Archive Magazine 1995/ARCHIVE95.iso/discs/pipeline/6_04/9301/PL9301

Text File | 1992-12-12 | 28KB | 760 lines

%OP%VS4.13 (28-Apr-92), Gerald L Fitton, R4000 5966 9904 9938
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%OP%PDPipeLine
%OP%WC1014,2262,136,1748,0,0,0,0
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%C%PipeLine - January 1993 - Copyright ABACUS TRAINING
%C%by Gerald L Fitton
Keywords:
PipeLine Fitton

More wordz about Wordz this month, a couple of requests for help, some
home spun philosophy and printing PipeDream (and other) files with the
new RISC-OSá3.10 printer drivers.  There's plenty here for you even if
you don't have PipeDream so, if you are one of my many correspondents
who read this column regularly but don't have PipeDream (I think that
the number is growing) then, this month at least, you won't be
disappointed.  Let's start with Wordz.

Wordz
Colton Software have promised Wordz, their new word processor, for the
first quarter of 1993.  The latest information that I have is that it
is more likely to be available in January 1993 than in March.  They
would like to be selling it at the BETT Show on the 20tháJanuaryá1993.
It will be available at a discount on the RRP "less than ú100" price to
registered users of PipeDream.  If you haven't yet registered then I
suggest that you do so -- after all you don't have to buy it.

I have been experimenting further with the "alpha release" version and
also received more information from Colton Software about Wordz.  Let's
get my big mistake over with first!  I was right when I said that
PipeDream files can be loaded directly into Wordz (that works well even
with this "alpha release" version) but I was wrong when I said that
PipeDreamá4 spreadsheets and Charts would be hot linked to Wordz.  The
link is 'cold'.  You have to reload (into Wordz from PipeDream) the
sheet values or load a Draw file version of a Chart each time you
change the PipeDreamá4 spreadsheet values.  I think that is a shame but
I've been assured that there are good technical reasons for it which
will become apparent when other members of the Wordz family become
available.  Well, we'll see about that!

I have successfully exported text from Impression into my "alpha
release" version of Wordz so I am happy that I will be able to use all
the information I have stored in Impression format when i get the
release version of Wordz.  The disc space used by Wordz is noticeably
smaller than that used by Impression (see Brian Cowen's comment in last
month's Archive) and it is easier to 'tweek up' the layout in Wordz.

I was right when I quoted the handout to say, "Wordz is the first of a
family of applications . . . . all family members have live data
linking".  I am receiving strong hints that another member (the next
one?) of the family will be a spreadsheet which is hot linked to Wordz.

I was right to say that graphic files do 'move' with the text but there
is an option (I hadn't noticed) to 'pin' them to a point on a page so
that they don't move around with the 'associated' text.

The future
Paul Beverley has asked me "Wither PipeLine?  Is it going to become
Pipe-Wordz?"  The quick answer is "Yes!" but I'm not sure I want to
change the name of my column from PipeLine to Pipe-Wordz yet.  The
reason is that I don't know the names of the other members of the Wordz
family and, when I do, Pipe-Wordz might be inappropriate!

Regular readers of this column will be used to seeing a little home
spun philosophy tucked away here and there.  From your letters I see
that several of you empathise with the sentiment I expressed in last
month's Archive, "my favourite package begins to look dated just as
soon as I begin to feel that I've mastered it."  Although I was
referring to exporting my data files from Impression to Wordz my
correspondents seem more interested to know how they will benefit if
they export their files from PipeDream to Wordz!  I suppose I ought to
have thought of that -- but I've just got used to PipeDream so the idea
that I might want to use something better instead (the Wordz family)
came as a shock!

Whither PipeLine?  I suppose that, when I work it out, although I have
invested time in getting to know PipeDream, and many of you will have
invested money, the truth is that nothing, not even PipeDreamá4, is
forever.  My consolation is, as I've said before in this column, that
the data contained within my WordWise files have been useful to me long
after I stopped using a BBC B (or Master) and long after I stopped
using WordWise.  Why?  Because i was able to export the data to
PipeDream on the Archimedes.  I need the information in those data
files in whatever new package I decide to use in future.

Whither PipeLine?  When I work it out I discover that, when costed in
any reasonable way, the time and effort which I put into the creation
of those data files -- say handouts for Students at the College where I
have my 'day job' -- that notional cost far exceeds the value of the
package and even the hardware.  I remember saying to a company I was
advising about ten years ago that the hardware and software they had
just bought became obsolescent the day it was installed -- but that
what they will still be using in ten years time is the data files which
they enter into that obsolescent system.  Your comments about exporting
data files from PipeDream to the Wordz family (together with Paul
Beverley's "Whither PipeLine?") have brought home to me my own
prejudice towards using PipeDream for ever!

So, whither PipeLine?  I hope that, in this PipeLine column we can help
each other to export files from Impression, from 1stWordPlus, from
Graphics Writer, from EasiWriter and even from PipeDream into the
family of Wordz packages and then learn how to get the best out of the
'upgrade' to the Wordz family.

Compression
In answer to many letters let me assure you that PipeDream files can be
put through Compression but it's hardly worth it.  PipeDream files are
compressed by PipeDream and trying to compress them further won't have
a lot of effect.  I think that Compression is fairly intelligent and
doesn't attempt to compress files which might finish up longer than
they started.

Draw to paint
Why have I been asked how to convert Draw files to Paint files so many
times this last month?  My reply has been "Load the Draw file and then
use the Snapshot utility from Paint (or use ScreenGrab)".  You can
always trim a Paint file by using the Paint tool called Copy (it looks
like a camera) with the Export option enabled.  Save the portion of the
sprite you want to keep to a directory window.

Football
Philip Tolhurst's daughter is a keen supporter of Tottenham Hotspur.
He has created a database of the matches played in the Premier League
and now wants to use the results from the individual matches to create
a 'hot linked' league table.  For example, one of his records reads
across five columns of a row:

Date          Home Team    Away Team

15áAugá1992áááArsenalá2áááNorwich Cityá2

What Philip wants is to use these rows of results to create a standard
league table (as shown in many newspapers) with matches played, won
drawn and lost as well as goals for and against with a final column for
points.  He wants the league table 'hot linked' so that, as extra match
results are typed in, the league table is updated automatically.

If you are interested (even if unable to help) then Philip is most
willing to let you have a disc copy of his version of the database.
Please contact him at Raleigh'sáHolt, 29áHigháStreet, Lode, Cambridge,
CB5á9EW.

DataBase
Roger King has written to me with a problem which involves changing the
format of a database.  He has a number of records in a format similar
to the one below (four columns) with one record per row:

ColáAááColáBááColáCááColáD

What he wants to do is to change it to a format which uses two rows per
record but with only three columns:

ColáAááColáBááColáD
       ColáC

Roger does not want to type all the records again but wants way of
transferring the data from his 'old' database to the new one.  I have a
very messy solution which uses a lot of memory using the index(,,)
function.  We would welcome a simpler solution.  Please write to me if
you have any ideas.

PipeDream and RISC-OSá3.10
All versions of PipeDreamá4 and all but the earliest versions of
PipeDreamá3 are totally compatible with RISC-OSá3.10.  In fact
PipeDreamá4 works 'better' (faster, more smoothly, etc) with
RISC-OSá3.10 than with RISC-OSá2.  I strongly recommend anyone who has
not upgraded to RISC-OSá3.10 to send ú50.00 to NCS at the Archive
address and get one as soon as possible.

As well as my A540 (which has been upgraded) I have an old A440 (not
one of the newer A440/1 series) which I haven't upgraded yet.  I
believe that it requires a ú30.00 board as well as the ú50.00 pack.
What's the easiest way of upgrading my A440 to RISC-OSá3.10?

@@D@@
Have you just fitted RISC-OSá3.10 and found that the date function,
@@D@@, of PipeDream now returns a date in April or May 1994?  We've
received a lot of correspondence about this as have Colton Software.
One correspondent writes, "I've changed the date using !Alarm, from
Basic, from the command line and directly into the CMOS RAM but I can't
get @@D@@ to give the correct date!".

There is a simple answer.  When you install RISC-OSá3.10 you must
execute a 'Power on <delete>' to clean up the CMOS RAM.  If you do this
then the @@D@@ problem will be solved.  One correspondent then asked me
how to execute a 'Power on <delete>'.  This is what you do.  Hold down
the <delete> key whilst switching on the computer.  Make sure that you
continue to hold down the <delete> key until all activity has ceased --
don't be tempted to release the <delete> key too soon.

Yet another correspondent used the RISC-OSá3.10 utility, !Configure, to
Save his configuration settings and then reload them after a 'Power on
<delete>'.  He says, "After execution of 'Power on <delete>' the @@D@@
problem went away only to return after I reloaded my !Configured
settings.  To obtain a permanent solution I had to execute the 'Power
on <delete>' and then use *Configure from the command line to restore
my desired *Status.

CMOS battery backed RAM
If you tap <f12> you will see a small gap containing a * appear at the
bottom of your screen.  If you type Status after the * followed by
<return> then you will see your 'Configuration' settings.  These
settings are stored in a (very small amount of) RAM which is preserved
by a couple of batteries.  Although you can 'get at' most of this RAM
through *Configure there are some locations which require an SWI call.
The Save !Configure utility supplied with RISC-OSá3.10 uses such an SWI
call so that, when you Save and then reLoad the settings, what you are
doing is putting back exactly what you saved.  Colton Software use a
call (to read the date) through the shared CLib to execute the @@D@@
function.  I think that the problem has arisen because the CLib call
reads part of the CMOS RAM that Colton Software didn't want to reach!

Printing problems
Many correspondents are having problems printing PipeDream files using
the new RISC-OSá3.10 drivers.  A common one is the ejection of a blank
page after every correctly printed page.  The usual advice is to
shorten the page using Edit paper size.  Although this does cure the
problems of some there are still those for whom it does not.  I have
received a letter from someone who had tried everything (so he said!)
without success.  Then, since all else had failed, he decided to read
the installation notes!  He had not executed a 'Power on <delete>';
he did so and his blank page problem went away!

Others are not so lucky.  However, I have sent to some of you who have
a laser printer which emulates the HP LaserJet copies of my LasJet-II
PrntDefn file and my !Printers file (containing my Paper size
definitions).  For some, using my files has solved their printing
problems.

One more hint.  Try printing a PipeDream file without the Impression
dongle.  If removing the dongle solves your problem (after a 'Power on
<delete> etc) then get in touch with Computer Concepts.  It did help
one of my correspondents -- he received a replacement dongle by return!

On the Archive monthly disc you will find my files in the Pipeline
directory.  You can also obtain them by writing to me at the Abacus
Training address enclosing a blank formatted disc, an address label and
return postage.

The KX-P1124 printer
My laser printer PrntDefn files will not work with a dot matrix printer
but I can send you a disc copy of Ian Williamson's files (send me a
disc etc).  He recounts his story in the following paragraphs which I
include here as an example of problems arising from trying to set up
the RISC-OSá3.10 !Printers package to print PipeDream (and other)
files.  I include my own comments in square brackets.

Introduction
I have recently fitted RISC OS 3.10 to my A410 and had considerable
difficulty setting up the printer driver so that my Panasonic KX-P1124
printer would print and advance correctly to the top of form, with 12
inch fanfold paper.  The printer was either stopping short or ejecting
nearly a whole extra page.

This article describes my experience and how correct printing was
eventually achieved.  To the expert I may be exposing my ignorance, or
stupidity, and I am shamefaced about the time I wasted and the number
of trees I have destroyed trying to sort out the problem.  My only
consolation is that I heard that others have had similar problems,
including Gerald; hopefully this article may help those who are still
struggling.  Incidentally, I had also heard that there may be bug(s) in
the printer driver code; whilst that may or may not be true, I can not
use that as an excuse for my problems because I eventually got my
printer to print correctly, and I have resolved to read the User Guide
very carefully in future.

PrintEdit
Despite the large number of printer drivers in the Printers directory
on App2, would you believe there was nothing for Panasonic printers,
despite the fact that the KX-P1124 family of 24ápin printers are
amongst the most popular, versatile, high quality, and reasonably high
speed, low cost printers around?  A further advantage of the KX-P1124
family is that with an extra 32ákBytes RAM (costing only a few pounds)
you can download fonts and print much faster than is possible with
RISC-OS.  In fact, Ian Copestake Software supplies a range of
PipeDrivers for use with PipeDream, including mathematical symbols; but
that should be the subject of a separate article.

The Panasonic KX-P1124 is compatible with the Epson LQ-2500, which was
not in the App2.$.Printers.Epson directory, but apparently is a sub-set
of Epson LQ-860 colour; I did not know that when I started, and I was
at first confused by the colour modes, but I chose to produce my own
printer driver based on Epson LQ-860 Colour.

Having double clicked on the file icon, I was pleased at the ease with
which I could find my way around the editing windows.  The instructions
on PrintEdit in the Acorn Applications Guide were easy to follow.
First I changed the printer description, class, type etc, and then went
through each of the graphics modes in turn and switched off the colour
options.

Out of interest I had a look at the printer escape sequence, Acorn
calls them Dump strings, for both text and graphics modes.  Apart from
the fact that I could not understand some of the graphics mode dump
strings, or to be more accurate, reconcile some with the printer
manual, I was puzzled that I could not find escape sequences for either
Set or Release skip perforation, in either text or graphics mode.  I
thought this would be important because I use 12áinch fanfold paper,
and have my KX-P1124 set up so that it skips perforation; as it happens
this is crucial, but more of this later.

I saved the printer definition, file name KX-P1124, with the original
paper X and Y offsets.

!Printers
Having loaded !Printers I then dragged the printer definition into the
Printer control window and the printer icon changed from grey to
glorious technicolor with the name KX-P1124.  I clicked Menu on the
icon and selected Edit paper sizes.  At this point I repeated what I
had successfully done previously with PrinterDM.  Thus I set up paper
name User with the following dimensions:

Paper size, Width 210mm, Height 279.4mm
Graphics margin, Top 2mm, Bottom 0mm
Text margin, Height 66 lines, Top 2 lines, Bottom 2 lines

I have not quoted the left and right margins here because they are not
pertinent to the problems I had been experiencing or to this article.
I am using 12 inch fanfold paper which is 210.0 x 304.8 mm, (8.27 x 12
inch), and have set my KX-P1124 to skip perforation (1áinch), which is
why I had set up the paper height to 279.4 mm (11áinch).  Likewise, I
had set the text height to be 66 lines.

I selected OK on paper sizes.  Next I clicked Menu on the printer icon,
selected Configure and selected Paper User, 180 by 180 dpi resolution,
and Mono, small halftone quality, and then clicked on OK.   Finally, I
saved my choices via the printers icon menu.

The next time I double clicked on !Printers I was pleased to see icon
with the name KX-P1124 and the paper size I had saved.  That was the
easy part, my troubles started when I tried printing.

Printing from within PipeDream
I had done all the obvious things, loaded my RISC-OS printer driver
onto the icon bar, and from within PipeDream set the Printer config
Printer type to RISC OS, and clicked on OK, but when I printed a page
of text in 14ápt Trinity, part of the page was missing and the printer
stopped about an inch short of the top of form position.  I increased
the paper size and was then horrified when text was printed over the
perforation and the printer ejected an extra page.  I was startled
because I had successfully printed it several times before with
!PrinterDM.  [RISC-OSá2 - GLF]

Incidentally, I was also rather distressed that it now took far longer
to print than before, despite the fact that I had fitted ARM3 and
increased the memory to 4 MbáRAM, at the same time as fitting
RISC-OSá3.10.  I had also upgraded to PipeDreamá4.  Thus it seemed as
though I had spent a lot of money to get grossly degraded performance
and was not best pleased.

(I eventually sorted this out and have achieved quicker printing than
before the upgrade, but not dramatically!  The other thing I resolved
was that in future I would fit only one new item at a time, otherwise
there is too much to learn at once, and too many chances of getting
something wrong.)

Draw
To continue.  In desperation, I phoned Colton Software and Robert
Macmillan suggested I use Draw to sort out the setting of the printer,
since it would show the limits of the paper chosen.  He suggested I
draw a rectangle and start with a paper size much smaller than used,
then change the paper size, margins and offsets to see what happens.
Gerald Fitton also made the same recommendation.  As it happens I chose
to use DrawPlus because it can show the X and Y coordinates.

Initially, I tried printing a square from within DrawPlus but found it
took such a long time to print that I decided just to draw a line at
the top and bottom of the page.  That certainly speeded things up, but
I still wasted hours and piles of paper!

[I use a file I have called Rectangle which is included on the Archive
monthly disc.  Also I used 75 dpi for speed - GLF]

I experimented with Y offset, paper size and graphic margins: I kept a
note of all the values, including the positions of the lines at the top
and bottom of the page in DrawPlus.  After printing each page, I
measured the positions of the lines at the top and bottom of the page,
and the position of the paper relative to cutting edge.  The printer
either stopped short by between 8 mm and 25 mm, or ejected the paper by
approximately 250 mm.  I could detect no correlation between any of the
settings and the distance that the paper stopped short or overshot.  8
mm was workable but not good enough, so I tried to gradually reduce the
shortfall and then suddenly it would overshoot; what was most
disconcerting was that I could not get it to repeat the previous 8 mm
shortfall, despite resetting the computer.

Problems printing text files
At this point I decided to look at the ReadMe file in the
Printers.Epson directory on the Appá2 disc and loaded it into Edit and
pressed <print> to get a hard copy.  Although I had come to expect
problems with graphics printouts I was startled to find that there
appeared to be a problem with page lengths and offsets in the text mode
as well.

After experimenting with different paper sizes, I concluded that
!Printers disables the skip perforation command of the printer,
although I could find no reference to that in either the User Guide, or
as I explained above, by examining the list of escape sequences in the
Printer definition editor.  I found that the physical paper length had
to correspond exactly with Height in the Paper size box, and the Height
in number of lines in the text margins box.

Y offset
I had measured the Y offset using Top_Left in accordance with Acorn's
instructions and found it to be between 9.5 - 9.8 mm.  I had previously
set this value in the Paper Y offset box in the Printer definition
editor.  Incidentally, I had found that the Y offset value that was
actually saved was of the order of 0.07 mm less than I had put into the
box: there seemed to be some rounding (to number of points?) but I
never worked out what was happening.

On the Panasonic KX-P1124 there is the facility to advance the paper
exactly to the perforation to enable it to be torn perfectly; this
means that printer head is at the top of form position.  The
consequence of this is that the Y offset value measured by Top_Left
gives misleading (irrelevant?) information.  Setting this value in the
Paper Y offset box shifted all the printing down the page by that
amount.  This is what I would have expected, but I understand Gerald
Fitton has the opposite effect with his LasJet-II.

[Yes, I confirm that with my laser printer the effect is in the
opposite direction - GLF]

That is not necessary with the KX-P1124, so I decided to reduce the
value drastically: but because of a comment from Gerald Fitton that
unpredictable things happen with a zero offset, I chose to set the Y
offset to be equal to one dot pitch, 0.14ámm vertical.  Again, after
saving this value, on reloading the Printer definition file into the
editor I found that the Yáoffset had actually been saved as 0.07 mm.

My printer definition file, KX-P1124, is included on the Archive
monthly disc.  Instructions for loading it into the Printer control
window are given in the ReadMe file.

With this printer definition I set up the following values for 12 inch
(fanfold): Paper height to 304.8 mm, Text height to 72 lines and the
Top and Bottom text margins 0 and 6 lines respectively.  This gave a
full page printout with a skip over the perforation in the right place.

Correct Graphics printing
At this point I noticed that the RISC-OS User Guide p.73 states that
the Text height is used to tell the printer how long the paper is for
both text and graphics printing.  This point was hidden in the section
headed Text margins, and there is no mention of it in the section
headed Graphics margins: I had originally skipped this section because
I was not interested in printing text with the RISCáOS printer driver.

As mentioned above I had already set the Paper height to 304.8 mm and
Text height to 72 lines for 12 inch (fanfold) paper, and I set up the
graphics margins and the DrawPlus file as follows:

Paper Y offset 0.07mm
Paper Height 304.80mm
Graphics margin, Top 0.40mm, Bottom 25.00mm
Draw file Top 304.00mm, Bottom 28.00mm

After printing the paper advanced correctly to top of form!  The Top
Graphics margin was set to 0.4 mm, again to have a small value, but
also to enable the Bottom Graphics margin to be set to 25 mm to
approximate the 1 inch skip perforation.  It worked perfectly!

My paper settings for 12 inch (fanfold) paper are given in the Paper
definition file, PaperRW, included on the monthly disc.  It should be
copied into the !Printers application directory viewer before loading
Printers; instructions are given in the ReadMe file on the disc.

Printing from within PipeDream
After all this I was delighted and relieved that printing a Text_font
file from PipeDream with the RISC OS printer driver worked perfectly. I
was also delighted to find that with the margins I had chosen PipeDream
works out the page length at 66 lines with 10 pt font size and a 12 pt
line height.  I wanted to have the ability to print documents with this
font size and get the same page layout as when using PipeDream printer
drivers and the KX-P1124 resident fonts; that way I could save time by
draft printing.  (I am still appalled at the time it takes to print
with a RISC OS printer driver, and I am not impressed by the superior
attitude of some Acorn third party suppliers who now clearly believe
that mere mortals who still have to make do with dot matrix printers
are not worth considering any more!)

I have found that PipeDream does make use of the paper size graphics
margin settings when printing with the RISC OS printer type, and not
only the paper offset values: this is at variance with what I believe
Gerald Fitton has found with LasJet-II.

[Correct.  I find that the X and Y offsets are used by PipeDream - GLF]

Conclusions
You must set the paper height to the exact paper paper height.  Also
the text height in number of lines must correspond exactly with the
paper height.

!Printers cancels skip perforation if you have it set on your printer.
Thus to achieve the same effect asáskip perforation you must allow a
large bottom margin for both text and graphics.

Ignore the information given by Top_Left.  This is because you are
likely to have your printer set up with the top of form in line with
the paper cutter (with fanfold paper in the KX-P1124 at least), and the
printer starts printing immediately.  Thus set Y offset to a very small
value eg 0.14 mm (this will save to 0.07 mm).

Lessons I've learned the hard way
Don't try to do too much at once, ie only make one change to the
hardware or software at any time.

Read the User Guide very carefully, and look for information in
unlikely places.  Don't assume you know it all!

Abacus Training
My 'day job' is as a full time lecturer at the local College.  This
year I am teaching three evenings a week (and get two half days off in
lieu).  Although my telephone number is getting known to you (it is not
published in Archive at my request), I would prefer you to write to me
rather than telephone.  The address is on the inside rear cover of
Archive.  If you have something substantial then I would like a disc
file with an example so that I can see exactly what it is you mean.

You will generally get a reply within a day or two unless I am
completely stuck.  In those cases I often send a copy of your disc to
Colton Software for comment and advice.  Please be patient.

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