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Tutorial



Comments welcome ...

=== begin Tutorial ===
#
# OSMIC Tutorial $Id: Tutorial,v 1.2 1998/06/16 07:29:14 gossamer Exp gossamer $
#
# Originally written by Ken'ichi Unnai <cloud@xxxxxxxxxx>
# Updated by Bek Oberin <gossamer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
#
# Copyright as for the OSMIC program itself
#
# $Log: Tutorial,v $
# Revision 1.2  1998/06/16 07:29:14  gossamer
# Finished, first draft
#
#


Precursor

   This tutorial assumes you have read the Xanadu OSMIC paper
   available at <URL:http://www.xanadu.net/xanadu/OSMIC/>.  Don't
   worry if you don't completely understand it - it's difficult to
   understand OSMIC until you try it.  This tutorial shows you how to
   try it.

   You should also have installed OSMIC (see the INSTALL file for
   instructions) and read the README file that comes with this package
   before you start.

The Basics
   In the OSMIC universe, there are only four things you can do with data:
      - Insert it (add it to the document and hence to the Primedia
      stream)

      - Delete it (remove it from the document, it remains in the
      Primedia stream, just not referenced)

      - Transclude ('quote' a section of primedia from elsewhere)

      - Rearrange (change the order of some of the text in the document)

   These are easiest to explain by example.


Insertion
   To insert, simply type something!  The insert operation ends when
   you press any of the arrow keys, so the insertion can be as short
   or long as you want.

   You'll see the new pointer appear in the small window at the bottom
   of the screen when you end the insert.  This is tells you which
   piece of the Primedia stores what you just typed.


Deletion
   Because nothing is ever deleted  from the Primedia, deleting
   something from your document just means changing some of the
   pointers in the small window down the bottom.

   First, position the cursor an the first character of the material
   you want to delete.  Press the tab key -once-.  See the '*' appear
   in the bottom window?  That's the first marker.  Now move the
   cursor to the end and press the tab key again - another '*' will
   appear (this is called splitting pointers, by the way).  These two
   mark your pointers, now press control-D to delete what's between
   them.


Transclusion
   Transclusion is just a way to insert Primedia pointers.  Currently,
   you can only insert pointers within the same document, but this is
   a limitation of the implementation, not OSMIC itself!

   Firstly, use the tab key to split pointers surrounding an area just
   as you did for delete - so you have the two '*' characters in the
   bottom window.  Then position the cursor (without pressing tab) to
   the position where you want to insert the material and press
   control-T to transclude.

   When you just look at the top screen, it will look like copied
   text, but if you look down the bottom you can see that it's just
   the pointers that have changed.

   Try editing the text inside the transcluded area - what happens to
   the origin site?


Rearrangement
   Rearrange is a simple way to swap the pointers.  For example
   (vertical bars indicate the markers):

      This text |will be rearranged.     ->  will be rearranged. |This text
      This text |will be |rearranged.    ->  rearranged. |will be |This text
      This |text |will be |rearranged.   ->  This |will be |text |rearranged.
      This |text |will |be |rearranged.  ->  This |be |will |text |rearranged.

   First split as many pointers you like (with the tab key, as before)
   then press control-R to do the swapping.


Misc
   You can see the current document edit state, using hypertime map,
   when you press control-M.

=== end Tutorial ===

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