Brief Tour

THE COMMAND AREA

The Command Area occupies the bottom four lines of the screen, the first and last of which are highlighted. This area contains information about ThinkTank commands and about the status of the program. When you first load an outline into ThinkTank, the top line of the Command Area contains the name and version number of the program. The remaining lines suggest actions you can take at this point. As shown in Figure 3—1, they say that you can use the arrow keys to move the bar cursor, you can press the slash (“/”) key to display the “Command Menu”; and you can press ESC to exit from the program. This represents the Top Level of the program, where ThinkTank is simply waiting for you to tell it what to do.

COMMAND MENUS

The Main Command Menu

Press the slash (“/”) key. The initial instructions in the Command Area are replaced by the Main Command Menu shown in Figure 3—3. This display is called a menu because, like a menu in a restaurant, it contains a list of choices: EXPAND, COLLAPSE, NEW, and so on. The menu itself is displayed in the middle two lines of the Command Area, and one item (in this case, EXPAND) is highlighted by a pointer —— the menu cursor. The top line of the Command Area identifies the menu, while the bottom line (the explanation line) contains a brief explanation of the highlighted option. In this case, it says that the EXPAND option will REVEAL HIDDEN TEXT under the bar cursor headline.

When a command menu is displayed, the right and left arrow keys no longer move the bar cursor; they move the menu cursor. As you try this, notice how the explanation line changes to describe each new command. You can use this feature of ThinkTank to teach yourself about almost all of its commands. (These brief explanations are also included on the ThinkTank reference card.) The space bar moves the menu cursor from one line of the menu to the other. Once you have moved the cursor to the command you want, you can press its command key to execute it.

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