CRYSCON uses four types of windows besides dialogs and alerts; the Startup window, the Control window, Text windows and Graphics windows. In Windows, each window has its own menus; in Macintosh, the menus are at the top of the screen. The menus and commands therein depend on which type of window is active.
When starting up CRYSCON, the menus displayed include only a File menu and a standard Help menu. Use the commands in the File menu or the buttons in the window itself to start a new CRYSCON data set, or read an old one from a file.
After you have entered or read in the data for a CRYSCON file, the Control Window opens. This is actually a kind of dialog, but it cannot be dismissed without closing the current data set. Only one data set at a time is allowed in CRYSCON, and there is only one Control Window. When this window is active, the File Menu has additional commands such as Export, the View Menu has Powder Diffraction and Precession Pattern options and there is an Input Menu for data input and modification. Note that the Print, Print Preview and Metafile options in the File menu are inactive - they are active only when a Graphics window (below) is active.
The Transform button in the Tranformation Parameters dialog lists the transformed atom parameters and other data to a separate Text window. The Listing option in the Powder Diffraction dialog (File Menu) lists the data to a Text window, as does the Bond Lengths and Angles dialog (called from the Control Window). When any of these Text windows is active, the menu bar contains standard menus for saving, printing and editing the contents. Each window actually displays the contents of a file, called respectively Powder1.dat, Powder2.dat and BONDS.DAT. These files are written over again each time the respective option is called, so if they are to be preserved they should be saved with the Save As command in the File Menu, using a different name.
The Powder Diffraction and Precession Pattern dialogs (Diffraction Menu) present output in Graphics Windows. When a Graphics menu has the focus, the Print, Print Preview, Raster and Metafile or PICT options in the File Menu produce graphics output, essentially what is shown on the screen. There are four possible Graphics Windows, for Powder Pattern Old and New atoms, and Precession Pattern Old and New atoms.