A Program for Reading Quickly
with which it is possible to load a file or post text from the clipboard and view it rapidly, in a manner that minimizes eye movement by placing in the center of a box individual words, whose behavior can be modified by several controls.

By Jim Tonn.

Idea: This program is designed to increase overall reading speed by 1) placing words in a single location, so you don't have to move your eyes, and 2) displaying words at a consistent rate, which may help reduce one's compulsion to pay attention to distractions.

Installation: Run setup.exe. Usage: When the program begins, some default text is loaded into the Text Window. You can load your own text by either opening a plain ASCII .txt file or loading from the clipboard. Opening from a file is done through the File menu, under the item Open. In order to load from the clipboard, copy some text from another application, and then click on File-->Load from Clipboard within the reader. Limitations on the amount of text that can be loaded into the reader will vary depending on the capabilities of your computer. If you encounter problems loading text, try breaking your file into several smaller files, or copying only a small portion at a time into the clipboard.

Beneath the Text Window is a set of controls. The Play, Pause, and Stop buttons work as they would on most cassette players. Play can be used from a Stopped or Paused state; Pause halts the program but does not reset your progress to the beginning; Stop will reset your progress. Clicking on the Text Window has the same effect as clicking the Pause button. Note that if you would like to close the program while viewing a file and return to your position later, you must pause and then exit. If you use stop, your progress will be reset to the beginning of the file.

The Speed scrollbar controls the rate at which words are displayed. Sometimes it is effective to begin reading at a moderate speed and then increase as you become comfortable.

When the Repeat box is checked, the text will display again from the start when the end is reached.

When the Rest at Periods box is checked, the program will sleep for a period of two cycles (the duration a word is usually displayed) when a period is present in the Text Window.

The Progress scrollbar indicates your position within the text. You can jump to a specific position by dragging the Progress scrollbar. This is usually most convenient when the text is paused or stopped.

You can resize the window by dragging it at the sides. This will increase the length of the Text Window, which may be desirable if the text you are viewing contains words too large to fit within the Text Window (a "word" is any portion of the text that is not separated by spaces or other delimiters such as carriage returns, so it may include such lengthy items as URLs).

Options: The Options menu is accessible from the File menu. From here you can select a foreground color, background color, a font, and the font size for the text in the Text Window. You may also specify how many words you would like to be displayed in the Text Window at a time.

Saving Settings: Your settings are automatically saved each time you exit the program. A file called settings.ini is placed in the directory from which QRead.exe is run. If you would like to restore the default options, you can delete this file. Editing this file by hand is not recommended, as it may produce unexpected results, but the specification is shown below for your information:

Line	Meaning
1	Width of window
2	Font
3	Font Size
4	FontBold
5	FontItalic
6	FontStrikeThru (currently not used)
7	FontUnderline (currently not used)
8	Text foreground color
9	Text background color
10	Number of words to display at a time
11	Text speed
12	Repeat checkbox status
13	Rest checkbox status
14	Current loaded file ("." if none)
15	Current position (ignored if no valid current file found)

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The author disclaims liability for any damages arising out of the use of this program. The author makes no claims as to the effectiveness of this program. This program is distributed as freeware.

Copyright Jim Tonn 2002. jmtst54@pitt.edu