There are a number of options that enable users to 'customise' EasiWriter. These options are installed either in the last line of the !Run file or in the EasiWriter Choices file located in !Boot (for versions of RISC OS that support this feature).
All versions of EasiWriter support right to left word processing which is useful if you want to write in languages such as Hebrew.
You set this by adding -b followed by the family name of the font you want to be typed from right to left. i.e.
-bRoyal
Would invoke Royal.SimpBibHeb & Royal.SimpHebrew.
Separate font names with a comma and be sure to use the correct combinations of upper and lower case.
Another setting you can make is 'g<ihgfedcba>'; where the <ihgfedcba> is a bitfield that controls six different aspects of the way in which GIFs are created. The meaning of each bit is summarised as follow:
a = 1 (the final digit) suppresses anti-aliasing equations before passing them to InterGif. This means that fraction dividers, root signs and some large symbols will not be anti-aliased, but the conversion will be slightly faster.
b = 1 suppress setting the top left and bottom right pixels of the bitmap generated for equations in HTML export non-transparent. Some Browsers do not handle GIFs with rows of transparent bits correctly - setting the corners to a non-transparent (white) pixel should avoid such problems.
c = 1 suppress telling InterGif to generate a GIF image with a transparent background for equations.
d = 1 suppress telling InterGif to generate a GIF image with a transparent background for draw files.
e Not implemented f Not implemented
g = 1 Forces EasiWriter/TechWriter to save the file names in the HTML source as uppercase. Useful if you are using a DOS filing system that changes the GIF file names to uppercase.
h Not implemented
i = 1 tells InterGif to use the standard Acorn 256 colour palette for converting illustrations instead of defaulting to the 'Netscape friendly' 216 (6 x 6 x6) colour cube. This feature is implemented in version 4.10 onwards. The bitfield value ignores leading zeros (which are assumed by default) so both 'g0100' and 'g100' are legitimate ways to specify that the equation GIFs should have a white background rather than a transparent background.
Used when saving Word documents. Controls the resolution of the BMPs created from Draw files, in dots per inch where N is the value of the resolution you want. If not set defaults to screen resolution.
For example N could be 300 or 1024 to suit the output device. Be aware that very large bit maps can be produced so keep the value as low as is reasonable.
This sets the location a document will be saved if you do not type in a pathname.
For example with the option set as:
-oADFS::HardDisc4.$.Doco
a file called 'Chap1' will be saved in ADFS::HardDisc4.$.Doco.Chap1
This controls the delay in centiseconds between key presses for Smart quotes to work. By default the this is set to 50 (half a second).
For example to set it to .75 of a second use
-q75
This controls the amount of RAM reserved for documents. By default this is set to 20K. Documents larger than this will be accessed from disc. To set it to a different value say 100K use:
-r100
Note: If you hold down Ctrl when opening a document it will all be loaded into memory (if there is enough room).
This controls the amount of spaces used to substitute a tab when the Expand tabs option is selected in the Choices menu.
You can force EasiWriter to start up from a Stationery pad by including the Stationery pads name in the last line of the !Run file preceded by -u.
For example: -u BlankPaper
would cause this Stationery pad to be open whenever a new document was opened by clicking on the EasiWriter icon in the icon bar.
This can be done automatically by selecting the stationery in the Stationery menu and saving Choices.
Used when saving Word documents. Controls the resolution of the Equations created from Draw files, in dots per inch
where N is the value of the resolution you want.
For example N could be 300 or 1024 to suit the output device. Be aware that very large bit maps can be produced so keep the value as low as is reasonable.
If not set defaults to screen resolution. TechWriter Pro+ only.
Normally set up by saving Choices from the Icon bar menu x takes a value of 0 (Inches eighths) to 7 (Ciceros). The values represent the order the units appear in the Default units menu in the Icon Bar menu. i.e. -x3 would change the default document measurement to Millimetres.
If the !Run file contains the parameter -y at the end of the Run line:
Run <EasiWriter$Dir>.!RunImage %*0 -y
then EasiWriter uses a dynamic area for holding its data, rather than using application space. This can improve performance when processing large files which require several megabytes of memory. This option does not work with some printer drivers (see -z below).
Some printer drivers have not been updated to take account of the new font manager. If you have a problem printing add -z to the command line. See -y above
The trigger characters (of which there may be up to seven) and their substitutions are held in Message file lines starting with x35:. Note however, that it is only possible to replace a single printable character with another printable character.
For example if you were to add a new line
x35:##¼½
where the:
With Smart quotes chosen, typing # once would work normally, typing it twice in rapid succession would produce a ¼ and three times would give ½.
You can have a maximum of seven x35 commands giving you access to 14 or more characters that would otherwise be awkward to type.
These are held in the Messages File, rather than hard-wired into the code. (x26:to x29: for Strikeout position, Underline position, Strikeout thickness, Underline thickness) in that order.
The values are integers in the range 0-255 in 1/255 units of the font height, measured from the top where applicable.
In Word and RTF, documents fonts are referenced by name, so that when EasiWriter imports such documents it needs to make sense of the fontnames which have been set up on non-Acorn platforms. To do this it uses a font mapping list, contained in the Messages file in the Application directory. If the name is not found in the list, it chooses one of the standard Acorn fonts using extra information in the Word or RTF file.
On importing, EasiWriter will take each font name and:
For example, the 2 sets of Messages supplied with EasiWriter 3.27 are:
g1:Times n1:Trinity.Medium
g2:Helvetica n2:Homerton.Medium
g3:Courier n3:Corpus.Medium
g4:Symbol n4:Sidney
g5:Monotype Sorts n5:Selwyn
g6:Arial n6:Homerton.Medium
g7:MS LineDraw n7:MDA1.Medium
If the font used in a Word or RTF document was 'Arial', message g6, the substitute font used by EasiWriter would be Homerton.Medium, message n6.
If there is a better choice of font than that provided by the default algorithm (iii), the message list can be extended by adding pairs of messages, g8:, and so on with the non-Acorn font name, n8: with the corresponding Acorn name.
The Messages file located in the !EasiWriter directory contains the text used by the index generator - see, see also and and.
s54.1: see
s54.2:see also
s54.3: and
The second line of the Messages file contains the default unit of measurement and a 'gotcha'. Inches is followed by a space.
x3:Inches
This way EasiWriter can distinguish between the two forms of inches it uses. Remove the space and it changes to decimal inches. If putting in any other unit you must remove the space.
The Resources file contains the following line where 192 is 16 × the default font size.
r1:d73ffff7 0 0 0 0 0 - 18 1 0 20 1 192 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ff 0 0 0 0 100
The Messages file contains the following line:
x5:~detach
Remove the ~ to force EasiWriter to load the entire document into memory. (Hold down Ctrl when loading to cancel this command).
x36:<HR>
When exporting linked sets of HTML pages from a single document, this will
appear at the top of each linked page.
x37:
The value given here is inserted before the first and last navigation lines when a document is exported with 'Split at break' is set. The default is a single space character. If you prefer, this could be use to insert a logo, image or some descriptive text.
x38:Next x39:Previous x40:Contents
Textual HTML placed on pages to indicate links when using the Split at break HTML option. Can be replaced with a reference to an image which should be placed in the Images folder created when the HTML output is generated.
i.e.
x40:<IMG SRC="Contents.gif">
or perhaps better:
x40:<IMG SRC="Contents.gif" ALT ="Contents">
which will insert the word "Contents" if the image is missing.
x41:Top/Top, x42:Bottom/Bottom
This used for links to the top or bottom of a page.
There are two items divided by a '/'. The first is the name of the link
reference and should not normally be changed. The second is the text
displayed on the page and can be changed with a reference to an image which
should be placed in the Images folder created when the HTML output is
generated. i.e.
x41:Top/<IMG SRC="Top.gif" ALT = "Go to Top">
x43:<HR>
Inserted into exported HTML just above the bottom link of a page.
x47:<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
HTML document type header string. This is the default description of the
HTML document type. It helps browsers understand and render the HTML as you
intend.
x58:[%s] Default format for footnotes where %s is the footnote number/symbol.
x61:B The tag inserted for bold text in exported HTML. Purists may wish to change this to something like 'x61:strong'.
x62:I The tag inserted for italic/oblique text in exported HTML. Purists may wish to change this to something like 'x62:em'.
x63:U The tag inserted for underlined text in exported HTML. Purists won't use this at all!
x81 - x86 and x91 - x96 are provided for altering the HTML created by the headers of sections or subsections. By default these will be headers <H1>, <H2>, ... etc. The default actions are implicit so no actual settings need be made. The default actions are described in the messages file by a pair of comment lines (comments start with a #). You can therefore add these commands as you wish to generate alternative HTML output at the beginning and end of section/subsection headers. For obvious reasons you should only do this if you understand HTML! Note that in these tags, '%s' will be replaced by an appropriate ALIGN attribute and value.
x49 - x53 control the export and conversion of images (and
equations in TechWriter) when exporting a document as HTML. In general, all
types of image except JPEGs and PNGs will be converted into GIFs. This
process will use InterGif. EasiWriter and TechWriter contain the code to do
this themselves, but an external version will be used if !InterGif has been
'seen' by the filer. Refer to the help provided with InterGif for
information on the meanings of the following control strings.
Please note that each of the following control strings must have a trailing
space character.
x49:Intergif
Controls conversion of equations.
x50:Intergif -i
Controls conversion of Draw files.
x51:Intergif -i -t
Controls conversion of Sprites with 256 colours or less.
x52:Intergif -i -best 256 -t
Controls conversion of Sprites with 32k or more colours.
x53:Intergif -i -loop -t
Controls conversion of animations into animated GIFs.
Many of the above notes have been adapted from Jim Lesurf's TechWriter tips pages:
http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/TechWrite/Tips.html
Although described as TechWriter tips the vast majority apply equally to EasiWriter. The site is well worth a visit as it is being continually updated.
The date and time defaults can be altered by modifying 'Resources' file in the Application directory. The appropriate lines for the Time are:
t0:%24:%MI
t1:%Z12:%MI%AM
and the Date:
d0:%ZDY/%ZMN/%YR
d1:%WE, %MO %ZDY%ST, %CE%YR
d2:%W3, %M3 %ZDY, %CE%YR