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1992-11-24
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==============================================================================
NewAqua Copyright Glenn Gribble 1991,1992 - All Rights Reserved.
FishBowl Copyright Glenn Gribble 1992 - All Rights Reserved.
AddFish Copyright Glenn Gribble 1992 - All Rights Reserved.
NewAqua may be copied and redistributed provided that this notice
is included. NewAqua may not be sold for profit, but reasonable
distribution fees may be charged.
NewAqua uses the same data file format as Aquarium, but is not
based on the source to Aquarium.
Aquarium is Copyright Lennart Olsson 1989 - All Rights Reserved.
===============================================================================
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Getting Started
3. Using the Menus
4. Keyboard acceleration
5. Edit mode
6. Configuration commands
A. Author information
B. Release Notes
C. Files In Release
D. Keyboard reference
E. Menu reference
F. FishBowl program
G. AddFish program
H. Installation
1. Introduction
---------------
NewAqua is a program for viewing and printing Aquarium databases.
Aquarium databases contain information about disks and programs
on those disks. The most popular Aquarium database has all of the
Fred Fish disks from 1 to 560 and beyond (maintained by Udo Shuermann,
walrus@wam.umd.edu).
NewAqua does most everything that the original Aquarium by B Lennart
Olsson does and more.
Additional features:
Support for splitting the database onto multiple disks or directories.
Has resizable index and description windows.
Index and description windows have scroll bars.
Can display information about multiple fish in the description window.
Can store descriptions in memory after being read from disk.
Can display fish selected from index window.
Many screen modes supported.
Missing features:
NewAqua can not edit database entries.
The FishBowl allows manipulation of the database. Using FishBowl, the
database can split onto multiple floppies, or merged onto one large
disk.
The AddFish program adds new entries to the database.
2. Getting Started
------------------
In order to keep the archive size small, this release includes only the
database for fish 551 to 580. Data for fish 1 to 550 are available on
ab20.
A few terms used in this document:
Fish - the description of a single program from the
Fred Fish public domain collection
fish Disk - all the descriptions from a single Fred Fish disk
Fish Bowl - a directory containing many fish disks worth of
descriptions (must be stored on only one disk)
Aquarium database - a complete database consisting of many fish bowls
which may be on separate disks
To start the program, just double click on the "NewAqua" icon.
You will be presented with three windows: the Control window which
contains search control gadgets, the Description window, and the About
window which contains copyright information. Click on the close gadget
in the upper left corner of the About window to close the About window.
The 5 arrow and box gadgets in the control window control simple
search operations. The "next fish" gadget ( > ) advances to the next
fish in the database and displays its description in the description
window. The "next disk" gadget ( >> ) advances to the next disk in
the database and displays the description of all of the fish from that
disk. The "prev fish" ( < ) and "prev disk" ( << ) gadgets move
backwards in the database. The box gadget in the middle resets the
database to the beginning.
2.1 The Control Window
In addition to the simple movement gadgets, the control window
contains search control gadgets and long range movement gadgets.
The 30 buttons at the top of the control window select various categories
to which each displayed fish must belong. For instance, if the
"Communication" button is selected, the "next fish" button will only
select fish that belong to the "Communication" category.
The "Name" text gadget causes NewAqua to only display fish if the text
in the "Name" gadget appears in the name of the fish. For instance,
enter "pp" in the name gadget (reset the "Communication" button also).
Now, the next fish button will only display "pp" fish ("PPmore",
"PPlib", and "PP..." from the shipped database).
The "Text" gadget works the same way, only it searches through the
descriptive text to find a match.
The two gadgets "Disk Range" and "To" limit searching to the selected
range of disks.
If more than one of these search controls is in use, then all of the
conditions must be met. For instance, to search for communication
programs that have AREXX ports and do VT100 emulation, you would select
the "Communication" and "ARexx" buttons, enter "100" in the "Text" gadget
(use "100" because the text might include a space between "VT" and "100"),
and then press the next fish gadget to see matching fish.
The search control fields are not used by the "next disk" and "prev disk"
gadgets.
The long range movement gadgets are the "Disk" and "Fish" gadgets.
The "Disk" gadget displays the current disk number. This number will
be updated by the movement gadgets. To jump to another disk, just
enter the number in the "Disk" gadget and press the return key. The
"Fish" gadget works like the "Disk" gadget, except it displays the
current fish number instead of the current disk number. Fish numbers
range from 1 to the number of fish in the database.
2.2 The Description Window
The description window is is a scrollable window which contains the
description of the current fish or fishes. The "Describe/All Matches"
menu item can be used to fill the description window with descriptions
of all fish matching the current selection controls.
When the database is at the beginning position, the description window
displays some statistics about the database such as total number of fish,
and the names of the fish bowls and number of fish in each.
2.3 The Index Window
The index window is a scrollable window which contains the disk
numbers and names of all of the fish in the database which match the
current selection controls. An entry may be selected/deselected by
clicking on that entry. Double clicking on an entry will cause the
descriptions of all selected entries to be loaded into the description
window.
3. Using the Menus
------------------
More commands are available on the menus attached to each window. The
Menu Reference appendix contains a complete listing of each menu command.
3.1 Control Window Menus
The "Project" menu contains the About and Quit commands.
The "Windows" menu contains commands to access each window. Selecting
a window from this menu will cause the window to be brought to the front.
In addition, selecting the "Index" window from this menu causes the
contents of the Index window to be recalculated.
The "Describe" menu contains commands to describe larger collections of
fish. The available collections are:
all fish matching the current selection controls
the current disk
all selected fish in the index window
The "Display" menu contains a toggle item which controls display of the
categories along with the fish name and disk number in the index and
description windows.
3.2 Scrolling Window Menus (Description, Index, Help)
All scrolling windows contain a "Print" menu which controls printing the
contents of that window.
4. Keyboard acceleration
------------------------
Many of the operations are accessible from the keyboard also. The
up/down arrow keys will scroll the current window (or the description
window if the current window is the control window). The right/left
arrow keys will select the next/previous fish. Shifted right/left
arrow keys will select the next/previous disk.
5. Edit mode
------------
There is no edit mode yet.
6. Configuration commands
-------------------------
Newaqua can be configured using a configuration file ("NewAqua.cnf"),
or the tool type properties on the icon (use the WorkBench/Info
command). The commands are the same in either the configuration file
or the icon. All commands must be UPPERCASE. Values may be either
case. All paths are relative to icon/current directory. If NewAqua
is run from the CLI, an alternate configuration file name can be given
on the command line (for example: `NewAqua TwoDisk.cnf'). NewAqua
does not read "NewAqua.cnf" when invoked from the WorkBench, but may
be made to read it by using a CONFIG=NewAqua.cnf tool type command.
A minimum config file contains a KEYNAMES command, a BOWL command, and
a HELP command (if help is to work).
Command: KEYNAMES Value: KeyNames file name
There must be exactly 1 KEYNAMES command.
Examples: KEYNAMES=data/KeyNames
KEYNAMES=AQdata:KeyNames
Command: HELP Value: Location of NewAqua.help file
Examples: HELP=NewAqua.help
HELP=AQdata:NewAqua.help
Command: BOWL Value: Data directory (Data, Index, and Names files)
There must be at least 1 BOWL command. There
may be upto 8 BOWL commands.
Examples: BOWL=data
BOWL=AQdata000:data
BOWL=AQdata500:data
Command: CONFIG Value: Configuration file name
CONFIG is entirely optional. There may be
any number of CONFIG commands (avoid loops!)
Examples: CONFIG=NewAqua.cnf
CONFIG=TwoDisk.cnf
Command: ALLOCATE Value: Controls allocation of description entries
when read from disk. Do not turn this on
unless you have lots of memory.
ALLOCATE defaults to OFF
Examples: ALLOCATE=ON
Command: COMMENT Value: Comment string which is ignored
Examples: COMMENT=This config file is for Fish 200-400 only
Command: SCREEN Value: Either CUSTOM or WORKBENCH. CUSTOM causes
NewAqua to open a custom screen. WORKBENCH
causes NewAqua to use the WorkBench screen.
The COLORS, DEPTH, and VIEWMODES commands are
ignored if SCREEN=WORKBENCH. Default: CUSTOM.
Examples: SCREEN=WORKBENCH
SCREEN=CUSTOM
Command: VIEWMODES Value: Either INTERLACE or NOINTERLACE. Allows a
CUSTOM screen to be opened in INTERLACE mode.
Examples: VIEWMODES=INTERLACE
VIEWMODES=NOINTERLACE
Command: DEPTH Value: Depth of CUSTOM screen.
Default: 2. Range: 1 to 4.
Examples: DEPTH=2
Command: COLORS Value: Up to 16 HEX color constants. The first
example is the default value.
Examples: COLORS=0x0999 0x0000 0x0FFF 0x0666
COLORS=0x0AAA 0x0000 0x0FFF 0x068B 0x000D 0x0FFF 0x0000 0x0FC0
NewAqua does not yet support project icons.
A. Author information
---------------------
Author
Glenn Gribble glenn@netcom.com
1906 Coastland Ave
San Jose, CA 95125 (408) 448-1612
USA
Compilation & test environment
Amiga 2500/2630 5 Meg RAM, 250 Meg Disk, 60 Meg Tape, OS 1.3.
C++ compiler: Lattice C++ 1.0
C compiler: SAS/C 5.10
Source: 5000 lines C++ and 35 lines C
B. Release Notes
----------------
NewAqua release 1.0
This version is the first release with a (nearly) complete set of
features. If this version proves to be bug free, it will be sent to
Fred Fish.
If you find any bugs, please report them via e-mail to glenn@netcom.com.
C. Files In Release
-------------------
NewAqua1.0.info - icon
NewAqua1.0/ - directory containing program and data
NewAqua.doc - this file
NewAqua.doc.info - Fred Fish README icon
NewAqua.info - Simple Icon
NewAqua.help - The Help file
NewAqua - The program
NewAqua.cnf - An example config file showing all of the commands
AddFish - A program to add more disks to the database
FishBowl - A program to split and merge fish bowls
History - History of distribution
WishList - WishList of new features
Data/ - sample data directory containing ONE fish disk
KeyNames - key names file
Data - descriptions file
Index - index file
Names - fish names file
D. Keyboard reference
---------------------
NewAqua thinks the cursor arrow keys and the key pad arrow keys are
exactly the same. Thus there are two keys that act like "Left Arrow".
Scrolling windows (Description, Index, Help)
Down Arrow - Move window down
Up Arrow - Move window up
PgDn - Move window down one page
PgUp - Move window up one page
Home - Jump to top of window
End - Jump to bottom of window
Control window
Left Arrow - Next fish
Right Arrow - Prev fish
Shift-Left Arrow - Next disk
Shift-Right Arrow - Prev disk
Keypad "5" - Reset current fish
Arrows, PgUp, PgDn, Home, End - move Description window
E. Menu Reference
-----------------
E.1 Control window
Item: Project/About
Displays Version and Author information
Item: Project/Quit [Amiga-Q]
Quits program (does not ask for confirmation)
Item: Windows/Description
Opens Description window and brings it in front of the other windows.
Item: Windows/Index [Amiga-I]
Opens Index window, loads it with the index entries that match the
current search control fields and brings the Index window in front
of the other windows.
Item: Windows/Control
Brings the Control window in front of the other windows.
Item: Describe/All Matches [Amiga-A]
Loads the descriptions of all matching fish into the description window.
CAUTION: This command can take a long time and use a lot of memory if
the selection criteria is too general.
Item: Describe/Disk [Amiga-D]
Loads the descriptions of all fish on the current disk into the
description window.
Item: Describe/Selected
Loads the descriptions of all fish that have been selected in the Index
window. This function can also be invoked by double-clicking on an
entry in the Index window.
Item: Display/Categories [F1]
Toggle display of categories in index and description windows.
E.2 Scrolling windows (Description, Index, Help)
All scrolling windows contain a Print menu.
Item: Print/Print [Amiga-P]
Send contents of window to printer.
Item: Print/Eject page [Amiga-E]
Send a form feed to the printer.
Item: Print/File [Amiga-F]
Send contents of window to a file (default: "t:NewAqua.lis").
F. FishBowl program
-------------------
The FishBowl program can be used to split and merge fish databases.
Usage: FishBowl [-nowrite] [-low N] [-high N] inBowls ... outBowl
FishBowl copies the selected range of disks from all of the
input bowls to the output bowl. Each `bowl' is a directory
containing the Data, Index, and Names files.
Examples:
merge bowls 1&2 into bowlMerge
FishBowl bowl1 bowl2 bowlMerge
copy disks 100 to 199 into new bowl f100
FishBowl -low 100 -high 199 data f100
merge and select at the same time
FishBowl -low 151 -high 250 f100 f200 aq151-250
G. AddFish program
------------------
The AddFish program is used to add additional fish to the database.
AddFish can read the multiple disk Contents files as posted to the net.
To add new fish to the database, first figure out the names of all of
the Contents files you wish to add. For example, "downloaded-ff560"
or "AmigaLibDisk544:Contents". Next, create a directory for a bowl
full of new fish, for example "NewBowl". Then, run the program
without writing to the database like this (all on one line):
AddFish -output NewBowl -log 2
AmigaLibDisk544:Contents AmigaLibDisk545:Contents
If errors were generated, the Contents file will have to be editted. If
you can not figure out what went wrong, try re-running the command with
"-log 10" to print out everything that happens.
If this ran without errors, then run it again with the "-write" option.
AddFish -output NewBowl -log 2 -write
AmigaLibDisk544:Contents AmigaLibDisk545:Contents
This will actually write data to the NewBowl directory. You can continue
to add fish to the NewBowl database using these commands. After all of
the new fish have been added, you can use NewAqua to browse the NewBowl
database. To do this, you will need to create a file NewBowl.cnf and
invoke "NewAqua NewBowl.cnf" from the CLI. NewBowl.cnf should contain:
HELP=NewAqua.help
KEYNAMES=data/KeyNames
HELP=NewAqua.help
BOWL=NewBowl
H. Installation
---------------
Nothing to it. Just copy the entire NewAqua1.0 drawer to wherever you
want to keep it.
RCSID: $Id: NewAqua.doc,v 1.2 92/01/30 08:49:28 glenn_gribble Exp $