Tips for Novices ... continued

Common errors.
Often, a beginner who is trying to find a particular letter will drive the display forwards fast while hunting for the letter. The rule of the road for Dasher users is just like that for car-drivers: don't drive forwards until you have identified where you want to go! So, after you have found the first letter of your sentence, and zoomed towards it, please SLOW DOWN and don't proceed any further into this first letter's square until you have figured out where you should be steering towards. Your next letter *is* there, immediately inside the first square you have entered. The letters are ordered alphabetically. If you can't see your letter, figure out where it must be on the basis of the letters you can see. Then point to the right place and enter the second letter's square.

What do the colours mean?
In the English-language desktop version of Dasher, white squares contain the space characters; the other colours are included simply to discriminate the squares from each other.
In the pocketPC and Japanese versions of Dasher, some colours may carry additional meanings.

Summary:
Don't click. Don't drag. And don't speed.

How to start dasher

• Windows: When you have installed Dasher 1.6.8 on a PC, set the dasher application running; when the dasher window comes up, either click the left mouse button or press the space bar to set it going. [One of these two will work.] Repeat this action (click or space), when you are finished, to stop dasher from dashing. Your computer's mouse controls Dasher.
• Linux: When you have installed Dasher 1.6.8 on a PC, CHANGE INTO THE SAME DIRECTORY where the executable dasher is located, and set it running by typing dasher. [Do not run dasher from any other location, or it will fail to find the training files.] When the dasher window comes up, either click the left mouse button or press the space bar to set it going. [One of these two will work.] Repeat this action (click or space), when you are finished, to stop dasher from dashing. Your computer's mouse controls Dasher.
• Pocket PC: Install, run (wait a few seconds for it to load up the training file), then touch the screen with the stylus to make dasher move.

  Users of the pocketPC version of Dasher should read these additional tips.

Next steps
Don't press the "Experiment" menu. The "File" and "Configure" Menus are worth playing with. Once you have passed the novice stage, if you find Dasher1.6.8 is moving too slow for you, please select Configure->Options and increase the Maxbitrate parameter.

Please send us feedback by one of the 3 methods listed here. The source code will be released under an Open Source license in late Summer 2002.

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