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1990-12-30
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********************************************************************************
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Version 2.00
Copyright © 1991 by
Federico Giannici
Viale Francia 4
90146 Palermo
Italy
All rights reserved.
My MC-Link (+39 6 4180440) code is MC4080.
********************************************************************************
View80 II is a fast and powerful ASCII Text-Reader.
This program is ShareWare.
It can be freely copied, provided that no change is made to the program or to
the documentation and that the archive is left intact. The program can't be
included in any commercial program without my written permission.
If you use View80 II, you have the moral duty to send me a contribution. The
suggested amount is $15 or Lire 20.000. In this way I can continue to improve
this already great program.
It's up to you!
View80 II works fine also with the Kickstart 2.0. Better still, it takes
advantage of some features of this new version of the operating system.
LOADING
~~~~~~~~~
You can load the program both from Workbench or CLI.
From Workbench
--------------
You can doubleclick the View80 icon or insert the View80 name and path in the
"Default Tool" of the icon of the textfile that you wish to read with View80.
You can also use multiple selection (with the SHIFT key) to choose one or more
files to load automatically.
From CLI
--------
You can get the usual help specifying a "?" as first argument (the rest of the
arguments are ignored). Typing "?" again, you will be given more help (a la
ARP).
Anyway the syntax is:
View80 [filenames or wildcards] [NODETACH] [ICONIFY].
Normally View80 detaches itself from the starting CLI. To avoid this you can
specify the NODETACH keyword.
With the ICONIFY keyword you can freeze immediately View80 in the iconify
status. It's useful to run View80 and set it in "stand by" with your startup-
sequence.
To specify a file named 'nodetach' or 'iconify' you can enclose its name between
quotes (").
THE LIBRARIES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
View80 II makes use of three libraries not present in the standard Workbench
disk. It works also without any library, but to get the best of it you have to
copy the following libraries (included in this archive) in your "LIBS:"
directory.
- req.library: for the file-requester and the color-requester.
- arp.library: for the pattern-matching in file loading.
- powerpacker.library: to decrunch PowerPacker's crunched data files.
To load View80 II from any disk without having to Assign the "LIBS:" directory,
you may find useful an utility written by Nicola Salmoria, whose name is
"LibReq". It allows to load libraries, devices and fonts from any mounted
volume, and displayes a requester if such files cannot be opened. The current
(15 Feb 91) version of LibReq is 1.5.
THE CONFIGURATION FILE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you load View80 II, it searches its configuration file: "View80.config".
First, it searches in the "S:" directory, then, if it's failed, it tries in the
same directory from where it was loaded (i.e. if you typed "dir/View80" it will
search in the "dir" directory).
This is to allow you to load View80, with your favorite configuration, from any
disk, without having to Assign the "S:" directory.
NOTE: View80 isn't currently able to find its directory if it is executed thru
the DOS "path" command. So, leave the configuration file in S: or use the
complete path to load View80.
The configuration includes the following information:
- The screen colors.
- The status of all the "Preferences" menu items.
- The status of all the "Settings" of every buffer.
- The last search string and the status of all the search parameters.
- The current directory of the file-requester and the contents of the "Hide" and
"Show" gadgets.
- The status of the range-mode gadget.
- The position of the iconify-window.
REPLYING TO THE REQUESTERS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can reply to any requester both with the mouse or the keyboard.
Pressing the ESC key you select the "CANCEL" gadget (if it's present) with any
other key you select the "OK" gadget (if it's present).
SCREEN DESCRIPTION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One peculiarity of View80 is the horizontal scrollbar. It allows you to
visualize 80 columns of text and use the scrollbar at the same time.
At the left of the scrollbar there is the indicator of the current line number
(the 'current' line is the first on the screen). It works also as the jump-to
gadget (if the buffer isn't empty).
In the top of the screen there are (from left to right) the close gadget, the
range-mode gadget, the index-of-buffers gadget, the ten buffer gadgets, and
information about name, size and number of lines of the current file.
SELECTING A BUFFER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
View80 II can load up to 10 files in 10 different buffers.
There are many ways to change the currently shown buffer, both with the keyboard
and the mouse.
With the keyboard, press the corresponding numeric key. Alternatively you can
also press the numeric keys on the keypad while holding down the SHIFT or ALT
keys.
With the mouse, simply click on the buffer gadget.
NOTE: Double-clicking a buffer gadget will load a new file in that buffer.
You can also go up and down through the buffers with the F5-F6 keys or with the
"-" and "+" keys in the keypad.
Finally you can use the "Index Of Buffers" command or gadget (see later).
SCROLLING
~~~~~~~~~~~
View80 II can scroll through the text at five (actually they are six) different
speeds. The first three speeds are very smooth, both forwards and backwards. Try
to find another program that gives you such a good scroll!
You can scroll both with keyboard and mouse.
Keyboard scrolling
------------------
You can scroll up and down with the corresponding arrow keys.
The spacebar activates the autoscroll: continue to scroll down without having to
hold down the key.
You can change the scroll speed at any time pressing one of the following keys:
CTRL --> Smooth-Scroll (slower)
SHIFT --> Fast-Scroll
ALT --> Turbo-Scroll
SHIFT & ALT --> Flash-Scroll (faster)
By using the LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys you can move through the text, page by
page (the last line of the previous page will be shown in order not to loose the
thread of what you was reading). If you press the SHIFT key the movement will be
carried out in Fast-Scroll.
By using the ALT key with the LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys you can jump to the top
or to the bottom of the text.
The numeric keypad normally works in a MS-DOS like manner.
The HELP key shows you a brief reminder of the functions of all the keys. So I
don't repeat that reminder here.
Pressing the HELP key with the SHIFT or ALT key you call the "Information"
requester.
Mouse scrolling
---------------
With the mouse you can scroll using the scrollbar or clicking on the screen. The
nearer to the top or bottom edge you click, the faster the text scrolls.
RANGE MODE
~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can select a range for a subsequent "Save", "Print", "Copy to the Clipboard"
or simply to mark a location.
To select a range you have to set View80 in the range-mode, selecting the first
item in the last menu or simply clicking on the "R" gadget in the top of the
screen.
While in range-mode, the mouse is used to select the range in the usual way. For
long selections you can use the "Select All", "Change Start of Range" and
"Change End of Range" menu-items in the rightmost menu.
When View80 is in range-mode you can continue to scroll with the mouse simply
clicking at the very left or right of the screen.
You can also set the range with the F1 and F2 keys, respectively to select the
start and end of the range
-------------
THE MENUS
-------------
In the rest of this document, I'll suppose you are not a stupid and I'll leave
out some details that you can understand by your own. If I haven't anything
interesting to say about some menu item I'll simply write "No comment".
---------
Project
---------
Load...
~~~~~~~
View80 II uses the well-known req.library file-requester. If the req.library
isn't available, View80 uses a very simple requester.
You can select up to 10 files (holding down the SHIFT key).
If the arp.library is available, you can also enter a pattern to specify a group
of files. You can use the AmigaDOS or ARP wildcards. The most important are the
well-known "*", "?" and "#". See the ARP documentation for a complete
description of all the others wildcards and of all the pattern-matching rules.
You can stop a multiple load pressing the menu (right) mouse button.
Load In Free Buffers...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As above, but the files will be loaded only in free buffers.
Save As...
~~~~~~~~~~
If a file with the specified name already exists, you can choose to overwrite
the existing file, to append the file to the bottom of the existing one or to
cancel the command.
Save Range As...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No comment. (see above)
Clear Current Buffer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No comment.
Clear All Buffers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No comment.
Index Of Buffers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This command (achievable also with the "B" gadget in the top of the screen)
shows you a summary of all the files loaded in the buffers, and allows you to
select a buffer, with the mouse or with the correspondent numeric key.
Actually, every file occupies an amount of memory given by the length of the
file plus six bytes per line.
Some times, after a "Remove xxx" or "Extract IFF chunks", it may occur that the
buffer actually is larger than the new length of the file. You are informed of
this with an asterisk on the right of the length of the file.
Information
~~~~~~~~~~~
No comment.
About The Keys
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No comment.
Iconify
~~~~~~~
When iconified, View80 will clear all the buffers and will release as much
memory as it can.
To reopen View80 you have to select its iconify-window and press the menu
(right) mouse button.
If you click on the close-gadget of the iconify-window View80 will quit, even if
the "Quit --> Iconify" preferences item is set.
Quit
~~~~
No comment.
----------
Settings
----------
Tab Size:
~~~~~~~~~
No comment.
Word-Wrap:
~~~~~~~~~~
If Word-Wrap is ON, View80 breaks the lines only in correspondence of a space,
tab or hyphen (if one). Then it skips all the remaining spaces (or tabs) and
puts the following word at the start of the next line. If there isn't any
subsequent word it doesn't start a new line, it simply ignores the skipped
spaces at the end of the line.
Chars:
~~~~~~
With this item you can choose which range of characters to show. The "Printable"
characters are those in the range (hexadecimal) $20-$7F and $A0-$FF. The "None"
option is useful in conjunction with the "Values" option of the "Not Shown:"
item.
The not shown characters are replaced with the character chosen with the "Not
Shown:" item.
If the "Tab:" isn't "OFF", it's always shown.
Not Shown:
~~~~~~~~~~
This is the character used to replace the not shown characters.
With the "Values" option each not shown character is replaced with its
hexadecimal value written vertically. When sent to the printer, the values are
replaced by the "X" character.
Font:
~~~~~
To select the desired font click on the correspondent ".font" file.
You can choose any font, in any directory, provided that it isn't proportional
and that there is the 8x8 dimension.
For example, with View80 II you can read an MS-DOS file utilizing an appropriate
font (e.g. the jrcibm.font that is part of JR-Comm, (c) 1990 by J. P. Radigan).
Printer Controls...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With the "Send the printing to the file:" gadget you can redirect the printing
to any DOS file.
In this way, for example, you can send the printing directly to PAR: or SER:, to
print an MS-DOS character set file, avoiding the translation done by the
'printer.device'.
Note that redirecting to a file is NOT the same thing as to use the "Save..."
command. "Save..." sends the file "as is", while "Print" sends it "as appears",
that is it's formatted as it appears on the screen (using all the "Settings"
options).
Before the file itself, you can print an initialization string or whatever title
or header you like (max 60 chars). By default it sets the left and right margins
to the 1st and 80th column.
Moreover, you can send any initialization file. If it's a printer specific file
you can set the "Raw data (printer specific)" gadget. In this way the file is
sent "as is" to the printer, avoiding the translation of the ANSI sequences that
normally the 'printer.device' does.
So you can send, for example, a font-customization file (created, for example,
with Personal Fonts Maker -(c) 1991 Cloanto-) or any other command that uses
some peculiar capability of your printer.
This gadget works only with the 'printer.device, so it's disabled if you
redirect the printing to some file.
Note that the initialization file is printed before the initialization string.
Copy In All Buffers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All the previous settings can be different for every buffer. Choose this command
to copy the settings of the current buffer in all the other buffers.
--------
Search
--------
Search...
~~~~~~~~~
This command allows you to choose the string to search and all the other search
parameters.
The search starts from the first (searching forward) or the last (searching
backward) line on the screen.
The line with the matching string is shown in reverse.
Search Next
~~~~~~~~~~~
Continue to search the last string from the last occurrence found. If the last
occurrence is no more shown in reverse on the screen, the search starts from the
first (searching forward) or the last (searching backward) line on the screen.
Search Previous
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As "Search Next" but reversing the current direction.
Forward
~~~~~~~
Sets the current direction of the search.
Case Sensitive
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If it's set, the strings must exactly match.
If it isn't set, the search is carried out without discerning between upper and
lower case.
Through All Buffers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If it's set, the search is made from the current to the last (searching forward)
or first (searching backward) buffer.
Otherwise the search is carried out only inside the current buffer.
----------
Commands
----------
Print
~~~~~
No comment.
Print Range
~~~~~~~~~~~
No comment.
Extract IFF CHRS & TEXT chunks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This command extracts the text contained in every CHRS or TEXT chunk of an IFF
file. In this way you can directly read the file generated by many
wordprocessors. Remember that probably you will obtain also the header or footer
text or some other eventual text.
Remove "Not Printable" Chars
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Remove all characters whose code is less than $20 or between $80 and $9F. With
the exception of LF, CR and TAB (if "Tab:" isn't set to "OFF").
Remove "Not $20-$7F" Chars
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As above but leaves only the characters whose code is between $20 and $7F.
Remove ANSI codes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As View80 can't show appropriately the results of the ANSI codes (for speed
reasons it works on only one bitplane), this command allows you to remove any
ANSI code from the current file. So, at least, you can read the plain text,
without those unreadable characters.
Here for ANSI codes we intend those codes that (according to the Rom Kernel
Manuals) are supported by the CLI or the printer device, with the exception of
the LF, CR, TAB (if "Tab:" isn't set to "OFF") and FF (if it isn't set the "ANSI
FormFeed Is Removed" menu item) codes. They are: every CSI (ESC+"[" or $9B)
sequence, some other ESC sequences and the characters $08, $09 (if "Tab:" is set
to "OFF"), $0B, $0E, $0F.
The behaviour with the BackSpace ($08) character depends on the status of the
item "ANSI BackSpace Erase Char" (see the relative paragraph).
-------------
Preferences
-------------
Ask Confirmations
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If this item is set, every time you execute a command that may be dangerous, you
are asked to confirm your intention.
Be Quiet If No Library
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you run View80 II and it doesn't find the req.library or the arp.library or
the powerpacker.library, you will be informed of this.
This item allows you to disable this feature.
Flashing Decrunch
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Someone doesn't like to see that color-flashing during the decrunch of a
powerpacker's crunched file, and someone else does.
This item makes it possible to satisfy everybody.
Auto Extract IFF chunks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If this item is set, every time that View80 loads a new file it automatically
executes the "Extract IFF chunks" command.
Auto Remove ANSI codes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If this item is set, every time that View80 loads a new file it automatically
executes the "Remove ANSI codes" command.
ANSI BackSpace Erase Char
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If this item is set, the command "Remove ANSI codes" simulates the real
behaviour of the BackSpace character removing also the previous character.
Otherwise, only the BackSpace character is removed.
ANSI FormFeed Is Removed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If this item is set, the command "Remove ANSI codes" removes also the FormFeeds
characters.
Don't Pad Clipboard Data
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some programs (first of all TxEd) don't follow the correct rules to read the
clipboard. In particular, they don't read the last (pad) byte of a text of odd
length. In this way they freeze the other programs that try to write to the
clipboard.
This item allows you to avoid this problem.
No Vertical Overscan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Normally View80 II opens its screen with the standard vertical overscan
(horizontal overscan will be implemented in a future release). If you have no
available FAST-MEMORY and don't have a fast microprocessor (68020, 68030...), a
very long screen can give you some nuisance during the scroll (particularly the
up scroll).
Quit --> Iconify
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If this item is set, every "Quit" command is translated into the "Iconify"
command.
Then, if you click the close-gadget of the iconify window, the program really
quits.
Change Colors...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No comment.
Load Configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No comment.
Save Configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The configuration is saved in the same directory from where it was first loaded.
If there wasn't a previous configuration file, it's saved in the "S:" directory.
------------
Range/Move
------------
Range Mode
~~~~~~~~~~
No comment. (see the "RANGE MODE" paragraph)
Select All
~~~~~~~~~~
Set the range to cover all the file.
Change Start Of Range
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Click on the line you wish to become the start of the range.
You can continue to scroll through the text with the scrollbar or the keyboard.
To abort the command press the menu (right) mouse button.
Change End Of Range
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As above, but for the end of the range.
Copy Range To Clipboard
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This command copies the current range of lines to the system clipboard. Some
text-editors (e.g. TxEd) or word-processors (e.g. the Cloanto C1-Text) make use
of this clipboard to make their edit operations (copy, cut and paste). In this
way you can easily exchange data between View80 II and all this programs (the
"Paste" from the clipboard will be implemented in a future release of View80).
NOTE: Please, if you haven't already done it, read the "Don't Pad Clipboard
Data" paragraph.
Top Of File
~~~~~~~~~~~
Jump to the top of file.
Bottom Of File
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jump to the bottom of file.
Start Of Range
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jump to the start of range.
With this command you can use the range to mark one or two points in the text,
and then easily return there (you can also use the F1-F2 keys).
End Of Range
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jump to the end of range. (See above)
Jump To Line...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No comment.
----===== END OF THE MENU COMMANDS =====----
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My best thanks to my beta-testers: Nicola Salmoria (Nick!) and Oscar Sillani.
A very special thank must go to Nick!. If today View80 is so great is due in
most part to him.
Thanks, Nick!
FINAL NOTE
~~~~~~~~~~~~
For any suggestion, criticism, bug reporting, contribution (remember the
ShareWare fee!) or whatever you want, please contact me at the address at the
head of this document.
I enjoyed very much programming View80 II. I hope you'll like it.
Enjoy View80 II!
Federico Giannici