk drive whirs as BEX saves these changes. When you use option F - File list again, here's the result:
Chapter WC
5 pages
Page 1 size 795 A
Page 2 size 2316 C
Page 3 size 2373 F
Page 4 size 3177 E
Page 5 size 3214 G
Total of 11875

Incorporate this text into another chapter

Harking back to our original purpose, you want to include this text in a letter to your friend. You don't want to bother with the introduction, just the last four pages. This is where option G - Grab pages from another chapter comes in handy. But first, you must use option C - Change current chapter. The Page Menu always works with one chapter as the current chapter, and at this point, it's chapter WC. You want to clear the current chapter because you want to grab into a new chapter not yet on disk:
Page Menu
Enter Option: C
Change current chapter
Drive number or chapter name: <CR>
Pressing <CR> at this point clears the current chapter. You cannot specify a new current chapter because the chapter you want is not yet on disk. If you type the name of a chapter that's not on disk, BEX gives an error message.

After you have cleared the current chapter, you are free to use option G - Grab pages from another chapter:
Page Menu
Enter Option: G
Grab pages from another chapter
Grab into Drive number or chapter name: FRIEND <CR>
Want to start a new chapter? Y <CR>
Grab from Drive number or chapter name: WC <CR>
BEX now lets you specify which pages to copy from WC into FRIEND:
There are 5 pages in chapter WC
Select pages from chapter WC
From page: 2 <CR>
Through page: 5 <CR>

Now you can jump back to the Main Menu and write your letter by editing the FRIEND chapter.

Section 13: Coping When Things Go Wrong

When you first start out using computers, it's common to feel that the computer is smarter than you. We want to help dispel that feeling. It's very hard to break a computer unless you physically damage it--sit on top of it, pour coffee on the keys, or plug in a card when the power is on. Just about anything other mistake you make you can recover from.

When you do something that BEX isn't expecting, it tells you with an error message. We've tried to make the BEX error messages self-explanatory, so you know exactly what went wrong and how to fix it.

But it's also possible for you to do something that Apple's DOS 3.3 isn't expecting, and the Apple's error messages can be a little frightening. In this Section, we try to pull together answers for the basic problems you could encounter as you use BEX. User Level Section 13 discusses some less likely problems. If you can't solve the problem by reading this manual, please give us a call at 608-257-8833. We want to help you make the most of BEX.

Part 1: Cancelling Gracefully

There are several ways to cancel a BEX activity. Which method you use depends on what you're doing.

Cancel an Option During the Prompts

When BEX needs more data to continue, then you cancel the option by entering <CR> alone. For example, when BEX prompts Drive number or chapter name: it's expecting a digit or some letters. Enter just <CR>, and BEX returns you to the menu prompt. When BEX prompts Which printer: it's expecting a number or letters; enter <CR> alone and you cancel printing.

Some options supply defaults, so when you press <CR>, BEX has enough information to continue. As a safety feature, all options that delete text supply a N default; pressing <CR> automatically cancels the option. On the other hand, option D - Disk catalog prompts Which drive? 2 so pressing <CR> supplies BEX with enough information to continue. You get a catalog of the disk in drive 2.

When the unwanted option moves you to another menu, press the letter that returns to the previous menu. For example, if you press Z at the Main Menu by mistake, just press J to return from the Page Menu.

The Escape Key

<ESC> allows you to cancel three BEX options in progress. When you are using option R - Replace characters or option G - Grade 2 translator, you are generally creating target chapter copies of your original chapters. When you press <ESC> before BEX announces that's the chapters) done, BEX does not finish writing the target chapters. The partially-finished chapters take up room on the disk, but they do not appear in a BEX disk catalog. Part 7 explains how you can delete these partial chapters from disk.

When you press <ESC> during printing, your printer may not stop immediately. Many printers and printer interface cards have a buffer that stores text waiting to be printed. Buffers are usually very handy; BEX can send the text to be printed to the buffer, and then BEX is free to do other tasks. But when you want to cancel a printout, you have to know how to clear the text in the printer or interface card buffer--check out their manuals.

Can't cancel disk activities

Many BEX activities consist mainly of reading and writing to disk. Because BEX chapters are stored as several files, your chapters won't be complete if you cancel this sort of option in the middle. When you press D for a Disk catalog, they won't appear in the list of chapters located. In fact, this sometimes happens if your disk gets full in the middle of writing a chapter--Part 7 explains how you handle this situation.

Part 2: When BEX Crashes

Most of the time, when something goes wrong, BEX can recognize the problem. For example, when you place an uninitialized disk in the drive, BEX can't save data on it. When you have an uninitialized disk and you try to move between pages in the Editor, BEX realizes that it can't save the current page, so it tells you what to do next. (Details in Part 5).

When BEX can't cope gracefully, it crashes. While crash is a dramatic word, it's not something to be afraid of. In computer jargon, crash just means that the program stops. There are some times you intentionally crash BEX by pressing Control-Reset; we discuss this further in Part 4.

Symptoms of a Crash

Other times, BEX crashes by itself. Here's how you recognize a crash: Whatever BEX was doing stops. You hear a high beep, and then you hear an Apple error message, a short phrase like FILE NOT FOUND or DISK FULL Next, there's another high beep and the Apple says BREAK IN LINE followed by a four-digit number. Finally, the Apple displays the BASIC prompt: the right bracket ] on the screen. (The Echo says ready, because ] means the Apple is ready to accept your commands.)

Whenever you are at the BASIC prompt, you return to BEX by depressing the Caps Lock key, then typing RUN <CR>

Even though the Apple says break, your BEX disk is not broken! When BEX crashes, the Apple is running a program. Whenever a program stops unexpectedly, the Apple says BREAK and then the program line number where it stopped. It's safe to ignore a message like BREAK IN LINE followed by a four-digit number.

While the BREAK IN LINE message is not particularly informative, the first Apple error message can help you pinpoint the problem. Here are some causes and solutions for common error messages:

DISK FULL

This error message mean that there is not enough room left on the disk to save a file. Get a different, initialized disk that has some room and try again. You can find out how much room is available on disk by pressing # at any BEX menu. When you crash with DISK FULL in the middle of creating a chapter in the Editor, BEX swings into action to rescue your current page buffer--Part 5 explains what happens.

I/O ERROR

I/O is the abbreviation for input/output. (A more detailed discussion of I/O is presented in User Level Section 2.) This error message means that BEX is having trouble writing to disk, which can be caused by a variety of problems, some trivial and some serious. The following problems are easy to fix:

When you try these solutions and you still get an I/O error, there's something seriously wrong with your disk. You may be able to salvage the chapters on the disk by using option C - Copy disks on the Starting Menu.

With audio tapes, a copy usually degrades the quality. But a disk copy can actually improve your data. When you get an I/O ERROR Apple error message, immediately make a copy of the disk. Toss the disk that failed straight into the trash. Some people feel that inexpensive disks are a good way to keep the cost of computing down. An extra 75 cents is negligible when compared to the human cost of rekeying an entire disk worth of data when a cheap disk fails.

FILE NOT FOUND

As we discussed in Section 12, Part 3, each BEX chapter is composed of page files and a directory file. BEX makes sure that the directory file describes the correct order for the page files. Usually, you never worry about these issues. But when you start having problems with your data, it becomes important to understand what's going on. When you get a FILE NOT FOUND message, then the directory file claims a page file exists, but the page file is not on the disk. Use option F - Fix chapters on the Second Menu to create a new directory file--details in Part 7.

Part 3: When BEX Hangs

Hanging is another piece of computer jargon that sounds more serious than it really is. When a program hangs it doesn't do anything. You don't hear any beeps or error messages--the computer is unresponsive.

When you're in the Editor and BEX seems to hang, press <CR>. Chances are you typed control-E for an Echo command. Once you type control-E, TEXTALKER grabs control of the keyboard, waiting for you to finish the Echo command. When you press <CR>, TEXTALKER relinquishes control of the keyboard to BEX.

When BEX hangs during Replace characters, then there's something wrong with the transformation chapter you specified from disk. When you read User Level Section 8, you find out how to diagnose and solve this problem.

When you tell BEX to print, but the printer is not ready to receive text, then BEX hangs. Your printer has an on-line or select button that switches its attention between the printer control buttons and the computer. When you press the button that makes it ready to print, BEX starts printing.

When BEX is printing to the screen, it pauses for each screen full of data. BEX won't do anything more until you press <space> for the next screen.

Many printers require special software, called drivers. BEX large print on dot-matrix printers and the Cranmer Brailler are two common examples. When you tell BEX to print to one of these devices, it has to read the driver software from the program disk. When the program disk is not in drive 1, BEX hangs.

Part 4: When You Make BEX Crash

There are times when you choose to induce a program crash to stop BEX. While you can press <ESC> to stop printing, replacing, or translating, you can crash BEX in almost every situation.

To crash BEX, you press Control-Reset. Whatever BEX was doing stops, and you hear a high beep. You temporarily lose Echo and large print output. The screen clears, and the BASIC prompt appears at the top. You have to issue some DOS instructions, so you must depress your Caps Lock. To get back to BEX, enter four keystrokes: RUN <CR> and you're back at the menu you crashed from.

() Warning! Never press Control-Reset when the Apple is writing to disk. You can permanently damage your disk by doing this. It's not harmful to enter Control-Reset when the Apple is reading from disk.

If you want to issue DOS commands without losing the Echo or large print, don't crash. Use option Q - Quit on the Starting or Main Menus.

Good Times to Crash

You can intentionally crash BEX whenever you don't want to do something except when you are writing to disk. For example, you tell BEX to edit a chapter, and BEX tells you There are 4 pages Edit on page 1 and pauses. You realize you must have specified the wrong chapter, as the one you wanted to work with has five pages. You could press <CR> to edit page 1, then immediately enter control-Q to exit the Editor. But why wait? Enter Control-Reset, then type RUN <CR> and you're back at the Main Menu prompt.

Exit the Editor without saving the page

As you use the Editor, you are always working in the page buffer. When you edit an existing chapter, you copy the data from the page file on disk to the page buffer. When you enter control-Q or control-P 0 <space> or move to a different page, all changes you make are saved back to the page file on disk.

When you don't want to save the changes you made, crash out of the Editor by pressing Control-Reset. Because you leave the Editor without saving the current page, the original material on disk is unchanged.

() Echo: BEX temporarily disables two Echo commands when you use the Editor: control-L and control-X. When you quit the Editor normally with control-Q, BEX returns control-L and control-X to their regular Echo functions. When you crash out of the Editor, control-L and control-X are still disabled. This means you can't shut up the Echo and you can't use screen review. The solution is to edit any chapter; then quit normally with control-Q. Control-L and control-X are then back to normal.

Crashing can recover material deleted in error

After you issue a delete command, the text you delete no longer appears on the screen. However, the characters may still be in the page buffer. The delete command does not actually place blank characters in the page buffer; it simply changes the pointers BEX uses to know where the real text is. An example: you have a 3000 character page, move the cursor to position 2000, then enter control-D control-A. BEX's pointers say real text is between 0 and 2000, but the characters from 2001 to 3000 have not been erased until you save that page. When you crash at this point, you can recover using RUN 999 discussed below.

However, when you delete the characters between position 0 and 1000, RUN 999 can't recover them. BEX's pointers always start at 0, so the old text from 1000 to 2000 has overwritten the 0 to 1000 text.

Typing Control-Reset

Depress the control key, then press and release the Reset key. Just to make things interesting, the Reset key is located in a different place for each model Apple, as follows:

() Warning! Control-Reset is a safe way to stop BEX. Many other programs are not as resilient as BEX. When you enter Control-Reset with other programs, you may lose data. () Caution! Do not confuse Control-Reset with Open-Apple-Control-Reset. Control-Reset crashes BEX. Open-Apple-Control-Reset reboots the Apple.

Part 5: Recovering the Page Buffer with RUN 999

Because each BEX chapter is divided into pages, and you always work one page at a time, the worst thing that can happen if your power suddenly dies is you lose the text in one page. As you move between pages in the Editor, BEX always writes the current page to disk. If BEX can't write a page to disk for any reason, it performs a rescue routine called RUN 999

Things that can prevent BEX writing to disk include a disk that's full, a disk that's not initialized, or when there's no disk at all in the drive. When BEX realizes it cannot write to disk, it prompts you to insert a data disk in drive 1, and then saves the most recent page buffer in a one-page chapter named SAVE on the disk in drive 1. When you don't have a good data disk handy, you can use your BEX disk in a pinch--there's usually enough room for the SAVE chapter. Once BEX has created the SAVE chapter, you are at the BASIC prompt. Here's exactly what happens with RUN 999

Every time you or BEX uses RUN 999 any SAVE chapter already on the program disk is overwritten by the new one. Don't put off salvaging the SAVE chapter until after it's too late!

Using RUN 999 by choice

In addition to BEX automatically using RUN 999 you can choose to use it yourself. RUN 999 lets you recover the information in the most recent page buffer. As mentioned in Part 4, you press Control-Reset to exit the Editor without saving your changes. At this point, you can use RUN 999 to recover the new text that is not yet on disk. Follow these two steps whenever you use RUN 999

From this point on, follow the 12 steps outlined previously.

Part 6: Recovering Missing Text with Fix chapters

Some mistakes are impossible to correct; others you can recover from. Once you understand the basic BEX chapter structure of directory and page files, you have insight into how to cope with problem chapters.

We don't want to alarm you about the safety of your data. When you follow our suggestions for disk management, you probably won't ever run into trouble. However, we provide this information for the unfortunate few who encounter problems.

When the page and directory files for a BEX chapter don't match, you can have problems. To identify a chapter on disk, BEX must be able to find a directory file. To access all the pages in a chapter, all the page files must be referenced in the directory file. You can encounter three types of problems:

Option F - Fix chapters on the Second Menu reconstructs the chapter directory file. When you are encountering any of the above problems, using Fix chapters may be able to solve them. Problem 1 is the most common; this happens when you crash with the DISK FULL error message before BEX has finished writing a chapter to disk. BEX always saves the directory file last, so the full disk contains some number of page files, but no directory file.

When you use Fix chapters, you must have some free space on your "problem" disk. First, use option C - Copy chapters to copy all the good chapters from the problem disk to another disk. Then use option K - Kill chapters to delete the good chapters from the problem disk. Catalog the problem disk: you probably won't see any chapters located, so press <space> when prompted. Make a note of the chapter name as it appears in the DOS catalog.

When you get the Second Menu prompt, press F for Fix chapters. As BEX reminds you, you must type the exact chapter name. Once you do, BEX goes about reconstructing the directory file. When it's finished, BEX announces how many pages it has found for the fixed chapter. Some of these pages may contain zero characters; this is normal. (We explore exactly why this happens in User Level Section 13.) Once the chapter is fixed, you should edit it and check to make sure that your page files are in order.

As we explained in Section 11, BEX starts out lettering page files alphabetically. When you cut pages in the Editor or move pages with the Page Menu, the page numbers can change, but the letter extensions stay the same. When you cut pages in the Editor, BEX uses the next available letter of the alphabet for the new page you create.

When you first create a three-page chapter, page 1 has an .A extension, page 2 has an .B extension, and page 3 has an .C extension. When you have a three-page chapter and enter control-C control-P on page 2, the new page 3 gets the .D extension. After you Exchange pages 1 and 2 with the Page Menu, page 1 ends with .B and page 2 has the .A extension.

Fix chapters uses the letter at the end of the page file to determine its order. So a page file ending with .A always becomes page 1. That's why you may need to use the Page Menu to rearrange the pages after you Fix chapters.

Name Change Follies

Before you use option N - Name change for chapters, you should always catalog the disk. You never want to change a chapter to a name that's already used on that disk. If you change the name of a chapter to a name that's already taken, your chapter seems to have had a nervous breakdown. (The official term for this in computerese is data salad.) It's possible to recover your data using Fix chapters.

Here's an example of what you shouldn't do: you have a three-page chapter named HOMEWORK on a disk. You also have a chapter named SCHOOLWORK on the same disk. You ask BEX to change the name of chapter SCHOOLWORK to HOMEWORK. When you print the HOMEWORK chapter, the first three pages contain the information from the old HOMEWORK chapter; the last two pages contain the information from the last two pages of SCHOOLWORK.

If you find yourself in this situation, here's how you recover. Copy the confused chapter, in this case HOMEWORK, to a completely different name, like RED for instance. Now, delete HOMEWORK with option K - Kill chapters. Then, use option F - Fix chapters, and specify HOMEWORK as your target chapter. Finally, copy the fixed HOMEWORK to a totally different name, GREEN for instance. The RED chapter now has the same data as the old SCHOOLWORK; the GREEN chapter is just like the old HOMEWORK.

Part 7: Problems with Copying Disks

In Section 2, Parts 5, 6, and 7, we lectured you about using high-quality disks. We won't repeat that lecture here, but what we said there is still true. Don't be surprised if you have trouble initializing or copying on to a disk that you've notched. Don't be surprised if you have trouble initializing or copying on to a disk that cost seven cents. We can't be very sympathetic to people who place priceless data on cheap disks and then call and complain.

Many people are startled at the noise the Apple makes the first time they copy or initialize a disk. This gronking sound seems to be a symptom of total disaster, but it really is normal.

If you encounter problems making a working backup of your BEX Master disk, don't panic. Do save all the disks you have created. Call our Technical Support hotline at 608-257-8833 for advice on what to do next.

Take advantage of DiversiCOPY

Your BEX binder contains a DiversiCOPY program disk. This is a shareware utility that copies disks faster than anything else. Shareware means that you can try the program out for 45 days; if you like it, you send $30 to the program's author. DiversiCOPY is fast because it uses every scrap of the Apple's memory; it is not compatible with Echo speech or large print. However, it does provide enough beeps and boops for a visually impaired person to keep track of what's going on. There's a BEX chapter on the DiversiCOPY disk that explains how to use it, and where to send the shareware payment.

When BEX refuses to initialize or copy any disk, this can be a symptom of disk drive trouble. We use our disk drives all day long here at RDC, so we take them in for preventive maintenance every six months. Disk drives are the trickiest mechanism in your computer system, and the part of your computer system that's most prone to wear and tear. When BEX balks at all disk initializing and copying, and you're sure that you have high-quality disks, try using DiversiCOPY. While DiversiCOPY copies, it displays the speed of your disk drives; if your drives are too fast or too slow, DiversiCOPY tells you. Take your entire computer system in for repair when you have disk drive problems, as the source of the trouble can be a combination of problems with the drive itself and the disk controller card in the Apple.

Part 8: Start Panicking! Errors You Can't Recover

Every program has limits. Some BEX operations are irreversible. The following are also discussed in detail in their appropriate Sections. We compile them here to warn you!