FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ASG Announces Commander Pro 3.1.3 for Macintosh and Windows
Huntington Beach, CA – August 28, 2000: Automated Solutions Group today
announced Commander 3.1.3 for Macintosh and Windows, an engine for
displaying help and/or reference information from Golden Micro Solutions,
Ltd. The application doubles as a system to help you manage your clippings,
text files, graphic files, and read me files (Pro version only)
Commander is used to access reference information stored in separate
Command Set files. This information may take the form of Help topics,
programming language reference information, tutorial steps and so on.
Commander Pro is designed to allow you to relatively easily produce
reference and/or index type electronic documents. In many cases, once a
user is familiar with your software, he or she will rarely need to refer to
the documentation. When they do, using a tool such as Acrobat, or DocMaker
to locate the information is usually quite acceptable.
However, there are some situations, such as programming languages (e.g. 4th
Dimension, AppleScript, Hypercard), when the user may frequently refer to
the reference documentation (e.g. a Language Reference Manual). In most
cases this is to quickly double-check the use of a command, or to find a
small piece of information quickly.
This is the situation which Commander is designed for, and excels at. The
topic list at the left hand side of the window accepts type-ahead commands
(for example, type ‘k’ on the keyboard to view the first topics beginning
with that letter), meaning that specific topics can be found extremely
quickly, and without disrupting the user’s train of thought.
The “Pro” version of Commander allows you to create help files and organize
data contained in text files, text clippings, picture clippings, and
standard JPEG, GIF and PICT files by dropping any files of these types into
a folder within the Command Sets folder. Once in that folder they are
instantly accessible from within Commander, just as though the information
were contained in a command set file. Suddenly, dealing with, organizing,
renaming, deleting and keeping track of a million-and-one text clippings
becomes easy!
Commander ships with an example folder of these items so that the concept
is easy to see. See also the full on-line help within the application (in
the Help Menu).
New Features Include:
Commander 3.1 provides the ability to compile new command sets from a
folder full of text or clipping (MacOS) files. For those of you who’re not
keen to use HTML to create your command sets, this should be a welcome new
addition.
* Windows support added
* Added ability to change font styles and sizes for the displayed text
* New window splitter so topic list width can be changed.
* Added an AppleEvent mechanism so that other applications can query
Commander and either display the found topic, or return the start of the
topic text to the calling application.
* When switched into the background, the Commander Window can now be set to
automatically minimize.
* Added capability to print styled text, with multiple pages.
Other Features Include:
* HTML markup for the easy creation of new command set files. Use your
standard web creation tools to create source files for the Commander Pro
compiler.
* Freely distribute Freeware Command Sets to other Commander users
* Command-click URL’s in clipping and text files to start up your email
application or web browser.
* Store Command Set files in a separate “Command Sets” (a.k.a plug-ins)
folder.
* Capability to print individual topic information.
* Drag and drop text from Commander window to clipping files
* Copy and paste complete 4D forms, including object methods
* List and view the contents of text files, text clippings, picture
clippings and standard graphics files in other folders within the Command
Sets folder (home made command sets!)
* Detect double-clicks on http, ftp and email URL’s in text files and
clippings, and launch your email application or browser. Keep a “favorites”
list in your text clippings folder!
Note some of these features are not yet fully implemented in the Windows
version of Commander, but will be added over time, and free upgrades will
be made available.
Pricing and Availability Information
Commander 3.1.3 Viewer and 4D v3.5 Command Set………………….FREE
Commander Pro 3.1.3 (for Macintosh)……………………………$39.95
Commander Pro 3.1.3 (for Windows)……………………………..$39.95
4D v6.5.x Command Set Upgrade from 4D 3.5.x Command Sets or before..$39.95
4D v6.5.x Command Set Upgrade from 4D 6.0 Command Sets…………..$29.95
4D v6.5.x Command set ……………………………………….$49.95
4D v6.5.x Command set (for Mac and Win)………………………..$89.95
All upgrades and new purchases include a Commander Pro license (see the web
page below for more details).
All purchases made after August 28, 2000 will include a free upgrade to the
6.7 Command Sets when they are released.
International Users (outside the US & Canada), contact Golden Micro
directly at:
Golden Micro Solutions Ltd.
P.O. Box 590, Blenheim, NEW ZEALAND
Fax: +64-3-578-8227
e-mail: support@golden.co.nz
web: http://www.golden.co.nz/goldenmicro/gensoftware/commander.html
About Automated Solutions Group
Based in Huntington Beach, California, Automated Solutions Group provides
software development and consulting services. Founded in 1989, Automated
Solutions Group develops and supports a wide variety of software
development tools to aid in the creation of custom applications for the
Macintosh and Windows platforms.
For more information, please visit our home page at http://www.asgsoft.com
or contact the sales office in your area.