The VS-pCoq Spy looks at the first sight like an ordinary drawing program. It is a drawing program, with an additional feature that you can tell some elements to move around and to collect data about this. Nothing else. And it behaves like a drawing program.
The main VS-pCoq Spy window has a menu-bar and a drawing area. The menu-bar lets you handle files (or projects, as you will see soon), issue edit commands, choose the elements for drawing, and set some defaults. There is another menu point for evaluation of simulated data if you're running the Protected Mode version. At the right of the last menu point, there is a button and some text. The button lets you switch on and off the simulation, and the text displays the actual simulated model's number. If you just started the program, the word "default" is shown instead of a number.
The drawing area lets you draw the elements you need for the simulation. You can scroll the area by using the scroll bars shown at the right and at the bottom of the window. As your screen size lets you only use somewhat around 600 pixels in x-direction (horizontally) and 450 pixels in y-direction, you can scroll the drawn picture over an area equal to the range represented by a word. This gives you a maximal drawing size of 65536
¥ 65536 pixels. I'm sure, that you won't define such a large simulation area right now.In general, use always the left mouse button for clicking at any desired item on the screen. If you click the right mouse button – try it! – in most cases there will be a Popup menu displayed for giving you a choice out of some frequently used commands at the present point of work. The right-button Popup menus are very useful for lazy people.
If you have a panel displayed, you can hit also some keys for jumping from one element to the other instead of using the mouse. The panel element currently listening to your orders through the keyboard is framed by a green rectangle. A text input field shows a cursor instead of the frame. Using keys will be very convenient once you are familiar with the program. Use the
 | Tabulator key for jumping to the next group of fields and the |
| Right arrow key for jumping to the next field (for example for choosing a button for saying "ok" or "cancel"). |
| For going backwards, use Shift+Tabulator and the Left arrow key. |
| If you hit the Space bar, the currently selected field enters in action (except for text-input fields which accept many other keys). |
| Escape leaves an activated field or "cancel"s a panel, |
| F3 leaves a panel with "ok", and F1 displays help. |
When entering a command through a mouse operation, VS-pCoq Spy may expect
| a click with the left mouse button, |
| a double-click with the left mouse button, or |
| a click with the right mouse button. |
| It may also expect that you leave one button or a Shift key pressed while moving the mouse over the screen. |
It will never expect you to double-click the right mouse button. This command is "reserved for future use", what manuals use to say in such a case.
