ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/AOL/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, Archive On Line
Archive On Line
Keith Johnson
An introduction to Archive On Line
The mailing list known as Archive-on-Line has been operating since September 1988. In that time it has established a reputation, I hope, for fair, lively discussion and fast and reliable responses to requests for help.
Of late the Iyonix/Omega saga has fuelled passions somewhat, whilst not totally getting in the way of the main purpose of the list. Which is to provide a sensible forum for debate and problem solving in a way that cannot be satisfactorily addressed in a monthly or bi-monthly publication.
Archive on-line is hosted by Argonet, still the main Acorn supporting ISP, and managed using Jonathan Duddington's !Pluto working with the !Ant Internet Suite and, latterly, !PopStar. There have been glitches and comments to say that this combination could not cope with the management of a list of this size and importance. Whilst there have, from time to time, been technical problems over the almost five years it has been operating they have, with the help of some great folk, been overcome.
Up to now the Mail List has been open only to subscribers to Archive magazine and intended to be an extension to that publication. One of the anomalies of a monthly magazine is the inevitable time lag involved in the publication of a magazine against the immediacy of email and the Internet. Archive-on-Line did not replace the magazine but has allowed questions, problems and issues to be addressed a bit quicker. Having thought long and hard and having regard to the current movements within the RISC OS community I think it may be time to widen access to the list without hazarding the integrity and control that has helped it avoid the problems encountered elsewhere.
I am therefore offering access to the Archive-on-Line list to subscribers of RISC World. There is no requirement for you to take out a further subscription, although it will inevitably remind each group of the other's existence. Rather I hope it will further strengthen and enhance the current mail list and bring members of the RISC OS community a bit closer together, without creating yet another, competing, forum. I moderate the list with, I hope, a fairly light touch but I do take advantage of !Pluto"s facilities to add comments to postings from time to time. At the end of the day this avoids any increase in traffic my interventions would inevitably bring.
Messages can be sent here at any time but are usually resent at around 19:00 Monday to Friday and whenever, and as often, as I feel like it at the weekend and Bank Holidays.
I do not have access to Broadband at present, say nothing, it"s a major gripe of mine, so sensible snipping is appreciated.
Subscribing to Archive On Line
Archive On-line is free to join. To subscribe please send a message to
With SIGNON or SUBSCRIBE in the Subject Line.
Pluto picks up your message, adds you to the list and sends you a brief acknowledgement. You can put something in the body of the mail if you wish or if your software does not like sending blank messages. It will not affect Pluto but I do read them. Anyone who signs on who is not a subscriber to RISC World or Archive will normally be sent a polite message and invited to subscribe or removed if a reply is not received in a day or so. As Pluto dates and times the entries on the list it is relatively simple to keep track of what is going on and I normally allow a period of grace of up to three months for the renewal of subscriptions before I remove someone from the list. This reduces the amount of time I have to spend checking valid memberships and gives time for late renewals to be processed.
The only other reason for my removing someone is when I get fed up with mail being bounced by an ISP!
In the unlikely event that you should wish to withdraw from the list then a message with SIGNOFF or UNSUBSCRIBE in the Subject Line will automatically remove your name from the list.
If your email address changes then SIGNOFF the old one and SIGNON the new. You can try out the new address and run them both side by side until you are confident that the new one is working, but do not forget to signoff the old address once you are happy. The list is averaging about about twenty messages a day. The variation throughout the week is interesting. The weekends are not as busy as I would have expected, Mondays and Tuesdays are busier than I initially anticipated.
Only a very few number of messages fail to get delivered and they seem to be to different addresses each time. Academic ones currently seem to be the most prone to rejection, followed by business IDs. Spam traps and filters can create some interesting effects. However, the next batch of postings often seem to be delivered without a problem. Perhaps some mail boxes being "timed out" if not emptied regularly. If this is the case then the time allowed is very short as only a couple of days postings seem to be affected at a time. My other suspicion, that mail boxes are full, seems more likely as it is rare for a whole batch of posts to be rejected although this does happen. Sometimes one of the ISPs go down and all the postings to members using that service are rejected.
I look forward to hearing from you on the list.
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/CLUBS/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, RISC OS User Groups
RISC OS User Groups
Charles Embersley
An Introduction to User Groups
A user group is a collection of like minded individuals who get together, usually once every month, for a meeting. Obviously those in the user group know each other and can assist each other with any difficulties that might arise between meetings. At their monthly meetings someone will normally give a talk; this may be a member of the group, or inded an invited guest such as well known personality or someone from a particular company.
The above paragraph may seem rather obvious, but how many RISC OS users are not members of their local user groups? Why not? I am a keen member of my local user group and the monthly meetings are a good excuse to get out of the house of an evening, although don't tell my wife that. It's enjoyable, I meet new people and I usually save money as many of the companies that come and do talks offer their goods at a sizeable discount at group meetings.
I can't join a user group as there isn't one near me
Well if everyone simply stayed at home thinking the same then no user group would ever get started. If there isn't a group near you why not try to start one. Make a posting on the Acorn newsgroups (for example Comp.Sys.Acorn.Misc) announcing your intentions. Why not place a small free advert in the computer section of your local free adverts paper and see if any other users in your area respond, you may be surprised. One needs to remember that hundreds of thousands of RISC OS computers have been manufactured over the years, and just like Rolls Royces most of them are still in use somewhere.
The AAUG (Association of Acorn User Groups)
If you do want to set up your own user group, or indeed would just like further information about user groups then I can heartily recommend a visit to the
I have made a list of the UK groups that I know about and have included it below in this article.
I have tried to form a local group but can't find enough members.
A User Group does not necessarily have to have members that all live in the same area. In these days of high technology communications you could have a user group that communicates over the internet, perhaps using the services of a website such as
As far as I am concerned user groups are the life blood of the RISC OS community and without continued support they will eventually cease to be. If you live near a local user group then you should at least go along once just to see what it is like, you never know you may well end up enjoying yourself. If you can't find a local group then perhaps there are many just like you within a few miles, and all it will take is one person to start a group rolling. Everyone should support their user groups, even if some members do have PCs!
Alphabetical list of RISC OS user groups
This is a list of all the user groups that I know about. If there are any user groups missing from this list then could they please contact RISC World at the usual address and I will update the list for the next issue.
Acorn Club North East
URL:For more details contact Alan Harvey
Email:
Bottisham Acorn Usergroup
URL:For more details contact David McDowell
Email:
Bristol Acorn Risc User Group (BARUG)
URL:For more details contact Tony Cropper
Email:
Derbyshire Area Risc Club (DARC)
URL:For more details contact Paul Mellor
Email:
(ERA) Edinburgh RISCOS users Association
URL:For more details contact Michael Marshal
Email:
Essex Acorn User Group
URL:For more details contact Frank Watkinson
Email:
ICENI Computer Club
URL:For more details contact Royal "Roy" Moore
Email:
Lincolnshire Acorn Usergroup
URL:For more details contact Dave Dunn
Email:
Liverpool Acorn Users Group
URL:For more details contact Dr Fred Wilburn
Email:
RISC OS User Group of London (ROUGOL)
URL:For more details contact Neil Spellings
Email:
Loughborough Acorn Users
URL:For more details contact Andy Boura
Email:
Manchester Acorn User Group (MAUG)
URL:For more details contact John Cartmell
Email:
Milton Keynes Acorn User Group
URL:For more details contact Paul De Luca
Email:
Norfolk Acorn User Group
URL:For more details contact Jonathan Balls
Email:
North Kent Amateur Computer Club (NKACC)
URL:For more details contact Richard Nevill
Email:
Nottingham Microcomputer Club (NMC)
URL:For more details contact Mike Johnson
Email:
Southampton Acorn Users Group
URL:Not available
For more details contact Dave Higton
Email:
Surrey & Sussex Acorn Users Group (SASAUG)
URL:For more details contact John Sawer
Email:
Wakefield Acorn Computer User Group
URL:For more details contact Chris Hughes
Email:
Welwyn Hatfield Computer Club
URL:For more details contact Mark Empson
Email:
Wessex ARM User Group
URL:For more details contact John Stonier
Email:
If one of these clubs is near you why not visit their website or e-mail them, after all you will be most welcome at their next meeting and it is always delightful to meet others who know that RISC OS is the best operating system in the world.
It's yet another packed DiscWorld this issue (well you'd better unpack it before it gets sent out - HJ) with our usual number of goodies.
Interdictor II
Interdictor II is based on the acclaimed Interdictor I flight simulator, and inherits many of the original Interdictor features. It also has many additional features which include:
More accurate aircraft model
Flying brick' mode that makes you indestructible
Waypoints to assist navigation
A wealth of ground detail with a large number of simulated vehicles
LOCSAC computer for tracking enemy aircraft
Enemy cargo aircraft carrying supply trucks
Tanks are armed with unguided ground to air rockets.
Interdictor II is a blend of pure simulation and gameplay. You are in control
of a high performance jet whose performance and handling characteristics have
been carefully designed. The realism and responsiveness of this simulation are
the most striking features of the game. The enemy actions are also simulated.
There are no pre planned scenarios and the action depends on how you choose to
play.
Interdictor II does not use sprites of missiles or explosions instead
everything is a true simulation and is calculated in real time. Explosions
consist of hundreds of particles each following a unique trajectory under the
influence of gravity. The debris from explosions consists of bits of the object
falling with gravity and air resistance. Each bullet and cannon shell is
modelled and the exact impact point on any object is calculated. Trucks and cars
really drive along the roads under their own guidance. Enemy aircraft react to
your movements and need to re-fuel and rearm when supplies are low.
Enemy defences are:
Combat aircraft - with similar capability to you
Ack-ack guns
Surface-to-air missiles (SAMS)
Your weapons and defences are:
30mm cannon
Air-to-ground rockets
Heat seeking air-to-air missiles
Chaff
Flares
The Interdictor II world is approximately 10,000 square kilometers, with
hundreds of kilometers of roads, river and railway. There are nine combat
arenas, each with an airfield at its centre. Reconnaissance photographs have
been used to produce a map of this world.
The Interdictor starts on runway Alpha, this is the only non-hostile arena.
Your mission is to remove all enemy presence from the remaining designated
combat arenas.
Each combat arena consists of a runway and a number of targets, these are
identified of your tactical map briefing. Whilst the enemy is in control of an
arena you may not land on its runway. To take control of an arena you must
destroy all the targets in the arena and the hanger next to the runway.
When (and if) supply vehicles reach a runway their cargo is deployed
throughout that arena. There is no pre set order for attacking the enemy. You
plan your own campaign!
The Passive World A significant part of the world plays no active part
in the combat scenario. It exists, as in the real world, as a passive onlooker.
(e.g motorway traffic)
Interdictor II runs on all RISC OS computers (Including StrongArm)
The complete DiscWorld line up
So to sum up this issues DiscWorld looks like this...
AGM
All the sample programs from the Archimedes Gamewriters Manual.
Ancestor
A corrected version of the HTML Ancestor manual from the last issue.
EarthData
The complete application with all the data files.
FTrixPRO
The full commercial version of FontTrixPRO from iSV Products.
Games
All the games from this issues games world column, including a number of 32bit neutral games for the Iyonix.
GraphDraw
The latest version of Andrew Harmsworths favourite application.
Interdictor
The full commercial game from APDL/Clares.
LowerHTML
The HTML processor from Martin Carradus and Melotech.
MakeHTML
This issue we have David Holden's programs that convert from HTML to Impression and Ovation.
PD
All the latest PD, shareware and freeware releases from the PD column.
PowerBase
The latest version of Derek Haslam's Database application.
ToolBox
The latest 26/32 bit neutral system components, required if you want to run a lot of new software releases on 26bit machines (ie. anything that isn't an Iyonix).
The Geographical Database for Acorn RISC OS computers.
Introduction - About EarthData
EarthData is a geographical database which contains a variety of data on every country of the world. A simple menu-based interface gives access to all data. However, EarthData is more than a collection of data; it can also present and manipulate this data in a variety of ways. Features of EarthData include:
Many categories of up-to-date data for each country
Graphing of data within countries
Each category of data can be disabled to simplify the menus
Overall data for the world
Location maps showing the position of each country
A world map giving a more detailed view
Reports on each country can be created
Draw files of each country"s national flag
Thumbnail flags next to the name of each country on the menus
Selection of countries based on a simple filter, for example "Area is greater than 1,000,000km²"
Selection filters can be combined limitlessly
Graphing of data comparing selections of countries
Mapping of selections of countries
Export of data as a Comma Separated Value file
EarthData is a fully multitasking RISC OS application. Some knowledge of the RISC OS desktop is helpful. See your computer"s Welcome Guide or User Guide for further information.
Basic Usage
Loading EarthData
Load EarthData in the usual RISC OS way by double-clicking on the !EarthData icon in a directory display.
When EarthData loads, it automatically checks the free memory. Only a small amount of memory is required for EarthData to load. However, if there is not much free memory, some of EarthData"s features will not work.
If you want to use detailed maps, make sure over 1000K of free memory is available.If you want to have thumbnail flags on the menus, and the spinning world icon on the icon bar, make sure over 1600K of free memory is available.
To check how much memory is free, use the Task Manager (see your User Guide). To free up some more memory, quit some applications.
When EarthData finishes loading, an icon will appear on the icon bar. This will be either the small !EarthData icon or the larger spinning world icon which shows the direction of the Earth"s rotation.
Navigating the Menus
Clicking SELECT on this icon will open the main menu in the top-left of the screen. This menu allows you to access most of EarthData"s features.
Continent Menus
Moving the pointer right through one of the five continent items on the main menu opens a continent menu.
The continent menu contains all the countries in that continent, in alphabetical order. Because of the large number of countries, they are unlikely to fit in one screen. To see more countries, move the pointer to the last item in the menu. This will cause the menu to automatically scroll down. Alternatively, you can drag the scroll bar at the right of the menu.
Dependent territories appear together at the end of each continent menu, further divided by the mother country. Sliding through one of these items opens a further menu with the actual territories.
If there was plenty of free memory when EarthData loaded, thumbnail flags will be positioned to the left of each country"s name.
Country Menus
Sliding through the arrow to the right of a country"s name, or sliding through World on the main menu, opens a country menu. All the data can be viewed from these menus.
The items on the menu are split into four sections, separated by dotted lines:
Human factors
These relate to the inhabitants of the country.
National factors
These are the permanent features of the country.
Economic factors
These relate to the economy of the country.
Utilities
These allow you to view maps or flags and create reports.
Most items of data can be viewed simply by moving the mouse pointer to the arrow at the right of the data description. If there is no information on an item of data it will be greyed out. A detailed description of all the items of data is in the next chapter.
Country Menus
Human Factors
Population
Sliding through the Population item shows the population of the country, along with the date the figure is from. Most population figures are based upon 1997 figures.
Population Growth
Sliding through Population Growth displays a figure, giving the percentage growth in population each year.
Urban Population
The Urban Population is the percentage of inhabitants living in cities. Clicking on Graph... creates a pie chart showing the urban population, and sends it to Draw.
Life Expectancy
The Life Expectancy submenu gives two items of data: the average male life expectancy and the average female life expectancy. The Graph... option creates a bar chart comparing the two expectancies.
Ethnic Groups
Moving the pointer through Ethnic Groups displays a list of up to ten of the largest ethnic groups, or nationalities, in the country. Next to each ethnic group the percentage of the country"s inhabitants is given. Clicking on the Graph... item creates a pie chart displaying these percentages graphically.
Languages
The Languages option displays a list of the most prominent languages, similarly to Ethnic Groups. The Graph... item displays these languages on a pie chart.
Religions
This is the third item which displays a list. The most prominent religions, with their percentages, are displayed. The graph option works similarly to the previous items.
Literacy
The Literacy item shows the percentage of inhabitants who are literate. The Graph... item creates a pie chart comparing literate to illiterate percentages.
Development
Development leads to an item which displays the Human Development Index (H.D.I.) of the country. The H.D.I. is a number between zero and one and is "a measure of national human progress". It is a calculation made by the U.N. development programme.
National Factors
Area
The area of the country in square kilometers is displayed by this option.
Government
Sliding through Government displays the system of government of the country, for example "Republic".
Capital City
This is the capital city of the country.
Large Towns
Sliding through Large Towns displays a menu of up to ten of the largest settlements in the country. The settlements are given in order of size. The arrow to the right of a settlement"s name displays the population of the settlement, if known.
Choosing the Graph... option creates a bar chart comparing the populations of the large towns.
Economic Factors
G.N.P.
This is the Gross National Product per person. It is the amount in U.S. dollars produced by the whole country, divided by the population. It shows how rich the country is.
Currency
The name of the currency is given in this option. The currency is local; for example, Belgium has Franc as its currency - this is the Belgian Franc, not the French Franc.
Employment
The Employment option displays the split of employment between the three sectors of industry. Primary employment is production, for example farming and mining. Secondary industry is manufacturing, for example car building. Tertiary industry is services, such as banking and education.
Local Time
The local time, relative to GMT, is given. Some countries have a range shown, for example Australia has GMT +8 to GMT +10, which means the country has more than one time zone. The local time does not include any summer time.
Utilities
Location
Clicking on Location... will open a small world map showing the location of the country. This map is useful for seeing where in the world the country is. See the Maps section for further information.
Map
The Map... item opens a more detailed world map. The map appears centred on the country, which is filled in red. This map allows you to see neighbouring countries, and the size of the country. See the chapter Maps for further information.
Flag
The Flag... item allows access to the collection of national flags in Draw format. The flags are automatically exported to Draw to be displayed.
Report
The Report... item generates a text file containing all the data available on the country which is configured enabled. The text file is sent to Edit. It can be saved out of Edit into any word processor. Note that the tabs (columns) appear as [09] in Edit, however, if you drop the file into a word processor, the tabs will display correctly.
Selection
EarthData contains tools to create graphs and maps of the data it contains. Although it is possible to use these tools to analyse data from all the countries in the world, it is often more useful to select only some countries.
EarthData allows you to select countries in two ways:
Direct selection - choosing countries of your choice
Filter selection - choosing countries based on their data
This page describes how to select countries; see the pages Graphing and Maps for information on analysing a selection.
Direct Selection
Directly selecting a country is very easy: simply click on the country name in a continent menu. A tick will appear to the left of the country name. If you want to unselect a country, click on the country name again. This will make the tick disappear.
Filter Selection
Clicking on the Select... item on the main menu will open the select window, which allows you to choose a selection of countries based on their data. The category is the item of data which is being compared from each country. The filter is the type of comparison. Filters are simple English statements, for example includes, which must be true for a country to be selected.
The value is what the data is being compared against. In cases where the value is text, the case does not matter: "english" and "ENglish" are equivalent. If the category is Continent, a pop-up menu of the continents will be available next to the value icon.
For each country, EarthData
Finds the item of data (category) in that country
Compares it with the value using the filter
Selects or unselects the country, depending on the result
For example, if the category was "Population", the filter was "is less than", and the value was "1000000", all the countries with a population of less than a million would become selected.
The three buttons Add, Refine, and Select each subtly change the way the countries are chosen.
Select is the standard way, and simply selects all the countries which agree with the filter (population less that 1000000 in our example), and unselects all the countries which disagree with the filter.
Add works in the same way as Select, but does not unselect those countries which disagree with the filter. This effectively adds the agreeing countries to any already selected.
Refine ignores any countries which are unselected. It works like Select on countries already selected. This means it refines the countries to those that were already selected and agree with the filter.
By combining these three operations very powerful filters can be created to choose any set of countries.
Example of Selection
Selection seems at first a very complicated process, so an example follows to clarify the process involved.
Say you wanted find all large and highly developed countries.
First, choose some definitions: large - population over five million or area above 100000km² highly developed - Human Development Index above 0.9.
Then work through the definitions selecting the countries, by filling in the select window, and using the buttons Select, Add, and Refine.
Population over 5000000:
Set the category to "Population" from the pop-up menu
Set the filter to "is greater than" from the pop-up menu
Set the value to "5000000", by clicking in the icon and typing
Click on Select
Area above 100000km²:
Set the category to "Area"
Set the filter to "is greater than"
Set the value to "100000"
Click on Add
If you were to look at the menus now, you would see the countries defined as large with ticks by them.
H.D.I. above 0.9:
Set the category to "Development"
Set the filter to "is greater than"
Set the value to "0.9"
Click on Refine
All the countries ticked now would be large and highly developed.
Graphing
Once a selection has been made, it can be viewed by looking at the continent menus. All the selected countries will be ticked, and unselected ones will have no tick. However, this is not particularly useful. A more useful function of selecting countries is graphing.
Clicking on Graph... will open the graph window. Two types of graph can be created: bar charts and scatter charts. Graphs can be created of all countries, or of the current selection of countries.
Bar Charts
Bar charts show only one category. Most bar charts have one bar for each country, and its height is proportional to the value of the category being graphed. The chart is scaled so that the largest bar is the height of the page. The name of the country is written below each bar, and the corresponding value is written above.
There are two small exceptions to these rules. If the chosen category is life expectancy, two bars are drawn for each country, corresponding to the male and female life expectancies.
If the category is employment, a triangular chart will be drawn. This shows the levels of all three sectors of employment. The primary employment increases from 0% at the bottom edge to 100% at the top. Secondary employment increases from the left edge to the bottom-right corner, and tertiary employment from the right edge to the bottom-left corner.
Each point on this graph corresponds to a separate value for each sector of employment, adding up to 100%. To find the value for a sector for a specific point, you must find how far it is from the edge where this sector is 0%. The parallel lines, which are drawn after every 10%, will help you to do this. The distance you find is the percentage of employment in that sector at that point.
Country names can be switched on or off when creating Employment graphs. With large numbers of countries, names are best switched off.
Scatter Charts
Scatter charts show two categories, plotted on two dimensional axes.
Each country has a point placed on the graph, optionally with the country name beside it.
Scatter charts can be used to find correlations (relationships) between two items of data: a pattern in the points shows a correlation is present.
Use of Draw
When a graph is created, it is sent to Draw to be displayed. From here, it can be saved to disc using the Save > File menu option. Alternatively, the draw file icon can be dragged from the save box to an application, such as a word processor.
As graphs are draw files, they can be edited easily in Draw: titles can be added or removed, colours changed, or the text size can be altered. See your Applications Guide for how to use Draw.
Maps
Location Maps
Choosing the Location... item on a country menu opens a location map. Location maps show the approximate position of the country on a world map. There is no limit to the number of location maps open at one time, so positions of countries can be easily compared.
Clicking MENU over a location map opens the location map menu. The items on this menu are:
Export map - This item leads to the export map window, described below.
Close this map - Click here to close the window this menu came from.
Close all maps - This item closes all open location maps.
The export map window lets you save the map as a sprite file, suitable for editing, inclusion in other documents, and printing. Enter the name for the file into the text icon and drag the icon to a directory display (or another application) to export the map.
Maps can be opened in two ways: by choosing the Map... option from a country menu, which will open a single country map, or by choosing Map... on the main menu to show a selection map.
Single country maps
These maps, which are at a larger scale than the location maps, also show single countries. The map shows a small part of the world, with the relevant country coloured in red. If the country covers a small area, a circle will be drawn around it to show its position.
Maps are usually shown Atlantic-centred, but if a country is near to the date-line, the map is shown Pacific-centred. For an example of this, view the map of New Zealand. Any number of maps can be open at a time, so maps can be easily compared.
Selection maps
A selection of countries can be shown on a map. This means that countries chosen either by hand, or using a filter, can be displayed. See the section Selection for further information on selecting countries.
The Map... item on the main menu opens the create map window, giving two options. Selection is the more useful of these; the other option, All countries, simply colours all the countries in the world red.
Only one selection map can be open at a time; if the selection changes while a map is open, the map will alter to show the new selection.
Example of selection
Selection maps allow you to easily show where countries are positioned in relation to each other, or to find relationships between data and position.
As an example, you might want to see where English-speaking countries are positioned.
First, all English-speaking countries would be selected using the select window: the category would be set to "Language", the filter would be set to "includes", and "English" would be entered into the value icon.
Then, the map would be created using the Map... option on the main menu. The map will open at a small scale so that the whole world can be seen.
Manipulating maps
Pressing and holding down SELECT allows you to drag a zoom box on the map. The position of the mouse when the button was pressed is one corner of the box, and the position when the mouse is released is the opposite corner. A dotted outline is shown while the box is being dragged. After SELECT is released, the map will be scaled so that the area within the box is made as large as possible within the window.
Clicking SELECT on the map will zoom in as far as possible (500%), centred on the clicked point.
Clicking ADJUST halves the map scale, and centres the view on the clicked point.
Clicking MENU over a map opens the map menu, which has five items:
Export visible area - This option works in a similar way to exporting location map. The area of the map visible on screen is exported.
Export whole map - This is similar to above, but exports the entire map. This results in a very large file, so ensure you have enough free memory and disc space.
Scale view - This item leads to the scale view window, described below.
Close this map - This works as for location maps.
Close all maps - This works as for location maps.
The scale view window lets you change the scale of the map on screen. Enter a % scale into the text icon, or use the arrows or pre-set buttons to choose a scale, then click on Scale to update the map.
Data Export
The Export Window
Clicking on Export... on the main menu opens the export window, which you can use to export data on all or some countries in the form of a Comma Separated Value file.
Data can be exported on either all countries, or the current selection of countries.
All or only some items of data can be exported. The country name can be optionally added to the start of each line in the file.
CSV files created by EarthData can be dragged into many different applications:
spreadsheet
database
table-creation programs
This means data from EarthData can be used in a number of different ways, and is not constrained to the features provided within EarthData.
Configuration
About EarthConf
Supplied with EarthData is a utility called !EarthConf. This utility is used to disable or enabling features of EarthData.
EarthConf is a separate application to the main EarthData because it can be used to alter the way EarthData works, and to disable most features of it. As a separate application it can be kept on a different disc to prevent unauthorised use. EarthConf must be kept in a writable place so that it can save options into itself.
Configuring EarthData
Load EarthConf by double-clicking on its icon in a directory display. The !EarthConf icon will appear on the icon bar. Click on this icon to open the choices window, which allows you to enable or disable features of EarthData.
The choices window is split into three areas. Everywhere in the window, a selected icon (a ticked or filled box) means that the feature is switched on, and a deselected icon means that the feature is disabled. The first area, Main menu items includes an icon for each utility on the main menu of EarthData. The second area, General choices, allows you to choose if countries can be selected by clicking on them (see Selection). The last section is Country menu items, and allows you to enable or disable each of the items on the country menus (see Country Menus). You will have to scroll down to see the rest of the icons in the window.
Once you have made your changes, click on the close icon. A window will prompt you to save the choices you have made. You can click on Discard choices or Save choices. Alternatively, scroll to the bottom of the choices window, and click on Save choices.
Possible uses
Disabling features of EarthData will be of most use to schools. Country menus can be simplified, or only appropriate items of data can be enabled. Graphing or maps can be easily disabled if necessary. To prevent unauthorised use of EarthConf, it can be kept on a floppy disc.
Appendices
Conventions used in this Guide
Throughout this document, the mouse buttons are referred to by their Acorn names.
The left button is called SELECT, the middle button is called MENU, and the right mouse button is called ADJUST. Click or double-click on its own means click SELECT.
Keyboard Shortcuts
In most of EarthData"s windows, you can use shortcut keys instead of the mouse to activate options. To use a shortcut, hold down Control, and press the letter key of the shortcut, which is the capital letter in each icon. To Cancel a window, press Escape. To choose the default action button (the icon with the yellow border), press Return or Enter (depending on your keyboard).
RISC World
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/EBAY/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, Buying and Selling on eBay
Buying and Selling on eBay
Mike Battersby
Selling on eBay
There are various ways you can sell Acorn and other RISC OS items but eBay offers perhaps the widest audience. Of course, if you sell by auction you stand both the possibility of getting a better price and of selling at a rock bottom one (though you can safeguard against this as I shall explain later) so you "takes your chance".
Before you can sell an item you must be registered (and signed in) and then you can choose the "Sell" button from the button bar at the top of an eBay page (see below).
Choose a selling format
The first choice is your selling format. You can choose an auction or a fixed price sale (see the screen shot below). This article considers only the online Auction option. Basically the procedure is to step through a series of screens by clicking on the Continue button. You can stop at any stage before the final submission.
Select a Category
The next stage is to choose one or more categories to place your sale item in. This series of articles is concerned with Acorn (RISC OS) related items so the main category is Computer and Video Gaming rather than Computing as it has the subcategory Vintage Platforms (hmm) within which is Acorn (and the BBC Micro). You could, of course, put something like a software item in a general computing software category but this might be missed by Acorn users browsing the Acorn category. This set of options is shown in the screen shot below. You are also offered the opportunity to put the item in a second category if you wish. At each stage some items to be filled in are marked with green asterisks; these are required while those without green asterisks may be optional.
Title and Description
Next comes the description of the item. You have a title for your item and wording of this should be carefully chosen if you want it to be found in searches. For instance you may want to include the word Acorn in the title even if it is a RiscStation or Microdigital item so it is found by people searching for Acorn items e.g Microdigital Mico, Acorn compatible computer.
You have a maximum of 45 characters for the title so think carefully as to what may appeal to potential bidders.
Then enter a description which is most easily entered just as plain text; however if you know HTML you can also use that to create display effects. Incidentally the example of auctioning a mouse is purely for illustrative purposes for this article.
The use of all capital letters for your title or description tends to look amateurish and make it harder to read. Like email it can also be construed as SHOUTING. Also the use of odd labels such as L@@K which seems to be popular on eBay serves little useful purpose as people are unlikely to search on L@@K as it would yield a plethora of diverse and probably unwanted items. Once you have bought or sold a few items on eBay and got positive feedback (assuming you do) then buyers may be more willing to buy from you. In the meantime you may like to add something to your description that will inspire confidence in you as a seller of integrity (assuming you are).
Pictures and Details
Then you enter the selling details as shown below. You can choose an auction duration of 3, 5, 7 or 10 days; it depends what suits you though a good tip might be to have it run so it finishes late in or just after a weekend when more potential bidders are likely to be online. You can set a starting price and a reserve price below which you will not sell it though this will cost you a fee if it does not sell. A popular option is to have a starting price at your lowest acceptable price and then have no reserve so buyers can see that it will sell if they bid at or above that price and no reserve fee will be charged in the event that it does not sell.
Next you can choose pictures to illustrate your listing. One picture is allowed free, with charges for any additional ones. If you have a decent graphics package such as Photodesk you could do a montage of shots to submit as a single picture.
A good quality picture e.g. a scanned photo or digital camera picture is highly recommended to show off your item to its best ability. You may be prompted to download a piece of "IPIX" software to help upload pictures though this will not work on an Acorn. Once your pictures are in place on your hard disc (or wherever), you can click on one of the frames to browse to the picture and select it whereupon it is displayed on the page (see the illustration below). It will be uploaded once you click on the next continue button.
You then have the opportunity to employ a variety of display options including a gallery picture (a mini size picture displayed alongside your listing and in a picture "gallery") as well as other display options such as bold or highlighted text.
In considering these obviously the value of the item is relevant but a gallery picture only costs 15p and is highly recommended to attract buyers. As to the other options it depends how much you want to lay out to catch attention. In the sample screen below you can see the effect of a gallery picture and bold lettering for the Acorn Atom listing.
You can also have a free page counter which can be interesting if you want to see how many people have looked at your item.
Payment and Postage + Review and Submit
You will then be able to enter details of payment options, postage costs and so on and then the opportunity to review and edit any details before final submission. Choosing how people can pay needs to be carefully thought about particularly if they are abroad. By joining Paypal buyers can pay you by credit card which is a great convenience but costs you a commission charge. The use of Paypal is planned as the next article in this series. It is worth thinking carefully about where you would ship to in the world. Selling a heavy item like a monitor may only be worthwhile in your own country but software could be sent to many places reasonably cheaply (by comparison). Normally the seller sets the condition that the buyer pays for shipping costs.
Once finally submitted the item will go on eBay and after a short delay people can bid on it as described in the previous article. The better your choice of display and timing plus a hefty dose of luck as to who is or is not looking for an item like yours will determine how well you do.
There are more options available for experienced users than are covered here but this article should give you the basics. Once you have listed an item once, it gets (or seems to get) progressively easier. At the time of writing the basic listing fee is 15p with additional costs as shown in the screen shots. If your item sells you will also be charged a fee based on the final selling price. The fee is 5.25% of the selling price for items up to £15, 2.75% for items value £15.01 to £600 and 1.5% for items over £600 though cars and real estate have their own scales of charges.
Once you have sold (or bought) something it is customary to leave feedback about your buyer (or seller) once the transaction is complete. Positive feedback helps build a seller's reputation and encourage others to buy from them in future.
Ah, another year, another complete volume of RISC World. As before this edition includes all of the other issues from the year in one easy to store (or throw away -HJ) CD. As per usual I have taken the opportunity to fix a couple of "editorial contrivances" (mistakes) that were on previous issues. Actually while we are on the subject of the old single issue CDs why not pass a couple on to your friends to see if they like RISC World? After all you have all this volume's issues on this CD now, and do you really need two copies?
We are still looking for more authors to join RISC World in exchange for money. Unlike a number of other magazines we pay £50 for submissions. If you have anything you would like to write about then please do let us know. It doesn't have to be technical, it doesn't have to appeal to everyone but it will earn you money. You don't need the latest and greatest machine, all you do need is an interest in something, even if its synchronised under water stamp collecting people would like to know about it.
On another quick subject are you going to the Wakefield show this year? No? Oh dear. Well then you won't have the chance to win a fully specced Omega computer, or see all the latest software releases, play with the latest computers and see some surprises. If you don't go you are going to kick yourself, trust me.
Editor's Rant of the month
I was only going to have one rant this month, but instead I am going to have two. Firstly my chair. The desks in my office aren't at normal desk height, but are at drawing board height. The reason for this is that I am so used to sitting higher up after years of using drawing boards. Now this is fine, firstly you tend to adopt a better posture since you sit with your feet on the bottom rail of the draughtsmans chair and have your back straight. Secondly you have a choice when typing, you can sit in the chair, or you can stand up in front of the keyboard and can still type. However at the moment my choice is limited as my chair has just broken. It's 7:36 in the evening and there aren't any other chairs in the house that are the right height, so I am typing this standing up. I did try grabbing a dining room chair but I ended up looking like the small child on the front of a board game box from the 1970s. You know the ones where in order to get as big a photo of the game as possible all the kids are sitting round the table with only their shoulders and above showing. Have you ever tried typing like this? I have and you can't. To add insult to injury some complete lowlife with a digital camera has just sneaked round the corner of my office, laughed and snapped a picture, grrr.
Now I am going to have to go into the garage and fix my chair and perhaps the photographer. I can't understand why it's broken (the chair that is), I have only had it 15 years, and it was second hand and of course I only weigh a measly 8 stone.
Right. I am back now (only a few minutes later) with a bodged chair and so I can now write the rant I was going to write before the chair broke. My car has a broken windscreen. A stone hit it before Christmas causing a small crack. Over the last couple of months the crack has gradually increased in size until the windscreen finally decided that enough was enough and using the time honoured method of reproduction employed by single celled organisms throughout the ages has split into two. So I called my insurance company who "recommended" a company to fit a new screen. I made an appointment for Saturday morning and sure enough the van was outside the house before 10am. So far as good. Now things started to go wrong. Firstly the "craftsman" who was going to do the job started the traditional teeth sucking that heralds a problem.
"You ever 'ad this changed before?"
No I haven't and it looks like the original screen to me.
"Ah...well I haven't got the clips for one of these."
Sorry? You knew what the car was 4 days ago, why haven't you got the bits? Besides what exactly do you need apart from a windscreen?
"You see this bit 'ere, well you need these clips right, 'cos they break, and I aint got em."
Why not?
"Don't carry 'em. Tell you what though I can bodge it for you, but it won't look right."
I'm sorry? Lets talk to your office.
So he did, well I assume he did. Well actually I know he didn't. Instead he stood there talking into a mobile phone that was switched off. I know this now, but never mind. Anyway the conclusion was that it would be best to go and get the clips, then he would call me.
I expect you can guess the next bit - he didn't call. So my first job on Monday morning was to spread a bit of misery around. The result was that the windscreen fitter had vanished! So had the van he was using and the windscreen for my car, oh and of course the clips. I spoke to the branch manager.
"Sorry mate, dunno where he is, he ain't turned up."
Well when I am going to get my windscreen fixed?
"Well....dunno...all the other fitters are busy."
Well, you have dropped me in it, I need the car.
"Yeah, well, he's dropped us in it to."
So what, that is your problem, I can't use my car and that is also your problem
"Yeah well, not a lot I can do about it, look tell you what I will see what we are doing and ring you back"
He didn't.
I rung the head office and started a major whinge. The result was the call has been rebooked for Wednesday. Will the screen be fitted then? Who knows. In the meantime if you do need a windscreen fitted then I certainly couldn't recommend SilverShield windscreens, that is unless you don't have a windscreen, or a car.
Just a quick update - they couldn't fit the screen on the Wednesday as there was a light drizzle.
Printing RISC World
The new look of RISC World means that when you want to print an article on your printer it will have the light yellow background. However most web browsers allow you to turn off the background images when printing. The example below shows the print dialogue box from Fresco.
As you can see the option "No Background" is ticked. If you want to print out any of the RISC World pages then make sure you have clicked a similar option in your browser.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/EDUC/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, The Education Column
The Education Column
Andrew Harmsworth with the latest Education news
Welcome back to the Spring edition (don't mention Hooke's Law). This month I was going to launch into a review of a stack of MyWorld resources which have been developed over the last few years, but instead I got completely carried away in my lab beta-testing new versions of GraphDraw. So here I report the current state of play.
Graphdraw: Going Beyond 32-bit
For many years I have used Chris Johnson's excellent GraphDraw application with pupils to plot x-y graphs of experimental results. This program is a prime example of "doing exactly what it says on the tin". All it does is produce graphs - scatter, or with various lines fitted to the data.
Why not use Excel, I hear you say? Or perhaps you aren't saying that, because you wouldn't be reading this if your favourite scientific graphing software was Excel. Now, don't get me wrong - Excel is a powerful spreadsheet; far better than anything we have on RISC OS. I would dearly love to see someone somewhere get hold of the source code for Eureka and allow it to support Excel workbooks. Spreadsheets are perfect for the manipulation of numbers, and Excel can produce superb graphical output of data. However, it is hard, very hard, or even impossible, to get its graphs to meet these simple criteria:
points must be crosses or pluses, not blob
bestfit lines must be thin, not thic
bestfit lines should intercept an axis, if neede
axis label units should support superscripts, or subscript
What makes GraphDraw a preferable package - apart from running fuss-free on any RISC OS 3-5 machine, is that it does do all of the above, and more.
For a number of years now I have sent the odd request to Chris for new features. Now that I have a suite of discarded A7000+ and RiscPCs in my labs, the amount which GraphDraw is used has increased exponentially. So too has the number of features that I have thought would be useful!
Chris recently made GraphDraw 32-bit compatible, so that he - and presumably others - can run it without emulation on the Iyonix PC. In addition to this, a number of key requests made by me have been implemented. Let's have a look at some of these, and why I wanted them:
Display Size, and Print Size
Sometime last year, Chris implemented a display size option. This allowed the graph, as displayed on the screen, to be of various useful sizes. If your screen size allowed it, displaying a graph of 800×600 allowed its projection onto a whiteboard to be useful. I use this regularly!
The only problem was that, if you then printed it, it came out at that size. Chris has recently solved this problem by implementing a default print size, alongside the screen size. Perfect!
Class Sets
In science lessons, it's obviously important that the pupils get plenty of practise at drawing graphs by hand. This is however less important than it used to be, as even coursework can have computer-produced graphs alone. It may well be a thoroughly useful time-killing exercise, but it's hardly a good use of their time if they know how to make a good graph by hand.
Instead, it is great to plot the results from a demonstration in GraphDraw, and give a printout to every pupil. I do this quite often, but normally decide to save ink, time and paper by exporting a drawfile version of the graph into Textease, then creating 4 small versions of it.
The other day, I had just demonstrated the radioactive decay of Thorium (a thoroughly exciting practical involving radioactive gas!) This only took a few minutes, and even less time to enter the results in GraphDraw. However, I needed to correct for background radiation (see gcse.com if you're interested!). GraphDraw couldn't do it!
Now, it should have been able to do it using the constant transformation to a data set. That is, I wanted to add a negative number (i.e. subtract something) to each result. A bug in the software denied the entry of a minus sign! Chris had a fixed version back to me within 6 hours, that could also multiply or divide by values as well.
GraphDraw's new data manipulation tool
Having had to correct each of the values manually in the lesson, I went on - as always - to export to Textease before printing smaller versions. Chris had been so helpful and swift in implementing features, that I decided to request a thumbnailing option (similar to that in TechWriter).
I was expecting its implementation to take some time, and perhaps for it to be nearly impossible. Chris pulled it off, and the latest version - which arrived yesterday - has this feature built in!
GraphDraw's new thumbnail printing options
This morning, a class of 20 year 10 pupils used the computers - lacking this new facility - to produce current/voltage response curves for red LEDs. Sharing two printers with switchboxes does slow down the whole process. Hopefully with the ability to print two graphs on one sheet of A4, pupils can cope with a nice A5-sized graph that will also stick nicely in their books (without trimming). Perfect!
Line, Curve or Squiggle?
GraphDraw has always had the ability to fit a multitude of curves to data points. Sometimes, though, it is not always possible to choose the right line first time. To change to a different type required you to close down the graph, and decide on something else from the data-entry window. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to choose a different line from the graph menu?
GraphDraw's slicker line-change facility
What you have to remember is that professional users of GraphDraw don't often choose the wrong type of line. In classroom situations, of course, pupils are learning all the time about what constitutes the best line to use. The ability to rapidly try out different options is a bonus. After all, you can do it in Excel!
Interpolation
This is something that proponents of !Draw absolutely love, and GraphDraw can do it too! This time, of course, it involves reading imaginary data points off a trendline (i.e. where data should have been, had you measured it).
This facility is incredible, as it even allows extrapolation beyond the range of experimental data collected. Excel can't do that - instead pupils have to use its equation of best fit line to calculate where points would lie on a line one at a time!
GraphDraw's range interpolation facility
The only trouble with the input window was that hitting ENTER quite correctly and by default hit the SAVE button. Pupils tend to expect it to move to the next input field. Chris has now trapped this with an error window requesting more data. Sneaky GCSE science students can now pad out their experimental results quickly and easily using this facility - if Chris could now add an "introduce random error" feature to its output, that would be perfect!
Axis Range Intervals
This has been in the program for some time now, but was one feature that I requested as I wanted to be able to have a particular separation of the x-axis scale marks, but its sensible default was not quite right.
GraphDraw's recently added axis-range intervals in action
Again, it's not actually that important to have the ability to change the axis intervals for professional output - no one would want to read point values from the graph. In teaching, however, it is beneficial to plot a set of graph points, with or without a curve, then get pupils to read values from the lines. Now, with the ability to add more detail to the intervals, we can do this more accurately.
Summary
For me, and for the many pupils who pass through my physics department, GraphDraw is indispensible. Yet, we can cope with Excel. But it is slower, more cumbersome, and lacks many of the features that make GraphDraw in its latest guise unbeatable. I cannot rate it more highly!
Online Links
GraphDraw Website
My Original Review (1998)
If you have any questions or comments on the use of RISC OS computers in education, please either email education@harmsy.freeuk.com or better still join the RISC OS Education Discussion List, and air them there.
eQ are a group of programmers bringing a certain "digitalness" to the RISC OS world. At least, that's what it says on one of their many websites. eQ have brought the RISC OS platform a number of new utilities over the last year or so - perhaps the most famous being the first MPEG video player to have sound support - and I was curious to find out more. I contacted Alexander Chukov, and was able to conduct an interview via email. It would seem that eQ have extensive skills both in hardware and software.
AH: On your website you have details of your Russian laboratory. Mostly these are A7000 machines. What is their primary purpose, and how often are they used?
AC: The Primary purpose for the A7000s was RISC OS developing. However now we use them as low price ARM developer boards for our experiments in ARM technologies. We now have own ARM board with Cirrus Logic (EP7312 CPU). Soon all the info about our ARM boards will put onto the eQ labs site.
AH: On
AC: Yes !rdesktop is still under development, while I want to try to add some other ideas to rdesktop. !rdesktop is needed for RISC OS while it helps us work on remote Windows PCs with software which isn't available for RISC OS.
AH: I just downloaded version 0.2. This now supports 1024x768, which is great. And it's still fast! What other changes were made? Other than great new icons!
The new RDesktop icons
AC: An overflow bug in rdp tcp sources, and this version was compiled using the ARM Developer Suite. This has super tools, very good C, optimisation, inline functions and a built-in assembler. I made a simple re-target library for RISC OS, and can now compile sources with this. Soon as I will have free time, I will put all on eqlab site.
AH: Kino2 sounds interesting. How well does this work at the moment?
AC: It can play divx and mpeg4 video well, but needs more testing as we still have a few bugs.
AH: LoopLinux also sounds great, as many people have been put off experimenting with Linux on RISC OS hardware, due to its installation. How is this going?
AC: This is also working well. I have tested it on RS and A7000 machines. For installation you need about 300 Mb free space on the first ADFS(IDEFS) partition. Installation is simply a case of unpacking or copying from the CD !linux folder. There are pre-installed linux images inside this folder.
AH:Your USB4LPT and stack are clearly a neat solution. What USB hardware can it support?
AC:Any hardware which is compatible with the USB 1.0/1.2 standard. If RISC OS users need it, we will write drivers for RISC OS.
AH: Currently you only have access to ARM7500FE-based hardware. Is this a reason for this, or would you like to use StrongARM RiscPCs, or even the forthcoming Iyonix/Omega?
AC: Ah, the 7500FE, this is historical solution. Two years ago eQ R&D wanted own hardware platform, and we decided that the 7500FE was a good CPU for it. Now we have own boards with EP7312, it is a more powerful CPU and is cheaper than the PS7500FE.
AH: Tell me, please, what is the EP7312, I've not heard of it before. What does your board do?
AC: EP7312 is a Cirrus Logic multimedia CPU, also known as Maverick, with an ARM7 core. The CPU clocks 74MHz, but also can be changed to 37 MHz and 90 MHz using the internal PLL.
We made developer boards for software and hardware training. At first we made it for the university (TSPU), but it can also be used as an embedded computer for industrial aims and another locations where computers are needed. In the next version we will put standard memory modules (DIMMs) and maybe later will try to install a EP9312 (ARM9 core, 200 MHz). Currently it can run eCos and our own boot systems, but running linux is also possible. Unfortunately it can't run RISC OS as there's no 26 bit mode in Maverick. However maybe a version of RISC OS 5 could be used.
AH: eQ clearly have skills with numerous computer platforms. How confident are you that RISC OS, which you appear to support the strongest, offers the best possible future for your needs?
AC: I like RISC OS, as OS, as GUI. It is very nice while placed in ROM/flash. But I don't like the RISC OS Ltd/PACE politics - no free documentation (like Microsoft MSDN). And the license price for systems is bigger than another commercial OS/GUI.
AH: Regarding !rdesktop. Over here in the UK, several developers are looking at developing an alternative, new ICA client for RISC OS. Would you be interested in helping with this? They are willing to pay.
AC: yes, it seems like a good idea.
AH: Every time I go to
AC: On the Riscstation I have looked at
AH: Peter Everett has released KinoAMP, which uses Acorn's AMPlayer module to decode and play sound, whilst the video decoding is based on your Kino. How pleased are you with the combined result?
AC: It's nice :) for ARM7500FE it's a bit slow, but on the StrongARM its a good and right solution.
AH: You have a number of CDs available for RISC OS. To whom do you intend selling these?
AC: In December (hopefully). Now we have finished our big project (our ARM boards), all our time before was for this project, it why our other projects were "under developing":).
AH:Thank you for your time, and considerable effort writing in English. Good luck with your many projects - the world will be watching with interest!
Since this interview was conducted, Alex has uploaded a history of eQ, and eQ R&D to their website. And as for what eQ stands for...
The Name eQ is a play on words:
IQ, for Intellectual Quotient
e-xxx for "electronic whatever"
eQ then stands for the "digitalness" we bring to the World.
Much has been made on the use of RISC OS as an alternative computer platform in Russia. eQ seem to have a broad and high level of skills, not confined to RISC OS itself. It seems to me that projects such as the solar-powered transportable computer, and even RiscStation's laptop, could greatly benefit from eQ's expertise. With a 32-bit RISC OS finally around, we can but hope that the likes of eQ are able to put it to good use.
For further information, and contact details for eQ, please see:
Andrew Harmsworth
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/FOOTBALL/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, Football Manager
Football Manager
Paul Johnson
Management
In this final article before I start to seriously start to look at the code required, we need to look at the missing part of any management simulation and that is the management itself. Up until now, I've concentrated on most of the other parts of the game (except the code!), but the management is probably the knubb of the game.
In the game, we have two parts to the management; finance and players. Finance is kept to a minimum. Basically, there is a bank balance with (virtually) a fixed income from gate receipts. From this pot, wages, grounds costs and anything else like that has to come.
Funds can be raised in one of three ways.
Selling a player
Obtaining a loan from the bank
Winning a competition or the league.
Obviously, the third one is the one you're aiming for, but you cannot count on it. Obtaining a loan is expensive and you have to pay interest and as anyone with a credit card problem will know, it is a dangerous thing to do when your cash flow is poor (in this case, if you're stuck at the base of the division and your wage bill is way too high, there will be problems.). Selling a player, while on the surface a good idea (your wage bill goes down and you will get some dosh), does have a down side in that you have one less player to fall back on should there be injuries to the squad or if you need to bolster a particular aspect of your sides statistics. But then, you could always buy a new player...
In the original version of Football Manager, the game level played made very little difference to the financial side of the game; gate returns were always roughly the same and the price of players were not that different› even when you reached the heights of the top flight. This changed in FM2 and became more realistic.
In FM1 it worked like this:
The start amount of cash is £30,000
All players are not paid until after the first game
A players wages was very vaguely based on their worth (roughly 7%
Grounds costs did not vary a great dea
No costs were incurred when selling or buying a player.
In FM2, it was changed as follows
The start amount remained the same with paying the staff after the first game
The players wages increased with the league the team is in and their respective skill levels. This started off at about 7% for Division 4
The wage bill also increased with the difficulty level
At the top skill level, wages started at 15%
Ground costs increased with the league and time of the match
The costs would increase as the season went on
The game costs would also be skill level dependant.
No costs were incurred when selling or buying a player. These changes made for a far more interesting game!
Player management
Player management in the original was virtually non-existant. You chose the team which best suited your needs and that was that. No picking substitutes, no training and you knew when a player was going to go down injured as their energy was below 5, they would normally be injured for the following match. In all, the management side of the original was pretty dire.
The only real decisions the manager had to make was the formation and if the type of play is attacking or defensive.
Even changing the skill levels made little or no difference. Thank goodness this all changed in the second version!
In the second version (which is also the model we will use) things changed greatly. The main changes were.
The formation is decided by placing the players into slots on the field.
Substitutes are chosen prior to a match
Players can be played out of position, but at an effectiveness cost (for instance a goal keeper would have a skill of 4, in defence, it would go down to 3, in attack, 1). This is useful if you're having injury problems
Training, though simplistic, was there. It took the form that everyone did the same training, whether that was short or long passing or any other type of passing
Players could be injured during the match and the chances of injury was not as cut and dried as in the original The skill level chosen really made a difference for all of the above.
This lead to a far more playable game and definitely a far more enjoyable game. Why? Well, the game stepped closer to reality. Okay, you didn't have sending offs, bookings, offside traps or off the field tantrums, but hey, FM2 was a heck of an achievement given it was written on a machine with about 40K of available memory on board!
We now have a good idea of what will be needed to get the game into shape› the theory behind the game has been documented and some of the decision processes and implementations been planned (such as drawing up the league). There is still some work to be done though. The biggest of which is the overall engine plan.
Engine? What?
Game engines are great as if you design a really good one, it can be used time and time again in a variety of ways› look at the Doom engine. There is an engine which not only did Doom, but a number of other 3D games as well. Alright, it was tweaked and fine tuned, but so are car engines, the result is a fast, efficient engine well versed at what it does.
The main engine of this game is the game with the key parts being the object handling, league and filesystem› anything else is purely bodywork. In this way, it is possible to write the game with hooks which allow OS specific parts to be tagged on. This remake will come with the RISC OS parts attached, but it would be quite simple for someone to write (say) a Windows, MacOS or Linux part. The engine is the same each time. Why do it this way? It makes for a simpler life when creating a game!
That's enough for this time, next time I'll make a start with the code.
FontTrixPRO is copyright APDL and iSV Products. It is not freeware, shareware or Public Domain and must not be distributed in any way.
Manual for FontTrix PRO
FontTrix PRO is a multitasking application designed to allow quick and easy modification of existing outline fonts in order to create new weights. To load FontTrix PRO simply double click on its icon and it will then load onto the icon bar. Clicking SELECT on its icon will open up the main control window. (Clicking Adjust will open up the editor window - see later).
FontTrix v FontTrix PRO
FontTrix & FontTrix PRO have a very similar user interface, the difference is in the files they produce. FontTrix produces transformed fonts that can be displayed by the font manager. FontTrix PRO produces "real" fonts that can be loaded into !FontED or another Font Editor. Fonts produced by FontTrix PRO can also be used on machines with RISC OS 2 (providing an OS 2 font is used as a source).
What is a Transformation?
A transformation of a font means pulling its shape around. A simple example is extending it, increasing the X value of each XY pair so that the letters in the font are longer. Predefined transformations as used by the weight or family windows are referred to as styles.
For a more detailed explanation see the section entitled "The Editor Window".
The Main Control window
This contains a view of the currently select font as well as four buttons that will each open up one of the FontTrix PRO font creation windows. Pressing MENU in this window will open up a menu from which a new source font can be selected. IMPORTANT - if the source font icon is blank then select a font NOW before continuing with the application.
The Family Window
This can be opened by clicking on the Family button in the main control window. The Family window allows you to quickly create up to 26 new weights from the source font. Each weight can be selected or deselected by clicking on the appropriate radio button. The ALL button will turn on all of the weights, the NONE button will clear all of the weights and the TOGGLE button will flip the state of each button.
Making a new family
Once you are happy with the selection of new weights that you wish to make simply click on the Make Family button and FontTrix PRO will automatically make the new weights for you and save them into the same !Fonts directory as the source font. Sometimes the new font will have a name that is longer than 39 letters and FontTrix PRO will then ask if you want to shorten the name or abort the manufacture of the particular weight.
The Weight Window
This can be opened by clicking on the Weight Window button in the Main Control window. This part of FontTrix PRO allows you to make over 5000 new weights from your source font - however not all of these weights would prove very sensible. The source font is shown ay the top of the window the new font name is shown underneath and the style selector is underneath this.
The Weight Style Selector
As you can see the style selector allows up to 3 new pre-defined styles to be made in the new weight. At the moment they are all blank - however if you press MENU on the first style menu button a style menu will open showing you the possible styles. If you choose a style it will be selected and the name will appear in the relevant style icon. Up to 3 new styles can be selected in any order you like eg.) Trinity.Medium.Compressed.SemiScript.Oblique.
Show Example
Clicking on this icon will open a window showing the new weight for your source font. The sample window displays an anti-aliased sample of your new font BEFORE you have even made it. The sample will also update in real time. If you choose a new style to add to the new weight you are making the sample window will show the new weight almost instantly.
Making a new weight
Once you are happy with your new weight clicking on the Make Weight button will make the new weight for you and save it into the same !Fonts directory as the source font. If the new name is over 39 letters in length you will be asked if you want the font made with a truncated (shortened) name. If you click on Cancel the font will not be made.
Choosing Weights
If you click on the Random Weight button FontTrix PRO will choose a new weight at random and show it in the sample window if the sample window is open. New weights can only have one occurrence of each style. For example if you try and make the Font Trinity.Medium.SemiLight.SemiLight.Oblique FontTrix PRO will remove the second SemiLight from the name.
Editor... button
This button will take the sum of all the current styles selected, combine them as one and then export this style to the transformation editor. From here the style an be changed, or saved to disk for use later. See the section on the Transformation Editor for more information.
The Custom Window
The custom window can be opened by clicking on the Custom Window icon in the Main Control Window. The custom window is designed to allow you to produce customized weights for any font you like. As you can see there are 6 slider bars each of which will adjust one aspect of you new font.
The Custom Example
Clicking on the Show Example window will open up an antialiased example of your new font. Any changes to the fonts characteristics made with the slider bars will be displayed in this window in real time. This allows you to fine tune your customized font easily and quickly before actually making it.
Width & Height
The slider bars can be moved or dragged using the SELECT button on the mouse. Width & Height - these two slider bars will alter the width and height of the letters in your font.
Note that they will NOT alter the character offset so if you make a font wider the letter spacing will stay the same and characters may overlap.
Oblique Angle & Vertical Angle
These allow you to alter the angle of the letters in your new font. A Normal oblique font will have a an oblique angle of between 10 and 25 degrees.
The vertical angle changes the amount the each character rises from the baseline along its width.
If you set a negative Oblique angle the font will slant backwards - this can be used to straighten up an existing Oblique or italic font.
Tracking
This will alter the letter spacing of your new font.
So if you are extending the width of a font by 120% you will also want to extend the letter spacing by the same amount. To see the difference between the width and tracking settings try dragging both of the bars with the example window open.
Making a custom font
A custom font can be made simply be setting up the slider bars as appropriate and then typing in the new name of the font into the Weight Name Icon and clicking on the Make Custom Font button. The font will be made with the name you have supplied. The name must be legal.
Trinity.Medium.Rotated.Example is legal.
Trinity.Medium.Rotated example is not legal.
All names can only have 10 letters between each full stop and have to be less then 39 letters in total.
Send to editor
This button will take the current settings from the custom font designer and export them into the transformation editor. When you click on this button the transformation editor will open with the same settings as were in the custom designer. See the next few pages for information on the editor.
The Editor Window
This window allows you to edit any of the styles already defined in FontTrix PRO or to make new styles up easily. This operates a little differently to the other Windows.
It allows you to produce transformations that contain mathematical formulae. In simple terms the editor provides you with a 6 entry transformation matrix that can be used to alter a fonts appearance.
How does the editor work
When you first open the editor you will see the current transformation "(none)". (a=1 b=0 c=0 d=1 e=0 f=0) If you make a font with this transformation it will be an exact copy of your source font. Next to the name of the transformation is a MENU button. Clicking on this will open up the same style menu as is shown in the Weight window. Choose Extended from the menu. The transformation will now change to (a=1.3 b=0 c=0 d=1 e=0 f=0).
How does the math work?
In the editor window you can see two equations, these show you how the transformation works. X=(X*a)+(Y*c)+e Y=(X*b)+(Y*d)+f In the example above choosing Extended from the menu you can see that each X position in the font will be multiplied by 1.3 thus making each character longer.
Select the other transformations from the menu in sequence to see how they work.
Transformations on disk
Supplied with FontTrix PRO are a set of transformations in a directory called Matrices. These can be loaded by dragging them to the FontTrix PRO icon on the icon bar, or by dropping them in any window. The editor window will automatically open, if it is not already open. Transformations can be saved by clicking on the Save Transformation button and dragging the file icon to an open filer window.
Making your own transformations
You can easily make your own transformations by first entering a name in the relevant icon (up to 11 chars) and then entering each definition in the icons on the editor window. The only variables that can be used are X & Y but the following math signs can be used + - / * = Also the following commands can be incorporated ABS DIV INT MOD RND SGN SQR ACS ASN ATN COS DEG EXP LN LOG PI RAD SIN TAN.
Warning (RND(x) command)
If you make a transformation with the RND (Random) command (for example the scrunched matrix supplied on disk) then it is possible for the font bounding boxes to become distorted. Any font made using this command should be loaded into Acorns !FontED application. Wait until the font is loaded (!FontED will beep) then save the font back. This will correct any bounding box errors. Alternatively you can use the Set BBox to maximum option (see options).
Options
Clicking on the Options icon in the Main Control Window or in the Transformation Editor window will open up the options window. This allows you to set up a couple of FontTrix PRO"s automatic features easily. It also has options concerned with scaffolding, kerning and outlines. Clicking on the Save button will save your options to disk so that whenever FontTrix PRO is loaded it will be set up as you want.
ReScan FontPath
This will be on by default - when a new font is made from any part of FontTrix PRO it will be saved into a font directory and that directory will be rescanned so that the new font is available immediately. This option will ONLY work if you use the Acorn !Font directories.
If you use a FontManager or !MoreFonts from Computer Concepts then turn this option off BEFORE making any fonts.
Auto Truncate Font Names
This will tell FontTrix PRO to shorten any new font names of over 39 Characters automatically without checking first. If this option is off and you make a font of over 39 letters then FontTrix PRO will ask you if you want the font name truncated (shortened) or do not want to make the font. If this option is set then all names will be truncated for you without a prompt.
Scaffold Options
Remove scaffold tree will remove any global scaffolds from with in the font, this can be used to get round the !FontED - "Cyclic scaffold link" bug.
Remove linear links will remove any linear scaffold links within a characters scaffolding, it can be used to repair a font with "Invalid linear links".
Other Options
Blank kern pairs will leave all kern pairs intact but will reset their offsets to zero, effectively removing them.
Attempt to close paths will try and ensure that all character Outlines start and end at the same XY coordinates. This is only really needed if you are producing a random shift of outline XY pairs - eg the Scrunched matrix supplied on disk.
Set BBox to maximum
This will reset the characters outline Bounding Box to the largest possible extent - we recommend that this option is always on when you make a new weight using the Transformation editor as some mathematical transformation can cause bbox problems (see the warning about the RND(x) command).
Leave char widths intact
Some transformations made with the editor can have undesirable effects on character widths (eg the Ghostly Matrix supplied on disk). Clicking this option will tell FontTrix PRO to leave all character widths as it found them.
Export to FontED
When this option is ticked any font that is produced will be automatically exported to !FontED when the font has been finished. This option will obviously only work if !FontED has been "seen" by the filer before trying to export the font.
Auto save
This option toggles the way that fonts are saved by FontTrix PRO. If this option is on then the font will be automatically saved back into the font folder in a new directory. If this option is off then when the font is made a save dialogue box will open which will allow you to save the Outlines and Intmetrics of the font out by hand.
Auto save should be off if you are using !FontDIR or Easyfont, or if you are trying to change the ROM fonts.
Scaffolding
The fonts made by FontTrix PRO will use the hinting from your source font. However there are some restrictions to this "Automatic" hinting process. Some scaffold links will have to be detached in order to make the font properly. Extended or Condensed fonts will have the full hinting of the original font, Oblique fonts will have the X scaffold links disconnected. FontTrix PRO will try and keep as much hinting as possible from the source font.
Skeletons
Any skeletons found in the source font will be used in the new font and will be automatically repositioned and have scaffold links adjusted in the same way as the outlines of the font.
Using your new fonts
Any fonts created by FontTrix PRO can be used in the same way that any other font can be used.
Unlike the fonts made by FontTrix the fonts made by FontTrix PRO are real fonts and hence can be used without the source font being present.
FontDIR & EasyFont
These applications provide a sensible front end and control system for the Acorn font manager.
However they are both READ ONLY filing systems and as such nothing can be saved back into them.
If you do want to use Font Trix PRO with any fonts in one of these packages then you have will have to install them in the normal Acorn !Fonts folder or ensure that the autosave option in FontTrix PRO is off (see autosave option).
Legal Note
Some Font manufacturers forbid the disassembly or modification of their fonts. Before using Font Trix PRO please ensure that you have permission to use it on the source font. Fonts produced with FontTrix PRO can be distributed provided such distribution does not break the licence conditions of the source font used.
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/GAMES/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, Games World
Games World
Paul Brett with the latest gaming news.
32bit Games
One minor problem with the new
These will run directly on the Iyonix, users of older machines will need to install the new Toolbox and System modules which can be found in the Software.Toolbox archive in this issues DiscWorld. So in sequence the new 32 bit games are:
Chuckie Egg
Controls
Up -
Down -
Left -
Right -
Jump - Spac
Hold -
Abort - Escape +
Quit - Escape (only from menu screen
Configuration
Inside the game application directory is a configuration file named !Config. Loading this into a text editor will allow you to change the game options
Initially, the options are set to:
Lives=
Level=
Changing the value after the equals sign (=) will allow you to change the number of lives and the initial level you start with. This game will run on all RISC OS computers from ARM250, RISC OS 3.xx to StrongARM, RISC OS 4.xx.
Cybertron Mission
Playing Cybertron Mission
On entering the stronghold of Fort Cybertron, you will be instructed as to which objects to find on each level. Once you have collected all the treasure (only one item on level one), run in search of the room containing the safe. Touching the safe advances you to the next level. There are a total of 16 rooms on each level, in the form of a 4x4 grid. You are well advised to draw a map as the layout of the levels is designed to confuse you! The treasure can be in any one of these rooms, and to pick up an item, simply move over it. It will then appear in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen to signify that you are carrying it!
On the first level, your only adversaries are the Spinners. These do not fire back, but later on you will meet the Clones with their rapid firepower, and still later the Cyberdroids which are more intelligent. A good score is over 32,000!
Game Controls
@lt; - Lef
> - Righ
A - U
Z - Dow
M - Fir
Esc - Stop gam
F12 - Leave gam
You can fire and move diagonally by holding down two direction keys together.
Configuration
Inside the game application directory is a configuration file named !Config. Loading this into a text editor will allow you to change the game options. Initially, the options are set to:
Lives=
Level=
Changing the value after the equals sign (=) will allow you to change the number of lives and the initial level you start with.
This game will run on all RISC OS computers from ARM250, RISC OS 3.xx to StrongARM, RISC OS 4.xx. At present there are no sound effects.
DareDevil Dennis
So you think you could be a stuntman? Well, test your skills against these hazards and see if you're still game. There are only three different scenes in this movie, so you shouldn't find the going too tough! There's no denying that the money's good, but the question you should be asking yourself is will you live to spend it?
If you can ride a motorcycle - and wetbike - two of the frames should be child's play, but for the snow scenes, you'll need to be of Olympic class. Well, as I said, the work isn't easy, but the lifestyle's great (if you have a lot of style, you may get to have a life as well) and the rewards are out of this world...
Game Controls
Shift = Accelerat
Space = Jum
Return = Sto
Escape = Quit (only from menu screen
Features
FULL SOUND ("interrupt driven music" while loading
100% Machine Cod
High score tabl
Original gaming concep
On screen scorin
30 Multi-colour sprite
3 Scenarios (land, sea, snow
6 skill levels (novice-Ace)
Fast smooth mode 2 graphic
6 intermediate stages giving 36 skill level
Automatically gets harder as you get better
Configuration
Inside the game application directory is a configuration file named !Config. Loading this into a text editor will allow you to change the game options
Initially, the options are set to:
Lives=3
Changing the value after the equals sign (=) will allow you to change the number of lives you start with.
This game will run on all RISC OS computers from ARM250, RISC OS 3.xx to StrongARM, RISC OS 4.xx. The selections on the menu screen can only be chosen by pressing an upper case letter (as per the original game).
Guardian
Controls
Up -
Down -
Thrust - SHIF
Reverse - SPAC
Fire - RETUR
Smart Bomb - TA
Hyperspace -
Quit - ESCAPE (only from menu screen
Configuration
Inside the game application directory is a configuration file named !Config. Loading this into a text editor will allow you to change the game options
Initially, the options are set to
Lives=
SmartBombs=
Changing the value after the equals sign (=) will allow you to change the number of lives and smart bombs you initially start with.
This game will run on all RISC OS computers from ARM250, RISC OS 3.xx to StrongARM, RISC OS 4.xx. The sound effects are not correct.
Other games releases
As well as looking at new 32bit releases, we have also been looking at a couple of games written in BASIC. Neither of these are new releases bit they are games that I have not encountered before. Since they are written in BASIC these should run on any RISC OS computer including the
Desdemona
The rules of Desdemona are simple. By clicking with Select on any lega
square, players must try and fill the board with pieces of their colour. Thi
is achieved by surrounding enemy squares in any one of the eight possibl
directions. Surrounded pieces convert to the colour of their encirclers'
Good squares to capture include the corners and edges as these are harder t
surround. When the board is full the player with most squares of his o
her own colour remaining is the winner.
Getting Started
Install Desdemona on the icon bar by double-clicking the Desdemona icon i
the filer window. From the iconbar menu you can find information about th
current release of Desdemona, and can quit the application when you're done.
Click Select on the icon to open the main window. The configuration of th
game is set by the row of buttons along the top of the window. The firs
button brings up a high-score table of the top five scores recorded. Th
second button brings up a window from which the Human and Computer playe
options can be set. Note that you can only set the 'Smart' computer leve
in the registered version of the game. The final button is used when a gam
is running, and passes a move when it is impossible to play.
The Replay Window
The third button is the Replay button, which brings up a window controllin
aspects of replaying the game. During play, the progress of the game i
stored in memory by Desdemona. Clicking on Start, End or the arrow buttons i
the Replay window redraws the board at stored turns of the game. By using th
button in the main window it is then possible to restar
the game from any point.
The Game Controls
Start new game
This wipes the board, clears the game memory and starts a new game with Black as Player One. Once this is clicked, options and replay functions are greyed out.
Resume old game
If a game is held in memory then this button can be used to restart it. This is useful if a game has been ended and consequently either the Replay window has been used to alter the current position or computer-player options have been changed.
End current game
This ends the game in progress, but stores its details. Ended games can be restarted easily from the same point. This can be useful if you want to change the number of players or computer difficulty.
Desdemona requires RISC OS 3.1 (or above) and 96K free to run.
This application is Shareware, which means you may not distribute it, modify the code or alter any other part without the permission of the author. To continue to use the application after a short trial period, you must register it by sending £4.00 to the address below. Details can be found on the website. The registered copy has a harder computer opponent and no annoying warning window. Future upgrades to Desdemona, such as extra graphics, better computer players or added features, will be made available to registered users.
Constructive criticism, ideas for improvements and general comments are welcome.
I must say that I am rather impressed with the graphics on this game, although its not a full finished game, in fact its more of a "technology demo" it is very playable, and not as easy as it looks either. The author is Andy Spence so he can tell us more.
"This is a demo pre-release of what is to become a public domain, bit-map platformer. The aim of this release is to see if their is enough interest in it to see the project through to the end.
Because my coding is so bad, I would advise that this games only runs at a playable speed on a SA RiscPC. However if it runs too slow on your computer and you are /that/ desperate you can always go to the level data at the end of the !RunImage file, and reduce the 'delay' variable to increase the speed. It is usually set to "delay=2".
The Idea
You play Santa, who happens to be wearing an incredibly expensive pair of 'Ray-Bans' which makes him cool,... apparently. Avoid all hazards, moving and static. Collect all the bonuses on each level before following the arrowed sign to the next level. Throw the switches to reveal and open hidden doors to finish the level.
There are three types of baddies: Tortoises, penguins & robins. Penguins can waddle faster and robins fly
Watch out for the spikes and snow boulders
Throw the switches to open hidden doors
There are four types of bonuses: Rings, Gems, Candy Sticks & Christmas Puds
There is no sound supported
There are only four levels at present and you only have three lives to complete them. Have fun
The Keys
The Main Menu:
Use the left and right arrow keys to select the options
Return to activate them
Note that the 'Options' menu is nonexistant as yet
In-Game:
Left arrow key : Lef
Right arrow key : Righ
Up arrow key : Jum
Return : Activates switche
Escape : Ends game to men
Final Note
Please do not alter this game or remove this, or any files from it. This game is freeware and may be passed around freely, as long as no changes are made and no part of the game is used else where (Especially the graphics). To contact me, send an email to:
Rounding off
That is it for this volume of RISC World, hopefully there will be more exiting gaming news to report by the time RISC World Volume 4 issue 1 comes out.
Paul Brett
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/HUGHJ/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, The Hugh Jampton Experience
The Hugh Jampton Experience
With your host... Huuuuugh Jampton! (Cheesy early 70's Saturday Night ITV type TV music plays, Hugh bounds down the stairs in a spangly suit and give a huge TV type fake grin)
Thank you, thank you, nice to see you...to see you err......um....anyway, yes, it's the no expense spent budget part of RISC World, where I get the opportunity to offend someone so much that they threaten to sue. Still before that, this.
The caption competition
As you may well remember we ran this little piccy last issue and asked for your captions. Well amazingly for the 2nd time in a row we had some entries. So below are the least offensive....
I really must get onto broadband - Gordon Kattau
Hasn't this PC reached the start-up screen yet? - William McNee
Will Windoze never load? - Alan Shooter
Struck by the blue screen of death! - Alan Shooter
The editor is a real slave driver. - Alan Shooter
This new slimming diet really works. - Alan Shooter
We did have a few more entries, but to preserve the reputations of those who sent them in I won't print them.
Anyway if you have read this issue's editorial you might have discovered that Aaron's office chair broke. Now due to a goodly amount of fortune I happened to pop round just after the event happened, and have been able to record for posterity his attempts at using a dining room chair.
Ahh, what a happy camper. Actually this picture makes an interesting counterpoint to the skeletal figure in the first picture (Grrrr- ED). Any amusing captions for this visual masterpiece should be e-mailed to myself. Assuming we get any and they are funny I will publish them next issue.
As an aside I received this e-mail the other day.
You have just received the Amish Computer Virus. Because we don'
have any computers or programming experience this virus works on a
honour system. Please delete all the files from your hard drive an
manually forward this virus to everyone on your mailing list
Thanks for your co-operatio
Amish Computer Engineering Department
Luckily I am not as silly as I look. I only deleted the contents of !Boot.Resources just to be on the safe side.
The funny pictures
Would you buy an operating system from this lot?
Is it a mind numbing program from the Open University? Is it the FBIs most wanted list? No it's the complete staff of MicroSoft circa 1978, nice!
Meanwhile the Oregano beta testers have been hard at work.
Well at least they haven't been using this for beta testing.
Or this...
I recently read that MicroSoft are going to branch out in their continued plans for world domination, and offer an Internet service for animal lovers.
No doubt this logo will be lurking on the computer's case.
And of course it will be powering mission critical systems the world over.
Of course the real big news over the last couple of months has been the continued attempts to inspect Iraq's so called "weapons of mass destruction". We have an exclusive photo of that inspection in progress.
See you for the exiting start of Volume 4 of RISC World.
Hugh Jampton
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/INTERDICT/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, Interdictor II
Interdictor II
RISC World
Interdictor II was originally published by Clares Micro Supplies Ltd. With the recent acquisition of most of Clares software catalogue by APDL we at RISC World have decided to give all our readers a copy of Interdictor II free with this issue of RISC World.
The full Interdictor II manual comes in at over 55 pages and is rather difficult to reproduce here so we have produced a condensed set of instructions, and have also included a copy of the Interdictor II flight map and the key, which show which symbols mean what. If you would like a full printed copy of the manual and the full colour A3 size fold out printed flight map then you can send a cheque for £5.00, made payable to APDL, to the normal APDL address.
Starting Interdictor II
Before you can play Interdictor II you will need to enter a couple of colour combinations into the software protection screen. The colours can be found from the chart shown below. As an example if the program asks you to enter the colour from square A1, then you would need to click on the white box on screen, as the colour in box A1 in the chart shown below is white.
The Map Screen
Once you have done this you will find yourself on the main map screen. You may well need to return to this screen while you are playing the game and you can do this by pressing the Star (*) key on the numeric keypad (on RISC OS 3.1 or earlier use the Hash (#) key). You can switch to the 3D view from the aircraft cockpit by pressing the Enter key on the numeric keypad. While you are in the map screen the following key presses can also be used.
END - Save current gam
HOME - Load gam
SPACE - Toggle between real aircraft and the "flying brick" trainer - note that if you use the flying brick you will be unable to save your game
Keypad 8 - Move one square up on the world ma
Keypad 2 - Move one square down on the world ma
Keypad 4 - Move one square left on the world ma
Keypad 6 - Move one square right on the world ma
Keypad 0 - Toggle between map and status screen
The map screen will show you the current state of play using small icons. Live targets are shown as red castles, dead targets are shown as damaged black castles. Enemy missile batterys are shown as red target marks, destroyed missle batterys are shown as grey target marks. The map also shows enemy fighters (in red), cargo planes and trucks.
The Interdictor World
The Interdictor II world is approximately 10,000 square kilometers in size with hundreds of Kms of roads, rivers and railway lines. There are nine combat arenas each with an airfield at the center.
Initially your plane will be on the runway of airfield Alpha. This is a non hostile area, you mission is to remove the enemy from the other arenas. To do this you need to destroy all the targets in that arena and then also destroy the hanger next to the run way. If you are detected attacking a particular arena then the enemy may well bring in extra weapons and supplies by cargo truck. If you run low on fuel or weapons you will need to return to either the Alpha airfield or another Airfield that is no longer under enemy control.
In Game Controls
Once you are sitting in the cockpit of your fighter aircraft you can use the following to control the game.
Mouse Movement - control the pitch and yaw of the aircraf
Select - increase engine spee
Menu - reduce engine spee
Adjust - Fire weapo
In addition the following keys perform these functions.
A - Autostabilise (useful if you get the aircraft out of shape, simply let go of the mouse and press A
B - Turn brakes on or off (this will be shown by a cockpit light
D - Air brakes on or off (this will be shown by a cockpit light
E - Engine on/of
L - landing gear up/dow
< - rudder lef
> - rudder righ
Keys 1 to 3 - Mouse sensitivit
Shift & + - Full throttl
Shift & - - Minimum throttl
= - increase throttl
- - decrease throttl
Keypad + - pitch trim u
Keypad - - pitch trim dow
Keypad Enter - reset pitch tri
You can also control the planes weapon systems with these keys.
G - Select Gu
S - Select SideWinde
R - Select Rocke
F - Fire flare
C - Drop chaf
H - Enable/disable HU
\ - Alter radar zoom scal
; - Select a navigation waypoin
[ - Cycle left display mod
] - Cycle right display mod
You can also control your view of the world using these keys.
Keypad # - View ma
Keypad 8 - Look forwar
Keypad 5 - Full screen look forwar
Keypad 2 - Rear vie
Keypad 4 - Left vie
Keypad 6 - Right vie
Keypad 9 - Forward right vie
Keypad 7 - Forward left view
Keypad 1 - Rear left vie
Keypad 3 - Rear right vie
Finally these keys can also be used during the game.
P - Pause gam
N - Engine noise on/of
Q - Quie
Escape - quit gam
End - save game from map scree
Home - load game map scree
The Cockpit
That covers all the game controls and only leaves us with the cockpit to explain.
The radar display shows the local area as follows.
Green square - enemy fighte
Yellow square - enemy cargo plan
Red cross - enemy missle batter
Yellow cross - enemy airfiel
Blue cross - captured/safe airfield
The best way to get to grips with Interdictor is to play. Initially its worth exploring the world using the flying brick as this is much easier to control than the real aircraft (bur remember you can't save!). Good luck!
This time we will kick off with comments on the last issue...
Hi Aaron
Following your publishing my article on the last CD, I have a couple of extras comments you may like to print.
The 1901 Census
Sorting HTML downloads into family groups and finding the Census folio reference. The answer to this has been provided by John Rye with an application called !1901Key2 With this, dragging the HTML file for a family name to the icon produces a CSV file. This can be dropped onto a PipeDream file; repeat with all the HTML downloads. Sorting in the first column, which contains the family reference number, groups each family together. Also listed is the census folio reference; the complete answer, and done in seconds!
John Rye is happy to send people who contact him "!1901Key2". He did not mind me passing the info onto you, he may be prepared for you to put the Application on your next CD. His e-mail address is Civil Parish names
Searching in London for ancestor families has highlighted the need to fully check that all the records for a Civil Parish have been found. This is particularly so for long parish names. As example, 'St George in the East'. Entries are also found under 'St George East', 'St George in the E'; there may be other alternatives I have not found. Another is 'Paddington', for which I also found just 'Padd'. The same applies if searching using the Administrative County. A limited check using the parish of Bethnal Green put this in 'London', 'Middlesex London', 'Bethnal Green'. Sometimes no county name is entered.
Regards
Eric Dobson
Many thanks for the extra information. It's always very helpful when authors work to provide extra information above that published in an article. While we are on the subject of Ancestor+...
Hi,
In your reply (in volume 3, issue 5) to my request for a sources file i
Ancestor+, you misunderstood what a sources file should be. It is no
the ability to put odd files in a folder, which I agree that Ancestor
has. It is a fully indexed file of all the sources used in all th
database. Then for each person you include citations of each sourc
and give a volume and page number, or other appropriate reference.
Genealogy is a research project. If you read almost any printe
research report, they will include a list of sources used for thei
information and will also include references to that list in the mai
text, so you know which title or repository to look up.
One reason for having an indexed sources file is to give some disciplin
and consistency in the citations. Another is to be able to make a lis
of all the references to one particular source, so that any perso
checking your information can do all the checking on the one source a
the one time.
Further there is a need for each item of information on a person, t
say where it came from. So each data field needs a facility to inde
it to the sources index.
Remember that the greatest weakness of most genealogy is that it i
unchecked and unverifiable. And anything like that has to be throw
away by the next generation who will have to start again.
Genealogy programs for other platforms include source indexes, and othe
features, automatically. The weakness of the RISCOS genealogy programs i
that they have not gone and looked at what the competition offers.
The lack of proper source files is not the only weakness in Ancestry+
but to go through an extensive list of such would just clog up you
magazine.
But just a thought for you about the folders for each person into whic
you can put any information them: there is no facility to search th
folder for content to bring up, for instance all those people who had
mention of "First World War" in one of the documents in these folders
On the program I use, you can have as many Notes fields as you like
each of up to 64,000 characters and each is fully searchable fo
content, to bring up a list of people with that same content.
Ancestor+ has a long way to go. The copy I purchased still rests o
the shelf, gathering dust.
Tim Powys-Lybbe
I think we are going to have to agree to disagree here. I can see the point you are making, however I do not agree with your interpretation or conclusions. I think the simple way of putting things would be to say that you have decided you don't like Ancestor+. I don't think any thing I can say will change your mind, so I am going to move on...to another Ancestor+ letter.
G'day
Going through the Ancestor+ manual index on Risc World 3.5 I have found the following happens. The heading, Adding to and Editing Data the top of the page right menu does not appear. Clicking on the bottom of the page right menu arrow produces this message, "Message from Ant Fresco: cannot read local file". Back to the index page and going to the next title, clicking loads the page. Clicking on the right arrow produces the message "cannot read local file". It appears that I have to keep going back to the index each time to load the next page.
Regards
Alan Shooter
Ah, pronounced Ah. Well the problems seems to be a file that has lost part of its extension, the file InfoOut.HTM got turned into InfoOut.HT and hence couldn't be found. I have placed a corrected version in this issues software directory and have also corrected this on the copy of Vol3 Issue 5 on this CD. It is the Editors job to check this sort of thing so a black mark is going on my file.
Still lets quickly get away from Editorial mistakes...
...to a competition winner with no prize...
Dear info,
Imagine my surprise when in the October issue of RISC World I read in the competitions page:
>So who are our lucky winners this issue? Step forward...
>Stephen Parkin
>Robin Gordon
>A shiny new DrawWorks Select CD will be in the post before you know it!
Now my name is Robin Gordon and I even entered that competition so you can imagine the excitement in this household. So I waited, luckily not holding my breath, as weeks passed and no package came from RISC World. Doubts began to creep in, perhaps there's another "Robin Gordon" out there who subscribes to RISC World but this couldn't be.
Anyway, time passed and I left the country for a month over Christmas passing through Miami airport where I was held by immigration for 2 and a half hours because there was, in fact, somebody else called "Robin Gordon" and they had to check out my passport. (A bit worrying this). However I was assured that thi
person did not subscribe to RISC World.
After returning home there was still no DrawWorks Select CD ready to try out on my recently installed Select2i3. In fact, there was not even a December issue of RISC World. Had you forgotten about me? No, because I've just received my February issue and very interesting it is too.
So please, could you send me a copy of the December CD and, if I am the only Robin Gordon subscriber, please could you send the prize as well.
Regards
Robin Gordon
I have spoken to Dave Holden at at APDL about this and he has forwarded another copy of DrawWorks Select and the missing issue. If they haven't turned up then please do get in contact. We haven't the faintest idea why two packages have disappeared and no we don't have two Robin Gordons on our subscription list!
The subject of competition with no prize has also been bought up by another reader...
Hi there to all at RISC World
With regard to the Hugh Jampton column I seemed to have missed all mention of a prize. Is there one?
Regards
Gordon Kattau
(You haven't missed the mention of a prize because there wasn't one. That is, there wasn't a mention of a prize, and there isn't a prize which is why it wasn't mentioned. Do readers think there ought to be a prize? If so what would you suggest? In fact lets have a competition to name the silliest competition prize you can think of. Our initial suggestion would be a years subscription to Total Carp magazine. Mainly due to the fact that I misread the title every time I go into a newsagent and other people can't work out why I am laughing - HJ)
And now a satisfied reader...
Hi,
Keep up the work on the mag. Very enjoyable. Any chance of the competition page returning, maybe in a semi-regular slot of say every 3 issues? I did only notice a couple of spelling mistakes in this issue. Have you employed a new proof reader? ;-)
William McNee
Sorry the competition page has had it, we simply didn't get enough entries to make it worthwhile, unless hundreds of readers want to write in requesting its return? And no we haven't employed a new proof reader (can't you tell? - HJ). Now another follow on from Brian Pickard's module article in the last issue.
Hi Aaron
I have had a reply (literally just in) from Mr John Ballance at Castle Technology. He says put zeros in all SWI header entries (including the chunk number)
Cheers
Brian Pickard
That one had me a bit stumped as well, thanks for checking with Castle Technology and providing the answer. Now a technical support request.
Hi,
I wonder if you can point us at a website to help resolve a startup problem on the only Acorn (RISC OS 3)at the school. No apps startup and clicking on HardDisk4 gives an error message "No Boot application has been run on startup. Some facilities may not be available or set up correctly." (Printing and the CD drive are not available). Clicking on Cancel then double-clicking !Boot in the ADFS panel gives the error message "You cannot reconfigure this machine". Thanks for any help you can give.
I have a funny feeling that I didn't read this properly when I sent this reply...
The machine has lost its CMOS RAM settings - perhaps due to a faulty battery. Once the machine is in the desktop press F12 and type the following commands pressing return after each command. If you have entered the command correctly nothing will happen - if you get it wrong you may get an error message:
CONFIGURE BOOT
CONFIGURE FILESYSTEM ADFS
CONFIGURE DRIVE 4
That may sort it out - if it forgets this again then the battery needs replacing.
However that wasn't the answer...
Hi,
Aaron - Thanks for your help. The 3 commands went through OK but nothing changed - I restarted the machine but it was still as before. I will look through the dealer list for one on the Merseyside area and take it from there - thanks again for your help.
Can anyone point out where I went wrong with this one? I would have thought that my advice would have got the machine booting again, but plainly not.
Aaron Timbrell
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/LINKS/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, RISC World useful links
RISC World useful links
RISC World
It is almost obligatory these days for every web site to have a page of links. For most RISC OS enthusiasts these will be links to other RISC OS related sites, and although this is useful most of the primary sites will be linked from the main RISC OS portals like The Iconbar or Drobe Launch Pad or the rather less visually exciting but extremely comprehensive Nutshells, which has links to hundreds of dealers, developers, suppliers, FTP sites, and much more.
There doesn't seem to be much point in just publishing yet another list of links to the same old sites, so we've collected together some that you may not know about and not be able to find from the usual RISC OS portals. These aren't RISC OS specific, but they are all places that you might find either interesting or useful, or both.
Foggy's Acorn 2 PC Networking Guide is, as the name suggests, an invaluable guide to networking your RISC OS machine to a PC. You can probably find all the information you need here to get a network up and running.
Quiet PC is mainly aimed at PC owners, and so quite a lot of the products won't be of direct interest. However, they do stock quite a lot of useful stuff, including cables, ultra quiet fans, acoustics material and hard drive 'hush' kits. An alternative site is Cool Case Mods, although, as the name suggests, this is mainly intended for people who want to 'customize' their PCs with windows in the side, laser lights and coloured fans, but they do stock more basic items as well.
Now for some techie stuff.
The Acorn technical documents site has hundreds of documents of all types relating to Acorn computers. Many of these are from Acorn and were the documents that Acorn made available to Registered Developers. Others are from third parties and include various 'How to' and 'Hints and Tips' articles.
For anyone interested in importing 'foreign' files into RISC OS programs or visa versa here are a couple of invaluable sites. My File Formats and The Programmer's File Format Collection both list hundreds of proprietary file types and describe their format. These aren't just limited to the usual PC and Mac files either, but include Amiga, Commodore and even Acorn files.
For people who mess with hardware rather than just software an invaluable site is Mushroom Components. This company has stocks of thousands of obsolete and obsolescent electronic components, including the STPS2045CT dual shottky diode often needed for RiscPC power supply repairs. If you need a hard to find component for a repair on an old machine this is one place you can't afford to miss.
Finally a few companies that can provide something we all need, low cost printer supplies. The price of inkjet printers has now fallen so low while the cost of replacement refills has been rising that it's almost cheaper to throw away your printer and buy another when it runs out of ink. In fact, this is exactly what I found with my (inkjet) fax machine. Cost of machine, £89 with two cartridges. Cost of replacement cartridge, £47.
Fortunately there are lots of places where you can buy 'pattern' refills. However, for the bulk user or the serious bargain hunter by far the best option is to refill your own. The problem then is obtaining good quality ink at a price that makes it worth your while. A good place for both 'original manufacturers' and 'pattern' inkjet cartridges and bulk ink is PhotoGlossy. As the name suggests, they primarily specialise in photographic supplies, so they do film and paper as well, but they've also got a great range of inkjet supplies. For the non commercial user, there's another advantage; they are in Guernsey, so there's no VAT and you still get low UK postage rates.
If you are going to refill inkjet cartridges then the best tool for the job is a hypodermic syringe. These are not always easy to obtain, especially the larger 10ml or 20ml sizes. The best source may be your local vet, but failing that there's an online veterinary supplier, Canine Chemists. If you've got a dog or cat these are people you absolutely must know about anyway, but for syringes select 'Surgical Instruments' from the product index on their web site and you'll find them.
There's another problem with some inkjet printers, especially the latest Epsons. These have a 'chip' that decides when your cartridge is empty. Not only does this often mean that you have to change a cartridge when it's obvious that there's still ink in it, but you can't refill them (which was the main idea in the first place). This practice is shortly to be outlawed by a European Directive, but that's not a lot of help if you've already got one of these printers.
Fortunately there is a solution. Inky Link and BS Print not only each have original and pattern inkjet refills for a variety of printers, they can also both supply a cunning device for resetting the chip in Epson cartridges so that you can either extract the last drop of ink or refill them. You won't have to use this gadget more than a couple of times before it will have paid for itself.
If you use a laser printer don't feel left out. As with inkjets, for most models pattern or 're-manufactured' toner units are available at much reduced cost, but you can also refill them yourself.
It's not possible (or advisable) with all makes, but toner refill kits are available for many of the popular models, including most Hewlett Packard lasers. This is a bit more complicated (and potentially messy!) than refilling an inkjet, but the cost saving can be even more significant. I'll try to cover this in more detail in a later issue of RISC World, but if you don't mind having a go have a look at L.C.Refills who can supply toner and refill kits, complete with full instructions, for a huge range of printers.
LowerHTML will examine the HTML script inside an HTML file and will convert all of it to lower case. This can be useful as it makes an HTML file easier to read and follow. It can also solve the problem of having "messy" HTML with tags being opened in upper case, for example as <B> but being closed in lower case, for example </b>. LowerHTML can also ensure that any tags you have opened are correctly closed, not closing tags properly can have very unpredictable results depending on the browser being used. In addition LowerHTML can ensure that all links and quoted strings are in lower case, which is very useful if your HTML file is going to be hosted on a Unix/Linux server. Under RISC OS and Windows a file can be referred to using either upper or lower case file names, for example Index, index and INDEX all point to the same file. However under Unix/Linux this is not the case and the names Index, index and INDEX would point to three different files. So keeping all filenames lower case makes a great deal of sense and can prevent sites "breaking" when they are uploaded.
Instructions
Find the LowerHTML program inside its archive in the software directory on this issue of RISC World and drag the Application to a suitable directory on your hard disc. Double click on the !LowerHTML icon to load it onto the icon bar.
A title banner appears when you first run of the Application in any one session on your computer. It can be immediately removed by clicking over it, but it only appears for about five seconds.
Double click on a HTML file or drag it to the bar icon to enter its file name into the main 'SetUp' panel slot. Alternatively clicking on the bar icon brings up the main 'SetUp' panel and the HTML file can be dragged to this panel, or the file name can be typed manually into the slot at the top of this panel.
Select options from the 'SetUp' panel and then click on the 'Run' icon. After a while a translated HTML Text file is offered for saving. The translated file has the same leaf name as the original, but with an upper case 'L' in front. The translated file then should duplicate the effect of the original HTML file, but with selected tags made lower case.
Additional Help is available from the bar icon menu, or by using the Acorn facility !Help, present in the 'Apps' directory. LowerHTML has now been updated in order to also check tag balance and report on tag match and mismatch. It should be noted that some tag terminators are only optional.
More programmers' tools and fractal programs can be obtained from
The Wimp Interface
This lists the icons in the main window and shows their functions:
Input : Name of file to be edite
Description : Supplies description of !LowerHTM
Verbose : Diagnostics of process supplie
Help : Supplies Help Informatio
Cancel : Return to previous option
Run : Run program with current option
Don't Lower Tag : Stops conversion of HTML tags to lower cas
Don't Change \ to / : Stops conversion of \ char in tags to / cha
Lower All Strings : All quoted strings in tags are lowere
Lower String : NAME Quoted strings after NAME= are lowere
HREF Quoted strings after HREF= are lowere
SRC Quoted strings after SRC= are lowere
Replace 'Newline' : Convert to IBM format text file
Verify & Report Tag : Check and Report on tags matching or not
Disclaimer and User licence agreement
Users of !LowerHTML must accept this disclaimer of warranty:
"!LowerHTML is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of !LowerHTML.". !LowerHTML is a "free program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with your friends, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. Commercial users of !LowerHTML must register and pay for their copies of !LowerHTML within 30 days of first use or their license is withdrawn. Site-License arrangements may be made by contacting Martin Carradus. Anyone distributing !LowerHTML for any kind of remuneration must first contact Martin Carradus at the address shown in the help files for authorization.
Martin Carradus
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/MAKEHTML/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, HTML to DTP
HTML to DTP
Dave Holden
Note. There have been minor improvements and bug fixes to the !Imp-HTML and !Ovn-HTML programs published in Issues 4 and 5. The latest versions of these programs can be found in the directory SOFTWARE.ISSUE5 on this CD
HTML to DTP
This is a program to covert a straightforward HTML file to either plain text or into a form suitable for loading into Impression or Ovation Pro. It is not intended to work with complex files with intricate layouts and tables, but rather with HTML 'documents' such as on-line manuals and texts.
One reason for doing this is that although it is possible to print the original HTML file from your browser you will then be obliged to accept it in the form in which it appears in the browser window. This may not be ideal. By loading it into your DTP program instead you can alter the fonts, point size, page layout, and other factors to make it more convenient to view and print.
Using HTML-DTP
Run the program by double-clicking on it in the usual way. To open the main window either click SELECT on the iconbar icon or select 'Process' from the iconbar menu. The window shown will open.
On the right hand side are three buttons which enable you to choose between converting to Impression RTF (Rich Text Format), Ovation Pro DDL (Document Description Language) or Plain text. As you click on these buttons the file icon at the bottom will change between a text icon (for Impression and Text) and the file icon for Ovation Pro DDL. Similarly the filename in the Save icon will change to the defaults for the respective filetypes, namely TextStory, DDLfile and TextFile.
To convert a file drag the HTML file you want to convert to the icon at the top labelled 'Source file'. It must have the correct RISC OS filetype for HTML (&FAF) or it won't be accepted. It's name will appear in the icon and the file icon at the bottom of the window, which will initially be 'greyed out', will change to a normal appearance. All you have to do now is select the format you want to convert to and drag this file icon to a suitable directory on your hard drive, altering the name first if you wish.
Loading a file into a DTP program
A plain text file can be double-clicked on to load it into your text editor. Similarly a DDL file will normally load directly into Ovation Pro provided the program has been Run or 'seen' by the filer. However, to load a RTF file into Impression you will have to either drag it to the Impression icon on the iconbar or into a blank document window.
With an Ovation Pro or Impression document any headings, bold and italic text should be properly converted. Ordered and unordered lists will be correctly indented. Unordered lists should have each new item marked with a bullet character and an ordered list have each item preceded with a sequential number.
Obviously plain text can't have the typeface changes, but lists will be shown, although they won't be indented as this would make it more difficult for you to format the text subsequently if you wish to do so.
Pictures and Links
If there are any links to pictures or other files in the HTML these links can be included. The pictures themselves are not inserted into the file, but by including the links you can, if you wish, convert any pictures into a suitable format and then place them in the DTP document in the usual way at the position indicated.
To have these links included you should select the 'Show links' or 'Show image links' icons at the left of the window. With a plain text file a file links is shown in the form:
--<< Link to "name" >>--
and an image link in the form:
--[[ Image "name" ]]--
where in both cases "name" is the name of the file or image linked to.
With Impression or Ovation Pro instead of the enclosing '-<< >>-' and '-[[ ]]-' braces a file link is shown in green text and an image link in red.
Marking links in this way enables you to quickly identify them and delete any that are unwanted.
Title
Most HTML documents are given a title which is shown by the browser. If you select the 'Include Title' icon then this will be shown at the start of the document. In Impression and Ovation Pro this will be in blue text.
Paragraph spacing
Text in HTML documents is normally unformatted, just as in wordprocessors, with markers at the ends of paragraphs. This is usually done by placing a <P> tag at the start of each paragraph and a </P> tag at the end of each paragraph. In a browser paragraphs marked in this way will have a definite gap between them.
In addition the <BR> tag is used to indicate a line 'break'. Unlike the <P> tags there would not be a gap between lines terminated in this way.
Sometimes only the <BR> tag is used, and sometimes the <P> tag is used without the corresponding </P> tag. To accommodate these variations the 'Double <BR>' and 'Double <P>' buttons, when selected, will insert extra line breaks when <BR> and <P> tags respectively are found, effectively inserting extra blank lines between each paragraph.
This may result in too many blank lines, but these can easily be seen and deleted. This is preferable to having no obvious breaks between paragraphs as this could make the text difficult to read or edit.
How you set these options will depend upon how the codes are used in any particular file and your own preferences. Some experimentation may be required to find the best combination for any particular circumstances.
Saving Choices
To avoid the need to set all these buttons each time you start !HTML-DTP you can select 'Save Choices' from the iconbar menu. The settings will be saved in a choices file inside the application directory and set the next time you start the program.
Fonts and Styles
When you look at a converted file in Ovation Pro or Impression the various headings and indented lists are converted to appropriate styles. These can be seen on the Styles menu. For example, after loading a converted DDL file the Style menu in Ovation Pro would look like this.
The Style menu in Impression would be almost identical except that the top item (the 'base' style) would be called 'Normal' instead of 'Body Text'. Also some additional styles might appear as the styles in the converted document are added to any already present in the default setup.
As you might imagine the styles 'Heading 1' to 'Heading 6' are applied to the HTML heading styles <H1> to <H6>. 'List 1', 'List 2' and 'List 3' are used for <UL> and <OL> structures. 'List 1' is the normal style, 'List 2' is used where one list is embedded in another, and 'List 3' is used for a further embedding. The only difference between these styles is that each is indented further from the left side of the page to produce an effect similar to that seen in HTML.
The six Heading styles all use the font Homerton Bold in descending point sizes. All the others use Trinity Medium in 12 point except for 'Code' which uses the font Corpus. This is employed to mimic text enclosed in <PRE> tags in HTML.
Changing the styles
You may find that the default styles used by HTML-DTP aren't suitable, or that you simply don't like them. These are all set by template header files, so they are very easy to change.
Inside the !HTML-DTP application directory there is a sub directory called Resources. In this you will find two files, a text file name Impression and a DDL file named OPro. If you drag the appropriate file to your DTP program it will be loaded and you will be able to edit the various styles in the usual way.
Because the various 'List' styles are based on the 'Normal' or 'Bodytext' style any changes made to the base style will be reflected in these. If you do change the base style, especially if you increase the point size, you may need to alter the ruler for the 'List' styles. This is because the first Tab position and the left-hand wrap point for the text are set to just accommodate a two digit number and a full stop, such as used when numbering items in the list. If you increase the point size without moving these points on he ruler you could get an unsightly gap after double digit item numbers.
Once you have done this the file can be re-saved. Don't forget to delete any text you may have entered when trying out your altered styles first otherwise this text will appear in all converted documents.
When editing the styles it is best if you delete any that aren't actually used by HTML-DTP. For example, the default Impression document has the styles Main Heading, Sub Heading, 1in indent, Hanging indent and Table. There won't be any problem if you don't remove them, but they will clutter up the Style menu on converted documents and they won't be used.
To save the file with Impression open the 'Save text story' window from the File menu as shown below.
Make sure that you save it with the filename 'Impression' or it won't be recognised by the program and check that 'With styles' is ticked (as shown above) or all the important information won't be saved. The process with Ovation pro is very similar. Open the 'Save as' window as usual from the File menu. Before saving the file check that the name is 'OPro' and that 'DDL' is selected as shown.
Before editing either of these template files it would probably be wisest if you made a backup copy of the original first in case something goes wrong.
After looking at something fairly trendy for the last couple of articles (sharing an Internet connection), I'd like to talk about something completely different, and perhaps slightly less with-the-times! However, in order to avoid being too old-fashioned, I'll start with something relatively modern.
RISC OS web browsers
The RISC OS web browser situation is something of a roller coaster! Back in the dizzy heights of 1995, the freeware options of ArcWeb and Webster were developing nicely. As if that wasn't enough, Acorn promised their own browser (Browse, shipped with InterTalk), ANT were ready with Fresco, and DoggySoft with Termite. All these browsers had their own strengths and weaknesses – there was real choice, and they all competed for market share.
By 1997, ArcWeb and Webster had quietened down, DoggySoft had given up on Termite, and Fresco was irritating. Thankfully, Acorn came along with Browse 2, complete with plugins for Shockwave 4 and Java 1.0.2, and R-Comp marketed Webster into WebsterXL.
Unfortunately, we all know what happened to Acorn, so the Browse rug was pulled from under us. In yet another rescue attempt, Castle stepped in with Oregano. Then guess what? WebsterXL hardly moved and Oregano was left to go stale. However, all is not lost, as Castle have come to the rescue with... Oregano 2!
The long-and-short: upgrades from Oregano 1 are £58 – the full price being £99 (all inclusive of VAT). A free demo can be downloaded from Castle's web site at
I've read Castle's press release, and sadly for them, I'm hard pushed to list the feature differences between Oregano 1 and 2. The latter appears to have a more up-to-date JavaScript engine, and built-in Flash 4 support. I suspect that these features may clear up some issues with JavaScript/Flash-heavy sites, but I'd strongly recommend checking by trying the demo.
You may be wondering why I have hardly mentioned WebsterXL. After all, this is the second browser in a two-browser race! Unfortunately, my personal experience with WebsterXL has been poor. Despite receiving plenty of upgrades, and promises of improved speed, JavaScript compatibility, stability etc., I'm left disappointed. When WebsterXL works (usually on simple web sites) I find it painfully slow, and when I point it to a semi-complex web site, it makes a messy attempt at rendering, usually followed by a crash. In all honesty, I couldn't recommend it as a primary browser – I've only used it when Oregano fails me (and even in those situations, Fresco or Browse tends to be a better bet).
Looking to the future, both Oregano and WebsterXL could turn into wonderful commercial browsers. Also, thanks to the
Standard? How boring!
In all of the articles to date, we've looked at using the industry-standard Ethernet hardware to connect computers together. The obvious benefits of adopting such technology include being able to connect different platforms (on my network, I have a Risc PC, Linux PC, Windows PC and Apple Macintosh!) and benefiting from the reduced cost (through large sales) of hardware like switches and hubs.
Back in the day when Ethernet in the home and school wasn't so popular, and it was rather more expensive, in Acorn-land, we had two reasonably successful proprietary networking systems: Econet from Acorn and Nexus from SJ Research.
Econet
Econet was created right back when Acorn started making computers, with the System 3 and 4, and the Atom. It survived, through all of the BBC Microcomputer range, the Archimedes, and even the Risc PC. In fact, only the Electron and A3010 were ignored by Acorn when it came to Econet – and I wouldn't;t be surprised to hear that a third party had filled those gaps!
Econet is a bus-network (like 10base2 Ethernet), and uses shielded 4-core cable. Like 10base2 Ethernet, a terminator is required at each end of the network. However, unlike most other network systems, an external clock must be connected as close to the centre of the network as possible. This provides a "pulse" for all the computers to synchronise their data transfers to – the speed was changeable, so a short network could pulse faster than a long one!
With Acorn's 8-bit machines (most which pre-date the Archimedes), files transferred around the network were likely to be a handful of kilobytes. Econet could transfer data faster than tape or 5.25" floppy drives. At first, the Archimedes machines were happy on Econet – but once applications and data files started getting larger, Econet couldn't cope.
For reference, the theoretical speed of Econet is something like 200 kbit/sec (or 25 kbyte/sec), which doesn't compare too well to Ethernet (10 or 100 Mbit/sec). In practice it would actually be difficult to get 100 kbit/sec out of Econet!
In fairness to Econet, it is likely that many installations (particularly those in schools) broke the rules slightly – e.g. aged or poor quality cable, clocks not in the middle. Considering such things, it's amazing that it worked at all, let alone was capable of pushing applications like Impression Publisher out to a classroom of A3000s!
When Econet first became popular in schools, a typical ("Level 2") server would be a BBC Micro (model B) with a 6502 Second Processor and dual 5.25" floppy drives! One floppy contained the file server software, and the other was for data. Obviously, the big pain is in changing floppies. Eventually, hard disk drives became more affordable, and could be connected to a BBC Master 128 ("Level 3") server.
In parallel with Acorn's efforts, a third party company (SJ Research) produced their own Econet-compatible hardware. SJ produced a range of dedicated servers that offered enhanced functionality compared to Acorn's efforts. They were truly plug-in-and-go – no messing with installing second processors, or finding server boot disks! SJ's first products were FDFS (Floppy Disk File Server) and HDFS (Hard Disk File Server), which led-up to the superb MDFS (Modular Disk Filing Server). In addition to these servers, SJ produced Econet interfaces, clocks and terminators, and sourced their own quality cable.
Eventually, Acorn realised that dedicated servers were a good idea (especially considering that schools often had the server computer in the same room as the clients!) and produced their own – FileStore. Feature-wise, it was not a patch on MDFS, but the basics were there, and Acorn had a distribution and pricing advantage.
Essentially, MDFS and FileStore were functionally similar to a BBC Micro in a closed-box, running the Level 3 file and print server software. Both could share floppy disks or SCSI hard disks.
In the early nineties, Acorn produced their Level 4 server software. It allowed an Archimedes machine to act as an Econet file and print server. The main advantages over the earlier 8-bit-based dedicated servers were: (1) any Archimedes hard disk could be used (from small ST-506 disks, average IDEs, to SCSI monsters!) (2) an Archimedes-only Econet could be useful (dumping the 8-bit machines allowed you to pulse the clock faster!).
Some time after that, release 2 of Level 4 came along, as did Acorn Universal Networking (AUN). This technology allowed all the Econet-style file and print services to run over Ethernet, and for the two networking technologies to interconnect.
Extensive information on Econet can be found at
Nexus
SJ's Econet kit worked well with the Archimedes machines, but SJ realised that the larger applications and data created by the 32-bit machines made Econet a struggle. Their solution? A complete replacement! Nexus used it's own interface cards (which were only produced for the 32-bit machines), cabling and hubs. Yes, hubs – Nexus was not a bus network, but a star, just like 10baseT and 100baseT today.
Each Nexus hub has four ports, and each Nexus Disk Sharer could connect to four hubs. Therefore, a Disc Sharer could be connected to twelve Archimedes computers. SJ maintained that this was a sensible maximum figure, and for situations with more computers, there should be multiple Disk Sharers. They were probably right, as I remember various nightmares involved in trying to get applications from one server to twenty Econet clients!
Each Nexus client computer saw two disk drive icons from the Disk Sharer – one was a large shared application area, and the other was private to that client, and used for data files. Administration was very simple: a key switched the unit to admin mode, and a specific client computer could then write to the shared application area (to add and remove applications).
Nexus is actually based on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology, and transfers data significantly more quickly than Econet.
The high cost of the Disk Sharer units put many people off Nexus, and eventually SJ caved-in and produced a software version. This allowed an Archimedes computer to act as a Disk Sharer (a bit like Acorn Access), and was branded as Nexus Junior.
Interestingly, Nexus only offered it's own hardware and application sharing. There were no Nexus file or print serving solutions. However, SJ created the "Bridge from Econet to Nexus' (BEN) box and some clever software called Virtual Econet, which allowed their Econet-based server to join the party. The Virtual Econet works on the Nexus clients, and fooled Acorn's Econet client software (built into RISC OS) into thinking that the Nexus network was in fact Econet – so users could log on to the Econet server via BEN!
As mad as it sounds, this was a good solution, as it allowed Econet-only computers to see the same server (for a Nexus-only system, the solution was to run Acorn's Level 4 product). Although I've not personally tried it, it should be possible to use Acorn's EconetA module with Virtual Econet to get TCP/IP working over Nexus.
Towards the end, SJ were working on a dedicated file server unit – something better than an MDFS, complete with a Nexus interface. Sadly, this never appeared. Nexus suffered as Acorn promoted Ethernet more and more, which was getting cheaper and cheaper (whilst the low-volume nature of Nexus kept it's price high).
Today, Nexus continues under the ESSJAY name, see
The point?
Although it's unlikely that anyone would find themselves building a network with Econet or Nexus these days, I think it's interesting to look back. And who knows? You might come across an ex-school skip of A3000s with most of the required hardware! Wouldn't it be fun to connect it all up and see how amazing it was?
Unfortunately, the modern RISC OS machines don't support Econet or Nexus. I wonder if anyone fancies creating a couple of PCI cards or USB modules?
And finally – stop press!
I must apologise – I've only just seen the previous issue's letters page, and there is a question for me. Oops! My apologies go to Chris Bass, as I can't answer your question. I don't actually understand what you mean. I'm pretty confident with Linux, and I'd love to help, but I'm not sure what you want to achieve. Feel free to email me directly, and if something interesting develops, we'll see if it can get a mention next time.
Signing off
As usual, please get in touch with The Editor or myself if you want to make suggestions or raise queries regarding this series.
Richard Walker
ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/NEXTISSUE/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, Next Issue
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We are keeping very tight lipped about the next few issues of RISC World, but I somehow doubt you are going to want to miss them. We will continue our current series including the Education Column, Gamesworld, the PD Column and all our other regulars. We will also be starting some new series and have some interesting new articles coming up in the next issue including a full examination of the PayPal online payment system and the start of a new series explaining file types and how to transfer and read files between a RISC OS computer and other computers. We also hope to start serialising another book, we are just not sure which one we will start publishing first! On the software front we have a fine collection of commercial applications and will continue to make sure that every issue of RISC World comes with at least one (and sometimes more) full application(s) that has not appeared on a magazine before.
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ÿÿÿÿVOLUME3/ISSUE6/PD/INDEX.HTM Volume 3, Issue 6, PD World
PD World
Paul Brett with the latest freeware and PD releases for RISC OS.
Yet again I have found another bumper collection of PD and freeware releases filling up my e-mail account this issue. It would seem that software development on RISC OS is continuing to pick up speed. The release of the
Eclipse99 - Jochen Lueg
This little animation shows the shadow of the moon move across the South Atlantic and Africa during a solar eclipse in June 2001. The photographs are from EUMESAT's Meteosat space craft. The moon's shadow travels across southern Europe. Best resolution is achieved in a 256 grey mode. The program is freeware.
EXIFinfo - Chris Terran/Lee Montgomerie/Vermilion Sands
EXIFinfo generates files containing the information hidden inside the EXIF files produced by digital cameras. It can make anything from a simple text summary to a web page complete with thumbnail images, and because it uses script files the program can be made to produce just about any format you want. It can also provide caption files for the splendid image browser Thump. It is not useful for ordinary JPEGs, or images of any other kind. This includes digicam files which have been processed in any way, most RISC OS applications destroy the EXIF data, so keep your originals!
Frontender - Dave Watson
We have had quite a play with Frontender, and in the RISC World office we rather like this, in fact we like it a great deal, oh alright we think its absolutely brilliant. There are lots of natty command line utilities around that quite frankly we can't be bothered to use. Using Frontender you can convert these utilities into multitasking applications, Frontender deservedly gets out highly recommended award.
Frontender is a program that will allow non-desktop, command line based programs to be setup and controlled on the desktop. Using a simple scripting system, you can add a frontend to almost any command-line driven program. Before you can do anything with Frontender it needs to be 'seen' by the filer. So, put it in the same directory as your child apps, Filer_Boot it on boot up or put it in your Boot:Resources directory. Now it is just a simple matter of double-clicking any of the child apps to run them. The will act like any normal wimp application. Child apps for Frontender are simple to create. All you need to do is create an application directory and place in it a !Run file and a Frontender Script file. If you like, you can also stick a !Sprites file in there too with an icon for the child.
The !Run file should look something like this:
#!Run file for !chil
set child$dir
if "" = "" THEN ERROR "You need Frontman to use !child
run .!Runimage .Scrip
where you should replace the name 'child' for the name of your child app. Check the example child apps (located in separate archives inside the Frontender directory on this RISC World CD) for pointers.
OneDay - Jochen Lueg
This little animation shows a view of the Earth from space during one day. The planet lights up from East to West. Notice how the sun is reflected by the sea off the coast of the Arabian peninsula. The program is written for the RiscPC and will now work in any RiscPC mode. The graphics file is quite large, due to the sprites (provided by ESA) and but is already stored inside the application.
PDF - Colin Granville, Leo Smiers and Derek B Noonburg
PDF is a Public Domain PDF file viewer for RISC OS. It is a port of Derek B Noonburg's xpdf program and further develops Leo Smiers PDF program.
Copying and licences
You may only copy/distribute/modify this program under the terms of the
GNU General Public Licence (GPL). Some o
the source files are released under a modified BSD licence
which is a GPL compatible licence
Updates, bugs or problems
You can get the latest version of !PDF from
http://www.pdf.iconbar.com/
If you have any problems with !PDF you can contact me a
colin@pdf.iconbar.com
Iconbar icon
If you run !PDF an Iconbar icon will appear and you can quit the progra
from the menu
If !PDF is not running but you run it by double clicking on a file o
it is run by another program eg a browser. It will not have an iconbar ico
and the program is quit by closing it's windows
Main window
When the pointer is over a link it changes to a hand. Clicking with select
follows the link in the same window. If you click with adjust the link is
loaded into a new window
You can scroll the window contents by dragging them
Clicking Adjust on the close icon opens the directory containing the file
Button bar
From left to right
Document Outline
If faded there is no Document Outline available. Clicking on th
icon opens an Outline window and when it is open
Click on an entry to go to that page
Click adjust on an entry to go to that page in a new window
Click select on a boxed + to show more entries in the outline window
Click adjust on a boxed + to open all entries with a boxed + or -, at th
same level, at and below the clicked on box
Click on a boxed - to hide some entries
Click adjust on a boxed - to close all entries with a boxed + or -, at th
same level, at and below the clicked on box
Click on window background or outside window to close it
History Back Move backward through history of pages visited. eg if you follo
a link selecting back will show the last page you looked at. If
the last page was in a different document it reloads that document
History Forward Reverses the effect of clicking Back
Bookmarks(4 small buttons) you can bookmark the current page by clickin
adjust on one of the buttons. You can then go back to that pag
at any time by pressing select
Document sizeShows the number of pages in the document
Current page Shows the current page. You can change the current page b
entering the page number here. Note the page number
may be different to the one shown on the page
Previous Click Select moves back 1 screenful. If at the top of page you mov
to the bottom of the previous page
Click Adjust moves to the top of the previous page
Select moves back 10 pages
Next Click Select moves forward 1 screenful. If at the bottom of page
you move to the top of the next page
Click Adjust moves to the top of the next page
Select moves forward 10 pages
Page slider Browse through pages by clicking or dragging the slide
KeyBoard ShortCuts
UP Move back 1 screenful
UP Move back 1 page
UP Move back 10 pages
DOWN Move forward 1 screenful
<shift> DOWN Move forward 1 page
<ctrl> DOWN Move forward 10 pages
+ scale by 140%
- scale by 70%
* scale 100%
Print Show print dialogue box
TAB History forward
<shift> TAB History back
<ctrl> F4 Fin
Printing
The display options 'No text' and 'No images' affect what is printed
Printing is always done in Accurate mode
Landscape printing has no effect when printing as a pamphlet
Single sided printing
all Print all page
from - to Print pages from 'from' to 'to
copies number of copies to prin
Double sided printing
Double sided printing requires Print setup to be correctly filled in for it t
work properly. (Click setup on the Print dialogue box
If your printer reverses the order of sheets then tick 'Reverses the sheet order'
If the paper is turned over by your printer tick 'Turns the paper over'
Once set you can save these settings
To control what pages to print you have 'all', the 'from-to' range and th
'start-end' range
Start-End The start-end range indicates the section of the document to be
printed so if you wanted to make a pamphlet from a chapter in a
document you would set 'start' to the first page in the chapte
and end to the last page in the chapter. If the start end rang
is faded then the range defaults to the whole document
All Print all of the start-end rang
From-To The from-to range is used to specify the pages from the start-end
range you want to reprint. Note it will print whole sheets of pape
so if you specify a from-to range of 1-1 you will get both side
of the sheet printed
Turning the paper over
When you have finished printing the first side you will be asked to turn th
paper over. At this stage you can cancel the printing and print the secon
side at another time by selecting '2nd side' in the print dialogue box whe
you print it
To turn the paper over you should ensure that the same end (short side) o
the paper is fed into the printer first so for example my laser doesn't turn
the paper over when it stacks the paper so I need to turn it over ensuring
that the same end of the paper is fed into the printer first
My old inkjet turns the paper over so I just need to turn the paper roun
so that the same end is fed into the printer first
To clarify
'Turn the paper round' means move the end nearest you so that it is the en
furthest away from you keeping the same face of the paper uppermost
'Turn the paper over' means keeping the same end of the paper toward you tur
the paper over so that the bottom face of the paper is now at the top
The paper needs to be turned the same way whether you print as a pamphlet o
just double sided
Find
Find searches for the word entered either from the current page or from th
beginning of the document. The search text is case insensitive
Logical page numbering
When viewing a pdf file you may find that the page number on the toolba
is different to the one shown on the page. This can occur, for example,
when there are contents pages which numbered separately from the main body
of the document. So, if there are 16 pages in the contents the toolbar page
number would show page 1, and be seen on the page as page 17. To go to page 80
you would have to type 96 into the page selector on the toolbar
You can make the page selector use the same page number as displayed
on the page by
going to a numbered page of the file...i.e. NOT a contents page
going to the 'Set logical page number' dialogue box (in 'Misc')
entering the number displayed on the rendered page
Speed Tips
A page which consists mainly of type 3 fonts (you can tell them because the
fonts are not anti-aliased like RISC OS fonts) can be very slow to render
for example the RISC OS Annual report can take over 20 seconds to rende
a page, set 'No Type3 fonts' and the same page can take less than 2 seconds
Luckily font substitution works for the RISC OS Annual Report but it doesn'
always
Having the pdf file on a RAM disc can speed some pages up a lot - especially if the
page is filled with Type 3 fonts
!PDF limitations
!PDF can't render fonts that are embedded in a pdf file directly, it tries to
use a substitute RISC OS font. This means that sometimes the text is not
rendered correctly
!PDF doesn't support polygon path clipping so may get drawings wrong. Selecting
one of the settings on the 'Display menu' may allow you to see what you want if
for example, some text has been obscured
If the display from !PDF isn't good enough, you could save the page/document a
postscript and render the postscript file with Ghostview (distributed with
GhostScript)
Dynamic areas
By default PDF will look for memory in application space. This limits the maximu
amount of memory available to PDF to about 28Mb. If you would like PDF to be abl
to use more memory you can make PDF use a Dynamic area by setting
PDF$DynamicAreaSize as follows
To use application space.
Unset PDF$DynamicAreaSize
or
Set PDF$DynamicAreaSize
To specify how much memory PDF can use.
Set PDF$DynamicAreaSize 6
where value, in this case 64, is in Mb. You choose the value you want
To allow PDF to use as much memory as possible.
Set PDF$DynamicAreaSize -
Syncopath - Lenny at MidiWays
This is a very simple utility that 'drives' David Pilling's !SyncDisc
disc backup program. Once setup, !Syncopath removes the need to ente
path details into the !SyncDiscs front panel.
Thus !Syncopath is used to duplicate disc images (or parts thereof) ont
another drive. It is not intended to be a fully fledged backup program
and has no facilities for restoring backed up data in the event of
mishap. Though the main point of drive duplication, is that restorin
data (should the need arise) is relatively straightforward, as the backe
up data is not compressed and retains a recognisable directory structure.
I use it to backup my four internal drives (actually, one IDE drive an
three partitions on a single SCSI drive) onto a single APDL DataSaf
drive.
For each drive/partition, the user needs to specify which paths are to b
backed up (synchronised). The program uses just one main window, in which it presents all the path
associated with a single drive/partition (as defined in the !Paths file).
!Syncopath enables the user to synchronise these paths either individuall
or on an all-paths-per-drive basis. It does this by farming the task ou
to !SyncDiscs. !SyncDiscs thus has to have been seen by the filer.
!Syncopath keeps a record of when each path was last backed up and it
file and byte-counts (in the file '.!Record'), and usin
these details provides a means to check a path for certain types o
changes, without the backup medium (in my case the DataSafe) needing to b
'on-line'.
RISC OS 4 style E+ format discs (ie with long filenames) are supported.
Version 0.13 adds a user options window which provides access to a coupl
of new features (see section 6.0).
The interactive help system is supported, so run !Help (or !BubbleHlp
etc) when first trying out the program.
Thumbcat - Malcolm Ripley
Thumbcat is an image catalogue application. It will handle a variety of formats
without additional applications. "Native" formats currently handled are : Sprites,
Drawfiles, JPEG's, EXIF's and Digital Camera AVI's (if they have an embedded thumbnail)
In addition it recognises ImageFS and ChangeFSI (if running/booted) and all format
handled by those applications.
It will handle files and directories dragged to the iconbar for immediate views.
It also includes an editable image details database based on the EXIF tag standard.
Catalogues can be pre-built from a directory(ies) full of images or appended to by dragging
from a filer window. Images can also be dragged from a Digiflash window and applications.
It will create an HTML version of a catalogue.
Read-Only sources can be catalogued (including HTML).
Verma - Lenny at Midiways
This must be a first for RISC World, we have two highly recommended programs in one issue. If you have every wondered what versions of all the !System modules you are running, or had any !System based problems then Verma is the tool you have been waiting for.
!Verma is a utility that displays version, etc information about relocatable modules, both those in memory (ROM/RMA) and those on disc (filetype &FFA) - in the latter case without the need to first install them in the RMA. These two types of module list involve different sets of data, so two different window layouts are used. For more details please consult the !Help file supplied.
XChars - Martin Wurthner
Finally we have an update to on old favourite with some great new features. XChars is a replacement for the Chars utility that comes with RISC O
with a lot of additional features, such as:
multiple window
Outline fonts at arbitrary size
Support for different encoding
Font aspect, line and character spacing contro
Different arrangements of characters (+optional display of ctrl chars
Configurable default setting
Character zoom window at configurable size by clicking Adjust on a letter (during the duration of the button press only or as a persistent window
Configurable character insertion hot ke
Option to install an application icon on the icon ba
All options can be set independently in each windo
"Hotlist": the state of all options (font,font size,line spacing etc.) of a window can be saved (by associating a name with it) and restored later from the hotlist men
Automatic display of character code under the pointe
Signing off
As you can see the variety and quality of RISC OS software releases remains high. Everything featured in this issue was released in the last couple of weeks. We haven't even included all the releases (otherwise this column would be many times its current size). What delights await us next time? I have no idea but I will certainly enjoy finding out.
This month's article is more of a miscellany than previous ones. As promised in Article 5 we will begin by looking further into the use of script commands. This is followed by a trick for making a CSV file generate a working database from scratch. Finally a method is described of making the !MusicBase database developed in Articles 1, 2 and 3 add up the times for the tracks on each record.
The latest version of Powerbase
More scripting
Creating a batch of reports
For this example we will use the !Elements database from
Include in the script a !QUERY command for each group
Use a loop to read the required search formulae from a list
The script files for each of these methods will be built up line by line. The first line is, of course:
!SCRIPT [QUIET]
(QUIET is shown in square brackets because it is optional. If omitted Powerbase asks for confirmation before executing the script. If you use the QUIET option to bypass the confirmation message leave the square brackets out.
The next line selects the fields to include in the report by means of a !SELECTION command. We want the Name, Symbol, Atomic number and Group and we may specify these in two ways
By placing the tags of the fields in a comma-separated list:
!SELECTION NAME,SYM,Z,GP
By highlighting the fields with ADJUST, saving the resulting selection as a file in the PrintRes directory (which is the default location) then simply using the filename as a parameter to the !SELECTION command, e.g. if the file is called Fields The command will be:
!SELECTION Field
Powerbase needs to be told to create the reports as text files rather than sending them to the printer or displaying them in a window. This is done with the line:
!DESTINATION File
Now for the !QUERY commands. The first of these (to report on Group 1 elements) is:
!QUERY GP=1
This should be followed by 10 similar lines in which GP is matched with 2,3,4,5,6,7,0,T,A,L. Finally, we tidy up by clearing the field selection and restoring the default print options:
!SELECTION
!PRINTOPTS
[!SCRIPT END]
Save the script under a suitable name then open the !Elements database and drop the file on the record window. After 11 brief bursts of hourglass activity the database's PrintJobs directory will be found to contain 11 text files named according to the search formulae. Loading them into an editor will confirm that each does indeed contain the elements specified, the Group field having been included in the selection to make this easy to see. We can refine this script in several ways, but first we'll look at the second method of creating these 11 files: the use of a loop.
Going loopy
Start by deleting the files from PrintJobs. If the directory has been closed you can easily do this by going to Print=>Show jobs done=>Print jobs from the main menu and choosing Delete all. Also delete all the !QUERY lines from the previous script.
Looping in a Powerbase script is accomplished by placing the commands to be repeated between !LOOP and !ENDLOOP commands like this:
!LOOP
!QUERY...
!ENDLOOP
But what is the parameter for !QUERY and how does the loop "know" when to terminate? Each time around the loop we want to read a search formula from a list and this is done by following !QUERY with the word READ Note that READ is a parameter, not a command, and therefore has no initial "!". We still haven't told the !QUERY command what it is to read from and this involves the script command !DATA, the syntax of which is:
!DATA GP=1,GP=2,GP=3...etc.
One important point: the !DATA line must come before the !LOOP command so be sure to insert it there. Dropping this much shorter script file onto the record window produces exactly the same set of text files as the first script. The loop terminates automatically when the !DATA list is exhausted. (There are other ways of terminating loops and the reader who is especially interested in this command is referred to the chapter on Script files in the manual.)
Now for a few refinements. The entries on the GP field are constrained by a validation table and the second column of the table contains expanded names for the groups. (Place the caret in the field and click on Table to display the validation table.) We can make the reports include these expanded names instead of single numerals and letters by placing !EXPAND ON in either of the scripts. In the first script it must come before any of the !QUERY lines; in the second it must come before the loop is entered. Secondly, we can choose our own filenames for the saved reports instead of accepting the defaults. To make a !QUERY command use a supplied filename the name is placed before the search formula and separated from it by a backslash. For instance, if you wanted the report for Group 1 to be called AlkMetals and that for Group 7 to be called Halogens the corresponding !QUERY commands (in the first script) would be:
!QUERY AlkMetals\GP=1
!QUERY Halogens\GP=7
This assumes you want the files saved in PrintJobs, but you may save the files elsewhere by supplying a full pathname instead of just a leaf-name.
The second script can also be made to save under user-defined filenames by having the !QUERY command READ those also, i.e. the command inside the loop becomes:
!QUERY READ\READ
which will cause a filename to be read and then a search formula each time the loop is executed. The filenames must appear in the !DATA line in the correct places, each name being followed by a comma and then the search formula associated with it. The only disadvantage of this approach is that you will have to provide some sort of name for every report.
Now here's an interesting variant of the above exercise. Delete the line !DESTINATION File so that the destination defaults to Window. (If there's any doubt about this, replace the line with !DESTINATION Window.) If you run the scripts again you will see each report in turn appear in a window, but no files are saved. You know that you can save a window report from the menu which opens when you click MENU over the report window. How can we do this from a script? It can be done by following each !QUERY command with a !SAVE command. Thus:
!QUERY GP=7
!SAVE
would create the report in a window then save it in PrintJobs under the same name as would have been used when the destination was File, i.e. the default name derived from the search formula or a name supplied as part of the !QUERY command. !SAVE can also take a filename as a parameter and such a name would be used in preference to either of the preceding ones. In the looping script the names may be read from the !DATA line by following !QUERY READ with !SAVE READ and supplying the filenames in the !DATA line, each following the appropriate search formula.
Why would you want to do this? Well, window reports can use colour, can be sorted, can be used for rapid retrieval of the records listed (by double-clicking). Moreover, when saved in PrintJobs they can be subsequently reloaded with all these features retained provided they are loaded by choosing them from the Print=>Show jobs done=>Print jobs submenu.
By this time you've probably guessed that any parameter to a script command can be replaced by the word READ and the real parameter supplied in a !DATA statement. This can be rather useful. Suppose a script makes a field selection, sets up print options, and executes a query - all from files, e.g.
!SELECTION Fields
!PRINTOPTS Options
!QUERY Report (where "Report" is the name of a saved Query file in PrintRes).
This could be rewritten as:
!DATA Fields,Options,Report
!SELECTION READ
!PRINTOPTS READ
!QUERY READ
The script could then be made to use a different set of filenames as parameters by merely changing the !DATA line.
A nice final touch to these scripts is to make the PrintJobs directory open automatically when the reports are finished. This can be done by adding the line:
!OBEY Filer_OpenDir <Dbase$Dir>.PrintJobs
The !OBEY command can execute lines which might appear in an Obey file. e.g. you could delete a file with !OBEY Delete <filename>. Script files are capable of far more operations than those covered here and in Article 5, but since the area of greatest use is generating reports the discussion has been limited to that.
Databases from CSV files
While you have !Elements loaded try the following
From the main menu choose Export CSV file=>Options, which opens the CSV options window:
Select the option buttons In quotes, With header and With field data
Select a number of fields (the selection used in the script exercises will do nicely), choose Export CSV file=>Export, enter a search formula if you wish and drag the file icon to a directory window
Now close !Elements (without quitting Powerbase) and drop your saved CSV file onto the iconbar icon. The CSV import window opens
Click Import, then the default action button on the following message window
The end result is a fully-functional database without the hassle of designing the record layout first or deciding how big to make the database (see Fig.2)
The fields are all aligned one under the other, but you can always move them about via Alter format (iconbar Utilities menu). The primary key is as basic as can be (the first four characters of the Name) but that too can be easily changed.
How is it done? Load the CSV file into your editor and look at the first line. This is a "header" line preceding any actual record data.
CSV files with headers are quite common; we used one in Article 5 when preparing a file to mail-merge with EasiWriter. Usually, though, the header merely identifies the fields to which the data belongs. If you hadn't selected the With field data button you would have produced a CSV file with just the field tags in the header line but instead you have a header containing much more information. Let's examine it in detail.
There are several segments separated by commas. Each segment is in quotes and has four parts separated from each other by the "|" character. These are, respectively
A number specifying the type of field. 2, for instance, indicates an uppercase field. For further information examine the file !Powerbase.Resources.ValStrings. Information on the fieldtypes and type numbers for any open database can be found by choosing Utilities=>Database details=>Field data from the iconbar menu
A number specifying the maximum field length
The field descripto
The field ta
This information enables you to add a header of the above type to a CSV file which doesn't have one - perhaps a file from a non-RISC OS source - and thereby use it to make a Powerbase database. If the origin of the file is unknown you'll have to examine it carefully to decide the maximum field lengths. It pays to be generous. If you don't allocate enough space any data which won't fit is saved in a file in PrintJobs called TooBig. The actual length of the overlong data is shown in brackets for each entry in this file. It isn't essential to specify the field-type or the descriptor. If the field-type is omitted it defaults to 0 (Unrestricted) and if the descriptor is omitted it becomes the same as the tag. A minimum field-specification, therefore, consists of a number (the length) and the tag, e.g. 15|NAME.
!MusicBase revisited
This database is on the CD in the zip file
This contrasts with "proper" Time fields in Powerbase where the entered time is duly validated and the separator given in the Preferences window is substituted for whatever non-numeral you enter.
The problem is that the whole scrollable list is treated as a single field (admittedly with some rather special properties) and there is no provision for making individual columns acquire the characteristics of other types of field such as Time, Data, Uppercase etc. We can, however, get around these problems by means of a User function. User functions were discussed in Article 4 and you may recall that they are associated with two types of Computed field: Calculated and Composite. Nothing was said about attaching a user function to a scrollable list and, indeed, you can't do it! There is, however, no reason why a user function which serves a Computed field should not also stick its nose into the doings of another field - such as a scrollable list. That's what we're going to do here. A new field of Composite type will be added to the database to hold the sum of the times for the individual tracks and the user function associated with this field will also take care of the validation and formatting of times in the scrollable list's final column.
Before we go any further there's an important preliminary. When you enter data into a field which is validated as a time, Powerbase assumes the first number to be hours. If, for instance, you entered 5 into a Time field and immediately typed Return, your entry would be reformatted as 05:00:00. If your entry had a second numeric part it would be interpreted as minutes, e.g. 5/12 would be reformatted as 05:12:00. Only if you typed another non-numeral and a third numeric part would non-zero seconds appear, e.g. 5,12,8 would be reformatted as 05:12:08. For the times in MusicBase we want the first number entered to be interpreted as seconds, and the next as minutes. This can be achieved by means of a configuration option called TimeFirst. Use your editor to examine the file !Powerbase.Resources.Config and you will find, towards the end of the file, the line TimeFirst H where H means "hours". This determines the default behaviour as described above. Replacing H by S changes the interpretation to what we require in the present case. The next entry in Config is FullTime YES, which means that times are always formatted to include all of hours, minutes and seconds. By changing YES to NO any time less than one hour will be displayed as minutes and seconds only. Rather than changing Powerbase's own Config file it is best to give MusicBase a "private" file containing just the lines:
TimeFirst S
FullTime NO
saving it as Config inside !MusicBase.
The next step is to rebuild MusicBase with an additional field to hold the total time. The general procedure was covered in Article 3 when we added the Category field, but it's worth stating again
Choose Utilities=>Rebuild database from the iconbar menu
Drag the file icon to a suitable directory window. If you want to call the new database MusicBase you must use a different directory from that which contains the old database
Add the new field, which must be of Composite type and have a length of at least 8 characters to allow for total timings of an hour or more.
Choose Quit design from the main menu
The rebuilt database will look something like Fig.4:
The required user function is supplied on the CD as a Basic file called
If you now place the caret anywhere in the Time column of the scrollable list and type Return, you should find that all the times in the list reformat to mm:ss and the total appears in the new field. That is, if the times are valid. Try entering things like 1/63 and 70,15 and see what happens.
If you are familiar with Basic programming you might like to examine ADDTIMES to see how the effect is achieved. The function makes use of several of Powerbase's own functions and procedures, notably FNcheck_time which checks that the minutes and seconds entered fall within the permitted range and then formats the string using the correct separator, FNseconds which converts such a time string to seconds, and FNtime which does the opposite. It will work no matter how many rows the scrollable list contains.
In conclusion
This mini-series is now approaching its end. The next article will probably be the last and will deal with the various choices which are available to determine how Powerbase works, and also how non-standard features may be added. If any readers feel that there are areas which haven't been covered and should be, please email me by clicking on my name below. I will either answer by email or, if there is sufficient material, incorporate the replies in a further article.
The organisers of the Wakefield show 2003 are pleased to announce an exciting Prize Draw for the visitors at Wakefield 2003. The top prize being a MicroDigital Omega computer, a CD read/writer and software, and a 5.1 speaker system for the Omega. The prizes are being donated by MicroDigital Limited.
MicroDigital"s managing director David Atkins said:
"I am glad to help in any way possible by supporting the great work the Wakefield group and the volunteers have done over the years to promote and assist the growth of the RISC OS market"
There will also be a series of Draws throughout the day with prizes being donated by other exhibitors. The final Draw for the top prizes will be around 4.00pm but don"t worry if you cannot stay, although we hope you will, instructions will be provided on the show website and they will be available on the day.
As well as these exciting prizes you can see all the new products and get to talk to the developers. The list of exhibitors is growing daily, so keep your eye on
Remember you can download the show poster to help spread news of the show far and wide, or there"s the option to add the show banner to your website. .
This is your chance to support the RISC OS market and really make the difference, e-mail us and tell us you"re coming - you"ll be most welcome and you could win an Omega.
We will shortly be adding to the website a PDF Information booklet for those wanting more detailed directions, etc..
Show Details
Date : Saturday, 10th May
Opening Times: 10:00 to 16:30
Location : Thornes Park Athletics Stadiu
Entrance fee: 5 pounds (sorry no credit/debit cards
Car parking: FREE.
Wakefield 2003 is the premier show in the RISCOS Calender so don't miss it.
The Wakefield 2003 - Acorn/RISCOS Show is organised and run by the members and volunteers of the Wakefield RISCOS Computer Club in their spare time. So please do support the work we do to support the market, without their support there would be no show.
