Ovation Toolbox

by Ian MacDougall


This application provides a handy toolbox to be used alongside any Ovation document. The toolbox provides 24 different tools, displayed within a small window, which can be positioned where required, or attached to the current Ovation document.

The 24 tools include many of the commonly used Ovation functions, thus avoiding the need to move down several layers within a menu structure or to remember what may seem to be obscure keyboard shortcuts.

The toolbox can be orientated either vertically or horizontally, and the positions of all the tools within the toolbox can be changed to suit your own requirements. Some of the tools provide two separate but related functions, depending on whether they are activated by the Select or Adjust button. For example, the scissors icon will copy any highlighted text to the clipboard if Select is used, or cut the highlighted text if Adjust is used. Other tools provide direct links to Ovation's spelling checker and to RISC Developments' Desktop Thesaurus (if loaded), plus many other commonly needed functions.

Using the Program
To install OvTools, either click on its icon in the RISC User Menu System, or double-click on its icon in a Filer window. Clicking on its icon bar icon will then open the OvTools window. The program provides full information on each of its functions through Acorn's Help application, which is provided in the Apps directory with RISC OS 3, and on disc with RISC OS 2. Run the Help program and then move the pointer over any of the tools in the OvTools window to see what each tool does. To move the tools around the window, simply drag them to the required position. To change the orientation of the toolbox, click on its Toggle size icon in the top-right of the window.

The icon on the toolbox that changes the current font in Ovation uses two variables set up in the font file in the !OvTools directory. The variable fontnum is the position of the font in Ovation's Font menu, with the first font being 0. The variable fonthi can be set to N for Normal text, B for Bold
text or I for Italic text.

Clicking Menu over OvTools' icon bar icon opens a menu containing Save and Reset options. Save will make the current layout and orientation of the OvTools window the default ones, while Reset will reset all settings to their defaults.


 Copyright RISC User 1994
