button to display the context help cursor, then left click the item you want help on, including the tool bar buttons, menus, commands, views, etc.Even if you are already familiar with Windows, the following tips may be just what you need to help you get the most out of Traverse PC.
Press F1 from any view, dialog box or while an item is highlighted in a menu to display help on the highlighted or active item. This provides an instant way to get help with whatever you are doing.
Left click the button to display the context help cursor, then left click the item you want help on, including the tool bar buttons, menus, commands, views, etc.
Definition: Press and release the left mouse button.
Left-click a menu command or tool bar button to activate the command.
Definition: Press and release the left mouse button twice in succession.
Double-click an item in a view to open that item. Double-clicking a traverse name in the Traverses Manager opens the Traverse View for the traverse name you double-clicked.
Definition: Press and release the right mouse button.
Right-click anywhere in a view to display the context menu for that view.
Right-click any object in Drawing View to display the context menu for that object.
Right-click any button on a tool bar to customize the tool bar.
Right-click anywhere on a Drawing View drawing to end the current command.
Right-click any object in Drawing View and choose Properties on the context menu to edit the object.
If you have a wheel mouse, you can scroll up/down in any of the views using the mouse wheel. In Drawing View you can scroll up/down or zoom in/out using the wheel.
Definition: Press and release the mouse scroll wheel.
If you have a wheel mouse, you can click the wheel in the Drawing View to get a Windows panning icon. Move the mouse in any direction to pan the drawing and click the wheel again when you are done. The farther you move the mouse from the panning icon, the faster the Drawing View pans.
Definition: Press and hold the left mouse button over an object, drag the object to the new location by moving the mouse, then release the left mouse button.
Drag and drop any traverse in the Traverses Manager to change the order of traverses. The order of the traverses in the Traverses Manager affects how the Drawing View displays those traverses.
Drag and drop any object in a Drawing View drawing except survey lines and symbols that are fixed by their coordinates.
Definition: Hold the Control key (Ctrl) key on your keyboard while you drag and drop.
Ctrl + drag and drop the survey in Drawing View, placing it anywhere on the drawing page without changing the coordinates of the survey.
Left-click any menu at the top of the program window to pull down its commands. Left click the command you want to execute.
Highlight any menu command and press F1 for help on that command. Left click Related Topics in help for more information.
Definition: A context menu or pop-up menu is a floating menu that “pops-up” on the screen when you right-click something. It is called a context menu because its contents depend on what you right-click on. It is context sensitive.
Definition: A dialog box is a window that appears when you choose some commands. Dialog boxes are distinct from views in that you cannot click on anything else in TPC until the dialog box is closed.
Press F1 in any dialog box for help on the fields in the dialog. You can also left click the question mark (?) in the upper right of the dialog then click anywhere on the dialog for help.
Definition: A tool bar is made up of several shortcut buttons with icons or pictures on them. There may be one or more tool bars associated with a single view. Tool bars can be customized (add or remove buttons), turned on or off, and rearranged by the user.
Position the mouse cursor over a button for 1-2 seconds and TPC will display a “tool tip” that describes what the button does.
Left click any button to execute its related command.
Right click any button to edit the tool bar.
Press and hold the left mouse button on any tool bar button, then press F1 for help on the button and release the left mouse button.
Point the cursor at any blank spot on a tool bar (except in a button) and drag and drop the tool bar anywhere on the screen. Tool bars can float (appear in the middle of the screen) or be docked (attach to any side of the screen and run vertically or horizontally).
Definition: The status bar is a gray bar running horizontally across the bottom of Traverse PC. If you can’t find the status bar, right-click Traverse PC on the Windows task bar and choose Maximize on the context menu. You should now be able to see TPC’s status bar. The status bar is context sensitive and it will display information relative to active window, selected object, and cursor position.
When Drawing View is active, the status bar displays the name of the object under the mouse cursor.
Definition: You can have several programs open in Windows at any time. All of the programs can be busy performing various tasks at the same time (such as printing a document or saving a file). Only one of these programs can be the Active Program or Current Program at any time. The Active Program is the one that you, the user are currently interacting with. This means that when you are in Traverse PC and entering data in a traverse or working on a drawing, TPC is the Active Program. You may have other programs doing things in the background, but TPC is the Active Program until you activate a different program to work with.
Definition: Just as you can have several programs open at one time, you can have several windows or views open inside a program. Just like with the Active Program, only one window can be active at any time. This is the Active or Current Window or View. In TPC, it is important to know which view is active at any time because the active view can affect what happens in the other inactive views. For example, if the Traverse View is Active and the Drawing View is also displayed, the Drawing View is displaying a Temporary Drawing of the active Traverse View. If the Traverses Manager is the Active View, the Drawing View will display the traverses that are tagged in the Traverses Manager.
If you aren’t sure which view is the Active View, look at the top bar of the view. If the top bar of the view is the same color as the top bar of Traverse PC Desktop and if TPC is the Active Program, that view is the Active View. The normal Windows settings for these are Blue for the active program and view and Gray for inactive programs and views. The user can change these colors in the Windows settings so this is not a hard and fast rule.
To move a view, position the cursor over its title bar, press and hold the left mouse button, drag the cursor to the new location and release the left mouse button.
This is called drag-and-drop. You’ll use it often in TPC Desktop. If you have not done this before, it takes some getting used to, but is an important skill to learn.
In the example shown here, we moved the Points Manager nearer the center of the desktop.
If a view isn’t large enough to show all the data (points, traverses, drawing, etc) TPC scrolls the data within the view. If you have used Windows before, you are familiar with the way your word processor scrolls the text of a large document.
Sometimes, however, you want to see more of the data. If so, you can resize the view.
Position the cursor over a corner of the view until the cursor changes to a diagonal line with arrows at both ends.
Drag-and-drop that corner of the view. This resizes the view.
You may need to move the view and resize it again to get the size and position you want for the view.
Here we’ve resized the Points Manager, making it taller and narrower, so it can show more points at once.
Saves the current survey under the current survey file name. Changes you make to the survey are made in memory only until you save the file. If you close the program or file without saving it, your changes will be lost when you reopen the file.
Allows you to specify a new file name for the current survey. This is a good way to create copies of a project at various points in the process. For example, you can do a Save As at the end of each day and add letters or numbers at the end of the filename so that if something happens to a file one day, you can always go back to the previous day’s file.
Opens an existing survey file and loads the survey into program memory. TPC works with only one survey at a time but you can have multiple copies of TPC running with different files in memory. Only one of the copies of TPC (hence only one file) can be active at any time.
In Drawing View, selecting items marks them for the next operation (hiding, deleting, copying, etc.). You can select as many items as you want, then execute a command on any one of the selected items. You select/unselect items by double clicking them or choose the Tools | Select Objects command and left click an object to select/unselect it.
To select individual items in a view (points in the Points Manager, traverses in the Traverses Manager, etc), left click the first item, then hold down the Ctrl key and left click any additional items you want selected. Selected items remain highlighted. Ctrl + Left-click selects/unselects individual objects or items.
To select a range of items in a view (points in the Points Manager, traverses in the Traverses Manager, etc), left click the first item, then hold down the Shift key and left click the last item. The two items, along with every item between them will be selected. Shift + Left-click selects a continuous range of objects or items.
Tagging an item in a view places a check mark in the tag box in the first column. Tags are persistent (don't change until you change them) and provide another method, besides selecting items, to operate on a group of items.
To tag an item or group of items, select them and then choose Edit | Set Tag or press the F8 key on your keyboard. You can also tag all items in a view by choosing Edit | Set All Tags.
Un-tagging an item in a view removes the check mark in the tag box in the first column. Tags are persistent (don't change until you change them) and provide another method, besides selecting items, to operate on a group of items.
To un-tag an item or group of items, select them and then choose Edit | Clear Tag or press Shift + F8 key on your keyboard. You can also un-tag all items in a view by choosing Edit | Clear all Tags or by pressing Ctrl + F8 on your keyboard.
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