The identity that corresponds to the visualization is given within the visualization. It is either shown at the top of the screen or labelled elsewhere. To begin the visualization, click the Start Visualization button found in the bottom right-hand corner of the visualization screen. Each visualization contains explanatory text that serves to clarify what is happening in the visualization. After you have read the text and understand what is taking place on the screen, you may click Continue to take you to the next piece of the visualization. You also have the option of controlling the speed of the visualization By using the slider on the bottom left of the screen, you can alter the pace of the animation at any time from slow to fast. If you would like to go through the visualization step-by-step, click the Pause button. You can then Step through that piece of the visualization. Note that you can "pause" the visualization before beginning, which allows you to step through from the beginning. To resume animation, click the Play button. Once the visualization is complete, the Continue button says Done, and the other buttons are also greyed out.
The visualizations also contain a toolbar on the left side of the screen that allows the user to easily navigate through the modules. There is an option to view the Common Definitions file should you need it and to bring up the Exposition if you have closed it. You can Restart the current visualization if you so desire or you can Load another module.
Adobe (http://www.adobe.com) offers a free viewer application called Acrobat Reader for download (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux are supported).
If you are running VCP as an application (not as an applet on the web), select File > PDF Preferences... and specify the path to the PDF viewer you would like to use. If you are using VCP as an applet on the web, the application used to view the PDF files is determined by either your web browser or your operating system.
By default, Mac OS X uses the Preview application to view PDF files. Unfortunately, this application has trouble displaying some PDF files. The best remedy is to install Adobe Acrobat Reader. There are two ways to get VCP to use Adobe Acrobat instead of preview:
- If you are running VCP as an application (not as an applet on the web), you can set the program you want VCP to use to display PDF files. This is described in the previous section.
- You can set OS X to use Adobe Acrobat as the default application for displaying PDF files. This can be done by finding a PDF file in the Finder and selecting it. Click File > Get Info. Expand the "Open With" section of the window that appears. Choose Adobe Acrobat as the default application, and then click the "Change All..." button.
The most likely cause of this error is that there is no application available on the system to view PDF files. To remedy this, you can download Acrobat Reader for free from Adobe.
If you are confident that you have a PDF viewer installed, you need to let Windows know which application to use to open PDF files. You can do this by selecting "Select the program from the list" and choosing your desired application.
This shouldn't happen on most Mac OS X machines because the Preview application is associated with PDF files by default. However, if this error does occur, you can click the Choose Application... button in the error message and find your preferred program.
If, for some reason, there is no PDF viewer installed on your system, you can download Acrobat Reader for free from Adobe.
This is probably due to pop-up blocking. VCP asks the browser to load a PDF file in a new window, but most pop-up blocking software thinks this is an unwanted pop-up. It is recommended that you disable pop-up blocking for the site hosting the VCP applet.
By default, VCP is set to use application xpdf
to display PDF
files in Linux. If this application is not installed or is not
in the path, PDF files will not be displayed. To remedy this,
specify the PDF file viewer application to use by
selecting File > PDF
Preferences....