Screen Power Braille and Lotus 1-2-3

We have provided a special Lotus 1-2-3 environment file with Screen Power
Braille.  The environment file 123.SPB in your Screen Power Braille
directory, has comprehensive settings for Lotus 1-2-3.  These settings
feature  many special Screen Power capabilities, such as hotkeys, windows,
monitors, and macros.  The 123.SPB environment has been created and tested
with versions 2.01 through 2.4.  All you need to do is load the environment
prior to entering Lotus.  See instructions for loading environments in your
Screen Power Braille manual. There is a quick reference list for the Hotkeys 
defined in this environment included at the end of this document. 

The Lotus environment includes several hotkeys.  Some of the hotkeys activate
windows or monitors.  Some activate macros that, in turn, activate other
macros.  We will not describe the contents or format of these hotkeys,
windows, monitors, and macros.  Instead, we will focus only on describing
what the Lotus 1-2-3 functions will do when the 123.SPB environment is
operational.  At times there will be brief descriptions of Lotus commands and
how they behave on the screen.  This document is not a tutorial in Lotus,
therefore we recommend you refer to a Lotus 1-2-3 manual for details on using
Lotus. 


Movement From Cell to Cell

When you use the arrow keys to move from cell to cell, you usually need to
know two things: (1) what cell you moved to, and (2) the cell contents. 
Using hotkeys, monitors, and macros, the Lotus environment does just that. 
Every time you move to a new cell, Screen Power Braille displays the cell
contents at the left edge of the braille display.  Displaying the highlighted
contents at the left edge provides a convenient way to focus just on the
highlighted area and reduces the time necessary to locate a cursor under a
highlighted area.  You may, however, choose to track the system cursor
(rather than the highlighted cell) by pressing the ALT-CTRL-F8 key
combination.  This method of tracking will only remain in effect until you
use the Lotus menu, then it will be reset to the original tracking method.
     

Using the 1-2-3 Menu System

The Lotus 1-2-3 command to activate the main menu is the / (slash) key.  
When you press the / key, Lotus displays the main menu on row 2 of the
screen.  Lotus then highlights the first menu selection in row 2.  As you
move left and right through the menu selections items are highlighted by the
menu bar.  Row 3 contains the additional menu selections for each highlighted
item on row 2.  Pressing the enter key selects the highlighted item and
produces a sub-menu of choices relating to the selected item.  The new
choices are  then located on row 2 with added information about the currently 
highlighted item on row 3.  

When you activate the Lotus menu, the highlighted menu item on line 2 is
displayed at the left edge of the braille display.  When you move through the
menu choices using the left and right arrows, the current highlighted item is
displayed at the left edge.  

Reading the sub-menu or additional information on line 3, is done one of two
ways.  You can Press ALT-3 to move the braille display to the beginning of
row 3, or you can simply use the appropriate navigation keys to move the
braille display forward/down to the beginning of line 3.  Note, using ALT-3
is very efficient, but it deactivates the soft cursor tracking of the
highlighted item on line 2.  You must press ALT-2 again after you have read
the contents of line 3 using the ALT-3 hotkey.  The ALT-2 hotkey
re-establishes soft cursor tracking on line 2 where the menu bar resides.

Exiting the 1-2-3 menu system is done by pressing the ESC key until
all menu choices are gone from line 2 and 3.  At this point, Screen
Power Braille returns to the spreadsheet at the cell position from
where the menu system was first invoked.


Reading Cell Formulas, Contents, and Locations

You can read the formula or location of the current cell at any time by
pressing either ALT-5 or ALT-6.  Formulas and cell locations are displayed on
line one starting at the left edge.  Pressing either ALT-5 or ALT-6 moves the
braille display to line one and positions the braille display starting in
column 1.  This is a temporary display and is replaced by system cursor
tracking as soon a you move the cell pointer.

In order to return to the cell contents in the spreadsheet, press
ALT-7.  The ALT-7 key always moves the braille display to the
highlighted cell, thereby displaying the cell contents and enabling
soft cursor tracking, following the active cell.


Reading Mode, Status, and Error Indicators

Screen Power will automatically inform you whenever mode indicators, status
indicators, or error messages appear.  Mode indicators always appear in the
upper right corner of the screen, at the far right of line 1.  When you enter
the 1-2-3 menu by pressing the slash key, the mode indicator on line 1
displays the word "menu" at the far right.  When you are in the worksheet at
a specific cell, the mode indicator reads "ready".

Error messages appear either at the end of line 1 or at the beginning of line
25.  Status indicators appear on the right-hand half of row 25.  Much of this
depends on which version of Lotus you are using.

To read mode or error indicators at the end of row 1, press ALT-9.  To read
status indicators or error messages on row 25, press ALT-8.  Remember, these
hotkeys leave the braille display linked to the system cursor, ALT-7 returns
you to tracking the active highlighted cell in the worksheet. 

ALT-8 moves the braille display to the beginning of line 25.  To see the
status indicators, you can either press ALT-8 and then press braille
navigation keys to move the braille display to the right, or you can simply
press the CTRL-END key which automatically moves the display to the right
half of the bottom line of the active window.

The mode indicator is rarely displayed during normal operation.  The "WAIT"
message is 1 exception to this since it is helpful to see this during a delay
in 1-2-3 operations.  To see the mode indicator at any time, press ALT-9 and
the braille display will move to the right half of line one if you are using
a 40 cell system.  An eighty cell system will of course occupy the whole top
line of the screen.

When an error occurs, the mode indicator changes to "ERROR" and a
message box typically appears in the middle of the screen with Lotus 
Version 2.3 and 2.4 (other versions of Lotus will either put the error 
message itself on line 25 or a message referring to the Help services 
for further definition).  The Screen Power Braille Lotus environment
moves the braille display to the error mode indicator on line 1.  At 
that point, you can still use ALT-8 to read anything on the bottom line, 
ALT-9 to read the mode indicator on line one or ALT-CTRL-8 to read 
the pop-up message box in the middle of the screen.


Reading Status and Help Screens in Release 2.3 and 2.4:

Lotus 1-2-3 releases 2.01, 2.3, and 2.4 have different formats for Status and
Help screens.  We have created separate commands that try to accommodate each
version.  1-2-3 release 2.3 and 2.4 contains status boxes for several
functions, including global worksheet settings and printer information. 
These status boxes overlay the current worksheet.  They do not entirely cover
or replace the worksheet screen.

Release 2.3 and 2.4 Status screens have a cyan background.  Their titles are
a black background with the text on line 4 and information beginning at line
6.  At the bottom of each Status screen is a message with a blue background,
telling you what key to press in order to exit or edit the Status screen.  In
addition, the Status screen Edit mode has (at the bottom line of the settings
box) a menu bar with selections in a black background and with the
highlighted choice in a blue background.

ALT-CTRL-F1 moves the braille display to the beginning of line 4--the header
for the status/settings boxes.  Using the braille navigation keys you can
read down the screen until you reach the bottom of the text.  Note, While
read the settings or status display in this way you may detect some text
which is in the worksheet behind the pop-up window. 

Press ALT-CTRL-F3 to display the (blue background) highlighted selection at
the bottom of the Status/Settings screens as well as the messages "Press any
Key..." or "Press F2..." at the bottom of the screens.  This hotkey tracks
all blue background text.  You can use the (unlinked) navigation panel keys
to examine the rest of the display as you track each Setting item.

The Help screens in release 2.3 and 2.4 are overlays in the middle of the
screen.  The Help information and topics are listed in a white background in
rows 4 through 21.  The topic you select is a highlighted blue-background
menu bar somewhere within this area.  The ALT-Control-F3 hotkey, in addition
to its Status screen uses, provides assistance for reading the Help screens. 
However, you usually don't have to use this hotkey since the help monitor
activates this function for you when a menu appears on the Help screens.

Note:  If you wish to examine the Help screen information press the Left
Button/Left Rocker Up simultaneously on the Power Braille panel keys.  This
will take the display to the upper left corner of the active braille window
(which will be the Help Screen).  From here you may use the right and left
buttons to read each line.  The braille display width will change from 40
cells to 26 cells so that you will not have to re-orient yourself on the
second half of each line; when you leave the Help Screen it will return to 40
cells.  This is only effective with version 2.3 and 2.4 of Lotus which use
this smaller Help Screen window.


Reading Status and Help Screens in Lotus version 2.01 and 2.2

For releases 2.01 and 2.2, the Help screens have white, highlighted
text.  This environment is intended to automatically determine if this
version of Lotus is being used.  If it correctly determines that either of
these versions is in use the braille display will track all highlighted white
text while in the Help mode.  You may use the panel keys to unlink and read
ahead or press the Left button/Left Rocker Up to go to the upper left of the
Help screen and read from the top down with the panel keys.  In the event
that the environment fails to correctly determine that you are using version
2.01 or 2.2 you may force it to read the correct screen with the ALT-CTRL-F9
hotkey.

The Lotus 2.01 and 2.2 Status screens have data displayed in green,
highlighted text, the field title is in normal white text.  Press
ALT-CTRL-F10 to begin reading at the first green text. Note: after initiating
this Hotkey you may wish to go to the top of the display and begin scanning
the data from left to right, to read the field titles and the data
sequentially... do this with the left button/left rocker bar up combination.


Reading Cell Address, Contents, and Formula:

You can put Screen Power Braille into one of three different modes, depending
on what you want to read when you move from cell to cell.  You can have
Screen Power Braille track the cell address and formula, the system cursor or
just the highlighted cell contents. 

Press ALT-CTRL-F5 or ALT-CTRL-F6 to put Screen Power Braille into a mode in
which it displays the cell address and formula.  Screen Power Braille will
move the braille display to line 1 column 1 which contains the row and column
cell number.  Note: Any time the MODE display changes the braille display
will return to tracking the highlighted cell contents in the worksheet. 

ALT-CTRL-F7 puts Screen Power Braille back into its default mode.  That is,
it initiates soft cursor tracking to display the active (highlighted) cell
contents.

Use ALT-CTRL-F8 to track the system cursor in the spreadsheet.  Some users
may prefer this at times because they can see row numbers and cell contents
which precede the active cell.  Remember, as soon as the MODE indicator
changes for any reason, the normal soft cursor tracking is invoked.  This
means that the ALT-CTRL-F8 mode can actually be used only as a sort of review
mode. 
Quick Reference:    The following is a summary of Screen Power Hotkeys for
                    Lotus 123:

ALT-1     Go to line 2 but link to system cursor.  Consider using Alt-2
          instead.

ALT-2     Track the highlighted menu item on Row 2.

ALT-3     Go to line 3 but link to system cursor.  Consider using Alt-2 and
          use the right rocker bar to read line 3 instead.

ALT-4     Track the highlighted item on Row 3... this is usually automatic
          (as with files, retrieve).

ALT-5     Temporarily go to line 1 to display the formula of the current
          cell.  When you move the cell pointer the display will be linked to
          the system cursor, not tracking the highlighted cell (use Alt-7 to
          track highlighted cell again).

ALT-6     (Same as Alt-5)

ALT-7     Track the current highlighted cell contents.  Restores "normal"
          operation (same as ALT-CTRL-F7).

ALT-8     Go to status or error messages on line 25;  leaves display linked
          to system cursor not highlighted cell.

ALT-9     Go to the mode indicator at the end of line 1;  leaves display
          linked to system cursor not highlighted cell.

ALT-CTRL-F1    Go to header of dialog box on line 4; use unlinked panel keys
               after that to examine the Status or Settings text.

ALT-CTRL-F2    (Same as ALT-CTRL-F1)

ALT-CTRL-F3    Lotus version 2.3 and 2.4:  Track blue background highlighted
               text in lines 5 through 24;  Tracks highlighted items in
               Settings Screens and Help Screens as well as the "Press any
               key" messages.

ALT-CTRL-F4    (not used)

ALT-CTRL-F5    Track Cell address and formula;  leaves display linked to
               system cursor not highlighted cell..

ALT-CTRL-F6    (Same as ALT-CTRL-F5)

ALT-CTRL-F7    Track the current highlighted cell contents.  Restores
               "normal" operation (same as ALT-F7).

ALT-CTRL-F8    Links display to system cursor not highlighted cell...
               displays data on either side of cursor.

ALT-CTRL-F9    Initiates tracking the highlighted items in the Lotus version
               2.01 and 2.2 help screens.  This is usually automatic if
               properly executed.

ALT-CTRL-F10   Set active window equal to the Status display in Lotus version
               2.01 and 2.2.  Left button/Left rocker Up panel keys will go
               to the upper left of this display... from there use the panel
               keys to navigate.
F11 and F12    (not used)

ALT-CTRL-8     Go to pop-up error messages in Lotus version 2.3 and 2.4.
