Acorn User 1/AU_CD1.iso/demos/a_to_i/blinds/Manual

Text File | 1995-01-06 | 30KB | 618 lines

© Quantum Software 1994,1995

Demo Manual issue : v1.05 - 10/11/94

D.T.P. - Stuart Halliday
Blinds - Alisdair Jørgensen

Trademarks :
Blinds, Keystroke and Executor are the trademarks of Quantum Software.
Impression Style/Publisher is the trademark of Computer Concepts Ltd.
Draw, Paint, Edit, Filer,
Task Manager & Pinboard are the trademarks of Acorn Computers Ltd.
Placeit is the trademark of Ian Ashley.
ArcFS is the trademark of Mark Smith.


Policy of Quantum Software.
Blinds is compatible with all Acorn Risc computers running Risc OS 3.1/3.5


Quantum Software,
35 Pinewood Park,
Livingston, EH54 8NN,
Scotland, Tel  [phone]

Introduction

Blinds is a professional ‘pinboard’ type program designed to make it easier for you to
organise your files and applications. With Blinds you can quickly launch
applications and files, organise all of your files into groups of windows for easier
recall.

Blinds has been written for any Acorn Risc computer  (A310/A4X0/A30X0/A4000/
A5000/Risc PC and the A4) running Risc OS 3.1 or above.
A hard drive is desirable, but not mandatory.

With Blinds you can quickly make a window any size or position on the desktop,
these windows can have an automatic opening and closing effect similar to when
you open a real life blind! These windows allow many icons to be grouped any way
you wish and without the usual clutter of icons ‘robbing’ you of valuable screen area
for your main work.

You can set a Pinboard type blind to open only if your favourite application has a
window open, therefore saving having one Pinboard ‘chock a block’ full of icons for
all occasions. When Blinds is used correctly you will only see a ‘Pinboard’ with icons
relevant to that application!

Make a blind which follows your applications window around the desktop like an
extra tool bar. Attach your work directories to this blind and you will always have
access to your Filer directories!

We have provide over one thousand sprite icons which you can use on a blind
instead of the more normal icons you are used to seeing! These icons can give your
desktop that little extra ‘spice’ of life!

You may also use Blinds with our other product Keystroke which when used together
allows you to define groups of icons which will perform multiple sequences of
functions of your favourite application thus allowing you to shortcut multiple menu
selections and mouse clicks with a click on an icon.

Computer Requirements.
Blinds requires an Acorn Risc computer running Risc OS 3.1 or higher and a copy of
the !Scrap application that was supplied by Acorn to every machine. If you do not
have this application on your boot disc or hard drive, then please look through your
Application discs that came with your machine and copy it to your boot disc or hard
drive.
Risc PC owners, please note that the !Scrap application is already contained
within your !Boot program.

Please read the following chapters on how to create your first blind!

What’s on the disc?
You’ll find a demonstration version of Blinds which you can use to create, alter or
delete blinds as you see fit. But you will not be able to load or save them, you will
need to buy the full version to do that!
You will also find over a thousand icons contained within several sprite files in a
specially compressed archive for you to use with Blinds and an application called
!ArcFS which controls the sprite archive file.

How to install Blinds.
Insert your Blinds disc into your disc drive, mount it and double click on the !Blinds
icon. You may freely copy Blinds into any directory on any recordable storage media.

Blinds needs the standard !Scrap application to be present, this should be already on
your Boot disc or on your hard drive. If not please consult your Acorn User guide
manual for details on how to add !Scrap to your computer.

Tutorial.
Blinds allows many different windows to be made by you to suit your particular
working environment. These windows or blinds as we call them will contain your
applications, work files and directories icons so allowing you instant access to your
work with the minimum of hassle.
We hope this demo tutorial will allow you to quickly learn how to use Blinds.
(The full tutorial has numerous pictures in it to aid the learning process).

To load Blinds, simply double click on the !Blinds icon on the floppy disc it came on.
If you own a hard drive, you will find it easier to create a directory somewhere of
your choice on it and copy the entire contents of the floppy disc to that directory
before running Blinds.

When Blinds is ran it will load itself on to the icon bar and it will await your first
command!

What is a blind?
A blind is a window which you can open or close at will and place on it numerous
icons which, when clicked upon, will either load themselves onto the icon bar, open
Filer windows or load themselves into editor programs. In a very similar way the
Pinboard program works.

Different types of blinds.
You have a choice of a six different types of blinds to choose from.
First we have the four basic blinds, left, right, top and bottom. These are designed to
operate in a similar way to real blinds you may have in your house! You’ll see this
once you’ve created a few.

The other two types of blinds are :
A backdrop blind. This is very similar to the Pinboard that Acorn provided with
your computer, but much more flexible in use.
A tool blind. This looks like any other standard Risc OS window you might see
when using your computer.

All the blinds allow icons to be placed on them and arranged to suit yourself.
Any icon on a blind may have its name lengthened (or shortened!) to make it more
readable, you may make the icon small or larger or even remove the icon and leave
just the text showing. You can even change any icon’s sprite picture to one of the
very many we have provide to add a little ‘spice’ to the blind. Of course each blind
may have its size adjusted to suit yourself.


Creating a blind.
To make your first blind we will start off by creating a ‘top’ blind.
Click with the Menu mouse button on the !Blinds icon on the icon bar and click the
Select button on the Create/Blind/Top menu option.

Immediately a long grey box like object will appear across the width of your desktop
at the top. this is the ‘bar’ of the top blind. When it looks like this it is said to be in a
closed position.



You may also have noticed that the Blinds icon on the icon bar has changed to
having a ‘W’ letter within it. This means that Blinds is now in a Window editing
mode of operation. While Blinds has this ‘W’ showing it can only allow the editing of
the blind window attributes, like changing its size or position.

For the moment we will not change the blind’s dimensions or position.

But if you now click once with the Select button on the Blinds icon you will see that
you can change the editing mode from Window to Icons, which allows icons on the
blinds to be edited or altered. Clicking on it again will show no letter on the icon,
this state allows no alterations to be made to Blinds windows or icons and it is Blinds
normal ‘working day’ mode of operation.

It is important later on to realise the distinction between each mode, you can not edit
icons in Window mode or vice versa!

For the moment leave it showing NO letter and double click on the blind bar with
the Select button. The blind will snap open so that it covers all the desktop, but
leaving the icon bar uncovered. You can see why we call this a top blind, it opens
from the top to the bottom.

Another double click on the bar will close it again, but leave it open for the moment.

If you examine the blind you will notice the large light grey area. This is the place
where you will be placing your icons in a moment.

This double clicking action on the bar is the same for the ‘left, right and bottom’ type
blinds as well. (The tool and backdrop blinds are different as they do not have a bar
to drag! But they will be explained later on.)

Adding icons to a blind.
To add your applications, directories, work files, etc. icons to a blind is simple.
While Blinds is in its Icon editing mode (the Blinds icon should show a large ‘I’ letter,
if it does not simply click with the Select button on the Blinds icon until it does).

Drag the applications, etc. from your Pinboard or any Filer window to the blind of
your choice. You will find that they will automatically keep themselves tidy, this is
due to the Grid lock option which by default is always on.

Please try dragging a few icons to your top blind and see how they position
themselves. You may notice that Blinds has automatically entered its Icon editing
mode when you dragged an icon to a blind. This is because it is now editing the
icons on the blind.

By default any icons dropped onto a blind will be of the large type and will
contain just its normal filename of up to ten letters.

If you normally prefer seeing small icons then BEFORE you drag the icons on, click
on the Menu button whilst the pointer is over the top blind and the Edit Icons menu
will appear.

At the bottom you will see the line Defaults. Using the pointer, go through the
menu Defaults/Options/Small line and click on the Small option so that the option
is ticked.

Now try dragging a few more icons to the top blind from a Filer window. You will
see that they will look very small with their filename running along side.

This Defaults menu line determines how any new icon is to look once they are
placed onto a blind.

By default each icon always has its filename included. But you can turn off this text
by altering the menu option Defaults so that every new icon created will not have
text included with it. Here is how to do this.

Click using the Select button on the Defaults/Text option so it is no longer ticked.
If you now try and drag a few more icons to the blind, you’ll notice that they are
small with no text present.

Please note that making an icon small with no text can make it difficult to
see clearly what it is and it will be very small if you are using a high
resolution screen mode, e.g. 1024 x 768 or greater! But the final choice is of
course yours!

If you look at the Defaults submenu again you will notice that the ticked Sprite
option is now shaded. This is to prevent people switching both text and sprite
options off. After all, no text and no sprite makes for an invisible icon!

To take off the Sprite option you must first tick the Text option on. We recommend
you use the Adjust button to keep the menu on screen and then take off the
unshaded ticked Sprite option with the Select button.

Now try dragging some more icons to the blind to see this text only effect.
The advantage of a text only icon is that some software system designers believe that
identifying an icon is best done with some text rather than a sprite picture.
The world famous (and expensive) QUANTEL painting software used by many
professional graphic artists in the television and film industry relies virtually 100%
on icons with text. So we have decided to give YOU the choice when using Blinds.

In Blinds icon text can be virtually any length, gone is the ten character limit.

We recommended keeping the Text and Sprite options on and the Small option off
for now until you become more familiar with using Blinds.


Feel free at this point to put Blinds into it’s ‘None’ mode (no letter within the Blinds
icon) and double click on any of the icons you have dragged on the blind. When you
do that action, the file, directory or program will be run, just like it would be on
your Filer or Pinboard window!
This mode is the normal everyday working state of Blinds.

Moving icons about a blind.
To move icons about the blind, perhaps to rearrange them to suit your own
preference, first make sure that Blinds is in its Icon editing mode, there should be an
‘I’ letter in the Blinds icon.
Click on an icon within the top blind using the Select button and it will become
highlighted.

Now drag it around the blind by holding down the Select button, release the Select
button when you have position it to your liking. You can do this with multiple icons
at one time by first highlighting one icon and then by using the Adjust button,
highlight more for moving.

There is a Select all menu option from the blind while it is in Icon edit mode
which quickly selects all the icons in the blind. Alternatively you could do a
drag operation using the Select button as this produces a drag box which
will highlight only the icons within the box. (This is exactly the same type of
operation you would do if you where selecting objects with a Filer window).

Removing icons from a blind.
It may become desirable to remove icons from a blind, especially in the learning
period. To do this open up the blind with the offending icon/s and make sure
that Blinds is in its Icon editing mode. If you do not have any icons on the blind,
drag at least one from a Filer window on to the open top blind you should have
created earlier.
An ‘I’ letter should be present within the Blinds icon on the icon bar, if there is not,
click using the Select button on the Blinds icon until the ‘I’ appears.

Now highlight the icon/s by the use of the Select (and Adjust button if you want to
highlight more than one icon) button, then click on the Menu button.

The blind’s Edit Icons menu will pop up and if you click on the Remove Icon/s
option the icon/s will be instantly deleted from the blind.

This method is used throughout Blinds to remove icons from a blind.

Changing an icon’s sprite picture.
An interesting ability of Blinds is to allow the user to chance the displayed sprite to
one of their choosing. To do this pop up the Edit icon menu from a blind and click
on the New icon line. This will create an icon with the sprite picture of !Blinds
and the text ‘New icon’ on the blind.

Highlight the ‘New icon’ and pop up the Edit icon menu again and choose the
Sprite option. You will see the word ‘!Blinds in the Sprites submenu, this is the
name of the sprite that Blinds will use for that icon. By changing this name you can
make any sprite that is loaded in your computer appear instead.

Here is an example of how to do this.
On the Blinds disc you will see a sprite file called ‘ExIcons’. Drag this file onto the
Blinds icon on the icon bar and it will be loaded into the pool of sprite pictures that
your computer uses to display its icons.
Highlight the ‘New icon’ again and bring up the Edit icon/Sprites menu option,
remove the name ‘!Blinds’ and insert the word ‘Raptor1’.
You should see now a very different icon picture!

Notice that if the icon is single clicked upon the icon becomes highlighted (as any
icon normally does). But in Blinds we have also added the option for making an
blind icon change from one icon picture to another when clicked upon.

Here is how to do this.
Highlight the ‘New icon’ again and bring up the Edit icon/Sprites menu option.
This time change the text ‘Raptor1’ to ‘Raptor1,Raptor2’. Now when the icon is
clicked upon the picture changes from the first one to the second one.
This interesting ability allows the user to play around with the picture the icon
displays. You could have a ‘normal’ looking sprite picture when the icon is not
highlighted and it would change to another more interesting icon when clicked
upon! No doubt you’ll think of other uses you could put this function too!

Please examine the public domain sprites we have provide, there are over a
thousand icons covering many topics. Feel free to edit them!

Changing the size of a blind.
An important ability of Blinds is to allow a blind to be changed in size to suit the
user, you do this by the use of your mouse pointer.

Open the blind fully by double clicking on the top blind bar you’ve created earlier.
It is important to note that only a fully open blind can be altered. If it is only slightly
closed you will be unable to edit its size.


If you have been following this tutorial, you should at this stage have a top blind
covering the whole desktop area except the icon bar. Place the mouse pointer within
the blind window, near the bottom right hand corner and whilst keeping the Adjust
button pressed, drag the pointer slowly to the top left hand corner and you will see
the blind automatically resizing!

You can do this with any of the four corners and so you can size the window to your
personal preference.

This is how you change the size of any of the blinds in this program.

A blind has an open and closed size and while you can not alter its closed
size, you can set its open size. When a blind is having its size altered you
will always see it in its fully open size, so please keep this in mind as you
adjust its size. Remember you are setting its maximum open size. Please
leave enough room to put some icons on it!

Changing a blinds position.
Once you are happy with the blind size you can easily change its overall position on
the desktop at any time by first making sure that you are in the Window editing
mode. (There should be a ‘W’ letter within the Blinds icon on the icon bar).
If there is not, simply place the mouse pointer on the Blinds icon and using either the
Select or Adjust button, click on it until the W letter appears.

Now place the mouse pointer anywhere within the blind and with the Select button
pressed this time, drag the mouse around. You will see the blind moving around the
desktop with the pointer. Release the mouse button once you are happy with its
position.


You will notice it is impossible to position it outside the desktop, please centre it at
the top of the desktop for now.

Note that the position you leave it at will always be its startup position
every time you reload Blinds (if you’ve save it of course).
Changing a blinds handle bar size
The small dark grey area of a blind window is the bar (or handle) of the blind. In
normal use this bar is used to open and close a window. So it is important that it is
of a size that you are comfortable with.

To change its width first make sure that you are in the Window editing mode.
Then place the mouse pointer within the bar area and whilst keeping the
Adjust button pressed, move the mouse up and down slowly.
You will see that by moving the pointer the bar size of a blind can be set to your
personal preference.


Each of the four basic blinds (top, bottom, left & right blinds) allow you to
do this to them.

Giving the blind a name.
Once you have created your blind it is advisable to give it a name.
This will help you to identify it at a later date from just its name in Blinds main menu
from the icon bar.

First make sure that you are in the Window editing mode.  Then position the mouse
pointer over the blind and press the Menu button. The Edit Window menu will
appear and if you select the Name option you will be able to enter a new name.


Every time you create a blind the name will be ‘New Window’, but a new
name can be quickly entered.

Deleting a blind.
During the use of Blinds it may become desirable to delete a blind and its icons.
To do this make sure that Blinds is in its Window editing mode (a ‘W’ is
displayed on the Blinds icon) and click on the Menu button whilst the pointer is over
the blind you wish to delete.

Now choose the Delete option to instantly delete the top blind and all of its icons (if
it has any).


Please repeat these exercises, but in each case choose a different type of blind, but
do this only with the top, bottom, left and right blinds at present. Then once you are
familiar with the four basic types of blinds follow the rest of this tutorial.
Creating a tool blind
So far we have just looked at a standard blind. (The top, bottom, left and right
blinds). They all act exactly the same as the top blind you have been working with.
The other two types of blinds you can make are the tool and backdrop blind.
For the moment we will describe how to make a tool blind.

To do this choose from the main menu of the Blinds icon, the Create/Tool menu
option as shown.


A tool blind will then appear on your desktop. As you can see it is not strictly a ‘blind’
at all, but a standard Risc OS looking window, but we will still refer to it as a tool
blind!

Again you will notice that, as before, Blinds went into its Window editing mode
when you created a blind.

You should now change the tool blind’s shape and position to get familiar with how
Blinds acts, you do this as before by using the Adjust or Select buttons and dragging
the pointer around. But as you can see the tool blind does not have a bar, so you can
not adjust the height of the title bar, sorry!

Please give this tool blind the name ‘Tool bar’. This is done in the same way as
described earlier by bring up the Edit Window/Name menu option.

A tool blind also differs from the other blinds by not having a closed size, it is either
on screen or not.Please click with either the Select or Adjust button on its Close icon,
this will ‘hide’ the blind.

To bring it back you must use the main menu from the Blinds icon and select the
Windows menu option. you will see here a list of all the windows you have created.
You will notice that the ‘Tool bar’ window is NOT ticked. This indicates that it is
hidden at present.

Click on the line which says ‘Tool bar’. Once you do this the tool blind will pop up at
the position you left it and the Windows/Tool bar menu will now have a tick next to
it to indicate that the blind is visible.

This convention is used throughout ALL the blinds you create, if you want
blinds hidden then use this menu option to hide them.

One reason for hiding a blind is that you can Link a blind to an application so that it
will automatically pop up whenever the application is loaded.

Linking a blind to an application.
An exciting ability is to allow a blind to remain hidden until your favourite
application is loaded, whereby it pops up! You can even link a blind to your
applications window so that it follows it around the desktop like a Pilot fish follows
a Shark!

How to link it up with !Edit.
First load !Edit, the Acorn text editor, onto the icon bar. Display the tool bar blind, if
it is not already visible, and make sure that Blinds is in its Window editing mode.

Place the mouse pointer within the blind and use the Menu button to bring up the
Edit Window menu. Move along the Options/Link option until the Links dialogue
window opens.

This large dialogue window allows you set a blind to appear whenever any
particular program or task on the desktop is loaded.  (You could for example create
a tool blind full of icons relating to your favourite application and it would
automatically appear when it is loaded).

Place the mouse pointer over the icon on the Links window called Drag to set.
Then whilst keeping the Select button pressed, drag the pointer to the !Edit icon on
the icon bar and then release the mouse button.

The name ‘Edit’ should appear in the white Task box at the top of the Links
window. This box, called the Tasks name, shows you which application or task the
blind is now linked to. If you have made a mistake and a different name has
appeared, then simply redrag the Drag to set icon again to !Edit.

You can also clear Blinds from being linked to any task by clicking on the
Clear icon just below the Task name.

You will have noticed the Window with input focus option, leave this off for the
moment.
The tool blind is now linked with !Edit.

Remove !Edit from the icon bar and the tool blind will automatically go as well.
Reload !Edit and the tool blind will reappear.  Quit !Edit and the tool blind will
disappear again!

You can see that by making a blind with icons particular to !Edit, perhaps a few
directories and some text files, you can make a blind which will ONLY appear when
!Edit is loaded.

You can do this linking procedure with ANY of the other blinds with any
task that has either an icon on the icon bar or a window.


A point worth noting.
If a directory is placed on a blind then by default you can drag any files
onto it and the file will be saved within that directory! This opens up the
ability to make a blind which pops up when your application is loaded
and it contains the directories relating to that application! No more
searching for that elusive directory!

Using the Window with input focus option
You can enhance this Link option further by turning the Window with input focus
option on. Make sure !Edit is loaded first and so the tool blind is visible and then
turn this option on in the Links dialogue window.

(If you are not familiar with the term ‘input focus’ please read the Jargon page
before proceeding any further).

Close the Links window by clicking on its OK icon near the bottom.

Now the tool blind will only appear when you pop up an !Edit text window and
give it the ‘input focus’. The blind will hide itself as soon as you close !Edit’s window
or if the ‘input focus’ is transferred to another program.

This makes the Link function much more useful as you could create several blinds
which would automatically change to suit the application which is currently being
worked on by yourself!

You can do this ‘input focus’ linking procedure with any of the blinds, but
you can only have one blind linked to the ‘input focus’ at any one time.

Using the Window positioning icons
When the Window with input focus option is on the five option icons below it
become available as an extra aid in positioning a blind relative to a window which
has a input focus ability. This means you can make a blind follow a task’s main
window (with an input focus) around the desktop.

Make sure that you have an !Edit window displayed with the caret showing and so
you should also have the tool blind visible as well.

Pop up the Links window as before. You will see that the icon marked Float is
currently highlighted. This means that the blind will always float about in the same
position that you leave it in.

But if you click with the Select button on the Top left icon you will notice that the
tool blind has now snapped to a position top left of the !Edit window.

You can further adjust this ‘snapped’ position by the use of the Select button.
Drag the tool blind with the Select button (do not use the title bar) so that it is a little
to one side of its current position.
Now, when you move the !Edit window the tool window will also move, but
keeping its new position relative to the top left of !Edit. This allows you to finely
adjust a blinds final position.
Try clicking on one of the other three icons, Top right, Bottom left and Bottom right
and adjust the tool blind’s position. Please feel free to experiment on which of the
four positioning icons you feel the tool blind is happiest to be left in.

Now please delete this tool blind and any icons that may be on it by selecting the
Edit window/Delete menu option.

Creating a backdrop blind.
The last type of blind that you can create is called a backdrop, this type of blind is
designed to look similar to the Pinboard program. This blind has no title bar or
handle and like the tool blind it has no closed shape and is always shown in its open
position (but you can hide it).

To create a backdrop blind, select the Create/Backdrop option of the main menu
from the Blinds icon on the icon bar.
Immediately a grey window will open and cover the entire desktop area leaving the
icon bar uncovered.
This backdrop blind is really designed to cover your normal Pinboard, but it can be
resized, positioned and linked to an application just like the other blinds.

For the moment leave it at full size, but rename it to ‘Applications’ by popping up
the Edit Window/Name menu option.

Drag your ROM applications (Alarm, Edit, etc.), located in the Apps icon, on your
icon bar to the backdrop blind, we suggest placing them at the bottom left of the
blind for now.

Now load !Edit to the icon bar, if it is not already, but do not have a !Edit window
showing and create another backdrop blind. Rename this blind to ‘Edit only’ and
place on it some text files you probably have present on your computer somewhere,
any types you have will do for the purpose of this exercise..

 Then using the Link menu option, link this ‘Edit only’ backdrop blind to !Edit with
the  Window with input focus option on. But leave the Float option ON.
Click on the OK icon of the Links window to close it.

The ‘Edit only’ backdrop blind should have disappeared, leaving you with the
previous ‘Applications’ backdrop blind showing with the Apps applications on it.

Now whenever you pop up an !Edit text window (and click within it) the ‘Pinboard’
will appear to swap between the ‘Applications’ one which contains the Apps
programs to the ‘Edit only’ blind containing your text files!


But what is really happening is that the ‘Applications’ backdrop is being hidden by
the ‘Edit only’ backdrop whenever a !Edit’s text window pops up.

Blinds also has the ability to take a OBEY type Pinboard file and
automatically create a backdrop blind with icons, see the technical section
under Loading in Pinboard files.

That ends the tutorial of the demonstration version, you should now be a position
to create and edit all the various blinds types and place icons on them.

We would like to point out that the full manual is more spaced out and includes
numerous pictures, has more details in it including a comprehensive technical section.

We hope you find Blinds useful.
The full version can be purchased from Quantum Software or your local Acorn
dealer.

Happy blind making.


QUANTUM SOFTWARE
(registered Acorn developers)

35 PINEWOOD PARK
LIVINGSTON
EH54 8NN
SCOTLAND
TEL: [phone]

For a introductory period Blinds will only cost £19.95
fully inclusive of Post & Packaging. NO VAT.
Blinds is available from ALL good Acorn software dealers
or from Quantum Software directly.