***** Usage *****
-----------------
-
After installation the executable mmsyn4 is created.
Afterwards, it is used to process files. So, open an
office spreadsheet program, e. g.
LibreOffice Calc.
-
Begin to enter the text in the cells. You can use
Unicode characters. No quotation marks should be used,
instead use some special delimiter except '@' sign.
-
Do not use colons, instead when needed switch to the
nearest cell to the right.
-
To make a text visually highlighted (yellowish), start
the cell with an ’@’ sign.
-
Lines in the table create different chains in the
resulting graph. To produce an arrow to the text in the
cell, enter it in the next cell in the row to the right.
-
To make several arrows from the cell, switch to the
next cell to the right for this parent one (the cell that
will be a parent for several other cells), enter needed
new texts there and in the located below cells.
-
Usually, you can search the needed text with Ctrl+F if
needed.
-
Empty lines in the table do not influence the resulting
visualization. Above each line, except the first one,
there must be at least one filled cell. It must be
located above the text on the new line or even further
to the right above. Otherwise, the program will
produce no reasonably useful output.
-
After entering all the text, export the sheet as a
"*.csv" file using colons (':') as separator
in the working directory. Otherwise, the program
won’t work.
-
Run the appropriate executable mmsyn4 in the terminal
or from the command line while being in the directory
with the created .csv file. Specify as a command line
argument its name. While executing a program enter
a basic name of the file to be saved. DO use
alphanumeric symbols and dashes if needed.
Then specify the needed visualization scheme
by specifying the appropriate character
in the terminal and the format of the
resulting visualization file (refer to
GraphViz documentation for the default
list of formats). For more information,
see the
GraphViz documentation.
-
Your first visualization is then created.
-
Save the spreadsheet document as a spreadsheet file (if you
worked with spreadsheets, otherwise this step can be omitted).
-
Repeat the steps from 2 to 12 as needed to produce
more visualizations.
-
Afterwards, you have a list of graphics files, a list of .gv
files as source files for Graphviz, and a saved spreadsheet file.
Then you can use the produced visualizations for some other
documents.
***** Usage of the Next Command Line Arguments after the First One *****
Since the version 0.3.0.0 mmsyn4 supports the following further
command lines arguments (given after the first one -- see above):
-c... -- dots are instead of one letter to specify the first character
of the GraphViz command (e. g. 'n' -- for 'neato')
-f... -- dots are instead of two letters to specify the format (according to
the 'getFormat') of the GraphViz command (e. g. 'jp' -- for 'jpg')
Since the version 0.4.0.0 mmsyn4 supports the following further
command line arguments (additionally to the previous ones):
-b... -- dots are instead of the basic name for the created files (the
name without prefixes and extensions)
-s... -- dots are instead of one digit to specify the GraphViz splines
functionality. 0 -- for "splines=false"; 1 -- for "splines=true";
2 -- for "splines=ortho"; 3 -- for "splines=polyline". The default
one is "splines=true".
-y -- (if present) means that the '@' signs will be removed from the created
files.
They can be given in any combinations (if needed) or omitted. In the latter
one case the program will prompt you the needed information (but this is
not the case for a separator, which must be specified in such a way to be
used instead).
