Podcast Autocue - User Tutorial

Podcast Autocue Users' Manual is intended for use primarily by the Autocue reader, who are the End-Users of this software. It is expected that the reader are familiar with the basics of Windows software usage; however it is not a pre-requisite

2. Understanding Podcast Autocue

The Basic Function of Podcast Autocue software is to provide a smooth scrolling text to the reader, who can feed the required text, set an appropriate speed and other settings, and then start the Autocue, so that it can keep scrolling the text without any more interaction from the user.

With Podcast Autocue, you can do the following:

- Edit Text by writing your own or reading from a File

- Scroll the text automatically

- Adjust the scrolling Speed, Direction, Window Size & Line Size

- Scroll the text manually

- Set Markers, Jump to Marker, Remove Markers

- Adjust Font Type, Size, Color, Background Color and Line Color

3. Starting Podcast Autocue

You can start Podcast Autocue by double-clicking on the “PodcastAutocue.exe” file, which is located in the “Podcast Autocue” folder, normally in C:\Program Files.

Alternatively, you can also start it by selecting the Programs \ Podcast Autocue \ Podcast Autocue item from the “Start” menu. You can also start it by clicking on the “Podcast Autocue” icon on the Quick-Launch menu, or by double-clicking on the icon on your Desktop.

On starting the Autocue, you will see the following screen, which is the Main Screen of Podcast Autocue:

Figure 1 : Main Screen

Before moving into further details about the program let's get familiar with the User Interface of the Main Screen.

The main screen as shown in the figure above contains the following parts:

1. The Window Title, which is used for Application control by all Windows applications, and displays the application name “Podcast Autocue”

2. The Main text area, which displays the Autocue text and through which the text will scroll in the Autocue mode.

3. The Reader Line, which is a transparent horizontal bar, placed floating over the Main text area.

4. The Speed and Direction control panel, which is right below the Main text area.

5. The Toolbar, which contains the buttons for performing all the application functions, it's placed at the bottom on the window. This is what the toolbar looks like:

Figure 2 : Toolbar

4. Editing Text

You can edit the Text that you want to scroll through the Autocue by clicking on the “Edit Text” button on the toolbar. This will show the “Edit Text” window as shown in the figure below:

Figure 3 : Editing Text

As shown in the figure, there is a Text Area, where you can type the text that you want to scroll through the Autocue. Just below the Text area, there are five buttons- “Open File”, “Save”, “Clear”, “Cancel” and “Done”. The usage of Edit Text window and the functions of each button are described below.

4.1 Typing Text

As shown in the example above, you can type any text that you want to scroll through the Autocue, into the Text Area in the “Edit Text” window. After you have completed entering the text, just click on the “Done” button and this window will go away, and the Autocue window will appear with the new text that you just entered. In case, if you want to cancel your changes, just click on the “Cancel” button, the previous text will be restored.

After doing this, if you want to change the text again, you may click on the “Edit Text” toolbar button again, this time the “Edit Text” window will appear with the old text that you entered. You may make changes to this text, or remove the old text all together by clicking on the “Clear” button, and re-enter the text from beginning.

4.2 Reading Text from File

Alternatively, you may want to read the text from a text file or a word document instead of entering it manually. This can be done by clicking on the “Open File” button, which shows the “Open File” Window as shown in the figure below:

Figure 4 : Opening File

This will display the standard windows “File Selection” dialog, from where you can select any text file or word document on any of your drives, and then click on “Open” button. This will read the entire file that you selected, and then display it in the Main Text area of the “Edit Text” window. Just in case you want to make changes to this text fetched from the file, you may do so in the Main text area by just typing in there.

4.3 Saving Text to File

In case that you made any changes to the text fetched from a file, you may want to save this new text to a file. Also, if you did not fetch the text from a file, but typed it all in manually, you may want to save it for future use. You can do this easily by clicking on the “Save” button, which will show the standard Windows “Save File” dialog, where you can specify the file name and path and the text will be saved into the file.

4.4 Clearing Text

If you want to remove all the old text and start entering text afresh, then you can do this by clicking on the “Clear” button. It will clear the Main Text area.

5. Running the Autocue

After the Text has been entered, you are all set to start with running the Autocue. The figure below shows a sample of screen running in a Autocue mode:

Figure 5 : Autocue Mode

While running the Autocue, you might want to perform certain functions like starting or stopping the Autocue, adjust the window size, adjust the speed or direction, adjust the reader line, manually navigate up or down the document, or view progress of the current document. The following sections explain how to perform these functions.

5.1 Switching the Autocue Mode

You can easily switch the Autocue Mode to On or Off by just clicking on the “Start” and the “Stop” buttons on the Toolbar. Alternatively, you may also use the keyboard short-cut keys “F3” or “Spacebar” to do just the same thing.

In “Autocue On” mode, the document will keep scrolling, whereas in the “Autocue Stop” mode, it will stop at the current position. When again switched to the “Autocue On” mode, it will resume scrolling from the current stopped position. At all the times, you can view the current position / progress of the document scrolled, which is explained in the section below.

Also, you may want to stop the current scrolling altogether, and re-start from the beginning. For doing this, just click the “Reset” button on toolbar, or use the short-cut keys “Backspace” or “F4”. This will reset the current position to the start of the document.

5.2 Adjusting the Window Size

At any time while using Podcast Autocue, you may want to have the Autocue window size to be Full Screen or to be any other smaller size, whichever is convenient to the user.

You can do this easily by using the standard windows Control box on the top-right corner of the Window. Once the window is normal-size, you can re-size it to fine sizes by clicking and dragging on the Window Borders with your mouse. An example of a randomly sized normal size Autocue window is shown in the figure below:

Figure 6 : Normal Size Window

On the other hand, you might want to switch the window to the Full Screen view, covering the entire screen. You can do this by clicking on the Maximize button on standard windows Control box on the top-right corner of the Autocue window.

Also, at times you might want to occupy the entire screen by the Main Body text for the Reader's convenience, and hence might want to hide even the Toolbar and the other controls temporarily. For doing this, use the “Full Screen” toolbar button, or use the keyboard short-cut keys “F9” or “Enter”. This will switch the display to the Full Screen, displaying only the Scrolling Window and hide all other controls out of the view. A typical Full Screen window looks like as shown in the figure below:

Figure 7 : Full Screen Window

To return back to the normal view, press any key on the keyboard or single-click with the mouse. You will return to the previous window state, which was just before going Full Screen.

5.3 Adjusting the Reader Line

The Autocue Reader has to focus on a single line at a time. To help this, a reader line has been added to the Scrolling Window. This line is a transparent horizontal line and hovers over the Scrolling Window.

To suit your requirements, you may want to adjust this Reader line every time you start the Autocue, or from time to time. You can do this easily by just clicking on the extreme left part of this line and clicking and dragging with your mouse toward up or down direction, wherever you want to place it on the Scrolling screen.

You can also re-size the height of this line by moving the mouse at the extreme left part of the line and then on the bottom border, so that you can see your mouse-pointer change into up-down arrows. Once there, you can click and drag with you mouse toward up or down direction, depending on whether you want to increase or decrease the height of the line. After you have dropped it, the line will get resized to your desired size.

5.4 Adjusting the Autocue Speed

While running the Autocue, different users will prefer to have different scrolling speed. This speed can be adjusted by using the Speed control, which is shown in the figure below:

Figure 8 : Speed and Direction

As shown in the figure, there are 15 available speeds for scrolling, starting from the slowest, at the extreme left to the fastest, at the extreme right. You can increase or decrease the speed by clicking and dragging the slider to left or right. You can also use the keyboard keys “Left Arrow” or “Right Arrow” for doing this. The current speed is shown by the Pointer placed over one of the fifteen points of the scale.

Sometimes, you may want to scroll in the reverse direction too for verification or any other purpose. You can switch the scrolling direction by clicking on the “Up” and “Down” direction buttons, shown in the figure. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts “Ctrl+Up” or “Ctrl+Down” for doing this.

5.5 Monitoring the Progress

At any time while the Autocue is running, you might want to see the current status of the Document, that is, the percentage scrolled and the remaining and the estimated time to get to the end of the document.

You can do this by viewing the Progress bar, which is shown in the figure below:

Figure 9 : Progress Bar

The Progress bar shows the percentage completed in the blue color and the percentage remaining in the transparent color.

Also, just below the progress bar on the left side, you can see the estimated time left to scroll to the end of the document with the current set speed.

At the right side below the progress bar, you can see the total number of words in the current document, which gives an idea about the approximate size of the document, irrespective of the speed.

5.6 Navigating through the Text

At any time, whether the Autocue is in “On” mode or “Stop” mode, you can navigate to the current document to get to a specific part of the document.

You can do this conveniently using the scrolling wheel on the mouse, or by using the keyboard shortcuts. These are the keyboard short cuts used for navigation:

Up-Arrow for small scroll up
Down-Arrow for small scroll down
Page-Up for large scroll up
Page-Down for large scroll down
Home for scroll top
End for scroll bottom

6. Using Markers

For specific purpose, you may want to mark areas of text within the current document. You can do this by using the Marking functions. You can add a marker, Jump to a marked text, Remove a marker or Remove all the markers altogether. You can also have multiple markers at a time. The following sections explain how to use the marking functions.

6.1 Marking Text

To mark a particular area of the document, do this. Just scroll to the desired part, and click on the “Mark” tool bar button, or use the keyboard shortcut “F5”. This will display the marking screen as shown in the figure below:

Figure 10 : Marking Text

As shown in the figure, there are two buttons appeared just below the Main screen. Click and drag with the mouse over the text to select the desired part of text, and click on the “Mark” button. This will mark the selected part of text into the Markers list.

Click on the “Cancel” button if you don't want to mark, and return to the normal mode.

6.2 Jumping to a Marked Text

After the text parts have been marked, you may Jump to any of the markers, by clicking on the “Jump To” toolbar button, or by using the keyboard short-cut “F6”. This will display the “Select Marker” window, as shown in the figure below:

Figure 11 : Jumping to a Marker

Select the marker which you want to Jump to, by just double clicking on in from the list. Or, click on the marker and then click on the “Jump to” button. This will scroll the current document over to the area of that marker.

If you want to cancel the operation, click on the “Cancel” button.

6.3 Unmarking Text

To remove a particular marker from the markers, list use the “Unmark” function. You can do this by clicking on the “Unmark” toolbar button or the keyboard short-cut “F7”. This will again display the “Select Marker” window, this time to unmark a particular text area:

Figure 12 : Unmarking

Select the marker which you want to remove, by just double clicking on in from the list. Or, click on the marker and then click on the “Unmark” button. This will remove the selected marker.

If you want to cancel the operation, click on the “Cancel” button.

6.4 Clearing Markers

You may remove all the current markers altogether by using the “Clear All” function. You can do this by clicking on the “Clear All” toolbar button, or by using the keyboard shortcut “F8”. It will remove all the markers for the current document

7. Setting Options

You can alter your Podcast Autocue settings as per your preferences or requirements at any time. The settings that you can change are the Font Size, Font type, Font color, Background color, Line Color, the Font attributes like Bold, Italic, Underline and Strikethrough.

For changing the settings, just click on the “Options” toolbar button, or use the keyboard shortcut “F10”. It will display the Options window, as shown in the figure below:

Figure 13 : Setting Options

As shown in the figure, there is a Preview Text Area, which shows the preview of the settings that you have just changed.

Below the Preview Box, there is a “Font” button. By clicking on this button, it will show you the standard windows Font selection Box, which allows you to select the Font Type, Font Size, Font Color, Font Attributes like Bold, Italic, Underline and Strikethrough.

Next to the “Font” button, is the “Back Color” button. By clicking on this button, it will show you the standard windows Color selection Box, which allows you to select the Background color of the window.

Next to the “Back Color” button, is the “Line Color” button. By clicking on this button, it will show you the standard windows Color selection Box, which allows you to select the color of the Reader line.

After you have changed the settings as per your preference, you may save these settings by clicking on the “OK” button, just below the function buttons. These settings will be saved permanently on you computer, so that next time, when you open the Autocue, you will get the exact settings that you saved the last time, so that every time you don't have to alter these settings.

If you do not want to save these settings, click on the “Cancel” button, you will get the last saved settings.

8. Using Keyboard Shortcuts

For ease of use, Podcast Autocue provides facility of using both Keyboard and Mouse at the same time. If you are more comfortable using the keyboard, use the keyboard shortcuts provided for all the functions of the Autocue. The table below shows a list of all the functions and their respective keyboard shortcut for using in Podcast Autocue application.

Function	Short-cut Key
Autocue Start	Space, F3
Autocue Stop	Space, F3
Autocue Reset	Backspace, F4
Scroll Up	Up-Arrow
Scroll Down	Down-Arrow
Scroll Up Big	Page-Up
Scroll Down Big	Page-Down
Scroll Top	Home
Scroll Bottom	End
Direction Up	Ctrl+Up
Direction Down	Ctrl+Down
Speed Up	Right-Arrow
Speed Down	Left-Arrow
Help	F1
Edit Text	F2
Mark	F5
Jump to Marker	F6
Unmark	F7
Clear All Markers	F8
Full Screen On	Enter, F9
Full Screen Off	Enter, F9
Options	F10
Exit	Escape, Alt+F4

9. Getting Help

At any time, you may want to get help about the usage of the Autocue software. You can do this easily by clicking on the “Help” button on the toolbar or by pressing the “F1” key. This will open up the Internet Browser and will take you to this page on the website where you can get all the help needed.

If you are still having problems, contact Podcast Autocue support here:

http://www.365admin.com/helpdesk

and someone will get back to you.

10. Closing Podcast Autocue

Finally, when you are done using Podcast Autocue, you can close the autocue window by clicking on the “Exit” button on the toolbar. You can also use the “Escape” key for doing this. This will close the Autocue window.

Direct Info Publishing
489b Sutton Road, Southend-on-Sea, Essex. SS2 5PL. UK.
Questions: http://www.365admin.com/helpdesk
Phone Within UK: 0870 199 7896 - Outside UK: +44 870 199 7896
Business Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm GMT

Podcast Autocue - User Tutorial

1. Who Should Read this Manual

Direct Info Publishing 489b Sutton Road, Southend-on-Sea, Essex. SS2 5PL. UK. Questions: http://www.365admin.com/helpdesk Phone Within UK: 0870 199 7896 - Outside UK: +44 870 199 7896 Business Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm GMT

Direct Info Publishing
489b Sutton Road, Southend-on-Sea, Essex. SS2 5PL. UK.
Questions: http://www.365admin.com/helpdesk
Phone Within UK: 0870 199 7896 - Outside UK: +44 870 199 7896
Business Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm GMT