..zogzag/zzpage_for_students
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98.10.20   ( d10
To Ted Nelson Home Page
 
ZigZag(tm) page for my Students at Keio SFC
You would probably like DIRECTIONS for ZigZag.
Or maybe you'd like Directions for Zigzag in NIHONGO, written by Soko Aoki (requires Japanese character-set in browser).


ZIGZAG NOW SEEMS TO BE WORKING WELL AT KEIO (so far it still only works under Unix).

While apparently you can edit separate files with zigzag at the same time, don't try to edit the same file twice at the same time.  Whichever copy of the program saves its data last will win, and the other data will be lost.



NAMING AND BACKUP: still a problem for some people

Remember the naming logic: in the versions so far,
ZigZag always works on a dataset called "zigzag.data" unless you call it with a filename.

Example: if you type

and you have a file called zigzag.data, it will open it; if you don't have a file with that name, it will create it.

If you type

and you have a file called mickey.mouse, it will open it; if you don't have a file with that name, it will create it.

Back up your data frequently.  This is still a prototype program.

I find that a good practice is to work with files with different names for different purposes, like "book.zz" and "classwork.zig".  That way you can back up the data with a command like

and the next time you want to back it up, you can just hit up-arrow, which puts the same command on the screen-- which you can now change easily to for the next backup.


To ZigZag Datasets (better read below first)

The ZigZag system is an unusual new kind of software on a new basis.

What is it? "Why? Why did you create this, Ted?" Where can I read about it? 
A useful article (my talk at the first Wearable Computer Conference, May 98)
Source page at www.xanadu.net, where you can get a boot disk

HOW DO WE USE IT AT KEIO?

1.  Where to Run It

The excellent staff of CNS have kindly set up ZigZag to run on most of the systems at Keio.  However, you must log in to one of the correct machines.  This is because CNS has different machines with different properties, and the ZigZag datasets currently only run on Suns.  If you log in from another machine (such as an IBM or SGI), you must then remotely log onto one of the machines listed below.

1a.  Particular machines

We think the current ZigZag works on the following SFC machines:

1b.  Particular computer rooms at SFC Campus

Computer rooms:

2. Downloading a ZigZag Dataset

First, go to ZigZag Datasets (you can also click above) and save the dataset you want to a file.

You are supposed to be able to download a file with a right-click.  Unfortunately some versions of Netscape do not do this correctly, so you may have to use Internet Explorer or some other method.

Then open it in either either an xterm window, a kterm window or a telnet window-- as below.

3.  Particular Windowing programs

The basic problems are:
ZigZag currently uses line-drawing characters, and not all programs draw them as we want
Some windows don't resize right
To solve these and other matters, we recommend:

3a.  xterm

If in an xterm window: Just type "zigzag" on xterm window.

3b.  kterm

If in a kterm window (for kanji 2-byte characters), you must change character sets.  You do this by typing:

3c.  Telnet programs

Telnet programs run a program on another machine.

We have had varying results with different Telnet programs.  The ones that seem to work best are:

Good luck and have fun, TN