Almathera Ten Pack 3: CDPD 3/Almathera Ten on Ten - Disc 3: CDPD3.iso/scope/176-200/scopedisk194/screenx-v3.0/screenx.docs

Text File | 1995-03-20 | 12.9 KB | 307 lines

                   ScreenX 3.0 Documentation
                             by Steve Tibbett



INTRODUCTION

ScreenX was originally designed to make getting at screens easier -
especially screens that are lost behind other screens that don't give you
depth gadgets.  Chessmaster was the original culprit.

To make getting at ScreenX easier, I gave it a window on the Workbench
screen, and since it was always going to be there anyway, I wrote into that
window the amount of available memory and the time.

You can't work with Screens while ScreenX is in that tiny window on the
Workbench screen, though - you've got to get ScreenX active first.  (We'll
talk about doing that later - if you've run ScreenX already, click in the
ScreenX window and tap the space bar).  Once ScreenX is active, you'll have
a big black screen with a list of screens down the left edge, and a bunch
of huge gadgets down the right.

From here you can pick any screen that's open and work with it.  Working
with it means Popping it to the front, Pushing it to the back, saving it to
an IFF file, printing it, or even trying to close it!  (Though this has
some rather nasty implications, which we'll talk about later).

ScreenX is fully compatible with the 2.0 Amiga system software, and even
takes advantage of it where possible, without affecting how it runs
under 1.3.  There is one new feature available to 2.0 users, however,
that being the Pop-Up menu available anywhere while ScreenX is running.
(there's a section on that later)


INSTALLATION

For ScreenX to be really useful, it needs to be available.  Loading
it automatically when you reset your computer is the best way to do this,
and it's relatively easy to do.

If you're using 1.3, you need to get "Run >NIL: <NIL: ScreenX" into your
Startup-Sequence, probably near the end, but before the "EndCLI" (if you
have one).  Assuming you are using a standard Commodore Workbench setup,
you have a Text Editor handy - "Ed".  Open up a CLI window, and type
"ED S:Startup-Sequence"... Ed will load, and show you the file.  Move down
to the end of it, then back up a few lines with the cursor keys, and
type "RUN >NIL: <NIL: ScreenX", hit return, then hit ESC, X, then return.
That's it - next time you reset, you should end up with screenX on your
Workbench screen.

There are some options that apply when ScreenX is started from the
CLI (or from the Startup-Sequence), these are:

"-e" tells ScreenX to be a little less agressive in updating it's memory
display - ScreenX normally udpates it 5 times a second.  With this option,
it will be updated once every 1.5 seconds...  meaning it will take a little
less processor time, but will be less accurate.

"-x" and "-y" let you change the position the ScreenX window comes up in.
For instance, saying "ScreenX -x15 -y100" would put ScreenX halfway down
the screen, 15 pixels over from the left edge (the x axis).

"-t" uses a 12 hour clock instead of a 24 hour one.

"-f" uses full numbers instead of numbers of "K" to show memory, meaning
that 16384 bytes free would be shown as 16384 instead of 16.

"-c" will disable changing colour 0 to White and colour 1 to Black for
printing purposes.  Without this option, when you tell it to print a
screen, color 0 and color 1 become white and black, which makes the
printout usually look better (depending on what you are printing).
If you are printing digitized pictures, or anything else where the
colours actually matter, then you should use this option.

If you're using the 2.0 operating system, simply drop the "ScreenX" icon
into the WBStartup drawer.  That's it - ScreenX will get loaded when the
Workbench is next loaded.



THE SMALL WINDOW

The small window ScreenX opens on the Workbench is just a clock and memory
meter, but it gives you a way to talk to ScreenX.

Clicking in the small window and typing "F" will change the display from
showing total free memory to showing the largest chunk of free memory for
each of the two areas of memory (Chip RAM and Fast RAM).

Not having a large enough chunk of free memory is just as bad as being out
of memory - If you find you've got hundreds of K of memory free, but the
largest piece is only a few K large, it's time to reboot.

Typing space with the small window active will bring up the Big window -
Pressing the right mouse button will do the same thing.

Pressing "N" will do the same thing as finding a CLI window and typing
"NEWCLI" into it - it will pop up a new CLI window.  Pressing "W" will
do the same, but with "NewWSH" for WShell users.

Hitting ESCAPE or just clicking on the close box will make ScreenX
quit - it will instantly close it's window and leave.


THE BIG WINDOW

The main window has three different "Modes" it can be in.  There's
"Screens" mode, where it's showing you a list of screens down the left
side, "Programs" mode, where it's showing you a list of programs down
the left side, and "Info" mode, where it's got screens on the left and
a "Screen Info" window on the right.

"Screens Mode"

Screens mode where all screen manipulations are done.  In this mode, the
gadgets down the right side are all applicable, and on the currently
selected screen, perform the following functions:

Pop Screen To Front:  This gadget will take the currently selected
        screen and pop it to the front.  Handy for getting 'Hidden' screens
    back.

Push Screen To Back:  If you have 4 screens in memory, and one of
    them doesn't have Depth gadgets, you can push that one to the back,
    and as long as you don't click any of the other screens back
    behind it, you won't have any problems.  (If you do click anything
    else behind it, you'll have to use ScreenX to get them back!)

Update Screen List:  This will redraw the list of screens that is
    being shown.  Necessary if any of the listed screens close down
    while you are looking at them, or if new screens appear.  Note that
    any action taken on a screen that is no longer around is
    ignored (even clicking on it).

Cycle All Screens:  I'll let you figure this one out on your own.
    Note that to make it stop, you must click anywhere in the
    main ScreenX screen...  (if you can catch it!)

Close Screen:  Danger.  You got it.  This isn't something you
    should be doing unless you KNOW what you are doing.  It will let
    you CLOSE DOWN the screen of your choice.  The problem with this is
    that if anybody else decides to write on that screen at any time,
    our machine will probably crash.  What it's really useful for is
    when a program crashes, you can close it's screen to free up
    the Chip RAM the screen is using.  Just make sure you don't
    go closing the Workbench down, OK?

Save Screen to IFF File:  This gadget will instantly turn the
    screen Red (so you know something's going on), and save the screen
    selected into the filename in the Text gadget at the bottom of the
    screen.  Note that the filename in that gadget must include the
    full pathname, or else if you just type a filename in there, it will
    be written to the current directory.

Print Screen:  Clicking once on this gadget will start printing the screen
    selected to the printer you've selected in preferences, using the
    options that you set there.  Clicking again will stop the printout.


Screen Info:  Shows you information about the selected screen, like
    the current font that screen is using, the amount of
    memory that screen is using (Note:  If it says 32K, it
    really means 32000 bytes), the number of Windows open on
    that screen, and the number of Gadgets on that screen.  The
    depth of that screen too - Depth = Number Bitplanes.
    (It's always fun to run a bunch of programs, and then
    try to find all the gadgets...)

A warning here about printing screens:  Just after I added the
Print Screen gadget, while I was testing it, I ran into a weird
problem - I could print, say, the DiskX screen, but if I tried to
print the ScreenX screen, or the Workbench screen, I'd get a blank
page.  It turns out that if your preferences are set for
Black and White, and your screen colors are not far enough apart
to be Black and White, it will print all white - White's an easy color
to print...  ScreenX now assumes that colour 0 is the Background colour.
This is not what you want if you are trying to get an accurate
representation of the screen, which is why the "-c" command line option
was provided (see INSTALLATION).


HOTKEYS

Hotkeys are valid in any ScreenX window.  There are two Hotkeys -
"Left-Amiga-Help" will summon the ScreenX full screen, wherever you
are.  This lets you find any screen in the system reasonably quickly
without ever reaching for your mouse - This works because when you hit
Left-Amiga-Help, the screen list pops up.  You can then hit the down
arrow, until the screen you want is hilited, then hit Return - the ScreenX
screen will disappear and the selected screen will pop to the front, and
the first window on that screen will be activated.

"Left-Amiga-Del" will save the frontmost screen.  This can be especially
useful for grabbing screens with menus - you can pull down a menu,
then hit Left-Amiga-Del while holding down the right mouse button, and
capture an image of the menu.  (Good luck doing that with just two hands!)


SAVED SCREENS

When you save a screen in ScreenX, the screen will be saved to the
last filename you entered into the filename gadget on the main
ScreenX screen.  Any existing file will be overwritten, UNLESS
the filename ends with ".<number>".  If it ends with ".1" (ie,
"Picture.1"), ScreenX will try to save it as "Picture.1".  If
"Picture.1" exists, it will try "Picture.2", and so on, until it finds
one.  This is good for, say, touring all the Intuition Menus in a
program you are writing a manual (or review) for, as you can show the
menu, hit the Save key, wait for the Screen to flash (it flashes when
it's done saving), then move the mouse to the next menu and hit the
key again.

Note that ScreenX will not do anything unusual if a disk error
occurs during the save - the file will be truncated but no error
will be displayed.  You should make sure you have enough room before
starting.


PROGRAM MODE

A new item to 3.0: ScreenX can now present you with a list
of programs, and let you run one of them.  For this to work, you
must create a file named 'S:ScreenX.Config', which will contain lines
of the form

LineToBeDisplayed
CommandToBeExecuted
LineToBeDisplayed
CommandToBeExecuted
LineToBeDisplayed
CommandToBeExecuted
...and so on.

The LineToBeDisplayed will be shown on the ScreenX screen for you to
select, and the CommandToBeExecuted will be executed if you
hit return with it selected, or click 'Pop To Front' with it
selected.

When you bring up the ScreenX screen (via Left-Amiga-Help if you haven't
changed it from the default), you can hit Tab to switch between the
list of screens and the list of programs, then hit the arrow keys to
select the one you want, and return.  If you decide you don't want one,
just hit escape.

The mode you last used (Program or Screen) will be remembered for the next
time you summon the big window.


SCREENX AND 2.0

There is one new feature that ScreenX has under 2.0, perhaps it's nicest
feature.  On any screen, holding down the Left-Amiga key and tapping the
Right Mouse Button will bring up a window with a list of all the screens
in it under the cursor - just move the mouse to the screen you want, and let
go - that screen will be popped to the front, and the first window on it
activated.


MIDDLE MOUSE BUTTON

If you have a middle mouse button, hitting it under 2.0 will do the same
as hitting the Left-Amiga-Help keystroke, ie, call up the big window.




AUTHOR AND DISTRIBUTION INFORMATION

ScreenX is freely redistributable, but is also Copyright 1990 Steve Tibbett.
Source is not available.  Distribution is only very slightly limited:
You may not distribute ScreenX without it's current documentation, and
if it is to be commercially distributed, I won't demand but I would
appreciate being sent a copy of whatever it is being distributed with
or on (in the case of disk magazines).

Like all my stuff, ScreenX will likely continue to change.  If you like
ScreenX, check with wherever you got it every few months for updated
versions, especially if you have problems with it (and have let me
know about them), as I normally fix problems quickly.

I don't ask for any cash contribution for ScreenX.  If you are feeling
guilty and just want to send something, send an original game or
a neat demo, I'll probably appreciate it more than cash.


My Virutal Addresses:

    My BBS is 613-731-3419, up 24 hours/day running my own BBS (BBX)...
    You can reach me on Plink (where I'm an Asst. Chair) as STEVEX...
    You can reach me on Bix as "s.tibbett"...
    You can reach me through FidoNet on point 1:163/109.42...
    You can send me Usenet mail at cognos!alzabo!omx!stevex...
    Or you can call me at 613-731-5316.

    I prefer talking with people electronically (including phone) rather
    than mail - I answer all email, but very little paper mail.


My Physical Address:

           Steve Tibbett
           2710 Saratoga Pl. #1108
           Gloucester, Ontario
           K1T 1Z2