Documentation

Advanced Serial Port Terminal Main Menu highly resembles standard Windows menus and provides convenient access to all program's settings and dialogs options. Main Menu is resizable, movable and dockable and has the following items:

 1. File

File menu contains basic operations that are related to session management (open/close), opening/closing serial ports and adjusting different application's settings. Please, note, that all these options are available if at least one active session is present at the moment, alternatively, you will get truncated file menu presentation ("New session", "Preferences", "Exit"). Let's overview all available items:

New session

This menu item opens new session dialog window where you may specify new connection settings (baudrate, parity etc.), save chosen settings under personal session name, load/delete previously saved sessions, etc.

"Open port at once" checkbox allows automatic port opening at the session start.

In case you would like reset all communication settings (except port number) to default ones, please, click "Default" button.

If no free serial ports are available to create new session you will get the warning message, shown below.

Close session
Close currently active session.

Open port
Open serial port for the current active session to be able to work with it. By default, serial port is closed however you may change this in the "New session" dialog window by enabling "Open port at once" option.

Close port
In order to close communication port for the currently active session, please, select this menu item. "Close port" item will be inaccessible (grayed out) if session's communication port is closed.

Close all sessions
"Closes all sessions" menu item allows closing all opened sessions if any.

Close all ports
"Closes all ports" menu item allows closing all open ports if any are present.

Preferences
This menu item opens "Preferences" dialog window where you may customize additional application settings. "Preferences" dialog window is split into four tabs: "General", "Appearance", "Emulation" and Aliased. 

The first tab allows choosing whether to enter the special characters such as "Line feed" (#0A),"Carriage return" (#0D) and other hexadecimal codes among with usual symbols. In addition, you may specify own characters that will be added before or after the communication packet (for instance: control character).

The "Appearance" tab lets you modify application appearance:

Preferences

"Echo on" allows you to toggle command's Echo on/off at the session start

"Select color above and use the "Change" button to alter background color" changes Session window background color

"Commands in history" defines the number of commands previously entered in the history list

Terminal view area endows you with the ability to change Read/Write data color representation in both Terminal and Data view's

"132 symbols in string" checkbox toggles into 132 symbols in a string mode. By default you may enter up to 80 symbols in a single line.

The "Emulation" tab offer additional parameters for VT 100 virtual terminal emulation (the legacy video terminal mode from Digital Equipment Corporation which is used for connecting to mainframes).

 "132 symbols in string" checkbox toggles into 132 symbols in a string mode. By default you may enter up to 80 symbols in a single line.

"Keypad application mode" checkbox toggles auxiliary keypad mode. The keys on the auxiliary keypad normally transmit the codes for the numerals, decimal point, minus sign, and comma. In addition, the key labeled ENTER transmits the same code as the RETURN key. The host cannot tell if these keys were typed on the auxiliary keypad as opposed to the corresponding keys on the main keyboard. Therefore, software which requires considerable numeric data entry need not be rewritten to use the keypad.

"Beep on 0x07 char" checkbox lets you disable/enable PC speaker beeping effects when 0x07 characters is received.

"Line wrap" enabled wraparound feature. When this option is enabled, the 81st or 133rd character (depending upon the line size selected) inserted on a line is automatically placed in the first character position of the next line. If the wraparound feature was not enabled, the 81st or 133rd character and all following characters would be overwritten into the last character position of the current line.

"Line feed" option allows you to send "Line Feed" and "Carriage Return" control codes whenever "Return" key is pressed.

"Scroll buffer size" defines additional scrolling buffer to the standard 25 lines.

"Appearance" group of options allows you to modify the font family and background color.

Here you may add and remove command aliases for the selected serial port connection. Aliases are useful to simplify daunting process of typing long commands that occur quite often. Whenever you add new alias for your command, you will only need to supply the text or the number. Double hash ("##") sign will be added automatically. Alias (for example "##1") should be typed in "Send" panel and "String" mode only!

Exit

Close Advanced Serial Port Terminal. Note: if you have at least one session opened you will get warning message.

2. Edit

"Edit" menu item provides all necessary options to select text, copy it, find and clear all text in both Terminal and Data views.

3. View

This option allows modifying program interface, toggling between Edit, Terminal and Data views; enabling/disabling Echo command; customizing Toolbar buttons and enabling/disabling Status Bar in a single mouse click. It has the following entries:

Edit view\Data view\Terminal view 
Switch between Edit, Data and Terminal view modes. Terminal view allows you send various types of data chunks and Data view displays sent/received data in hexadecimal and ASCII format. 

Echo ("Ctrl"+"E")

If this option is enabled you may view everything you send and receive from remote end in Terminal view only. "Echo" option is automatically disabled if you switch to Data view.

Toolbars

Toolbars menu option allows you modify Advanced Serial Port Terminal interface look by enabling/disabling Standard Toolbar, Parameter Toolbar and Send Window. Additionally, you may modify menu/toolbar items position and visibility using "Customize" dialog window.

Status Bar

Display (if this option is enabled) or hide Status bar.

4. Terminal

Advanced Serial Port Terminal allows you to send data blocks or whole files down the serial line or redirect everything you receive from the communication port into a file. You may use it for debugging and logging purposes or simply connect two computers using null-modem cable. "Send ASCII File" and "Send via X-modem" options open file selection dialogs to send ASCII file or any file correspondingly. "Receive ASCII File" and "Receive via X-modem" options open "save as" dialog to save incoming data into a file.

5. Help

User Manual

Open user manual you are currently reading.

Homepage

Visit Advanced Serial Port Terminal homepage (requires Internet connection).

Enter registration code

Enter registration code to unlock the demo version. This code will be sent to you after you purchase a license.

About

Get brief information about Advanced Serial Port Monitor (version/registration info etc.)