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-
-
- ADoc - User's Manual
-
-
-
-
-
- AboutThisDoc
-
- This manual describes release 4.00 of the utility ADoc. This program
- is (c)1990-1994 by Denis GOUNELLE, any commercial usage or selling without
- author's written authorization is strictly forbidden. You can copy and
- spread this program under the following conditions:
-
- - all the files are provided
- - the files are not modified in any way
- - you don't charge more than $6 for copy fee
-
- In spite of several tests, no warranty is made that there are no
- errors in ADoc. YOU USE THIS PROGRAM AT YOUR OWN RISK. In no event will I be
- liable for any damage, direct or indirect, resulting of the use of ADoc.
-
- AREXX is (c)1987 by William Hawes.
- PowerPacker 2.3b is (c)1989 by PowerPeak and Nico FRANCOIS
- PowerPacker Pro 3.0b is (c)1990 by PowerPeak and UGA Software
- The "powerpacker.library" library is (c)1990 by Nico FRANCOIS
- The "reqtools.library" library is (c)1990 by Nico FRANCOIS
-
- >>> CLOSE THIS WINDOW TO CONTINUE <<<
-
- Foreword
-
- adoc@left ADocSample.pic
- ADoc2 is a new release of ADoc,
- fully rewritten in order to remove some
- limitations and add several improvements.
- Note some incompatibilities arose
- particularly at argument level. This program
- works equally under 1.3 and 2.0 system
- releases.
- ADoc is an utility that allows you
- to manage all kinds of documentations on any
- subject. It is able to automatically start
- searching for a word selected by a mouse
- click, and to work on several documentation
- files at the same time. ADoc can also use
- straight the AutoDocs and AmigaGuide files,
- as well as "PowerPacker" compressed files.
-
- Criticisms and suggestions will
- always be welcomed. Write to:
-
- M. GOUNELLE Denis
- 27, rue Jules GUESDE
- 45400 FLEURY-LES-AUBRAIS
- FRANCE
-
- You can also send a message to the
- following Internet address :
- "gounelle@alphanet.ch". Note that this
- mailbox is not mine, so please send only
- short messages. As I don't have direct
- access to the messages, don't expect an
- answer before a dozen of days.
-
- Thanks to Jean-Yves PROUX and Helmut
- J. ESENWEIN for their numerous suggestions,
- to Reza ELGHAZI for his help concerning
- AmigaGuide files, and to Simon HEWINSON who
- translated in English the "amiga.doc" file.
- Special thanks to Jean-Philippe RAPP for his
- ideas and his help concerning AutoDocs
- files.
-
- Installation
-
- ADoc needs "reqtools.library" (version 2.0c or higher) to run. You
- must copy this file in your "LIBS:" directory, if not yet done.
- ADoc is now localized, so it can adapt itself to your favorite
- language. All you have to do is to copy the good catalog file into the
- directory corresponding to your language. For exemple, if your default
- language is french, copy the "français.catalog" into the
- "SYS:Locale/Catalogs/Français" directory, under the name "ADoc.catalog."
-
- The german catalog was translated by Stefan SALEWSKI.
-
- HowDoesItWork
-
- ADoc works on documentation files, combined with a keyword (this one
- is named "term" in this doc). Every doc file has an index file that allows
- to access the wanted terms nearly immediately. (Note : as a result, each
- time you change a doc file, you'll have to rebuild its index file.) When
- ADoc is running, only is loaded in memory the index file. The name of this
- index file will be the doc file name plus an ".index" suffix.
-
- You can create your doc files with your favourite text editor; these
- files consist of a series of definitions and each definition has a syntax as
- follows :
-
- term
- text line 1
- text line 2
-
- etc...
-
- text line n
-
- At first, consider that the first two lines of a doc file have to be
- empty (or in extreme circumstancies begin with a space or a tab character).
- The first character of each term must be at column 1 and the text lines must
- begin with a space or a tab character. Empty lines are allowed.
-
- One term can't be more than 32 character long and can't contain any
- blanks or tabs : valid characters are upper or lower letters, digits,
- underline, and accented letters (ASCII codes between 217 and 246). However,
- if needed, you can extend this character set (see below AdvancedConcepts).
- The term amount for each file as well as the text line amount for
- each term are unlimited (or rather, this limit is so large that you'll be
- short in memory long before).
-
- A text line can't be more than 256 characters. In order to bring out
- some parts of your text, you can use the following ANSI sequences :
-
- ESC[1m boldface on
- ESC[3m italics on
- ESC[4m underline on
- ESC[22m boldface off
- ESC[23m italics off
- ESC[24m underline off
- ESC[0m normal character set
-
- RunningADocfromCLI
-
- ADoc can be run from Workbench or from the CLI. By default, the doc file is
- "Amiga.doc", but, of course, in both cases, you can specify another
- filename. From the CLI, you can specify the following arguments :
-
- WBENCH
- Asks ADoc to use the Workbench screen. When this argument is missed out,
- ADoc will open its own screen sized as the Workbench screen. On error,
- when opening screen, ADoc will go automatically to the Workbench screen.
-
- LACE
- Asks ADoc to use an interlaced screen. If you asked to use the Workbench
- screen, and this one is not in interlaced mode, this argument will be
- ignored.
-
- DEPTH n
- Asks ADoc to use a n-planes screen (allowing 2^n colors). If you asked
- to use the Workbench screen, this argument will be ignored.
-
- FONT name
- Asks ADoc to use a given font rather than the default one. Name must
- take the form <FontName><SizeY>, for ex. "topaz8". ADoc is able to use
- any non proportional font so long as its size is 8 at least.
- If ADoc can't open the requested font, it will attempt to use the
- default one. If this font doesn't suit or ADoc can't open it, it will
- try to access the topaz8 font. If it fails, ADoc will end immediately.
-
- MAKEIDX
- Tells ADoc the only operation to do is to create the index files.
-
- QUICK
- Asks ADoc not to display a text combined to the "AboutThisDoc" term,
- when starting. Usually, each time ADoc opens a file, it looks for the
- "AboutThisDoc" term in this file, and then, if this one exists, displays
- the corresponding text and waits for user to close the window before
- continuing.
-
- AREXX
- Asks ADoc to go in AREXX mode. More information on how to use ADoc with
- AREXX in TheAREXXMode section below.
-
- ONEWINDOW
- Asks ADoc to open only one window at a time.
-
- NOCASE
- Asks ADoc not to differentiate lower and upper characters when
- processing files. This only will concern files whose name is given after
- this option.
-
- NOSORT
- Asks ADoc not to sort the indexes of files whose name is specified after
- this option.
-
- TABSIZE n
- Tells the tab size for the files whose name is specified after this
- option. Default size is 8.
-
- Any other argument will be considered as a doc file name to be used. You can
- specify several files, by separating their names by spaces or commas (for
- ex. "ADoc file1 file2" or "ADoc file1,file2"). You can mix file names and
- options but let us remember that NOCASE, NOSORT, and TABSIZE options only
- concern files you specified after these options. ADoc will open these files
- in this given order. Unless you indicate one full path, firstly files will
- be looked for in the current directory, then in the "ADOC:" one. If you
- specify a directory name instead of file name, ADoc will open all the files
- in this directory (apart from ".info" and ".index" files).
-
- RunningADocFromWorkbench
-
- From Workbench, you can inwoke ADoc in several ways :
-
- - by double-clicking on its icon (then ADoc will use the default
- documentation file)
- - by double-clicking on one file icon having ADoc as default tool (field
- "DEFAULT TOOL")
- - by clicking on icons of several files, holding down the SHIFT key, and
- double-clicking on the ADoc icon.
-
- In all these cases, ADoc starts by looking into "TOOL TYPES" field of the
- program icon; this one may contain :
-
- FONT=name
- DEPTH=n
- OPTIONS=[WBENCH][LACE][MAKEIDX][QUICK][AREXX][ONEWINDOW]
-
- For more information on these options, see the RunningADocfromCLI section.
- Note option names must be separated by a "|" sign. After that, ADoc will
- open the doc files you specified; it will open them as it does from CLI
- except it examines the "TOOL TYPES" field of each icon. This field may
- contain :
-
- TABSIZE=n
- OPTIONS=[NOCASE][NOSORT]
-
- For more information about these options, see the RunningADocfromCLI
- section. Note these three options only will concern the file corresponding
- to the icon.
-
- StartingADoc
-
- As I explained above, ADoc starts by opening some specified file(s).
- At this time, ADoc attempts as well to open the index file corresponding to
- each doc file. If you didn't specified any file to open, ADoc will look if
- the "ADocFile" variable is defined : if so, it's value is used as a file
- name. Otherwise, the default file name is "Amiga.doc". You can specify
- several file names is the "ADocFile" variable, just as from command line
- (for example: setenv ADocFile "exec.doc dos.doc").
- If ADoc can't find the index file, it will offer to create it. If
- you refuse, this doc file will not be usable but, in spite of it, ADoc will
- attempt opening other files.
- If ADoc detects a doc file was changed after an index was created,
- it will offer to update the index file. If you refuse, in spite of it, the
- doc file will be opened but later ADoc will be able to detect errors if the
- file contents was changed. Note the date of index file creation is stored in
- the index file itself.
-
- Once all files are opened, ADoc will display a requester; this one
- indicates the term list of first open file. We'll describe how to use this
- requester in the TheTermRequester section.
-
- TheTermRequester
-
- A term can be pointed out by a mouse click on it. Now this term is
- displayed in a different colour. If you click a second time on it, the
- requester is switched off and ADoc displays in a window the text
- corresponding to that term. I'll describe how to use these windows in
- HowToManageWindows section.
-
- To choose a term, you can use the keyboard too. If you press any
- key, the key letter will be added to the current "prefix" (displayed in a
- rectangle below the term list), and ADoc will display the list starting from
- the first term that begins with this prefix. ADoc will complete this prefix
- as far as possible. If you press the <BACKSPACE> key (above the <RETURN>
- key), the last prefix character will be deleted and the list will be updated
- too. If you press the <RETURN> key, ADoc will display the text corresponding
- to the first term that begins with this prefix. Note ADoc will not
- differentiate upper and lower letters when the current file is indicated
- after a NOCASE option.
-
- You can close the requester without selecting a term both by
- pressing the <ESC> key and by clicking in the close gadget either. If no
- window is open at this time, the program will abort.
-
- In fact, a term requester can allow you to select from among three
- lists : the term list of the current file, the list of the opened files (if
- you have several opened files) and the list of terms that ADoc found during
- the previous search operation (provided a search was made before, see the
- Search section below).
-
- At the bottom, on the right corner of term requester, you have a
- letter showing what a list is displayed : term list (T), file list (F), list
- of found terms (S).
- To pass from a list to another, click the right mouse button holding
- down one of the <SHIFT> keys, or press the <TAB> key. When the file list is
- displayed and you select a file in this list, ADoc returns automatically to
- the term list and displays the list of terms in that file.
-
- When no window is open, the term requester has a menu with the
- following options :
-
- Open window see TheSpecialMenu below
- Search see the Search section below
- Iconify see the TheProjectMenu below
- Quit this one allows to quit ADoc.
-
- HowToManageWindows
-
- When you select a term, ADoc opens a window to display the
- corresponding text. When a term is defined several times either in a single
- file or in several different files, all text lines will be joined in a queue
- and displayed in one window. The window height is dependent on the amount of
- lines ADoc must display. If there are too many lines, only the first page
- will be displayed and ADoc will add two arrow gadgets (on the right top
- corner) for scrolling this text.
-
- Of course, you can have several windows opened at the same time. In
- this case, the window which was activated when opening a new window is
- called the "parent window" of the new one.
- By default, these windows have standard close, dragging, back and
- front, and sizing gadgets. If you change the size of a window, ADoc, if
- needed, will add or remove automatically the arrow gadgets. Each window has
- three menus too : there are "Project", "Tools" and "Special" menus (I'll
- describe these ones in TheProjectMenu, TheToolsMenu and TheSpecialMenu
- sections, below). Finally, note ADoc recognize the following keys :
-
- HELP list keys and their meaning
- ESC close the current window
- UP previous page
- DOWN next page
- BACKSPACE open parent window
- Shift-UP previous term
- Shift-DOWN next term
-
- When you click on a word, this one will be displayed in a different
- colour. If you click again on the same word, ADoc will automatically start
- searching for the corresponding term in all open files. If this fails,
- screen flashes, otherwise a new window will be brought up.
-
- TheProjectMenu
-
- Other term
- Bring up the term requester (see above TheTermRequester).
-
- Print
- Print the text contained in the active window. Note : the possible ANSI
- sequences will be correctly interpreted by the printer.
-
- Iconify
- Leave ADoc sleeping : if ADoc opened its own screen, this one will be
- closed, all the windows will be switched off and then ADoc will open a
- small window on the left top corner in the Workbench's screen. If you
- click on the close gadget of this window, ADoc will ask you to confirm
- it before you abort. For "awaking" ADoc, activate this window and click
- the right mouse button.
- Normally, ADoc keeps in memory all the text lines to be able switching
- on quickly all the windows when it would be awaken. The one drawback is
- that all possible memory will not be freed, so, when you ask ADoc to
- iconify itself, ADoc will ask you if you want to close all windows. If
- you say yes, the memory will be completely freed and when ADoc will be
- awaken, it will bring up the term requester.
-
- Help...
- Displays some useful keys and their meaning (same as pressing the HELP
- key)
-
- About...
- Display some infos about ADoc. Click inside this window or press a key
- to continue.
-
- Quit
- Allow to quit ADoc (asks you to confirm it).
-
-
- TheToolsMenu
-
- Front Screen
- Allow to use ADoc in a already open screen (for ex. that one of your
- text editor). Only you need to move the screen -where you want switch on
- ADoc- in front of any screen, drag it down to unfold the screen where
- ADoc is. Now, select this item : ADoc will close all the open windows
- and reopen these ones in the foreground screen.
-
-
-
- CAUTION:
-
- Of course, you'll have a "Guru" if the screen where you
- placed ADoc is closed before you quitted ADoc (or placed
- this one on another screen).
-
- Note this command will not work if you did not specify a font (see above
- the RunningADocfromCLI section) and the font of your front screen
- doesn't suit.
-
- Close all
- Allow to close all the windows at the same time. After it asked you to
- confirm, ADoc will close every window and display the term requester.
-
- Find
- Allow to start searching (see the Search section below).
-
- Information
- Display the account of avalaible files and terms, just as the account of
- opened windows and displayed lines. To continue click on the "Ok"
- gadget.
-
- TheSpecialMenu
-
- Open file
- Allow to open an additional doc file. A file requester is brought up so
- that you can specify what a file must be opened.
-
- Close file
- Allow to close the current file (i.e. the file where is defined the term
- displayed in the active window). After it asked you to confirm, ADoc
- will close all the windows relied to this file and will close it. Note
- this command will work only if at least two files are opened.
-
- One window
- If this option is selected, ADoc will open only one window at a time.
-
- Search
-
- In the text lines, ADoc has the capability to search up to four
- strings simultaneously and display then the list of the relied terms. When
- you select the "Search" item in the "Tools" menu, a window is switched on
- with four string gadgets. You have also an "CANCEL" gadget, to abort this
- operation, a "OK" gadget, to start your search, and an "Options" menu :
-
- low = UPP
- Ask ADoc not to differentiate upper and lower letters when searching.
-
- All strings
- Normally, ADoc is looking for all terms containing one of the strings
- you introduced. On the contrary, this item allows you to search for
- terms contaning ALL strings you specified.
-
- All files
- Ask ADoc to search in all open files, not only in the current file.
-
- When you start your search, a requester appears. The "Stop" gadget
- allows you to break this search. As soon as the search finished, screen will
- flash if no term was found. Otherwise, the term requester will be switched
- on and will display a list of found terms. That list is sorted, and kept in
- memory until you stard a new search.
-
- AdvancedConcepts
-
- Since v4.00, you can associate an IFF picture to a term. This
- picture will be loaded at the same time as the text, and will be displayed
- in the same window. In order to use this fonctionnality, you just have to
- add a special line in the term's text :
-
- . adoc@<position> <picture's name>
-
-
- where <position> is "top", "bottom", "left" or "right". The picture will be
- displayed in the given border. For example, if you enter :
-
- . adoc@right doc:exec/schema1.pic
-
-
- the picture "doc:exec/shema1.pic" will be displayed next to the right border
- of the window.
- ADoc is able to load pictures in a different screenmode and/or
- colors numbers than the current screen. The screen's palette will be
- modified with the picture's palette.
-
- The release 1.40 of ADoc introduced the concept of aliases, that is
- a manner to associate a same text to several terms, without having to repeat
- the text several times. An alias definition follow the syntax:
-
- name1 alias name2
-
- The first character of "name2" must, as for any term definition, be at
- column one. There must be at least one space or tabulation between the three
- words. The word "alias" must be in lower case characters. The effect of such
- a definition is that when the user will ask to get the "name1" term, ADoc
- will automatically display the "name2" term instead. Aliases appear in the
- term requester, and in the search function. You must be aware that there is
- *NO* recursivity check between aliases !
- An application of aliases could be the documentation of a function
- library : often you will define several functions together. With the
- aliases, you can allow access to the definition by the name of each
- function, but the text is defined only once.
-
- ADoc can combine automatically several doc files. For that, it's
- enough to specify the name of file(s) to be combined, in the first line of
- file which you want associate them with. If this line is empty or begins
- with a space or tab, its contents will be ignored. File names have to be
- separated by spaces or commas. You can indicate a directory name; in this
- case all the files of that directory will be opened (except ".info" and
- ".index" files).
-
- To extend the character set you can use in a term, it's enough to
- specify additional characters in the second line of your doc file. If this
- line is empty or begins with a space or tab, its contents will be ignored.
- Otherwise, all characters of that line (up to first space, tab, slash or
- form feed) will be added to the default character set. Note this character
- set extension only will concern that file.
-
- ADoc has the possibility to load directly any compressed
- "PowerPacker" file, providing you have set up "powerpacker.library" in your
- LIBS: directory. It's not necessary (but recommended) to create the index
- file before you compress a doc file. ADoc will refuse to load an encrypted
- file.
- After ADoc has decompressed a file, this will be copied in a
- temporary file in the "T:" directory. So, using compressed files can arise
- some memory problems, especially if you put T: directory in your RAM: disk.
- This temporary file will be deleted when you close it.
-
- TheAREXXMode
-
- ADoc always opens a compatible AREXX port, named "ADoc_rexx".
- Messages on this port are waited for at the same time as Intuition messages
- on text windows, and can take the following forms :
-
- QUIT quit ADoc
- REQUEST bring up the term requester
- FSCREEN ADoc moves all it's windows to the front screen
- TOFRONT put ADoc screen in front of all screens
- TOBACK put ADoc screen in back of all screens
- FIND term start searching for a given term, and display the
- corresponding text if it is found
- OPEN file allows to open a other file while running ADoc
-
- The return code (RC variable) will be set to zero, except in the
- following cases: bad request (return code 20), "OPEN term" request with
- "term" not found (return code 5), "request" request and no term choosen
- (return code 5). Here is an example asking for help for the term "alias" :
-
- /* Ask for help for "alias" */
- ADDRESS "ADoc_rexx"
- "FIND alias"
- IF RC = 5 THEN SAY "not found !"
-
- Note quotes surrounding commands !
- If you launch ADoc with the option AREXX, the program operation will
- be quite different : once ADoc opened the doc file(s), it will not switch on
- the term requester but will display a message "Waiting for an AREXX message"
- and will wait for messages on the AREXX port (or for CTRL-C to abort it).
- Moreover, when the last window will be closed, the program will not end
- itself but go back waiting for AREXX messages.
-
- AutoDoc_files_support
-
- ADoc can recognize and use the AutoDocs files from Commodore. In
- most cases, no change are needed, but it is recommended to verify their
- format: you must have at least two empty lines at the beginning, followed by
- the table of contents and every term must start at column 1.
- In some cases, you won't find empty lines at the beginning, and
- terms will begin at column 2 and will be preceded by a "form feed" character
- (i.e. CTRL-L). The program "AutoConvert", distributed with ADoc, will allow
- you to convert those files into a correct format (Note : this program can
- only be used from CLI). In all other cases, you'll have to convert these
- files by yourself.
-
- AmigaGuide_files_support
-
- ADoc can now recognize AmigaGuide files, build their index files,
- and display their contents. The different syntaxes of the "@node" directive
- are handled :
-
- @node name
- @node "title"
- @node name "title"
-
- In the latter case, an "name" alias is automatically defined for the "title"
- term. The "@title" directive is also handled.
- As ADoc doesn't handle spaces in term names, they are replaced by
- underscore characters. Links within text are displayed in boldface. As names
- are truncated to 32 characters, some links may fail. Note that ADoc handles
- inter-files links, like:
-
- @{"foo" link help:general/bar}
-
- To allow such links, delimiters are automatically set to ":/." for
- AmigaGuide files.
-
- TheADocMessages
-
- When an error occurs, ADoc displays in a small window a name
- (usually, a filename) and an error code. This one is either an AmigaDOS
- error code or an internal code. In the first case, see your AmigaDOS Manual
- (or use the command "Fault") to have more information on this error code.
- There are the internal error codes :
-
- -1 empty file
- -2 read error
- -3 file is wrong (bad format, etc...)
- -4 file is compressed and there is no "powerpacker.library"
- -5 a problem occured while decrunching
- -6 bad picture specification
- -7 error while loading picture
-
-
-