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README.2ND
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1989-12-05
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╔════════════════╗
║ Introduction ║
╚════════════════╝
The information contained in this file is relative to OASIS
Version 5.0. OASIS 5.0 is upwards compatible with all earlier
versions, i.e programs and screenfiles generated with earlier
versions of OASIS can be used with OASIS 5.0 without any
modifications.
The main difference between OASIS 4.x and OASIS 5.0 is, amongst
some new features, the fact that OASIS 5.0 is compatible to Turbo
Pascal 5.x.
Since the .TPU file structure is entirely different for Turbo
Pascal 4.x and 5.x two different SCL.TPU files have been included
on your disks:
- SCL40.TPU
- SCL50.TPU
- SCL55.TPU
SCL40.TPU contains all SCL routines in Turbo Pascal 4.x format,
SCL50.TPU & SCL55.TPU contains the one for Turbo Pascal 5.0 & 5.5
compilers. Apart from this, all files are identical.
Depending on which version of Turbo Pascal you use, you
need to perform the following additional step after you
have installed OASIS 5.0 on your hard disk:
If you use Turbo Pascal 4.x enter at the DOS Prompt:
COPY SCL40.TPU SCL.TPU
If you use Turbo Pascal 5.0 enter at the DOS Prompt:
Copy SCL50.TPU SCL.TPU
If you use Turbo Pascal 5.5 enter at the DOS Prompt:
Copy SCL55.TPU SCL.TPU
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Changes not contained in the manual (since version 4.0) ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
┌─────────────────────┐
│ New SCL Features │
└─────────────────────┘
SCL.TPU: A exit Procedure has been added which restores the BIOS
interrupt pointers taken over by SCL automatically whenever a
program using SCL is getting a runtime error or the break key is
pressed.
This exit procedure also closes all files used by SCL and makes a
system reboot in such a case superfluous.
Three more procedures have been added which now allow screen
Attributes to be changed within SCL driven programs. This feature
is especially useful if a program has to run on a system which
translates screen attributes different to standard IBM
conventions. For this purpose, a screen attribute translation
table has been defined which is then indexed by the SCL screen
driver routines.
The definition is:
Var Screen_Color_Translation_Table: Array[0..255] of Byte;
It is being indexed by the attribute byte and the corresponding
entry then contains the actual attribute to be displayed, i.e
Screen_Color_Translation_Table[OldAttr] contains the attribute to
be displayed instead of OldAttr.
Upon startup, SCL initializes all Colors to their default values.
Once SCL has been initialized, Colors/Attributes can be
customised using the following new procedure and functions:
Procedure Reset_Screen_Colors;
Resets all screen Colors/Attributes to their default values.
Procedure Change_Color(Oldattr,NewAttr:Byte);
Once this procedure is executed, all occurrences of OldAttr will
be translated to Newattr.
Function Get_Current_Color(Attr:Byte):Byte;
This function returns the value to which Attr is currently being
translated.
Furthermore all screen display write routines have been
completely redesigned. Major enhancements are:
- A threefold speed increase for screen write operations
- No Snow on CGA monitors
- The automatic detection of monitor types has been enhanced to
include VGA.
The SCL routines DC, Draw_Char and Set_Att have been removed from
SCL. Instead, the following (primarily internally used by
SCL) procedures were added:
PROCEDURE WriteT(Txt:String;X,Y:BYTE);
This Procedure writes Txt to the screen, starting at column X and
row Y. The Display attribute remains unchanged.
Procedure WriteA(Count:Word;X,Y,Attr:Byte);
This Procedure changes the screen attribute to Attr, starting at
column X and Row Y for Count Positions. The Text displayed at
these positions remains unchanged.
Procedure WriteTA(Txt:String;X,Y,Attr:Byte);
This Procedure writes Txt onto the screen, starting at column X
and Row Y. The Display attribute for these positions is changed
to Attr.
The routines to detect the Display adapter and Monitor in use
have been enhanced as follows:
The variables Color_True and Mono_Adapter have been removed from
SCL.
A new TYPE definition has been added:
TYPE Displaytypes = (MDA,CGA,EGA,MCGA,VGA);
Two new Functions have been added:
FUNCTION Displaytype:Displaytypes;
This Function returns the currently active type of display.
FUNCTION Videomode:BYTE;
This function returns the currently active Video Mode. This
function is used SCL internally and should not be called by user
programs. Use the contents of the Variable 'Screen_Mode' as
described in the manual instead. If for example you want to
know whether you are currently using the monochrome mode you
could use the following statement:
Mono_Active:=(Screen_Mode=7);
A new function has been added to SCL which allows user programs
to check whether the printer is ready and online or not:
FUNCTION Printer_Ready(Result:BYTE):BOOLEAN;
This function returns the current status of the parrallel printer
connected to LPT1:. Note that it cannot be used to inquire the
status of a serial Printer.
'Result' can have the following values:
0: No Error
1: Printer not powered on
2: Printer is out of paper
3: Printer is offline
Example:
If not Printer_Ready(Res) then
begin;
case Res of
1: Msg('Printer power off');
2: Msg('Printer out of Paper');
3: Msg('Printer Offline');
end;
end;
Progpath:
The variable "ProgPath" (see Manual) is now initialized at
program start, not by a call to "Select_Format_File" as
described in the Manual. If left unchanged, "Progpath"
contains the complete directory path, inluding drive
identifier, which was active when the program using SCL has
been started. Progpath is used by SCL to indicate from which
directory the SCL Files should be loaded. By loading a new Path
description into "Progpath" before calling "Select_Format_File"
you can now specify from which path the SCL files should be
loaded.Example:
BEGIN;
Progpath:='C:\Mydir\';
Select_Format_File('Myformats');
.......
END;
In the above case SCL would look for 'Myformats' in the
Subdirectory '\Mydir' on drive C: , independent of the currently
active drive and directory.
┌──────────────────┐
│ New SFD Features │
└──────────────────┘
File Import:
A new option has been added to the SFD Main Menu which allows to
import existing Format Layouts from an external file into SFD.
Note that this feature is only available in OASIS/SFD
Professional. The layout of the external file from which the
formats are to be read must be as follows:
TYPE
Screen=ARRAY[1..25] of string[80];
FILE
ImportFile=File of Screen;
The 'File Import' function reads all records from the file and
converts them to OASIS compatible Screen Formats which can then
be edited with SFD. The formats will be named as follows:
FFFFFFFNNN where FFFFFFF are the max 7 first characters of the
name of <Import file> (without extension) and NNN is the record
number within <Import File>, starting with 001 for the first
record.
Example:
If we would import formats from a file called 'Myfile.Dta' which
contained 3 records, they would be named as Myfile001, Myfile002
and Myfile003.
Note:
Screen formats originating from other programs often use
different characters as Field Delimiters. In order for SFD to
recognize these delimiters you the SFD defaults must be set
accordingly in 'Design Defaults'.
New Command Line Option for SFD:
SFD can now be started with a command line option as follows:
SFD P=<Path>
<Path> must be a valid DOS Path, with or without a drive
identifier. If started in this way, SFD will load its internal
files from the directory indicated by <Path>. This new option
allows SFD to be started from any directory. If SFD is started
without a command line option, it will expect its internal files
in the currently active directory. If an invalid command line
option is specified, SFD will display a help message and then
terminate.
"SNOW" on old Color Graphics Adapters:
An automatic detection for CGA adapters has been added which is
used to switch on a special screen write mode. SFD does
therefore not anymore produce "Snow" if used on systems with an
old type CGA adapter.
┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│ Errors Fixed since Release 4.0 │
└──────────────────────────────────┘
SFD:
A bug has been fixed in SFDs 'Print Format' routine. Now the
correct field messages are listed in all cases.
Some left over debug code has been removed which caused SFD to
print some superfluous stuff on the printer while a workfile was
being opened and which caused SFD to terminate with a runtime
error in case the printer was not ready while a workfile was
being opened.
Some minor errors in SFD help formats have been corrected.
The overall execution speed of SFD has been considerably
increased.
COMPAQ and VGA adapters and screen modes should now be recognized
and handled correctly.
A minor problem where the cursor was positioned outside the
drawing area in the SFD Format Designer after a call to the menu
has been fixed.
SCL:
A bug with High Priority Background Tasks has been fixed.
COMPAQ and VGA adapters and screen modes should now be recognized
and handled correctly.