Otherware/Otherware_1_SB_Development.iso/amiga/comms/bbs/falcon2.lzh/help/longhelp.bbs

File List | 1991-09-25 | 11KB | 226 lines

"Long Help" for FRED
--------------------
    This is quite literally long, so if you can capture it, I suggest you
do so.


Technical notes
===============

    FRED uses a few ANSI codes that not everyone's terminal may support.
These are Insert- and Delete-Line(s), and Insert- and Delete-Char(s).  For
MS-DOS compatibles, Telix supports these codes and the version of ProComm
that I saw did not.  I am told that the MacIntosh terminal ZTerm supports
the codes.  Otherwise I do not know.  On the Amiga, any terminal that uses
the console.device will work fine.  JRComm does its own interpreting, and
versions less than v1.01 do not work with FRED.  Apparently v1.01+ does
work, though.

    If your term doesn't support these, well, I guess that's your problem.
All I can say is that you can use the line-oriented editor (LORE).


Key Definitions
===============

.-----------------------.-----------.-------.-------------.
|        Command        |   VT100   | Quick |    Local    |
|-----------------------+-----------+-------+-------------|
| Save message          |           | ^K^D  |             |
| Abort message         | <Esc-Esc> | ^K^Q  |             |
| New (clear) message   |           | ^K^N  |             |
| Update header         |           | ^U    |             |
| Toggle insert mode    | <Ins>  (+)| ^V    | <Ins>       |
| Reformat/Redraw Scrn. |           | ^L    |             |
| Reformat page only    |           | ^P    |             |
| Long help             |           | ^Kh   | <Sh-Help>   |
| Short key help (this) |           | ^K?   | <Help>      |
|-----------------------+-----------+-------+-------------|
| Backspace             | <Bs>      | ^H    | <Bs>        |
| Delete                | <Del>     | ^G    | <Del>       |
| Move one col left     | <Left>    | ^S    | <Left>      |
| Move one col right    | <Right>   | ^D    | <Right>     |
| Move one word left    |           | ^A    | <Sh-Left>   |
| Move one word right   |           | ^F    | <Sh-Right>  |
| Move to next tab stop | <Tab>     | ^I    | <Tab>       |
| One line up           | <Up>      | ^E    | <Up>        |
| One line down         | <Down>    | ^X    | <Down>      |
| Top of page           |           | ^T    | <Sh-Up>     |
| Bottom of page        |           | ^B    | <Sh-Down>   |
| Previous page         | <PgUp> (+)| ^R    | <PgUp>      |
| Next page             | <PgDn> (+)| ^C    | <PgDn>      |
| Go to start of msg    |           | ^W    |             |
| Go to end of message  |           | ^Z    |             |
| Go to start of line   | <Home>    | ^Q^S  | <Home>      |
| Go to end of line     | <End>     | ^Q^D  | <End>       |
| Kill line (to buffer) |           | ^Y    | <F6>        |
| Kill to EOL (to buf.) |           | ^Q^Y  | <F7>        |
|-----------------------+-----------+-------+-------------|
| Set mark              |           | ^Q^M  | <Keypad-5>  |
| Swap cursor and mark  |           | ^Q^Q  |             |
| Cut (to buffer)       |           | ^Q^X  |             |
| Copy (to buffer)      |           | ^Q^C  |             |
| Import File (to buf)* |           | ^Q^F  |             |
| Paste (from buffer)   |           | ^Q^V  |             |
`-----------------------'-----------'-------'-------------'
* Sysop or local mode only.

(+) Anyone know what these VT100 key codes are, or even IF they are?


Screen Explanation
==================

What you see on your screen should look something like this:

 .--------------------------------------------------------------------------.
 | From: Joe User                           To: Joe Other_User              |
 | Subject: A very interesting subject                                      |
 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
 | <                                                                        |
 |                                                                          |
 |                                                                          |
 |                                                                          |
 | - INSERT - FLAME - HELLO? ---------------------------------- $0.00 Pvt - |
 |          FRED: Falcon's Rapid EDitor - ^K? for help, ^KD saves           |
 `--------------------------------------------------------------------------'

    If it doesn't, you probably have your line-length or screen-length set
incorrectly.

    The title bar, "From:", "To:", and "Subject:" parts should be obvious.
At the bottom, the "INSERT" indicator means the text will be inserted at the
cursor position and not written over the text under the cursor, which would
be indicated by the word "OVSTRK" (overstrike) where INSERT was.  Figuring
out the "FLAME" indicator (which may say "QUERY" instead) is left as an
exercise to the reader.  The (blinking) "HELLO?" alert is meant to imply
that the user has been inactive for too long and will be disconnected soon
if no action is made.  The (blinking) "2 MIN." alert may appear in the same
place, which would clearly mean that there are less than two minutes
remaining in the call.  The "Pvt" flag obviously may not be there if the
message is not private, and/or may be accompanied by other applicible
message flags.  Finally, the "$D.CC" message cost will only be there for
netmail messages (I apologize to countries that do not use dollars and
cents.  Maybe I'll make that a little more flexible in the future).


Using the Editor
================

Paragraphs and Formatting
-------------------------

    You will notice "<"'s on some lines (only the first if you haven't
entered any text).  They denote the end of a paragraph if they are red,
or the end of both the final paragraph and the entire document if they
are yellow.

    When FRED saves a message, it simply plugs each line into the file,
and does not insert a carriage return until the end of paragraph.  This
allows Falcon to display the messages on a screen of arbitrary width, by
simply grabbing the next n words it can fit on a line.  Therefore, it is
very important for you to know that what you see is not necessarily what
will result.

      Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their text-
      editors...<
      <
      ...etc.<

will be displayed like this on a screen of the same width:

      Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their text-
      editors...

      ...etc.

or like this on a 22 column screen (any Vic-20's left out there?):

      Now is the time for
      all good men to come
      to the aid of their
      text-editors...

      ...etc.

    To enter such text, simply type away and hit return only at the end of
paragraphs.  Individual lines of each paragraph will be broken on the right-
most space or hyphen within the line limits, or the right margin if neither
is available.

    You should note that, despite the cumbersome ANSI codes that must be sent
out while editing, fast text entry is not really a problem, because text is
inserted as a block (assuming insert mode is on, as it usually is) if there
is more than one character of input waiting.  So it's perfectly alright to,
say, let go with a full-speed ASCII upload.  It'll just be inserted as a
number of large chunks after the first few characters.  It's also handy for
low-speed connections.

    If the paragraph formatting should get messed up somehow during editing,
there is a command to redraw the screen (^L), which has the side effect of
reformatting the message properly.  There is also a reformat-page-only
command (^P), which will only reformat/redraw the message text, without
redrawing the header info.

    IMPORTANT NOTE:  Don't try to get to the middle of the next line by
holding down the spacebar.  Always hit return first.  Otherwise the middle
of your next line may be in a different place for someone with a different
horizontal screen resolution when they read it.


Editing
-------

    Many of these functions can be accessed with a terminal that supports
VT100 key codes like Home, End and the cursor keys.  All can also be
accessed with the various control keys described in the table earlier in
this document.

    You have a few keys for changing what you have done.  You can delete the
character to the left of the cursor and pull the rest of the line back to
fill the gap (A.K.A. back-space), or delete the character under the cursor
and again pull back the rest of the line (A.K.A. delete).  You can also
delete the entire line you are on, or from your current cursor position to
the end of the line.  Note that that refers to the line and not the entire
paragraph.

    In order to get to what you want to change, you can move around:  cursor
up/down/left/right, start of line (Home), end of line (End), previous page
(PgUp), next page (PgDn), top of page, bottom of page, top of document, and
bottom of document.

    When changing the text, you can either write over what have already
written (overstrike mode), or make room for it in the line at your current
cursor position (insert mode).  Insert mode is toggled with ^V.


Buffer Commands
---------------

    Falcon has the set-mark/cut/copy/paste functions found in many text
editors.

    To use cut or copy, type ^Q^M to set the mark, and then move your
cursor to the other end of the block you wish to work on (it may be before
or after the mark) and type ^Q^X or ^Q^C to cut or copy, respectively.
The contents of the block will then be copied into the buffer and may also
be deleted from the visible text, depending on which command you used.
Kill-line and Kill-To-EOL also insert the text (which has basically been
"cut") into the buffer.  Note that these actions obliterate what was in the
buffer before.

    Local or Sysop-level users can also import text from a file into the
buffer for pasting, by using ^Q^F and entering a filename.

    To paste, just move the cursor to where you want the text in the buffer
to go, and type ^Q^V (or ^Q^P, which is a bit more mnemonic).  The editor
will insert as much as it can into the visible text, which should almost
always be all of it, unless you are in the habit of writing thousand-plus-
line messages.  Note that the block will always be inserted, regardless of
the insert/overstrike indicator.

    One related function is Swap Cursor and Mark.  This is just a handy
little movement command when you want to be flipping between two sections
of text.  It does what it looks like it does.  It puts the mark where the
cursor is, and moves the cursor to where the mark was.