Whiteline: delta/whiteline CD Series - delta.iso/english/hideaway/docu/english.txt

Text File | 1995-11-25 | 15KB | 303 lines

NAME
     HideAway 1.1.4
     A small utilitiy to hide windows for MultiTOS

     Copyright (c) 1994 Bermuda Software Publishing
     Written by Bruno Essmann

DESCRIPTION
     Unfortunately there is a huge number of programmers that do not
     support the new features of MultiTOS. One of those features is
     the ionifification of windows and/or applications (and if you
     are lucky enough to find an application that supports window
     iconification it doesn't support application iconification most of
     the times).

     Well, that's how it began. I was talking to collegue who claimed
     the feature of an alternative multitasking system which enabled
     him to hide whole applications was one of the reasons why he used
     this other multitasking system instead of MultiTOS.
     I could not believe that MultiTOS could not be convinced to do it
     too - and after all I am far too spoiled by MultiTOS to change the
     system because of such a silly thing (or should I have deleted all
     my Minix partitions because of it?).
     So I sat down took my c-compiler and wrote HideAway...

WHAT DOES HIDEAWAY DO
     HideAway is able to the windows of applications. If you have a
     couple of applications running at the same time and are starting
     to lose control of the window jungle, you may simply hide the
     applications you don't need at the moment.

INSTALLATION
     Just drag HideAway to your desired position and start it there -
     or if you want to install HideAway as a constant companion rename
     it to hideaway.acc and drag it to the location where you have your
     accessories stored. (Whenever copying HideAway don't forget to
     copy the hideaway.rsc too - it isn't needed all the times, but if
     you want to set some options it will be terribly missed by
     HideAway...)

USAGE
     Using HideAway is fairly easy. When started (or if it was
     installed as an accessory when selected) it opens the HideAway
     window. This window is separated in two parts. On the left side is
     a small toolbar and the rest of the window is used up by the
     application list.

THE APPLICATION LIST
     The application list contains the names of all applications which
     have windows opened. The active application (the one owning the
     top window) will be displayed inverted (or white if you're running
     in a color resolution). Hidden applications will be displayed
     disabled (please note, they're only look disabled (to show that
     they are hidden) they may still be selected).

     (New in version [1.1.0])
     Entries in the application list may be selected with the mouse.
     Depending on what options you have set clicking on an application
     in the list will hide (or show if already hidden) the application,
     top it, or top it and hide all other applications.
     The action HideAway is going to execute on an application
     selection may be changed in the options dialog (see OPTIONS).

     (New in version [1.1.2])
     It may happen that you would like HideAway to execute an action
     other than the defined (e.g. your default action is 'hide/show
     application' but you would like to top an application). To do this
     press one of the special keys while selecting the application:

     SHIFT + Selection      => hide/show application
     CONTROL + Selection    => Top application
     ALTERNATE + Selection  => Top application, hide others

     In the example above you would simply have to hold down the
     CONTROL-key while selection the application you'd like to top.

THE TOOLBAR
     The toolbar contains five icons which will execute the following
     functions:

     THE TRIANGLE (BERMUDA SOFTWARE PUBLISHING LOGO)
       Displays the about dialog.
     THE TOOLSSYMBOL
       Opens the options dialog (see OPTIONS).
     THE WINDOW
       Hides all applications except the active. This is usefull if you
       want to 'clean up your desk' if the only application you need at
       the moment is the active.
     THE CROSSED WINDOW
       Hides the active application. This is usefull if you have
       finished your work with the active application but you don't
       want to quit it, since you might need it again later.
     THE THREE WINDOWS
       Shows all hidden applications. (This is usefull if you want to
       have a quick look at good old times when you didn't know
       HideAway ;-))

KEYBOARD EQUIVALENTS
     HideAway knows some keyboard equivalents which will simplify your
     life a little bit:

     CONTROL+Q
       Quit HideAway.
     CONTROL+W, CONTROL+U
       Close the HideAway window (same as quit).
       Note! There is an official definition of Atari which says
       CONTROL+W means close. There are however still some programmers
       out there who did not grasp this and use CONTROL+U (and
       CONTROL+W to cycle windows) instead. It is as always the user
       who has to face the music because it's once like this and once
       the other way around (eeck!). I'm lucky that HideAway uses only
       one window, therefore both shortcuts work.
     CONTROL+E
       Edit options (I know this is a little bit dragged in, but
       CONTROL+O is reserved because it normally means "open").
     CONTROL+S
       Save options (this is usefull if you have changed the position
       and/or size of the window and you don't want to open the options
       dialog).
     CONTROL+A
       Same as 'About HideAway...'.
     CONTROL+I oder HELP
       Shows some short help.
     UNDO
       Same as 'Show all applications'.

THE DIALOGS
     One word about the dialogs: All dialogs of HideAway are in
     modal windows (i.e. if a dialog is open HideAway won't accept any
     commands from you until the dialog is closed), as they should be
     (and this is true for any application!). Things like keyboard
     equivalents won't be described here since I think they're part of
     the standard and have been described already a thousand times.

OPTIONS
     HideAway may be (as far as it makes sense) freely configured. The
     options dialog may be reached by clicking on the toolssysmbol in
     the boolbar and contains the following options:

     APPLICATION SELECTIONS...
       (New in version [1.1.0])
       Here you may selection the action HideAway is going to execute
       if you click on an application in the application list:
       - 'Hide/show application'
         If the application selected is visible it will be hidden - if
         it is hidden all the windows will be shown again.
       - 'Top application'
         The first window found which belongs to the selected
         application will be topped.
       - 'Top application and hide others'
         The first window found which belongs to the selected
         application will be topped. All other applications which have
         windows opened will be hidden.

     HIDING APPLICATIONS...
       - 'Lower app priority to' (New in version [1.1.0])
         We're lucky to run one of those multitasking systems which
         supports changing the process priority. If you hide an
         application then you normally do it, because you don't need it
         at the moment - is there any reason why it should use up the
         same processortime as before?
         If you select the button 'Lower app priority to' you may
         choose the lowered application in the popup on the right side.
         (The original priority will of course be restored when the
         application is shoun again.)
         Two comments about the priority:
         1) If the priority of the process is already lower than the
            one in the dialog (e.h. it is -20 and you have select
            'lower to -5') the priority will still be changed to the
            value in the dialog (I confess - I was too lazy to check
            this too ;-)).
         2) If you have to ask yourself why sorting in your database
            takes about twice as long when the database is hidden it
            might very well be that the priority of your database is
            buried in the deepest dungeon you'll find ;-).
       - 'Don't hide HideAway'
         Rumour has it it would be an advantage if the HideAway window
         would not be hidden if one of the 'hide others' commands is
         executed. If you think this might be true, there is no reason
         not to check this button.

     GLOBAL OPTIONS...
       - 'Open window at startup'
         This option is only important when in accessory mode. If this
         option is set HideAway will automatically open its window at
         the last position saved. (I found out that my first action
         after bootup was selecting HideAway and since I'm a lazy...)
       - 'Set HideAway priority to'
         HideAway is a simple Tool. As e.g. the desktop it doesn't
         contribute to work directly. I see no reason therefore why it
         should have the same priority as the main application.
         HideAway fortunately is one of those tools that are smart
         enough to know this (compared with lots of other tools) and
         automatically lowers its priority. (Even though I like
         HideAway it doesn't get more than priority -20 on my machine
         ;-)). If you want HideAway not to change its priority enter 0
         here.
       - 'Update applicationlist every'
         If the top window changes it is no problem for HideAway to
         check its applicationlist. If however an application is
         terminated which had windows in the background HideAway has no
         chance to find out about it. It has to check all application
         in its list to find out if one is gone - and that's excatly
         what HideAway is doing. Here you may enter how often it may do
         it. (I don't know if you ever close windows in the background
         - I certainly do it often, so 1 second is fine enough for me,
         but if your not closing windows in the background you may of
         course set the update value a little bit higher.)
       - 'Check windows up to handle'
         This is the maximum number of windows which are recognized by
         HideAway. Unfortunately there is no way to figure out the
         number of windows which are currently open (see TECHNICAL
         DETAILS). Since HideAway can't find this out by itself you
         have to give it a little hint. You have to tell HideAway how
         many windows there will be at maximum (theoretically it would
         be possible to open up to 32'767 windows under MultiTOS and if
         HideAway would check all those 32'767 windows it would use up
         far to much power of your machine). Normally a limit of 50
         windows is enough (I seldom have more than fifty windows open
         ;-), if however you want to make shure HideAway is checking
         enough windowslots you may also enter 100 here (this is the
         default value).
         Note: It won't be a tragey if you open more windows than
         HideAway is checking. The only thing which is going to happen
         is that HideAway won't be able to hide application with
         windows exceeding this number (it's that simple ;-)).

TECHNICAL DETAILS
     HideAway is - one wouldn't believe it a 'clean' application. It
     doesn't use any undocumented tips and tricks (and that's exactly
     why it works).

     There is (as far as I know) no way to get information about the
     MultiTOS windowlist, but it is completely save to ask who the
     owner of a window is (using wind_get(handle, WF_OWNER, ...);). If
     the window doesn't exist an error is returned else HideAway knows
     that the window exists and to whom it belongs. All HideAway has to
     do now is check all the windowhandles, one by one. Since we don't
     want to check all the possible 32'767 handles (yes - theoretically
     it is possible, my small testprogram opened about 16'000 windows -
     I have to admit it took a loong looong while, but it was worth the
     fun) the max. number of handles checked may be entered in the
     options dialog. I think 50 to 100 will suffice for most of the
     users.

     If HideAway has to hide an application it simply checks the
     windowlist and hides all the windows found by sending a WM_MOVED
     message with a y-coordinate outside of the screen. The window is
     not really hidden, but then again it's not visible anymore (the
     alternative multitasking system mentioned above does it the same
     way).

DISCLAIMER AND COPYRIGHT NOTICE
     This software is supplied as is. Bruno Essmann and Bermuda
     Software Publishing hereby disclaim all warranties relating to
     this software, whether express or implied, including without
     limitation any implied warraties of merchantability or fitness for
     a particular purpose. Bruno Essmann and Bermuda Software
     Publishing will not be liable for any special, incidental,
     consequential, indirect or similar damages due to loss of data or
     any other reason, even if Bruno Essmann or Bermuda Software
     Publishing have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
     The person using the software bears all risk as to the quality and
     performance of the software.

     Copyright (c) 1994, Bermuda Software Publishing.
     Permission is granted to make and distribute copies of this
     software, provided this disclaimer and copyright notice are
     preserved on all copies. The software may not, howeverm be sold or
     distributed for profit, or included with other software which is
     sold or distributed for profit, without the written permission of
     the author.

     This is a freeware product. There is no shareware fee.

     This is not a commercial product. We cannot offer typical
     commercial services of Bermuda Software Publishing such as
     telephone support, mailing lists, or upgrade services.

     Users who do not have access to electronic sources of free and
     shareware software may obtain a copy of this software by sending a
     self-addressed stamped envelope and a 720K floppy disk to the
     author at the address given at the end of this manual. People
     outside Switzerland may send an international postal reply coupon
     instead of swiss stamps (available form any post office). Please
     use sturdy envelopes, preferably dardboard disk mailers.

CONTACT ADDRESS
     Bermuda Software Publishing
     attn Bruno Essmann
     P.O.Box 766
     CH-8024 Zürich

     If you have access to the Internet you may also reach me by
     sending a mail to [e-mail] (You may also
     reach my in the Fido-Net, but since I have problems polling
     ATARIST it would be a good idea to post messages in ATARI.GER (I
     don't want to write down my point number since it may change a few
     times during the next weeks/months)).

END