Installation

Installation instructions for The Digital Field Trip to The Rainforest 1.5 AT can be found in the booklet that accompanies your copy of the CD-ROM.

Optimizing

The Digital Field Trip to the Rainforest 1.5 will work best on any Windows machine under the following conditions:

  • 32 MB of available RAM or more
  • All other applications are closed
  • Do not switch between applications while running The Digital Field Trip to the Rainforest 1.5 AT
  • Virtual Memory set to the Default Windows Setting
  • All screen saver programs are disabled
  • If Microsoft Office is installed, the Control Bar is turned off
  • If you use Text-to-Speech components, you may have some conflicts with Windows accessibility features. See Troubleshooting below for more information.

Updating

The Digital Field Trip to The Rainforest 1.5 AT can now receive updates directly from the internet.

To ensure that you have the latest updates, make sure you have an active internet connection. Then, from within the application, select Web Update from the toolbar. Next, click on Synchronize. Updates, if any, will be downloaded automatically and placed in your Windows/cache-cache/The Rainforest 1.5 AT/ folder.

Networking

The Digital Field Trip to the Rainforest 1.5 does not ship with a license to run on a network. A network license must be purchased from Digital Frog International or one of our distributors.

Server

    • 10 Mb/s network connection or better
    • 630 MB of free hard drive space for The Digital Field Trip to the Rainforest 1.5 application and media

Client Machines

    • Pentium 180MHz processor or better (Pentium II or better recommended)
    • 32 MB RAM
    • Windows 95 or better
    • If not already installed, you will need 8 MB hard drive space to install QuickTime
    • Sound card
    • VGA /SVGA displaying 640 x 480, 16-bit color
    • To run with accessibility features, you will need the recommended configuration above and an additional 15 MB of hard drive space for the Text-to-Speech engines.

If you encounter problems while running one of Digital Frog International's software titles on your network, please email us for more help.

Troubleshooting

Windows Accessibility Features
The Digital Field Trip to The Rainforest AT is compatible with most built-in Windows accessibility features. However, some features may cause conflicts. We recommend that you disable them before running the program. Following are some of the known problems and/or conflicts:
    • Keyboard scrolling overrides The Rainforest AT's key assignments. This can cause numerous conflicts throughout the program.
    • Cursor trails produce some strange visual effects in places.
    • Keybounce/sticky keys may greatly slow down keyboard input, and cause some problems on certain interactive sections.
    • Screen magnifier causes problems in the Field Trip section.
    • Num Lock should always be on to use the keyboard properly.

Third Party Accessibility Programs
Text-to-Speech programs such as JAWS should be disabled before running The Rainforest AT as they will cause conflicts with sound and keyboard controls. To automate the process of disabling JAWS, copy the script "The Rainforest AT.jss" from the Extras folder on the CD into the JAWS folder on your hard drive (e.g. C:\JAWS37\settings\env). This will automatically disable JAWS when you launch The Rainforest AT, and re-enable JAWS when you quit.

Random system crashes and/or Text-to-Speech problems
This will happen if you are running under Windows 95 with SAPI-4. This may also happen if you installed the SAPI-5 speech engine, but did not switch to a voice from the SAPI-5 collection. To do this, select Preferences from the toolbar in the upper left-hand corner and then Select New Voice. We suggest "Microsoft Mary" or "Microsoft Mike".
Ambient sounds or movie narrations cut out while using the program
If this happens while using The Rainforest 1.5 AT, you may have to restart the program to fix the problem.
Energy Saver & Sleep Modes
We strongly recommend that you disable any screen & hard drive "sleep" or "energy saver" modes on your computer, as these will cause problems with the program. If your computer does "sleep" while using The Rainforest 1.5 AT, you may have to restart the program.
Text-to-Speech volume
If the Text-to-Speech seems quiet, you may need to adjust the synthesizer. To do this, access your control panel and select Speech, then Audio Output, then Volume. Slide the synthesizer volume to Maximum.
Note: You can only adjust this if you have SAPI-5 installed.
The program appears in a box surrounded by black
The Digital Field Trip to The Desert was designed to run at a screen resolution of 640 x 480. To use the program full-screen, you may need to change the screen resolution. This can be done with the "Displays" settings in your system's "Control Panels".
If you encounter a problem that isn't covered here, please email or contact us us for more help.