AMOS PD CD/amospdcd.iso/totallyamos/issue3/programming/1.seq

Text File | 1992-02-28 | 10KB | 255 lines

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                       ^2{7H I N T S   A N D   T I P S .{

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^7 We have gathered hints and tips from several readers for this Issue.

^7Read on for tips from Steve Bennett, Jeff Tullin, Ronnie Simpson and
^7Aaron Fothergill.

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^5 From Steve Bennett, West Midlands.

^2 Here  is  a  list of commands that are missing from the Amos Manual,
^2Some you may have heard of, some may be new.

^1 MOUSE SCREEN :  ^2This gives the screen number that the mouse is in.

^1 REQUEST  ON  /  OFF :  ^2This command will turn off the System Request
^2box  that  pops  up  from  time to time to tell you that your disk is
^2write  protected  etc.   You will probably have found out by now that
^2you cannot always get backto to your program after one of these boxes
^2has appeared.  Request On turns the box on again.

^1 DEL SPRITE N :  ^2Deletes sprite Image number N from the bank.

^1 DEL  SPRITE START TO FINISH :  ^2Deletes sprite image numbers start to
^2finish.  Do not delete the last image in the bank using Del Sprite as
^2it crashes the computer - use Erase 1 instead.

^1 INS SPRITE N :  ^2Inserts a sprite into the bank at number N.

^1 DEL ICON N :

^1 DEL ICON START TO FINISH :

^1 INS ICON N :

^1 STOP :  ^2Stops the program.

^1 CHANMA()  :   ^2I  assume  this tests for an AMAL channel that is just
^2running an animation.  I have not tested it yet

^1 AMOS HERE :

^1 AMOS LOCK :  ^2Amos Lock disables the <LEFT AMIGA + A> from being used
^2together  to  toggle  between  different programs in memory.  This in
^2effect stops the Amiga multi-tasking on more than one program.

  ^1AMOS UNLOCK : enables these keys.

                                                     ^7Steve Bennett.

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^4 The  next  tip  was  picked  up from Aaron Fothergill, who being the
^4generous person that he is with his coding tips, has said that we can
^4use it!

^5 This  tip  will be of interest to programers who frequently use data
^5banks to store ascii text etc.

^4 To  explain  this  tip, we will have to give an example application,
^4giving a listing would probably confuse matters.

^6 The  thing  I  used  it  for required me to look inside a bank for a
^6sentence,  then  pull out the sentence and store it as a string.  The
^6usual method for doing this would be as folows.

^61.  Find the start position in memory of the sentence in question.

^62.  Find the end location in memory of the sentence.

^7 Now you'd use a For Next Loop to peek out each character in turn and
^7store  as  a  string.  This is fine for a single sentence, but if you
^7are  talking of pulling out multiple sentences, it can turn out to be
^7a very lengthy process.

^6 To save an enormous amount of time, use the following method.

^7 Initially  you do the same as before, follow 1 & 2 above.  This time
^7however, you find out how many characters there are between the start
^7and finish of the sentence..  Now you must check to see if the number
^7of  characters  is  even.   If  it  is  odd, add one to the amount of
^7characters  and one to the end position in memory.  Now set a flag to
^7true  to  let you know that you originally had an odd number.  That's
^7the hard bit over with, the rest is easy!

^6 Let  us  assume  that the length is 50 characters, in the old method
^6we'd  use a For Next Lop to read the characters, but now all you have
^6to do is this,

^2 Sentence$=Space$(number of characters)
 ^2Copy start position, end position, to Varptr(Sentence$)

 ^7This  does  it  all in one transaction rather than the fifty used by
^7the previous method.  The difference in speed is amazing!

 ^6The  main  thing  to  watch  out  for is the fact that the number of
^6characters  MUST  be an EVEN number.  Using the copy command with odd
^6numbers  will only give you a randomly locking machine or a big, red,
^6flashing box!

 ^7This idea is well worth mastering as it wil make your programs a lot
^7faster and therefore more acceptable to your users.

                                                        ^2Thanks Aaron!


^7In case you do not know how to check for odd numbers, try this.

 ^2P=noofcharacters Mod 2
 ^2If P=1
 ^2noofcharacters = noofcharacters + (noofcharacters Mod 2)
^7(above line sets the odd numbers)
 ^2End If

 ^6Checking  on the odd numbers after the copy will tell you to cut off
^6the  last  character  and  the Mod line will add one to the number of
^6characters if odd.
                                                                 ^7Len.

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 ^1Jeff Tullin has given us permission to use some tips he has found.

^11. There is another problem with Workbench 2 and AMOS, this time
^1concerning fonts.It occurs if you have created a program an a version
^1of Workbench other than V2, ie 1.2 or 1.3.

 ^1When you run it on a machine using WB2, you may find that your text
^1has `grown' and your display is out. Jeff has come up with a solution
^1for you, we cann't test it for ourselves, but according to Jeff, this
^1is what you do:-

 ^1Open a small work screen. Here we will say it is Screen X.

 ^1Screen Open (X) ,320,10,(no of colours),lowres

 ^1When  you  want  to  output  to  your  display screen, you jump to a
^1procedure called JEFFTEXT(square bracket)a,b,T$(sq.brk)

 ^2Procedure JEFFTEXT(sq.brk)a,b,T$(sq.brk)

 ^2Screen (X)

 ^2Get Palette (Display screen)

 ^2Cls 0

 ^2Locate 0,0

 ^2Print T$; ^1(the ; is essential or it will carriage return and
           ^1disappear off the top of the screen)

 ^2Screen Copy(X),0,0, Len(T$)*8,8 to Screen(display screen),a,b-6

 ^2Screen(display screen)

 ^2End Proc

 ^1We hope this will solve the problem.

 ^7Jeff's  next  tip concerns the creation of animated buttons.  If you
^7have  TA1 and/or TA2, you will have seen the indenting buttons on the
^7alert  box routine and in the alternative file requester.  These were
^7created  by  drawing  lines  with selected colours to get the desired
^7effect.

 ^7Jeff's  method is even simpler.  All you need to do is draw a bar (a
^7solid  rectangle)  in  any colour OVER the button you want to indent,
^7but first you must put in the command

 ^2Grwriting 3

 ^6This  indents  the  button.  To get it back to normal, put Grwriting
^6back  to  normal  and just draw your bar again.  (wish I'd thought of
^6that!  Len)

 ^310/10 for this tip!

 ^7Jeff  has  also  found  a  way of changing the colours of the system
^7request box.

 ^6First make a backup of your AMOS disk, or at least a copy of the
^6Request.lib file incase you do not like the colours you have created!

 ^7Key in the following as set out below

 ^2Reserve as work 10,1440
^2Bload "amos_system/request.lib",Start(10)
^2A=Start(10)+$494
^2Doke A,$0
^2Doke A+2,$444
^2Doke A+4,$888
^2Doke A+6,$FFF
^2Bsave "Amos_system/request.lib,Start (10) To Start(10)+Length(10)

^7Run, then reboot to see the differences!

^7You  can  alter the RGB colour values to suit yourself, but try these
^7colours.

^4Thank  you  Jeff for providing so many tips for this issue, it's nice
^4to see new names in the magazine.

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^4 Ronnie  Simpson  sent  in  a  tip  for dot matrix printer users, our
^4printer doesn't use ribbons, so we haven't tested this one!

^7 "A  little  tip that I picked up recently may be of interest to some
^7of  your  readers  who  own  printers.....Imagine  that  you  have an
^7important letter or listing that you must get printed and your ribbon
^7is  worn and producing only the lightest shade of grey, the shops are
^7closed and you have no spare ribbon.  What do you do?

^5 Answer....Grab  a can of WD40 (damp start for cars) or similar, give
^5the ribbon a quick spray, and Bob's your uncle - nice black sparkling
^5print."
                                                      ^2Ronnie Simpson.

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^5 If  you  are  the protective type and want to hide your data for one
^5reason or another, this is a fairly efficient way of doing so.

 ^5You  do this by reading each character in a string, converting it to
^5an  ascii number, rolling it, then storing it back in a string.  This
^5will make the data unreadable, and easy to decode.

 ^5To  code  the data, lets assume that you want to code the letter `A'
^5by this method.

 ^2To do this you use the command Rol.b 1,A

 ^51  is the amount rolled to the left, and A is the ascii value of the
^5letter to be rolled.  To decode, all you have to do is Ror.b 1,A

 ^5The  niffty bit in this idea is the number, here it is 1, you decide
^5the number for the roll, so that you can make it harder to decode for
^5anyone else.

 ^5This  method is by no means perfect, but if you wish to protect your
^5data,  it  will  give  anyone  trying  to  unscramble  it  a bit of a
^5headache,  as  you are the one who knows the key number.  It will end
^5in failure for someone who isn't really sure of what they are doing!

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