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# 1 How to read this manual

This chapter tells you exactly, which part of this manual you have to read if you want to learn certain things about XGAP.

If you do not know anything about XGAP you might want to have a look at chapter xgap:What is XGAP?. You can learn there, what XGAP is all about, what you can do with it as a user (doing no programming) and for what you can use XGAP within your own programs. You find also references to other sections of this manual to get into the details.

If you want to know how to install XGAP, then you should look into chapter xgap:Installing XGAP.

If you know XGAP from its GAP3 version, you will consider chapter xgap:Differences to XGAP 3 useful. There you can quickly ``update'' your knowledge to the new GAP4 version and also find some technical details about the implementation, which is nearly completely new.

Perhaps you know already, that you can display subgroup lattices interactively with XGAP and you want to start with this right now. In this case, jump to chapters xgap:Subgroup Lattices - Examples and xgap:Subgroup Lattices - systematic description immediately. However, you should make sure first that you have a working XGAP installed!

The XGAP library is described in these and the remaining chapters of this manual. The information is divided into the following parts:

subgroup lattices - examples

subgroup lattices - systematic description

graphic sheets
  Creating and managing graphic sheets and graphic objects. This is the lowest level.

user communication
  Handling of menus, dialogs, text selectors and popups.

graphic posets
  Display of posets in graphic sheets.

graphic graphs
  Display of mathematical graphs in graphic sheets. A lot of ``routine work'' for handling these things is already done and can be used in your applications!

There is a chapter for each of these parts.

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