Creating a manual (a step-by-step primer)

     Included in this section is a basic, step-by-step procedure that can be
used to create a manual from scratch.  This is based on personal experience of 
the easiest method and is not required by any means.  

     Before you start, you should probably create a new directory for the 
manual so it doesn't clutter up your current directory.

%SECTION%Plan the sections

     The first step in creating a manual is to plan out exactly what you want
to say, in a general order.  This is usually accomplished by creating a rough
draft of your SECTIONS.CFG file and putting verbose (maybe) comments for each 
file:

; Section Order
; legal stuff
LEGAL.TXT
; introduction
INTRO.TXT
; MANUAL.CFG and header.cfg
FORMAT.TXT
; creating an entry
ENTRIES.TXT
; sections.cfg - "tying it all together?"
SECTIONS.TXT
; how to create a manual (step-by-step?)
CREATE.TXT
; how to contact 
CONTACT.TXT

     Once you've drafted up this file, you can move on to the next step of
the process: writing the sections.

%SECTION%Writing the sections

     Since you've most likely decided what you want to say in each section,
you can start to write them up.  This may involve a bit of adlib writing which
can always be modified later.  If you ever want to take a quick peek at what 
the manual looks like at that point, you should create a blank HEADER.CFG 
file and use a MANUAL.CFG file somewhat akin to this:

MANUAL.CFG:
ContentsIndent = 1
ContentsLines = 1
LinesPerPage = 60
Paginate = 1
---

//ContentsMessage

 Table of contents


//ContentsTopic
%CONTENTNUM% %CONTENTNAME%
//Section

 %SECTIONNUM% %SECTIONNAME%

//Subtopic
 %SUBNUM% %SUBNAME%
//PageHeader
//PageFooter
---

     After this step is completed, you can now go over your sections quickly, 
revise them to suit your taste and then move on to step 3.

%SECTION%Aesthetics

     The third and final step in creating a manual is adding the nice little
garnishes that make it pleasant to read.  This will usually involve creating
a quaint header (in TheDraw, which is ideal for this task) and editing the
MANUAL.CFG file to your taste.  Most likely, you'll want to leave the TOC and
subtopic formats alone, but change the TOC message, the section headers and
the page headers/footers.  Here are a few suggestions for each:

ContentsMessage:


 Table of contents


  - Something like this is short and to the point.  You'll want to change the
    style of the "Table of contents" to resemble your section headers (for 
    eye-pleasing reasons).

Section:


 %SECTIONNUM% %SECTIONNAME%


  - Small, but effective.

 %CENTER%

 %CENTER%%SECTIONNUM% - %SECTIONNAME%

 %CENTER%

  - Large and quite effective.  Separates sections quite easily.

Page Header: (most work the best when centered)

 %CENTER%<programname> v1.00
 

  - An ad to go at the top of every page.  It's better to put in the footer
    though.

 %CENTER%Page: %PAGE%
 -or-
 %CENTER%%PAGE%

  - Gives the page number at the top.  Looks nice sometimes.

Page Footer: (most work the best when centered)

 
 %CENTER%<programname> v1.00

  - An ad to go at the bottom of every page.  Looks good even without the
    %CENTER% token.

 %CENTER%Page: %PAGE%
 -or-
 %CENTER%%PAGE%

  - Gives the page number at the bottom.  Looks nice.

 %CENTER%<programname> v1.00 - Page %PAGE%

  - Gives an ad and the page number.  Effective and neat.  :)

     After these options have been modified, compile your manual, take a look
at it and fix anything you don't like.  Once you've compiled it and can't find
anything wrong, it's probably finished.
