The fabled tutorial thread on ViewingDale

[Redrobes]

On the website there is a download under the support menu for "Versions and Patches". The download gets you a zip file and within is an installer. You can run the installer out of the zip if you want to. It will install a new directory under the main viewingdale install directory called VersionControl. It will probably have put an icon on the desktop which looks like a band aid sticky plaster.

Ensure the app is closed, run the plaster icon by clicking on it. Or go into the VersionControl dir and run the ViewingDalePatcher.exe.

It will analyze what you have and find suitable patches for it and move your app up versions until it gets to the latest. It stores the old set in a directory so you can revert back if need be. It may add extra applications for you too as and when they get developed.

Once finished you can run up the main app and hit the big Menu button and then "About ViewingDale" and it will tell you what version you are running.

Since version 1.03 there exists an x86 and an x64 version of the app. The x86 is the normal 32 bit standard version. The x64 looks and feels exactly the same but is complied for native 64 bit OS'es like XPx64, Vista64 and Windows7 64bit. My recommendation is if your not sure then use the normal 32 bit app but the 64 bit one on 64 bit machines is slightly better only in the increase in memory capability when saving huge bitmaps. Otherwise its exactly the same.

[Redrobes]

Moving the mouse you will see that most of the time its in the shape of a cross. If you click with the left button then it centers the page on that point. With the right button it grabs the page and slides it around changing the cursor to a hand shape. If you move the cursor over a hot spot circle then it will change to a pointer. When you click with the left button the type of hot spot does different things. Ones with an arrow in like those on the index page are jumps to new map pages. If you click inside the one for the introduction to basic features then it takes you to a new page. Also you will see that a new box appears in the top right corner. This is the jump stack and shows where you have come from.

You need to know how to move around using keys too. The cursor keys pan and the Page Up / Page Down buttons zoom. The Home key centers the page to fit. The backspace key jumps you back up the jump stack - i.e. taking you to the previous map shown. It puts you at the position and zoom that you were at when you jumped from that map.

With the boxed set you get a laminated card showing all the keys. Actually there are a few more than this now that its progressed a few more versions.

As stated on the image the mouse wheel does zoom too. Another tip is that clicking with the mouse inside the jump stack can take you back to any previous map instead of using the backspace button multiple times.

As you pan and zoom you will see the title bar change its position and scale. The position is in the current units which I will talk about later but it starts in meters. The scale is shown as though you are at 1:X i.e. when it says 60 thats 1:60 scale. Or say 1 inch on screen = 60 inches in map which is 1 inch = 5ft map scale. If you have calibrated your app to the monitor as discussed in the previous message then the scale is real. I.e. if it says 1:1 then what you see on the screen is actual size.