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-This repository contains the parameter_gui project.
-
-It is copyrighted by Martin Steigemann and Wolfgang Bangerth and
-distributed under the same license as the deal.II library, i.e.
-The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1 or later.

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+# This repository contains the parameter_gui project.
+
+It is copyrighted by Martin Steigemann and Wolfgang Bangerth and
+distributed under the same license as the deal.II library, i.e. The GNU
+Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1 or later.
+
+Usage:
+======
+
+To use the parameter GUI you first need to write a description of all the
+parameters, their default values, patterns and documentation strings into a
+file in a format that the GUI can understand; this is done using the
+ParameterHandler::print_parameters() function with ParameterHandler::XML as
+second argument, as discussed in more detail below in the <i>Representation
+of Parameters</i> section. This file can then be loaded using the
+executable for the GUI, which should be located in
+<code>lib/bin/dealii_parameter_gui</code> of your deal.II installation,
+assuming that you have a sufficiently recent version of the <a
+href="http://qt.nokia.com/">Qt toolkit</a> installed.
+
+Once loaded, the GUI displays subsections and individual parameters in tree
+form (see also the discussion in the <i>Representation of Parameters</i>
+section below). Here is a screen shot with some sub-sections expanded and
+one parameter selected for editing:
+
+![Paremeter GUI](parameter_gui.png)
+
+Using the GUI, you can edit the values of individual parameters and save
+the result in the same format as before. It can then be read in using the
+ParameterHandler::read_input_from_xml() function.

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