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Ansi Ascii Avatar Editor, A3E 1.21Γ 1992-11-19
(c) 1991 Jonas Högström
(2:204/408.3)
(c91jonho@und.ida.liu.se)
for
JH SoftService HB
Written in Turbo Pascal 5.5
This is the documentation for A3E. It is not the most extensive doc
that has ever been written, but hopefully it will explain most
features and the general idea of the program. If you think something
is missing in the docs, please let me know, because as a programmer
you (hopefully) know exactly what your program does, but you forget
that the people who didn't write it might not.
This documentation is deliberately not pageformatted. If you want to
print it, I'd recommend to use some printutility that inserts
pagebreaks where necessary (for example TinyDoc from JHSoftService).
A couple of features in this programs will only be available to
registered users, they will be marked with a (+) in the
documentation.
LIST OF CONTENTS
List of contents
Once upon a time
A word from the author
Registration
Distribution
Greetings and acknowledgements
Requirements
Multitasking
Disclaimer
Installation
The editor
Shortcuts
Defining fonts
Animations
Ansimusic & MusicEditor
The statusrow
The menusystem
Configuration
A3ECONF.EXE, The configuration easy-install utility.
BBSConfiguration
Plans for future versions
Official distributionsites
Registration form
ONCE UPON A TIME
This program was once called USA (Ultimate Sysop Ansieditor), but
since there was another program with the same name on the market
already, I changed the name to A3E. To those of you who used this
program under the old name I want to say: It's the same program,
continue supporting it!
If you have a configuration file from the betaversions, you will be
able to use it, just rename it to A3E.CFG.
A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
Yep, it's me again. I just wanted to tell you why I wrote A3E: I had
been using TheDraw for a while, and found it useful (I mean, who
would even dream of making an ansifile in an ordinary texteditor),
but it had some drawbacks in my opinion. The main thing was the
file system; every time you wanted to save the file you were working
on, you had to type the name, and if you wanted to save the file as
both ascii and ansi you had to write it twice. Another thing, it had
no support for automating the special codes for BBSprograms. So I
decided something had to be done, I wrote my own Ansieditor. Some
features might have a striking similarity to features in other
programs, but all the coding, except from the ExecSwap and the
.COM-file header was made by me myself (OK, a few basic routines was
made by my brother and partner Jesper Högström).
REGISTRATION
I made this program because I felt there was a need for it, but that
doesn't mean I want to give it away just like that. I've spent about
PLENTY of hours making this program.
If you want to register this program, all you have to do is to fill
out the registration form (at the end of the doc) and send it to the
right place according to information below
via Snailmail, FIDO-NETmail or INTERNET (addess at end of doc).
I also want you to send me some money:
Swedish Users:
Registrationform can be sent any of the following ways:
Snailmail......: Jonas Högström,
Kungsbergsgatan 8c,
582 53 Linköping
Sweden
Fido NetMail...: 2:204/408.4 (route direct via my Boss)
Internet Email.: c91jonho@und.ida.liu.se
Send the money via postal giro. At least 100 SEK to pg 6291111-0,
Jonas Högström.
NOTE! The pg-number was wrong in the documentation in version 1.00
and earlier, but the above is the correct one, I promise.
North American Users:
Send the money and the registrationform ($18) to the US-support &
registrationnode: Chris Patterson
P.O. Box 1660
Broken Arrow, OK 74013 1660
USA
Other Users:
Send me the registrationform (according info to Swedish users).
Send the money ($18 or 100 SEK in cashmoney! (not cheque)) in the
same envelope, and put it all in a second envelope, so the
postman wont see it and take it.
As soon as possible you will receive your key in one of the
following way:
1. By internet Email if you have that possibility.
2. By fidonet-fileattach if you have that possibility.
3. By snailmail (printed on a piece of paper)
If you get your key by snailmail, just type it into a texteditor (or
A3E and save it as Ascii, without Clear screen) and name it A3E.KEY
A registration key may not be used by two computers at the same time.
If you are going to use A3E in a network environement, you have to
have one key-file for each computer that will be likely to use it.
This does not apply for sysops that have several computers in a
network for the same multinode BBS.
If you want to order a large amount (10+) of keyfiles, call me and
we'll discuss a discount.
Just to give you few reasons to register A3E (apart from the idea of
the shareware concept), read the following statements:
* The maximal number of BBSCodes will increase from 15 to 140.
* All the configuration-parameters will be fully working.
* The box that pops up when you start A3E will be gone (and the beep
as well)
* the registration key will be valid for all future versions of A3E
(unless something really unexpected happens, like I loose all my
sourcecode, and have to start all over again)
* Registered users may save and load macros (and they will NOT
selfdestruct).
* Registered users may save screens that includes stuff from the
font feature.
* Registered users don't get the tagline at the bottom of
animations.
* Registered users can always run the latest betaversion. You have
to get hold of it yourself, and you run it on your own risc. See
distributionsites for further info.
A BIG thanx to those of you guys who have already registered A3E!
DISTRIBUTION
A3E may bee freely distributed by anyone, as long as the following
rules are kept:
* Nothing is modified, added or deleted in the original files.
* No fee is charged for distribution (sysops may take a fee for the
BBS itself, but not a special fee for A3E).
* Shareware distributors may not make profit of A3E unless they have
a written permission from me (I would like a part of the profit).
* Registration keys may not be distributed AT ALL, by ANYONE (except
me of course).
DISCLAIMER
A lot of actions have been taken to prevent any harmful bugs in this
peice of software, however, I will take NO responsibility if it
happens to mess anything up, reformat your HD, burn your CPU, wreck
your CD-player, kill your mother or anything else that happens due
to use or non use of this program. You are on your own now, kid...
I strongly suggest you start off by backing up any important /
nonimportant files that will get in touch with A3E every now and
then (btw, backing up your files once in a while always makes
sense).
The only thing guaranteed is that it will occupy a bit of diskspace
on your HD...
I know that the directory system has a peculiar way of working. But
if you always use the "point and shoot selection box" to change
directorys it will work just fine (don't enter a new path and a
filemask at the same time, thats the thing that doesn't work I
think). I will take a look at this sometime, but it's really weird
code...
When trying to load files with the readonly attribute A3E will say
that they do not exist. This will be adressed in a later version,
but in the meantime, please remove the readonly attribute (with NC
or PCtools or some shareware-product).
GREETINGS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all I'd like to thank ANSI for the standard (not that it is
very good, but atleast it is a standard). And to all sysops who run
BBSes out there, keep up the good work. I'd also like to thank the
people that have helped me with ideas or in any other way made life
easier while working with A3E:
Jesper Högström, for teaching me pascal (a long time ago) and for
having developed some of the lowlevel routines in A3E (he's my
brother so it is not to be regarded as theft). Also for some
betatesting of the program. Needless to mention, he's a helluva
guy!
Anders Ivner, for lots of ideas (paintmode, blockblend and the
line-algorithms for the generic blocks for example), and plenty
of comments on the docs (my spelling is lousy).
Jan Boström, my fidohub, for distributing the betaecho and betafile
echo, and never being busy. He also gave me a bugreport on the
file-handling system.
Paul Leffler, Betatester, plenty of ideas, for example the Attribute
function (ALT-A), Shortcuts in the menu, polygon/circle blocks,
corrected spelling errors... and a lot more. Keep up the good
work Paul :-)
Jonny Bergdahl, Betatester, for example the path in the directory
frame.
Fredrik Lewerth, Betatester, father of Extralines, and for reporting
a BIG bug in Avatar.
Joel Rosdahl, Betatester, for a nice list of bugs and proposals of
features (ex ATKeypad, adjust block, Adapt in draw, configuration
controll). Also for drawing the logo that is displayed in the
beginning and end (drawn with A3E, using a lot of paint, draw,
blend and stuff).
HP Anvin, clever guy, for Linekey, a TSR with the same configuration
of the numeric keypad as A3E.
Per Brax, a sysop, called one day to say that A3E didn't restore his
screensize when he returned to DOS. A big thanks goes to this guy
for reading through the documentation and correcting all the
spelling errors and typos.
Jacob Österling, an good old friend, for the extremely short header
to the .COM-files (only 25 bytes), and for always helping me out
when I needed it.
Jimi Laursen, for pointing out that my swaproutines was a little
buggy.
My other betatesters, as soon as they (you?) report a bug or give me
an idea for a feature, they will be mentioned by name.
A couple of products are mentioned in this documentation and here is
where they come from.
AnsiPaint is (c) Drew Olbrich
DESQView is (c) Quarterdeck
MS DOS is (c) Microsoft Corp.
Remote Access is (c) Andrew Milner
Thedraw is (c) TheSoft Programming Services and Ian E. Davis
Turbo Pascal is (c) Borland International
WildCat is (c) Mustang Software
The ExecSwap routine I use comes from: Doctor Dobb's Journal, April 1989
and was typed by: Svend Broholm
Avatar is the result of a cooperation between George A. Stanislav and
Wynn Wagner III and is specified in the FSC0025 and FSC0037
documents.
REQUIREMENTS
To run A3E you will need the following:
* A PC compatible computer with preferably 640 kb (never tried any
less)
* A graphic card that handles color (CGA/EGA/VGA) or B/W VGA, but
NOT Hercules.
* MSDos 3.30 or higher (if you haven't, take this advice
seriously: GET IT!).
* Some ansieditors require that you load
the ANSI.SYS driver (or compatible), but A3E does NOT!
* You don't have to be a wizzard (it helps, but is not required)
MULTITASKING
If you want to run under a multitasking system, like for example
DESQView, carefully make sure that your multitasker is fully aware
of the fact that A3E will make direct writes to the screen. I've
tried A3E under DESQview with good results, but be careful, it is
easy to get things messed up if you have the wrong setup. This will
show as "bleeding through" (the A3E window bleeds through to the
other window), however, there will be no harmfull effects.
A3E has also been reported to work under windows (3.0/3.1) with good
results, even in graphic-mode (you can put A3E up in a 10cm * 10cm
window :-). 2 icons have been included in the archive.
Never start 2 copies of A3E at the same time however, as they share
the same config file and swapfile.
A3E has successfully been installed under OS2, running both FAT and
HPFS, so just keep trying if it doesnt want to work for you ;-)
INSTALLATION
To install A3E, Make sure that atleast the following files are in
the same directory (either on your HD or on a diskette):
A3E.EXE
A3E.CFG
A3EINTRO.BIN
A3E.KEY (if you are registered).
A3E.HLP
If you want to use a BBSconfig you must also put that file in the same
directory. Also you should copy the *.FNT files to your A3E
directory, otherwise, they will not be loadable.
If you want to make it easier to start, put the directory name in the
path-statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT.
Once there, you just start by typing the name of the exefile, and
optionally followed by the name of an ansi, ascii or avatar file (on
the same row, before pressing Enter).
It is as simple as that.
A3E will create some files in the directory where you have A3E.EXE:
A3E.BLK - If you save a block
A3E.PCK - The picklist (+)
A3E.DAT - A faster internal form of you A3E.CFG for faster
loading. Do NOT edit this one, it will only cause you
problem. Always edit the A3E.CFG!
A3E.MCR - Contains macros. (+)
A3E*.ICO - Icons to use with MS-Windows
*.FNT - Fontfiles... (included in the archive Fonts.ZIP)
THE EDITOR
The editor screen in general is like any other editor, you can walk
around with your cursorkeys (including home/C-home/end/C-end/C-left/
C-right/PgUp/PgDn/tab/Backspace/delete/Enter) and write your text
(Wordwrap is not included!), but you can also change colors, draw
boxes, copy/move/scroll/delete areas, draw lines and many other
things.
Most features can be reached from the menu-system (you can reach the
menusystem with a light touch on your F10) but there are also
shortcuts to most features. Every feature is explained either in the
section about menues or the section about shortcuts.
There is a built in screenblanker that will blank the screen after 5
minutes (default, but configurable), just press any key and you are
back in the editor again.
SHORTCUTS
ALT - A Attribute change. A screen containing all combinations of
foreground and background colors will appear, and a box
around the one you currently use. Move the box around
with your cursorkeys until you find a nice mix of color
and press Return. "B" will toggle foreground blink
(indicated with a blinking box).
ALT - B Backgroundcolor. Lets you choose the color to use as a
background. Use your cursor to move the indicator to the
desired color.
ALT - C Centerline. Simply adjusts the line with the cursor on
according with the edges of the screen.
ALT - D Drawmode. This mode makes it possible for you to draw
continous lines (with the asciichars 179 - 218) on the
screen. You can choose between ┼ ╬ ╫ and ╪ kind of
lines. Just move the cursor around and see what happens.
When you are ready, just press CR. If your current
characterset is one with linecharacters, this will be
default in drawmode. One exception is if the "AdaptInDraw"
switch is active, and the character under the cursor is a
linecharacter, then the characterset containing that very
character will be used as default.
ALT - E Exchange attributes. This feature will find every
position on the screen that has the same attributes as
the character under the cursor, and change them to the
current attributes. Handy if you changed your mind about
some mix of color.
ALT - F Foreground. Sets the current foregroundcolor, pressing B
will toggle blink in your foreground. Use your cursor to
move the indicator to the wanted color.
ALT - G Get color. Sets the current color to the one under the
cursor.
ALT - H Online Help. Gives you a list of all the shortcuts. The
text displayed in the helpfile is contained in A3E.HLP.
Use either cursor keys or page up/page down to change
page. This routine is the routine that has been used for
all helppages, so I guess you find out your self how to
use the others.
ALT - I Insert Line. Inserts a line between the current line and
the one above.
ALT - J Jump between pages. You can have up to 8 pages (see the
configuration section) at the same time in your memory.
Each page has it's own filename and can be loaded and
saved without interfering with the other pages. Use ALT -
J to switch between the pages, you will be prompted for
which number to jump to.
NB! there can only be one animation in memory at the same
time, therefor any animation that was designed will be
removed when you load a new file in another page.
ALT - K Block commands. First you have to mark a block, the
following options are available:
[B]egin Sets one of the corners in your block. It
doesn't have to be in any special order, and you
can set the first corner again by pressing B if
you change your mind.
[E]nd Sets the corner opposite to the first corner,
marks the block, and takes you to the
blockfeaturemenu.
[R]ead Reads a block saved in the file A3E.BLK.
[L]ast This option will retrieve the blockcoordinates
you used for your last block. If this is your
first block the [L] option will not be
available.
[C]ircle The Circle and Polygon features enables you to
[P]olygon mark blocks that are not rectangular. They will
work just as ordinay blocks, with the exceptoin
that you can not "Adjust", "Mirror" or "Scroll"
them.
To mark a Circle, first specify the center by
pressing "B" (begin), then move the cursor to
specify height and width, and press "E" (end).
To mark a Polygon you mark each corner with a
Space, and the final corner with a RETURN. If
the last position is not the same as the first
position, an extra line will be drawn between
the coordinates of the last corner and the
first corner. If the lines of the polygon
crosses each other, it is possible to get a
block that has areas within it that are not
marked.
Move around the screen with your cursor keys and Home/End/
PgUp/PgDn until you are done. The colors in your block
will invert to show you easier what is marked and what is
not.
Pressing space will have the same meaning as B the first
time and as E the second, you can in other words mark the
block with two subsequent spaces in the opposite corners.
When your block is marked, a menu will appear on the left
side of the screen:
Move Move your block to another place on the screen,
the default color will replace the area where
the block used to be. You can also do stamps
(leave a copy of the block) before you finally
put it where it is supposed to be. There is a
fast way to move the block to the sides: Left -
Home, Right - End, Up - PgUp, Down - PgDn
Copy Just like move but the original will stay and
you can put a copy of your block somewhere on
the screen.
Delete Removes your block and puts the default
background color there instead.
Scroll Simply lets you scroll the block inside itself.
Try it and see what happens. Does not work on
Circles and Polygons.
Write Writes your block to a file called A3E.BLK. This
block kan be loaded via ALT-K R. This verison
will only handle one block, but in future
versions you'll be able to give them names and
have several blocks at once (for saving logos,
nice ansiparts or whatever).
Blend Let me introduce you to something you've never
seen before in the world of ansi. An automated
feature to blend (mix) colors! Every character
in your block will be calculated together with
it's closest neighbours, and a mediumcolor will
be given to each character. It will look weird
if you do this in a block of text but if you
have an area containing the asciicharacters
176..178, 219 and space (░▒▓█ ) then it will
look marvellous, try it. As the result often
improves with repeated blendings, you can choose
how many passes to perform (so you won't have to
mark the block every time), somewhere between
3-5 is reasonable.
If you want to see an example of the
possibilities of this blend feature, check the
'3' in the logo that is displayed when you load
and exit A3E.
Exchange attr This works just like the global
Exchange feature, but you will have to specify
the colors once again. First you have to use
your cursorkeys top move to a character with the
attribute that you want to exchange (then press
enter). To specify which color to change to,
just pick the right one from the array that is
displayed (works just like the attributeupdate).
Exchange char First specify the character that you
want to replace, and then the character you want
instead.
Fill Will fill your block with Attribute, character,
both, foreground or background. You will be
prompted for character and color (or rather
thoose necessary).
Adjust Prompts you to choose Right, left or center
adjustment of the block. Does not work on
Circles and Polygons.
mIrror You can flip the block horizontally, vertically
or both. Does not work on Circles and Polygons.
Up/lo case You can either turn every alpha-character into
either upper or lower case, or you can turn
every upper to lower and lower to upper (invert)
Intensity Turn the intensity-bit on or off in the whole
block.
bOx This is just like the Alt-O option, but it might
be handy to reach from the block-menu as well.
Draws a box around your block in the current
linestyle.
fonT This is a big thing. Refer to the special
sections on fonts.
sHade Puts a shade on either the right or the left of
your block, you may choose the attribute.
View If you want a short peek in the screen before
executing another blockcommand.
For Move, Copy and Read The following options are
available:
[U]nder With the Under-option, your block will move
around "under" the rest of the screen, and not
cover it.
[T]ransparent means that a space with the default
background will look like glass. For example,
you have a round shape that you want to move
around, but the block is square, turn
transparent on and you can see the original
screen through the block in the corners.
The combination of Under and Transparent is
perhaps a bit odd, and not completely logical,
you move your block under the original screen,
but the backgroundcolors from the block will
shine through. If it looks weird, just turn
Transparent off.
Solid spaces (Shift space) will override the
transparent and under features.
[J]ump You can switch pages and still bring your block
along. The Undo will reset when you arrive at
the new page so if you choose [M]ove, switch
pages and then change your mind, the original
block will not be put back in the original page,
but rather disappear into smoke.
To have blockmode on ALT K is mainly an old WordStar-
convention, but I find it quite all right.
The blockmenu will be active until you press either Space
to quit or ESC to undo.
ALT - L Left adjust line. Moves the line with the cursor on as far
to the left as it will go.
ALT - M Menu Toggle. You can switch the top row between displaying
the menu at all times or to display the current charset
(with associated numerical key), when not in the menu.
ALT - N (+)Font Mode. First you must define or load a font (otherwise
nothing exciting will happen). In font mode, you may type
any of the characters that are defined in the font, and
they will be displayed on the screen. The baseline will
be the line with the cursor and the cursor will move to
the next characterposition. If you press return the
cursor will move to column 1 and move as many lines down
as specified by the vertical margin of the font.
Backspace will only work with the 5 latest characters.
Exit font mode with CTRL-ENTER, or abort with ESC.
Unregistered users may use the fontmode for evaluation
purposes only. Once they have entered the fontmode the
global savefile-function will be disabled. However, they
may load, save and edit fonts unlimited.
ALT - O Outline, Makes a frame in the current linestyle, you mark
the box in the same way you mark a block (see ALT - K).
ALT - P Paint mode. Works kind of like draw mode, but this one
just modifies the color attribute of the charachter.
The following features are available from paintmode:
P toggles continuous painting (everywhere you go will
be painted
C Toggles Painting with character
F Toggles painting of foreground color
B Toggles painting of background color
H Toggles painting in hi intensity.
L Toggles painting in low intensity.
SPACE Paints just the character under the cursor
ALT - C Change the character to paint with (indicated
next to "COLOR" on the statusrow.
ALT - Q Ruler, Makes it easier to put things in a straight line
across the screen. By pressung U in ruler mode, the ruler
will move under the text instead of covering it, Press U
again to return to normal mode.
Sorry 'bout the bad connection Q-Ruler, but the other
shortcuts were kind of busy.
ALT - R Right adjust, just like left adjust, but the other way
around.
ALT - S This routine (one of a kind!) will be able to recognize
the special BBScodes a sysop needs, it will also be able
to produce the same ones. If you place your cursor on the
first char in a BBScode the name of the code will be
displayed on the statusrow. If no code can be recognized
a list of those known to the program (via configuration
files) will be displayed and you can choose which one to
put on your screen. (More details about configuration,
see the BBSCodeConfig part.) Note that unregistered users
may only have 15 codes in memory, while registered may
have 140.
ALT - T Tab adjust. Lets you change the distance between
tab-marks.
ALT - U Unfurl BBSCodes. All BBSCodes that have a specified
length (see BBSCodeConfig) will be expanded to a string
of respective length, containing 'X'es. This is meant to
make it easy to look at what your screen will look like
when displayed to your Users. If you have codes that will
be expanded to a line-length exceedeing the screen width,
a beep will sound, and that string will have inverted
colors to make it easy to detect.
ALT - V Border fill. If you want to fill the area inside a frame
with the same character, attribute or both, just press
ALT - V and choose what to fill with (color will always
be the current). The characters in Charset 1-5 will be
considered as frames.
ALT - W Scroll the whole screen (Wrap). Use your cursorkeys to
move it around. What goes out to the right comes in on
the left... (what goes out the drain is forever lost :-)
ALT - X Quit. If you have made changes since last save you will
be prompted for another save.
ALT - Y Delete line. Deletes the line with the cursor. The line
will be stored in a small buffer to be used with the
"Undelete line"-feature
ALT-CTRL-Y UnDelete line. This will insert the last line that was
deleted at the cursorposition.
ALT - Z OSshell. Will open a shell to your OS if there is enough
memory for it. Just type Exit while in OS to return to
A3E.
NOTE! Be careful about loading any memory-resident
programs (TSR) while in OSshell. It might work this time,
or it might not work at all. You may get systemcrashes or
unpredictable results.
An extra warning is not to start a new copy of A3E in a
OSshell, as this most likely will mess things up on your
HD.
ALT 0..9 Set charset. On the status row you can see a number of
characters, these are the ones that will be typed if you
press Numlock (just light the numlock-LED) and then use
either your numeric keypad or your normal numberkeys on
top of your keyboard. You can change the charactersets by
pressing ALT 0, 1, 2 .. 9.
Here is a list of the different sets (will also be shown
when you change charset via the menu) :
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 + | Ex of how they will be
1 └ ┴ ┘ ├ ┼ ┤ ┌ ┬ ┐ ─ │ | mapped on the numeric
2 ╚ ╩ ╝ ╠ ╬ ╣ ╔ ╦ ╗ ═ ║ | keyboard:
3 ╙ ╨ ╜ ╟ ╫ ╢ ╓ ╥ ╖ ─ ║ | ┌ ┬ ┐ │
4 ╘ ╧ ╛ ╞ ╪ ╡ ╒ ╤ ╕ ═ │ | │
5 ▒ ▄ ▒ ▌ █ ▐ ▓ ▀ ▓ ░ ░ | ├ ┼ ┤ │
6 α ß Γ π Σ σ µ τ Φ Ω Θ |
7 δ ç Ç æ Æ ¢ £ ¥ ₧ ¿ ƒ | └ ┴ ┘
8 ∞ φ ε ∩ ≡ ≈ ± ≥ ≤ ⌡ ⌠ |
9 ÷ √ ° ⁿ ² ½ ¼ · ∙ ■ █ | ──── really handy
As you see ALT - 0 resets the keyboard to normal even
when numlock is on.
Numlock Use charset. When the numlock-LED is lit the numeric
keypad and the ordinary numeric keys on top of the
keyboard will display the respective character from the
chosen charset.
Scrollock Allcharsmode. When the scrollock-LED is lit you can
produce exactly any character on your keyboard. the
escape key will for example give you a '' and your
Enter key will give a chr(13), DeleteLine (CTRL-Y) and
Insertline (CTRL - I) will be disabled via shortcuts,
but reachable from the menu. The high chars (127..255)
that are not in any characterset can always be produced
by holding your ALT-key and typing the number of the
character on the numeric keypad.
CTRL - Y Delete line, same as ALT - Y, but I put it here as well,
just because I'm used to finding it here myself.
CTRL - CR Split line. Moves the rest of the line (right of the
cursor to a new inserted line just below.
ESC UNDO. Pressing Esc will always undo the last major
command or mode you used and restore the screen to what
it looked like before. If you press Esc a second time, it
will restore the screen to what it looked like before the
first undo.
SHIFT - Esc Save Undo. Pressing SHIFT - Esc will reset the undoscreen
so that the next time you Undo anything it will at least
not go further back than the current state.
ALT Menu. If you "tap" the ALT key without pressing any other
key meanwhile, this will be a handy shortcut to the menu.
LeftShift +
RightShift Can be configured to work as a tap on ALT when pressed
both at the same time. In DESQView the ALTkey is a little
special and that interferes with A3E.
F1 OnLine Help, just as ALT - H
F2 Save. See menusystem, Filemenu
F3 Load. See menusystem, Filemenu
F5 Define animation. Further info in the section about
animations.
F6 View/record macros.
F7 Enter the AnsiMusic-editor (see further special
Music-chapter)
F9 Asciichart. An easy way to get a character with an odd
asciivalue. A chart containing every available asciicode
will be shown, and you may move around with your
cursorkeys to pick the one to use. To put it on the
screen you just press CR, and to abort you press ESC.
ALT - F3 Pick. See menusystem, Filemenu
ALT - F7 Insert Music-ID-String (see Music-chapter)
ALT - F9 Toggle screensize.
F10 Menu. Sends you to the topmenu.
CTRL F1-F10 Macro sequenses, further information, se macro-recording
in the modemenu. (+)
SH - BS ClearScreen, keeps the filename. prompts first.
SH - Home Moves to the first character on the line. If the line is
empty, it moves to column 1.
SH - End Moves to column 80 of the current line.
SH - Space Solid Space, This is not an ordinary space. It looks like
a space on the screen, but it cannot be seen through. If
you for example move a block under a solid space, the
space will cover the block as if it were a character, It
will also cover the ruler. They will be saved and loaded
as solid spaces as well.
To be able to tell a solid space from a normal space, the
solid space will shimmer in different colors when you
position the cursor above. It will also indicate on the
statusrow with the number 255, instead of 32 like the
normal space.
CTRL - Space writes a space with default colors at the cursor
position.
Insert Toggles insertmode. When Insert is on, your cursor will
be small, and when Insertmode is off, your cursor will be
large. Another thing is that with Insert OFF, the screen
won't be messed up by delete and backspace.
SH - Insert Inserts a space with current colors at the
cursor position.
SH-CAPS Inverts the capsstatus of the character under the cursor.
DEFINING FONTS (+)
Start out by drawing a character on the screen (using any of the
nice features in the editor), and mark the character as a block (as
tight as possible to save memory). NOTE: A character may not be
bigger than 16 lines high and 22 columns wide.
Choose the font-command in the blockmenu.
Choose the corresponding character with the cursorkeys; If you have
marked an 'R' on the screen move the little red square to the letter
'R' in the upper part of the window that is displayed and press
RETURN.
Characters already defined are displayed in white in the upper part,
the rest in gray, but you may place your character on any of these.)
Here comes a tricky part: now you have to decide where to have the
baseline of the character (for normal capital letters it would
usually be the lowest line, but for some lower case letters (for
example 'p') it would be the line containg the lowest part of the
bump of the 'p' (the line that is supposed to be on the same line as
the lowest line of an 'A'). You may have to play around a bit with
this until you get the hang of it but when you do it will show to be
really handy.
Here is a small example on where to have the baseline for the
characters "A" "B" "C" "p" and "g":
XXXX XXXX XXXX
X X X X X
XXXX XXX X XXXX XXXX
X X X X X X X X X
X X XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX <<< baseline
X X
X XXXX
Now the complete character is defined, and may be used in the
Font mode.
To be able to use the font at a later time, you have to save it to
disk. You will automatically be prompted for this if you have a
modified prompt when you are about to load or dispose a font or when
you are going to Quit A3E.
ANIMATIONS (+)
The ansi and avatar formats have support to move around in the
screen between writing characters. This makes it possible to display
files in nonstandard (animated) ways (standard = top-down, each line
written from the left to the right)
A3E supports animation to some extent, and here is how to make an
animation:
First of all, load (or create) a file, then press F5 (this takes you
into the animationdefinition mode).
The only part of the page that is "animateable" in A3E is the
upper visible part of the page. If you have a CGA-monitor (or is in
25-line mode) you can only animate the top 23 rows, otherwise, you
can animate 48 rows.
Now you can specify exactly in which order each character should
appear on the screen when the file is displayed. There are several
ways to mark characters as animated:
SPACE : Marks the current character as animated
U : Unmarks the current character
Block : If you define a block (with ALT-K) you can animate the
block in a bunch of predefined ways (a special menu will
be presented once you have marked the block).
If the block contains characters that are already marked,
these will just be ignored when the block is animated.
One of the animation blockmenu commands is to unmark the
marked area.
W : This is only a special blockcommand that will mark the
whole screen and then enter the animation block-menu
SH+CUR: Pressing Shift and moving around with the cursorkeys will
mark every character you pass with the cursor. This can
also be used to unmark characters (toggle with the
insert-key, the current state is indicated on the
statusrow).
ALT-C : Clear any previous definition
R : Reverses the complete animationsequence.
If you want to find a specific characterposition to unmark for
example, you can press "S" (show) to see a copy of the original
screen, where you may move around the cursor to the right place.
If you want to get a clue on how your animation will look, press "V"
(view). The speed of "view" can be changed with the configuration
command "ViewAnimationSlowDown"
There are a few different ways that a marked character is indicated,
and you can change between these ways by pressing "1", "2" or "3".
This feature could be used to see if every character is marked, as
some of the ways are more obvious than others, but on the other hand
they might give you a headache if you use it all the time.
When you have marked all the characters you want to mark, you press
ENTER. The animationsequence is now stored in memory, and may be
applied to any file when saved (see filemenu / save for further
details).
You do not have to mark every character when designing an animation,
but those not marked will not be saved into the animationfile.
REMEMBER! you can only have one animation in the memory at each
time, and if you load a new (animated) file in another page the
first animation will be lost.
If you are not registered, each animation you save will have an
extra line at the end, saying where the animation came from. Using
these files is NOT a violation of any copyright, but it might not
look very nice.
ANSIMUSIC & MUSICEDITOR
A3E supports loading, editing and saveing AnsiMusic.
Loading is the easiest part, just load a file containing Ansimusic
(and text/ansigraphics). The music will be extracted and stored in
the memory for later use.
This documentation will in no way discuss the theory of music,
tempo, harmony or anything like that... it is up to you to know or
find out.
To edit the loaded music, or to compose som e new music, start off
by pressing F7 (to enter the musiceditor). Now you have a notesystem
on the screen (and some notes if there is any music in memory). Also
you have a map of the keyboard to see what key corresponds to what
note.
By using the keys in the map, you add notes to your tune. Pressing
Space will insert a pause. Change pitch of the current note by
pressing Up/Down, and change length by pressing Shift+Up/Down. If
you want the note pointed (add an extra half to the length), you
toggle it with RETURN. Remove notes with Delete or BackSpace.
Move around in your tune with Left/Right/C-Left/CRight/Home/End.
To hear what it sounds like, either walk around with the cursorkeys,
or play F10 (that will play in realtime from current note).
If you want to have notes in very high or very low pitches, you can
change the octave of the keyboard with F5/F6.
When you are satisfied with your tune, return to the ansieditor with
ESC.
IF you want to save the music in a special place in your file, you
can insert a Music-ID-String (looks like »»MUSIC««) at the
cursorposition with ALT-F7, otherwise it will be saved at the end of
your file.
It is not possible to have two or more tunes at different locations
in the file and it is not possible to have two different tempos in
the same tune.
A3E does not support all of the AnsiMusic codes (since I dont have
any specifications), but those not supported will be ignored when
loading.
Right now, there are not that many other programs that support
ansimusic, but I know of one terminalprogram (terminate) and one
ansi-displayprogram (ansiplay) that does. Hopefully there will be
more.
THE STATUS ROW
Here is a sample status row:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
X: 4 Y:21 P:1 *INSCX COLOR NONAME.SCR #32 A3E vN.nn 15:12:39
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
coords Page flags color filename char version Time
Coords simply give you the coordinates of the cursor.
Page shows the number of the current page.
Flags indicate the following:
* The file has been modified since last save
I Insert is on
N Numlock is on, meaning you will get the current charset
when pressing a numerical key
S Scrollock is on, meaning you will get a nice graphical
character when pressing the ESC, Backspace, Enter or
alphakeys together with CTRL
C Capslock is on, meaning... just in case your LED is
malfunctioning :-)
X Indicates that you have the "invert_under_cursor"-feature
enabled (X from the logical operator XOR)
Color is written in the current color (change it with ALT - F or
ALT - B if you don't like it).
Filename is the name of the current file without path.
Char shows the asciicode for the character under the cursor, if you
want a listing of all existing asciicodes, try your dos manual, or
some other reference manual (or just type every character you can
think of and look on the statusrow :-)
Version: N.nn indicates the current version of A3E.
Time, selfexplanatory :-)
THE MENUSYSTEM
The menusystem is easily reached by pressing F10 when you are in the
editor-mode (not reachable from paint/draw/font... mode). Once in
the menusystem you can choose from the topmenu and enter a submenu
(press CR). Once in a submenu you can choose a menuitem by moving
there with cursor up/down or go to another submenu with cursor
left/right. Most menu items are followed by a key-combination
representing the shortcut for the feature, others can only be
reached via the menu system. Here follows a presentation of the
menuitems (those explained in the Shortcut-list will not be
repeated, just referred to).
There is also an alternative way to make menuchoices, in both the
topmenu and the submenus. Every menuoption has one character
highlighted, and by pressing that character on the keyboard you will
choose that option. I've tried as far as possible to make this
menushortcut the same character as the normal shortcut, and for
those menuoptions that didn't have a normal shortcut I've tried to
choose it as logical as possible.
THE TOPMENU
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FILE COLORS FRAME/FILL SCREEN MODES FONT HELP
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The topmenu can be replaced with a display of the current Charset
(toggle with ALT - M) when you are in normal editing mode, but will
always be there when you enter the menusystem. Every time you enter
the topmenu you will get to the submenu you last accessed
THE SUBMENUES
FILE MENU
Load If the current file has been changed, you will first
be prompted to save it.
Thereafter you will be prompted for a new filename
(you may also choose from a filelist) and the file
is loaded into the editor.
If the file is animated the sequence will be stored
in memory so it can be used when you save the file
again.
Save Will save your file to the formats specified in
"Write to". If filename is NONAME (default), or if
the file hasn't been saved before during this
session you will be prompted to confirm or change
the filename, and you will also get the possibility
to set which modes to save the file in (same
procedure as described in "Write to", later in this
document).
Pick Lets you load one of the most recent files into the
editor, and restore all the settings from last time
the file was edited (this does not regard
screensize).
(+) registered users have the possibility to save
the picklist to disk and automatically reload it
when they start A3E at a later time.
New Clears the screen and sets the filename to NONAME.
Directory Shows a directory from a specified path and
filemask. By pressing any letter you will move to
the first file/directory that starts with that
character. (F4 for a new mask) NB! Only the first
512 files in your directory will be shown, but that
should suffice in most cases.
If the extention in the filemask is .$$$, all files
matching the extentions for ansi, ascii and
avatarfiles will be shown.
Write to Change the path, name and extensions of your file.
You can also set which modes to save the file in
(Ansi/Ascii/Avatar/COM). Pressing the function-key
associated to each filemode will toggle save of that
specific filemode ON/OFF.
Set extralines to the number of empty lines to put
in the end of the file (does not apply to animations
and .COM-files).
Toggle Clearscreen with F9 (files will often get a
little smaller with clearscreen on, but it never
affects COM-files at all).
If you have an animation in memory when you are
going to save, you may apply it on the current file.
Toggle with F10. Animation will never affect ASCII-
or COM-files, these will always be saved as normal
files.
Change dir Change to new directory and make it the default
directory.
LoadMode Specify which mode to use when loading. Trying to
load an ansifile in avatarmode will surely mess up.
When loading a file the Automode will try to
determine the type of file it is, and this really
works well. I suggest you have this as your default.
The only time it will be incorrect is when you try
to load an asciifile that contains either an
ESC-character, ^V or ^Y as these are used to
recognize Ansi/Avatar. The loadmode will also
determine which filemode will get the original
extension.
OS shell See shortcutlist, ALT - Z
Process #12 If you have a file that contains a chr(12) (female
sign / FormFeed) it would normally be processed as a
clearscreen if loaded as avatar and ascii (not
ansi), but if you want it to be loaded as a
femalesign, just turn the "process #12" OFF
PrintFile Gives an asciidump of your file straight to LPT1. It
will not be available if you are unregistered and
have used the fontfeature.
Quit Quits A3E. If current file is modified, you will be
prompted to save. Same as ALT - X.
COLOR MENU
Foreground See shortcutlist, ALT - F
Background See shortcutlist, ALT - B
DefaultBack lets you choose the background color that will be
used when you insert new lines or at the end of a
line where you press del.
GetColor See shortcutlist, ALT - G
Attribute See shortcutlist, ALT - A
FRAMEFILL MENU
Framescreen Puts a frame around the whole screen.
Frametext puts a frame surrounding the text on the screen.
Frame See shortcutlist, ALT - O
Fillscreen Fills the whole screen with a character, attribute
or both.
Fillframe See shortcutlist, ALT - V
SCREEN MENU
DelLine See shortcutlist, ALT - Y and CTRL - Y
InsLine See shortcutlist, ALT - I
ClrScr Clears the screen, keeps the filename. Prompts
first.
CenterLine See shortcutlist, ALT - C
RightAdjust See shortcutlist, ALT - R
LeftAdjust See shortcutlist, ALT - L
Set Tabsize See shortcutlist, ALT - T
Set CharSet See shortcutlist, ALT - 0..9
ScreenSize Sets the screensize to the chosen one (CGA handles
no more than 25 lines, it is useless to even try ).
If you have an EGA-adapter the later menu choice
will give you 43 lines, and if you have a
VGA-adapter or higher, you will get 50.
ScrollScreen See shortcutlist, ALT - W
MODEMENU
DrawMode See shortcutlist, ALT - D
AllChars See shortcutlist, Scrollock
InsertMode See shortcutlist, Insert
PaintMode See shortcutlist, ALT - P
BlockMode See shortcutlist, ALT - K
BBSCodes See shortcutlist, ALT - S
UNDO See shortcutlist, ESC
Save UNDO See shortcutlist, SHIFT - ESC
Show SolidSpaces All solid spaces (#255) will flicker until you
press a key. This is an easy way to detect unknown
solid spaces that mess up your blockmove, centerline
or something.
Macro redording (+)
You can assign sequenses of keystrokes to a single
key. If you want to record a macro, just follow
these simple steps:
1. Press the Key to use (CTRL F1-CTRL F10).
2. Type the name of the macro (the macros will be
saved if you are registered and this will make it
possible to remember what the macro does even
after a long period of time).
3. Punch the keys that you want to have in the macro.
They will be shown on the screen but perhaps a
bit hard to understand. Normal characters will be
written in white along with some others. Most
controllkeys and cursorkeys will produce a cyan
colored letter (or sign), but will be recorded as
the key you typed. When you are ready, terminate
with CTRL-RETURN. THe macro is now ready to be
used.
If you want you may let a macro start another macro,
or even it self, but if you have a circular macro,
the only way to stop it is to press the
system-request button (on my keyboard it is ALTgr +
PrintScreen).
To exit from the macro-definition-screen, press ESC
(this will NOT undo the macros).
If you are not a registered user, the macro will
selfdestruct when you have used it three (3) times.
You may redefine it as many times you want or
perhaps register you copy of A3E.
FONT MENU
Load Font Every font must be in the directory with your
A3E.CFG-file. A list of available fonts will be
shown and you may choose any of them to use.
Save Font If you have loaded a font, the name of the loaded
font will be default, otherwise you will have to
enter a new name. The font will be saved in the same
directory as you A3E.CFG, and with the extension
.FNT
View Font A window with every ascii-character in the upper
part, and a copy of the current character (and the
two next to it) in the lower part will be shown.
Characters that have been defined will be white (in
the upper part) and otherwise they will be gray.
Walk around (with small the red square and look at
the defined characters. If you press return at any
character you will be able to modify the baseline of
that character (refer to the section on defining fonts)
Exit by pressing ESC (this will NOT undo any
changes).
Margins Horizontal margin sets how much space that should added
to the right of each character.
Vertical margin sets how many lines down the ENTER key
will make the cursor jump.
Free Font This command will free the memory that is occupied
by the current font and reset the fontname to nothing.
This feature will be useful when A3E supports the
feature to add screenpages online (which hopefully
will be available in the near future).
Remove character
If you have a character in the font that is not
supposed to be there, simply delete it. The window
works like the one in View Font, except for when you
press return on a character, that character will be
deleted.
Unregistered users may use fonts for evaluation purposes and when
they do, the save feature will be disabled (they cannot save the
screen with the fancy fonts). However, unregistered users may
load, save and edit the fonts themselves unlimited.
PAGEMENU
When A3E starts, there will only be one page to jump between, and
if you want more pages you have to allocate them yourself.
Allocate page If you have enough memory you may allocate a page
with a customed size (max = 255 lines, min = 48
lines). The program will tell you which
pagenumber it has been allocated to and to get
there you press ALT-J from the editormode, and
enter the pagenumber). The default pagesize is
set by the config-switch DEFAULTLINESPERPAGE.
Deallocate page If you are short of memory, and want to load a big
font, you might have to get rid of some large
pages. You may never deallocate the current page (the
one you currently work on).
CONFIGURATION
Configuration of A3E can be made in A3E.CFG, and so far the
following options are available, default in brackets:
Insert = ON/OFF [ON]
Sets the default insertmode in the editor
Tabsize (+) = 0..9 [3]
Sets the default tabsize (changeable with ALT-T)
AnsiExt = EXT [ANS]
AsciiExt = EXT [ASC]
AvatarExt = EXT [AVT]
Consists of up to three characters (NO Point) and sets the
default extension for each saveformat
SaveAnsi = ON/OFF [ON]
SaveAscii = ON/OFF [ON]
SaveAvatar = ON/OFF [OFF]
Specify which formats to save as default
StatFG (+) = ┐
StatBG (+) = │
MenuFG (+) = │
MenuBG (+) = │ Black Lightgray
MenuHIFG (+) = │ Blue Lightblue
MenuHIBG (+) = │ Green Lightgreen
CurrentFG (+) = ├ one of Red Lightred
CurrentBG (+) = │ Cyan Lightcyan
DefaultFG (+) = │ Magenta Lightmagenta
DefaultBG (+) = │ Brown Yellow
SubmenuFG (+) = │ Darkgray White
SubmenuBG (+) = │
SubmenuHiFG (+) = │
SubmenuHiBG (+) = ┘
Make your own color setup
SavePickList (+) = ON/OFF [OFF]
Should the picklist be saved between each time ?
BBSConfigFileName =filename.ext []
The name (not path) of your BBSConfiguration file. This file
must be kept in the same path as your main configuration, see
further the BBSConfig.
DefaultCharSet = 0..9 [0]
Sets the default charset.
DefaultAnsiDir (+) = Drive:\Path []
If you have all your fancy files in a special directory
(c:\ra\display for example) you can set the path here and A3E
will start with your directory as defaultdir.
LoadMode = Ansi/Avatar/Ascii/Auto [Auto]
Sets the default Loadmode, see Filemenu-loadmode for further
specifications. Auto recommendable.
MenuShortCuts = ALT/LRShift/Disabled [ALT]
Lets you make a shortcut to the top menu row (together with F10).
ALT - "Tap" (that is press and release) the ALT button.
LRShift - Tap the left and right shift at the same time.
Disabled - No shortcut.
This is mainly to avoid interference with for example
DESQView which use the ALT-key to activate it's own menu.
ScreenBlankTime (+) = 0..255 [5]
Specify the number of minutes you want before the screen blanks.
0 disables screenblanking completely.
MenuOn = ON/OFF [ON]
If you want a display of the current characterset on the
toprow, specify off.
ForceAsciiCR = ON/OFF [OFF]
With Forceascii ON every line saved in asciimode will have a
Carriage Return, and Linefeed in the end. If it is OFF, lines
that are exactly 80 characters won't have these.
Ctrl-Y-Delline = ON/OFF [OFF]
If you want CTRL-Y to be synonym to ALT-Y (an old and common
standard) then specify this setting ON. Otherwise CTRL-Y will
normaly return asciicharacter 25 (arrow down).
SortBBSCodes = ON/OFF [OFF]
Makes it possible to sort your BBSCodes in an alphabetical
order.
ExtraLines = 0..5 [1]
Specifies how many linefeeds to be added to the end of your
files (can be individually changed).
ATKeyPad = ON/OFF [OFF]
If you have an AT keypad (84 buttons), you can make sure that
you can have the character sets on top of the keyboard, and
have the cursor controls on the keypad. Make sure that Numlock
is OFF.
WordStar = ON/OFF [OFF]
Enables the classic wordstar commands for cursor movement.
NB! Wordstar is disabled when you press scrollock and
put the editor in "Allchars-mode". Wordstar is only available
in editor-mode so far, not in paint-, or drawmode.
AdaptInDraw = ON/OFF [ON]
(Adapt in draw) If you start DrawMode while having the cursor
on a linecharacter, this switch will make drawmode default to
the characterset containing that very character. Characters
that appear in two different sets will give the lower one.
DefaultVGAEGA (+) = ON/OFF [OFF]
Puts your screen in VGA/EGA-mode as default.
UseSwap (+) = ON/OFF [OFF]
With UseSwap, you can enable swapping of A3E to EMS-memory,
or disk (if you don't have enough EMS). This gives you an
additional 200-300 k free memory in dosshell, on the other
hand, swapping to disk takes a long time.
If you find that swapping is too slow, just turn it off again.
InvertUnderCursor = ON/OFF [ON]
A small feature that inverts the foreground intensity under
the cursor to make the cursor visible even on "█" characters.
It will slow down cursor movement about 15% on a fast
keyboard. On a slow one you will not notice.
BlockMenuReturn = ON/OFF [ON]
Do you want the block menu to return after each block command.
If it is off you will be back in the editor after each
command (even after view).
DefaultLinesPerPage (+) = 48..255 [48]
When you allocate a new page, this value will be the
defaultvalue of how big it shall be.
RemoveSolidSpacesPreSave = ON/OFF [OFF]
If you are having trouble with the solidspace (ascii 255) then
you may want to strip it every time you save a file... Just
turn this switch on.
DuplicateFileNamesInPickList = ON/OFF [ON]
If this switch is turned off a file name will only appear once
in the picklist, otherwise it could appear several times with
different paths and extensions.
DisableMorePromptInAnim = 0..255 [0]
If you run a BBSprogram that will stop every now and then
while viewing animations you may add a character in the
beginning of the file to disable that feature (in Remote
Access it is Chr( 5 ), so you would simply specify 5 here).
Look in your BBS-manual if you are having problem.
ViewAnimationSlowDown = 0..255 [2]
If you have a very fast (or a very slow) computer you propably
wont like the default viewspeed of animations, therefor you
can change this parameter (high numbers give a lot of
slowdown). This will not effect the ansifile though, but only
the internal viewfeature.
CompressAnimation = ON/OFF [ON]
If you run a BBS you want your ansi/avatar files to be as
small as possible, therefor you can strip every
defaultcolored space in the animations (if you have a ClrScr
in the file). This will screw up the animationloadsequence a
bit, but not severely (defaultcolored spaces will be lost). If
you want the complete animationsequence to be loaded, just
turn off the compressionmode.
MarkMethod = 1..3 [1]
In animationmode the animated characters are shown by
inverting colors or changeing the character temporarily. There
are three ways of showing this and here you choose the default
way of indicating that a character is animated.
MaxAnsiStringLength = 1..255 [255]
Some people have to limit the length of the strings in
ansifiles. Here you can specify what lengths you want... For
posting ansifiles to echoconferences, a maxlength of 70-75 is
reccomended.
ClearScreen = CLEAR/HOME/NONE [CLEAR]
In ansi/avatar files you can either have a clearscreen-code or
a home-cursor-code in the beginning (or neither ofcourse). the
difference between clearscreen and homecursor is that with
homecursor the previous contents of the screen will be intact
where the new screen has no information, with clearscreen, all
previous information will be erased previous to drawing the
new screen.
Due to a lack in the specification ov avatar-codes, an
avatarfile, with a home-cursorcode, that is longer than the
screen will mess up heavily, just use the clearscreen instead.
All configuration (including BBSCodes) will be loaded from the
directory where you start your A3E.EXE, if you don't specify the
path in the environment variable A3E by putting something like this
in your AUTOEXEC.BAT:
Set A3E=C:\A3E\CFG-DIR
A3ECONF.EXE, THE CONFIGURATION EASY-INSTALL UTILITY
If you dont like to edit configuration files in a texteditor, you
might use the "configuration easifyer", A3ECONF.EXE. Just put it in
the directory with your A3E.EXE and configurationfiles.
You will probably find it quite easy to use. Just enter the data as
you want it to be installed, switch pages with PgUp/PgDn and press
F10 to save it.
The configuration doesn't have much errorchecking yet, but on the
other hand, you can't misspell the commands, just the parameters.
BBSCONFIGURATION
One of the specialities of A3E is the special BBScodes (ALT - S),
but to make it work you have to have a special configuration file
for this. You specify the name of your BBScfg-file in A3E.CFG with
the option BBSCONFIGFILENAME and here is how it works.
Each BBSCode consists of one to two control characters, a
description and a length (length is optional and only used for the
Unfurl-BBSCodes-feature (see ALT - U). The rules for making the
configuration are rather strict, so please try to stick to them.
There is just about no errorhandling, so incase you do something wrong,
the most likely is for your computer to either hang in an endless
loop or get a runtimeerror. However, the configurationfiles included
in the archive have been tested and are known errorfree.
there are three different ways to set a code in the configfile:
with a ^-sign followed by an Upcase letter:
ex: ^A = asciicode 1
^S = asciicode 19
with the numbersign (#) followed by a number between 0 and 255:
ex: #4 = asciicode 4
#65 = asciicode 65
with any single asciicharacter (except the ^ and the #):
ex: S = asciicode 83
┌ = asciicode 218
There can be a maximum of 2 asciicodes for each code, separated by a
space, and after the asciicodes comes an explanation of the code
surrounded by qoutationmarks ("). The length, if included, is
written as a plain number, between 1 and 80, and separated from the
closing qoute in the description by a space.
Here are a couple of sample codes:
^S ^B "System Time" 8
^F A "Users full name" 45
#6 #68 "Business/Data phone number" 10
E "Voice/Home phone number" 10
If you are registered the 140 first codes in your configfile will be
loaded into memory, otherwise, the program will only load the first
15. The explanations will be truncated to maximum 36 characters.
To make it possible to find anything in the list of ssopcodes you
can put a special keyword in the configurationfile, here is an
example:
Header "user statistics"
If you have a line like that it will be displayed upcased and in a
differing color, and will only be there for information (you will
not be able to choose it). You can also make it appear as the first
entry in a column by adding a number 1 after it:
Header "user statistics" 1
However if you use this you will decrease the number of codes that
will fit memory, the choice is yours...
There are default configurations for 3 different BBSes:
Remote Access (1.11) - RA111.CFG
(1.01) - RA101.CFG
Wildcat (2.50) - WC250.CFG
PCExpress (?) - PCEX.CFG
NOTE! Some of the codes for RA110 have a special syntax, look at the
comments in the config or rather in RA's documentation.
If you have a BBS that is not covered by the configurations I've
made, please feel free to make your own. If you think they might be
of use to anyone else, send them to me and I'll distribute them with
the A3E-package.
There is an option in the normal config that makes it possible to
sort the BBScodes in an alphabetical order. This might work in your
setup, and it might not. I've found the case with RA111 that has one
code that is ^K and a lot of codes that starts with ^K and then has
another character to follow. If this is the case and the first
mentioned code is checked before the later, the others will never be
recognized, no matter what, when you do a BBSCodes identify (my tip
is to put all codes with just one character in the end of you
BBS-config and skip the sorting).
If you are using the Header-feature, sorting the BBScodes will
really screw things up!
If you want the information that is displayed with a BBS-code to be
at an absolute position (having 2 BBS-codes of variable length on
the same row might screw things up...) you could make use of
animations, as it will move the cursor to the right position before
writing to the screen (modem).
A user in holland pointed out that when he used a bunch of BBScodes
for pause (^w) in his logoutscreen they were compressed in the
avatar file and his BBS-program wouldn't understand them as
pausecharacters. The solution is to put a space in between each
pausecharacter to suppress compression ("^w^w^w" -> "^w ^w ^w")
PLANS FOR FUTURE VERSIONS
■ Mouse support (I now have an IO-board, but still no compatible
mouse :-( )
As long as there is any interest in new features and enhancements of
this program (from you or from me) I will keep spending my time
makeing it a better peice of software (instead of paying attention
to schoolwork and other important stuff :-).
THE END
If you have any suggestions for features you would like to see in
A3E, I'd be happy to hear it (there are no obvoius shortcuts left,
but I'll be able to squeeze it in somewhere I guess...) I'm also
very happy for bug reports (I want this to be a bug-free program
before the end of this century :-).
Contact me in any of these ways:
Jonas Högström
Address..: Kungsbergsgatan 8c
S-582 53 LINKÖPING
S W E D E N
Tel......: +46-13-122636
Fax......: +46-21-350524 (might take a few days extra as it
belongs to my parents.)
BBS......: +46-33-201819 (talk to the sysop, my brother)
FIDO.....: 2:204/408.3
InterNet.: c91jonho@und.ida.liu.se
OFFICIAL DISTRIBUTION SITES
From the distributionsites you can always FREQ or DL the latest release of
A3E. FREQ with the magic filename A3E. Some of the Distributionsites
also carries the echoconference A3E_HELP (mainly sweden yet), where
you can post your questions about the editor and they will be
answered by me and the betateam.
Most sites support magic filename A3E for the latest official
release and A3E_BETA for the latest betaversion (supported by Mayday
& The Cross atleast).
Registered users can run betaversions (key-file needed), and they
can be FREQed from either MayDay BBS, The Cross or Gunship
(A3E_nnnB.ZIP).
Main Distributionsite:
BBS.......: MayDay BBS
Sysop.....: Jesper Högström
NodeNumber: 2:203/417
TelNumber.: +46-33-100 747 (1200-14400 DL & FREQ)
FREQ......: Anyone
Local distributionsites:
Sweden
BBS.......: The Cross
Sysop.....: Jan Boström
NodeNumber: 2:204/408
TelNumber.: +46-13-124653 (1200-14400 DL & FREQ)
FREQ......: Anyone
BBS.......: Gunship BBS
Sysop.....: Fredrik Lewerth
NodeNumber: 2:203/117
TelNumber.: +46-31-693306 (1200-14400 DL & FREQ)
FREQ......: Anyone
BBS.......: Braxen BBS
Sysop.....: Per Brax
NodeNumber: 2:200/409
TelNumber.: +46-46-712396 (1200-14400 DL & FREQ)
FREQ......: Anyone
Holland
BBS.......: HCC DataCom GG
Sysop.....: Gerard ter Haar
Nodenumber: 2:500/137
TelNumber.: +31-3449-1909 (1200-14400 DL & FREQ)
FREQ......: Anyone, any time
BBShours..: 08.00-01.00 local time
USA
BBS.......: The Developers Network
Sysop.....: Chris Patterson
Nodenumber: 1:170/900
TelNumber.: +1-918-251-6252 (2400-14400 DL & FREQ)
TelNumber.: +1-918-251-1033 (2400-9600 DL ONLY!)
FREQ......: ANYONE
Adress....: P.O. Box 1660
Broken Arrow, OK 74013 1660
USA
Germany
BBS.......: Granny's Inn
Sysop.....: Peter Hampf
Nodenumber: 2:240/11
TelNumber.: +49-4441-5404 (2400-14400 DL & FREQ)
FREQ......: ANYONE
Adress....: Peter Hampf
Graf von Galen Strasse 27
W 2848 Vechta
Germany
A3E 1.00 was hatched through the SDS fileecho, and this will
hopefully be done in the future as well, so before you go calling an
international call, look at your local SDS-site.
A3E has also been uploaded at SIMTEL, the _big_ FTPsite in USA, and
this will hopefully also be done in the future. The full adress to
SIMTEL is: wsmr-simtel20.army.mil
So if you have FTPaccess you could look there (or any full or
partial SIMTEL-mirror (in Europe you could try nic.funet.fi)) for
new versions of A3E.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
REGISTRATION FORM (also as Register.FRM in the A3E archive)
Name:_______________________________________________________
Company:____________________________________________________
Address:____________________________________________________
ZIP and city:_______________________________________________
State/country:______________________________________________
Telephone:__________________________________________________
Tick the way you would like your A3E.KEY:
____ Fileattach (FIDO)(TO:______________________________)
____ UUencoded E-mail (TO:______________________________)
____ Snailmail to the adress above.
If you are a sysop what's the name, phone number, nodenumber
and software of your BBS:
____________________________________________________________
Where did you get hold of A3E:
__ a friend
__ a BBS (give me phone or nodenumber:______________________)
__ uploaded to my own BBS
__ FTP (please enter site:__________________________________)
__ a shareware distributor:_________________________________
__ somewhere else:__________________________________________
What version of A3E Do you have right now:__________________
IF you want info on future updates, please state either a
FIDO nodenumber or an INTERNET-address:_____________________
My suggestions on how to improve A3E:_______________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
If you find any of the questions above violating your
personal integrity, you are free to refuse answering them
(does not include your address and wanted disksize), I'm
just kind of curious about the ways that A3E travel...
PS,
Registrationfee and adresses where to send all this is
stated in the section about registration. DS.
------------------------------------------------------------
<-- End of A3E.DOC -->