Ticker is a simple news ticker that uses the BBC News Online ticker feed to provide its content and links to the full stories.
To use ticker you need an 'internet connection', so an account with an ISP, direct ethernet connection, or similar, and a TCP/IP stack for your acorn.
To start Ticker, make sure you are connected to the internet. Then, double-click on the Ticker icon. Ticker will then load and try and connect to the Ticker server to collect news. Give it a few seconds to sort itself out.
If it is successful then you will get the news ticking across the screen in a window. If it is not, it will tell you why not (hopefully!). You can look the error up in the errors file.
Viewing a story : Now, if you have the Ticker scrolling nicely across the window, you may see a story in which you are interested. Simply clicking on this will launch your browser and fetch the full story.
Moving the Ticker : The Ticker is moveable by dragging the window by the black 'Ticker' icon
Iconizing the Ticker: When you are not using the Ticker, you can 'adjust' click on it. This will cause it to shrink. When in this form, it doesn't scroll, so when you 'adjust' click again, you will be where you left off, having missed no news. Also, it doesn't look for updates (if you select the "don't update when iconized' option), so this mode can be useful if you are not connected for a period of time. It uses less processor time because it only polls the wimp every 5 seconds.
If you get an error. read the faq first. second, mail me on ticker@innocent.com with all the details of your machine, internet software and what goes wrong.
Configuring Ticker
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Items covered :
• Topics
• Speed
• Updating
• Use of proxy server
• Connection notification
• Mouse over
• low graphics fetches
• Use Proxy server
• Positioning and size of Ticker
There is a menu if you 'menu-click' on the Ticker window.
The configuration window is found by clicking on the 'choices' item.
In the config window, the first items are the 'topics'. This is where you select which stories you are interested in. Selecting the icon to the left of 'World News' for example, means that stories in the catagory 'World News' will be included on your Ticker.
The 'Speed' item changes the rate at which the items scroll across your screen. The rate you find comfortable will depend on your personal preference and your machine speed too. See advanced config about this if you feel brave.
The 'Automatically Update' item controls how often the Ticker will fetch updated data for scrolling. If you are connected by modem, I suggest you make this a large time interval or disable it, and use the 'update now' item on the menu whenever you want updated news. 'Don't update when iconized' prevents updates from happening when the Ticker is iconized.
The 'Beep on connect' item causes a VDU7 to be issued when a successful connect is made.
The 'Pause on mouseover' item causes the Ticker to pause when the mouse is over the main window. Ticking then resumes when it leaves the window. Some people like this as it helps for reading particular headlines.
The BBC has two HTML pages for each story, one featuring lots of fancy HTML and graphics not relating to the story (such as logos) and one with just the bare minimum and usually a few photos. I think the photo content of both is the same, I'm not sure. So, you can use the 'low graphics fetch' to get a less modem and processor intensive view of a story. I always use it.
If you are inside a firewall, you may need to use a proxy server. If you don't know what to put in the two dialogues relating to proxy server, then ask you network manager. The protocol used is HTTP.
The position of the Ticker is fairly configurable, so read carefully to avoid disappointment!
If you open the 'configuration' window, you will notice there is an option which reads 'automatically adjust width'. Selecting this and saving has the following results : On loading the Ticker, the width of the Ticker will automatically change to that of the entire desktop, and it will position itself in the top left hand corner. It will also reposition itself when the mode changes. In addition to this, some people prefer the Ticker to be just above the iconbar. This is configurable, while still keeping the automatic features above by doing the following : Open up the 'choices' file. The nineteenth item is a '0'. Changing this to a '-1' will cause the Ticker to open just above the iconbar
However, some people may not want the automatic features at all. In order to turn these off, deselect the 'automatically adjust width' item. Then, to store the position of the Ticker, move it to where you want it, then open the 'config' window, and just click on save and apply. If the right hand edge of the Ticker is off the end of the screen then when you load the Ticker again, this will get changed to fit on the screen.
To adjust the width of the Ticker, use the adjust button on the main window to drag the size to the required width. Clicking 'Save & Apply' in the config window will cause the positions and widths to be saved. For them to apply, make sure you don't use the 'Automatically adjust width' option.
External updates. This feature was removed in 0.23e as it screwed me around.
Advanced config.
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1. configuring link colour.
You may find the default link colour is not the colour you would like. This can be changed by the following :
Shift-click on the !Ticker app.
Open the Choices file in your text editor
There is a number, about the 23th item in the list which is
initially set at 15.
This is the colour and corresponds to the normal wimp palette colours
between 0 and 15
Licence
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This is freeware. You can distribute it freely, but only in the form of the complete archive, unmodified, as found at freenet.barnet.ac.uk or www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/7724/ If you do like it, though, I don't mind getting gifts, or people telling the BBC online channel how fab it is. I would like a BBC pingu teddy bear too.
