tutorial.txt

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                              Welcome                      
                                 to                     
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                            Gator Charts! 
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designed by:
Valentina R D, Matthew G, Dennis A, Michelle P, & Sarah A
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Gator Charts is a program that allows users to create useful 
flowcharts by creating shapes and lines. It is often easier to 
understand a complicated idea graphically, flowcharts enable 
understanding.There are myriads of uses for flow charts. Some are:

   - Explaining programs, or subsections of programs 
     such as algorithms
   - Many manuals, such as those used in the space 
     shuttle, have processes that are represented with
     a flow chart 
   - When choosing an option from a field of options, 
     a flowchart can direct you to the correct choice 
     by helping you asking a series of questions 
   - Modeling real life processes, for example, a 
     traffic light controller     

Gator Charts has several advantages over the competition, 
including Microsoft Visio and yEd. Gator Charts is simple to use 
and single minded in purpose with its only purpose to make flowcharts.
Gator Charts was born out of frustration with the complicated nature 
of other flowchart software used tomake flowcharts for college classes.

The purpose of Gator Charts is to create logically meaningful 
flow charts.

The two major logical components are lines and shapes. 
Lines logically connect inputs by pointing from one object to 
another to create direction and show how logical statements act with 
each other.

Every different shape has a unique logical meaning:

   - Parallelogram: represent input data.
   - Oval: indicates the starting and ending points of a 
     process.
   - Rectangle: represents a step in the process.
   - Square: indicates a set of steps that combine to 
     create a sub-process that is defined elsewhere, often 
     on another page in the same drawing.
   - Trapezoid: represents an operation or adjustment to 
     process that can only be made manually.

You can use these shapes and lines to create a meaningful 
flow chart. Gator Charts also allows you to personalize and/or 
organize your flow charts by changing the following properties 
of your shapes: inside text, location on screen, and color.

Gator Charts is also equipped to print your flow chart. It gets even
better if you want to stop working on it now and come back later.
You can save your flow chart and reload it again to keep working and 
have everything saved. If you need to make adjustments such as deleting 
shapes, no problem! Just right click and hit delete. 

List of known bugs:
-cannot save arrows, the save feature only saves shapes
-cannot delete shapes that have arrows
-cannot save color, the save feature only saves shapes

The tool bar for basic alterations of your shapes is located 
at the top of the screne. To change to shape properties, click 
on the shape and choose for the pop-up menu.
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                    Enjoy Gator Charts!
                    
                    
Thank you for using our product and have a fabulous day!

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