SPACE 1/SPACE - Library 1 - Volume 1.iso/utilitys/93/asl/asl.doc

Text File | 1987-10-12 | 9.7 KB | 201 lines

May 6, 1987.


                        DOCUMENTATION FOR ASL.TTP
                        =========================

                        by: Ignac A. Kolenko Jr.
                            and Darek Mihocka


     This program was begun back in late March for the lack of anything better
to do. From my original idea of "Hey, it can't be too hard to write a full
screen editor!" came the first release of ASL.TTP, also known as "The ST
Super Lister". This is a very easy to use, text based (with very quick text
blitting routines which blow away TOS text plotting routines completely)
program with provisions for viewing, in either medium or high resolutions,
either 25 rows and 50 rows of text (50 rows only in monochrome!!) at at time,
with full scrolling capabilities. It has 10 built in buffers, so that you may
view more than one file at a time. This feature is great for comparing source
code with an error listing from a compiler, or anything you wish to view (it
even lets you view .PRG and .TOS file, although why would you??) It also prints
out the files in the buffers, in a straight text dump, or formatted with line
numbers and page headers.


Running The Program
-----------------
     Since there are 10 buffers, you can place up to 10 file names on the
TOS commandline, and all programs will load in before the menu bar appears.
If the commandline has no arguments, then the program will load with all
buffers initially clear. If you have valid files in the commandline, due to a
bug, the filename won't show up until you view the files or change buffers.

     It may be better to run the program from a commandline interpreter (CLI)
since under GEM, Atari has idiotically made the .TTP commandline dialog box so
small (the commandline is about 40 char. long)!!!


Using The Program
-----------------

     The first thing you will see is the text based menu bar. The menu bar is
very easy to use. Simply press the left or right arrow keys until you
highlight the choice you want. Then press <RETURN>. If there are options for
that choice, then a drop down menu will appear. In this case (actually, all
cases except for exit) all you have to do is move using the up and down arrow
keys, and make a selection using <RETURN>. If you move the cursor from the
first highlighted drop down menu item upwards, then control returns back to the
initial horizontal menu bar. That way, it is easy to get out of making a choice
due to pressing <RETURN> at the wrong time.

     The first menu choice is 'INFO'. This choice will present to you two drop
down menu items, the first, 'PROGRAM' being general program information, the
second, 'HELP' being, naturally, a help screen for the main menu.

     The second menu choice is 'FILE'. This choice presents a drop down menu
with five different items, all file oriented. The first item is 'DRIVE', which
will allow you to reset the current drive to any other that is logged onto your
system at the time. If you choose this option and do not wish to change the
drive, then simply press <RETURN>, which will use the default drive, the one
that the program resides on currently.

     The next item is 'PATH'. This option will change the currently logged on
path name of course. Here, simply type in the new path name, and if you don't
wish to change it, just press <RETURN>. Next comes 'LOAD'. This choice will,
as the name suggests, load files into buffers. At the prompt, just enter the
filename of the file you wish to view (only the filename, which consists of
eight letters, plus a three letter extension, since you have set up the drive
and pathname earlier!) The program will either tell you its loading, or tell
you that the file does not exist, and make you press any key to return to the
menu.

     The fourth item is 'DIRECTORY'. This option will display a directory of
the current subdirectory you are under, as shown in the status line at the
bottom of the screen. It will also tell you how much space is left on the drive
as well.

     The final item is 'RUN PROGRAM'. This item will allow you to run other
programs from within this program, sort of like a mini-shell. The commandline
is 128 characters long, which should be more than sufficient for most appli-
cations. If the commandline is not valid (ie, such as trying to run a program
that does not exist), the program will respond with an appropriate message.
If it is, then the program responds with a successful execution message.

     The third main menu choice is 'BUFFER'. This choice has a three item drop
down menu, with buffer related options. (naturally!) The first is 'VIEW', which
will allow you to scroll through a file in all four directions (see the section
"Viewing A File" below). The next choice is 'PRINT', which allows you to just
dump out your file to a printer, in the same manner as in the GEM Desktop,
except that at the end of the printout, the message  "** END OF TEXT **" will
appear.

     The final item under 'BUFFER' is 'LIST'. This option will output the text
in a file in a listing format. That is, it will put line numbers, a header with
page number and file information at the top of each page, and print in
condensed format. This is very handy for program listings!!!

     The fourth main menu choice is 'EXTRAS'. The first item under this choice
allows you to easily toggle between 50 or 25 row mode. This of course works in
monochrome only. The text for this item will change to reflect the current
vertical resolution. The next item is 'COLOUR FLIP' (and NO, that's not a
spelling mistake, that's the Canadian spelling!!!!) It will invert the screen
colours each time you access it. Finally, there is 'FREE MEMORY'. This option
will allow you to see how much memory is left for the loading of files.

     The last main menu choice is 'EXIT', which will of course, exit the
program.


Changing Buffers
----------------

     Changing buffers is a simple matter. From anywhere in the main menu bar
(horizontal menu bar), just press one of the function keys. For example,
pressing F3 will transfer you to buffer 3, F10 will let you get to buffer 10.

     A very quick way to view a file in a buffer is to press <shift> and a
function key at the same time, anywhere in the main menu as above.This will pop
you into viewing a file right away, plus change the buffer at the same time.
Thus, pressing F4 will change the buffer to buffer 4, and put you into viewing
mode at the same time.


Viewing A File
--------------

     When you choose the menu item 'VIEW' or you have pressed <shift> < F-key>
you are placed into view mode. In this mode, you can scroll through a file in
all four directions, page up, page down, search for text (forewards and back-
wards), print a screen of text, and also goto a line number you specify.

     The commands are quite simple. To scroll, simply press one of the arrow
keys. Thus the right arrow key will scroll through a line towards the right,
etc. Pressing <shift> and an arrow key will page through a file. Pressing
<shift> and an up/down arrow key will page through the file 18 lines at a time
(36 lines at a time in 50 row mode), and pressing <shift> and a left/right
arrow key will move you either to the 1st column (left) or the the last column
of that line.

     Pressing <Home> will move you to the first character of the buffer, and
pressing <shift><Home> will move you to the last line of the buffer.

     Pressing F1 will initiate a foreward search. If the text is not found, the
screen will be set to the end of the buffer. F2 is the backward search. Again,
if the text you are searching for is not found, the screen will be set to the
start of the buffer. F3 will repeat the last search, either forward or
backwards. F4 will let you type in a line number to goto. If you give a line
number which is not in the file, then the screen will be set to the end of the
buffer, and a bell will be sounded to tell you that the line does not exist.

     At any time while viewing, you can press F10, which will dump the screen
to the printer (which is much quicker than waiting around for an entire file
to be printed when you only need just a few lines of the file dumped).

     Also, at any time, press <Esc> to flip between 25 and 50 rows (in mono-
chrome only), <Help> to get on-line help information, and <Undo> to return to
the main menu bar.


Wrapup
------

     That's about it. If anybody has any ideas on how this program can be
improved, I'd love to hear from you. My address is as follows:

        Ignac A. Kolenko Jr.
        372 Roselawn Pl.
        Waterloo, Ont. Canada
        N2L 5P1



                        COMING (kindof) SOON!!!!!!!!!!!
                        ===============================

From the creators of ASL, the aSTronomer, the ST Xformer and MEGABLIT comes:

    MegaWATt -> the high speed text based windowing environment for the ST.
                Why put up with the too-complicated-to-use and too-complicated-
                to-program functions of the standard Atari user interface when
                most programs don't need them?
                Compare the speed of ASL.TTP's text output to your favorite
                text editor!! Notice the difference!
                Includes a window based desktop and command line interpreter.

 MegaBaud II and
    MegaTerm -> the MegaWATt based BBS software and companion terminal sofware.

    MegaEdit -> the intelligent source code editor. The word-processor you
                currently use is not suitable for editing source code!

    MegaMake -> the intelligent make utility. Just add compiler. ST BASIC not
                allowed!

  For more information on these programs, you can leave a message to ID #
  73657,2714 on CompuServe.