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This is the help file for !MacroLife version 1.80
-------------------------------------------------
Copyright © Chris Taylor, 1995. See 'Copyright' file in 'Docs' directory.
If this is an unregistered copy, please read the end of this file for
information on how to register (and support the charity Motivation).
This application is suitable for use with RISC OS 2.00 or later versions.
** MacroLife also supports on-line help via Acorn's Help application **
This Help file is split into sections:
* Introduction
* What is Life? <-- For newcomers to the game of Life
* How to use this program
* Quick start <-- The essentials of using MacroLife
* The Manual
* Acknowledgements
* Registering your copy of MacroLife <-- The benefits of registration
There is more information in the Docs directory within the application.
Introduction
------------
MacroLife is a desktop version of the famous game of Life,
invented by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970.
It displays a scrollable window onto a Life plane, or grid, onto
which you can place patterns of cells and watch how they evolve.
Besides running on the desktop, MacroLife offers a very large Life plane.
It is 65,536 cells on a side, over 4 billion cells in total.
(At 32 times magnification, the plane would cover about a square mile.)
Facilities are provided to assist with navigating around the plane, but
they are only needed if you want to generate really large patterns.
Other features include:
* saving, loading and editing of Life planes and regions.
* predefined Lifeforms.
* random field generation.
* an option to switch to other algorithms such as '3-4' Life.
* a provision for returning to the start position.
* a wide range of magnifications.
* ...
What is Life?
-------------
Life is a fascinating 'game' in which patterns of cells on a two-dimensional
plane evolve according to a simple rule. Despite its simplicity, Life
patterns can behave like living organisms, moving, growing and even -
theoretically, at least - reproducing and evolving.
Each cell on the Life plane may be in one of two states, 'Alive' or 'Dead'.
Time is measured in generations, each generation being produced by applying
a calculation to each cell on the grid. This rule of Life is as follows:
A cell will be alive in the next generation if it has exactly three living
neighbours. If it has two live neighbours, it will preserve its state.
If it has any other number, it will be dead.
Each cell has eight neighbours, including the diagonally adjacent cells.
The smallest object in Life is the 'blinker'; three cells in a row.
The rules of Life switch the blinker between horizontal and vertical
every generation:
*
*** * ***
*
The pattern on the icon bar, the glider, is the simplest of many Life
'spaceships', patterns which move. The glider moves diagonally:
*
* * * * * *
*** ** * * ** *
* ** ** ***
The other Life pattern which MacroLife uses as a symbol is called the
'r pentomino', since with imagination it looks a little like a lower
case 'r':
**
**
*
The word 'pentomino' is simply an extension of 'domino': a domino has
two sections, and a pentomino has five.
Putting an 'r' pentomino on the Life plane and selecting 'Run' results
in an explosion of growth and activity.
There are many approaches to exploring Life, you can place large random
patterns and watch them 'evolve', design new Lifeforms, or simply have
fun crashing Life spaceships and other patterns into each other to see
what happens.
The Draw file 'Patterns' in the MacroLife Docs directory contains a
catalogue of Life patterns (including a prolific but unstable 'Acorn').
Since Life was described by Martin Gardner in his Scientific American
column, many enthusiasts have spent countless hours exploring its behaviour.
Several books are available which describe these explorations, including
'The recursive universe' by William Poundstone, which among many other
things describes how a Life pattern could reproduce itself.
In the last few years, some remarkable discoveries have stimulated a fresh
wave of interest in Life. Dean Hickerson, David Bell and others have led the
search for new Lifeforms, and many of their creations are available in the
library supplied with the registered version of MacroLife.
How to use this program
-----------------------
Quick start
-----------
To start MacroLife, double-click on the application to run it and then
click Select over the icon bar icon. This will create a new Life plane.
You can add new cells to the plane by clicking with Select. You can
also hold down the Select button and drag the mouse around, much like
using Paint. Use Adjust to remove cells.
When you have created your pattern, click on the 'Run' button or choose
'Run' from the Edit menu to watch it evolve. If it goes too fast, you
can single-step the display using the 'Step' button or menu item.
MacroLife has a collection of Life patterns - 'Lifeforms' - built in;
you can call them up via the 'Add Lifeform' entry in the Edit menu.
Once you have selected a Lifeform, a grey pattern with a dashed box
surrounding it will appear on the plane. You can move this around with
the mouse and then click Select to place it. A good pattern to start
with is the 'Glider gun', in the 'Guns' submenu.
If the Help application is running, it will display additional
information about about each Lifeform in the menu.
There are many facilities provided for editing these patterns, and you
can combine them to build new ones.
As an example, place a glider gun on the Life plane and run it until
the 'Gen' display reaches 61. (It should now look like the pattern in
MacroLife's start-up banner.) Now choose 'Glider mirror' from the
'Others' submenu. Move the grey glider until it is superimposed on the
leading glider from the gun, and click 'Select'. If you start the
program running again, a continuous stream of gliders should bounce
off the mirror.
When the generation reaches 106, stop the program and choose
'Glider mirror' again. This time, to match up the gliders you will need
to rotate the mirror. Press 'A' on the keyboard to rotate the mirror
A)nticlockwise, and you will be able to superimpose the gliders and
start running again.
You can also copy blocks of cells around the plane, and you can rotate
and reflect these as well.
MacroLife uses two file types: Lifeforms, which can be automatically
included in the 'Add Lifeform' menu, and Life planes, which store the
whole plane together with settings and window positions.
You can load both types of file by double-clicking on them, but
MacroLife can only edit one plane at a time. Double-clicking on a
Lifeform file will add it to any existing patterns on the plane.
You can also drag Lifeform files onto the plane. They will appear
centred on the mouse pointer.
The Manual
----------
The icon bar menu
-----------------
This has the usual 'Info' and 'Quit' items, and a 'Help' item which
displays the file you are reading. The 'Save choices' item will save
the options set for the current Life plane. It will be shaded if you
do not have a plane open. It saves the choices set from the 'Options'
dialogue box and various others including the scale, the speed, whether
the grid is displayed, and the Life rule to be used. These will then
be used whenever a new plane is created.
It doesn't save the size and position of the plane window; this can be
done by selecting the 'With settings' option when saving a Life plane.
The toolbar
-----------
The toolbar at the top of the window displays information about the
current Life plane and provides various controls. The 'Gen' and 'Pop'
displays show the current generation and the population - the number of
living cells. The 'X' and 'Y' displays show the co-ordinates of the
cell at the centre of the visible region of the plane.
'X' increases from left to right, and 'Y' increases from top to bottom.
The 0, 0 point is near the centre of the plane.
Immediately to the right of the 'eye' button on the toolbar, an optional
display gives quick help on the function of the icon under the pointer.
You may need to turn off 'Narrow toolbar' via the Options dialogue box
to see this.
All of the controls and information on the toolbar can also be accessed
from the menu, so if you don't like it, you can turn it off.
Main toolbar controls:
* RUN/STOP - Once you have created a pattern, you can start producing
new generations by clicking on the run button on the
toolbar - the one with the solid arrow.
The arrow will change to a block; click on this to stop.
* STEP - The button with the 'broken arrow' is used to single-step,
producing one new generation each time you click on it.
* SCALE - The 'magnifying glass' button allows you to change the
scale. The current scale is shown in the title bar.
You can set magnifications of less than 1:1, right down to
the point where the whole plane is visible.
As the magnification falls below 1:1, less and less detail
is shown, but at least one pixel will always be on if any
cell in that region is occupied.
Clicking on the scale button with adjust toggles between
the current and the previously selected scales.
Clicking on the scale button with shift-Select and
shift-Adjust respectively decrease and increase the scale.
* CENTRE - Click with Select on the 'target' button between the
X and Y grid co-ordinate displays to re-centre the window,
moving the visible area to the middle of the plane.
Click with Adjust to move the centre of the view to the
average of all the living cells on the plane.
Click with shift-Select to drag the visible area around
the window. The mouse pointer will change to a hand, and
Select can be used to drag the window once, or Adjust to
repeat the dragging operation.
Other functions available from the toolbar:
* CLEAR - To clear all the cells from the plane, double-click
with Select over the population display.
* RESET - To reset the plane to its start point (generation zero),
double-click with Select over the generation display.
This will only work if the generation is greater than zero
and the 'keep start point' option is selected.
* NEW START - To make the current generation the new generation zero,
double-click with Adjust over the generation display.
This will only work if the generation is greater than zero
and the 'keep start point' option is selected.
* MOVE VIEW - Double-clicking on either the X or Y grid co-ordinate
displays will open a dialogue box allowing you to move
the window directly to a specified co-ordinate. It's
usually easier to use the overview windows to move around.
Additional toolbar controls:
Some of the following controls may not be immediately visible. You can
choose whether these buttons appear above or to the right of the main
controls via the Options dialogue box.
Drags (and many other operations) can be aborted by pressing the Escape
key, and repeated by using Adjust instead of Select.
If a Lifeform or block has less than ten thousand cells, live cells in
the block are displayed in grey.
When dragging, the Population and Generation figures are temporarily
replaced by the Width and Height of the dragbox.
* GRID - The grid button switches the grid lines on and off.
The grid is only shown at magnifications of 3:1 or greater.
* LIFEFORMS - The 'R Pentomino' button produces a pop-up menu from
which you can choose a predefined Lifeform to drag onto
the plane. Before the drag starts, MacroLife will scale
down the display if required, so that the entire Lifeform
will be visible in the current window.
The predefined Lifeforms are stored within special library files in
the Lifeforms directory within the MacroLife application.
You can also put your own creations into the five subdirectories within
this one. MacroLife automagically builds the menus using first the
library file !FormLib and then any Lifeforms it finds in these
directories, so they will appear the next time you run the program.
If you have registered, you will receive a library management tool,
libform, with which you can create new Lifeform libraries or extract
the Lifeforms from existing ones.
Each directory also contains a text file giving more information about
the Lifeforms in the library, these are used by the online help system.
If you want to give your Lifeforms a title other than the filename,
click on the 'toggle size' icon on the 'save area as' dialogue box -
see SAVE AREA.
* RANDOM - Clicking on the 'random dots' button opens a dialogue box
which allows you to specify the required density. You can
then drag a box which will be filled with a random pattern
at that density. If you want to superimpose the random
pattern on an existing one, hold down the shift key during
the drag.
* BLOCK CLEAR- The button with a blank white square is used to clear areas
of the plane. After clicking on it, you can drag a box on
the Life plane which will be cleared of cells.
* BLOCK FILL - The button with a solid black square is used to fill areas
of the plane. After clicking on it, you can drag a box on
the Life plane which will be filled with new cells.
* BLOCK MOVE - The 'scissors' button is used to move blocks of cells
around the plane. Drag a box around the cells you wish to
move and then click Select to move them to a new location.
* BLOCK COPY - The 'camera' button is used to copy blocks of cells
around the plane. Drag a box around the cells you wish to
copy and then click Select to copy them to a new location.
After a Lifeform has been chosen, or a Move or Copy block has been
selected, the pointer shape changes to an 'F'. At this stage, you can
press any of the following keys before clicking Select to place the
block of cells:
H - Horizontal flip - will reverse the block left-to-right.
V - Vertical flip - will flip the block upside-down.
C - Clockwise rotate - will rotate the block 90° clockwise.
A - Anticlockwise rotate - will rotate the block 90° anticlockwise.
You can use any combination of keypresses, and the 'F' will change its
orientation to match the current transformation.
(R - Rotate and F - Flip also work as synonyms for C and H)
When a block of cells is placed, normally all of the cells are set,
whether 'alive' or 'dead'. If you want to merge the new pattern into
its destination, use shift-Select or shift-Adjust.
* SPEED - To alter the speed at which MacroLife produces new
generations, click on the 'speedometer dial' button and
choose the speed you require from the dialogue box which
appears. The needle on the dial will change to show the
new speed.
Clicking on the speed button with shift-Select and
shift-Adjust respectively decrease and increase the speed.
If you select the 'Full speed' option and then run,
everything else on the desktop will stop, and the toolbar
displays won't be updated. The display on the hourglass
will show the last two digits of the generation.
You can stop the program by clicking Adjust or pressing
the Escape key.
Clicking on the speed button with ctrl-Select and
ctrl-Adjust switch single-tasking full speed off and on.
* STOP AT - Clicking on the '1103' button opens a dialogue box which
allows you to set a generation at which the program will
stop, optionally beeping to let you know it has finished.
* RULE - This button initially shows a 'Glider' like that on the
icon bar and indicates the rule being used to calculate new
generations. Clicking on it opens a dialogue box showing
the three predefined rules, Conway's Life, 3-4 Life, and
Fredkin's game. The symbols are Lifeforms found in planes
running with the selected rule.
A fourth option in this box allows you to experiment with
other rules. Click on 'Define' to open a dialogue box
which allows the conditions for cell birth and survival to
be changed. The block labelled 'Cells' determines which of
the 'neighbour' cells are considered. Buttons to select a
number of predefined rules are provided as examples. After
setting a new user-defined rule, you have to select 'User'
from the 'Life rule' dialogue box in order to use it.
3-4 Life is a variation in which cells with either three or
four neighbours are alive in the next generation. There is
no distinction between 'birth' and 'survival', as with
Conway's Life.
Fredkin's game is an unusual variation in which all
patterns, however complex, reproduce themselves. The rules
are even simpler than Life: diagonally adjacent neighbours
are not considered and if one or three of the four
remaining neighbours is alive, the cell will be alive in
the next generation.
HighLife is the default 'User' rule. It is an interesting
variation on Conway's original.
Clicking on the rule button with shift-Select and
shift-Adjust cycle the selected rule backwards and forwards
through the available options.
* SAVE - The 'floppy disc' button opens a standard 'save as'
dialogue box so you can save the current plane.
If you select the 'With settings' option, the current
size and position of any open MacroLife windows will
also be saved, together with settings such as the speed
and scale. If you save an empty Life plane called
'LifePlane' into the application directory, MacroLife
will start up with this plane open, but will not set
the filename, so it won't be accidentally overwritten.
* SAVE AREA - This is the floppy disc with a Lifeform superimposed on it.
If you click on this button the pointer will change to
an arrow with a Lifeform attached. Move the pointer to a
corner of the area you want to save and drag the bounding
box until it surrounds the area. When you release select,
a 'save as' box will appear and you can save the area as a
Lifeform file. This file can then be dragged back onto the
plane. The Lifeform will appear centred on the cell over
which you released the mouse button.
You don't have to size the box exactly, as MacroLife will
automatically shrink it to fit when it saves the Lifeform.
* MOUSE - The 'mouse XY' button opens a small window which shows
the current plane X and Y co-ordinates under the pointer.
* OVERVIEW - Clicking on the 'eye' button opens all three overview
windows. They can also be opened individually via the root
menu.
Each overview window shows which areas in the part of the plane which
it represents contain occupied cells. These are indicated by black
'blobs' within the boxes. The red highlight shows which area is
currently at the centre of the main window. If a blue highlight
appears, this roughly represents the area currently visible in the
main window.
The Global window shows the entire plane. Each 'box' within the window
represents an area of 4096 by 4096 cells.
The Regional window shows the contents of the area currently highlighted
in the Global window. Each box represents an area of 256 by 256 cells.
The Local window shows the contents of the area currently highlighted in
the Regional window. Each box represents an area of 16 by 16 cells.
By clicking on the overview windows, you can move the view of the main
window around the plane. Clicking on the Global window resets both the
Regional and Local positions, and clicking on the Regional window resets
the Local position, so start with Global and work down if you want to
move a large distance.
The root menu
-------------
The main menu has three submenus: File, Edit, and View, and an item which
opens the Options dialogue box.
The File menu
-------------
From the File menu, you can save the plane or portions of it to disc.
It has the following items:
* Info - This leads to an info box which provides
information about the current Life plane.
* Save - Duplicated on the toolbar, this leads to a
standard 'save as' box, and lets you save the
entire Life plane to disc.
If you have already saved the plane, clicking
in this item will save it immediately.
* Save area - Duplicates the toolbar button.
* Export - This leads to an 'export as' box which lets
you save the Life plane as a text file. This
format can be read by a number of Life
programs, for example XLife on Unix machines.
Text files can be imported by dragging them to
the icon bar, as long as a plane is not
already being displayed.
The Edit menu
-------------
The Edit menu allows you to control the production of new generations
and to add new Life patterns to the plane. It has the following items:
* Run (/Stop) - Duplicates the toolbar run/stop button
* Step - Duplicates the toolbar step button
* Set speed - Duplicates the toolbar speedometer button
* Set rule - Duplicates the toolbar rule button.
* Stop at - Duplicates the toolbar button.
* Block edit - Leads to a submenu with four items which
duplicate the Clear, Fill, Move and Copy block
toolbar buttons.
* Add Lifeform - Duplicates the toolbar button.
* Random field - Duplicates the toolbar button.
* Clear plane - This opens the same dialogue box as a Select
double-click on the toolbar Population display.
* Reset plane - This opens the same dialogue box as a Select
double-click on the toolbar Generation display.
* New start - This opens the same dialogue box as an Adjust
double-click on the toolbar Generation display.
The View menu
-------------
The View menu provides controls which affect the appearance of the Life
plane. It has the following items:
* Centre view - This has the same effect as a Select click on
the toolbar centre button.
* Average view - This has the same effect as an Adjust click on
the toolbar centre button.
* Shift view - This has the same effect as a shift-Select click
on the toolbar centre button.
* Move view - This opens the same dialogue box as a
double-click on the toolbar X or Y co-ordinate
displays.
* Scale view - Duplicates the toolbar magnifier.
* Show grid lines - Duplicates the toolbar grid button.
* Show mouse position - Duplicates the toolbar mouse XY button.
* Show overviews - Clicking on this item will open all three.
overview windows. They can also be opened
individually via the submenu.
* Show tools - Turns the toolbar on or off.
The Options dialogue box
------------------------
This dialogue box allows you to specify the following:
* Colours - The colours used on the Life plane.
* Wrap at border - Whether patterns 'wrap around' when they reach
the edge of the plane.
* Keep start point - Whether the start point (generation zero) will
be saved. You may wish to turn off this
feature if you are short of memory.
* Auto scroll - Whether the window will scroll if you are
adding or deleting cells or dragging blocks of
cells and the mouse gets close to the edge.
* Toolbar help - Whether a 'quick help' text is provided.
This appears to the right of the 'eye' button
on the toolbar and describes the button
currently under the mouse pointer.
* Narrow toolbar - Whether a single row of buttons is spread
along a narrow toolbar, or a double row is
stacked on a wider toolbar.
The options you set will only apply to the current plane. Click on
'Save choices' on the iconbar menu to store them permanently.
The Choices file
----------------
MacroLife normally saves its Choices file in the application directory,
and can optionally start up with a default Life plane, if one is saved
into the application directory. If this is not possible, for example if
MacroLife is run from a read-only archive or from a CD-ROM, a system
variable, MacroLife$ChoicesDir, can be defined. This will specify an
alternative directory which will be used instead.
If you have a registered copy of MacroLife, this is where the program
will look for the registration file.
Acknowledgements
----------------
Acorn's technical people, for designing a great family of computers.
Dominic Symes and his cohorts for Zap, a superlative text editor.
Jason Williams et al. for the Wimp library DeskLib, which made Life easier.
Dick Alstein for TemplEd, a template editor that doesn't drive you crazy.
Mark Moxon and David Matthewman at Acorn User, for taking an interest.
Neil Burgess and Randolph Morris at BEEBUG, for extensive testing :-)
Robin Watts, for helpful suggestions and being my first customer.
Steve Spry, for tracking down a bug just before release. Only one, Steve?
Dean Hickerson, David Bell and others for many of the new Lifeforms.
William Poundstone, for a fascinating book on cosmology and Life.
(The recursive universe, Oxford University Press 1985)
Registering your copy of MacroLife
----------------------------------
On registration, you will receive:
* The latest version of MacroLife.
* A key file which will suppress the initial registration message
and enter your name in the Licence field.
* !LibForm, a Lifeform library management tool.
* An archive containing hundreds of amazing Life patterns.
* An illustrated manual.
* Free upgrades (on receipt of the original disc and return postage).
To register, send a cheque for eight pounds to the address below.
If you are on the net, I can email you the files (without the printed
manual) for seven pounds.
I will then donate four pounds to Motivation, a charity which designs
inexpensive wheelchairs and organises their production using local
materials in countries which cannot afford commercial models.
If you wish to use !MacroLife on a network, site licences cost an
additional sixteen pounds. Again, half of this goes to Motivation.
Please make the cheque payable to Mr C.J.Taylor. If you prefer,
you can send two cheques, one made out to Motivation.
If you find a bug in !MacroLife, or would like additional features, or
just want to tell me how great/awful it is, please write/email me:
Chris Taylor email: chris@sati.demon.co.uk
32 Burghley Court tel: 01908 569556
Great Holm
Milton Keynes
MK8 9EL
This address should be valid until September 1996.
After this date, write to:
The Haven
Buffler's Holt
nr Buckingham
MK18 5DN
