General Features of the ACEDB Interface

• what ACEDB is and what it can do
• the Table of Contents for on-line help
• the ACEDB Main Window
• distribution and copyright information

Using ACEDB

• Quit: To exit the program choose Quit from the menu in the main window.
• General info: The software version and data release numbers are available using Status in the pop-up menu of the ACEDB Main Window.
• Mouse: The left button is used to pick windows or objects. Usually, picking once changes the color of the target, picking a second time initiates an action. The middle button is used in some graphic windows to recenter (single click) or to zoom and recenter (by dragging in horizontal and vertical directions). On the NeXT, press both buttons to emulate the middle button. The right button is used to access menus.
• Menus: Under X windows (Openwin) you get the menu for any ACEDB window by pressing the right mouse button when the cursor is in the window. Almost always the first three items will be Quit (which closes the window), Help (which brings up context-sensitive help), and Print (which prints the contents of the window). Under SunView you must press the right mouse button when the cursor is in the title bar of the window.
• Help: The F1 or F10 or Help key invokes the online, context-sensitive help related to the window to which the mouse points or some selected item within it. Some of these keys may not work on some machines or under some window managers, but one should! There is also a help entry in most menus.
• Printing: The F2 or F9 key creates a post-script file in the subdirectory PS of $ACEDB. It will then try to print it using "lpr". If the environment variable ACEDB_LPR is set (e.g. setenv ACEDB_LPR "lpr -Pmyprinter"), then that print command is used instead. Setting it to an empty string will prevent automatic printing. There is also a print option in most menus.
• Text entry boxes: Many ACEDB tools contain yellow and green rectangular micro text editors. Only one of them is active (yellow) at a time in a given window. To activate one, pick it with the left mouse button. This will position the cursor. Text entry boxes recognize these commands: Return key, Insert key (a toggle), Delete and BackSpace keys, Home and End key, the left and right arrows. In addtion a set of control keys allow movement (^f: forward, ^b: backward, ^a: to beginning, ^e: to end of line), deletion (^d: a char, ^w: a word, ^k: to end of line, ^u: whole line) and TAB which attempts to autocomplete an object or class name.
• Color, Gray, Black and White screens: In principle, under X11, acedb will autodetect the type of screen you are using. In case of problem, you can try to setenv one of ACEDB_MONO, ACEDB_GREY, ACEDB_GRAY, ACEDB_COLOR, ACEDB_COLOUR.

last edited: July 1994