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BackIcon.arc
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1994-09-19
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Back Icon version 1.00
⌐ Sam Kington 19th August 1994
This program is freeware, *not* public domain ù i.e., I retain copyright (see
öBoring legal messageò).
This module will only work with RISC OS 3 or later.
What this program does
**********************
For a start, this program is essentially one small module, BackIcon, which
at about 1400 bytes is considerably smaller than the whole application, which
weighs in at slightly more than 20K, of which most is the source code and
this help ₧le. If you decide you donæt need the whole application cluttering
up your hard disc or ƒoppy or whatever, you can put the module somewhere else
(!System.Modules would be a good place), and RMLoad it in your Boot sequence.
If you decide you donæt want *any* of the application, of course, you can
delete the whole thing.
So what does it do? Basically, it livens up the boring old Back icon ù the
button on the title bar of a window, furthest to the left, that sends a
window to the back of the pile of windows. For all the buttons on a window,
clicking Adjust or clicking with Shift held down does something something
different from clicking Select ù apart from the Back icon. This tragically
inadequate state of affairs is now resolved ;).
So, with the module loaded, this is how the Back icon behaves:
Å Clicking Select sends the window to the back (no change)
Å Clicking Adjust brings the window to the front, like Select-clicking
on the title bar or the Resize icon except that the window cannot be
accidentally moved or resized by accident.
Å Clicking Shift-Select moves the window towards the front by one
step, moving it above the window that was immediately above it.
Å Clicking Shift-Adjust, predictably, moves the window towards the
back by one step, so that the window immediately behind it is now in
front of it.
OK, but why is this useful?
***************************
First of all, you now have a third way of bringing a window to the front
(not counting things like KeyMouse or any other modules like that). Itæs not
earth-shattering, but itæs quite handy if you get paranoid about
accidentally changing the ₧nely-tuned position of your windows ;).
The major difference, however, is that you can now control the position of
windows in the stack with more precision. Often you will have a stack of
windows, of which only some are useful at any given point; the others will be
sitting there because they might come in handy at one point, but at the
moment they will just get in the way. So if you have a main window covering
most of the screen, and you decide you want one of the windows behind it, you
will usually click on the Back icon, look in horror at all the masses of
windows that had suddenly appeared, do what you wanted to do with the window
you were looking for, then spend quite some time clicking on all those
windowsæ back icons to try and get your main window back. You may say, öyou
can always click on the title barò, but often the title bar will be obscured.
Now you can Shift-click on the back icon to move through the window stack
one by one. If the window that appears was the one you wanted, youæve got a
much less cluttered screen than if you had clicked without Shift; if it
isnæt, then you can consign it to the oblivion at the bottom of the stack it
deserves. You can bring windows forward in the stack without bringing them
all the way, and then having to bring other windows to the front, that should
have been in front of it. And you can browse the window stack, holding down
Select, clicking Select to go down, Adjust to go up. It beats window cycling
utilities, that mindlessly go through all the windows, including the ones you
know you didnæt want: if you donæt want to see a window, you wonæt have to
unless you really want to.
Limitations
***********
First of all, Back Icon doesn't know about pane windows ù open a window in
front of a Draw window (with tool window open), shift-Select-click on the
close icon, and see what happens.
Also, sometimes you will shift-click on the back icon and nothing seems to
have happened. This is because a window can be directly öin frontò of another
window, without overlapping it ù if you have two windows side by side, one
will be öbehindò the other, even though they donæt look like it.
Miscellanea
***********
BackIcon knows about Desktop Saves, but it needs a little help, namely the
variable BackIcon$Module. This is set automatically if you run it from the
application, but if you just run the module on its own the variable won't be
set. If it can't find a variable, BackIcon assumes it was run as
System:Modules.BackIcon; if that wasn't the case, set the variable before you
run the module.
Boring legal message
********************
This application is freeware, that is, it can be distributed freely as
long as only reasonable charges are made for media and distribution. I retain
copyright on all program code and documentation.
This software is supplied öasáisò: I make no warranty, expressed or
implied, of the merchantability of this software or its ₧tness for any
particular purpose. In no circumstances shall I be liable for any damage,
loss of pro₧ts, or any indirect or consequential loss arising out of the use
of this software or inability to use this software, even if I have been
advised of the possibility of such loss.
In other words, if your computer crashes, blows up, you lose all your work
etc. all because of Back Icon (unlikely I know), donæt blame me.
Distribution
************
You must distribute all files intact, including source code and this
documentation, with this package ù in other words, the ₧les !Boot, !Run,
!Sprites, BackIcon, ModSource, !Help and Vsn100. Feel free to muck around
with it as much as you like when itæs on your machine, but distribute the
original ₧les, please.
You can use bits of it in your own programs, provided you state clearly in
the documentation and, if provided, the source code, which bits you borrowed.
Feel free to slag off my programming style, but give me a credit please.
About all these strange foreign characters in this ₧le
*******************************************************
OK, so if youære reading this on a PC or a Mac or another strange machine
like that, you may be wondering what all these strange ae things are. Well,
theyære quotes (sorry, there was another one), dashes, ligatures, etc.
Honest. But not on all machines...
Basically, character sets are only standard up to character 127, which is
basically alphanumerics and a few standard punctuation marks. Foreign
characters, typographical oddities like quotes and ligatures, and other more
obscure symbols are önon-standardò, and each computer often has its own idea
of where they should go in the character set. So donæt worry: even if itæs
hard to read on your current machine, it wonæt be on an Acorn machine. It may
look slightly strange if youære using the System font, however.
But why am I using these strange characters in the ₧rst place? Well,
theyære in the character set and they look nice in an outine font, and Iæve
written a program called Smart Quotes (sorry for the plug) that substitutes
these sort of characters automatically, and Iæve got it turned on at the
moment...
How to contact me
*****************
All bug-reports, suggestions, comments or indeed any feedback at all will be
welcomed. Hereæs how to get to me:
E-mail : 9262861k@arts.gla.ac.uk, 926286ki@udcf.gla.ac.uk during term-time
These should be OK until June 1996
At Christmas, Easter and during the summer, you can get me at
wombat@altern.com, wombat@email.teaser.com or sam@altern.com, in order
of preference (that is, if mail bounces off one of these or I donæt
answer within a week send to the next one).
Snail-mail : My term-time address, at least until June 1995, is:
Sam Kington
Flat 2/1
44 Hotspur Street
Glasgow G20 8NL
SCOTLAND
Again, a backup is the home address ù anything that goes here will get
to me eventually.
Sam Kington
Merlhiot
24420 Savignac les Eglises
FRANCE
Term-time is October to June, with bits off at Christmas (3 weeks) and
Easter (4 weeks).