                           Shades of WordStar
                   Some WordStar Interfile Techniques
                     by Dick Ezzard [KAY*FOG RBBS]

Okay, many of the newer, more elaborate word processing programs boast a
"windows" feature.  Windowing allows you look at two (or more) files
simultaneously, work in either or both, yet maintain separate identities
for filing on the disk.

While WordStar does not have a specific windowing capability, ingenuity
lets you achieve the same logical effects with an "almost windows"
facility I'll call "Window Shades".  Shades technique has the
metaphorical effect of (while working in a main file) pulling down a
shade with a message written on it (such as your outline).  You can look
at the outline, then snap the shade back up out of the way and go back
to working in your regular window.

Shades starts with WordStar's regular ^Kr command which will bring any
other file into the file you are working in.  The simple ^Kr file read
command, however, once executed does not differentiate between the stuff
that belongs to the file you are working in and the material you have
brought over from the other file.  It may be bothersome to have
extraneous bits and pieces of the outline "welded" into your text where
it is hard to strip out again.

The technique part involves thinking ahead, to be prepared for what you
will want to do later, which is erase!  The solution is to bring the
extraneous matter in as a marked block.  Then you can easily see on the
screen what is the out line you are referring to and what is your text
file.  And as soon as you have glanced at the outline, you can erase it
with a ^Ky and go back to what you were doing.  So you want to pull your
shade down as a segregated marked block.

To do that, you pre-mark a tiny block into which you read the reference
file.  Use ^Kb, <return>, ^Kk, ^Qb (puts cursor into the currently
marked block) and then do ^Kr to bring in your reference material.  It
comes in already marked as a block.  When you are done looking at it,
^Ky snaps the shade back up by erasing it in the file in which you are
currently working.  (It still exists for repeated reference in its own
file and you can glance at it again anytime by just repeating the
operation.)

The technique involved is first to always keep the outline of your
current project in a file called O.  And secondly, because you will just
want to glance at it momentarily, you bring the shade down prepared for
easy erasure by pre-marking the block.

You can also, of course, write notes out to another file.  Let's say
that your application requires that you keep a separate set of footnotes
or endnotes to each chapter.  As you are writing along, you write a note
or a citation which has to be sent to the endnote file.

In this case, you write some thing to be included in the "shade" which
gets pulled down and snapped up automatically.  The technique:

1) Write your note wherever you happen to be in the current text file.

2) Do ^Kb to mark the beginning of the note, then immediately hit
<return> to push the note down one line.  Go to the end of your note,
hit <return> and mark ^Kk (block end).  Your note is now con figured as
a block with a blank line at the top, and a line ending included at the
bottom.

3) ^Qb puts the cursor at the top of the note on that blank line.

4) Read in your note file, ^Kr (it comes "into" the block) and
immediately write it back out again.  That's Kw back to the same
filename, and Y for yes to overwrite that file.

5) ^Ky to erase the block in your text file, away goes the note.

In conclusion, although WordStar has no separate windows, ingenuity
will allow most people to get along with pull down "shades" to glance at
other files.  Perhaps the most important thing to be learned from this
is that when working with WordStar you should AVOID FILE FOCUS.  Don't
get stuck in the habit of working on the tail end of only one file at a
time.  There are many techniques that allow you to work in several files
simultaneously, and if you break typewriter tunnel vision habits, you
can work all over your system, writing to several files on any disk in
any one session.
