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Text File | 1995-02-03 | 10.9 KB | 211 lines

!MailLabel -Mailing Label printer =================================== MailLabel has one sole purpose in life, to print out address labels for letters and parcels. MailLabel is fully WIMP compatible, and supports Interactive Help (!Help / !Spy). Normal operation is as standard for WIMP programs and hence not described. But, if on the first loading of !MailLabel you press ADJUST over the icon on the icon bar you will receive hints to aid those people who cannot see the obvious. If you want to know what everything is, run !Help, it's all in there! All the fields on the window should be filled with the appropriate data, as desired. The WARNING field can contain a message about the contents, such as <Beware: Valuable Magnetic Media> The STAMP field can be filled with any notes on what postage rate is to be placed on the parcel / letter - <1 Norm> for 1st class normal postage, <2 Pack> for a 2nd class parcel and so on. The three available printout modes can be picked from the "Choices" window. They are: TEXT -Simple copy of all the fields, in the printer's own typeface ENVELOPE -Prints the Address and Warning in the selected RISC OS fonts. Designed for direct printing onto envelopes. LABEL -As for Envelope, but adds a stamp (in a box) and a border round the whole thing, so it can be cut out and stuck on as a label. The fonts used on the RISC OS printouts can be changed in the Choices window, as can the NLQ activation code (which may be different for your printer). The Choices dialogue box (obtained from relevant menu options on either the main window or icon bar menus) contains assorted options to configure MailLabel to our personal setup. The preferred type of printout can be set up, along with certain variables concerned text output. There is also a section to alter the fonts used on the RISC OS printout. Change these via the menu (icon) provided. The font menu system is produced by Joris Röling's wonderful FontMenu module, which takes a lot of work out of programming this feature. Thankyou Joris! The 4 icons at the bottom of this window perform fairly standard functions, but in case you can't guess: DEFAULT Loads a set of default values into the choices window SAVE Saves the current choices to be used next time MailLabel is loaded, as well as for the current session. CANCEL Closes the window, ignoring any changes. SET Uses the (changed) values for the current session only. Please note that before printing and saving, MailLabel will automatically convert the last line of the address, the postal town, to upper case. It is proper practice to always write the postal town / district in capitals, and MailLabel will ensure that you have remembered this! Under RISC OS 2, the Help messages passed to application help programs may seem a little weird as they include items such as \s and so on. Under RISC OS 3 the Help program itself replaces these with assorted standard phrases such as "Move the pointer right to.." and so on. To be honest, I think that everyone should (have) upgraded by now, so my backwards support for RO2 will be limited, particularly as I have no RO2 computers to test things on! RISC OS 3.00+ ------------- Users of RISC OS 3 will notice that they do NOT need to locate the System directory before loading, as users of RISC OS 2 must. This is because the !Run file has been altered to detect the difference between OS 2 and OS 3, and only search for !System in OS 2. RISC OS 3 offers the ColourTrans module in ROM, and hence it will not need to be loaded from !System. RISC OS 3 users will also note that they have a few more 3D icons, notably on the options window. This program works with all the functions of RISC OS 3 including !Printers & the pinboard, etc. If you save a Desktop boot file (from the Task Manager menu) MailLabel will insert a line to run itself. (Boot line will be inserted automatically) If using MailLabel on a portable, MailLabel will correctly respond to the low power warning, and store any unsaved file in <Wimp$Scrap> as "MailLabel", in line with the standard procedure set down by Acorn. I have not been able to actually test this on a portable, only by forcing the message to appear with a message broadcast utility, so if any portable users could test this function, and tell me if it works, I'd be grateful. Using MailLabel with other programs ----------------------------------- The design and principle of the RISC OS desktop is that numerous programs can be loaded at the same time, and that data can be swapped around between them, hence providing an endless integrated suite of programs. Hence a dedicated address label printer like MailLabel can be used alongside your DTP or WP program, so that you can, say, write letters, and print envelopes for them at the same time. Following this principle, MailLabel will accept Edit files (&FFF), loading the first 6 lines of any file dropped onto it's icon or main window as an address. Most DTP / WP programs will allow you to save a selection of text as an Edit file. Hence you can select the address you want on the envelope from the top of a letter, and save this selection directly into MailLabel, and then print the address label. (NB: To do this, the computer requires access to either !System, or !Scrap if you have it.) Users of programs that implement the new Drag & Drop editing method should note that MailLabel will directly accept Drag & Drop editing selections. In the other direction, all MailLabels can be exported (via the Main menu "Export" option (Shift-F3)) as plain text files, containing the 5 lines of the address. This exported textfile can be loaded into all good packages. The exported text file can be dragged directly into many applications. Please note that the own format MailLabel files cannot be directly transferred (attempting to do so will produce an error telling you to drop it over a directory display). This is deliberate as these files contain an internal format which is useless in other documents. Please note that this is not only restricted to DTP / WP programs; ANY program that allows you to save selections as Edit files, or that permits input of standard text files can be used. HotKeys ------- F3 Produce Save As: dialogue box (as standard) ^F3 Produce Save As dialogue box for Textfile export F9 Insert "BEWARE: Valuable Magnetic Media" into Warning field F10 Swap case of char at caret & move on by 1 char F11 Wipe all fields Print Print label in current mode. !MailConv Application ---------------------- Versions of MailLabel from 4.00 onwards use a new format of file. All files from previous versions of MailLabel will have to be converted by dragging onto the "!MailConv" Program, to be found inside the Application directory of !MailLabel. Unconverted files dragged onto MailLabel will cause an appropriate error asking for their conversion, and previously converted files dragged onto !MailConv will not be wrecked! Message Translation ------------------- MailLabel uses the MessageTrans module to provide all it's textual message & help information. This means that altering the file !MailLabel.Resources.Messages will alter most of the text that the program uses. The main use of this is for foreign language translation. If anyone wishes to translate all the messages in this file, and the text on the window templates, feel free to do so, however do not destroy the original (English) files. If anyone does translate the files, please send a copy to the author, so that this can be shared with other users! Please note that full foreign language translation will require the changing of any text that appears in the Templates file too. Updates ------- 0·00-0·90 -Original development versions 1·00 -First Release version -30.10.90 1·04 -Various bug fixes -29.11.90 2·01 -Interactive help supported. -01.12.90 2·10 -New Templates -20.12.90 3·01 -Risc OS printer driver -01.01.91 3·20 -Perfections added -05.04.91 4·00 -New Templates & File Format -02.02.92 4·04 -FFF file input & postal town correction -25.08.92 5·00 -Updates for RISC OS 3 & general tidying. -14/04/93 5·01 -Updates for OS3 3D dialogue box standards -25/08/93 5.10 -MessageTrans module utilised -25/08/93 5.11 -Assorted updates for RISC OS 3 Style guide -16/01/94 5.12 -Choices dialogue box updated -Font choice & font menu implemented -Assorted extra RISC OS 3 items implemented (inc Desktop Save, Portable Shutdown etc) -06/05/94 5.20 -Change to new print modes (envelope added, draft removed) -Extensive testing on RISC PC -24/06/94 5.21 -It switched to the wrong print mode. oops! -19/07/94 Distribution ------------ The copyright to MailLabel remains MINE at all times, but anyone may copy it as long as the following conditions are obeyed: ⇨ NO personal profit is to be made from the distribution of the program (Doesn't include Media / P&P costs, which may be charged) ⇨ NO files may be altered in any way (including Messages & Templates, which may be replaced by foreign versions, as long as the originals remain available) ⇨ IF you desire to distribute this, or any of my other work on a BBS or PD library, then you MUST contact me (I will endeavour to send the latest versions when they are written) The author accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any damage to mind, machine, data or other tangible / intangible thing that is perceived to be due to the actions or mistakes of this program. Having said which, it prints address labels, it ain't a nuclear bomb, so none of the above will happen, but I'm just writing this in case there are any lawyers out there! Authors Address =============== Address for Bug Reports (WHAT!), general conversation, translations of text and anything else you may want: Toby Smith (TctS) 7 St Catherine's Way Houghton on the Hill Leicestershire LE7 9HE Email: tcs@cs.bham.ac.uk CREDITS: Joris Röling for the FontMenu module, it's fab! Mark Bright for assistance in RISC OS printer drivers and motivation Malcolm Knight for tripping my code up with alarming regularity Simon Burrows for (very) occasionally winging about things I should change.