STOS Corner


Martin Milner reports...


GEMMA

Last issue I explained GEMMA allows GEM objects to be used from within STOS. There is still a lot of work to do but the programming team (including Anthony Jacques and Paul Jones) have been working hard and v1.52 is the very first beta version of GEMMA STOS to be completed.

What can GEMMA do?

It's now possible to run programs from within STOS which display the GEM desktop along with a working menu bar (including accessories!). Programs can display alert boxes, dialogs, fully working GEM windows and the GEM file selector.


[Screenshot]
A GEM dialog in 256 colour resolution



[Screenshot]
The same dialog in ST Medium resolution


Selecting the menu bar Quit option returns you cleanly to the editor - an astonishing feat! The screenshots give you an idea of what's possible and on a Falcon GEMMA also works in extended screen resolutions including 256 colour modes.

GEMMA in action

Up to v1.52, the GEMMA accessory must be active to enable STOS programs to communicate with GEM. The GEMMA.RAM file contains the amount of memory returned to GEM.


[Screenshot]
The GEM file selector from within STOS!


Once in the STOS editor, example programs can be loaded and run. Notice the gosub 50000 at the start of each program, this executes the code which enables programs to use GEM. This code is included in the GEMMA distribution as INCLUDE.ASC and can be merged into your own programs. On running the program the STOS mouse pointer is replaced with the GEM one then attempts to switch to the current screen resolution before entering STOS and displaying the desktop. On exit, this process is reversed.
The GEMMA STOS loader, still under development, no longer requires the accessory to be installed and it doesn't grab all the available memory on loading - more benefits as development continues.

What could I use GEMMA for?

There isn't a compiler version yet (because there are too many changes in the pipeline) so I'll stick to some uses of GEMMA in the STOS development environment.
Here's a couple of examples, you can find them both on the Reader Disk to demonstrate some of the possibilities. If you produce any finished STOS accessories, please do send them in and we'll include them on the Reader Disk.
  • WINDTEXT.BAS (see screenshot) is the source code for an accessory to browse files using the GEM file selector, maybe a Print option would be a useful addition?
  • GEMMADEM.BAS is the source code for a STOS accessory to enable "proper" GEM accessories to be used before returning to the editor.


[Screenshot]
Drawing a 256 colour palette via the VDI


The future

GEMMA STOS is under development in parallel with the extension itself and hopefully a compiler version of the extension will appear when development settles down. The programming team are also looking at including commands to make it easy to use GEM, maybe using one general command instead of various similar but specific commands, nothing has been decided yet - but I'll keep you informed.

Hero 2

After some encouragement from myself and some valuable help from Anthony Hoskins Falcon extension, it looks likely the STOSSER Software team will be able to make Hero 2 fully Falcon compatible. I've been testing this on my machine and the team have even added loads more animations to the program - all very promising!

New STOS loaders

Work is progressing on producing new STOS loader programs which remove the need for programs to be fixed at all, even without using the compiler fixer. Work is also underway to presuede STOS to return to the desktop cleanly in extended Falcon resolutions, rather than only the ST compatible ones. Stay tuned for more news and Reader Disk appearances!


[Screenshot]
STOS Text file browser using GEM!



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