Contents of Setting up the environment

Setting up the environment

${\manual META}$ ${\manual FONT}$ acknowledges a couple of environment variables in the course of its file searching algorithm, for the `E' feature to start your system editor in case of an error, and for setting up the online display. The Ini ${\mc MF}$ and Vir ${\mc MF}$ programs use multiple search paths when looking for command base files, the configuration file mfmemory.config, font description programs, and the text pool file mf.pool. Either you use the system call ``SetEnv <variable> <setting>'' to introduce your personal system configuration or you keep the internal defaults. Here is a list of the four path environments, their default settings and what ${\manual META}$ ${\manual FONT}$ expects to find in the respective directories.

Environment	Default setting	Files
`MFBASES`	`",MF:bases"`	`*.base` dump files
`MFCONFIG`	`",MF:config"`	`mfmemory.config`
`MFINPUTS`	`",MF:inputs"`	`*.mf` program files
`MFPOOL`	`",MF:pool"`	`mf.pool` string file

The comma in these defaults denotes the current directory as the first entry, i.e., if you want to search in `RAM:' first, you could say "RAM:,,MF:inputs", thus making the current directory the second search path. If the environment variables are not set by the `SetEnv' function call the internal defaults will become active and the current directory is always searched first, so you may want to keep them.

In case of an error or an interruption, when ${\manual META}$ ${\manual FONT}$ prompts you with a question mark you may answer by typing `e' (or `E'), thus invoking your text editor. This feature is controlled by the MFEDIT environment variable that holds a calling sequence to bring up your preferred system editor in the currently processed file (not necessaryly the file you called ${\manual META}$ ${\manual FONT}$ with) and in the offending line. Specify any program call or script that brings up your editor in file `%s' and line `%d.' The default setting is as follows, it invokes the MEmacs editor provided with the operating system:

   EDITOR "MEmacs goto %d %s"

You will find some ARexx scripts suitable for the Cygnus Ed Professional editor in the rexx directory. If you want to use them, simply set the environment variable MFEDIT to the (string) value

   "rx MF:rexx/MFEdit.rexx %s %d"

The second script NameStruc should be placed in the REXX: directory, because it is called directly from within MFEdit.rexx.

Also there is an online display feature as described in the ` ${\manual META}$ ${\manual FONT}$ book' by Don Knuth [4]. As it makes use of some advanced library functions not present in older versions of the Amiga operating system, it will work only with Amiga ${\mc DOS}$ 2.0 and higher (sorry). To activate this feature, set the environment variable MFWTERM to the value "amiterm" and every proof or smoke mode run will display its results on your screen.