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> <iconthang$dir>.!Help
When the sirens wail and the lights flash blue ...
(sorry about the state of this helptext... it's grown rather organically
over the years :-)
Sections that are new since version 3.31 are marked **NEW**
Right, this is !IconThang V3.49b © Musus Umbra 1995-7, Zzzzz....
Permission is granted for unrestricted use/abuse. Permission is granted
for re-distribution by whatever means, so long as no charge is made for
the software (a reasonable charge may be made for handling/media/etc) and
the whole application is supplied unaltered.
No warranty of any kind, either express or implied, applies to this
software. Use at your own risk, indeed with your own RISC.
**NEW**
IconThang is now FULLY compatable with RISC OS 2 as well as later versions!
Somebody requested a RO2 version, and look what happens: A brand new
version with loadsa new features, many problems fixed, AND it works
with RISC OS 2... 3d borders and all.
All known/reported bugs/mis-features have been fixed in this version :-)
What is !IconThang?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Main features:
* Automatic changeover of hi/low res. desktop sprites, IF NECESARRY, on
mode change. Some nice sprites are supplied. No more 'Ugh!
What's that ugly blue blotch with a few white dots on it?!'
from now on you'll be able to tell it's a BASIC file...
(you can turn this off).
* (RiscPC) automatic swap over between Outline & System fonts on
changing between Hi & Low res. screen modes. (you can turn this
off too :-)
* Easy access to your most used apps/commands
* Easy to configure
* Displays current memory available
* and the time
* and how long the computer's been running
Basically it's a small window that sits at the top-right hand corner of the
desktop and tries its best not to be noticed...
But, should you click on one of the icons in the window you'll be presented
with a menu of files/applications/directories/... pertinent to whatever the
icon represents. (Try it, you'll see)
As supplied, the app. doesn't do much. This is where you set it up for your system...
The window has 14 icons (numbered from left to right). The first of which is
immediately to the right of the !iconthang icon. Each of these icons is
defined in the Config file in the !iconthang directory. Each icon has a
description, sprite and menu associated with it. The format of the file !Config
is:
Enable automatic iconspriting (either 'Yes' or 'No')
...and then...
Menutitle
spritename
Description
---menu entries---
**
for 14 menus.
The Menutitle is the title to give that menu. Keep it short and piffy.
*NEW*
You can have menu titles longer than 12 characters if you want.
The spritename line tells IconThang what sprite to use for that menu. There
should be a hi & low res. version of this sprite in the Sprites22 & Sprites24
files (respectively) within the !Iconthang directory. The sprites don't have
to be in these files, if they aren't, but exist in the Wimp sprite pool, the
wimp sprite will be used, otherwise the icon will be blank. The Sprites22
& Sprites24 files supplied in the examples directory contain the icons I use,
feel free to copy any of them...
The Description line is used to remind you what the menu is for. When the
pointer is over the relevant icon in the window, this description will be
displayed in the title bar.
The format of a menu entry is:
Filename
or
*.command
or
*command .parameters
This may seem a little complex, but the way it works is this:
When building the menus, the program looks at each menu entry. If its first
character is an asterisk it is deemed to be a command, otherwise it is treated
as a filename (filename includes directories/applications/images/...).
Filenames have their paths stored, and only the leafname put into the menu.
When you select the leafname from a menu, the app. rebuilds the complete name
and Runs it. (**NEW** See below for modifier keys you can use!)
Commands are treated specially. The 'leaf' of the command, ie. the text after
the '.' character is put in the menu, and the text of the command to the left
of the '.' is stored (inc. any spaces). When you select the 'leaf' of the
command, the complete command text is rebuilt by catenating the stored text
with the 'leaf' text.
So,
*.fred
would appear in the menu as 'fred' and the command executed would be *fred
*backdrop -t .fred
would also appear as fred, but be executed as *backdrop -t fred
Simple, when you get the hang of it, really.
*NEW*
Additionally, you may preceed any of the above Filename/Command formats with a
label in \s. This label will be used as the entry for that command/file/etc.
in the menu. For example:
\Turn the speaker on\*Speaker on
would appear in the menu as 'Turn the speaker on' but issue the command
'*Speaker on' when selected. See the example config file for some, um,
examples.
There is no provision for any automatic creation/editting of the Config file,
I'm afraid you have to do it be hand. The only 'sweetners' provided are that
should you be holding Control down of the keyboard when you quit iconthang,
or click on the 'Quit' menu entry with adjust, its directory will be opened,
allowing *very* easy access to the Config file / Sprite files, etc.
Also, selecting 'Edit Config' from the menu will filer_run the congfig file
(which should load it into your favourite text editor) without quitting the
application. When you're happy, use 'Reload Cfg' from the menu to reload
the configuration into iconthang.
Included in the directory 'examples' is an example config file (actually, it's
my config file) so you can have a look at the sort of thing possible.
Handy hint: if you drag a file/application into any decent text editor's
window whilst holding <shift> down, the full path/leaf name will be inserted
at the cursor/caret position.
This makes adding new entries to iconthang so easy that I didn't even
consider a configuration program... Anyways, config files are unlikely to
change often or dramatically)
Okay so far?
(Due to size, the !Sprites/!Sprites22 files referred to below are drastically
cut down versions of the ones I used to supply. The intention is that you
will add to them as the fancy takes you. Alternatively, if you simply *must*
have my sprites, drop me an e-mail and I'll see what I can do. If there's
enough demand I'll make my sprites available for all... I'm rather proud
of them and they've attracted more (nice) comments than Iconthang itself :-)
The Iconsprite directory inside !IconThang contains two sprite files,
'!Sprites' and '!Sprites22'. When a mode change within the desktop occurs, the
screen resolution is tested and compared with the resolution of the previous
mode. If they differ (eg. changing from mode 12 to mode 20, or 27->39, etc)
then the appropriate file is *iconsprites'd (you'll see the pointer turn into a
spritefile-esque icon to let you know what the delay is).
Only mode *changes* *within* the desktop will cause the iconsprites to change.
This is where iconthang scores over other icon switching solutions, in that
they tend to swap the icons *whenever* a mode change occurs. Frequently,
you'll be in a hi-res. mode, run a game which changes to a low res. mode
(basically, most of them) and then quit back to the desktop. Iconthang won't
do any thing, the other iconswitchers would have swapped the icons *twice*
(sometimes causing unpleasantness because the iconsprites command has altered
the memory allocation and confused the game).
Note, the *wimpmode command will still swap the icons *when* control returns
to the desktop.
Note that you can edit the !Run file to look for these files elsewhere. I,
for example, keep my alternate sprite sets in a completely different place.
Useful, no?
The 'Force 22' and 'Force 24' menu entries can be used to iconsprites the
relevant hi or low res sprites, irrespective of the current screen mode.
*NEW*
On RiscPC machines the desktop is usually displayed using an outline font
rather than the system font. Whilst this is all well and good in high
resolution screen modes, should you change into a low resolution mode
(perhaps to get more screen area), it can be fuzzy to the point of
annoyance (even with sub-pixel antialiasing :-). Iconthang can automagically
swap between your desktop font and the system font when the screen resolution
changes. Indeed, Iconthang will allow you to swap between them with a simple
menu selection - this is useful for using apps. whose windows are a mess
when using a proportionaly-spaced font. Also, some apps are much more
responsive when using the system font (Personal Accounts 3 springs to mind :-)
*NEW*
Some people like to have natty little clocks / logos in the same place that
!Iconthang sticks its window! Horror! Thankfully, you can tell Iconthang to
swap over to being on the left-hand side of the desktop. Heck, some people
would prefer it to be there anyway.
*NEW*
Iconthang now colours its menus to show whether an entry is a directory/app,
a command or a file. To do this, Iconthang 'looks for' all the items in your
config file whenever started or the configuration is reloaded.
The colour scheme is:
Blue An application or directory
Green A command
Grey A file/directory/app that wasn't found
Red A file/directory/app that caused an error when looked for
(usually due to a typo in the Config file)
**NEW**
You can now use the following keys to modify the action that Iconthang
takes when a file/dir/app entry is selected:
Shift Open the directory/app, just like shift-double clicking
in the filer.
For files, shift-selecting will attempt to load them
as textfiles into an apropriate editor (as is usual under
RISC OS 3).
Alt Opens the directory containing the selected file/dir/app.
**NEW**
Iconthang doesn't use a 'real' titlebar. This, of course, means no 'back' icon. So, the area at the top of the window acts as a back/front icon.
Sorted.
That only leaves the useful info in the title bar. Explanation thereof is
beyond the scope of this document :-)
Oh yes, the app. uses different windows in different modes. This is so that
in hi-res. modes the 'title bar' can be half-height, saving several valuable
pixels desktop space!
TTFN, Musus Umbra
contact:
musus@argonet.co.uk
http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/musus/
c/o 23 Baronsway, Whitkirk, Leeds, LS15 7AW, England