Light

Beginner

Professional

Notation

Composition Light

Composition Pro

Drums and Percussion

Guitar

Choir

Keyboard

Soloist

Using help

Subjects covered:

• What is help?
• The help menu
• How to use help?
• Reaching contextual help

What is help? [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]

Help is a way of quickly finding information or an explanation concerning an aspect of Pizzicato. Help is available on screen and contains much more than the printed manual. According to the Pizzicato version you have, the printed manual shows a compilation of the most essential pages. Nothing prevents you from printing help pages which are not in the manual or that you find important to have on paper.

The help is organized in various lessons.

The help menu [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]

The Help menu of the main menu bar lets you reach this page as well as the content of the instruction manual.

How to use help? [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]

By choosing for example an article of the help menu, Pizzicato displays the corresponding help page. At this time, Pizzicato continues to run and the help page is always displayed in front of Pizzicato (on Mac OS X, your Web browser opens and you may switch from Pizzicato to the browser back and forth). Here are basic explanations on how you can use this help window.

Browsing through help

• The words appearing in colour (mainly in blue, underlined or bold type, depending on your Internet navigator options) form what is called links. By sliding the mouse over a link, the cursor becomes a hand. By clicking on the link, you visualize for example complementary explanations, an additional subject or the definition of a word in the glossary.
• At the beginning and end of each page, you will find a tool bar that will help you to go to the next or previous lesson as well as to the content page, according to the Pizzicato version you are learning.

Going through the help subjects already displayed

• In the help tool bar, click on Previous to display the last help subject you viewed. This lets you go back on your way and return to the last consulted help subject, which is often needed when learning a new subject. The navigator keeps your help history path in memory and lets you run it backwards. This is much easier than with a printed book. This method of navigation through various pages of explanations makes it possible to guide you in using Pizzicato.
• In the help tool bar, click on Next to display the help page of a series of subjects you already displayed.

Searching for a help subject

Three buttons give you access to (on Mac OS X, they are available in the table of contents):

1. The Table of Contents: this table lists each lesson.
2. The Index: a list of words and expressions with links to each lesson giving more explanation on the word or expression.
3. The glossary: a list of technical music and computer terms and their definitions.

Getting help in a dialog box

• Hit the F1 key. On Mac you can also use the Help key.

Printing a help subject

• By right-clicking in the background of the help window (on Mac OS X, in the File, Print menu), a menu appears and lets you select the Print command.

Size of the help window

• The help window is displayed in front of the software. You may change its size and position so that you can easily view help and the screen area of Pizzicato you are working with. You may also minimize it to hide it temporarily.

Copying a help subject

• Simply select the text to copy and use the "Copy" item of the right-click menu (or the browser Edit menu). The text is then copied in the clipboard.
• Open the document in which you want to copy the subject.
• Click in the document where you want this information to appear.
• In the Edit menu, select Paste.

Reaching contextual help [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]

Help is also available according to the context in which you are in Pizzicato. To reach the contextual help, set the mouse on the graphic element for which you want help, for example a window, a tool or a dialog box. Then use the F1 key. On Mac, with an extended keyboard, you can also reach it with the Help key.

If help is available for that element, it will appear in the form of a help window. If not, it is the main help index that will be displayed.

Direct yourself towards any subject you want and explore the contents of help until you are accustomed to it.

The concepts learned during these last lessons finally enable you to approach the practical use of Pizzicato. Be certain to understand them fully and do not hesitate to read these lessons again and again. They give you the basic tools to communicate with Pizzicato. Have a good journey!