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VENUS Version 1.1 or: "Oh, does it work like this..." Copyright 1989 by Stefan Eissing All rights reserved English version of docs by Ton van Overbeek, TVOVERBE@ESTEC.BITNET. A first introduction Last change: 29.12.1989 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Venus is a desktop which, together with the shell Mupfel from Gereon Steffens, should make the use of the Atari ST both simpler and more comfortable. For using Venus you need the following files: - VENUS.PRG (the program) - VENUS.RSC (the resource file with the dialogues) - VENUSIC.RSC (the resource file with the icons) - VENUS.INF (file with information on open windows etc.) - VENUS.DOC (this documentation) Additionally you need Mupfel and all files belonging to this program. (In the case of GEMINI, which consists of Mupfel and Venus, please replace VENUS by GEMINI in the following) Installation -------------------------------------------------------------------- In which folder on your diskette or hard disk you want to install Venus is completely up to you. The only requirement is that all above mentioned files - except VENUS.DOC - are in the same folder so Venus can find them after its start. The installation consists of copying these files to the folder of your choice. All other tailoring of your environment can be done from within Venus. Starting Venus -------------------------------------------------------------------- It only makes sense to start Venus from Mupfel, because she uses this shell intensively. Start Mupfel first and then load Venus from Mupfel. You can read how to start programs in Mupfel in the Mupfel documentation. How to work with Venus you will find in this description. It is assumed that you are familiar with the Atari desktop and that notions like "double click", "menu" and "dialog" are known. For the more advanced: After its initialization Venus looks for a file with the name VENUS.MUP and, if it exists, executes it. (For the contents of ".MUP" files see MUPFEL.DOC). In the case of GEMINI this file is called GEMINI.MUP of course. The Venus menu ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The menubar is divided in the following submenus: - VENUS (Here you can activate the accessories and under the item "About her..." you will get a dialogue box with information about Venus) - File (This submenu deals with files and windows) - Show (How to display files in the windows) - Extras (Various parameters for various functions) Not all menu items described below are selectable at any time. If for instance there is no window open all the menu items concerning windows are disabled and displayed in light characters. The submenu "File" -------------------------------------------------------------------- >Open< You can only choose this item when you have selected an object. It is the same as double clicking on the object. Depending on the kind of object different thins are done: - Folder: The folder is opened and its contents are shown in a window. - File: Venus tries to open the file. If it is an executable program she starts it. Otherwise she tries to start a program which can handle this file. See also "Application" - Drive: A window with the root directory of this drive is opened. >Information...< Shows information about a selected object. Just as with Open is the information dependent on the kind of object. For all objects you can change their name in this dialogue. >New folder...< Creates a new folder. The folder is always created in the path of the active window. >Close< Same as clicking on the close box of the active window. >Close window< Closes the active window completely. >Cycle windows< This item can only be chosen with two or more open windows. By successively selecting this item you can bring one window after the other on top. >Quit< Leaves Venus. The current state of Venus is normally not saved (in future versions Venus should ask if it should save the state when there have been major changes). See also 'Options->Exit of programs'. The submenu "Show" -------------------------------------------------------------------- >Large Icons< >Small icons< >As text< Determines if the file in a window should be shown as text or as large or small icons. >by name< The files are shown sorted alphabetically. >by date< The files are sorted by date. The newest files are shown at the top. >by size< Sorts by size. The largest one first. The size is the size of the file on the medium (diskette). >by type< / >by icon< Similar as sorted by name, but only the extension is taken into account. If "by icon" is selected then the files are shown sorted by icon. >unsorted< The files are not sorted, e.g the order is the same as the order in the directory on the diskette/hard disk. This is especially interesting for the AUTO folder on the boot drive because GEMDOS executes the programs in the AUTO folder in this order at boot time. >Wildcards...< Determines for the active window which filter Venus should use for the files to be displayed. For the wildcard syntax see also MUPFEL.DOC because Venus does not use the Gemdos wildcards but the more powerfull Unix wildcards. The submenu "Extras" -------------------------------------------------------------------- >Drive icon...< If you have selected a drive icon then you can edit it with this dialogue. If no drive was selected then you can install a new one (more explanation below). >Application...< You can only choose this menu item when you have selected an executable program (see also "SUFFIX" in MUPFEL.DOC). Here you can select several parameters that Venus should take into account at the start of the program and assign a particular type of files to the program as in the Atari desktop. >File icons< By this entry you get to a dialogue where you can determine the rule by which Venus determines what icon to use for a file. >Enter Mupfel< You will go to Mupfel. Venus will try to start the program specified in the environment variable "SHELL" (see also MUPFEL.DOC). >Blitter< Switches the blitter on or off. If your computer does not have a blitter then this menu item is not selectable. The blitter state is not saved by Venus. >Options< This entry causes a popup menu to appear with the following items: >Display..< Deals with the way files are displayed in windows. >Verbosity...< Enables/disables dialogues for copy, delete, etc. >Exit of programs...< Several options for the end of Venus and the end of started applications. >Console window...< This entry is only available in GEMINI, which consists of Mupfel and Venus. Further explanation may be found in GEMINI.DOC. >Save status...< Saves the current state of Venus. This includes window position and size, icons, rules and all other parameters which you can change. All this information is stored in the file VENUS.INF. Mouse and keys in Venus ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You can do almost anything in Venus with the keyboard. In the menus the keyboard shortcuts are indicated behind the entries as usual. In the dialogues the keyboard shortcut characters are underlined. Pressing one of these characters together with the Alternate key has the same effect as clicking on the object (mostly a button). There are also some keyboard commands which cannot be seen. The Undo key has the same effect as Control-Z. The same is true for the pair Delete <-> Control-D and Backspace <-> Control-C. Control-F makes the current window full size. With the cursor keys you can scroll line by line in the active window. Together with the Shift key this scrolling is page by page. Home positions the slider at the top, Shift-Home at the bottom. If there is an active window with files then you can also the letter keys for scrolling. For example pressing the "E" key causes Venus to scroll the window such that as many files as possible starting with "E" are shown. If Venus finds only one such file then this file is selected. The same holds for folders when you press the Shift key simultaneously. You can tell Venus to refresh the contents of a window by pressing the "Esc" key. If the path of the window is no longer available (Diskette change) then Venus tries to shorten the path till it exists again. If also the drive has become illegal then the window is closed. You can also use the mouse in Venus in the same way as you are used to from the Atari desktop. Single clicking on an object selects it. With a pressed Shift key the object is added to the selected objects. Additionally the following is possible: - If you keep the Shift key down while adjusting the rubber box then the icons in the box are added to the already selected ones. Icons which were already selected are deselected. The rubber box can also be pulled above and to the left of its starting point! - If you double click on an icon which is on the desktop background then it will be started. If you keep the Alternate key down while doing this then a window with the path of this file is opened. Doing this with folders, the trashcan or the clipboard makes them appear in the path of the opened window. - If you keep the Alternate key down when double clicking on a folder in a window then an additional window is opened. Moving files ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When you click on a selected object and keep the left mouse button down an outline of this object is drawn which you can move around with the mouse. Moving an object like this from one window to an other tells Venus that you want to copy this object there. If you keep the Control key down when releasing the mouse button then the object is not copied but moved, i.e. copied to the other window and removed from the window it originated from. The object with the name ".." is special. This object cannot be moved because it is a fixed item of the folder represented in the window. However you can copy files to the folder one level above (parent directory) by dragging to this object. Contrary to the normal desktop Venus allows to put objects on the desktop background. Do this by dragging the object to a place on the background and release the mouse button. This makes often used programs easily accessible. You do not have to first open a window and then click through several folders before you can start the program. From Venus version 1.1 it is also possible to copy/move files which are on the background. For example you can put files and folders, which are in different places, on the background and copy them from there to a diskette. When you have put a program on the background then you can also drag objects to the program icon. The program is then started with these objects as parameters. If you want to edit a file, just drag it to your favorite editor. Of course this is also possible with Mupfel batch files and even with accessories. To use this feature the accessory has to react on message number 0x4711 (the hexadecinal number 4711). In element 3 and 4 of the message the accessory gets the address of a zero terminated string with the names of the objects dragged to its icon. The objects on the background can be removed by dragging them to the shredder. No fear, you will not destroy any files. Objects on the background are seen as representatives of really existing objects. Operations as copying, moving and opening are done on the object which is represented, while the delete operation only works on the representative and does not affect the real object. Starting programs ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When starting GEM programs Venus writes the program name in the menu bar. If you start the program from a window only the name is displayed. When you start from the desktop background Venus shows the complete path of the program so you can see what you actually started. (Remark for GEMINI: when you start GEM programs from Mupfel Venus writes the line in the menu bar exactly as you entered it because Venus has no way to know what Mupfel has done with this line.). Special desktop icons ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Besides the "normal" icons for drives and programs there are three special icons on the dekstop: the Clipboard, the Thrashcan and the Shredder. The Shredder corresponds to the thrashcan on the Atari desktop. Files which are dragged to this icon are irrevocably deleted in case you answer the confirmation question with OK. The Paperbasket is similar to the Macintosh one. Files which you move to the Paperbasket are removed from their old place, but can be restored if necessary. Venus moves these files to a special folder, the so called thrashdir. This trashdir is normally in the directory from which you start Venus and is created if needed. With the environment variable TRASHDIR you can determine yourself where this folder should be (see MUPFEL.DOC). If you choose a place different from the standard one then you have to create the corresponding folder yourself. The icon shows if there are files in the paperbasket or not. With an entry in "Exit of programs..." (see below) you can choose if the files which are in the paperbasket at the exit of Venus should be deleted automatically. The Clipboard is the folder which programs like for example Wordplus can use to exchange files in certain formats with other programs. This folder is usually, like Trashdir, in the folder from which Venus is started. You can also determine its place yourself with the environment variable SCRAPDIR (see MUPFEL.DOC). Just as with the Paperbasket the icon shows if there are any files on the Clipboard. The Venus dialogues ------------------------------------------------------------------------ General: All dialogues (and alert boxes) in Venus are so called "flying dialogues". "Flying" means that you can move the dialogue around on the screen just as with windows. Just move the mouse to the upper right corner of the dialogue or alert and move it. If you have a blitter the complete dialogue image is moved, otherwise an outline like when moving windows is drawn. The "About Venus..." box -------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a pure informative dialogue as you will find in every GEM program. It contains a bit of information about Venus and about the conditions for using and copying this program. Please read this information carefully. The "Information..." dialogues -------------------------------------------------------------------- Under the menu item "Information..." you will get different dialogues depending on the kind of the selected object: For drives Drive information ---------------------------------------------------------------- The following information is displayed: - drive letter - the name of the icon belonging to this drive - volume label of the diskette/disk - number of folders on this drive - number of files - used and free storage on this drive You can change the name and the volume label. The changes become effective when you leave the dialogue with the "OK" button. For folders Folder information ---------------------------------------------------------------- Displayed information: - name of the folder - its size (including the files it contains) - date and time of creation - number of files and folders it contains If you use TOS 1.4 or higher you can change the name of the folder here. For files File information ---------------------------------------------------------------- Displayed information: - name of the file - its size - date and time last modified - write access of the file - the hidden attribute of the file Except the file name you can also change the write protect attribute of the file. If "write protected" is selected then the file cannot be changed. If you select the "hidden" attribute of a file then Venus does normally not show this file any more in the window (see also "Display..."). For file icons on the background Icon information ---------------------------------------------------------------- Displayed information: - name of the icon - complete path of the file/folder - volume label of the disk/diskette from the file originates. You can choose any name you want for the icon because Venus uses always the complete path to search the file. This makes it possible to use more meaningfull names as for example "NRSC.PRG". For the Shredder Shredder ---------------------------------------------------------------- A short description and the icon name are displayed. Of course you can change the name. For the Paperbasket/Clipboard Special icon information ---------------------------------------------------------------- Displayed information: - name of the icon - size of the files in this folder - number of files and folders The icon name can be changed. The "New folder" dialogue -------------------------------------------------------------------- This dialogue consists of only one input field and two buttons. In the input field you can specify the name of a new folder. When you select the "OK" button Venus tries to create a new folder in the currently active window. You can only leave the dialogue with "OK" if you also have entered a name. The "Erase disk" dialogue -------------------------------------------------------------------- This dialogue can only be reached if you have selected a drive icon belonging to a diskette drive. When you select the "erase" button the Mupfel command "init" is executed (see also MUPFEL.DOC). To avoid making Venus too big no diskette formatting is included. Because in 90% of the cases you only want to clean an already formatted diskette we (the authors) have only built in the "init" command which accomplishes this task much faster. There are more than enough programs for formatting diskettes. The "Wildcards" dialogue -------------------------------------------------------------------- Six wildcards are offered to be able to determine the kind of files to be displayed in the active window. By selecting "*.[CO]" Venus for example will only show files with extensions ".C" or ".O". Folders are always shown so you can navigate through the directories on this drive. The first five wildcards can be edited by selecting the "Edit" button. The sixth one is always "*" and will show all files. It cannot be changed. The "Drive icons" dialogue -------------------------------------------------------------------- This dialogue has a double function. If a drive icon was selected when you chose "Drive icon..." in the "Extras" menu then you can edit this icon here. If, on the other hand, such an icon was not selected then you can install a drive icon when you leave the dialogue with "OK". In the upper left corner you see the icon which should represent the drive. This you can choose with the arrows to the right and left of the word "Icon". Below are the input fields for the drive letter and the icon name. The "Delete" button can only be selected when you are editing an already existing icon and removes the icon from the background. The "Install application" dialogue -------------------------------------------------------------------- You will get to this dialogue via the "Application..." entry in the "Extras" menu. Below the name of the program are an input field and four buttons. In the input field you can specify a wildcard for the files which can be handled this program (e.g. "*.c" for a C compiler (TC.PRG of course)). When you later open a file with the extension ".C" Venus will start the C compiler with the file name as argument. Regarding the buttons: The first one determines if Venus should close its windows. This should always be selected for GEM programs which open their own windows. (For GEMINI: If you select this button for a TOS program then this program is started externally; otherwise a TOS program runs in the console window, the window of Mupfel (see also GEMINI.DOC)). The second button determines if the program should be treated as a GEM program. This affects the mouse and text cursor as well as the background. The third one determines if Venus should ask for a command line at the start of the program and the fourth one makes Venus wait for a key press after the end of the program. Some advice on wildcards: when Venus is looking for a program to start after you have opened a file then it will search the installed applications in sequence to find one. If, for example, TC.PRG is installed first for "*.c" files and later WORDPLUS for "*" (for all files) then Venus will find WORDPLUS for a file with a ".C" extension and not TC. Therefore you should first install the more general types like e.g. "*" and then continue with the more specific ones afterwards. The "File icons" dialogue -------------------------------------------------------------------- This is probably the largest, most complicated dialogue and probably also one of the first ones you will use in Venus. In Venus you can assign icons to file types to make it easier to recognize a file (There is for example a typewriter icon for word processing programs). To make these assignments Venus needs rules. These rules are not fixed but can be changed. That is the purpose of this dialogue. In the dialogue box always one of these rules is shown. To a rule belongs an icon (small and large on the left side), a button which determines if this rule applies to folders or files (ruletype), and a wildcard. If a file name matches this wildcard and the rule is for the correct type then the file is assigned this icon. Just as with the installed applications the order of the rules is important. Also here holds: specify general rules first and continue with increasingly more specific ones. You can see the order of the rules by scrolling from one rule to the next with the two arrows next to the word "Rule". When you enter the dialogue you are always looking at the first rule. The last rules always have the wildcard "*" and are the defaults for files and folders (see also the format of the VENUSIC.RSC/GEMINIIC.RSC file). You can make new rules by clicking on the "New" button. Venus will insert this rule at the beginning of the rule list. A new rule is always the first rule in the list and can be changed just as every other one. Every rule, which can be shown in the dialoguebox, can be changed by you. The wildcard can be edited just as any text field. To get a different icon you only need to click on the arrows to the left and right of the word "Icon". When you leave the dialogue with the "OK" button then all changes you have made will become effective; with the "Cancel" button all your changes are ignored. So you can play around freely in the dialogue without running the danger of destroying your carefully build list of rules. The "Display" dialogue -------------------------------------------------------------------- This dialogue deals with the text display in windows and with their positioning. With the three buttons in the 'Text mode' box you determine what information should be shown about a file in text mode. If you belong to those who next to the name only are interested in the size then you should not select the date and time. The drawing of a window is then much faster. The character to be used to indicate folders in text mode can also be set in this box. If you have not selected 'Don't snap windows' then Venus will only allow certain points for the horizontal position of a window. These positions are divisible by the character width. This makes VDI text output in windows faster. From Venus version 1.1 you can also set the font to be used for the text display. Only non proportional fonts can be used. Additionally you can determine if files with the hidden attribute set should be displayed in the window. The "Exit of programs" dialogue -------------------------------------------------------------------- You can change four different settings in this dialogue: - Should Venus wait for a key press after TOS programs? - Should Venus empty the paperbasket at the end of the program? (All files in the basket will be deleted) - Should Venus ask for confirmation after selecting "Quit"? - Should the state (look) of Venus be saved when leaving? The "Verbosity" dialogue -------------------------------------------------------------------- - Do you want to get a dialogue box when copying/moving files? - Do you want to get a dialogue box when deleting files? - Should Venus warn you when already existing files are overwritten during copying/moving? The "Console window" dialogue (only in GEMINI) -------------------------------------------------------------------- In this dialogue you can set various parameters for the console window in which Mupfel also runs. These include the font to be used for the text in the window, the font size, the size of the window in columns and rows, as well as the text attribute to be used for reverse video. The dialogues for copying/moving/deleting files -------------------------------------------------------------------- These dialogues show the number of files and their total size affected by this action. Clicking on the "OK" button starts the copying/moving/ deleting. This may be interrupted at any time by pressing the Escape key. If there is a danger for an existing file to be overwritten then Venus will ask what she should do. The buttons have the following meaning: - "OK" The file is copied with the name indicated in the dialogue. - "Cancel" The whole process is aborted. - "Skip" This file is skipped. - "Overwrite" The same as "OK" but all further files are overwritten without further questions (A variant of the ostrich algorithm: "Stick your head in the sand and pretend there's no problem at all"). The format of the VENUS.INF/GEMINI.INF file ------------------------------------------------------------------------ is too cryptic and too dependent on the internal representation of things to give a complete description. The lines starting with "#I" you can forget immediately because only internal Venus variables are stored there. However the meaning of the initial characters is given below: - "#R" icon rule - "#A" installed application - "#W" window to be opened - "#B" rectangle for the next windows to be opened - "#E" position and name of the Shredder - "#T" same for the Paperbasket - "#S" idem for Clipboard - "#D" idem for drive - "#P" description for an icon put on the background - "#M" wildcard description - "#F" font in text mode All coordinates are stored in permille. They are converted to the screen resolution when the file is loaded. This is to be preferred to putting the drive icons on top of eachother as in the Atari desktop. The format of the VENUSIC.RSC/GEMINIIC.RSC file ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This file is a normal resource file which can be generated and edited with resource editors like NRSC.PRG or RSC.PRG. You can make new icons for Venus or remove existing ones only when you have such a program. The file contains three object trees. The first one holds the special and disk icons. Venus expects the icons in the following order: first a shredder icon, then the icons for the empty and filled paperbasket followed by the empty and filled clipboard and finally an arbitrary number of disk icons. The second and third tree contain the file icons in normal and small size. These must each contain at least two icons: the first one is the standard file icon and the second one the folder icon. Venus can only utilize an icon if it is available in both normal and small size. You can fight about the functional elements of a program but with icons you enter the endless area of different tastes. Comments as "too small!", "too large!", "Don't like the border" or "I cannot recognize the typewriter on my overscan monitor" do not help the author of this program (and proud designer of the small images) very much further. My creative right drawing finger is longing for a bit of free time to pixel additional icon sets, and certainly within the not too distant future there will be additional VENUSIC.RSC files from this source. If you have designed new beautiful images, please distribute them to the other users. "There's always a better way..." Stefan Eissing Dorfbauerschaft 7 D-4419 Laer Germany