TCE Demo 2

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Text File | 1994-08-14 | 26KB | 724 lines

**************** * STOOP Manual * **************** Version 1.0 Hardware Required ================= Atari Falcon with 4Mb RAM and a VGA or SVGA display is recommended (the screen resolution needed for Stoop is a minimum 640 x 480 by 16 colours). Introduction ============ Stoop is a boot manager for the Atari Falcon. It has its own graphical interface and uses the mouse for most operations but it does make some use of the keyboard. Stoop can : ≡ Be used to determine which AUTO programs, accessories, CPX modules and NEWDESK.INF files should be active when starting up or re-booting. ≡ Control other types of file (e.g. GDOS ASSIGN.SYS files) to a maximum of 20 different types. ≡ Either change the extension of a file name to make it active/inactive, e.g. ACX is changed to ACC and vice versa, (the file may be also moved to another folder at the same time) this can be done for a maximum of 254 files per file type. Or a single file can copied and renamed to a specific name, e.g. C:\AUTO\STOOP\GENERAL.INF may become NEWDESK.INF. ≡ Make groups of files which may be selected or de-selected by a single button press, to a maximum of 50 files per board per group, and since there is a maximum of 20 boards a maximum of 1000 files can be assigned per group. ≡ Control the screen resolution of the desktop that appears after booting, including starting up in ST compatible screens, without having to use a specific NEWDESK.INF file. ≡ Change the application the desktop runs after boot-up. ≡ Store often used start-up configurations on buttons, to a maximum of 27. ≡ Copy, delete and move folders and files, and also rename files, using its own file selector. ≡ Re-order the contents of the AUTO folder. ≡ Hide files from itself so that they cannot be selected/de-selected for boot-up by error. Up to 50 files can be hidden. ≡ Be easily configured while running from the AUTO folder. This program has an element of overkill, it can store enough details to control at least 100,000 files and uses a proportionate amount of memory to do so, hence this program runs only in 4 Mbytes. However, if you would like to run it on a 1Mb Falcon drop a line to me (with your registration, of course) and I will see what I can do. Conversely, if you find the large numbers of files and boards useful tell me before they get cut. If there are groups of users in each camp, I will produce two versions of Stoop. Getting Started =============== First, make sure that your system can run STOOP.PRG when you boot by ensuring that the screen resolution is AT LEAST 640 wide x 480 high x 16 colours. This can be done from a program called BOOTCONF.PRG, this changes settings held in NVRAM which determine to some extent how the computer will behave when it is started up. VGA or SVGA Monitors -------------------- The relevant settings are :- COLOUR : 16 DISPLAY : VGA COLUMNS : 80 (the setting of PAL and NTSC have no effect with VGA, so you can ignore it) The following settings should be OFF DOUBLE LINE (VGA)/ INTERLACE (TV) OVERSCAN (TV ONLY) COMPATIBILITY MODE RGB Monitors ------------ The relevant settings are :- COLOUR : 16 DISPLAY : NTSC COLUMNS : 80 DOUBLE LINE (VGA)/ INTERLACE (TV) OVERSCAN (TV ONLY) (setting NTSC should mean that the monitor has a screen refresh of 60 Hz rather than 50 Hz, I think - I don't have access to an RGB monitor). The following setting should be OFF COMPATIBILITY MODE Televisions ----------- The relevant settings are the same as for RGB monitors with one difference depending upon which TV picture signal standard is used by your TV, either PAL (as in Britain) or NTSC (as in U.S.A.). Installing Stoop ================ Your copy of Stoop should be the first program in the AUTO folder to be executed for it to work most effectively. To ensure this, Stoop has to be the first entry in the AUTO folder directory because AUTO folder programs are executed in this order. There several methods of doing this, two are listed below :- (i) Put STOOP.PRG straight into the AUTO folder. Do not re-boot at this point! Double click on STOOP.PRG to get it running. Locate the button on the screen labelled FSEL and click on it. Stoop's file selector should now appear. Click on the button marked REORDER and the current directory should change to the AUTO folder on your boot disk or hard-drive. Click on the entry for STOOP.PRG in the directory listing, it should then be highlighted. Now click on the entry where Stoop should be positioned (which is the first entry which is not a folder). The name STOOP.PRG will appear where you have just indicated, but it has not yet been moved in the folder. Now click on OK or REORDER, the files will then be physically moved on the disk. (ii) Use a program called AUTOSORT.PRG, if you have it. To finish, create a folder inside the AUTO folder and call it STOOP. This folder is where Stoop will store it's configuration file when you use the SAVE button. Setting Up Stoop ================ To start up Stoop after installation, you can either re-boot or run it from the Desktop. When you have started Stoop up you should see a screen divided into three main areas; the largest area is the boards where all of the files will be displayed, to the right of it is the control panel containing various buttons with a board labelled GROUPS and at the bottom of the screen are 27 buttons which can be used to store preset start up configurations. Boards ====== The first step should be to arrange the boards to display the required files. Each board shows the files which match one of two extensions (e.g. PRG and PRX) that exist in one folder or root directory. There are 5 boards which you can re-configure, each one can have 4 different faces. Each board can be displayed as either one long board or two short ones. When you first run Stoop there may not be a STOOP.CFG file present which contains the configuration information for Stoop, hence Stoop will use it's default configuration. The first two boards should show the program files in the AUTO folder and the accessories on the root directory of your boot drive. These boards may be altered to show different types of file (different file extensions) and/or the files in different folders or drives. To alter a board, click on the BOARD button (right hand side of screen) and then click on the board you want to change. A dialogue should pop up which displays the current details of that particular board:- TITLE : The name of the board which is displayed just above the top of the board. SOURCE PATH : The folder or drive which will hold the files to be shown on the board. DESTINATION PATH : The folder or drive which the file or files will be copied to (this MUST be given even if it is the same as the SOURCE PATH). DESTINATION FILE : The name that will be given to a single file once it has been copied. If this box contains any text then only one file may be selected on the board at any one time, otherwise any number (zero to all) of files can be selected. LIVE & DEAD EXTS : These are the file extensions of the files that will be shown on the board. The 'live' extension is the one that active files have (e.g. PRG or ACC) while the 'dead' extension is the one that inactive files will be given which usually terminates with an 'X' (e.g. PRX or ACX). SHORT/LONG button : This button will toggle between showing SHORT and LONG on it's surface. When it shows LONG, one long board will appear at the chosen position and it will display up to 34 file names, and when it shows SHORT there will be 2 short boards displayed showing up to 16 file names each. OK and CANCEL : These have their usual meanings, they both let the user quit the dialogue but OK confirms any changes and CANCEL ignores them. Most of the above is straight forward, but the use of the DESTINATION FILE needs explaining. Some programs use INF (or similar) files to hold data about the program's start up settings, e.g. the Desktop is one such program and it uses NEWDESK.INF. If you want to start up these programs with different settings, depending upon your needs, the INF file has to be replaced with another version. For Stoop to do this automatically for you it needs the name of the INF file, this is what DESTINATION FILE should hold. Example #1 ---------- Suppose the dialogue holds the following data :- TITLE = NEWDESK SOURCE PATH = C:\AUTO\STOOP DESTINATION PATH = C:\ DESTINATION FILE = NEWDESK.INF LIVE EXT = INF DEAD EXT = INX button = SHORT This allows a user to have different set-ups for the Desktop. Any files contained in C:\AUTO\STOOP (but not any folders within it) that have INF or INX extensions will be displayed upon the board, INF files will be highlighted and INX files will not. The SHORT button means that two short boards will be shown in the chosen column, the other board may appear above or below the board you are setting up. Suppose that the folder C:\AUTO\STOOP contains these three files:- GENERAL.INX DTP.INX SBLASTER.INF Their names will appear on the board without their extensions, only SBLASTER is highlighted as it's extension is 'live' (it has INF for it's extension). Selecting GENERAL on the board will highlight it and un-highlight SBLASTER. Clicking on the GO button will cause GENERAL.INF to be copied to drive C and named NEWDESK.INF (the previous NEWDESK file is first deleted). Example #2 ---------- Suppose the boxes hold the following data :- TITLE = ACCESSORIES SOURCE PATH = C:\ DESTINATION PATH = C:\ DESTINATION FILE = LIVE EXT = ACC DEAD EXT = ACX button = LONG This allows a user to change the accessories loaded at boot up. Note that DESTINATION FILE should contain no text. With this information, Stoop will show all the files in the root directory of drive C which have either ACC or ACX extensions on the board. Files with 'live' extenders (ACC) will be highlighted while files with 'dead' extensions will not. Clicking on a 'dead' file will make it live without changing the status of any other file and clicking on a 'live' file will make it 'dead'. Clicking on GO will cause all files to be renamed according to their status on the board, highlighted names become 'live' (they are given the ACC extension) and all of the others are 'killed' (given ACX extenders). Note that although TOS 4 only allows a maximum of 6 accessories to be loaded at any one time, Stoop will not stop you from selecting more than 6 accessories. If the SOURCE and DESTINATION PATH's were different in the above example, the files would be re-named and they would be copied to the DESTINATION PATH, but please note that any existing files in the DESTINATION PATH would be unaffected. Hence avoid using different SOURCE and DESTINATION PATH's when multiple files are to be made 'live' (i.e. DESTINATION FILE is undefined) as any files copied there by Stoop during a previous boot up will still be there. The LONG button means that one long board will be shown in the chosen column. Editing A Board --------------- Now that you now what the boards can do, how do you change them to do what you want? There are basically two types of boxes which contain text on this dialogue, (i) Boxes which can be edited manually by placing the cursor in it and adding characters from the keyboard. (ii) Boxes which you click on and this brings up the file selector. This type is used to hold file paths and names which are selected via the file selector. TITLE : If the text cursor is not in the Title box you can (i) click the mouse on it, (ii) press TAB or (iii) press the up or down arrow keys to move it into the box. You can then type the new name, BACKSPACE will delete back one character and ESC will clear all of the text. Do not press RETURN or ENTER unless you want to exit the dialogue and confirm the changes (this is equivalent to clicking on the OK button). SOURCE PATH : Click the mouse on the text area of this box, the file selector will appear and you can choose the path you require. DESTINATION PATH : Use the same procedure as for the SOURCE PATH. DESTINATION FILE : Use the same procedure for the Title text box. LIVE EXT : Use the same procedure for the Title text box. DEAD EXT : Use the same procedure for the Title text box. SHORT/LONG : Click on this to toggle it's setting. Remember to SAVE the changes you make! Changing Boards --------------- There are 20 boards, but only five to ten can be shown at any one time, to show the others click anywhere on the board with your RIGHT mouse button, this will cycle through the boards for that position. Each column has four boards. If the board in a column is a long board the other three are hidden below it and 3 clicks will top each of these boards in turn, a fourth click will show the first board again. If the column has two short boards, then 2 of the four boards are already in view and each of the short boards has only one other board under it, hence 1 click on a short board will top the board underneath and another click will then return to the initial board. Deleting A Board ---------------- Go back to the Board dialogue for the board to be deleted, and change the contents of the text boxes to :- TITLE = UNUSED SOURCE PATH = DESTINATION PATH = DESTINATION FILE = LIVE EXT = EXT DEAD EXT = EXX To wipe a path, click on it to bring up the file selector and wipe PATH (put the cursor in the PATH box and press ESC). Buttons ======= At the bottom of the screen are three rows of nine buttons, all of these buttons can have a particular set-up assigned to them. There are only nine buttons per row because of the font size and number of characters (8) used for the legend on each key, if it were smaller it would not look as good. Twenty- seven set-ups should be enough for everyone. To select them you can either click the mouse on them or you can use a function key. The top row can be accessed by pressing just the function key (F1-F9), the middle row needs the Control key to be pressed while the function key is being pressed (CTRL F1-CTRL F9) and the bottom row needs the Alternate to be pressed while the function key is pressed (ALT F1-ALT F9). To make things a little easier to remember (there are no prompts about which modifier key to use, Control or Alternate), the Control key is physically above the Alternate key on the keyboard and the screen buttons which use the Control key (middle row) are physically above the buttons which use the Alternate key (bottom row). Once you have set up the boards, you can begin assigning combinations of files, a screen resolution and a auto-booting program to one of the buttons at the bottom of the screen. 1. Select all of the files on the boards that you want to be active for a particular task (do not forget that the hidden panels may have selected files (use the CLEAR button to de-select all files). 2. Choose your resolution, if you want to use a Falcon screen mode first choose the number of colours required by clicking on one of the five buttons labelled 2,4,16,256 and TC (top left of control panel), then adjust the number of horizontal pixels (640 or 320) and the vertical resolution (480 or 240 pixels) by clicking on the 2 buttons just below the colour resolution buttons. 3. Click on the BUTTON button (right side of control panel). Click on the button you want to assign the current set up to, a dialogue will appear. LEGEND : Here you can enter two lines of text which will appear on the button, example DTP and 2 could be used to denote a DTP set up in 2 colours (monochrome). Use the mouse, TAB or the arrow keys to move to the second line. AUTO BOOT : Clicking on this text box will bring up the file selector, you can then choose the program you want to run. OK and CANCEL have their usual meanings. The same editing keys used for the BOARD dialogue are also used with this dialogue. Do not forget to SAVE the changes! Deleting a Button ----------------- Click on the DELETE button (lower right of control panel) and then click on the button to be deleted. Do not forget to SAVE the changes! Using a Button -------------- Once a preset button has been set up, a single mouse click is all that is needed to use it. When this happens, Stoop displays the configuration belonging to the button and then changes the files (selected files are made active, un-selected are made inactive), it then changes NEWDESK.INF so that the correct screen resolution will be used and that the auto boot program (if there is one) is automatically run when the Desktop starts up. GROUPS ====== A set of files can be assigned to a Group, this allows you to set up groups of common files this makes setting up preset buttons quicker but is more useful for when you want start up your Falcon in a one-off configuration. Example, the files UISIII(.PRG) in the AUTO folder could be grouped with CALL_UIS(.ACC) and assigned to a group called UIS, when UIS is clicked on both of these files will be selected. To set up a group :- 1. Select the files on the boards you want assign to the group, all other files must be inactive. 2. Click on the GROUP button (right side of control panel) and then click on the GROUP board, a simple dialogue will appear. 3. Type in the name to be given to the group. Then exit. The name will appear in alphabetical order on the GROUP board. To de-select all the files assigned to a group, simply click with the Right button on the name in the GROUP board. Deleting A Group ---------------- Click on the DELETE button, then click on the group name on the GROUP board to be deleted. The File Selector ================= The file selector is divided into several main parts; the PATH and FILE text boxes which can be manually edited, the file & folder display area, the drive buttons, the file utility buttons and the OK & CANCEL buttons. The file selector offers some of the extended facilities offered by enhanced GEM file selectors, namely it can COPY, DELETE, MOVE and RENAME files and folders, it can also create folders. Also, there are two Stoop specific functions it can carry out, it can re-order the AUTO folder and it can hide files from Stoop so that they cannot be displayed on the boards, but the file selector can still show them (so that you can un-hide them). To select a file, just click on it and do this again to de-select it or select another file. To enter a folder, just click on it. To select a folder, hold down the SHIFT key on the keyboard as you click on it. To select multiple files and folders, hold down a SHIFT key as you click on each one. There is NO lasso function using the mouse (I will put one in soon). Copying Folders & Files ----------------------- 1. Choose the files and folders you want to copy. 2. Click on the COPY button. 3. Select the folder or drive to copy them to. 4. Press RETURN or click on OK. Files cannot be copied on top of themselves, if you try this all copy operations are ignored. Moving Folders & Files ---------------------- 1. Choose the files and folders you want to move. 2. Click on the MOVE button. 3. Select the folder or drive to move them to. 4. Press RETURN or click on OK. Files cannot be moved on top of themselves, if you try this all move operations are ignored. Deleting Folders & Files ------------------------ 1. Choose the files and folders you want to delete. 2. Click on the DELETE button. Renaming Folders & Files ------------------------ 1. Select the file or folder to be renamed, it's name should appear in the FILENAME text box. 2. Click on the RENAME button. 3. Edit the name in FILENAME to the new name. 4. Click on the RENAME button or press RETURN or click on OK. Creating Folders ---------------- 1. Type in the name of the new folder in the FILENAME text box. 2. Click on the FOLDER button. Re-Ordering the AUTO Folder --------------------------- 1. Click on the REORDER button, the file selector should now display the contents of the AUTO folder on the boot drive. 2. Click on the file you want to move. 3. Click on the position you want it to be moved to. 4. Repeat these actions as many times as you require. 5. Click on the REORDER button or press RETURN or click on OK, the files will then be re-ordered. Note : folders in the AUTO folder cannot be re-ordered. Hiding Files from Stoop ----------------------- 1. Select the file to be hidden from Stoop. 2. Click on the HIDE button. The hidden file will still be visible on the file selector but it's name will be in grey rather than black. If the hidden file was visible on a board before you hid it, it will disappear from there when you exit the file selector. The details of the hidden files have to be added to Stoop's INF file, so remember to SAVE after hiding a file. Main Controls ============= GO & EXIT Buttons GO : This causes the Stoop to change all selected files on the boards to be made active and all un-selected files to become inactive, copies required files to folders and then changes the NEWDESK.INF file so that the Desktop will start up in the selected resolution and boot the current AUTO BOOT program. Stoop then exits, the AUTO folder programs are run, the accessories are loaded and then the Desktop appears. GO is provided so that you can make and use a start-up configuration without having to assign it to a button, or make a small change to an existing configuration (e.g. change the number of colours or resolution), see the information about the SHOW button below. EXIT : Clicking on this causes Stoop to exit without making a single change to files or NEWDESK.INF. Option Controls =============== The six buttons near the bottom of the control panel make Stoop a bit easier to use. FSEL : Brings up the file selector. DELETE : Used to wipe start up configurations assigned to the preset buttons or wipe groups. Simply click on the DELETE button and then on the button or group to be wiped. Remember to SAVE the changes afterwards! SAVE : Saves all the data Stoop needs to remember your requirements. CLEAR : De-selects all files on all boards. SHOW : This is used to show the current configuration assigned to a preset button. Click on the SHOW button and then on the preset button you want to see. The boards, resolution and auto boot text box will then change to reflect the preset configuration. SHOW is ideal for making minor changes to a configuration. Example ------- How to change the resolution of a preset configuration from 16 to 256 colours. 1. Click on SHOW (it will appear to be depressed). 2. Now click on the preset button. (The SHOW button will pop up.) 3. Make the change by clicking on the 256 button. At this point you have three options, you can:- (i) use the BUTTON button to re-assign the new configuration to the old preset button, (ii) use the BUTTON button to assign the new configuration to another preset button and (iii) press GO, which will use the current set-up without saving it so that it might be used again. INITIAL : Clicking on this button causes all the files on all the boards to be changed to their initial setting (active or inactive) when Stoop was first started up. Auto-Booting Programs ===================== Stoop loads NEWDESK.INF from your boot partition (if it exists) and reads the current auto-program, this is then displayed in the AUTO-PROGRAM box at the bottom of the control panel. When you select a button which has an auto-booting program then the box will display the name of the program. The program can also be selected by clicking on the AUTO-PROGRAM box, this will bring up the file selector so that you can choose which program you require. Manual Start Up Configurations ============================== Sometimes you may want to use a particular start up configuration just once, and as it does need to be used again assigning it to a preset button is a waste of time. This is what to do instead :- 1. Set up the files on the boards as you want them (I often use SHOW on a preset, which has the nearest configuration to what I require, to give a position to start from). 2. If you want to auto-boot a program, click on the AUTO BOOT text box (near the bottom of the control panel), this will bring up the file selector. Select the file you want and exit. 3. Click on GO.