Each of TextWizard Professional's parameters is explained below, with reference to the clickable example code in the left frame: you can click a parameter from the example code to jump to its explanation, or simply read this page from top to toe. As you read, click the red references to other parameters to jump to them.

Most of TextWizard Pro's parameters have a default setting which is mentioned below. If the default setting is the option you'd like to use in your own implementation, you can leave that parameter out of your HTML code.

The 'Archive' attribute & 'CabBase' parameter
JAR (Java ARchive) and CAB (cabinet) files are archives containing Java class files in compressed form, making them easier to handle and quicker to download. Most modern browsers are able to read one or other of these formats, and the Archive attribute and CabBase parameter tell the browser the name of the archive file to open. The .JAR, .CAB and .CLASS files must all be in the same directory, and the CODEBASE= attribute is used in the normal way, if required, specifying the absolute or relative location of this directory. Older browsers that are unable to read either the JAR or the CAB file will instead read the loose CLASS files.

Applet Width & Height
The dimensions you choose for TextWizard Professional are less important than for many other applets: simply assign TextWizard Pro the amount of real-estate you'd like it to have. It's worth noting, though, that if you use a background or foreground image via the BgImage or FgImage parameters, it will automatically be scaled to match your applet dimensions, which might produce some weird results.

Quick Tip:  When setting up the applet dimensions, it's far easier if you use the BgColor parameter to temporarily set the applet background to a color that stands out from your page background. When you've set the dimensions and position to your liking, return the BgColor setting to the color you wanted.

Copyright
This parameter must be included or the applet will not run, whether registered or unregistered. To prevent mistakes we recommend that you copy/paste it into your code from the Getting Started page: it is case-sensitive, single-spaced throughout and should appear on a single line. If there's a problem with this parameter, you'll see a status-bar message that reads "Copyright parameter missing or incorrect" which should lead you to the problem.

BgColor
Hex triplet for the applet's background color. This will form the background to your text entries. You'd normally choose the same color as that of your page's body-background. If you use the BgImage parameter to place a background GIF image with transparency behind the menu, the transparent color will be replaced by your BgColor. Similarly, if you use a foreground image (FgImage) and no background image, this is the color that will fill the transparent areas.

More importantly, your choice of BgColor sets the color from which your text entries will fade (if you opt to use fading). The default color for this parameter is FFFFFF (white).

BgImage
An optional background JPEG or GIF image to be placed above the BgColor and behind your text entries. The value of this parameter will specify the image's filename (if it's in the same directory as the current HTML document) or the path to the image as an absolute or relative URL just as you'd enter into an HTML <IMG SRC=> tag. The image will be automatically scaled to fill the applet dimensions which might distort the image. For best results, choose or create an image that closely or exactly matches the dimensions of the applet.

FgImage
An optional foreground image. This must be a GIF image with at least some part of it set to be transparent, otherwise it will simply cover everything else the applet is doing and you've found a very bandwidth-unfriendly way to add an image to your page! The foreground image is worth using only if you opt to have one or more of text entries scrolling (rather than just fading or suddenly appearing) so that they appear to be arriving from behind some non-transparent portion of the image.

DefaultTextColor
A hex triplet setting the color to which your text entries will fade (if you've opted to use fading) or the fixed color of the text (if text is to slide or just appear). All text entries fade from your chosen BgColor to this color (even if your BgColor is covered by an image). You can override this parameter for any text entry by including the numbered TextColor parameter for it. The default setting for this parameter is 000000 (black), which means that if you don't include this parameter, any text entry without its own TextColor parameter will fade up to black.

DefaultFont
A comma-delimited string giving the name, style and size of the font you want to use for the text entries. The default settings are Helvetica, in plain, at size 20, which would be written as Helvetica,plain,20. Two important things to note: first, there must be no spaces in this entry; second, the three items must appear in the order name,style,size. Note that the style part of this setting can be plain, bold, italic or bolditalic, and these are not case-sensitive. Once again, you can override this parameter for any text entry by including the appropriately-numbered Font parameter.

DefaultAlign
Specifies how each text entry should be aligned within the applet. There's a choice of 9 values and these are not case-sensitive:

topleft aligns the text in the top left corner of the applet
topcenter aligns the text at the top of the applet and centered
topright aligns the text with the top right corner of the applet
midleft aligns the text halfway down the applet at the left edge
midcenter aligns the text halfway down the applet and centered
midright aligns the text halfway down the applet at the right edge
bottomleft aligns the text in the bottom left corner of the applet
bottomcenter aligns the text at the bottom of the applet and centered
bottomright aligns the text at the bottom right corner of the applet

You can adjust how the applet defines the left/right and top/bottom edges using the HMargin and VMargin parameters.

If one or more of your text entries is to slide into view (using the SlideFrom parameters), they will slide from their offscreen position until they reach their Align position. The DefaultHoldText and HoldText parameters define how long they should pause for, and the DefaultSlideOption and SlideOption parameters define what they should do after pausing.

As usual, you can override the DefaultAlign parameter by including numbered Align parameters for any or all text entries. The default value for this parameter is midcenter.

DefaultFade
A simple yes or no parameter that lets you choose whether text-fading should be switched on or off by default for all entries. A value of 'yes', of course, switches on text-fading. The default value for this parameter is 'yes'. Again, you can override this parameter for any text entry by including the appropriately-numbered Fade parameter with the opposite value.

DefaultFadeSpeed
Sets the speed at which the text entries should fade from the BgColor to your chosen DefaultTextColor or TextColor and back again. The default value for this parameter is 2. Any number from 1 upwards is valid. You could think of this as a 'delay' setting, since lower values give faster fades. As usual, this parameter can be overridden using individual FadeSpeed parameters for any text entry. This parameter won't have any effect on entries for which Fade (or DefaultFade) is set to 'no'.

Note that this is not an absolute setting: when fading from black to white, for example, there's a lot of fading to be done so the change will happen relatively slowly compared to a fade from red to pink. Therefore, if you choose different TextColor values for different entries, you'll almost certianly want to adjust the FadeSpeed for some of them to slow them down or speed them up.

DefaultHoldText
Sets the number of seconds that each text entry should remain on the screen after fading and/or sliding in and before it begins to fade/slide out again. The default setting for this parameter is 5 seconds. It's quite valid to use 0 as a value. Yet again, this parameter can be overridden for individual text entries by using the numbered HoldText parameters.

DefaultNextDelay
Sets the number of seconds to wait before starting to fade and/or slide in the next text entry after the previous one has left the screen. The default for this parameter is 0 (no pause). And (you guessed it) you can override it in the usual way for each text entry if you need to.

DefaultSlideSpeed
This parameter works very similarly to the DefaultFadeSpeed. It sets the speed at which the text entries will scroll, and lower values give faster slides. The default setting is 3. Because of the way this parameter works, high values, although faster, will seem a little jumpier. This parameter will only have effect on entries for which text-sliding is switched on (via the individual SlideFrom parameters). Not unexpectedly, you can also override this parameter to set different slidespeeds for any entry.

DefaultSlideOption
There are two available options: scroll or stop, and the default is scroll. The values are not case-sensitive. Once again, this parameter will only have effect on entries for which text-sliding is switched on (via the individual SlideFrom parameters). With this parameter set to 'scroll', entries will slide onto the screen until they reach their DefaultAlign (or Align) position, pause there for the length of time specified by DefaultHoldText (or HoldText), and then slide off the screen again. With the parameter set to 'stop', entries will either fade out in situ after pausing (if fading is switched on) or just vanish.

DefaultURL
In the unlikely event that you want every text entry to link to the same URL when the applet is clicked, this is the parameter that makes it easy. The URL can be absolute or relative. For testing purposes, you can prevent the applet linking anywhere when clicked by prefixing it with a dollar sign ($), but don't forget to remove it again before uploading your page! As you'd expect, each text entry can take it's own individual URL parameter to override this one.

DefaultTarget
Allows you to specify the name of a target frame or window into which any linked document should open when the applet is clicked. In all probability you'll open most links to the same location, so this parameter saves you entering identical Target parameters for every text entry. The default value for this parameter is _top.

DefaultMessage
A message that should appear in the browser's statusbar whenever the mouse moves inside the applet area. Once again, you'll probably want to use individual Messages for each text entry. The default value is blank (no message), so if you leave this and the individual Message parameters out of your code, nothing of our making will appear in the statusbar.

StartDelay
Sets the number of seconds to wait before starting to fade and/or slide in the very first text entry, with a default of 0. Generally you'll want the applet to start as soon as possible; this parameter can be useful if you want to use multiple TextWizard applets on a page and time them to start at different intervals to create a 'jumping' effect.

Loop
A simple yes or no parameter, with neither value being case-sensitive. Choose 'yes' (the default) and TextWizard will loop infinitely through your text entries. Choose 'no' and the entries will be displayed only once and the applet will stop.

HoldFinalText
This parameter comes into effect only if you've chosen to set Loop to 'no' so that the applet comes to a halt after the last entry has been displayed. Again the options are yes or no and the default is yes. With this default setting, the very last text entry will not fade and/or slide out when the applet stops, but will remain visible and able to link to its URL (or the DefaultURL) when clicked. If you choose 'no', the last entry will also fade/slide out, leaving just your background color or image(s) visible, and a click inside the applet will do nothing.

PauseOnEnter
A straightforward yes or no to whether the applet should pause when the mouse enters the applet area and only resume again whenit leaves. The default setting is 'no'. You might want to set this parameter to 'yes' if each text entry acts as a link to a different URL and there's a chance that visitors might not have time to click it before it disappears.

Delimiter
TextWizard Professional will automatically wrap ('autowrap') any text entries that are too long to fit on a single line within your applet. By default it will do this by inserting a special symbol called a delimiter as a temporary marker while it works out where to break the text into lines. (It does this behind the scenes of course - you won't see it happening!) This means that if your text entry uses this symbol anywhere, the applet will interpret it as an instruction to insert a line break rather than as a character to display.

The default delimiter symbol is the pipe (|), chosen because it's about the least likely character you'd ever want to actually display. As a result, you'll usually be happy to leave this at its default and not bother to include this parameter. However, if you do ever need to display the pipe symbol, you must include this parameter giving the applet a different symbol or character to use (perhaps 'z' or '@'?).

Because TextWizard Pro takes the symbol as a line-break instruction, you can insert it into any text entry to force a 'manual line break', as explained in the Text parameter.

HMargin
Sets the width of the applet's horizontal margins (the left or right point at which left-aligned or right-aligned text should be fixed). Note that for a single line of text this value applies only to the chosen alignment edge: for example, if you set Align (or DefaultAlign) to 'topleft', it will be indented from the left margin by the amount specified in your HMargin parameter, but your text can stretch right across to the right edge of the applet area. However, if a text-entry is autowrapped the applet will wrap the text between your left and right margin. The default value for this parameter is 10.

VMargin
Sets the height of the applet's vertical margins (the distance from the top of bottom of the applet that top or bottom aligned text entries should be placed). Once again the default is 10.

DisplayOrder
Allows you to choose the order in which the text messages are displayed. There are three possible options:

up:  displays the text entries in order from 1 to 2000 (or your last entry).

down:  displays your highest-numbered text entry first and works its way down to number 1.

random:  displays the text entries in a random order. Note that this is intelligent randomization: in one pass through your total number of text entries, each will be displayed once. A new random order will be selected before the applet restarts (if you've opted to Loop more than once).

The default setting is up, and the values are non-case-sensitive.

Individual Parameters
In the example code in the left frame, a complete set of all possible parameters has been included that relate to the first text-entry to be displayed. Of course you'll normally want to display more than just one. To do that, just copy the same parameters, but change the 1 suffix of each to 2, 3, 4, and so on, according to how many text-entries you want to display. TextWizard can display up to 2000 entries.

Textn
The text string you want the applet to display. At least one Textn parameter must be included. Number suffixes can be skipped in this and all the following parameters - TextWizard Professional will keep searching until it reaches 2000.

If your text entry is too long to fit on a single line (according to width of the applet, your HMargin setting, and your size of font), TextWizard Pro will automatically wrap it onto as many lines as necessary, to a maximum of 100. In doing this, it will still place the paragraph as specified in your Align or DefaultAlign parameter.

In addition (or instead), you can choose for yourself where line breaks should occur by entering the Delimiter symbol at the appropriate points in the text. Using delimiters does not stop the applet autowrapping, so if there's a particular point at which you definitely want a line break, you can insert a delimiter there and leave TextWizard Pro to autowrap the rest.

Note that every delimiter symbol must be followed by a space. To create an line-break, use a delimiter followed by a space. To create a paragraph-break (ie. an empty line) add another delimiter and space. Here's a couple of examples:

Cut| Here
would create a line-break, displayed as:
Cut
Here

Cut| | Here
would create a paragraph break, displayed as:
Cut

Here

Autowrapn
This is a yes or no parameter with a default of yes. Most of the time you won't want to include it. If your text entry is short enough that it doesn't need to be wrapped, it will have no effect. If the entry is long enough that it has to be wrapped, it will be. However, if you have a long entry that would ordinarily be wrapped and you don't want it to be, include this parameter with a value of 'no'. This single parameter will then fix a number of settings so that your entry will scroll from right to left in typical 'text-ticker' style. You can see this in action in Example #4. The settings that this parameter fixes are:

Fade is set to 'no' so that there's no chance of the text fading out before its end has been seen.
SlideFrom is set to 'right' so that the text scrolls from right to left.
SlideOption is set to 'scroll' so that the text scrolls off the screen.
HoldText is set to 0 so that the text doesn't pause when only part of it would be visible.

Note that if you've opted not to wrap a long text entry, you wouldn't expect to use the Delimiter symbol within it to create line-breaks. If you do, the symbol will appear on screen just like any other character.

With Autowrap set to 'no', any of these parameters you include for this entry will be ignored. Of course you could set all these parameters yourself, but if you want to create a straightforward ticker effect, the addition of the Autowrap parameter reduces the number of required parameters by 3 for each entry which can only be a good thing!

TextColorn
Sets the color that this text entry should fade up to (and down from afterwards) if you've opted to use fading via the DefaultFade or Fade parameters, or the fixed color of the text if it's to slide or just appear. If you don't include a TextColorn parameter for an entry, the DefaultTextColor value will be used instead.

Text entries will fade to this color from your chosen BgColor.

Fontn
A comma-delimited string giving the name, style and size of the font to be used for this text entry. This value is constructed in exactly the same way as the DefaultFont parameter explained above. If a text entry doesn't include its own numbered Font parameter, the DefaultFont will be used for it instead.

Alignn
Sets the alignment for this text entry, providing the same 9 options as for the DefaultAlign parameter. Once again, if no Alignn parameter is included for the text entry, the DefaultAlign will be used in its place.

Faden
A simple non-case-sensitive yes/no parameter that sets whether this entry should use fading or not. Of course, you need only include this parameter for an entry if you wish the entry to do the opposite from that set by the DefaultFade parameter.

FadeSpeedn
Sets the speed of the fade between the BgColor and your chosen TextColor (or the DefaultTextColor), as explained in DefaultFadeSpeed. It won't come as a big surprise that any missing FadeSpeedn parameters will be replaced by the DefaultFadeSpeed value. Any number higher than 0 is valid.

SlideFromn
In order to have an entry using scrolling, you must include the SlideFrom parameter for it: there's no matching 'Default' parameter. Thus you could say that the default value for this parameter is 'no slide' - if you leave it out for any entry, that entry will not slide. This parameter offers 4 possible values, none of which is case-sensitive:

top slides the text from the top of the applet
bottom slides the text from the bottom of the applet
left slides the text from the left of the applet
right slides the text from the (all together now) right of the applet

If this parameter is included, TextWizard Professional will take notice of your SlideSpeed and SlideOption parameters (or their Default parameters); otherwise they will be ignored.

SlideSpeedn
Provided that the SlideFrom parameter has been included for this text entry to turn on scrolling for it, this parameter sets the speed of scrolling as explained in the DefaultSlideSpeed parameter above.

SlideOptionn
With the SlideFrom parameter included for this text entry, this parameter allows you to choose between two values, scroll and stop, for the slide behavior as explained in the DefaultSlideOption parameter above. Of course, you need only include this parameter for an entry if you wish that entry to do the opposite from that set by the DefaultSlideOption parameter.

HoldTextn
Sets the number of seconds that this text entry should remain visible after fading and/or sliding in and before fading/sliding out again. You know the score on the DefaultHoldText parameter by now! For this parameter, 0 is a valid setting.

NextDelayn
Sets the number of seconds that the applet should wait after fading and/or sliding out the current text entry and before beginning to fade/slide in the next. Should we explain the significance of the DefaultNextDelay parameter? Probably not.

URLna, URLnb, URLnc, URLnd
The absolute or relative URL that each text entry should link to if the applet is clicked while this text is being displayed. In fact, TextWizard Professional can open up to four separate URLs when an entry is clicked. Therefore, along with the usual numerical addition that matches the URL parameter to its corresponding text entry number, the letters a, b, c and d are tagged onto the end. In the example parameters to the left, you can see that our first (and only) entry links to two URLs, each of which opens in its own Target frame.

There are two points to bear in mind about this. First, the URLs will be fetched one at a time (although they should appear almost simultaneous) in the abcd order. This leads to the second point: if one of those URLs will load a page over the top of the applet, the applet must stop running. Therefore, if you're trying to load 4 pages, using all four URL parameters, and your URL1b parameter is the one that loads over the applet, the URL1c and URL1d links won't work - the applet stops running before it can process the requests!

The DefaultURL parameter acts as the default for the 'a' URL. Therefore, if a text entry doesn't have its own URL parameter with the 'a' suffix, the DefaultURL will be opened instead. If the entry has 'b', 'c' or 'd' URLs, these will also be opened.

There are two other points worth noting: (1) As soon as the mouse enters the applet, the fading stops and won't continue until the mouse leaves again. In part, this allows the user to read the text if it starts to fade and/or slide too quickly, but more importantly it ensures that if he has the misfortune to enter at the very end of a fade or slide he won't end up being linked to the URL that corresponds with the next entry instead. (2) For testing purposes, you can disable any URL by prefixing it with the dollar sign ($). If you prefer, you can remove the whole URL parameter entirely or place nothing between the double-quotes to achieve the same result.

Targetna, Targetnb, Targetnc, Targetnd
The name of the frame or window into which the corresponding URL should be opened. Once again, these have the a,b,c,d suffix to match them with each URL parameter (so that URL1a opens into Target 1a, URL1b into Target 1b, and so on). DefaultTarget parameter acts as a default for the 'a' target. Because most of your links are likely to target the same frame (and most of the time you'll probably use only one URL parameter for each entry rather than all four), the DefaultTarget can be a timesaver.

Remember that frame names are case-sensitive. If you're trying to make something open in a frame and your browser persists in opening a new window for it instead, check that the case and spelling of the name match in the Target parameter and in your HTML <frameset> tag.

Messagen
An optional message to be displayed in the browser's statusbar if the mouse enters the applet while this text entry is visible. If no Messagen parameter is included for an entry, the DefaultMessage will appear instead (maybe you knew that?). However, if you've set up a DefaultMessage but you want nothing in the statusbar for this particular entry, include this Messagen parameter and place nothing between the double-quotes (such as <param name=Message4 value="").


































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