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************************************** * !MEditate * * © Andrew Bennett * * Quick Manual * * Freeware * ************************************** This is is a shortened version of the manual, intended to be printed out and used as a reference. SECTION 1 - General Info ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright ~~~~~~~~~ This software and the associated files are the copyright of Andrew Bennett and Neil Davies unless other wise stated. The package may be freely distributed as long as it remains unaltered and no more than £2 is charged for the disc. The only condition for use is that you send us me a copy of anything released with this package, and that you leave our copyright message in the !Help file. A mention in your mag would be nice as well, but that's up to you. If you wish to use this software for commercial purposes you must get specific permission. Users can get upgrades if you supply a disc (preferably with some PD on it) and a stamp, I will send the latest version that is available. This software is supplied 'as is'. The authors cannot be held responsible for any damage or data loss resulting from the use or misuse of this package. Please report any bugs and feel free to make suggestions so that we can continue to improve the software. Changes from version 3.08 (first PD release) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Version 3.11 (limited release): - Minor Bug fixes - A new colour selector to replace the origional naf one. - Now supports sprites from any mode except 256 colour ones. - Icon bar installation for Read-Only version. Version 3.31 (second PD release) - Minor bug fixes. - New, simpler, menu system. Click on the menu button to bring up an Amiga style menu bar. Adjust no longer has a function. - A new text rippling routine, much faster because it stops rippling when the article stops changing. It uses less memory as well. - You can now only edit one line at a time but the up and down arrow keys move you to the previous or next line, rippling as you move. - Keyboard shortcuts for text input. Shift+cursor keys moves the cursor by a whole word and Ctrl+cursor keys moves to the start or end of a line - The edit mode stays active until it is turned off, rather than it only staying on for one operation. - Menus and dialogue boxes will stay readable and roughly the same colour whatever palette you use. This only works with the default palette, I don't know why. - Icon bar system for Read-Only version now checks that there is enough screen memory to go back into the mag. - Turned the insert graphics routine into two separate routines - insert graphics and load sprites. - Pointer now turns into a cross hair to showthat you need to drag a box over an area. - New improved line editing in articles. - Formatting characters in the editor can be toggled on and off. - Major bug fix: Items paced on the far right of a menu would appear on the left side. This has cause a small compatibility problem with earlier versions although it is easily fixed, see the "ReadMe1st" file. - Major bug fix: Program would crash if you deleted a empty menu. Cor, havn't I been busy :-) ____________________________________________________________________ SECTION 2 : Standard Program Elements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Certain parts of the program crop up often such as file selectors, these are described here. File Selectors: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A standard selector is used when choosing files or sprites. It shows a list of names (with filetypes if appropriate) and two icons to scroll up and down. Directories can be entered, and you can return to the starting directory by selecting the <parent> from the top of the list. Dialogue Boxes: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When input from the keyboard is required a dialogue box is used which is similar in function to those found on the desktop. Often existing text is presented in the box for editing. left arrow : move left shift + left arrow : move left by one word ctrl + left arrow : move to beginning of line right arrow : move right shift + right arrow : move right by one word ctrl + right arrow : move to end of line delete and backspace : delete to the left of the cursor copy : delete to the right Ctrl-U : clear whole line return : finish editing When editing an article these extra functions are available: up arrow : move up by one line shift + up arrow : move to top of page down arrow : move down by one line shift + down arrow : move to bottom of page f1 : insert newline character In some cases you will be limited to the length of string that can be inputted (e.g. with some filenames) but in others there is no limit (not strictly true since BASIC can only handle strings of 256 characters). In these cases the text will scroll left and right. The Colour Requester: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you wish to change colours in a magazine you will be shown a palette on which to make your choices. The foreground colour is selected by clicking with 'select' on one of the sixteen colours shown. The background is selected by using the 'adjust button'. Your colour choices are shown just below the palette so that you can experiment with different combinations before you make a final decision. When you are satisfied with the colour combination you click on the word "DONE" and the changes are applied. The New Menu System: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As of version 2.31 there is a new menu system, which is a vast improvement on the previous system. It is based on the menu system of other computers i.e. the Mac and Amiga. A menu bar is brought up by pressing and holding the "menu" button (the middle one) on your mouse. On the menu bar there should be a number of options (plus a time/date which has no function other than to tell the time), whilst still holding down the menu button you can move your mouse over these options. Doing so will cause a menu to drop down from which you can make a selection by letting go of the menu button whilst over your choice, which is highlighted. Letting go elsewhere will result in no selection being made and the menu dissappearing and moving back onto the bar before you let go will allow you to open the other menus. In short, hold down the middle button, move over the menu bar, move over a menu selection and let go. _________________________________________________________________ SECTION 3 : Help! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Application Directory ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Application directory contains the resources used by MEditate, bar the articles. If you open this directory you will see all the usual files that an application has plus a directory called "magsystem". "Magsystem" contains all the files that are loaded by the magazine when it starts up. In the 'read-only' version the tracker-player and music files would be stored here, but the editor does not run the music. In this directory are three other files essential to the magazine: 1) "!pointer" This file simply contains the pointer sprite. It's colours are controled by the palette file in the Articles directory, use the desktop palette application to alter it. 2) "bannerfile" All the graphics used by the menu system are stored in this sprite file. The sprites may be from any mode other than 256 colour modes. All mode 12 graphics should use the default palette that you have chosen, other sprites will have their own pallets mapped onto the current palette. If you open it you will see the sprite for the control panel plus any other graphic that appears on a menu. The control panel should have a large area for the main window and contain the following 3 buttons: Previous Page/Menu, Next Page, Exit Article/Root Menu. In addition to these two optional buttons are available: Exit to Desktop and Shush. The Exit button should be included in normal circumstances and the shush button is used to turn music on and of so the trackerplayer must be loaded to use it. 3) Magdata This file contains some of the variables used by the magazine. The variables are fully labelled in the file and can be either altered in !Edit or by using the Configuration program for the editor (see later). The Configuration Program ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you load Lunchtime you will be given a list of options: 1) Create New Magazine Disc. This sets up a new articles directory on a disc in drive 0. You will have to add palettes and a font before it can be used. (See 'The Articles Directory' for more info). It is usually a better idea to copy an existing articles directory and delete the articles, sprites and the two files 'freemenus' and 'newmenus'. 2) Change Editor Variables. Enters a further menu which allows the information in the file MagData (see 'The !MEditate Applications Directory'). If you're confident this file can also be edited directly in !Edit, all the data is labelled. The estimated memory that is displayed should give you a rough idea as to what it should be set at. 1) Change Memory Allocations Another menu. The number in brackets after each option is the value that is currently selected. Altering the memory requirements may mean that you need to alter the Wimpslot in the !Run file. 1) Maximum Number of Pages. Self explanatory. Can be altered at a later date, enlarged if necessary or shrunk to the size of the largest article when you have finished. 2) Menu Array size. This is the number of objects that are in the menus. To start with 100 to 200 is about right, depending on the size of your mag. When you have finished your magazine it can be set to the number of lines in the file "articles.palettes.newmenus". Use the GOTO option in !Edit to get this info. 3) Banner memory. The memory that is reserved for banners this should be a bit larger than the banner file (!MEditate.magsystem.bannerfile). 4) Article graphics Memory. This should be a bit larger than the biggest sprite file in your Articles directory. 5) Sprite Workspace. This is used by the software an shouldn't normally be changed, however if memory is tight it can be lowered. 6) Previous Menu. 2) Change Default Font You will be asked for the filename of the default font, the current default font is shown in brackets. 3) Alter Icon Coordinates This will give you a list of the icons, select one to alter it's location. You will be shown the control panel, use the mouse to drag a box over the icon or area. Icons can be disabled by changing all the coordinates to -1 with !Edit, only do this with the Shush button and the Exit button, all the others are necessary to run the magazine. 4) Previous Menu Without Saving Changes Quit with out a save. 5) Previous Menu Quits and saves. 3) Editor. This enters the Editor proper. 4) Quit. After changing options you may wish to quit. In Brief ~~~~~~~~ This is an overview of the stages involved in the creation of the magazine, it does not go into detail. For more detail you should refer to the rest of the manual. Remember if you have problem you can always contact the author and ask him to help. 1) Design a control panel and save it with any other menu graphics (more can be added later) in the sprite file, "bannerfile" (!MEditate.magsystem.bannerfile). The sprite's name should be 'menuscreen'. 2) Use the configuration program to alter memory allocations and the location of the main text area and icons. 3) Create a blank articles directory with the necessary files, (i.e. a default font and palettes) 4) Set up your menus and add your articles using the magazine editor. To create an article: 5) Put an unformatted ASCII file in the directory articles.text and graphics (if any) in the directory articles.sprites. 6) Load the editor, use the 'ASCII to Magtext' option to convert the article to Magtext. 7) Use 'assign article' to set up the menu entry for the article around a comment or sprite. At this point it is advisable to save the menus. 8) Enter the article and edit it to taste, adding graphics if you like. 9) Save it. 10) Repeat until you are satisfied with your magazine. 11) Get a friend to check your mag through. There are always things that you will have missed. 12) Put the magsystem directory with the read-only version of the program and add an introduction program and music if required. Also change the name and icons (there is one icon for the directory and one for the iconbar, "!iconbar") of this program to suit your magazine. Editing Menus ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Introduction Menus are made up of two objects: lines of text and sprites (referred to as banners). In addition to these visible items there are two types of area that can be assigned, one to enter another menu and one to enter an article. Thus either text or sprites can be used as menu entries for articles or other menus. The objects can be placed anywhere on screen. In normal editor use the 'menu' button brings three menu options, each of which is delt with in it's own article.: - File Options. Contains all the saving and loading options. - Menu Options. Contains the Options for preparing menus. - Edit Mode. This contains one option which toggles the "edit mode" on and off. The edit mode allows you to edit existing menu items it is neccesary to have a separate mode for this so that items can be select by clicking on them, an action which would otherwise enter an article or menu. The File Options Menu This menu is accessible whilst you are in a magazine menu, it contains the functions that effect the whole magazine. Save Menufiles: It is rather important to save your menus regularly, this option saves information for all of the menus, not just the menu that you are working on. Load Menufiles: Often it is desirable to restore an older menufile if you have made changes that you are not happy with, it is quicker than undoing things by hand. ASCII To Magtext: Before a Text File can be understood by the Editor it needs to be processed. This function formats the textfile and adds variables used by the magazine to it (e.g.default colour). When you select this option you will be asked to choose a text file with the file selector and then you will be asked to enter a filename for then new file, this can be the same if you wish but that will over-write the text file so keep a copy. Magtext To ASCII You may need to change an Article back to normal Text. This works in the same way as the previous function. * command: This option isn't much use in this version of the editor, but I have left it in because it may come in handy. It allows you to use CLI commands from within the Editor. Use it with care, some CLI commands can be quite destructive (e.g. delete, rmkill, format). Exit: Quits MEditate The Menu Options Menu From this menu you can Change the current menu. Don't forget to save any changes (see "The options Menu") Display Info: Displays some information about the current menu. Add Comment: Adds a text string to the menu display. You will be asked to input the string and then you will be able to drag the string about using the mouse, click on select to place the text. The text will be displayed in the current colours. Add Banner: This adds a banner from the pool of sprites that were loaded from the file bannersprites (see "The Lunchtime Application Directory") when then editor started up. You will be shown a list of sprites which can be scrolled up and down from this list you must select one and then you will be able to place it with the mouse. Assign Menu: This option creates a new menu and then lets you set up the area of screen that activates the menu. Firstly you define the area that will activate the menu by dragging a bounding rectangle. The pointer will change to a crosshair whilst you do this. You would normally define this area over a text comment or a graphic. Then you will be asked to enter a name for the menu, this is only for the users convenience, and you can leave it as the name that the computer generates (something like "Menu 4 Name"). Assign Article: This works in the same way as 'Assign menu' except that you are asked to select a MagText File before you select an area instead of inputting a name. The area that you define then loads the article that you selected. Change Colours: This changes the colours of the next text comment without changing any existing menu colours. Change default Colours: Changes the foreground and background colours of the whole menu. The Edit Mode When you enter the Edit Mode, by selecting 'Edit Mode On/Off', all the normal menu functions are suspended. Edit Mode is exited if select 'Edit Mode On/Off' from the menu or if you click on the "exit article" button. On entering, all the menu items have a box drawn around them. To alter an item, click on it (it will be highlighted and an info box is shown) and bring up the pulldown menus with the 'Menu' button on the mouse. The menu bar now has a new menu, "Edit Options" instead of Menu Options. The other two menus are unaltered. The New menu offers the following functions: Reposition: This will allow you to alter the location of the selected item. Once you have chosen this option you will position the object in the same manner that it was origionaly placed (i.e. either by dragging a box or simply placing it) Change Fg/Bg: This only applys to text objects. It only affects the colour of the chosen object. Change Item: This only applys to text and graphics. With text you edit the string and with a graphic you choose another sprite. If the object has an assocaited menu or article then the boundary may need to be altered as well. Delete: Simply deletes an item. Centre Item: Alters the 'x' coordinate of an item so that it is in the middle of the menu. Editing Articles ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you are reading this article from the editor rather than the read-only software or the text file, you will notice that there are odd characters at the end of each line. These are used in the formating, the most common one marks the end of each line and is not really used but it was included because it may be used in a later version, it may be ignored. The second character is more important, it marks the end of a paragraph or a blank line and is used by the text formatting routine to force a cariage return. In fact carriage returns are converted to this character when text is converted into a mag text file. You may type this character either by using 'f1' or by holding down 'alt' and typing 253, it's ASCII value. Before a text file can be loaded as an article it must be converted to a MagText file, for details on how to do this see "The File Options Menu" in the section dealing with menus. And then an area to click on must be set up (see "The editor menu" so that you may enter the article. Once you have loaded your article you will see that it is formatted to the width of the main window and is in default colours. To change this you should access the Article Editor Menu' (see later). You will be able to change the colours and maybe add graphics for the title and illustrations, or You may need a different palette or font. All the graphics for an article must be in one sprite file, but they may be from any mode (other than 256 colour ones). Mode 12 graphics should use the same palette as the article which will usually be your default palette, other sprites will have their palettes mapped onto the current palette. The graphics are to be found the the directory 'articles.sprites and the fonts/palettes are in 'articles.palettes'. When your article has been edited, don't forget to save it. When you exit an article that you have altered you will be asked whether you wish to save it if you have not already done so. The Article Editing Menus This Menu Bar consists of three items: File Options, Edit Articles and Misc. Presently Misc contains only 1 item, namely, Formatting Characters On/Off. This toggles the characters that mark the end of lines and carriage returns between a visible state and an invisible state. They will always be invisible in the read only version, of course. Many of these options affect individual lines which should be selected beforehand (these options are marked with an asterisk below). Lines are selected simply by clicking over them, and can be deselected by clicking a second time. The selection is cleared when you change the page, when a manu option has been selected and of course when you quit the article. FILE OPTIONS: Save Article: Self explanitary. You will also be asked if you want to save when you leave the article if you have edited it. Load Sprites: This will load a sprite file from use within the article. Doing this will over write any existing sprites and so you will be warned if this will happen. If you wish to overwrite existing sprites they will be automatical removed from their positions within the article. Load New Palette: Allows you to select a new palette file for the article. When changing the palette it is best to only change the colours that do not appear on the control panel so that the panel remains the same. If you are using graphics that are not Mode 12 then their palettes will be mapped to the default palette so watch out. I am working to remedy this. Load New Font: Changes the font. EDIT ARTICLE: *Edit Line: This option only operates on the first line selected because you can change lines whilst using this function. Over the line that you have selected a standard input box opens up so that you can alter the text. When you have finished editing and have pressed return, the text is reformatted, so it does not matter how much extra text you type. There are also extra key presses that let you move the input box up and down to other lines, the text is formatted if need be before you move: Up arrow - move up one line Down Arrow - move down one line Up arrow + Shift - move to top line Down arrow + Shift - move to bottom line f1 - add a new line character When reformatting occurs extra lines may be created and this may alter the formatting later on in the article e.g. say you have a line in red on page two of a yellow article and you add or delete some text so that the position of the red text moves. The colour will not move with the text. This also affects margins and centred lines, pictures are also stationary. *Insert Line: Simply Inserts a blank line in front of the selected line. Selecting consecutive lines results in blank lines being inserted in front of every other line rather than a block of blank lines as one might expect. Fixing this causes other combinations of selected lines to stop working, I can't win! This is on my list of alterations. This does not affect colour etc. in the same way as the Edit option although pictures are still stationary. Delete Line: The opposite of the above, but it works as expected. *Centre Line: Centres a line between the two margins, which are usually set to the edges of the window. If after centring, the text is offset then you should check that the margins are in the right place and that there are no trailing spaces at the end of the text. This function ignores the formatting characters at the end of lines and the space that is always present before an end of line charater. Left Justify: Put the Line back to the default justification i.e. the line starts at the left margin. Right Justify: Moves text so that the right hand side is aligned along the right margin so that the ragged edge is to the left. *Change Left Margin: Allows you to indent selected lines. When you select this option you will see a bar which can be moved with the mouse. This bar indicates the position of the first character, click to set it. This option causes the text to be reformatted with the same effects as with 'edit line'. These option are useful to make text flow around graphics. *Change Right Margin: As above but alters the other margin. *Change Line Colour: You are asked to select colours from the palette requester, for the foreground and for the background. The colours are then applied to the selected lines. Insert Graphic: Firstly you will be asked to select the graphic from a filer window, after which you simply place the graphic where you want it. Finaly you will be given the option to center the graphic. Sprites are plotted before the text, so text can be overlayed onto the picture. If no sprites are loaded you will be asked to load some using the menu option: File Options - Load Sprites. Delete Graphic: This highlights all the graphics on screen so that you can select one to be deleted. Watch out for overlaping regions as some times there is no real way of telling which graphic will be deleted. It will be the top graphic but if the overlapping area are the same colours (e.g. bits of background) then you wont be able to tell. Change Fg/Bg: This changes the default foreground and background colours for the article using the standard palette requester. All lines that are the same as the previous colours will be changed to the new ones. This only affects pages from (and including) the current page so that you can have pages of differing default colours in an article. When you have finished ... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you are satisfied with your magazine you need to prepare the read-only version. This is simply done by copying the read-only version of the software and your articles directory onto a fresh floppy disc (or into an archive, or two separate discs if the magazine is big). Remember that the Articles directory can be put into the !MEditate directory if you wish. You will also need to alter the memory allocations, and maybe add music and an intro all of which are discussed later in this section. The Read-only program is the program that the magazine should be distributed with, not the editor. There are two programs in the Read-Only version's directory, '!Runimage' and 'Lunchtime', the latter is the main program. All that '!Runimage' does is to run 'Lunchtime', so you can add an introduction etc to it. Memory It is advisable to minimise the memory used after you have finished a magazine, although it is not absolutely neccesary. This is done by using the congiguration program which is loaded before the editor, by editing the file, "!MEditate.magsystem.magdata" or by using the separate program, "!MUtils". The following alterations can be made. Number of Pages: Set this to the number of pages in the longest article. Number of Menu items: Set this to the number of lines present in the file 'newmenus' in the 'Articles.palettes' directory which contains all the data for the menus. Memory for the menu banners: This should be set a few kilobytes above the file size of the banner file ('!MEditate.magsystem.banners'). Memory for the articles graphics: This should be set a few kilobytes above the file size of the largest sprite file in the 'Articles.sprites' directory. After checking that the magazine still runs, (make sure that you load your largest articles) you can then lower the "Wimpslot". This is allocated in the '!Run' with the two 'Wimpslot' commands. Reduce this as much as possible, a rough estimate of the size needed is given in the configuration program. This is only a rule of thumb, a bit of trial and error will be needed. If reduce the memory by too much you will probably get a 'No room for this DIM' error but occasionaly when you set the memory to a borderline value, other more unusual messages can appear (e.g. 'Too many nested structures' or even 'Mistake error no. -2.14748364E9' a non-existant error). So when you have minimised your memory test the magazine thoroughly loading all the longest articles. Music The !Runimage file of the read only version is already set up to start a simple tune (but I've REMed out the commands). This version of !MEditate uses Hugo Feinnes' music module and so it will play standard Archimedes Trackermodules. In future versions I hope to use Quantum's QTM module, because that seem to give better music quality and a wider range of file formats (at least it will when it's finished :-)) To add a tune: Put the music module into the !MEditate.magsystem directory along with the music file of your choice. Load the program !Runimage into a text editor that can handle BASIC. Remove the REMs from the following lines. The one that has the *RMLOAD command (9) The one that reads A%=TRUE (10) The one that has the *playmod command (19) Add a REM to the line that reads, A%=FALSE (11) Finaly alter the file name in the line with the 'playmod' command from 'yourfile' to the file name of your song. This is just a simple example, you have free rain over the !Runimage file although you musn't remove the lines that define the variables A% or Z% because they are passed to the main program. Introductions Introduction are also added to the !Runimage file. There isn't really much to say about them. You can use any screen mode up to 160k (which includes 80k modes with a shadow screen). Introductions need not be very complex they could just be a simple picture, but they do enhance a magazine. See above for music. _____________________________________________________________________ Should you need to contact me for help, bug reports, information about our own magazine - Lunchtime or for any other reason write to: Andrew Bennett 203 London Road, Chesterton, Newcastle, Staffs. ST5 7HT.