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* AmigaWorld * created by Wolfgang Lug Documentation of version 2.0 1. What is AmigaWorld? ====================== AmigaWorld is a database program that contains information about every country on Earth. It enables you to have a look at the data of one country, or to compare several ones. Among other things it displays location, capital, area, population, languages, currency and the flag of each country. AmigaWorld is very easy to handle, and you can use it with your favourite font, screen mode and colors. You can also choose between German, English, Swedish, and Dutch output. AmigaWorld works on every Amiga that has one MByte of memory and Kickstart 1.2 or later. 2. How do I start AmigaWorld? ============================= It's really easy: Just double-click the AmigaWorld icon. That's all. If you would like to start AmigaWorld from a CLI window you have to make sure that you are in the same directory as AmigaWorld (e.g. "cd df0:AmigaWorld"). Otherwise the program cannot find its data files. AmigaWorld looks best if you use it with its special "Lucifer" font that comes along with the program. If you want to install it in your system you can do so by double-clicking the InstallFont icon. Unimportant which font you use, the diskfont library has to be on you boot disk. It is included in every standard Workbench disk. 3. How do I make AmigaWorld "speak" other languages? ==================================================== After having started AmigaWorld, everything is displayed in English. But you can switch to another language! Just chose the item "Language" from the menu "Configuration". A new window pops up, and you are asked to enter the name of the new language. At the moment you can choose between English, German, Dutch, and Swedish, and I hope that future versions of AmigaWorld will give you even more choice. If you would like to translate AmigaWorld into a new language, feel free to do so! It is not very difficult, but it means a lot of work. See chapter 7 for details. 4. How to use AmigaWorld ======================== Just try and find out! Most features are easy to understand, but you might not notice some of the less intuitive features. Therefore here comes a quick survey about the AmigaWorld screen: The list of countries --------------------- The list of countries is on the right side. It contains all the countries that are selected. You can either select one country at a time (with the right mouse button) or groups of several countries, e.g. with the help of the "Selecion" menu or the search gadget. If you move the mouse on a country's name and press the left button, a new window pops up where the available data for this country is displayed. With this method you can open up to ten country windows at the same time, thus enabling you to compare their data. You close the windows by hitting the close gadget in the upper left corner. The proportional gadget ----------------------- The proportional gadget in the middle of the screen enables you to move up and down in the country list. The map ------- The map has two functions, that are quite useful after having searched: If you move the mouse upon the map and click the left button, the selection of the continents is restored as it was before the last search. If you hit the right mouse button over the map, all countries are selected (and thus displayed). The "Selection" menu is not influenced by this. The search gadget ----------------- The search gadget is below the map. If you type in some text and hit return, AmigaWorld searches for a country with the name you entered. If you have entered e.g. "Belgium", only Belgium will be selected and the data about it will be displayed in a new country window. If you enter "Guiana" AmigaWorld will select the independent state of Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname. If you're too lazy to type in the whole name or if you don't know it com- pletely, it is sufficient to enter the first letters and a star '*'. If you enter e.g. "fra*", France will be displayed. AmigaWorld knows several names for many countries: It doesn't matter if you enter "UK", "England" or "Great Br*"; the result is equal. Before starting a search, you should remember that AmigaWorld searches only the selected countries. If only European countries are selected, AmigaWorld won't find China or Mexico. Therefore it is usually necessary to restore the old selection after every search: Just click on the map. It is not only possible to search for a country's name: You can also search for a country, if you know its capital; or you can search for all countries, where a specified language is spoken; or you can search for all countries in South East Asia, e.g. This depends on your selection in the "Search for" menu. By the way: The search function is still enabled when you have already opened some country windows. 5. The Menus ============ A speciality, that should not be that special --------------------------------------------- Intuition gives you two ways of choosing a menu item: 1st) You press the right mouse button, move the mouse upon the item and then release the right button. That is nothing new to you, I suppose. 2nd) You press the right mouse button, move the mouse upon the item and then hit the LEFT button, without releasing the right one. Probably you wonder why the guy is telling you this rather boring story. Well, with the second method it is not only possible to select one item, but three or four at a time. So you can make your choice in the "Display" menu with one turn, or you can choose "Font" and "Colors" and "Save" from the configuration menu all at once. Especially if you use this on the "Selection" menu, you will notice that it works a lot faster than selecting five menu items one after another, each time waiting until the program has processed the input. Although it is an intuition feature, it is not supported by many programs. Registered users can have a look at the source code to see how it works; it's really simple. Coming next there is a description of all the menu items: The "AmigaWorld" menu --------------------- "About" whodunnit "User" tells how (and why) to become a registered user. If you have registered you will find your own name. "Translation" tells you about the brave men who translated everything into their native languages. "Quit" does what it is supposed to do. WITHOUT any stupid questions if you really, really, really want to exit. The "Selection" menu -------------------- The upper six items tell AmigaWorld which continents shall be selected and thus displayed in the country list. If you want only information about African countries, just switch off the rest of the world! "Dependencies" If this item is activated, not only independent states are selected but all the other countries and territories, too, e.g. Greenland or Hong Kong. The "Sort by" menu ------------------ If you select an item from this menu, the country list will be sorted. The order depends on the item you have chosen. If you choose "Area" the biggest countries are displayed first and the tiny ones last. "Name" The countries are sorted alphabetically. "Area" Russia is displayed first, the Vatican last. I think you can guess what the other items do. The "Display" menu ------------------ This menu determines the looks of the country list. It is interesting especial- ly in connection with the "Sort by" menu. "Rank" The country list will be numbered. This is helpful when comparing countries. An example: You have chosen only "Europe" in the "Selection" menu and "Population" in the "Sort by" menu. The beginning of the list will look like this: 1 Russia 2 Germany 3 Great Britain ... "Official Names" Instead of the common names (like Greece) the official names (like Greek republic) will be displayed. Quite useless. "Value" The value that corresponds with the "Sort by" menu will be displayed behind the names in the list, if this item is checked. "All Countries" AmigaWorld does not only display the selected countries but all the others, too. They are shown in another color, so you can still recognize which are selected and which aren't. This item is very helpful if you would like to compare the selected countries with the rest of the world. You could e.g. sort the list by GNP and have a look how the EC countries come out. Moreover this enables you to select one single country by clicking it with the right mouse button. The "Search for" menu --------------------- If you enter some text in the down left gadget, AmigaWorld by default searches for a country, with a name that is equal to your input. But you can also search for other things, depending on what you choose from this menu: "Name" is the default setting. "Location" If you have chosen this one, it it usually better to enter a star '*' in the search gadget. If you don't, Amiga- World will not find countries with a more precise description of their location. Example: If you enter "Central America", only the countries on the continent will be listed. But if you enter "Central America*" these countries AND the islands in the Carribean will be selected. "Capital" From now on AmigaWorld will look for capitals that match your input. If you enter "Bo*" for example, Colombia (Bogota) and Germany (Bonn) will be selected. If you enter "Ber*", Germany (Berlin) and Switzerland (Bern) will be selected. "Language" You would like to know all countries, where the people speak English, Turkish or Swahili - no problem! "Religion" If you enter "Islam" nothing will happen: You have to enter the name of people believing in the religion, e.g. "Muslims" or "Shiites". With one exception: Enter "Ethnic" if you want to know where ethnic religions are common. "Currency" This enables you to search for countries that use a specific currency. You can only search for the main unit (e.g. Dollar) not for sub-units (e.g. cent). "Organization" This item is a bit different: A new window pops up where all those organizations are listed that AmigaWorld knows. Click one, and a description of it comes up, and its members are selected. The "Configuration" menu ------------------------ This menu makes it possible to adjust AmigaWorld's outfit to your own prefer- ences: "Colors" A color requester comes up. Registered users can easily use it in their own programs. "Interlace" If you have a flicker-fixer (or tough eyes) you can turn interlace mode on/off. "Font" If you don't like my beautiful font (shame on you!) then you can select another one. Its size should not exceed 15 point. "Language" This enables you to communicate with AmigaWorld in another language. At the moment you can choose between English, German, Swedish and Dutch, and who knows? Maybe YOU will send me a translation into your native language! "Save" This one saves the current settings of the "Configuration" menu onto disk. Next time you start AmigaWorld, it will look exactly as you prefer it. 6. The data =========== Some words about the data as it is displayed in the country window: My most informative source is a German almanac, called "Fischer Welt-Almanach"; most data is taken out of the 1993 edition of this book. But there are more sources: Other books, newspapers, informations from my users, etc. Some information might need more explanation. Here it is: o Name: Some countries have changed their names in recent years, e.g. Burma to Myanmar or Upper Volta to Burkina Faso. That's why you might miss some countries in the list. If you would like to get information about a country that you cannot find in the list then you should type its name into the search gadget: AmigaWorld will display the data together with the new name of the country. o Capital: Every name is spelled in the language of its inhabitants first; if the English name differs, it is mentioned in brackets. o Language: Not all languages are mentioned that are spoken in a country; this would be impossible. I'm quite sure that every language that is spoken by more than ten percent of the population is mentioned, the languages of smaller minorities sometimes are, sometimes not. o Religion: Same thing as the language data: Not all are listed, but most; very often the percentage is written in brackets. But you should not look at these figures too seriously: If you add up of about 60 for some countries, of more than 100 for some all the figures you will get a total percentage of more than 100% for some countries, of about 60% for some others. This is probably due to the different sources of the data: Some countries use data by the churches that probably just count the baptized people, even if they are agnosticians or atheists today. (=> about 95%) Some other countries seem to use data by statistic surveys, where the people are included that have no denomination (=> about 70%). And especially in Africa many people have two religions, e.g. Islam and an ethnic relgion (=> about 110%). The data about religion was originally collected by Ruud Hoekzema. But when I updated the German data file, I found lots of differences between my almanac and Ruud's sources. That's why the English version became a mixture of both. o Organiz.: The English and Dutch version know more organizations than the German or Swedish one. This is due to the fact that Ruud Hoekzema has added three more organizations. 7. The awo files ================ If you would like to translate AmigaWorld into another language you will have to deal with its data files, because the program itself remains unchanged. That's why I'm gonna give you a description of the meaning and structure of the four "awo.*" data files. awo.cfg ------- AmigaWorld reads some files after you started it. The one that is read first is called "awo.cfg". It contains the configuration data as you have saved it by selecting the menu item "Configuration"/"Save". If AmigaWorld cannot find this file it continues with the default values. Because you can easily modify "awo.cfg" with a text editor, it is not included in the freeware version, I'm sorry. awo.output ---------- The file "awo.output" contains all the texts, that are displayed by AmigaWorld. It is not too difficult to create a new translation of "awo.output": Just load one of the output files that came along with AmigaWorld into your favourite text editor. Now you have to translate it line by line. You should save the result in a new sub-directory with the name of the language. For example: An Italian output file should be saved as "Italiano/awo.output", a French one as "Français/awo.output", and so on. The first line must read "AWO-Output" (case-sensitive!) and the last line must consist of this char: '#'. It is possible to place comments in the output file: Everything that follows a semicolon ';' will be ignored. On the other hand you cannot specify output text that contains a semicolon, because AmigaWorld would only read the first part of it. Maybe you wonder about all those blank lines in the files? This is space for future versions! If there are e.g. new menu items, they can be placed between the existing ones. If there were no blank lines for this, everything had to be appended at the end, making the output data look rather confuse. A star '*' means, that the text of this line is the same in all translations, and thus internal (e.g. my address). awo.data -------- This file is the most important one. It contains all the information about the countries. It was not easy for me to translate "awo.data" into English because this isn't my native language and I didn't know the English names of many countries, capitals, and languages. I could find some of them in dictionaries, but not all. Thus you will find some mis-spellings in my translation, e.g. in African languages or in the capitals of former Soviet republics. All translations that seemed strange to me are marked with two backslashes '\\', so you can glance thru the data file and check out for mistakes. Nevertheless, I ask you not to spread any modified data files. It is better to send your improvements directly to me. I will include them in future versions of AmigaWorld, making them available to a large number of users. What comes next is a description of the construction of "awo.data": The countries are listed in that order in which they shall be displayed by AmigaWorld, i.e. alphabetically. The information about one country is written in thirteen lines, that stick together. line 1: The common names of the country. You can enter more than one name for a country. Only the first one (maximum 120 chars) will be displayed but if you use the search gadget, the other names (maximum 30 chars) will be recognized, too. They are divided by a vertical slash '|'. Example: "Netherlands|The Netherlands|Holland" line 2: The code number of the country. It is the same in all translations of 'awo.data', e.g. 54 for Finland. It connects a country with its flag file and has some other useful functions. line 3: The official name of the country. You can only specify one official name. That is sufficient, because you cannot search for official names anyway. line 4: The abbreviation, as it is used on number-plates. If the country is independent, its abbreviation is written in this line (e.g. "F" for France). Its length must not exceed three chars. If the country is not independent, the abbreviation of the mother country is written, enclosed by square brackets (e.g. "[F]" for Guadeloupe or French Polynesia). A question mark '?' means that the abbreviation is not known. line 5: The location: At the beginning of the line the continents are specified as figures: 1 = Africa, 2 = America, 3 = Asia, 4 = Australia and Pacific Ocean, 5 = Europe, 6 = Polar Regions. After a vertical slash the location is written as text. Example: "53|East Europe and North Asia" for Russia line 6: The capital(s): This line works exactly as line 1 with the country name: At the beginning there is the text that will be displayed in the country window (up to 120 chars). Afterwards there are other names that the search function will recognize, either (max. 30 chars). The names are divided by vertical slashes. Example: "Washington (DC)|Washington" But there are also countries with more than one capital. They are entered like this: "Berlin (government in Bonn)|Berlin|Bonn". line 7: The language(s). This line contains the languages that are spoken in the country. It works like line 1 and line 5. Example: "English and French|English|French" line 8: The religion(s). Exactly the same as line 1, 5, and 7. line 9: The area as square kilometres. AmigaWorld accepts only integer numbers. Usually it doesn't matter, but if you were consequent, you had to round off Vatican to zero ... line 1ß: The population. line 11: The Gross National Product as millions of US-$. line 12: The currency. It works exactly like the capital or language line. line 13: The memberships. The line starts with the text that shall be displayed in the country window. After that the code number of each organization is listed. These numbers correspond to the ones in the file 'awo.org'. To highten the readability of the file one can enter as many blank lines as one likes; I suggest one after every country. Comments are also possible: As in "awo.output", everything is ignored that follows a semicolon ';'. The semicolon should not be divided from the text by any spaces. If you enter "London ;that's were I live!" the search function will get confused and not recognize "London" but only "London ". The file must start with "AWO-Datafile" and end with a '#'. If you would like to translate "awo.data" you should know that it is a lot of work. I've seen that when I made the English version (groan). But I guess that it is much easier to translate something into one's native than into a foreign language. So I encourage you to spend a few years on putting it into French or whatever! At least AmigaWorld will support your efforts: If you create a syntax error, the program tells you, what went wrong and where it went wrong, i.e. the line number. Thus it is in no way dangerous for the program or your hard disk or anything else, if you test your translations yourself. But do not start right now, please! I have a very, very big request: Please contact me BEFORE translating anything. I tell you this because it will probably last about two months from the day I send a new version to Fred Fish and the day you receive it (if you are fast!). In the meantime someone else might have created a translation for the same language without you knowing it. This would be really annoying, wouldn't it? Moreover the Swedish and Dutch versions reached me, when I had already done some changes to the structure of the data file! Of course these changes were missing in the translations at first. So, please, please: Do not send any translations "spontaneously", but write a short letter or something and tell me that you intend to translate the program! If someone else was faster, I can tell you; and if the structure of the data file has changed, I can send you the latest version. Thank you! awo.org ------- Sine version 2.0 there is one more data file: It's called 'awo.org' and con- tains the descriptions of the international organizations. It starts with the identification 'AWO-Organisations'. After that each organization comes up: line 1: The name of the organization, as it shall be displayed in the list that comes up when you choose "Organization" from the "Search for" menu. line 2: The code number, that corresponds to the ones in 'awo.data'. line 3-n: The description. It must not exceed 10 kByte and it should not contain line feeds, except after paragraphs. Otherwise the automatical word wrap will get confused. line n+1: Somehow we have to tell AmigaWorld that a description is over and the next one begins. This is done by a backslash '\' in the line after the description. You cannot enter comments, thus the semicolon can be used in the descriptions. The file (as usual) has to end with '#'. One more hint ------------- If you do not want to translate all three data files but just two, it is not necessary to copy the one that you did not translate to the new subdirectory: Just move the data file that your version shall also use into the mother dir- ectory; this will save some space on your disk. I'm afraid that the explanation was a bit confuse, so I give you an example: You have translated 'awo.output' and 'awo.org' into Norwegian, but you are to lazy to translate 'awo.data' either. If the directory structure looks like this, the English and the Norwegian version use the same file 'awo.data': AmigaWorld (dir) AmigaWorld awo.data English (dir) awo.org awo.output Norsk (dir) awo.org awo.output 8. Legal stuff ============== All folks that release a computer program write some stuff like this in their documentations. Maybe there is some sense in it, so I'm going to do it, either: The author will not be liable for any damage arising from the failure of this program to perform as described, or any destruction of other programs or data residing on a system attempting to run the program. While the author knows of no damaging errors, the user of this program uses it at his or her own risk. I stole it from the documentation of Patch 2.0 by Hartmut Stein who took it out of a readme by some other guy. You see, this is a paragraph with tradition! Of course I do not take any liability for the data files, either. 9. Distribution =============== The limited freeware version of AmigaWorld may be spread as you like it. I encourage you to make copies and give them to your friends! If you take money for copying AmigaWorld, the charge must not exceed US-$ 5.- or the equivalent in other currency. Only Mr Fred Fish of Tempe/Arizone may charge as much as he decides to. Moreover you have to spread the whole distribution as you have received it yourself. Please do not modify or delete any files from it. The entire list of files looks like this: Svenska (dir) awo.data awo.org awo.output ReadMe ReadMe.info Fonts (dir) Lucifer (dir) 8 Lucifer.font Flags (dir) 011 014 100 104 142 181 213 227 231 234 244 Deutsch (dir) awo.data awo.org awo.output Dokumentation Dokumentation.info Einschränkungen Einschränkungen.info Entwicklung Entwicklung.info English (dir) awo.data awo.org awo.output Documentation Documentation.info History History.info Limitations Limitations.info Nederlands (dir) awo.data awo.org awo.output ReadMe ReadMe.info AmigaWorld AmigaWorld.info Deutsch.info English.info InstallFont InstallFont.info Nederlands.info Svenska.info It is not allowed to give the version for registered users to any other people. Only those parts of the source code may be spread that are marked as Public Domain. Lucifer font is Public Domain, i.e. you can spread it, modify it and use it in your own programs. 10. How to become a registered user ================================== If you like AmigaWorld, why don't you become a registered user? Registered users will receive the latest version of AmigaWorld, of course without any annoying limitations. They will also receive all flags, the latest data files and the source code of the program, that should be interesting to everyone who creates programs in Modula-2. Escpecially the following parts will be useful: EasyIntuition contains procedures to open screens, windows and to initialize menus. If your program crashes, all screens and windows are closed automatically. This is quite use- ful while developing software. EasyGadgets contains procedures to create and evaluate gadgets. As you see, it supports 3D-look. ColorRequest contains the color requester. Vanilla does not really belong to the source code yet. It converts rawkey events into ASCII code and it does also tell you if some non-ASCII key was hit, e.g. Help. You can also have a look, if any qualifiers (Shift, Amiga Keys, Numeric Pad, ...) were used. Vanilla is based on a module by Fabbian G. Dufoe and Peter Graham Evans, that can be found on AmigaLibDisk 344. Examples Together with the source I provide some examples that show you how to use the modules that are listed above. Because I could not afford DM 400,- on an update (the update costed more than the whole thing, when I bought it!) I'm still using version 3.3 of m2Amiga. If you have a later version of the compiler you should recompile everything, because the result will be much shorter than the big thing that comes along with this distribution. Well, if you want to become a registered user, send US-$ 20 (or the equivalent in your own currency) to this address: Wolfgang Lug Altmühlstr. 20a 65207 Wiesbaden Germany If you are already a registered user you can order the latest version of AmigaWorld for US$ 10.- (overseas) or DM 10.- (Europe). Of course I'm keen on your money in the first place, but I'm looking forward to ANY reaction on AmigaWorld. So, if you have any ideas, how to improve AmigaWorld, or if you know how to create the 3D-look for windows without using tag-items: Write to me! If you find bugs in the program or in the data files, or if you just want to tell me about all my nasty mistakes in the English documentation: Contact me! If you think that AmigaWorld's icon is ugly: Create a better one and send it to me! Right at this place in the old documentation, there was an invitation to send me translations without telling me before. This was not too good an idea: The translations I received were all a bit "old-fashioned", because I had already improved the program itself. The Dutch version e.g. arrived one day after I had put the currency line into the data file. Of course my translators could not know this; it is entirely my fault. But because I do not want to happen this too often: Please contact me BEFORE sending any translation. This will also save you from translating everything into a language, that AmigaWorld was already translated to. If you are the first one that creates a translation into your language, you will get the full functional version without payment. If you have already payed you will get your money back. Credits ======= Last not least I wanna say "Thank you!" to some people: Alexander Linke who put me on Modula-2. Bernd Preusing for his module "IntuiPointer", which creates the busy pointer for the mouse. Kai Bolay for ImageConvert, that I used to convert the title and the little map into source code. Stefan Salewski for his ILBMHandler, that AmigaWorld uses for its flag display. Jean-Michel Forgeas for his great editor "Az". I wrote the documentation and most data files with it, and it is really the best editor for the Amiga that I know. You should test it yourself: It can be found on AmigaLibDisk 346! Special thanks to Bo Arnholm who translated 'awo.data' and 'awo.output' into Swedish and made a lot of suggestions how to improve Amiga- World. Ruud Hoekzema who translated 'awo.data' and 'awo.output' into Dutch and told me about many inaccuracies in the country data. His Dutch version was the first to contain data about religion and international organizations. E N J O Y ! and remember: IBM sucks