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1994-03-31
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367 lines
7 Feb 94
Addendum to the MakeDemo Manual.
1. 'NAG' Screens and Branding:
If you choose to 'brand' and do NOT include a 'NAG' screen in
your creation, and the user runs your creation without using the
correct validation code, it will not run and the user will be
returned directly to the DOS prompt.
Previously, the presentation would run anyway, showing any 'NAG'
screens when and if they came up.
The chart below shows exactly what the different options mean.
Using MakeDemo Runtimes | Without | With
to Present Your Creations | 'NAG' Screens | 'NAG' Screens
--------------------------+---------------+---------------------
WWP Shareware | |
| n | Show
WWP Registered | / |
Bound into .EXE File | a | NAG
Branded with Ser. No. | |
Validation Code |---------------| Screens
None or Incorrect | Terminate |
|---------------|---------------------
Correct | n/a | Bypass 'NAG' Screens
------------------------
2. Making the System Menu Invisiable
In response to those who want to assign certain keys to system
functions like 'SHELL', 'COLOR', etc., but NOT include the always
accessible "_SIDE0" screen, just rename it "MENU0". Your user can
still access the screen by pressing <F1>, so you should have
something on it for him or her to view. You can include a menu
with highlighted bars or leave it off. It's up to you. The menu
need not be layed out on the screen for it to be active. Only the
menu definition need be there. MSHOW.EXE looks for the 'MENU0'
screen only if it can't find a '_SIDE0' system menu screen.
------------------------
3. Auto Mode Default Upons Start-up
Some MakeDemo afficionados have requested the ability to start
a presentation in something other than the default "EFFECT"
presentation mode. The runtimes now recognize the '@' symbol
prefixed to one of the presentation methods as it appears in the
system menu, either the accessible "_SIDE0" or "MENU0" screen.
For example..
MENU0,SHELL=S,COLOR=C,@AUTO=A,N_EFFECT=N
The '@' prefix for 'AUTO' tells the runtime to initially start in
the 'AUTO' mode.
---------------------
4. Defining Screen Segments and Menu Items Now the Same
MakeDemo runtimes now look for screen segments and menu bars
using the same methodology. The width is determined by looking
along the top edge; the height is found by traversing the right
edge.
In the case of screen segments, the runtimes look for the top
left corner of the segment defined by the color attribute NOT
being a BLACK background and a dull GREEN foreground color. This
means that the color attribute along these two edges need not be
uniform.
Defining menu selections is a little more limiting. The top edge
( or line for a normal list bars ) must be of the same background
color. The foreground color can change. This makes highlighting
certain keys possible. The runtimes determine the the width by
looking for a change in background color. Multiple line menu
selections must use the same background / foreground colors along
the right edge. The runtimes replace the color attribute along
the right edge with that of the character to its immediate left
before presenting the screen.
------------------------------
5. "DIALOG" Now a Reserved Name
A dialog screen named "DIALOG" is now a reserved name. This
screen presents a message and a button to click on. Right now
there are three possible messages that use this screen for
warning the user that something is wrong with whatever has been
attempted. Primarily used in "MINSTALL.EXE" the three messages
warn for no disk in disk drive, disk in disk drive doesn't
appear to have been formatted, and the file to install can not
be found on the source disk.
The DIALOG screen conatins all the messages. To be recognized by
MINSTALL, each message must start it's own line aligned at the
left edge of the screen. The line must start with
D, meaning there is no disk in the disk drive,
F, meaning that the disk appears to be unformatted, and
S, meaning that the source disk isn't the correct one.
The messages can be listed in any order and take no more than
one line.
MINSTALL looks for "<Alt+9>DIALOG" as the upper left corner of a
screen segment. The width and height are defined as are any menu
or database fields as defined in the manual.
6. Now your computer can access the yellow background color
along with all the other high intensity background colors for
display on EGA and VGA monitors. While we locked out access to
blinking colors, MSHOW as well as the other runtimes, when an EGA
or VGA monitor is detected, automatically switches your computer
to substitute the high intensity for the blinking background
colors.
---------------------------------
7. Different ways to Exit Your Creation
You can now exit your creation returning to DOS with the
option of first clearing the screen. If you are calling your
creation from within another program, in effect shelling out to
view a presentation, you might not want MkShow to clear the
screen for that second or two while the calling program is
attempting to paint the screen. Here's how it works: If there is
now "XXX" screen, exit from the presentation does not clear the
screen. Or, quiting by using the "EXIT1" menu selection on the
system menu will cause the last screen to remain. Otherwise, the
screen will be cleared before the DOS prompt appears.
--------------------------
8. Roll Your Own Sound Effects
Sound effects have been expanded. And if you don't like our
choices, you can define your own right on the screen.
There are two types of audio: sound effects and tunes. Of the
former, there is the sound ramp and the arcade sound. Each lasts
as long as it takes for the screen to present itself. The tunes
continue to play out even if the presentation effect is
completed. These audio selections are choosen from the
"presentation effects menu" while in MDEMO.
Should you like to write your own tunes, be our guest. For
example, the following string of characters is the tune for
"Mary Had A Little Lamb:"
EE*DD*CC*DD*EE*EE*EE****DD*DD*DD****EE*GG*GG
The letters denote the keys on a piano, The '*' denote a period
of silence. Type this on a clear line of the screen just as you
see it preceeded by a <Alt>,2 character. Use upper case letters.
Limit the number of characters to 80 or one line. That's all
there is to it. The lowest note is the 'G' below middle 'C'
signified by the '@'. The next note is 'A' represented by 'A' and
so on up to 'G'. Going further up the scale requires a little
sleigh of hand. Instead of starting the alphabet over, we just
continue. Here's a list of notes that MSHOW recognizes:
@ G
A A
B B
C C <-- Middle 'C'
D D
E E
F F
G G
A H <-- 440 Hz.
B I
C J
D K
E L
F M
------------------------
9. MkInstall discussion:
MkInstall is designed to install a program from archived
collections of files. By "install" we mean "unpack" or "unarc"
the archive to a target directory, first creating that directory
if necessary. Presently, MkInstall can work with PkZipped files,
LHArced files, or self extracting .EXE files. And MkInstall will
recreate the sub-directory structure defined in the archive
itself.
The MakeDemo distribution for the MkInstall program includes a
unpacking utility WLZ.EXE which you are free to include with
your distribution. It will unpack LHArced files that have been
renamed with the ".WLZ" extension. It is designed to be used by
the MkInstall program and will produce a visual bar graph on the
screen indicating progress in the unpacking process.
To unpack either ".ZIP" or ".LZH" files requires access to a copy
of PKUNZIP.EXE or LHA.EXE respectively already installed on the
user's system. Neither is supplied with MakeDemo. Use of either
will produce that utility's usual screen showing the progress of
the unpacking operation.
The real advantage of this methodology is that one install
program will work unaltered with distributions including either
PkZipped or LHArced files, or (with the included WLZ.EXE
utility) LHArced files renamed with the "WLZ" extension.
An example might show how MkInstall is designed to work. You'll
note that a menu selection prefixed with "&&" tells MkInstall
that the following menu selection is the name of a file to be
installed. For example
&&MDEM5A
is interpreted thusly. MkInstall first looks for as file named
"MDEM5A" with the one of the following extensions: "COM", "EXE",
"BAT", "ZIP", "LZH", or "WLZ", in that order. Once a match is
found, MkInstall performs as follows:
1. Copies the archive to the target directory, creating it
first if it doesn't already exist.
2. MkInstall internally changes to the target directory and
performs the equivalent of
MDEM5A Self-extracting .EXE file
PKUNZIP -d MDEM5A PkUnzip MDEM5A.ZIP
LHARC x MDEM5A LHArc (eXtract) MDEM5A.LZH
WLZ x MDEM5A WLZ (eXtract) MDEM5A.WLZ
3. Deletes the source archive file from the target directory.
4. MkInstall changes back to the source directory, ready to
present the next screen and the possible unpacking of
another archive.
If you intend your program to be installed in a number of
subdirectories of the target directory, you'll need to make sure
that your files are archived using the correct switches. Here
are a cople of lines from a .BAT file we use to put together the
MakeDemo distribution.
pkzip -a -P mdem5a @mdem5a.cfg
lha a /x1 mdem5a @mdem5a.cfg
We use a configuration file listing all files that go into the
archive. That file lists each file complete with its own path.
Of course, these subdirectories must exist below the directory
where the packing occurs and contain the files so defined.
Show below is the list of files that go into the MDEM5A archive
and where they can be found.
file_idm.diz
readme
exam\watch_me.1st
exam\go_show.bat
doc\register.doc
wwp_make.com
mshow.exe
doc\pack_a.lst
Large programs can be broken into a number of small archives
with a screen in your install program devoted to describing
each's unique features. And if your packed files are organized
differently depending upon the capacity of the medium being
used, the screen can alert the user as to how to handle the
differences. Or you can easily make a MkInstall variation for
each.
CHK_SYS Screen
This screen empowers the install program to check a number of
system parametes and present a warning message if a problem is
found. Generally, the MkInstall program can install a program on
virtually any system, you might want to alert the user of
possible problems area in the system configuration. For example,
maybe you would like to alert the user that RAM is not adequate
to eventually run your program.
The CHK_SYS screen is basically a dialog screen that can present
a half dozen messages should conditions warrant. It is similar to
other MakeDemo dialog screens. Instead of the defining menu
selections in the lines with a preceding <Alt,4> character, we
list the system conditions for checking. If MkInstall finds any
of the selections not adequate, the apprpriate message comes up.
For example, if DOS version less than 7.10 is discovered, the
message following the "D," is displayed shown on the screen
below, there being no DOS greater than 6.2 as of this writing. In
like manner, MkInstall checks available RAM and as long as
MEM=641 or more, message "M" appears. Message "C" appears only if
the there is a math coprocessor present.
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| <Alt,4>CHK_SYS,DOS=7.10,MEM=710,FILES=70,BUFFERS=70,8087 |
| |
|D,MakeDemo requires DOS version 2.10 or greater to function |
|M,Crea|ing an application needs 256 kBytes RAM; running it, |
|F,FILES=15 or less can thwart apps running under DOS version|
|B,MakeDemo creations work best with disk caching or BUFFERS=|
|C,MakeDemo does not make use of a math coprocessor. |
| |
| +------------------------------------------+ |
| | W a r n i n g | |
| | | |
| | <Alt,6> X | |
| | X | |
| | X | |
| | | |
| | To continue, press a key or click mouse. | |
| +------------------------------------------+ |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------+
The message is placed like any other field on a MakeDemo screen.
The space following the <Alt,6> defines the upper left corner.
The left edge, defined by a different foreground and background
color, sets the width and height. Three lines of 35 spaces should
be allocated for displaying the message. MkInstall word wraps the
message to fit.
PROBLEM Screen
MkInstall uses this screen to warn the installer that something
is wrong with the way the installation is progressing. There are
ten malfunctions for which a message will pop up on the screen.
Most of the message are self explanatary, but you might wish to
express the problem a little differently.
The layout is much the same as other dialog screens. Please note
that the <Alt,9> character is used to define the upper left
corner of the message area. This different from the CHK_SYS
screen where the <Alt,6> character was used.
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| <Alt,4>DIALOG,_YES=O |
| |
|D,The requested disk drive does not exist on your system. |
|R,The disk drive is not ready. Make sure disk is in drive |
|F,Can't find disk sectors. Possibly disk needs first to b |
|S,Unable to continue. Problem is possibly limited availab |
|M,Unable to create requested directory and/or tree struct |
|X,You must prefix the directory with the drive letter des |
|P,Unable to continue: can not find PKUNZIP.EXE by followi |
|L,Unable to continue: can not find LHA.EXE by following s |
|Z,Miscellaneous error. |
|A,Unable to find archive. Make sure file exists, possibly |
| |
| +------------------------------------------+ |
| | X W a r n i n g | |
| | X | |
| | X <Alt,9> DIALOG X | |
| | X | |
| | X X | |
| | | |
| | <Alt,6> Ok X | |
| +------------------------------------------+ |
| |
+----------------------------------------------------------+