Archive Magazine 1996/ARCHIVE_96.iso/text/hints/volume_5

Text File | 1995-06-25 | 237KB | 5,542 lines

Hints and Tips
5.1
Å   FileUtils Ö Anyone using Ben Summersæ FileUtils should note that
<ctrl-shift-F2>, <ctrl-shift-F3> and <ctrl-shift-F4> will still call up
the FileUtils routines even when, say, working in Impression. This can
give a nasty shock if you are, for example, trying to insert preset
styles using <ctrl-shift-F4> and a öchange filetypeò dialogue window
pops up. Mike Hobart, Cambridge.
5.1
Å   Installing Desktop C Ö If you have recently upgraded from C to Desktop
C, you may have a little difficulty installing Desktop C onto your hard
disc. When you first try to run the ÉInstallæ program, it will stop
abruptly half way through the second of the four discs, with no clues as
to what has happened. This is because the ÉInstallæ program tries to
create a directory called $.User. Cmodule, which already exists from
your previous installation of C and so the program crashes. The solution
is simple, just delete the old $.User.Cmodule directory before attempt
ing to install Desktop C.   D R Kennard, London.
5.1
Å   LBP-4 CaSPL Ö Switching between Video output (for the CC Hi-Res board)
and CaSPL output of the LBP-4 doesnæt appear to be documented in the
manual. Here is how it can be done:
5.1
From Video to CaSPL mode:
5.1
1.   Hold down öMenuò for 3 seconds until öMode=Videoò is displayed.
5.1
2.   Tap the öMenuò key once to display öMode=CaSPLò
5.1
3.   Tap öEnterò. The LCD will read ö01 Ex Exitò then ö00 Ready A4ò
5.1
4.   Tap the öOff-lineò key to take the machine off-line (if the green
on-line indicator is lit).
5.1
5.   Tap öFeeder Selectò.
5.1
6.   Tap öMenuò. The menu as described in the manual is now displayed.
5.1
From CaSPL to Video:
5.1
1.   Take the printer off-line.
5.1
2.   Hold down the öMenuò for 3 seconds Ö öMode=CaSPLò is displayed.
5.1
3.   Tap öMenuò again Ö öMode=Videoò is displayed.
5.1
4.   Tap öEnterò.
5.1
5.   You are now back in Video mode.
5.1
Mike, Bainbridge, Derby.
5.1
Impression Hintsá&áTips
5.1
Å   Adding a frame at beginning of a story Ö It is not immediately obvious
(well, it wasnæt to me!) how to add extra frames into a story that runs
through a number of frames. Suppose you have two frames, B and C (Iæll
get to A in a minute) Ö perhaps they are two main columns on this page Ö
and you want to split column B into two frames leaving a gap in the
middle. What you do is firstly shorten frame B using the frame handle at
the middle of the bottom of the frame. Then you use <ctrl-I> and create
a new frame wherever you want it under frame B (letæs call it frame B2).
Now click on frame B with <select> and then on frame B2 with <adjust>
and the text will flow into it so that it runs BÖB2ÖC.
5.1
Now suppose you want the text to start in a frame before frame B. (Letæs
call it frame A.) The technique is to create the new frame, A, wherever
you want it using <ctrl-I>. Then click on frame B with <select> and then
on frame A with <adjust>. The text will now flow into it so that it runs
BÖAÖB2ÖCÖetc. (N.B. This wonæt work unless frames A and B are on the
same page because you cannot flow text backwards across a page bound
ary.) Then click on B and use <ctrl-X> to delete it. The flow is now
just AÖB2ÖCÖetc. Finally, you create a new copy of frame B by using
<ctrl-V>, click on frame A with <select> and the new B with <adjust> and
the flow will be AÖBÖB2ÖCÖetc.
5.1
Å   Dual window problems solved? Ö A few issues ago, I mentioned the
problem that if you open a second window on a document and then expand
and contract that window (so that you can alternately use two different
scale views) each time you shrink view 2 using the icon at the top right
of the window, it doesnæt stay at the place in the document that you
have just been working on. It always seemed (in my case) to go back to
somewhere earlier in the document. No one has offered any solution but
it seems to me that it goes back to wherever you last added a frame into
that window. So if you want to ökeep your placeò in the second window,
use <ctrl-I> to create a new frame at that place in the document and
then use <ctrl-X> to delete it again. Crude, but it seems to work. (No,
it doesnæt, not always. Drat, I thought I had solved it! Come on,
someone must be able to solve this one Ö Iæll give a free Archive mug to
the first person to solve it. Ed.)
5.1
Å Equasor and matrices Ö The biggest drawback Equasor has for me as a
mathematics teacher is its inability Ö at least in version 1.00 Ö to
handle vectors and matrices.
5.1
There is, however, a way in which a very credible matrix can be created
Ö with a small amount of extra work:
5.1
I build the columns as multiple fractions, and then enclose everything
in brackets; I drop the file into Draw, remove the fraction bars and
then align the brackets with the numbers.
5.1
Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, Germany
5.1
Å   Special characters Ö Now Iæm sure you ALL knew this, but I didnæt
until I read this monthæs PipeLine article. The Alt key is extremely
useful for inserting special characters in the text. I had discovered
that <Alt-space> (thatæs holding the Alt key down and tapping on the
space bar) gave a Éhardæ space where you donæt what the words (e.g. the
halves of a postcode) to be split across the end of one line and the
beginning of the next, and I had discovered the idea of using Alt
together with the numbers on the numeric keypad to produce special
characters, but how about this...
5.1
     a▓ + b▓ = c│
5.1
I produced that in seconds without using superscript. The ▓ is produced
with <Alt-2> and the │ with (yes, youæve guessed) <Alt-3>. In other
words, you hold down the Alt key, as if it were the shift key, and type
2 or 3. Here is a table of the ones I have found but note that this only
applies to Trinity font which I am using. Other fonts may be different
but, generally, they tend to stick to using the same symbols for the
same ASCII numbers which the Alt key produces. The third column is the
ASCII number produced.
5.1
<Alt-1>   ╣   185
5.1
<Alt-2>   ▓   178
5.1
<Alt-3>   │   179
5.1
<Alt-9>   ▒   177
5.1
<Alt-0>   ░    176
5.1
<Alt-C>   ó   162
5.1
<Shift-Alt-C>   ⌐   169
5.1
<Alt-M>   ╡   181
5.1
<Alt-R>   «   174
5.1
<Alt-S>   º   167
5.1
<Alt-X>   ╗   187
5.1
<Alt-Y>   Ñ   165
5.1
<Alt-Z>   ½   171
5.1
<Alt-`>   ¼   172
5.1
(top left key under <esc>)
5.1
<Alt-,>   ╫   215
5.1
<Alt-.>   ≈   247
5.1
<Alt-space>      160 (hard space)
5.1
If you have found any that I have missed, perhaps in other fonts, let us
know. Ed.
5.1
Å Spell checking Edit documents Ö Whenever I typed a longish Edit text
file, I used to regret the absence of a spell checker. For Impression
users, this poses no problem:
5.1
Simply drop the Edit file in question into an empty Impression frame,
have Impression check the spelling, then export the text back into Edit
by saving just the text story without styles. You can drag the text
story onto the Edit icon to have another look at it or save it in the
usual way directly to a disk. The import/export takes just a few
seconds, so this is nearly as good as a spell checker built into Edit
itself. Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, GermanyááA
5.1

5.1
Silicon Vision
5.1
New
5.1

5.1
Colton
5.1

5.1
4.12 p21
5.1

5.1
Matters Arising
5.1
Å   Archimedesæ Tutor Ö Simon Anthony has produced a Beginneræs D.I.Y.
Introduction to the Archimedes using the !Hyper application on Shareware
Disc 19. If anyone is interested they should contact him directly at 62
Rutland Road, West Bridgford, Nottingham, NG2 5DG.
5.1
Å   ArmSort Ö Fast Array Sorts Ö The author replies... The reviewer
(Ashley Bowden in Archive 4.12 p53) seems to have created a problem with
the flag values. The ArmSort documentation DID clearly state that for
the CALL sort öThe parameters must all be variables, but may be of any
nameò. If CALL sort,test%() ,128 is used, then it is Basic that objects
with öSyntax Errorò, ERR=16, because it is a Basic requirement that all
CALL parameters are variables not constants. Thus it is rather unfair
for the reviewer to claim that to have to use variables is ö.. very
unorthodox, and mention should be made in the documentation.ò ArmSort
errors are comprehensive and are very clearly documented.
5.1
This Éproblemæ wasted about a third of the review, which could have been
better used to mention the PROCsort and SWI interfaces or the ability to
sort on absolute numeric values, or with null strings low or high.
5.1
May I also suggest that all software reviews should clearly state what
version is being reviewed: the ArmSort review copy was Version 2.12,
sent to Archive in February. The current Version is 2.51, which has the
following improvements: sort time reductions of between 30% and nearly
50%; the ability to sort strings from any position, or by length; the
ability to specify a key sequence; new procedures for a fast binary
search of sorted arrays; and all programs now do run easily from the
desktop. All users have had free upgrades and seem happy with the
product. Martin Avison, Avisoft.
5.1
(Sorry if we seem to have reviewed an out-of-date product but when
someone sends software to us for review, we have to assume it is a
östableò version. If the software has gone from version 2.12 to version
2.51 since February, this indicates continuous development. This is fine
but, if significant changes are made, the onus is on the software
supplier to send us the latest version. This product was still on the
ösoftware to be reviewedò list in the May edition of Archive. If Martin
had noticed this and sent us the latest version at that stage, the
difficulty might have been avoided. Ed.)
5.1
Å   MidiVision Update Ö Koen Lefever has sent us an updated version the
MidiVision program on Shareware Disc 33. It is now compatible with the
new Acorn MIDI Podule ROM and capable of detecting real time messages.
The new version has been put on this monthæs program disc.
5.1
Å   PRES Disc Interface & DFS Ö In the review in Archive 4.11 p27 we
referred to difficulties in reading 40 track BBC discs. PRES suggested
that the problem may be due to öresidual dataò on the discs. In other
words, they are suggesting that the problem may lie with discs that have
been written onto by different 40 track drives, some with narrow heads,
as in 40/80 drives, and some with wider tracks as in true 40 track
drives. It would be interesting to hear other peopleæs experiences on
this. We have also found that it is sometimes necessary to slow the head
stepping time right down as low as it will go in order to read 40 track
discs. (We also used a rather old address for PRES. It is currently P.O.
Box 319, Lightwater, Surrey, GU18 5PW. 0276Ö72046, fax 51427.)
5.1
Å   RISC-OS Dreaming Ö I would like to reply to Oliver Gunasekaraæs
letter, RISC-OS Dreaming, published in Archive 4.12 p15. Many of
Oliveræs suggestions have been extensively discussed in the USENET news-
group dedicated to Acorn machines. Well-informed contributions from
Acorn staff (in a private capacity) and experienced programmers (RISC-OS
and otherwise) allow fairly definite predictions to be made as to the
likelihood of some of these suggestions being realised in later version
of RISC-OS.
5.1
Firstly, there is almost no chance of proper demand paged virtual memory
being implemented under RISC-OS on current generation ARM processors.
The problem is that much (if not all) of RISC-OS runs with the ARM
processor in its supervisor mode. In this mode, the ARM-2 and ARM-3 are
unable to implement virtual memory. Not enough information is saved to
enable execution to be resumed after an attempt to access memory not
physically present causes the MEMC memory controller to interrupt
execution. Thus, virtual memory would require a drastic rewrite of RISC-
OS so that any code that might access virtual memory runs in user mode
or avoids memory not physically present. Acorn almost certainly do not
have the resources to do the necessary rewrite. Simpler, less effective
forms of virtual memory such as swapping out non-running programs are
possible, but would still be very complicated.
5.1
Pre-emptive multi-tasking is, on the other hand, quite possible. It is
just that doing it without introducing subtle bugs into software written
under the assumption that multi-tasking is co-operative is fiddly. As
with virtual memory, the fact that RISC-OS did not allow for pre-emptive
multi-tasking, when originally written, makes it messy to implement
later on. Even running other tasks when the current task is blocked,
waiting for i/o, is rather tricky to implement though, according to the
grape-vine, this does indeed happen to some extent in RISC-OS 3.
5.1
As to nicer system fonts, better design, TCP/IP file-sharing and hot-
linking Ö letæs hope it happens. Thereæs no technical obstacle and these
are definitely things necessary for Acorn to keep up with the state of
the art. A new file-system allowing more files in a directory and longer
filenames would also go down well. It would be a real boon to people
like myself who have to use RISC-OS machines in conjunction with UNIX or
MesS-DOS boxes.  Andrew Stevens, Overton.
5.1
Å   RISC-OS Dreaming Ö I would agree with many of the points about RISC-OS
2.0 put forward (in Archive 4.12 p15), by Oliver Gunasekara. However,
Iæm not sure that making RISC-OS look more like other graphical
interfaces will necessarily bring us much benefit.
5.1
I am responsible for several different computer systems (micros and
minis) each of which has its own user interface from the quirkiness of
the Apple and Atari systems, to the smooth, powerful X-Windows systems.
Some of the staff prefer one system, some prefer another. Itæs a bit
like choosing your favourite car, you get the one that suits you.
5.1
Strangely enough, considering its sales, the least popular GUI in our
department is Windows 3.0. Even allowing for its deficiencies, RISC-OS
seems to have become the preferred choice for more than half our
department. Whether this is due to RISC-OS itself, applications like
Impression or the speed of the ARM3 powered machines, Iæm not sure. What
I am sure of is that RISC-OS is quite capable of winning converts from
other systems.
5.1
Even so, letæs hope that RISC-OS 3 contains a lot of those improvements
mentioned by Oliver. DáHutchinson, Sheffield.ááA
5.1



The Engineer Speaks...
5.1
Ray Maidstone
5.1
For the last few months, Ray Maidstone has been, effectively, the N.C.S.
Service Centre. He has done a great job fixing dead or dying Archimedes
computers for us and upgrading the memory of A310s. In doing so, he has
come across various recurring problems which could be avoided if a few
precautions were followed.
5.1
Here are some hints & tips which should help to keep your Archimedes in
tip-top condition. A word of warning though, some of the things I am
suggesting should not be attempted unless you really feel competent to
do so. The general rule is, if in doubt, ask for help!
5.1
Å   300 and early 400 series keyboards Ö (See also the article on page 37)
These keyboards do not have sprung contacts coming together, but foil
closing over multiple contact points on sprung pads. Various people have
informed me that they have sprayed their keyboards with switch cleaner
to improve things when they have had intermittent contacts on one or
more keys. They may have got away with it, but it is my view that these
keyboards should never be sprayed with switch cleaner. The only
recommended method of servicing this item is to dismantle (but ONLY if
you feel competent to do so!) and remove foreign particles with a soft
brush and a vacuum cleaner. Anything sticky or difficult to remove is
best left to your Service Centre. WARNING: Using switch cleaner which
contains an organic solvent can destroy components within the keyboard
and slowly but surely render it useless. Be warned! (We have a dead
keyboard available for inspection if you are in any doubt! It was killed
by using Tandyæs Tix Electronic Switch Cleaner. Ed)
5.1
Å   Mouse Ö If you unplug your mouse, the recommended procedure for
reconnection is to first disconnect the keyboard from the computer, plug
the mouse into the keyboard then reconnect to the computer. The reason
for this is that the mouse contains one solitary chip, which has no
protection from spikes at switch-on from the outside world, whereas the
keyboard has circuitry that is slightly better equipped to cope with any
misadventures. Plugging the mouse into the keyboard and then plugging
the keyboard into the computer is the safest method and could well save
you money.
5.1
Å   Monitor smear Ö On the 400 series computers, it is possible to get a
composite video signal out of the sync socket which you can use for a
mono monitor. This is done by making links LK5 and LK6. However, if
these links are made, it can cause problems with certain high resolution
monitors. You get a certain amount of smearing on the ends of horizontal
lines. This effect is caused by the electronics of the Archimedes and
can only be cured by removing the links. (I have a confession to make.
Until we discovered this problem, we always tested our 400 series
computers using a mono monitor. We added links 5 and 6 but did not
remove them before sending out the computers. If you have had a 400
series computer from us, I suggest you check for this effect and remove
the links if necessary. Ed)
5.1
Å   Video RGB outlet Ö On the 310 and early 400 series, it is possible to
destroy the VIDC chip by plugging in the video lead to either the
computer or the monitor if one or both of these items are switched on.
The electronics of this socket do not accept the slightest static
variation and any deviation will damage the VIDC chip. Whoops! Ö there
goes another ú30! I have designed a multiple diode module as a service
modification which upgrades these old machines to the new static-
protected specification. Whilst Acorn confirm that my modification is
öArchimedes-legalò, they will not put their name to it as yet. This
modification has been particularly well received by schools, as it stops
pupils being able to blow up their computers!
5.1
Å   Fan filters Ö With the fan driving air into the filter (lower half of
the diagram below) it is possible for the filter, in its blocked state,
to completely eliminate all airflow within the computer. However, with
the fan sucking air through the filter (upper half of the diagram
below), even if the filter becomes totally blocked, residual air
currents will still flow within the computer, providing some ölast
resortò cooling. Also, with the filter on the outside of the fan,
cleaning couldnæt be easier. All that is needed is to slide the lid back
10 cm (or 4 inches for those of us still in Imperial!) and suck the dust
off the filter with a vacuum cleaner.
5.1
Å   Hard drive parking Ö After much debate and the dismantling of two
unserviceable hard drives, I have found that, in order to give your data
maximum protection at closedown, *BYE must be followed by *SHUTDOWN.
These two commands, although slightly similar, do not seem to perform
the same task and, to my satisfaction, have been proven to be necessary
in the order stated. The effects of closing the drive down can be
verified acoustically and visually, e.g. *BYE will produce one staccato
tick noise and a short flash on the hard drive LED, but this does not
mean the drive is fully parked. Typing *SHUTDOWN will produce a multiple
wink of the hard drive LED and a triple tick noise from the drive. Take
my word that this guarantees total shutdown of the drive. If *SHUTDOWN
is typed without having typed *BYE, a single tick will be heard and the
drive will simply have moved the head to a different track, but it will
not be fully parked. (Different effects happen on different drives under
this condition.)
5.1
(Some may call this a öbelt & bracesò method, but when it comes to
protecting several hundred pounds worth of hard drive, I prefer to err
on the side of caution. Ed)
5.1
Å   Removable hard drive parking Ö The command DISMOUNT brought up by
clicking <menu> on the SCSI icon, does not mean your drive is parked. It
simply means that the drive has shut its motor down and that the
software has öforgottenò about the drive in question. At this point, if
you switch the power off, the heads have been left out over the disc at
the last track you were using and will be in the same position next time
you switch on the power. In order to eliminate the possibility of power-
on destroying any data bits, the centre button on the removable drive
must be pressed and the drive fully disengaged with the lever. This
operation mechanically parks the heads off the disc and is the only way
to guarantee this.
5.1
Å   Stray metalware Ö When removing the motherboard on the 300/400 series,
it is very possible to dislodge one or more of the spring speed nuts
(for the two rear self tapping screws that öget in the wayò when
removing the board). Make sure these are firmly in place when reassem
bling Ö better still, remove them, clamp them slightly more closed and
refit. This will prevent any further mishap which could cause shorting
under the main PCB.
5.1
Å   Stuck floppy discs Ö It is unfortunately possible, now and again, for
a floppy disc to become stuck in the drive. This will be due to one of
the following causes, and if you wish to keep costs to a minimum, NEVER
tug at, or forcibly remove, the stuck item.
5.1
(Again, we have u/s floppy drives available for inspection if you need
proof. Ed.)
5.1
1. The metal sliding cover on the disc can become widened, perhaps due
to being bent in the post, or being sat on or whatever. As the metalwork
of the slider opens, it will act like a ratchet allowing the disc to go
in but not to come out without difficulty.
5.1
2. The spring that returns the metal cover can become unlaced and behave
like a fish hook, snagging the unlocking post within the drive.
5.1
3. The metal screening plate on the upper disc reading head within the
drive can become dislodged and catching the plastic work of the disc
(particularly on the older Sony drives).
5.1
In ALL cases, if the drive is removed by somebody competent to do so,
you should find that delicate easing will allow the disc to come out
again without damaging the drive and, 9 times out of 10, the disc can
also be saved.
5.1
In the case of the metal head shield of the Sony drive, simply throw it
away as it was later found to be unnecessary. Where the metal gate of
the drive is distorted, it is quite acceptable to remove this item by
unfolding it and removing the spring. The disc will operate without the
metal cover but keep little fingers out Ö remember the 5╝ö floppies?ááA
5.1

Hints and Tips
5.2
Å   Fatal error type = 5 revisited (Archive 4.12 p9) Ö Itæs not only !Edit
that reports this error, !Draw and some other Applications abort with a
similar error, but you might want to use !Edit, for example, with fonts.
The version in Archive 4.12 p9 simply hides the !Font-folder, so the
idea is to have the Applications just to see part of the !Fonts folder.
The easiest thing to do is simply to split up the fonts-directory into
directories Ö i.e. create two directories within !Fonts Ö in the first
directory (maybe SmallFonts within your !Fonts Folder) just put the
really necessary fonts in (just Trinity, Homerton, Corpus or so), but
remember that there may only be up to 50 fonts (approximately) Ö
including styles (say Italic, Medium, Bold etc). In the second directory
(maybe LargeFonts) put every font that is not already included in the
first directory.
5.2
The next thing to change is your !Boot and !Run-File from the !Fonts
application.
5.2
The !Boot file should read as follows:
5.2
| !Boot file for !Fonts
5.2
| *********************
5.2
IconSprites <Obey$Dir>.!Sprites
5.2
RMEnsure FontManager 2.42 RMLoad <Obey$Dir>.Fonts
5.2
RMEnsure SuperSample 0.04 RMLoad <Obey$Dir>.Super
5.2
Set Small$Fonts <Obey$Dir>. SmallFonts.
5.2
Set Large$Fonts <Small$Fonts> ,<Obey$Dir>.LargeFonts.
5.2
If ö<Font$Prefix>ò=öò Then SetMacro Font$Path <Font$Prefix>
5.2
If ö<Font$Prefix>ò=öò Then Set Font$Prefix <Large$Fonts>
5.2
SET Alias$@RunType_745 RUN <Obey$Dir>.FontHelp -Obey %%*0
5.2
SET File$Type_745 FontObey
5.2

5.2
The !Run file should read as follows:
5.2
| !Run file for !Fonts
5.2
| ********************
5.2
Obey <Obey$Dir>.!Boot
5.2
Echo Outline Font Manager 2.42 installed.
5.2
Echo Fonts now available:
5.2
Echo
5.2
FontCat
5.2

5.2
In addition, you have to create a Basic program called Fonthelp, which
should be situated in the !Font folder and should read like this:
5.2
REM >FontHelp  Version 1.00 20.1.91
5.2
REM *******************************
5.2
REM Written by: Martin Sperl
5.2
REM             Nattergasse 12/32
5.2
REM             A-1170 Vienna (Wien)
5.2
REM             AUSTRIA
5.2

5.2
END=&A000
5.2
DIM Data 255
5.2
SYSöOS_GetEnvò TO ENV$
5.2
ENV$=MID$(ENV$,INSTR(ENV$,ö-Obey ò) +6)
5.2
*SET Font$Prefix <Small$Fonts>
5.2
SYS öHourglass_Onò
5.2
SYS öWimp_Initialiseò,200, &4B534154,ö**LoadMore**ò
5.2
 TO ,TaskHandle%
5.2
SYS öWimp_StartTaskò,öOBEY ò+ENV$
5.2
REPEAT
5.2
SYS öWimp_Pollò,0,Data TO R%
5.2
UNTIL R%=0
5.2
SYS öWimp_CloseDownò,TaskHandle%
5.2
*SET Font$Prefix <Large$Fonts>
5.2
SYS öHourglass_Offò
5.2
END
5.2
Then create a sprite called öfile_745ò (maybe the same sprite as for an
Obey-file, but another colour) and include it in the !Sprites file of
!Fonts.
5.2
To start an application which can only handle some fonts without errors
just change the Filetype of the !Run-file with öSettype !Run FontObeyò
to FontObey. Then you can start the application as normal without having
to worry about fonts at all.
5.2
Martin Sperl, Austria
5.2
Å   Formatting PC disks Ö If, like me, you do not have a PC Filer on your
Archimedes you will have to format DOS diskettes (for use with the PC
Emulator) on a PC. If your PC has a 1.44M drive the standard FORMAT
command needs modifying. The command to use is
5.2
FORMAT  A:  /N:9  /T:80
5.2
This certainly works on the PS/2 55SX I have at work.  Richard Wheeler,
WokinghamááA
5.2

5.2
Impression Há&áT
5.2
Å   Function key changes Ö Computer Concepts have chosen to use <ctrl-F3>
and <ctrl-F4> for Ésaveæ and Ésearch and replaceæ instead of the more
standard <F3> and <F4>. If you prefer to use the latter, simply go into
the edit styles dialogue (<ctrl-F6>), select first italic and then bold
and, on each, change the keyboard shortcut (or delete it altogether), as
follows... You could, for example, change from <F3> to <shift-ctrl-F3>
by clicking in the shortcut box, pressing <ctrl-U> to delete the
existing text and pressing <shift-ctrl-F3>, at which point the words
ö<shift-ctrl-F3>ò will appear in the box. Click OK and <F3> will now
produce the desired ösaveò effect.
5.2
If you already have a lot of documents, this could prove a frustration
since you would have to do this with every document individually. Also,
you would need to go into Impressionæs Auto directory and edit the
default document. Michael Ben-Gershon, Israel.
5.2
Å   Only 77 graphics frames allowed in a chapter Ö Impression wonæt allow
more than 77 graphics frames in a single chapter. This is due to the
ADFS limitation of 77 files per directory Ö earlier versions of
Impression (2.03) normally crashed after loading the offending file when
displaying. Impression 2.1 does not allow to save a file with more than
77 graphics-frames per chapter. I mentioned it to CC but they told me
öThis is something that would be extremely difficult to overcome. It
should only affect a very small percentage of usersò. So beware of too
many frames in one chapter !!! Martin Sperl, Austria
5.2
Couldnæt you get round this by putting several draw objects together in
a single file and then show different parts of the same file in
different frames? I havenæt tried it, but it should work. Ed.
5.2
Å   Running Impression documents from !TinyDirs Ö If you use !TinyDirs to
install an Impression document on the icon bar and then click on it to
run it, a new copy of !Impress will be fired up even if one is already
running.
5.2
This seems to be because of a small mistake in the !TinyDirs.!RunImage
programme. In the PROCdataopen procedure are two lines which read as
follows:
5.2
900 q%?(44+LEN$(q%+44))=0
5.2
910 q%!0=(48+LEN$(q%+44))ANDNOT3
5.2
If you reverse the order of these two lines the program runs correctly.
Hugh Eagle, Horsham
5.2
Å   Special Characters Ö The full list of ISO 8859 characters is included
in the Archimedes User Guide, e.g. page 455 for the Latin 1 alphabet.
However, itæs not too helpful in that it is listed in hexadecimal. If
you want to enter characters using <Alt> and the numeric keypad, you
need to know the decimal numbers. Those of you with EFF fonts will have
a manual that shows various of the character sets by decimal number.
This is particularly useful for Zapf Dingbats and MathGreek fonts. Jim
Nottingham, York.
5.2
(For those without EFF fonts, I have put an Impression file on the
monthly program disc so that you can print out your own lists of
characters just by changing the font in the style definition. Ed.)
5.2
Å Wrong sprite colours in Impression Ö If, when you drag a sprite into
an Impression frame, the colours come out all wrong, itæs probably
because the sprite has not got a palette. If so, the answer is to give
it a palette, which can be done as follows:
5.2
1.   Load the sprite file containing your sprite into !Paint.
5.2
2.   Double click on the thumbnail picture of the sprite you want to
alter.
5.2
3.   Click <menu> over the sprite window that now appears, then move to
the Edit submenu and click on the Palette item at the bottom.
5.2
4.   Save the amended sprite file.
5.2
5.   Load the amended sprite back into Impression.
5.2
(Note: if you donæt want to keep the amended sprite, you can, if you
like, shortcut steps 4 and 5 and save the sprite direct from !Paint into
Impression.) Hugh Eagle, HorshamááA
5.2



Finally, Andrew Scott...
5.2
The following comments and hints are based on my first week of using the
machine which, from the outset, I must say is brilliant, especially
compared with my old Archimedes A310.
5.2
During the time I have had the machine, I have tried quite a number of
applications. Now, whilst most of them have worked perfectly, I have had
problems with the following:  Atomwide Hi-Res. modes, Jinxter and
Corruption adventures (CIS Adventure pack), Beebug Toolbox disc sector
editor, Data Storeæs FontFX (version 4.04), Mitre Softwareæs DiscTree
(version 2.16) and !DSEdit, PD sound sample player.
5.2
The Atomwide mode designer comes with a number of sets of modes for
various monitors, but none of these is completely suitable for the A5000
and Acornæs multisync monitor. The mode designer application, however,
works fine, provided you remember to select monitor type 1, and machine
A540/A5000. Using this, it is quite straightforward to modify the hi-
res. modes (SVGA, 102 etc.) to produce working versions of these.
However, make sure that you work in mode 27 while defining the new
modes, as some of the other modes (12, 15 etc.) are redefined by the
standard mode module (MegaModes), and this can produce some strange
effects Ö they appear as two letter box shaped screens one above the
other!!
5.2
The adventures Jinxter and Corruption do not work with version 3.87 of
the SharedCLibrary which is in RISC-OS 3. However, they are supplied
with a very old version (1.01) which will work if you *RMKill the
version in RISC-OS 3 first. Better still, alter the !Run files to
automate this, and restore the RISC-OS 3 version afterwards. I have
included two suitable !Run files on the disc. On the monthly program
disc. Ed.)
5.2
The disc sector editor in Beebugæs Toolbox (version 1.00) does not work
at all on the A5000, and hangs the machine!!
5.2
FontFX from the Data Store (version 4.04) does not like the default
setting for the system macro Font$Path. However, if you edit out the
reference to Font$Prefix it works OK Ö not a perfect solution, but it
works. e.g.
5.2
*SetMacro Font$Path adfs::IDEDis c4.$.!Fonts.,Resources:$.Fonts.
5.2
DiscTree (version 2.16) from Mitre Software will load, but all attempts
to access a disc (hard or floppy) produce a fatal internal error.
5.2
!DSEdit, the excellent PD sound sample player will not play samples.
This is because the author has been Énaughtyæ and used an abbreviation
for the ChannelVoice command. RISC-OS 3 wrongly interprets the abbrevia
tion as the new command *ChangeDynamicArea and hence causes an error.
This is easily corrected by changing the abbreviation to the full
command. Acorn have issued a warning with RISC-OS 3 that a number of
commands have different minimum abbreviations, and have provided a file
on the RISC-OS 3 Support Disc to change them all back to what they were
in RISC-OS 2.
5.2
Something else that I have observed is that if you use the !Configure
application to auto-start any of the ROM based applications then this
will cease to work if you have a !Boot file on the hard disc which
includes a line like :
5.2
*Desktop -file <Obey$Dir>.DeskS tart
5.2
Instead you must include a line in the DeskStart file to run each of the
applications which you want to auto-start. e.g.
5.2
Run Resources:$.Apps.!Alarm
5.2
Hardware problems Ö (I have left this in to see if anyone has any ideas!
Ed.) I have discovered a fault with my machine, that concerns the real
time clock. Every time the machine is reset with either <ctrl-break>, or
turning it off and on again, the real time clock is reset back to the
last time that it was explicitly set too, e.g. using *Set Sys$Time or
the Set clock option on !alarm. The rest of the time, the clock appears
to function correctly.
5.2
My first thought was a loose battery connection. However, on opening the
case, I found that the machine doesnæt even have a battery! While the
case was off, I checked for any loose connections, but could not find
any.
5.2
Next, I thought that it might be a software fault and not a hardware
one, because the fault only occurs when the machine is reset, which is a
software function. I noticed that in the list of modules in RISC-OS 3
there is a new module called RTCAdjust which presumably stands for Real
Time Clock Adjust. Could this be causing the problem? The module
provides no star commands or software interrupts, only a service code
handler. I have not been able to confirm if this module is causing the
problem or not. Any ideas?ááA
5.2

The Engineer Speaks (again)
5.2
Ray Maidstone
5.2
As there were several comments of appreciation received regarding the
hardware care section labelled öThe Engineer speaksò last month, further
points of interest have been forwarded and are listed here.
5.2
Headphone sockets
5.2
These stereo sockets are mechanically very delicate and several machines
have been in for repair. (This is presumably because these sockets are
getting used more now that there seems to be a little more notice being
taken of the fact that the Archimedes is capable of matching other makes
of computer, when it comes to music and sound effects.) The replacement
of these sockets is fairly simple but involves completely dismantling
your machine and getting the motherboard out.
5.2
More serious is the fact that weæve had some machines in for repair with
the sound output chip blown. Although this is a very cheap repair, I can
only think that this was caused by people using the socket whilst music
was actually playing! Looking at the circuit diagram, I find it
difficult to see how shorting the contacts in the socket by plugging in
headphones, or whatever, whilst it is playing should be able to blow
anything up, but there it is. I suggest it would be for sensible to
cause your machine to be silent while plugging things into this socket.
5.2
RGB video output failure
5.2
Further to the question öDoes disconnection or connection to the RGB
socket while things are switched on blow the VIDC (Video Output) chip?ò
The answer is most definitely yes, even though several people have
expressed surprise, saying öWell, Iæve plugged and unplugged mine for
years and years, and Iæve never had any problems.ò
5.2
The fact is that eventually it will blow up, as there simply isnæt any
static protection in the early machines. The modification I mentioned
last month has sparked a lot of interest. (Bad choice of words there,
Ray! Ed.) We can fit this for you and we can offer this item, fitted for
ú15, but you will have to sort out the carriage.
5.2
This protection feature is already incorporated into the 400/1 series,
the 3000 and everything since, and will only be needed in the 300 series
and the early 440æs. To my certain knowledge, this modification has put
an end to the grief being caused by pupils öin the knowò at a couple of
schools, deliberately plugging and unplugging monitors and Arabellas
(thatæs what VIDCs are called) are not cheap.
5.2
A3000 crashes and aborts
5.2
My findings on this subject are a bit distressing and, to make matters
worse, I own one of these troublesome machines and can speak from
experience. We have had a slowly increasing number of people losing work
because their 3000 occasionally crashes with the öAbort on transferò, or
öAddress exceptionò captions coming up. These problems have been traced
to impedance peculiarities on the pin and socket connections of the
expansion ram cards. At first, the ram expansion itself was suspected
but we have finally discovered that these connections sometimes go high
impedance at the high frequencies of the ram access speeds. The
ösometimesò is whatæs giving the problem, as the bulk of these expan
sions run trouble free.
5.2
My own belt and braces solution to this has been to remove the pins and
sockets, and replace them with gold plated counterparts Ö No more
problems! This, of course, is öopen heartò surgery and, if not done by
an Acorn Service Centre, will invalidate any guarantee and, if it is not
performed using the correct equipment, it can destroy the machine as
well. (Solder suckers are completely incapable of performing this task
and the 4 layer board is too delicate to risk damaging.)
5.2
I have helped several people out with a temporary DIY tip that consider
ably improves the reliability of these connections. However, you should
only attempt this if you are familiar with opening your machine and
fiddling inside it. Locate the ram board, lift it off the P.C.B.
expansion pins and lay the board to one side. Take a can of WD40, or
Contek 9, but nothing else, and find a clean bottle top or small dish.
Spray some of this into the cup and, using a cotton bud, carefully rub
around all the expansion pins, taking care not to distort any. Do not
spray anything directly into the machine.
5.2
This should be done in a well lighted area and at the end, the pins
should be slightly moist (not too much and not too little!). Take the
ram card, and offer it onto the pins, checking that all pins align
properly into their relevant socket, and press it down. (Check that the
speaker wires do not get in the way.) Once the board has öbottomedò,
pull it back up again about ╝ö (6mm), and then ease it down until it
still about 1/32ò (1mm) away from the bottom. Donæt push it all the way
down this time so that it leaves the connectors on öfreshò metal. This
procedure should temporarily relieve the crash situation but the
following test will reveal whether your problem is corrosive or
mechanical.
5.2
Leaving the lid off, (beware of the high voltages in the power supply if
your machine has a cardboard p.s.u. cover) connect your machine up to
monitor and mains Ö no other connections are needed Ö and switch on. You
should now have the desktop visible on your monitor. If your expansion
is Atomwide then very slightly rocking it from front to back (Do not
exceed ╝ö movement) will not disturb the display if the fault was
corrosion. If the fault was mechanical, you will see the Address
Exception or Abort error flag, in which case the problem is mechanical
and you need to rush to your nearest Acorn Service Centre.
5.2
If you have the Morley board, this is a little more difficult, as you
will have to carefully hinge up the keyboard and find a way of holding
it up (get someone to help you, as if you drop it you could short
something, or break the flexible connector strips) and now take hold of
the front edge of the board and raise and lower it about 3/8ö and watch
for the same effects as already mentioned.
5.2
(This problem would probably have been averted if the pin and socket
components used at time of manufacture had been the gold flashed type,
but this obviously would have increased the product cost.)
5.2
STOP PRESS
5.2
After talking to another dealer at the recent Acorn User Show, I have
been able to find out from a couple of their personnel (unofficially)
that Acorn did indeed have a couple of batches of A3000æs that came with
oxidized expansion pins. So I suggest that either you offer your machine
to your dealer for him to sort out, or heed the above instructions, and
also try a light rub with a very small piece of öScotchbriteò or pan
scourer. Do not use anything metallic because that will leave a
residue.ááA
5.2

Hints and Tips
5.3
Å   AMX mouse Ö To replace the Archimedes mouse with an AMX mouse from a
BBC computer, all that is necessary is to change the plug on the AMX
mouse for a miniature 9 pin DIN plug. The correct plug can be obtained
from Maplin Electronics (0702Ö554161). It is stock number JX19V (price
82p +p&p). Cut the original 20 way IDC connector off the mouse cable and
then solder the wires onto the new plug. The pins are very close
together, so a fair amount of care is required. It is easiest to start
with the middle pins and work outwards. I found that the plastic housing
supplied with the plug was just too wide to fit into my A3000 but it can
easily be cut smaller with a sharp knife.
5.3
Paul Marshall, Loughborough.
5.3
(Has anyone got the connections to do the same sort of thing but with a
BBC Trackerball? Ed)
5.3
Å   Cops and Plague Planet Ö I should like to pass on the following advice
received from Alpine.
5.3
Both Cops and Plague Planet re-configure the character set used to their
own. If you have a copy of Alpine Softwareæs ALPS (Adventure Language
Programming System) this contains a copy of the default Archimedes
character set e.g. $.!ALPS. Resources.defaultchr.
5.3
Copy this file to the appropriate games directory (e.g.
$.COPS.defaultchr), and add the following line at the very end of the
appropriate !Run file (e.g. for Cops):
5.3
Print <Cops$Dir>.defaultchr
5.3
This will then automatically reset the computer to the default system
font upon returning to the Desktop.      Rob Brown, Tadworth
5.3
Å   Corruption and Jinxter Ö I have recently transferred a number of the
earlier Magnetic Scrolls adventure games from floppy to hard disc and
have encountered certain problems with their usage of the Shared C
Library !System module.
5.3
Fish! does not use the Shared C Library at all. Both The Guild of
Thieves and The Pawn came with version 3.50 of the Shared C Library and
they function with more recent versions without any difficulty. However,
my copies of Corruption (version 1.12) and Jinxter (version 1.30) came
with version 1.01 of the Shared C Library and they will not function at
all with any of the more recent versions.
5.3
What I wanted to achieve was an easy means of starting either program
straight from the Desktop and automatically loading the öoldò version of
the Shared C Library. After some trial and error I have found one way
round this by modifying the !Run files for both applications.
5.3
Firstly, version 1.01 of the Shared C Library needs to be copied to a
suitable directory within the !System application on the hard disc (e.g.
$.!System.oldModules.CLib_v101).
5.3
Unfortunately the command RMEnsure will not only check for a particular
version of a module but it will also accept more recent versions. In the
!Run file I have therefore used this command to check whether a
subsequent version (e.g. 1.02) of the Shared C Library is already loaded
and, if not, the most up to date version is loaded from the !System
application. The command RMKill is then used to delete this module
before loading the öoldò version 1.01 of the Shared C Library. Finally,
after exiting the program, the öoldò Shared C Library is deleted, the
latest version (currently 3.75) is re-loaded, and the !Run file finally
returns control direct to the Desktop.
5.3
| !Run file for Corruption
5.3
| (or Jinxter Ö change references from öCorruptionò to öJinxterò)
5.3
| (requires Shared C library version 1.01 dated 13-Jun-88)
5.3
|
5.3
IconSprites <Obey$Dir>.!Sprites
5.3
WimpSlot -min 512K -max 512K
5.3
|
5.3
Set Corruption$CLibLoaded 1
5.3
RMEnsure SharedCLibrary 1.02 Set Corruption$CLibLoaded 0
5.3
If Corruption$CLibLoaded=0 then If ö<System$Path>ò = öò then Error
System resources cannot be found
5.3
If Corruption$CLibLoaded=0 then RMLoad System:Modules.Clib
5.3
RMKill SharedCLibrary
5.3
RMLoad System:oldModules.CLib_v101 .Clib
5.3
RMEnsure SharedCLibrary 1.01 Error You need SharedCLibrary
5.3
version 1.01 ONLY
5.3
Unset Corruption$CLibLoaded
5.3
|
5.3
Set Corruption$Dir <Obey$Dir>
5.3
Run <Corruption$Dir>.Corruption.f1 <Corruption$Dir>.Corruption.f2
5.3
|
5.3
|
5.3
RMKill SharedCLibrary
5.3
RMEnsure SharedCLibrary 3.75 RMLoad System:Modules.Clib
5.3
RMEnsure SharedCLibrary 3.75 Error You need SharedCLibrary
5.3
version 3.75 or later
5.3
Desktop
5.3
WARNING Ö any other programs active within the Desktop should be closed
down and any files saved before starting either Corruption or Jinxter Ö
especially those programs which use the Shared C Library! Perhaps
another reader can find a way round this?
5.3
Rob Brown, Tadworth
5.3
Å   Elite Ö When you start Archimedes Elite, it prompts you to enter a
word from the manual, as an anti-piracy precaution. When it says ötype
the word exactly as shownò it means the input is case sensitive. You
have to remember to take the Caps Lock off. This falls into the category
of öobvious to most peopleò but hopefully this hint will save somebody
the frustrating quarter of an hour which I spent trying to get the thing
to work when it first arrived.
5.3
People who are used to the 8 bit version of the game should watch out
for little things which have changed. For example, furs are now illicit
cargo in the same way that narcotics and firearms are. You are told this
in the manual but you have to look for it pretty carefully!
5.3
Neil Hoggarth, WinchesterááA
5.3

5.3
Impression Hintsá&áTips
5.3
Å   Position holding Ö My repeated plea for a way of holding the current
position in a document when you expand and contract the window has been
answered! A box of four Archive mugs is winging its way to Bob Potter of
Bath. He gave me the basic idea which I have amplified slightly.
5.3
Basically, as Bob pointed out, when you expand and contract the window,
Impression returns to the position that was current when the window was
small. (Surely, CC, this isnæt very sensible, is it? You are more likely
to change the current position when working in the full size window. Why
not change it whenever you move about within the document?) Anyway,
given that this is how it works at present, all you have to do to
maintain your position is, as soon as you have shrunk the window, press
<cursor-left> (and then <cursor-right> if you want to) so that the
current position will be displayed and remembered within the small
window. The only slight disadvantage with this is that if the small
window is very small, you will find the cursor near to the top of the
window when you expand it, not near the middle. Thanks, Bob!ááA
5.3


The Engineer Speaks
5.3
Ray Maidstone
5.3
Å   Hard drive mounts Ö Several customers have had cause to ship their
Archimedi to me for repair, and a hardware problem has come to light.
Some of you have purchased hard drives that have been mounted on thin
aluminium brackets. These rather flimsy brackets easily distort under
small amounts of G stress and, unfortunately, a few harddrives have gone
to the great hard disc graveyard in the sky. Aluminium was used by the
Airforce because of its tensile properties, and should (due to this very
fact) not be used to anchor a hard drive. These small brackets deform
under stress and leave the drive öflappingò about.
5.3
Another comment about brackets Ö a lot of them are fine for their
supporting properties but not very good when it comes to air circula
tion. This can be improved by either punching some 3/8ö holes in the
sides, or by buying a pair of Paulæs new nifty side brackets at ú4 a
pair. We have had a few instances of over-heating causing premature
decease of drives, particularly with back planes full of podules and a
partly blocked filter. It is possible that, by reducing the bracket
size, this could have been avoided.
5.3
Å   *Shut and *bye Ö The last word! I have not, at any time in my
comments, stated that the suggestions I have made are law, I have merely
offered the result of my findings to those who hadnæt a clue of what was
going on. There are a few small, old drives that need both, but most
only need one command to park. The removables, however, most certainly
do not park, and only the operating lever finally parks the heads. These
findings came about from observations of partially dismantled units
operating under standard command use.
5.3
Å   LBP4 laser printers Ö I have been asked about switch on/off procedures
for these, and I reckon that, to minimise öspikesò, the order should
be... when switching on, either do so all together or the printer last,
and turning off, either do it all altogether or switch off the printer
first.
5.3
Å   Cooling Ö Following the success of quietening the fans on Archimedes,
external hard drives have now been added to the list, and no heat
problems have arisen (mainly because of 14 months of actual proving
before releasing). Whilst assessing the quietening for these drives, it
was surprising to find just how mechanically noisy some makes of fan
were, as nearly 50% of the noise from the unit was being conducted
through the chassis assembly.
5.3
I have also been asked öIf I donæt like Acornæs cooling method, what
would I like instead?ò My reply is that, in my opinion, the current fan
with or without a quietener (that never lets the fan speed drop below
75%) is not quite enough in the real world. Particularly if the filter
is on the inside, hardly anyone appears to pay much attention to keeping
the filter clean. Therefore, I have found a rather nice miniature fan
(currently being used by Morley in their external hard drives) that,
when introduced into the opposite side of the case to the present
arrangement, and being set to push air out of the case as the other
sucks it in, really gets some cooling done.
5.3
A cautionary note about airflow is not to stand external floppy and hard
drive units too close to the sides of the Archimedes, or soft surfaces
under the A3000, as öwhat goes in must come outò and I have seen several
instances of hot machines being caused by the proximity of external
surfaces. The A3000 has a power supply that runs quite hot and, being
encased in fireproof cardboard, (on the earlier machines, anyway) made
things even more heated. I am using the miniature fan, aimed at the end
of the P.S.U., to assist temperature differences in this rather enclosed
environment. If anyone is interested in more details, let me know. This
small fan gives off very little sound and certainly improves longevity.
The lack of space inside the A3000 generally adds to the poor cooling in
the P.S.U. and any air movement is better than none.
5.3
I made the comment above about fan quieteners not slowing the fan more
than 75% because, in the course of my development, I also tried systems
that reduced the fan speed to 40%, and also did one trial where I
stopped it all together for the first quarter hour, as no heat would
build up until after this. The fan would then thermostatically cut in
and then run in a varied way subject to temperature requirements. These
were all dropped due to the fact that, as the Archimedes box is not at
all aerodynamic, once the temperature began to build up, certain items
within it started to experience particularly large temperature rises
i.e. hard drive, P.S.U. and floppy drive. The final unit chosen simply
took the fan below the noise of air flare speed and, together with the
chassis decoupling grommets, removed so much noise that only the sound
of the hard drive rang in the ears. I would caution people against using
controllers that slow the fan excessively.
5.3
Å   IDE cabling Ö I notice that IDE drive cables have been quoted as long
as 20ö. I have it on very good authority that in some cases, even 12ò is
pushing it. This is because IDE signals tend to be far more easily
corrupted than those on SCSI lines. So please be warned and keep them as
short as possible.ááA
5.3

Hints and Tips
5.4
Å   A5000 monitor problem Ö One problem which various people seem to have
had with the Acorn A5000 monitors is intermittent contact on the mains
cable but the solution is simple. When you plug the power cable into the
monitor, it seems to go in but actually, to get it fully home, you have
to push it very firmly.
5.4
Å   Draw files in Impression Ö Did you know that when using Draw files in
Impression frames, it is possible to özoomò in on a part you want to
concentrate on and bring it up to öfill the frameò? This means you can,
for example, call up a file of, say, a fruit filled bowl and then choose
the apple to fill the space available in your document or show a group
of cartoon figures and, in the next frame, have a öclose upò of one
face. Since Draw files are capable of incredible scaling, their should
be no real loss of detail involved.
5.4
The procedure is simple. Create a frame for the draw file. Open the
directory containing the Draw file. Drag it into the frame in the usual
way. Changing the shape of the frame with its handles using <select>
will öcropò the picture until only the part you require is visible. Then
enlarge the frame using the adjust button on the corner handles. The
cropped picture will ögrowò with your mouse movements. (Well, stone me!
I didnæt know that! Please keep sending these öobviousò hints Ö they are
not obvious to everyone. Ed.)
5.4
Incidentally, donæt try moving a frame containing a Draw file around the
page using the usual method of pointing inside it, holding down <select>
and waiting for the blue lines to appear. If you donæt wait quite long
enough, the graphic moves inside the frame and bang goes your careful
alignment! Instead, hold down <ctrl> when you press <select> and the
frame can be moved safely and immediately. Kevin Beales, Shropshire.
(The latter hint was also sent in by Johannes Thordarson of  Ice
land.)ááA
5.4

Hints and Tips
5.5
Å   A5000 PC delete danger ù I found out the hard way that deleting the PC
directory (and probably Drive_C as well) gives a disc error over the
area of the deleted partition. The only solution is to reformat the hard
disc and restore the last backup. J.R.McLachlan, Hertford.
5.5
Yes, there does appear to be a problem here. The same thing happened to
us. In theory, the idea is that Drive_C is a filetype that is not
deleteable. The trouble is that on the A5000, it seems to get confused
and half delete it, leaving a blank entry in the file table (seen as a
blank line in the filer window if you use öfull infoò). The answer is to
change the filetype to, say, FFF with
5.5
*SETTYPE $.<pathname>.Drive_C FFF
5.5
before you try to delete it. Ed.
5.5
Å   BBC Tracker Ball Ö In Decemberæs Archive, Paul asked for a wiring
diagram to convert a BBC tracker ball to an Archimedes one. I have
converted an old Marconi tracker ball for use on the Archimedes using
the following diagram.
5.5
The nine wires come out of the bottom of the tracker ball socket as I
have drawn it. Socket 1 is marked, or it is on mine.
5.5
The connections are as follows...
5.5
   9-pin   Trackerball
5.5
   mini DIN   Socket
5.5
   1   3   yellow
5.5
   2   6   black
5.5
   3   7   brown
5.5
   4   9   grey
5.5
   5   2   orange
5.5
   6   1   red
5.5
   7   4   green
5.5
   8   8   white
5.5
   9   5   blue
5.5
The colours are the colours on mine. They may differ between various
tracker balls. A mark 1 Archimedes mouse lead will also fit this
particular tracker ball but two leads need swapping round.
5.5
Connectors 6 and 7, in my case red and brown, need to be changed over.
This can be accomplished with a needle by gently lifting the black
plastic clip above the connector with the needle whilst pulling gently
on the wire to be removed.
5.5
Decemberæs article was, I think, for a mark 1 AMX mouse. I have a later
AMX mouse which is the same design as the early Archimedes mouse and the
lead is a straight swap.
5.5
Dave Morrell, Middlesbrough
5.5
Å   Elite Cheat Ö Here is program that will create a commander file for
use with Elite. It gives you the most needed items to get around a
little better than before, especially the docking computer, (most
welcome). When you have successfully loaded it in, use galaxy map to see
where to go, a little bonus is waiting: Front beam laser, rear beam
laser, large cargo bay (35 tons), docking computer, E.C.M. system, four
missiles.
5.5
REM>:0.$.Elite_com
5.5
REM Program by Scott Edwards
5.5
REM 3-1-92
5.5
REM It is important that you have
5.5
REM the correct checksums on the
5.5
REM right line, the program will
5.5
REM inform you if you have a wrong line.
5.5
MODE0:OFF
5.5
DIM store% &1000
5.5
checkcode%=38901:code$=öò
5.5
line%=390:inc%=0
5.5
FOR l%=0 TO 17
5.5
FOR blk%=0 TO 15
5.5
READ code$
5.5
dat%=EVAL(ö&ò+code$)
5.5
checksum%=checksum%+dat%
5.5
?(store%+inc%)=dat%
5.5
PRINT dat%,~dat%
5.5
inc%+=1
5.5
NEXT
5.5
READ checkcode%
5.5
IF checksum%<>checkcode% THEN
5.5
PRINT öYou have a data byte incorrect at ò;line%
5.5
STOP
5.5
ENDIF
5.5
line%+=10:finalcheck%=checksum%
5.5
checksum%=0
5.5
NEXT
5.5
IF finalcheck%=checkcode% THEN
5.5
PRINTöYou have a correct file for savingò
5.5
REPEAT
5.5
INPUTöEnter the commander name for your file  ò;A$
5.5
UNTIL A$<>öò
5.5
SYSöOS_Fileò,10,A$,&C87,,store%, store%+&11C
5.5
ENDIF
5.5
PRINTöProgram is Finished,now run ELITE and use your new commanderò
5.5
END
5.5
:
5.5
REM Commander file for ELITE
5.5
:
5.5
DATA 16,B5,DC,72,DF,DD,20,C9,F2,3C, 54, EB,32,6F,EF,09,2244
5.5
DATA E5,F9,61,E3,31,12,B8,70,85,F3, FE,A9,EB,11,02,DD,2439
5.5
DATA 31,43,F2,80,D5,F6,81,FA,70,92, 9A, 72,B9,EB,FC,B9,2707
5.5
DATA C9,B1,42,CE,85,DD,F6,7F,5D,00, D2,9A,92,D2,6F,FC,2553
5.5
DATA B9,2F,F9,62,CF,B5,62,B8,7B,5E, 98,7E,AF,68,DC,AA,2413
5.5
DATA DD,39,30,CD,40,D6,B5,EF,53,70, 9E,91,E9,99,EC,DB,2568
5.5
DATA F1,2C,B1,50,C1,F5,4D,F7,EE,72, 97,52,A1,59,FC,A7,2558
5.5
DATA FD,78,B2,CD,22,CA,AD,FF,54,7F, 3D,52,67,0A,66,D7,2204
5.5
DATA F8,23,39,20,A2,B4,86,B4,6C,7D, 0B,1D,09,4A,D3,44,1663
5.5
DATA D3,37,3F,07,0F,06,A6,63,23,E3, 1D,18,84,80,84,D4,1541
5.5
DATA AA,8A,6B,10,8D,3B,39,43,EB,56, C6,B6,81,48,9F,1E,1846
5.5
DATA 9A,77,2C,64,DC,BA,A5,49,10,CE, BD,17,33,EF,5E,D4,2091
5.5
DATA A5,01,E8,E0,8D,12,71,30,6B,53, F9,F5,E9,47,02,B2,2110
5.5
DATA 91,37,22,7D,F1,F6,A4,7A,DC,C2, 9C,8A,B5,FE,7C,CB,2602
5.5
DATA 38,E2,DA,CF,49,E0,80,BF,CF,20, 6A,6E,E7,24,69,39,2207
5.5
DATA 7E,74,89,36,A6,69,0B,36,B7,A9, 33,46,99,DD,35,07,1676
5.5
DATA 34,D0,D6,93,1D,CF,F0,9B,03,0F, 61,EC,D6,13,E8,71,2181
5.5
DATA 48,83,01,29,F7,5A,82,75,32,A8, BA,41,00,00,00,00,1298
5.5
S Edwards, Stourbridge
5.5
Å   First Word Plus 2 Ö In Archive 3.12 someone was bemoaning the lack of
a key that would toggle insert mode on and off. In fact the <insert> key
itself will do just that.
5.5
Robert Fuller, Basingstoke.
5.5
Å   Lemmings Passwords Ö For all you bald headed insomniacs....
5.5
Taxing Leveláááá
5.5
02 Justforyou   03 Runandflee   04
Doortodoor
5.5
05 Stillalive   06 Fixedmyfix   07
Anurebevan
5.5
08 Helpmemate   09 Drinknwine   10
Tenpercent
5.5
11 Stickuptwo   12 DiginDelve    13
Hisbadluck
5.5
14 Teensforth   15 Teensfifth   16
Notsosweet
5.5
17 Driveukcar   18 Votesforme   19
Tenstonine
5.5
20 Doublesten   21 Lockandkey   22
Twoelevens
5.5
23 Justforme   24 Lemmingmore   25
Jiveanjive
5.5
26 Lemsinafix   27 Lemsheavon   28
Gardengate
5.5
29 Startowine   30 Fivexsixis
5.5
Mayhem Leveláááá
5.5
02 Nearlygone   03 Spendspree   04
Onthefloor
5.5
05 Uncleclive   06 Clogclicks   07
Difference
5.5
08 Waitanwait   09 Eatanddine   10
Tentontess
5.5
11 Binisthree   12 Twotimesix   13
Returntome
5.5
14 Twicelucky   15 Nineandsix   16
Charitynum
5.5
17 Stillyoung   18 Comesofage   19
Olderstill
5.5
20 Numbtwenty   21 Olderlemms   22
Lemminduck
5.5
23 Soonbefree   24 Lemmsstore   25
Lemmsdrive
5.5
26 Yourinafix   27 Lemtodevon   28Twostoplay
5.5
29 Oneafterme   30 Lemmgfinal
5.5
Robin Jefferies,  West Sussex.
5.5
Å   Improving Logistix (v0.01) RISC-OS compatibility Ö As anyone who has a
copy of Logistix will be aware, the RISC-OS support files to öupgradeò
the package to run from the desktop do nothing except allow the
application to be launched from the desktop! (I do not know if there was
ever a subsequent release of Logistix since v0.01 Ö I assume not, as I
was a registered owner and was never informed of any update.)
5.5
In the case of old programs upgraded through the support disk, itæs
likely that some of the software houses did not have any real experience
of RISC-OS before the deadline date for the disk, so they may be excused
for the minimal level of compliance. (Acorn could not be considered to
have had any such excuse, but Logistix wasnæt actually written by them,
they only marketed it for Grafox.)
5.5
The directory structure of the öupgradedò !Logistix was rather messy,
and all pathnames were specific to the directory structure, therefore
not transportable from drive 0 and the $ directory. This makes it
impossible to install on a hard disk without some editing. The major
annoyance in using the application is that clicking on Logistix data
files does nothing except give an error message! Files can only be
loaded by first loading Logistix, then keyboarding through the menu
system.
5.5
The application directory can be arranged far better for RISC-OS by the
movement of a few files, and a little editing with !Edit. Dealing with
the directory structure first...
5.5
All that the user wants to see of Logistix is the !Logistix application
icon which can be double clicked on to start it. Your !System directory
should contain a directory called Modules which contains the latest
version of the FPE, Clib, Colours etc. As upgraded after using the
support disk, a Logistix floppy disk contains the following directories:
5.5
!System Ö A system folder which still requires updating with the RISC-OS
extras disk for the newer versions of Clib etc. (The latest Floating
Point Emulator (2.80) should also be placed in the Modules directory
inside this.)
5.5
!Logistix Ö The RISC-OS startup directory containing the !Boot,!Run and
!Sprites files.
5.5
Logistix Ö The actual Logistix program files and a (now outdated)
Floating Point Emulator.
5.5
MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR DISK then, using the backup copy...
5.5
Move the Logistix directory into the !Logistix directory.
5.5
Copy the latest FPEmulator you have into the !System.Modules directory.
5.5
(You may then delete the copy in the Logistix directory.)
5.5
Using !Edit, edit the !Logistix.!Boot file to contain the following
lines:
5.5
| !Boot for !Logistix version 0.01
5.5
| Updated to allow autoload
5.5
| (This is an OBEY file)
5.5
Set Logi$Dir <Obey$Dir>
5.5
IconSprites <Logi$Dir>.!Sprites
5.5
Set File$Type_DFF Logistix
5.5
Set Alias$@RunType_DFF Obey <Logi$Dir>.InitFile %%*0
5.5
Edit the !Run file so that it becomes:
5.5
| !Run for !Logistix version 0.01
5.5
| with better RISC-OS compatability
5.5
| (This is an OBEY file)
5.5
IconSprites <Logi$Dir>.!Sprites
5.5
WimpSlot -min 500k
5.5
RMEnsure FPEmulator RMLoad <System$Path>Modules.FPEmulator
5.5
Dir <Logi$Dir>.Logistix
5.5
LGX
5.5
The use of ö<System$Path>Modules.ò to reach the FPEmulator and setting
up the system variable <Logi$Dir> allow proper transportability of the
application, and it can now quite happily be installed anywhere in the
directory structure on a hard disk. Clicking on a data file causes RISC-
OS to check if a command has been matched to that file type. The system
variable Alias$@RunType _xxx has to be set up for files of the type in
question. If it has not been set up then you will get the error message
öNo run action specified for this file typeò. This is exactly what
happens with Logistix and similar applications written before (and even
since!) RISC-OS made its appearance. The addition of the line Set
Alias$@RunType_ DFF Obey <Logi$Dir>.InitFile %%*0 in the !Boot file
corrects the original omission, along with the following Obey file.
5.5
The file described here can be used with most applications which require
keyboard input to load files, the exceptions being those which clear the
keyboard buffer on start up. In principle, the method is simple. An Exec
file is used containing the commands or keystrokes to be executed as
though they had been entered at the keyboard. Due to the fact that only
Obey files can process the Obey$Dir system variable, it could get a
little bit confusing.
5.5
One way around this is from an Obey file:
5.5
1. Collect the startup pathname from RISC-OS and put it in a system
variable.
5.5
2. Using an Obey file, create an Exec file (by using Spool and Echo)
containing all the commands which require to be carried out to start the
application and set it up for a load operation.
5.5
3. Echo the system variable containing the full pathname into the Exec
file.
5.5
4. Exec the file which has just been created.
5.5
There is one small problem. When trying to write to the FIRST file being
created by a *Spool operation, extraneous data flows into it before the
data! A dummy file is spooled first to get rid of this before the real
file is created.
5.5
Using !Edit, create a new Obey file as follows, (You may miss out the
comment lines, but please leave in the fact that it is public domain and
attributed to me.)
5.5
| öInitFileò Ö Public Domain by
5.5
| D.Potter 26/6/90
5.5
| Allows keyboard emulated loading
5.5
| by double-clicking on a data file
5.5
| in the RISC-OS desktop.
5.5
| Intended in this version for
5.5
| Logistix, but the principal will
5.5
| work for other programs which do
5.5
| not clear the keyboard buffer at
5.5
| startup.
5.5
| This is an Obey File. (Exec files
5.5
| do not allow passing of system
5.5
| parameters.) To pass actual
5.5
| commands to Logistix, (or any
5.5
| similar application), an Exec file
5.5
| must be used.
5.5
| The Exec file is built by this
5.5
| file, including the full path for
5.5
| the startup file that was clicked
5.5
| on.
5.5
| The !Boot file for app. must be an
5.5
| Obey file containing the commands
5.5
|      Set Logi$Dir <Obey$Dir>
5.5
|      Set Alias$@RunType_xxx Obey <Logi$Dir>.InitFile %%*0
5.5
| (As well as any other commands
5.5
| already there)
5.5
| Where xxx is the filetype for the
5.5
| data file (DFF for Logistix).
5.5
| Logi$Dir will be the directory
5.5
| where the application resides, and
5.5
| is automatically set up when the
5.5
| applicationæs !Boot is first seen.
5.5
| Note : the | characters at the
5.5
| start of the above lines should
5.5
| NOT be in the !Boot file!
5.5
|
5.5
| Put the pathname information in
5.5
| temporary system variable Lload$
5.5
Set Lload$ %*0
5.5
| Clear extraneous data which
5.5
| appears when a file is written to
5.5
| at this stage by dummy spooling.
5.5
| This data is not needed here any
5.5
| more!
5.5
Spool <Logi$Dir>.!LoadFile
5.5
Echo <Lload$>
5.5
spool
5.5
| Now create the actual Exec file
5.5
| which will run LGX and issue the
5.5
| commands.
5.5
Spool <Logi$Dir>.!LoadFile
5.5
Echo || !LoadFile Ö Transient program built by InitFile
5.5
 (PD) by D.Potter 1990
5.5
Echo *Run <Logi$Dir>.!Run
5.5
|
5.5
| Send the Logistix load sequence Ö
5.5
| Note : NO SPACES in the sequence!
5.5
| /L = load, L= Logistix data file,
5.5
| <Lload$>= Full filename,
5.5
| A= All to be loaded  (You might
5.5
| want to use a different load
5.5
| sequence)
5.5
| (Where a return is required such
5.5
| as after the filename here,
5.5
| simply start a new Echo statement
5.5
| for the next command.)
5.5
|
5.5
Echo /LL<Lload$>
5.5
Echo A
5.5
|
5.5
| Close the file
5.5
Spool
5.5
|
5.5
| Set its file type
5.5
SetType <Logi$Dir>.!LoadFile Command
5.5
|
5.5
| Lose the temporary system variable
5.5
UnSet Lload$
5.5
|
5.5
| And run the file just created!
5.5
Exec <Logi$Dir>.!LoadFile
5.5
Save the above file as InitFile in the !Logistix directory.
5.5
Now click on the !Boot file in the !Logistix directory to set the system
variables. (You wonæt always have to do this, as the !Boot file will be
run the first time you open the directory containing !Logistix. You only
need to do it at this time because you have been messing about with the
files, and the !Boot file may be different now than when it was last
run.) Clicking on any Logistix data file will now load Logistix and the
data file ready for use. You will still have to set up any default
prefixes etc.
5.5
It is not possible to do this automatically with a simple file such as
the above, because the full pathname would require to be split up to
provide the path to your file directory minus the filename. i.e. you
would require string handling facilities such as in Basic.
5.5
Note: The Logistix application itself still sets the CSD to the Logistix
directory within the !Logistix application directory. Implementing a
fully RISC-OS compatible version would require rewriting of the actual
coded LGX file, which is not possible without both the source code file
and the full approval of both Acorn and Grafox.
5.5
Other applications requiring a parameter block in memory Ö Other
programs (in Basic) written before RISC-OS, which will autoload a data
file at startup if a parameter block is set up in memory, could be made
to auto load using a version of the following routine. Again, this
builds an exec file which is run in Basic, using simple string handling
to split off the filename from the full pathname.
5.5
This example file was built to implement auto loading under RISC-OS on
an old BBC program which was written for DFS, and without re-writing
could not handle full pathnames, therefore it includes a line to set the
current directory to the application directory.
5.5
Note: This particular version works due to Basic being selected during
the execution of the Exec file and the memory accessible to both the
file and the program is that assigned by the selection of Basic. Any
other programs (e.g. integrated packages) which are to use the shared
parameter block must (obviously) use the same memory, so must not move
out of Basic (return to the desktop) in between the programs, but simply
chain each other.
5.5
This actual file will be irrelevant to most users, but it does show a
method of getting around the conversion of system variables to actual
data therefore easing the amount of work involved in conversion of BBC B
and Master programs to Archimedes. I know that re-writing the appli
cations might be more sensible, but this is aimed at people who know how
an application works, but didnæt write it in the first place!
5.5
|    öAutoloadò
5.5
| A Customised version of öInitFileò
5.5
| Ö  Public Domain by D.Potter
5.5
|                             7/7/90
5.5
|       ÿÿ Information ÿÿ-
5.5
| Allows parameter block loading by
5.5
| double-clicking on a data file
5.5
| in the RISC-OS desktop.
5.5
| Intended in this version for the
5.5
| upgrade of an old BBC/Master
5.5
| program called Datbase, but the
5.5
| principal should work for other
5.5
| Basic programs which when started
5.5
| up check a parameter block in
5.5
| memory, and if found to be valid,
5.5
| will load the file referred to in
5.5
| the block.
5.5
| eg. Old öIntegratedò suites of
5.5
| programs which allow files to be
5.5
| left as active or current for each
5.5
| program in the suite.
5.5
|
5.5
| This is an Obey File.
5.5
| An Exec file is built by this file
5.5
| including the filename for the
5.5
| startup file that was double
5.5
| clicked on.
5.5
| The !Boot file for app. must be an
5.5
| Obey file containing the commands
5.5
|       Set DatBa$Dir <Obey$Dir>
5.5
|       Set Alias$@RunType_xxx Obey <DatBa$Dir>.AutoLoad %%*0
5.5
| (As well as any other commands
5.5
| already there)
5.5
| Where xxx is the filetype for the
5.5
| data file. (DatBa$Dir will be set
5.5
| to the directory where the program
5.5
| & this file reside when the !Boot
5.5
| file is run)
5.5
|
5.5
| Put the full pathname information
5.5
| in system variable DBload$
5.5
Set DBload$ %*0
5.5
| Clear extraneous data which
5.5
| appears when a file is written to
5.5
| at this stage by dummy spooling.
5.5
| This data is not needed here
5.5
| anymore!
5.5
Spool <DatBa$Dir>.!LoadFile
5.5
Echo <DBload$>
5.5
spool
5.5
|
5.5
| Now create the actual Exec file
5.5
| which will run the program and
5.5
| load file.
5.5
Spool <DatBa$Dir>.!LoadFile
5.5
Echo || !LoadFile Ö Transient program built by AutoLoad
5.5
 (PD) by D.Potter 1990
5.5
Echo *Basic
5.5
Echo REM this particular application requires the CSD to be it -
5.5
Echo *Dir <DatBa$Dir>
5.5
Echo REM The startup parameter block for this application
5.5
 is at &F000, with
5.5
Echo REM the filename held at &F100, any conditions for
5.5
 printing at &F110,
5.5
Echo REM the record number to display at start up held in R%,
5.5
Echo REM and HIMEM held in H%
5.5
Echo HIMEM=&F000
5.5
Echo H%=&F000
5.5
|    Echoing a system variable
5.5
|    causes it to be converted to
5.5
|    the real data.
5.5
Echo F$=ö<DBload$>ò
5.5
Echo REM Split off the actual filename itself (This
5.5
 particular example is
5.5
Echo REM for conversion of a BBC B/
5.5
Master program which
5.5
 has restricted
5.5
Echo REM filename length, and therefore canæt handle
5.5
 full pathnames)
5.5
Echo REPEAT:F$=MID$(F$,INSTR(F$,ö.ò)+1):UNTIL INSTR(F$,ö.ò)=0
5.5
Echo $&F100=F$ : $&F110=öò:R%=1
5.5
Echo MO.12
5.5
Echo CHAINöDATBASEò
5.5
|
5.5
| Where a return is required after a
5.5
| command such as L for load, simply
5.5
| start a new Echo statement for the
5.5
| next command Ö a return will be
5.5
| put in.
5.5
|
5.5
| Close the file
5.5
Spool
5.5
|
5.5
| Set its file type
5.5
SetType <DatBa$Dir>.!LoadFile Command
5.5
|
5.5
| And do it!
5.5
Exec <DatBa$Dir>.!LoadFile
5.5
Douglas Potter, Glasgow
5.5
Å   Oak SCSI on A5000 Ö Using the Éfreeæ menu option on a SCSI disc on the
iconbar doesnæt make use of the new Free module in the RISC-OS 3 ROM. To
correct this, include the following line in your hard disc boot file :
5.5
Set Alias$Free ShowFree -FS scsi %0
5.5
Thatæs all there is to it. Now, whenever you select Éfreeæ from the SCSI
menu, a Free window pops up. The É%0æ picks up the device (disc drive)
name. Should you then subsequently wish to use Free from the command
line, use :
5.5
%Free [<disc spec>]
5.5
Typing ShowFree at the command line (with no parameters) reports the
command syntax.
5.5
David Lenthall, London
5.5
Å   Refilling ink cartridges Ö We have, in past issues, published comments
about refilling inkjet cartridges with various types of ink. Tord
Eriksson sent in another such comment a while ago but I didnæt publish
it. He now writes....
5.5
Remember my recommending using water or fountain pen ink to keep your
printer going when your ink supply is gone? You didnæt publish it
(sensibly enough!) and I ran into deep trouble with it. I thought the
printhead was a goner (and messed it up further...), as the printer
didnæt work properly. After buying a new ú100 head, with no improvement,
I found out that the reason you shouldnæt refill the cartridges is that
air easily leaks into the paint container if you disconnect it many
times (as when injecting ink) because the membrane gets worn. This means
that suction isnæt up to specification and you get uneven paint
delivery.
5.5
You may publish this as a warning Ö water does not harm a Canon BJ-what-
ever printer Ö but the side-effects can be very troublesome! I could
have spent the ú100 on something more sensible!!!    Tord Eriksson,
SwedenááA
5.5
Impression Hints & Tips
5.5
Å   Function key changes (contæd) Ö In addition to Michael Ben-Gershonæs
excellent hint in Archive 5.2, p.12: Why not go the whole way and put
all those styles (like those fonts you use regularly to enhance your
texts) into your Impression default document, after you have assigned a
function key to each of them?
5.5
There are quite a lot of possibilities; in addition to those fields on
the function key strip that are quite empty, you can remove the default
styles you may not need (like hanging indent) and if there are some of
those ten scales offered which you never use, you can simply take over
those keys for your own styles.
5.5
You will find that the editable field which allows you to define a
keyboard short cut is slightly unusual: It accepts only certain entries
(function keys, <Shift>, <Return>,..), and it is not necessary to delete
the existing content with <Ctrl-U> Ö just click in the box, enter the
new combination and click on OK. (Donæt press <Return>, because that
simply means that the short cut for your style is the Return key!)
5.5
Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, Germany
5.5
Å Sprite files in Impression Ö Kevin Beales told us (Archive 5.4 p5)
about Impressionæs ability to scale pictures in Draw format. In this
context, he forgot to mention something even more remarkable: Impression
can also scale sprites! This works in exactly the same way as he
described.
5.5
Of course, due to the well known problems of jagged edges/loss of
detail, you shouldnæt scale up or down too much; but if you have a
sprite that is just slightly too big or too small for its intended
place, then this feature of Impression is certainly extremely useful!
5.5
Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, Germany
5.5
Å   Illustrated Impression documents Ö I often include sprite and draw
files in my Impression documents (for test papers and the like).
5.5
One minor problem is that one canæt really edit those graphic frames in
an Impression document. Therefore, to have the corresponding files
always on hand, I save them into the documentæs directory (after opening
a window on this directory by <shift>-double clicking).
5.5
This is one more reason for buying Compression: A typical sketch I make
with DrawPlus is reduced from about 6k to about 2 kbytes. A screen shot
made of an oscilloscope application I use takes up 100 kbytes; Compres
sion reduces this to just about 5k bytes (!). This means that even
pictures that appear in several documents donæt clog up the hard disk
too much, if you always save them together with the documents they
appear in.
5.5
(Surely, though, the Draw files are already in the Impression document
directory? Why not edit them directly from there? Two drawbacks, I
suppose... you donæt know which file is which because they have names
like Story2 and Story4 (but you could identify them if you have full
info set in the filer window because of their size) and secondly the
changes to the Drawfiles are only displayed then next time you load the
Impression document. Ed.)
5.5
(By the way: Can anyone tell me whether this hint will become obsolete
once Computer Conceptsæ much vaunted Impulse II will be available, that
is, whether you will then be able to open a graphic file saved somewhere
by clicking on a graphic frame in an Impression document?)
5.5
Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, Germany
5.5
Å   Tiny left hand margin Ö I often wondered why the default document on
the Impression disc has a left hand margin set on the base style of a
couple of millimetres. Because of my sense of symmetry, I reduced that
to zero as soon as I started using Impression. Surely, if you create a
new master page with, say, 10cm margins, you donæt want the lefthand
margin to be 10.2cm?
5.5
Suddenly it dawned on me... yes, I know Iæm slow... the reason for the
small lefthand margin is to make it easier to position the cursor to the
left of the first character on a line. If, as I do, you have zero margin
in the base style, youæve got to judge the mouse cursor fairly accu
rately otherwise it goes onto the paper margin and turns into a hand.
Well, yer pays yer money... but I think Iæll stay as I am. I have too
many documents to change them all. Ed.
5.5
Å   Impression speed usersæ tips Ö I find that if you can get into the
habit of using <adjust> reverse scrolling, it really does save time,
especially when I am laying out the magazine and the screen is cluttered
with windows. Just press <select> to scroll down and switch quickly to
<adjust> to go back up again without having to move the mouse and locate
the other end of the scroll bar Ö which could be under another window
anyway.
5.5
Also, <adjust> can be extremely useful, again with a cluttered screen,
for moving windows whilst keeping them where they are relative to the
other documents. It takes practice, but it speeds things up in the long
run. Ed.ááA
5.5

Hints and Tips
5.6
Å   Alt key problems Ö (I think Iæll have to write this in six-foot high
letters. Weæve said it several times, but people keep missing out on
it.) If your <alt>-keypad numbers donæt give the special characters you
think they should, type *UNPLUG and youæll probably find that someone or
something has unplugged the InternationalKeyboard module. If so, do an
RMREINIT InternationalKeyboard and all will be well. Ed.
5.6
Å   Copy key use Ö I had not realised until recently that the copy key has
the function of ödelete rightò (as it does in Impression) in most RISC-
OS applications.
5.6
Å   Floppy backup ù (I know itæs obvious but...) On a single floppy disc
machine, if you want to backup up floppy discs in one chunk, i.e.
instead of having to take the discs in and out twice, call up the task
manager and increase the öNextò memory allocation to 800k or more. If
you donæt, it loads 640k into memory and copies that and then copies the
last 160k separately.
5.6
Å   External floppy drives on A5000 Ö There seems to be some concern and
confusion over connecting extra floppy drives to the A5000 and over the
fact that ADFS treats the drives in a different way from previous
Archimedes computers. Let me try to explain.
5.6
The A5000 motherboard can access two internal floppy drives and two
external drives. However, many modern 3╜ö drives can only be configured
as drive 0 or 1. Thus to allow a full complement of four drives, drive
selections 2 and 3 are transformed into 0 and 1 but on a separate ribbon
cable (as in a PC).
5.6
Here is the problem: If one internal drive is fitted (physical drive 0/
1) and an external drive is added (addressed as drive 3), then to access
the external drive you must É*configure floppies 4æ, with the result
that you have two useless floppy drive icons!
5.6
The solution that Acorn has is: Logical to physical drive mapping,
whereby ADFS can be configured with two floppies but would access
physical drive 3 when requested to read from logical drive 1. In order
to achieve this, ADFS must determine which physical drives are present.
This is achieved after reset (or rmreinit) by performing a Érestoreæ
operation on each physical drive and then testing for a track 0
indication from a functional drive. The following table depicts a
typical example:
5.6
     Physical Drive   Present    ADFS drive N║
5.6
   0   Ö   Ö
5.6
   1   Y   :0
5.6
   2   Ö   Ö
5.6
   3   Y   :1
5.6
This has a benefit for production by permitting the single internal
drive to be physical drive 1, which is the default for the PC world, and
hence not requiring link changes. Note that the 82C710 controller fitted
to the A5000 has 48mA sink capability and therefore does not require a
buffer board to operate with 5╝ö drives fitted with 150R pullup
resistors.
5.6
Drive mapping was the main reason for accessing the floppy after a
reset, but once this approach was adopted, several other features were
possible.
5.6
(1) 40 track drive detection. MultiFS allows 40 track discs to be read
in 80 track drives but, if a real 40 track drive is fitted, the double
stepping mode is inhibited. This test is performed on all physical
drives detected and works by first seeking to track 44 (a 40 track drive
will block at track 40, 41 or 42) and then seeking to track 2 (42 step
pulses). A 40 track drive will indicate track 0 at completion. Thus, if
you have a 40/80 switchable drive, you should type É*rmreinit ADFSæ
after changing mode to ensure ADFS knows about the change.
5.6
(2) During shipping, some floppy drives can have their heads shocked
beyond track 0 (negative track number). The 40 track drive detection
scheme ensures these drives will be recalibrated correctly.
5.6
(3) If you É*configureæ too many floppies, ADFS will only install the
number detected. Conversely if you É*configureæ too few drives, ADFS
will not use the excess physical drives (the physically greater drive
numbers will be ignored). Lastly, if the configured floppies is 0 then
ADFS will not attempt to select any floppies.
5.6
If you have configured the correct number of floppies, the extra time
spent Ébootingæ should normally be less than 250ms, that is 80 x 3ms
step pulses to detect a 40 track drive plus the time to initially
restore the head. Note that a configured 12ms step time is now trans
lated on an A5000 to 25ms to allow for very old/slow 40 track 5╝ö drives
sometimes found on prehistoric Beebs.
5.6
I think this should explain the different behaviour of ADFS on A5000.
(Could this also explain why the A5000 floppies seem slow compared to my
A540? Ed) However, if you are trying to connect 5╝ö drives to the A5000,
one other factor needs to be taken into account. Unless they are
modified, 5╝ò drives cannot be mixed with 3╜ö drives on the same ribbon
cable because of differences in pin out of the Édisc changedæ and
Éreadyæ signals. To work correctly on the internal drive connector, pin
34 must present the Édisc changedæ signal (or be disabled) and pin 2
carries the density select from the FDC.
5.6
Therefore connect the 5╝ö drive on the external (middle) socket and make
the following link changes to the A5000:
5.6
LK18 (north and west of socket) in the West position (viewed from front
of m/c); LK19 (north and east of socket) should be removed (park the
jumper on the centre pin only); LK21 (south and west of socket) should
be removed (park the jumper on either pin).
5.6
These links only affect the external socket. To give the full informa
tion on it.
5.6
LK18 selects logic hi (west) or logic lo (east) for the high density
signal from the FDC
5.6
LK19 selects Édensityæ to drive (west) or Édisk changedæ from drive
(east) or neither (removed) on pin 2 of drive interface
5.6
LK21 enables (jumper fitted) the disc changed signal from pin 34 of the
drive interface.
5.6
Your drive should then be configured as drive 0 or 1, remembering to
*configure floppies 2
5.6
The above information was culled from a bulletin board by Brian Debenham
of Chelmsford. One of our other subscribers got some help from Steve
Picton at IFEL who referred him to pages 1-23 and 1-26 in the A5000
Technical Reference Manual and included a useful table for link changes
as follows:
5.6
Drive type   link 18   link 19
link 21
5.6
PC-AT 1M / 2M   1-2   2-3   1-2
5.6
PS/2 1M / 2M   2-3   2-3   1-2
5.6
older 1M types   *   1-2   2-
3
5.6
most 5╝ drives   *   donæt fit   2-
3
5.6
   * = either position or donæt fit at all
5.6
Itæs difficult to get at these links, so a pair of long nosed pliers is
extremely useful.  Bob Potter, Bath.
5.6
Å   Lemmings Ö Did you know that a Éblockeræ can be released by hitting it
in the right place with a Édiggeræ and also by burrowing very closely
underneath with a Ébasheræ?
5.6
Å   MS-DOS users Ö Even in CGA emulation, the latest emulator screen
updates can be very slow. However, some of the new utilities (like EDIT)
have a Éswitchæ to allow faster CGA updates so...
5.6
EDIT MYFILE.TXT /G
5.6
will edit the file with quicker screen updates (/G means öswitch Gò). In
true Archimedes style, HELP <command> now gives the syntax and meaning
of commands (about time, too!).  Paul Bamberger, Hinckley.
5.6
Å   !MultiFS bug (with PCEmulator 1.70)? Ö Those of your readers using the
latest version (1.70) of the PCEmulator on RISC-OS 2 may be interested
in the following problem which I found recently. I have reported it to
Acorn, but have not had response yet. I understand that users of RISC-OS
3 need not use !MultiFS with the PCEmulator because of their different
disc handler, so they need not read further into this hint.
5.6
Following the correspondence in Archive about how to shut down a hard
disc reliably (See Archive 5.1 p26 ÉThe Engineer Speaksæ.) I now type
*SHUTDOWN just before turning off the power on my A540. After loading
!MultiFS on the icon bar, and then quitting it again, I found that when
I typed *SHUTDOWN, sometimes it just hung, sometimes I got an error
message, something like öAddress exception at &01889 CE0ò, and then I
could do nothing until after resetting the Archimedes, (<ctrl-break>
would not work). After the reset, *SHUTDOWN normally worked as usual,
occasionally, I had to turn off the power to reset it.
5.6
After a little research I found that when !MultiFS quits, it removes the
MultiFS module, but leaves MultiFS in the list of filing systems held by
ÉFileSwitchæ. Thus when *SHUTDOWN is trying to shut down all filing
systems, it cannot cope with MultiFS as the module is no longer loaded.
5.6
You can check which filing systems are known to ÉFileSwitchæ with the
following BASIC program:
5.6
 10 REM >FScheck  test which filing
5.6
 systems exist
5.6
 20 PRINTöNumber Nameò
5.6
 30 @%=6:DIM fsname% 20
5.6
 40 FOR F%=3TO255
5.6
 50 SYS öOS_FSControlò,33,F%,fsname% ,21
5.6
 60 L%=Ö1:REPEAT:L%+=1
5.6
 70 UNTIL fsname%?L%=0
5.6
 80 IFL%>0 fsname%?L%=13:PRINTF%ö ò $fsname%
5.6
 90 NEXT
5.6
To make ÉFileSwitchæ forget about MultiFS use the program below:
5.6
  10 REM >DelMultiFS  delete multifs filing system
5.6
  90 REM  see whether MultiFS is still loaded, if not, exit
5.6
 100 SYS öOS_FSControlò,13,öMultiFSò ,0 TO ,F%,T%
5.6
 110 IF T%=0 END
5.6
 120 REM  next line removes MultiFS
5.6
 130 SYS öOS_FSControlò,16,öMultiFSò
5.6
 140 END
5.6
While reporting this problem to Acorn, they gave me a very helpful
statement of the essential differences between the various ways of
closing down a hard disc system, which I feel sure they will not mind my
passing on.
5.6
*SHUTDOWN closes all open files on all filing systems, logs off all file
servers, causes hard discs to be parked.
5.6
*DISMOUNT closes all files, unsets directories and parks the given disk
(The currently selected drive on the current filing system is assumed if
this command is given without specifying the disc.)
5.6
*BYE closes all the files, unsets directories and parks the hard discs
on the currently selected filing system.
5.6
So you see the engineer was quite right, they are different. It depends
what your current disc is, and only the *SHUTDOWN parks the disks on ALL
the filing systems.   Kate Crennell, Didcot.
5.6
Å   Mysterious error message from Hard Disc Companion II Ö In Archive Vol
5.4 page 3 you described the new version of the program from Risc
Developments. I upgraded from my old version recently and found that the
new version does not allow comments in the ÉIgnoreæ part of the file
used to specify which directories and files are not to be backed up. I
found this a very useful feature of the previous version, and I should
like any other users who regret its passing to join me in asking Risk
Developments to put this feature back as soon as possible.
5.6
This is mildly annoying, but I found a more serious problem. The first
time I used the ÉHard Disc Companion IIæ it worked beautifully, but the
second time, it would not load onto the icon bar, instead I got the
usual Étraffic signæ warning window and a message öFile not found at
line 49ò. Neither the !Boot nor the !Run files had 49 lines in them. The
program is not written in Basic, so it has no line numbers. I eventually
found that since making my first full backup and trying to do the next
incremental backup, I had deleted one of the files which I had previ
ously said I wanted to Éignoreæ in the ÉChoicesæ file. Luckily, it is
possible to edit the ÉChoicesæ file with !Edit, so I just took out that
line. I have reported this error to RISC Developments and they said they
hope to make the error message more informative and tell you the name of
the file which is missing.  Kate Crennell, Didcot.
5.6
Å   Paper for inkjets Ö I have a Hewlett Packard Deskjet 500 inkjet
printer. I have had great trouble finding good paper Ö the main problem
seems to be how absorbent the paper is; too absorbent and you will get
white patches in your black areas, but not absorbent and it will smudge
across the paper! If you go into most paper suppliers or printers, they
will be happy to give you various samples that you can try. Make sure
when you test the paper that you include very small text, thin and thick
straight lines at various angles, fine and thick curves, shading, large
black areas and bit mapped graphics. I have ended up using öMustang
Copier Ö Long grain 80gsmò for my draft printing (as it is cheap Ö about
0╖5 pence per sheet) and Croxley Script 100gsm for quality work (this
works out at about 3 pence per sheet but is water marked and has a nice
feel to it). There is probably better paper available Ö I have only
tried about twenty types.  Paul Bamberger, Hinckley.
5.6
Å   Pandoraæs Box problems? Ö There seems to be an incompatibility between
Pandoraæs Box and Acornæs AKA16 MIDI card (v3.14). Therefore, to load
the game, simply type: *RMKill Midi <return> before attempting to run
it.  Rob Brown, Surrey.
5.6
Å   Psion Organiser and the Archimedes Ö The PD program !Download, written
by Emmet Spier, works very well with the Psion Organiser. To upload from
an Archimedes to an Organiser, I created an application called !Upload,
consisting of a suitable sprite and a !Run file as follows:
5.6
IconSprites <Obey$Dir>.!Sprites
5.6
Filer_OpenDir serial:
5.6
C. Parker, Hong Kong.
5.6
Å   Second internal 3╜ö drive on the A5000 Ö I have fitted a second 3╜ò
drive internally on my A5000 with no problems at all.
5.6
The 3╜ö drive fitted to the A5000 is a Citizen model OSDA20C. These do
not seem to be generally available in the UK. The Citizen OSDA39C is
easy to get and the ONLY difference (according to my experience and
Citizen UK) is that the drive light is a different colour. They are
generally available for about ú75 + VAT but I got mine for ú35 + ú10
overnight delivery + VAT = ú52.88 from:
5.6
CD2000, PO Box 1061, London Road, Slough, Berks SL3 8RE (0753Ö553366)
(fax 0753Ö 554661) who were super efficient and helpful.
5.6
There is a power plug already inside the A5000, so all you need is a 9ö
drive cable. I have altered NO links or switches on the A5000. All I did
was set the tiny slider switch on the drive (next to the socket for the
data cable) to the opposite position on the drive already in the
machine. (Actually, this wouldnæt make any difference, as explained in
the section above about external floppies on the A5000. Ed)
5.6
You need 4 off 18mm spacers and 4 off screws (6BA I think) to fit the
drive to the bottom of the A5000 case. I used various spacers and nuts
to make up the 18mm and the drive has worked faultlessly. With RISC-OS 3
being so slow at any disc backing up or copying, the second drive is
essential.  Colin Thompson
5.6
Å   Shrinking windows Ö A rare bug has just Ébittenæ me while using
Impression. Itæs not a bug in Impression, in fact, but a bug in RISC-OS
2. I was trying to change the size of the window on a large Impression
file by using the sizing icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the
window. The window jumped to about an inch high and would not go any
longer unless I clicked to open the window to full screen size Ö that
worked fine but as soon as I touched the sizing icon, the window
contracted! I tried various other Impression files but they were OK. I
restarted Impression, I cut and pasted the text, I saved the text and
created a new document but the window kept jumping back to this reduced
size! A phone call to CC revealed the reason. In RISC-OS 2, if the
window size is exactly 65,535 OS units in size, it gets confused and
loses the top bit of the window size number and thinks itæs a somewhat
shorter window. All I had to do was to create a new page in the document
and all was well. Alternatively, I could have changed the magnification
Ö even 1% change solves the problem. Presumably, the chances of it
happening are small (1 in 65,535?) and it has to be a large document Ö
mine was 28 pages displayed at 140% magnification.ááA
5.6



Å   Virus Kit v1.17 Ö Some people have had a few problems running version
1.17 of the virus killer, which is supplied on Shareware 17 and on the
Archive 5.5 program disc. Here are a few hints that might help you to
solve them:
5.6
(i) You should let your Archimedes see either a !System folder or !Scrap
file before running the !Killer application.
5.6
(ii) Some sticky backdrops clash with the !Killer application and so
should not be used at the same time.
5.6
(iii)áIf you have caught the module virus, it is possible for the
VProtect module in the !Killer application to become infected and so
prevent the program from being run.
5.6
Å Acorn Virus Kit (latest) Ö Acorn have decided to make the latest
version of The Virus Kit (currently 1.26) available through Pineapple
Software rather than Acorn Dealers. This will allow them to keep tighter
control over the version being distributed and any updates. Contact
Pineapple Software for availability though distribution isnæt due to
start until May.
5.6
Å   Wimp programming oddities? In the process of developing a wimp utility
in 100% machine code, Iæve come across a few things that other program
mers might like to look out for...
5.6
Menus Ö You can click the mouse in a menu one pixel above the first menu
item (and also one pixel below the last item). The result is that
Wimp_Poll returns a menu tree of zero length to your program i.e. the
first word is returned as Ö1. Once I had found this (it crashed my
program completely on random mouse clicks!) I tried it out on all the
programs I could find. The easiest test is to click the menu button and
then the adjust button without moving the mouse. Most commercial
programs weather it OK, just redrawing the menu. Some that donæt are
Menon 1.86 (which gives a öbad stringò error), Ian Copestakeæs IDEFS
(which comes up with öFile É:4æ not foundò), and the Cross-32 assembler
(which corrupts its menu title to öCrosr 32ò).
5.6
Zooms Ö Iæve seen <adjust> reverse-scrolling mentioned several times,
but this applies (or should apply, anyway!) to just about anything with
arrow icons on it; notably the zoom-windows in Paint/Draw and all the
nudge arrows in Impression.
5.6
Variable Filetype Variables Ö Regarding David Lenthallæs article in
Archive 5.5 p 63, Iæm using a user file type and have found that the way
round file type clashes is, in fact, already built into RISC-OS! You
donæt need to create extra system variables to shift file type numbers
about:
5.6
SYS öOS_FSControlò,31, öFileTypeNameò TO ,,FileTypeNumber%
5.6
works equally well (now we just have to persuade everyone to do this
rather than using absolute file types in their programs). Fred Williams,
Cannock WoodááA
5.6



Impression Hints & Tips
5.6
This monthæs hints and tips have been submitted by the following people:
Computer Concepts (CC), Richard Hallas (RH), Paul Beverley (PB), Patrick
Dowling (PD), Rob Sherratt (RS) and Steve Kirkby (SK). Many thanks to
all.
5.6
Å   Hyphenation Ö If you want to be able to switch hyphenation on and off
easily, create a new style with <ctrl-F5>, give it a name such as
öhyphenatedò, go down to the section where it deals with hyphenation,
switch hyphenation ON, go to the bottom and select an unused key short-
cut, say <ctrl-shift-F1> and save the new style. Now, to switch
hyphenation on for a given paragraph, select the paragraph (using <ctrl-
@> or quad-click with <select>) and press <ctrl-shift-F1>. Alterna
tively, if you want hyphenation on for most of the document, edit the
definition of the basestyle to have hyphenation ON and create a new
style, in the same way, whose only attribute is that hyphenation is OFF.
(As an aside, I have always found it difficult to find the line dealing
with hyphenation in the edit style window but I now know why. If you
click in the scroll bar three times, half of the word öhyphenationò is
visible at the bottom of the window. Click again and half is visible at
the top of the window Ö very easy to miss. So, either slide the scroll
bar or simply remember that it is only just visible at the edge of the
window.) Ö PB.
5.6
Å   Ligatures Ö The word Éligatureæ actually means Étieæ or Ébandageæ and,
in typesetting, it refers to groups of two or more letters which are
joined together. In professional typesetting, several exist but the
Archimedesæ font system has just two: ₧ and ƒ.
5.6
Impression provides no handy short cut to access them, so if you wish to
use them, you need to do two separate searches through the entire text
as follows: bring up the find text box and enter fi into the first slot,
ensuring the Case sensitive switch is on. Then move the caret into the
second box, hold down <alt> and type 158 on the numeric keypad. A single
character will be entered which, when viewed in an outline font which
supports it, will appear as ₧. For ƒ, repeat the process, but replace
all occurrences of fl (obviously) with character 159. Remember to do a
case sensitive search, since replacing Fi and Fl with the ligatures will
make them lose their capital letters.
5.6
Not all fonts (especially the PD ones) contain the ligatures, and some
PD fonts have them in the wrong places. You should replace the normal
letters with the ligatures after you have finished your document because
Impressionæs spell-checker does not take them into account and will
query any words containing them. This monthæs disc should contain a
system font file which I have created; it is identical to the standard
one, except that the previously undefined characters have been created
to look like the outline font characters they produce, so you can see
things like smart quotes and ligatures in Edit. Itæs useful to load this
in the boot-up sequence. Ö RH.
5.6
Å   Rotated text in Impression Ö Those lucky enough to own an A5000 will,
of course, have the new versions of Draw and Font Manager. Charles Moir,
director of Computer Concepts, suggests the following tip: since the new
Font Manager can rotate text by itself, create some text in Draw, and
import it into an Impression graphic frame. Dragging in the frame with
<adjust> should now rotate the text or you can set the angle precisely
in the ÉAlter graphicsæ dialogue box. Ö RH
5.6
Å   Hyphens and minus signs Ö Character 153 is very useful as a hyphen Ö
as you can see! In fact, it is really the minus sign (compare it with
the plus and you will find they are both the same width and their
crossbars are at the same horizontal position Ö see for yourself Ö+Ö+Ö);
the minus sign on the keyboard actually produces a short hyphen of the
sort which should be used to break words at the ends of lines. Anyway,
Impression provides handy access to this character: simply press <ctrl-
shift> in conjunction with the minus key. Characters 151 and 152 are the
en (ù) and em (ÿ) dashes respectively but, unfortunately, these have no
handy short cuts. Ö RS & RH.
5.6
Å   Finding effects Ö If you want to be able to look through a document
and find where a particular effect occurs (as opposed to a style) all
you need to do is modify one line in the ÉUKæ file in the Resources
directory inside the !Impression application. As supplied, there is a
line that says öCnf1:ò Ö all you have to do is add an E making it
öCnf1:Eò. Next time you start up Impression, you will find that, when
you click on the arrow at the right of the search string box, it will
list not only the styles but also the effects. (In case you have
forgotten, I published a hint a year ago to explain that, to find a
particular effect or style, you should select it from the menu on the
search string box and follow it by an ö@ò. In other words, look for any
string following the place where that effect / style is first switched
on.) Ö PB.
5.6
Å   Double scale Ö on later versions of Impression (about 2.14g onwards)
you will find that <shift-F12> no longer doubles the scale of the
current view. This is because <shift-F12> is used on RISC-OSá3 to toggle
the icon bar forwards and backwards. Double scale has now been moved to
<ctrl-shift-F11>. Ö PB.
5.6
Å   Reverse characters Ö From 2.15 onwards, there is a keyboard short-cut
that I have been asking for since I started using Impression in earnest
Ö swap characters. If you press <ctrl-shift-Q>, the two characters
either side of the cursor swap places. This is very helpful because it
allows you to correct, very quickly, one of the most common tpying
errors! Ö PB
5.6
Å   Single word spelling check Ö If you want to check the spelling of a
single word, you donæt need to select the whole word Ö just place the
cursor somewhere in the word and use <ctrl-W>. (I suppose everyone
except me knew that anyway!) I find that this speeds things up
especially if, as you are typing, you get to a word that you donæt know
how to spell; all you do is to have a go at typing the word and then,
before you press space or full-stop, press <ctrl-W>. If it is incor
rectly spelt, it is selected and the spelling box appears with,
hopefully, a guess at the right spelling. Click on öReplaceò and away
you go.
5.6
Also, if, while you are typing, you get a spelling error bleep then, as
long as you havenæt started to type the next word, you can press <ctrl-
W> and correct the erroneous word. Ö PB.
5.6
Å   Avoiding smart quotes Ö In the magazine, I like to use ösmart quotesò
rather than plain quotes but they look a little funny on program
listings. If I want to paste in an article which contains programs as
well as straight text, I have a problem. Either I can switch smart
quotes OFF on the Preferences list and then edit them into the text or I
can leave it ON but edit them out of the listing. Then I had a brain-
wave (-storm?). I realised that the only time I use the Corpus font is
for program listings, so I never need to have smart quotes in that font.
All I did, therefore, (well, Adrian did for me) was to load Corpus into
FontEd (Careware 7) and edit the smart quotes so that they are the same
as the normal quotes. This can be done by editing each smart quote in
turn and copying the plain quote into its place. Ö PB.
5.6
Å Rotating sprites Ö Draw-files can be rotated within Impression but, in
the normal course of things, not sprites, scanned pictures or bit-image
clip-art etc, unless Enhanced Graphics is switched on. This is hidden
away in Preferences, the one in the icon-bar menu, not the one in the
Document sub-menu. It is effective immediately and does not need to be
saved as a preference option. (When switched on it also automatically
switches on Greyscale Dithering but that can be switched off again if
not wanted.) Scanned images etc can then be rotated inside Impression by
entering an angle in the Alter Frame box. Remember also, when subse
quently reloading the file, to switch on the Enhanced Graphics again,
(if itæs not saved as a preference) as this wonæt happen automatically.
Ö PD. You can also rotate the image by dragging within the graphic frame
using <adjust>. Ö RS.
5.6
Å Spurious form-feeds Ö Using dot matrix printers (e.g. FX80) you may
get an extra form-feed between pages when printing a multi-page
document. The solution, (thanks to Alan Williams of Acorn, Melbourne,
for this one) is to set Scale in the ÉPrintæ box to 97 or 98%. No
further problem! Ö PD.
5.6
Å The underline trap Ö If you set up underline when creating a Style,
maybe for a sub-heading, do not try later to remove the underline with
<shift-ctrl-U>. Probably nothing at all happens but, sometimes, the
screen goes inverse and panic reigns until Reset is pressed! Ö PD. I
tried without success to repeat this problem with release 2.16, but
<shift-ctrl-U> caused no ill effect. It did not cancel the underlined
style either, which I guess is correct. Ö RS.
5.6
Å ╝ ╜ ╛ characters Ö These are available on <alt-188>, <alt-189> and
<alt-190> respectively in the main fonts Ö Trinity, Pembroke, Homerton
etc and several others but by no means all. Many fonts conform in
general, but with omissions, to the character set laid out in Appendix 5
of the manual. Most contain a bullet (Å) on <alt-143>, (or <shift-ctrl-
H>) and a decimal point (╖) on <alt-183>. The ones that donæt, Optima
and Hull for instance, have their bullet on <alt-183> and a different
set of characters in the row 128 to 159 including, for instance, TM. In
general, there seem to be two main variations for this row while System
is completely on its own. The characters in 160 to 255 appear more or
less standard across the board where they are present, though most fonts
omit some and some (PD and magazine fonts particularly) omit most if not
all the top-bit-set characters, save for the ú symbol. With <alt-215>
and <alt¡247> itæs a toss-up whether you get ╫ and ≈, or Ü and ¢, or
nothing at all. (!Chars in Impressionæs Utils directory is a useful
reference but much better is Beebugæs !CharSel which looks identical but
has a pointer showing the character number.) Ö PD.
5.6
Å Fit lots Ö If you want to know or have forgotten what it means, it
does not appear in the index. You will find it on p.144 on the last, and
easily missed, page of ÉPrintæ. Ö PD.
5.6
Å Frames Ö How to put a frame around an existing chunk of text? You
canæt! The only way is to move the chunk to the clipboard, create the
frame and then copy it back in. Ö PD. You can also create a number of
new frames which fill the area occupied by the old frame, click in the
old frame area and then press <adjust> in the new frames. Text will then
flow from the old frame into the new one and, if you stretch the new
frames so that there is no printable area left in the original frame,
the desired effect can be achieved. Ö RS.
5.6
Å Master pages Ö It seemed perfectly logical to me to press ÉNew
Chapteræ on the key-strip when I wanted to start a fresh document with
other than the default master page. I got the new master page all right
Ö as well as the default page I didnæt want and found no way to get rid
of it. (You need to move to the unwanted chapter, then use <menu>
<Edit><Delete Chapter>. Ö RS) You can alter the current chapter to use a
different master page by using ÉAlter Chapteræ which is not on the key-
strip. The key short cut is <shift-ctrl-A>. Be aware that if you are
viewing the master pages when trying to do this, you will find ÉAlter
Chapteræ greyed-out on the Edit sub-menu. The answer is to go back to
the document page, remembering which number master page is wanted and
try again there. Also note that if you want to use one of the three-
column master pages, (numbers 7 or 8) remember the default frames are
only Guides and you must create new frames before anything can be typed
in. Ö PD.
5.6
Å Guide frames Ö It is really most provoking, having carefully followed
the manual to find the screen blandly refusing to operate as stated. Can
anyone suggest why my guide frames do not remain visible? I create them,
(sub-menu New Frame) on the document page or on the master page, click
elsewhere and they just vanish. They are not a lot of use if I canæt see
them, so which little hidden detail in the manual have I failed to
register, please? Ö PD. Guide frames are always positioned as the
rearmost (back) frame on the page. If you make sure all text /graphic
frames on the page are local frames (<menu><frame> <alter frame><make
local>) and then reduce these in size, you will see the yellow guide
frames that you had created. Guide frames are mainly of use when setting
up a master page, though. Ö RS. Am I missing something here? Canæt you
just make it visible by using <ctrl-F10> to alter the frame and changing
from a white background to transparent? Ö PB.
5.6
(By the way, I hadnæt come across the idea of turning a master frame
into a local frame. If you hadnæt either, read up in the Impression
manual on page 84 then have a play with it Ö it could prove a useful
facility. Ö PB)
5.6
Å Font cache full error Ö Even with the cache set to a ridiculous size,
750k or more, this error recurred and anyway, isnæt the cache itself
supposed to clear enough space for a new font if necessary? I found that
some silly PD game had unplugged SpriteUtils module and restoring it
seemed to resolve the difficulty. Itæs not only PD games that do this Ö
the demo version of Cataclysm sent out by Archimedes World unplugs
virtually everything including the Font Manager. Even a power off /on
will not restore unplugged modules. If you arenæt sure whether anything
has been unplugged, type *UNPLUG and it will list any unplugged modules.
Ö RS.
5.6
Å Rule off errors Ö The Impression manual is a bit short on advice when
the package refuses to do what it should and it is totally silent on the
subject of errors. What do you do for instance when the machine throws
at you: öOverflow while transforming point, print abortedò ? I had been
trying to print a landscape document containing a few vertical rules.
Later, I noticed one of the rules slightly projecting beyond the edge of
the frame. I went to the Style Edit box and switched ÉRule-offæ on, and
set it to 0pt. I must have done something right Ö the next time I tried,
it produced a perfect print-out! Ö PD
5.6
Å Shift and control symbols Ö Patrick sent a detailed account of using
!FontDraw to generate a graphical representation of the <shift> and
<control> keys Ö as they appear in Impression menus Ö and then continued
to incorporate these into embedded frames at 30 or so points in his
text. He also asked if there was an easier way? Ö PD. Yes there is. Use
the Acorn Font Editor and David Pillingæs D2Font Drawfile to font
converter which is on the same disk as his Trace program (now available
through Archive for ú6). You will end up with a new outline font which
can be used within Impression just like any other font and which can be
used within a style and assigned to a function key to turn it on and
off. If anyone has the time to do this, please would they send Archive a
copy of the resulting font for the magazine disk? Ö RS.
5.6
Å Find within a group of frames Ö If the currently selected frame is a
group of frames then the <find text> menu option is unavailable. To make
it available, select a frame that does not contain a group and which
contains at least one letter, (or create such a frame and text character
if necessary). Then, to find or replace throughout the document
(including all grouped frames), turn on the <whole document> button in
the <find> dialogue box, and use find or replace as normal. Ö SK.

Hints and Tips
5.7
Å   A5000 floppy drive problems Ö There have been a number of comments in
Archive about the slowness of the A5000æs floppy drive. Could this be
due to a bug which RISC-OS 3 has with the ADFS buffers. There was a note
with my machine when it was delivered saying that the ADFS Buffers
should be configured to zero due to a bug which causes occasional data
errors. Configuring thus makes the floppy drive incredibly slow during
copy operations with a track access taking more than 2 seconds. I
preferred to have the speed and I spoke to Peter Dunn of Acorn at an
Open Day in Glasgow recently who told me that the adfs buffers problem
had only appeared with the Acorn DTP and that it shouldnæt be a problem
with other programs like Impression. Indeed they had their A5000s
configured with ADFS Buffers set to 16k so I copied them.
5.7
Then just the other day, Impression 2.16 dropped through my letter box.
A couple of days later, I had two relatively complex newsletters to
typeset. The first crashed during a save operation, losing most of the
text. I thought ÉThat will teach me to make back-up copies in future.æ I
remade the document successfully. The next job was done with two copies
on the hard disk, a main and a back-up. The main would auto-save and I
would make a back-up by adding a Ébæ to the filename. Well into this
job, it crashed. Both copies were corrupted, so I gave up and returned
to version 2.14f. No further problems. A word with Computer Concepts and
they suggested that I return the ADFSbuffers to zero.
5.7
Iæd be interested to hear if other A5000 and Impression users have had
similar or other experiences with their setup.á David Woods, Glasgow
5.7
Å   ArcDFS and !65Host Ö If you try to use ArcDFS with the 6502 emulator,
you may get a öBad DFS emulationò error. John Fletcher of Dabs Press
says: öThis is because the manual does not fully explain how to use
ArcDFS with the emulator. The way to access a DFS disc, is not to type
*DISC, but to type: *Dir dfs::<drive number>. You should also change
drive using the above command instead of *Drive.òá P Northing, Sheffield
5.7
Å   Bringing windows to the front Ö To move a window to the front, you
must click on its title bar. This often involves moving other windows to
get to it. However, I have just discovered that clicking on the windowæs
adjust size icon (bottom right) also brings the window to the front.
This Éobviousæ hint may help prevent too much window shuffling!á R
House, Andover
5.7
Å   Canon Bubblejets BJ300 & BJ330 Ö There are some undocumented features
on these machines that make cleaning and changing ink cartridges a bit
easier. The normal cleaning cycle is started by pressing the shift then
the cleaning keys. An extended cycle is started by pressing shift then
pressing and holding cleaning and then pressing shift again.
5.7
There is a function called reference aging which sprays ink all over the
printed area of the paper. Be warned though that this uses a lot of ink
and the ink is very difficult to remove from hands, etc so have a poly-
bag handy to pop the sheet in!! The sequence can be stopped by turning
the printer mains off. Press shift then press and hold cleaning and then
press card and paper together and release cleaning.
5.7
Iæve been using öReportò photocopier paper in my BJ300 and the print
quality is superb.á Ned Abell, Kidderminster
5.7
Å Changing the file allocation of a hard Disk Ö My A410/1 is equipped
with an internal 40M ST506 hard disk (NEC). Recently I added an external
SCSI hard disk (cached Morley öCheetahò, 100M, fitted with a Rodime
R3000 disk). When I compared those two drives, I made some very
unexpected discoveries.
5.7
I copied the entire content of the internal disk (39M) to the new drive,
because I wanted to soak test the old disk. To my amazement the SCSI
öfreeò window showed that I had already used up no less than 62M of
space! I phoned the (very friendly and competent) Morley help line, and
they told me that larger drives usually were formatted differently from
small ones (with larger blocks), because this improved their speed
performance.
5.7
They advised me that if the extra space was more important to me than
speed, I should use the formatter on the Morley support disk to alter
the size of allocated blocks. I fiddled around with this application and
found that it is indeed possible to change the space needed for a file
quite considerably; in the configuration that I finally chose, the 39M
from my old disk actually occupied slightly less space Ö below 38M!
5.7
What is more, the speed tester showed a slightly worse performance, but
any improvised speed tests I did myself (like copying 3M of files from
RAM disk to hard disk and back) showed these differences to be quite
negligible.
5.7
So: If you buy a new (second) hard disk, it might be a good idea to
check how it administrates data, before you do any serious work with
it!á Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, Germany
5.7
Å   DFS reader and A5000 Ö When the DFS reader (Shareware 31) is run on
the A5000, it fails with öUnknown or missing variable at or about line
260ò. This can be cured by adding the following line:
5.7
215 large% = TRUE : full% = TRUE
5.7
M Pullin, Cheltenham.
5.7
Å   Econet interface faults Ö We had a big mains spike that Étook outæ
twelve BBC B Econet interfaces. At first, the Masters and Archimedes
machines seemed OK but further investigation proved otherwise. The
findings may prove useful to others.
5.7
There are two types of Acorn Econet cards, (plus the XOB one) an old one
and a newer one. All the machines with the old type of cards seemed fine
after the spike but none of the newer ones worked! Our first thought was
that they were zapped by the spike. However, on closer examination, when
we disconnected the old type machines from the network, the ones with
the newer type card started to work. Looks like some of the old type
cards are faulty but still working. The old style cards definitely seem
more fault tolerant than the new ones! A faulty old style card can still
work but it will stop other machines with the new style cards from
working!á Dave Leckie, Fort William.
5.7
Å   HP Deskjet 500 & RISC-OS 3 Ö Here is a tip about the RISC-OS3 printer
drivers and the HP Deskjet 500. The graphics margins given in the HP
configuration for the A4 (Generic Deskjet) are a bit conservative.
5.7
   Top Ö 12.5mm
5.7
   Bottom Ö 19.9mm
5.7
   Left Ö 5.0mm
5.7
   Right Ö 7.0mm
5.7
From the manual and from my own experiences of using the printer and
seeing where it can print to, I have come up with new values which are:-
5.7
   Top Ö 1.5mm
5.7
   Bottom Ö 10.5mm
5.7
   Left Ö 3.2mm
5.7
   Right Ö 3.2mm
5.7
I have used these values very successfully ever since I got the machine.
The RISC-OS 2 printer driver for the Laserjet/Deskjet has problems when
it has different values for top and bottom margins because it prints out
in landscape mode in the opposite direction to the way the margins have
been set. i.e. it prints out last, the part of the sheet which is shown
by the print borders to be the top! RISC-OS 3 has sorted this out
allowing the maximum printing area to be available. It can be very
important when using Impressionæs Éfit lotsæ facility to reduce pages to
have as much room as possible as margins are reduced as well.á David
Woods, Glasgow
5.7
Å   Paper for inkjets Ö I too have had much trouble obtaining good paper
for my HP Deskjet 500. The manual recommends photocopy paper and that
you should use the paperæs correct side (as marked by the arrow on the
end of the packet). I have found photocopy paper to be poor no matter
what side I try. The results usually come out Éfurryæ where the
absorbency of the paper has caused the ink to creep by capillary action.
Prior to the type of ink sold by Hewlett Packard being changed to a more
permanent one, some photocopy paper gave white patches within areas of
black which I think was due to a degree of waxiness repelling the ink
from spots but this phenomenon happens no more.
5.7
(Acorn Inkjet owners can also benefit by using the HP DJ 500 cartridges
as they are the same fitting. Ed.)
5.7
The new ink seems to give good results with some types of paper but
rather Éfurryæ with others. Interestingly, I found that Croxley Script
80gsm, similar to that mentioned by Paul Bamberger in Archive to be very
poor. I have settled on two paper types for Écheap and goodæ and
Éexpensive and excellentæ printouts. The cheaper paper is ÉPlus Fabric
70gsmæ from Empire Fine Papers at about ú7.50 for 500 sheets. This gives
consistently sharp, even results although it does wrinkle if there are
large printed dark areas.
5.7
For printouts intended for further copying by a photocopier or at a
printing company (or for making letterheads for small businesses) I have
found that a type of paper generally described as Élaidæ paper,
available in various brands, is excellent, costing about ú15 a box. It
is smooth on one side and has a fine, ribbed pattern on the other. Both
sides accept ink very well and you often see the paper used for
prestigious company printed letterheads. I have used both ÉGB Classic,
White Laid, 100gsmæ and ÉConqueror, High White Laid, 100 gsmæ.á David
Woods, Glasgow
5.7
Å Printing on labels or A3 paper Ö Most RISC-OS printer drivers have
difficulty with anything other than A4 paper. Although they have a page
length setting, they do not tell the printer the page length to expect,
so the printer still assumes that it has 11ö or A4 size paper (usually
determined by a DIP switch). This is fine when printing on individual
sheets or when using a sheet feeder to feed labels or envelopes but it
causes serious problems with tractor feed labels or with A3 paper.
Imagine printing on 1ò tractor feed labels from Impression. The
Impression master page must be defined to be 1ö length and, similarly,
the printer driveræs page length must be set to 1ò. The first label is
printed and the printer driver sends a form feed character telling the
printer to advance to the next form (page). Unfortunately, the printer
driver assumes that it is using 11ö paper and feeds over the next 10
labels, simply because the printer driver did not define the printeræs
page length. Similarly, printing on A3 paper (using a Canon BJ330 for
example) fails because the printer thinks it is using A4 paper. The
solution is for the printer driver to pass on the page length setting to
the printer and this is a very simple change for Acorn to make.
Meanwhile, it is necessary to modify the page start and end strings
manually. With RISC-OS 2 drivers this can be difficult, but with RISC-OS
3 the printer driver editor allows it.
5.7
With an Epson compatible printer, the page length can be defined by
putting ESC,öCò,n in the page start string, where n is the page length
in lines (1/6ö per line). With an IBM compatible printer, an extra
ESC,ö2ò is needed on the end. Furthermore, it is sometimes necessary to
change the page end string which is often set to perform a printer reset
(ESC,ö@ò on Epson printers) after every page Ö this should be removed
completely. Note that these changes must be applied for each resolution
setting that is to be used and that a new printer driver file should be
saved with its name and type set appropriately to indicate that it is a
different version for a special page size.áá Paul Skirrow, Ipswich
5.7
(Acorn are aware of the problem and have found at least a partial
solution Ö see the comments below, page 9. Ed.)
5.7
Å   Mandelbrot bakeware Ö I have written a short PROC to improve Basilæs
Mandelbrot program (Archive 5.6 p57):
5.7
DEFPROCdebug
5.7
WHILE flour=flour+weevils
5.7
  REPEAT
5.7
    GETweevil
5.7
    BPUT# weevil ON blockA%
5.7
    BEAT blockB%
5.7
  UNTIL dead%=TRUE
5.7
  weevils-=1
5.7
ENDWHILE
5.7
ENDPROC
5.7
The variable declaration: Mouth_Open=FALSE is the best Iæve seen so far!
I have another for anyone who typed the program in:
5.7
Egg_on_face=TRUE.
5.7
Joseph Seelig, Harrow.
5.7
Å   Ten tips for larger memories Ö The article on better use of available
memory (Archive 4.6 p52) set me thinking and hereæs a tip for those of
us who donæt have a hard disc. I have 4M in a 310, two 3╜ö internal
floppies and an external 5╝ò drive.
5.7
If you look at what you use your computer for, it breaks down into a few
task areas as well as playing games. I create a Task disk for each
activity and that sits in the 5╝ö drive and I have one each for DTP,
business and drawing. Each disc has !System, different !Fonts and the
appropriate applications that I can cram on using !Compression.
5.7
Each task disc has two Obey type files called !boot and startlist to get
everything up and running and here I put in a plug for the excellent
!DeskEdit utility from Beebug which allows even me to get this working
quickly.
5.7
Letæs look at the business Task disc which is called öLrgeBus1ò.
5.7
The !boot obey file consists of one line...
5.7
Desktop-File adfs::LrgeBus1.$ .startlist
5.7
and clicking on this runs the second file called startlist. As you
probably know, if this Task disc were in drive 0 it could be set to auto
start each time the computer was turned on, by setting the disc to *OPT
4,3 and the computer to *Configure Boot.
5.7
The second obey file called startlist sets up the essential tasks that
you will need but some of these are squeezed on the disc under the
!Compression filing system. If you specify öcfs#adfsò as a filing system
to get them to load, the computer throws a wobbly so I set up two
aliases as the first lines of startlist.
5.7
Set Neds$Dir adfs::LrgeBus1.$
5.7
and
5.7
Set NedsCFS$Dir cfs#adfs:: LrgeBus1.$
5.7
you can then get the computer to find the bits you want by using:
5.7
<Neds$Dir>.!System
5.7
and to load various fixes found in the system modules directory into
memory like..
5.7
RMLoad<Neds$Dir>.!System.
5.7
modules.WimpUtils
5.7
and then to get !Compression up and running
5.7
<Ned$Dir>.!CFS
5.7
Now a word about !Fonts. I use Swiss as my main business font. You need
to edit the run file of !Fonts and put in a ödesktopò command at the end
after öFontCatòor it will stop and ask you to press space. I also tailor
the run file after the line öEcho Font Manager 2.42 installed.ò with the
lines
5.7
Echo Neds Business Fonts now available:
5.7
Echo
5.7
because I like to personalise things!!
5.7
Back in startlist, we can now run...
5.7
<NedsCFS$Dir>.!Fonts
5.7
which are compressed and then in a compressed directory called resources
5.7
<NedsCFS$Dir>.resources.
5.7
!PrinterDM
5.7
<NedsCFS$Dir>.resources.!Alarm
5.7
and anything else you need and the last line is
5.7
desktop
5.7
The whole process is very easy to achieve and each task disc can be
tailored. The drawback is that its a bit on the slow side and all my
fonts have to be uncompressed before I use them but I do set a large
Fontsize.á Ned Abell, Kidderminster
5.7
Å Transferring PC files with the Emulator Ö It is true that the multi-
tasking PC Emulator does prevent access to the PC hard disc partition
while it is running and it is therefore necessary to quit the emulator
before a file created by a PC program can be read in RISC-OS. This is
because RISC-OS does not know whether the PC hard disc partition is in a
valid state or not (i.e. a PC program may be writing to an open file).
However, it is possible to transfer files between RISC-OS and the PC
emulator by using floppy discs. After the PC has written a file to the
floppy it may be necessary to dismount the floppy disc (using the menu
item) and re-open it by clicking on the floppy icon to make RISC-OS read
the directory again (otherwise it may not realise that it has been
changed). This works with RISC-OS 3, but should also work with any of
the various PC disc readers.á Paul Skirrow, Ipswich
5.7
Å   Watford mouse Ö If you need to replace the plug on a Watford mouse
(old version) my experience may be useful. The original plug is moulded
onto the cable, and it took careful dismantling with a sharp knife to
discover where each wire went.
5.7
I purchased the replacement plug from Maplin Electronics (code JX19V
0.82p, page 177). This plug has three disadvantages; firstly it has no
cable strain relief, so you must be sure of your wiring, secondly, it is
extremely difficult to disassemble and thirdly you need to shave a small
amount from the front to fit it into the socket of an A310. (I donæt
think it would fit too well on an A3000!) The wire colours are as
follows (functions as on p469 of the A310 User Guide):
5.7
 Pin   Function   Colour
5.7
1   X Reference      white
5.7
2   Switch 1      yellow
5.7
3   Switch 2      red
5.7
4   0V return      brown
5.7
5   X Direction      green
5.7
6   5V supply      black
5.7
7   Y Reference      blue
5.7
8   Switch 3      orange
5.7
9   Y Direction      purple
5.7
M Angove, Caerphilly
5.7
Å   Wonderland on SCSI Ö Iæve managed to get Wonderland to work on SCSI.
What you do is:-
5.7
Obtain the SCSI öfixò, which Archive will supply if you send them a
charity donation (minimum ú2). However, itæs also on this monthæs
program disc.
5.7
Run the INSTALL program on the öfixò disk, using the öfixò disk when
asked for disk öONEò, then the original disk öTWOò, öTHREEò and öFOURò.
5.7
When the installation is complete, use !Edit to modify the öwinò
application code. Look for the second occurrence of the text öadfsò and
replace it with öscsiò. (If you replace the first one, it all seems to
work until you save or restore a game position.)
5.7
To get it to work on SCSI with 1M memory you need to unplug more modules
than you would with ADFS, because SCSI, SCSIFiler and SCSIDirCache take
up some space. I find that I need to unplug:Ö Debugger, Draw, EcoNet,
FontManager, IIC, NetFS, NetPrint, NetStatus, PaletteUtil, Percussion,
RAMFS, RAMFSFiler, ShellCLI, SoundChannels, SoundDMA, SoundScheduler,
StringLib, SystemDevices, WaveSynth.
5.7
Mike Williams, London N16.
5.7
The following hints and tips are taken from the February Acorn Customer
Services Newsletter.
5.7
Å   RISC-OS 2 printer drivers
5.7
1)áWe have had reports of the release 2 printer drivers producing the
following error message:
5.7
   öInvalid number of output bitsò
5.7
This error is produced when you attempt to print a sprite that was
created in a 256 colour screen mode such as MODE 15 in a 16 colour mode
such as MODE 12. The solution to the problem is to print in MODE 15 if
this error occurs, or to print the sprite in the mode in which it was
created.
5.7
2)áWhen attempting to load any of the many RISC-OS 2 desktop printer
drivers the following error message may be displayed:    öFiling
System or path ÉPrinter:æ not present internal error xxxxò
5.7
The error is caused by one of the printer driver support modules
becoming unplugged from the operating system. To resolve the problem,
the first action to take is to find out which modules are unplugged.
This information can be found by typing the following command from the
command line:
5.7
*UNPLUG
5.7
It is then necessary to re-insert the modules that *UNPLUG has shown as
being unplugged with the following command:
5.7
*RMREINIT <ModuleName>
5.7
Once you have used *RMREINIT to re-initialise all the modules, you
should then perform a <ctrl-break> to ensure all the modules have
started correctly.
5.7
3)áPrinting labels on small page lengths can sometimes cause problems.
5.7
a)á!PrinterDM (2.46) reads a system variable called PDriver$DMExtra at
the start of each print job and sends it to the printer before the
actual data stream. PDriver$DMExtra has to be set using GSTrans format
so, to set a page length of nine lines, you would use:
5.7
*SET PDriver$DMExtra |[C|I
5.7
You would use |[C|J for ten lines and |[C|K for eleven lines and so on.
This command can be executed explicitly from the command line (after
!PrinterDM has been loaded) or incorporated in the !Run file.
5.7
b) Set the (Graphics) clip window to the appropriate size from
!PrinterDMæs icon bar menu. If the stationery is continuous, you can
leave the top and bottom graphics margins set to zero.
5.7
c)áFinally, you need to tell the Wordprocessor you are using, the page
size of each label.
5.7
Å   RISC-OS 3 printer drivers Ö Loading RISC-OS 2 printer drivers into
Acorn A5000s with RISC-OS 3 can cause problems if an attempt is then
made to load the RISC-OS 3 !Printers application from the Applications 1
disc or directory if stored on the hard disc.
5.7
!Printers will report the error ö!Printers requires PDriver 3.16 or
laterò.
5.7
The error occurs because the RISC-OS 2 printer driver loads an older
PDriver module than 3.16. The solution to the problem is to type from
the command line.
5.7
*RMKILL PDriver
5.7
*RMREINIT PDriver
5.7
This will allow you to load the new !Printer application supplied with
RISC-OS 3 on the A5000.
5.7
Å   Maestro Ö Version 1.75 has a problem where notes are displayed at
double-height in certain modes. This may be fixed in the field by
deleting or renaming the sprites22 and !sprites 22 files.
5.7
Å   PC Emulator hints & tips
5.7
1)áDeleting an unformatted or non-system PC Emulator hard disc partition
on an A5000.
5.7
RISC-OS 3 looks at the PC hard disc partition (DOSDisc, &FC8) as if it
were a filing system and therefore before it will delete the partition,
it must look inside to find out what files are there. To be able to
delete an unformatted partition it is necessary to fool the operating
system into believing that it is not a PC partition, by changing its
filetype. However, it is not possible to change its filetype from within
the desktop and the following information gives details of how to change
the filetype from outside the desktop. The file can then either be
deleted from the command line as shown below or from the desktop.
5.7
a) Press <F12> from the desktop to get the command line (*Prompt)
5.7
b) Type:
5.7
*SETTYPE ADFS::4.$.PC.Drive_C TEXT <return>
5.7
*DELETE ADFS::4.$.PC.DRIVE_C <return>
5.7
2)áThe Archimedes keyboard has a U.S. style PC layout. You should not
therefore use KEYBUK or KEYB UK in the Autoexec batch file. Also, the ú
sign on an Archimedes keyboard doesnæt exist on a PC keyboard, so to get
a ú sign you will need to enter its ASCII code 156:
5.7
Under the emulator, hold down the ALT key and type 1 5 6 on the numeric
keypad. (Remember to have Num Lock on).
5.7
3)áConfiguration Ö ÉStartup Textæ Ö The startup text is only intended
for use with a hard disc partition, not for floppy based systems. The
problem is that the first characters of the startup text are lost
because they are taken as a reply to the ÉInsert DOS Boot Disc and press
any keyæ message which you get when running the emulator from floppy
discs.
5.7
The startup text should also not be used unless you have an Autoexec.Bat
and Config.Sys file. If you do not have these, the startup text is taken
as a reply to confirming the date.
5.7
4)áPC Software compatibility Ö there are some screen redraw problems
with WordStar 4 using the !PCEmS emulator. However, no problems have yet
been reported using the large !PCEm emulator.ááA
5.7
5.7



Impression Hints & Tips
5.7
Thereæs no shortage of hints and tips this month and there is a special
emphasis on mail merging, printing and uses of Impressionæs ösave
graphicsò facility.
5.7
Å    Mailmerge (1) Ö There have been some queries about mail merging
with Impression, so Rob Sherratt contacted Computer Concepts to outline
the problems. Rob wrote, öI have tried to use the Business Supplement
(Importer) and Impression to mailmerge a set of addresses to generate a
sheet of laser labels where each label contains successive fields from
the database. I have come to the conclusion that it canæt be done at
present Ö unless you tell me otherwise! I can print, say, a sheet of 24
labels for the same addressee (using a variety of methods) Ö but I
cannot print 24 labels for different addressees unless I enter the data
manually. Isnæt this a normal requirement for mailmerge programs?
5.7
öIt seems to me that Impulseæs ÉMergeæ command causes Impression to do a
ÉDelete then mergeæ operation, coupled with a small change to Importeræs
user interface to toggle the ÉDelete vs Duplicateæ option on and off. As
well as, or instead of this, you might like to consider adding a new
pair of methods to Importer ù :Importer Next record and :Importer
PrevRecord ù which would allow the user to build a composite É24-upæ
merge template where each frame in the template might contain the
following merge commands;
5.7
   :Importer Getfield 1
5.7
   :Importer Getfield 2 etc
5.7
   :Importer Next Record
5.7
On receiving the Next Record message, the Importer application would
reset its field counter to 1 and would scan forward for the start of the
next record.ò
5.7
Charles Moir agreed that !Importer would not allow different names and
addresses to be imported into different frames and thought that Robæs
new command to move onto the next record would work, but again thatæs
another improvement that will have to wait for Impression 3 (if that is
the correct title!).
5.7
However, Charles did have this useful suggestion, öwhenever we have had
a requirement to produce labels in this fashion (e.g. for mailing the
Archimedean magazine) we have gone about it in a different, and I would
suggest, a simpler way. First we create a master page that has separate
frames for each label. These are then linked together so they all form
part of one flowing story, so text will flow from one frame to another.
Presuming you have the name and address list in ASCII form with some
identifier between records Ö all you do is drop the file into the first
frame. All the names and addresses then flow into successive frames,
creating new pages as required. If the names and address are fixed
length records it is only a matter of making sure the label is the
correct size to hold exactly one record and it should all format
correctly. Even if the records are not the same length all that is
required is a single search and replace operation to replace the record
separator with a
5.7
 command to make sure each new record starts in a new label.
5.7
(If you use label sheets that have no selvedge, i.e. the whole A4 page
is divided into exactly 24 equal spaces, you just create one simple
master page whose size is just 70mm ╫ 37.1mm. Then all you do is ensure
you have öignore page bordersò set and öfit lotsò and it prints
beautifully. Ed.)
5.7
öThe only disadvantage of this system is that it loads all the names and
addresses in one go. However, we use this system for mailing 10,000
names and addresses on a standard 4M machine and so space is not a
problem. In fact, I donæt think something like !Importer would cope with
anything like that number of records satisfactorily. This method has the
advantage that you can see and edit each record individually if
required, and you can print any required range of pages or multiple
copies, etc.ò
5.7
Å    Mailmerge (2) Ö Stuart Bell had more modest needs. He wanted to
send a basic letter with a customized öDear ...ò beginning, and an
address in a box at the bottom of each letter. His solution to create
the skeleton letter as a master page <ctrl-F2 Ö Edit Ö New Master Page>.
In this master page type everything, except the names for the salutation
(the öDear . . .ò bit). Then create two frames on the master page, one
for the name, the other for the address box, and make text flow from one
to the other.
5.7
Now, leave the editing of the master page and return to your document.
Alter the chapter so that your newly created master page is the one for
that chapter and you will see your letter appear, with boxes for the
name and address. Type in the name of the first person, and their
address, using <ctrl-G> to advance to the next frame, as required.
Impression will generate new pages as necessary, each containing the
same letter.
5.7
In order to make the salutation look neat, you may need to move the
Énameæ frame on the master page, to line up öDearò with the name. Check
this with a large scale view of your document.
5.7
Now, the whole point of a mailing list is not to send one letter, but to
make it easier the next time you write to the same people. To change
your letter, save the original document under another name ù e.g. if
originally öLetter1ò, save it now as öLetter2ò to avoid losing the
original letter. Then simply change the letter on the master page of
Letter2 to produce your new letter. Alternatively, create another new
master page and alter your chapter to use it.
5.7
To produce a simple listing of your mailing list, create a master page
with many frames stacked in a vertical line (or any other close pattern
for that matter). You will then have a simple list of the names and
addresses in a tabular form.
5.7
I know that most mailmerge packages offer more complex facilities than
this penny-pinching approach, such as selecting certain names out of a
list. However, if your needs are as basic as mine, then it certainly
beats the laborious task of producing twenty (or two hundred) virtually
identical letters manually!
5.7
Å A merge program? Ö On a related note, identical pleas from Peter
Blenkinsop and P Closier: öhas anyone written a merge program for
Impression?ò Peter has several two page documents he would like to merge
into one (longer) document, mainly for ease of printing, although he
admits that a printer queue system might do just as well. No doubt other
users would also find this useful, so has anyone cracked this particular
nut? Batch printing would undoubtedly be useful for the next release of
Impression (with perhaps the incoming document forming a new chapter),
but we do also need a proper printer queueing system for Acorn printer
drivers. (Laser Direct owners already have one. Ed)
5.7
Å Viewing clip art ù Impressionæs ease of manipulating and printing
Sprite and Draw files has been touched on by others but the following
may be of interest. Just as with fonts, one really needs to see a print-
out of oneæs collection of clip-art files in order to pick out the one
thatæs just right for a particular job. I have done this by setting up
my collection on a set of standard Impression pages laid out with 5 rows
of 4 frames, each frame filled with a clip-art object. The sheets when
printed out then provide a ready reference and can be saved economically
as Impression documents using ArcFS/Spark/Compression.
5.7
The beauty of this is that in future you can ignore the individual clip-
art files and work from the saved Impression document. You choose the
frame you want and save it as a graphic to the RAM disc. Then drag the
icon from RAMFS to the Impression frame you have set up to receive it.
Note that you have to use the RAM disc as an intermediate stage for the
transfer. If you drag the icon directly across to the new Impression
frame you get a message to the effect that Impression cannot save a file
to itself. (Jack Evans)
5.7
Donæt forget though that there are a number of commercial programs that
allow you to view clip art and these might be more useful if you are
constantly adding new images to your collection. Incidentally, an
earlier version of Glimpse (Sherston Software) used to hang up the
computer if presented with a DrawPlus file. I am glad to report that
this was fixed (v1.02 and later) and, although the program ignores
unknown file types, it will not cause any other problems. If you have an
early issue of Glimpse, Sherston advise you to call them for advice and
they tell me that they are further developing the program.
5.7
Å Taking graphics from documents ù Paul Skirrow writes in response to
the Impression Hints & Tips by Jochen Konietzko (Archive 5.5 page 41)
and also makes use of the save graphics facility. It is true that
graphics cannot be edited within Impression, but it is a simple matter
to click on the graphic frame to select it and then use the <save
graphic> option on the document menu (or use <shift-ctrl-T>). I rarely
bother keeping separate copies of graphics files now, I just save them
from Impression directly into Draw, modify them and then save them back
again. (With PipeDream, things are different as it does not take its own
copy of the graphics file, but simply stores the filename, so modifying
the file on disc will change the image in the PipeDream document.)
5.7
It is true that the draw files are stored within the document directory
(called story1, story2, etc), but they should not be edited because
Impression stores information about them elsewhere (in the !DocData
file). It is possible to crash the entire system by modifying a graphics
file within an Impression document. I have always regarded Impression
documents as no-go areas Ö they belong to Impression and use Computer
Conceptsæ own format which is not published and which could be changed
between Impression versions.
5.7
The only disadvantage with using the <save graphic> option is that it
always saves the graphic as a draw file, even if it is a sprite. If you
want to edit a sprite, you must therefore drag the draw file from
Impression to Draw, select the object and then use the <save sprite>
option on the save menu to save into Paint. This is clumsy, especially
if memory is short, in which case you will have to save the intermediate
files to disc before loading into Paint. Computer Concepts do this
mainly to simplify the inner working of Impression (it means everything
can be regarded as a Draw file which may contain sprites). Another
argument for using Draw files to hold sprites is that they contain
absolute size information, whereas the sprite format does not. It
therefore makes a lot of sense for scanners to produce Draw files
containing the scanned sprite together with absolute size information
describing the resolution of the scanned image. The <save graphic> menu
item only appears when a graphic frame is selected (whereas the RISC-OS
guidelines suggest that unavailable menu items should be shaded so that
the user knows they are there).
5.7
Could Impression be made to pass graphics files to Draw and Paint when
they are double clicked? Perhaps Computer Concepts would be prepared to
implement this. I also think that there should be an easy way of
transferring data between applications generally without bringing up a
save menu. I know that we are all used to it now, but it is not really a
ösaveò operation that you are doing when transferring things between
applications, and the filename is certainly irrelevant when you are not
saving to a filer window. One approach, adopted by Squirrel, is to make
a click-drag from a Squirrel window to another application transfer the
data by doing a save automatically. This is extremely useful in Squirrel
and means that an address can be transferred to a letter very quickly
without using a menu. I have also adopted this technique in some of my
programs where <click-drag> is not used for something else, but
unfortunately, many programs use <click-drag> for their own operation.
What do other people think? Could we standardise on a <shift-drag> or
<alt-drag> to do a save. (This would also work with filer windows using
the default or last filename).
5.7
Å   Styles used and unused Ö When I am preparing the magazine, I use one
big file that contains all the things like hints & tips, comments, small
ads, products, etc, so I am forever importing new bits of text into it
and then exporting them back out into the magazine. This means that the
style list grows longer each month so, every now and then, I remove
unwanted styles. To do this, I select the whole text with <ctrl-T> and
pull up the edit styles window with <ctrl-F6>. I click on the style
selection menu button and there is a list showing which styles, in the
whole story, are used and which are unused. I can then select and delete
the ones that arenæt needed (remembering to click the delete button with
<adjust> so that the window stays on-screen).
5.7
Sometimes, I want to remove a style completely even though it is being
used. If so, I select all the text, pull up the style menu and click on
the style to be removed. That will remove all occurrences of it. Donæt
forget though that a style may also be used on a master page, in which
case it will not delete. This can actually be put to good advantage
because I donæt want to accidentally delete, say, öboldò just because it
is not used in the file as it stands. To prevent accidental deletion,
create a new dummy master page, create a text frame and type in a few
choice words and give them the styles that you want to maintain
permanently within the document. They cannot now be deleted acciden
tally. Ö PB
5.7
Å   Kerning Ö On Impression, kerning is extremely easy to achieve,
especially with the keyboard short-cuts. If you want to (R)educe the
space between adjacent characters, simply put the cursor between the two
characters and type <ctrl-R> a number of times. If you over do it,
simply (E)xpand the space a bit using <ctrl-E>. If you canæt make a fine
enough adjustment with <ctrl-R> and <ctrl-E>, go through the menu
options to call up the kerning menu and adjust the number. Remember that
if you want to try a particular number without losing the kerning
window, click on Set with <adjust>, not <select>. For vertical kerning,
use <ctrl-U> to move the text (U)p and <ctrl-J> to er... (J)ump
downwards?! (Can anyone think of a better mnemonic?)
5.7
The trouble with kerning being so easily available is that itæs easy to
hit <ctrl-R, E, U or J> by accident. I have tried to use search and
replace to locate any spurious kerning in a document but cannot find any
way to do it. You can, of course, export the text with styles and load
the text into Edit and search for ö{but I would have liked a simpler
way. Any ideas? Still, if you can see roughly where the spurious kerning
appears, simply go through the menu to get the kerning window up on
screen and use cursor left and cursor right to move the cursor around
through the suspect areas. If you move past a kerning statement, the
numbers will flick up in the kerning window. To remove the kerning,
click <adjust> on the Clear button and go back to using the cursor keys
to search for other kerning statements, finally clicking <select> on
Clear. Ö PB
5.7
Å   Impression speed usersæ tips Ö (Reprinted from Archive 5.5 where the
last two lines were accidentally omitted!) I find that having got into
the habit of using <adjust> for reverse scrolling, it really does save
time, especially when I am laying out the magazine and the screen is
cluttered with windows. Just press <select> to scroll down and switch
quickly to <adjust> to go back up again without having to move the mouse
and locate the other end of the scroll bar Ö which could be under
another window anyway.
5.7
Also, <adjust> can be extremely useful, again with a cluttered screen,
for moving windows whilst keeping them where they are relative to the
other documents. It takes practice, but it speeds things up in the long
run. Ö PB
5.7
Å   Search & replace on styles Ö Impression appears to have the facility
to search and replace on styles. Indeed, you can search for a style
using {nameò }@, where @ is the wildcard for öany textò but, sadly, you
cannot replace with another style name, despite the fact that there is a
menu button on the Search & Replace window to allow you to put a style
name into the Replace box. I donæt know why CC havenæt implemented this
facility. They obviously intended to do so because the menu button on
the Replace box has no other purpose Ö as it stands, it is totally
redundant. Perhaps it could be implemented in Impression III but, in the
meantime, you can do it in Edit, though itæs a bit cumbersome.
5.7
Suppose, for example, that you have a document with various headings all
using öHeadingò (marked on <F2> as Sub-heading) and that you want to
change some of them to a sub-sub-heading, letæs call it öSubHeadò. What
you will have to do is to click somewhere in the text and use <shift-
ctrl-T> to save the text. Save it with styles, perhaps into a ram disc.
Then load that into !Edit and use search & replace to, selectively,
change  into . (The reason for using  is to catch, in one go,  ON} and
OFF} and } all of which can occur in the document.)
5.7
To get it back into the original document, click back in the main text
in the Impression document, select the whole text with <ctrl-T>, set it
all back to base text with <ctrl-B>, delete it and then go back to the
Edit document and save the text into the Impression document. Remember
though to save the document before you start messing about with it in
this way. You can get in an awful mess if you edit the text file
incorrectly.
5.7
If CC canæt add the style search & replace feature into Impression,
perhaps someone could produce a simple editing application for us. As
the Impression text is loaded into it, it would create a list of the
styles available then it would allow you to search and replace using a
menu to provide you with a list of the styles it knows about. Could
someone write that for us, please? If youæd like to have a go, get in
touch with me at Archive. Ö PB
5.7
Å   Style problems Ö When I am preparing the magazine, I save the text of
each of the articles, with styles, as edit files in one directory. I
then have a dummy Archive magazine document into which I insert the
various edit files. If I have a particular space to fill, say about a
page and a half, I link together the title frame and the text frames
that are to make up the article. I know roughly how long each article
is, so I drop one of the edit files into the title frame. Sometimes, it
turns out to be just too short or too long and I want to delete it, but
if I just mark it with <ctrl-T> and delete it and then drop in another
edit file, I find that the whole text ends up in the same style as the
main heading Ö then it really is too long! As far as I am concerned,
this is a bug in Impression. Anyway, the öwork-aroundò is to mark the
whole text and press <ctrl-B> first, to change it all back to base
style, before deleting the text. On a long file, especially if a lot of
it is displayed on screen, this can take quite a time. Does anyone know
a quicker work-around?
5.7
Also, I find that, fairly often, the title is left justified instead of
centred as its style specifies. If I click on the title, type a single
character and delete it, it springs back to the centre Ö another bug,
but one thatæs easy to get round. Ö PB
5.7
Å   RTF loader Ö To transfer WP files from the Mac (or PC versions of
Microsoft Word, I guess) you can use the RTF (rich text format) loader
that comes with the Impression Business Supplement. The RTF loader is
fairly intelligent and knows to swap things like δ into æ because the
fonts on Mac and Archimedes use some different ASCII numbers. However,
unless it has been fixed, it sometimes hangs up with some of these ötop-
bit-setò characters. For example, I was trying to transfer a cook book
and it hung up (the whole machine!) every time it came across a degree
symbol as in 100░C. The answer was to search and replace the degree
symbol into, say, an equal sign or some other character not used in the
text, transfer with the RTF loader and then search and replace back
again. (Some of you may have noticed the repeated occurrence of δ
instead of æ in one of Risc Useræs articles last month Ö I guess they
are still using Macs for their magazine and the Archimedes to Mac
conversion is not as intelligent.) Ö PB
5.7
Å Blank pages printed Ö If your printer sometimes prints blank pages (as
Patrick Dowling explained in Archive 5.6) it is probably because the
printer driveræs bottom margin is set too small. The printer drivers
send all the data they are told to send for the page and then send a
form feed character. If they send so much that the printer just goes on
to its next page and the driver then sends a form feed character the
printer will eject a sheet. Make sure that the printeræs DIP switches
are set to disable perforation skip and check any others which determine
the page size. When entering the bottom margin into the printer driveræs
paper size entry, it is important to be on the conservative side and
make this a fraction larger than you think it ought to be (by a couple
of mm). The only disadvantage to this is that you will lose the ability
to print in this borderline area, but at least you will avoid the
mysterious blank pages which can otherwise occur. Unfortunately, printer
manuals are notoriously awkward, especially when you are looking for the
top and bottom margins, and most of the printer drivers are supplied
with the incorrect default settings (to be fair, some drivers are
written for a range of printers which each have their own unique paper
margins).á Paul Skirrow.
5.7
(I passed this hint on to one of our Technical Help Service members a
couple of weeks ago and she confirmed that it worked. All she did was to
increase the paper size from 297.00 mm to 299.00 mm and she got no more
blank pages. Ed.)
5.7
Å Entering special characters into Impression Ö There is an updated
version of !Chars on this monthæs disc which can enter special charac
ters into Impression without needing to tell Impression which font they
came from. It works just like Chars (or NewChars2 to be precise) and
provides quick selection of common fonts (Dingbats, Symbol, System and
Trinity) as well as passing the font information to Impression in DDF
form. Note that RISC-OS 3 defines the system font to be the same as the
Latin 1 fonts, complete with the ö and ò characters, but RISC-OS 2
doesnæt, so it will help if you use the new System font provided on the
Archive 5.6 program disc if you are using RISC-OS 2.á Paul Skirrow.
5.7
Å   PC file transfer Ö Impression saves text files with an LF-CR termina
tor rather than the CR-LF terminator which is used by most PC programs.
This can confuse a lot of PC programs which automatically ignore the
first character after a LF (which they expect to be a CR), and Computer
Concepts have agreed to fix this some time. áPaul Skirrow.
5.7
In the meantime, you can presumably use !Editæs search & replace
facility to change \x0A\x0D into \x0D\x0A remembering to set the magic
characters to ON. Ed
5.7
Ovation Hints and Tips
5.7
Å Master documents ù Hilary Ferns has sent details of master documents
she has created for use with Ovation. Her design for A4 and A5 letters
will be particularly useful for newcomers to either DTP or Ovation, and
her templates for an A5 four sided leaflet, an A5 booklet, A6 leaflet
and a greetings card or notelet are valuable time savers. With Hilaryæs
permission they are on this monthæs program disc in Ovation format, but
here is just one example of how Hilary used Ovation to produce an A5
four sided leaflet.
5.7

5.7
This is the format of our weekly church news-sheet, which displays news
about all the events in bordered frames Ö rather like the ads page of
the local newspaper. It is printed on A4 paper, photocopied and folded
neatly in half.
5.7
I use an HP Deskjet 500 printer, so all the margin settings are based on
this. Printer paper size is A4.
5.7
1. Set up a new document with the following settings:
5.7
      A4
5.7
      Landscape
5.7
      Single-sided
5.7
      2 columns
5.7
      Gutter 24mm
5.7
Margins ù Top 12mm, Left & Right 12mm, Bottom 8mm
5.7
2. Open up the Master page for your document and include on this any
regular heading, logo, etc. that you may require. We always have our
church logo at the top of the front page, together with a öwelcomeò
greeting. These are placed in picture frames at the top of the right-
hand column, i.e. the front of the leaflet when it is eventually folded.
5.7
3. Obviously, page two will not want these headings, so you will now
need to create a new chapter (öNew Chapter Ö After current Chapterò) and
specify chapter two starting at page two (öModify chapterò). Delete your
frames from page two. Remember too to think about any paragraph styles
that you are likely to use.
5.7
4. Go back to your document and delete the existing pages one and two.
You will now have a simple document with two A4 sheets, each with 2
columns and a wide gutter. Within this framework you can create text and
picture frames, making sure they do not overlap the central guidelines.
I tend to display most of my text in individual text frames with
borders, often with a nested picture frame for a picture or öFontFXò
generated heading. Only rarely do I type directly into the principal
text frame.
5.7

5.7
5. You may want to have text which flows from one page to the next.
However, using the principal text frame, the text will not flow back up
to the öbackò page of the leaflet. To do this you will need to create a
text frame to fit within each column and use the ölinkò tool to flow the
text from the front, to the middle and onto the back. This is quite
simple to work out. (see diagram).
5.7
6. Save your stylesheet. Printing out such a document is straightfor
ward. Change to ölandscapeò on the öPrint setupò before saving
stylesheet.
5.7

Hints and Tips
5.8
Å   A5000 filing system problems Ö There have been more comments about
problems with losing files on the A5000. We suggested last month that
you take Acornæs advice and configure the ADFSbuffers to zero. In the
light of further experience, we would suggest it even more strongly.
This problem occurred with Impression but we have had reports that it
also happens with other software. You have been warned. Ed.
5.8
David Pilling adds... In the last Archive, you had a piece from someone
saying that it is necessary to *configure ADFSBuffers 0 to make Acorn
DTP and Impression work properly. The official line according to Beebug,
is that unless A5000æs are configured like this, they will corrupt their
hard discs sooner or later. There are well documented cases of this
occurring. In addition, many programs, ArcFS and the Beebug hard disc
backup for example, wonæt work unless ADFSbuffers are set to zero.
5.8
It is also common advice to load the SerialUtils module before attempt
ing to use comms programs. The naive point of view is that SerialUtils
does something clever that allows buffers to work. That is not so,
SerialUtils actually prevents buffers from doing anything. It is
therefore much more efficient to stop your comms program from loading
any buffer and not bother with SerialUtils. SerialUtils will apparently
also prevent things like printer buffers from working.
5.8
New versions of Hearsay cope with all this automatically and there is a
version that uses the buffer manager built into RISC-OS 3. However, we
are still having discussions with Acorn over whether this works properly
in RISC-OS 3 as fitted to the A5000.á David Pilling, Blackpool.
5.8
Å   A5000 second floppy drive Ö In Archive 5.6 p12, it said that if you
were putting an external 5╝ö drive onto an A5000 it should be connected
into the middle socket of the three. That is not correct. It should go
into the one farthest East. The internal drive goes in the middle one.
The other point to note is that it said the external drive can be set to
ID zero or one. That it true but it should perhaps should have been
spelt out more clearly that it should NOT be set to either two or three.
If it is, it will not work properly. Ed.
5.8
Å   Adjust clicking (RISC-OS 3) Ö Most people will, by now, have cottoned
on to the idea that clicking open a directory with <adjust> closes the
parent directory viewer and that clicking the close button with <adjust>
opens up the parent. One extension of this on RISC-OS 3 is that clicking
the close button with <adjust> while holding down <shift> doesnæt
actually close the window but does open up the parent directory.
5.8
Å   Directory date stamps Ö When copying a directory and its contents, the
destination directory is created with the current date stamp, as opposed
to being created and then stamped with the date of the source object.
(Looking through the PRMáI havenæt been able to find a way of stamping a
file to a date other than that held in the real time clock.)
5.8
In the case of application directories, the application directoryæs date
stamp appears to be copied through, but on closer inspection this is not
so. The application directory is created with the current date stamp (as
for normal directories) however, the date which the filer presents the
user (for the date of the application directory) is actually the date
stamp of the !RunImage file.
5.8
RISC-OS 3 automatically detects an attempt to move from one directory to
another on the same media, and performs a Rename operation instead of a
copy, whereby the date is retained. (Possibly, RISC-OS 3 also has a
facility for stamping a filer object with a specified date, although I
will not know about this until the RISC-OS PRMáis released!)á D
Lenthall, London.
5.8
Å   Exiting the desktop (RISC-OS 3) Ö With RISC-OSá2, you could set up an
obey that would exit the desktop by making the last line:
5.8
FX 138,0,252
5.8
and as long as no text was output by the obey file, the desktop would be
exited. The same can be done with RISC-OSá3 by placing the above line in
the obey file twice. It also works with the keys, press <shiftÖctrlÖF12>
twice and the desktop is exited. Also when <shiftÖctrlÖF12> has been
pressed F12 (*Commands) and <ctrlÖF12> (Task Window) still work!
Warning: If you do use this then the ADFS will be reset, losing the
current directory.á P Bedford, Peterborough.
5.8
Å   Extra validation flags Ö With RISC-OS 3, a number of new validation
flags are available for when you are designing window templates. So far
I have found the following:
5.8
Border Flags Ö these require the border flag to be set on and give an
icon a 3D border similar to Impressionæs, they all begin with a B (or b)
and are followed by a number to give the border type:
5.8
0   Single raised border.
5.8
1   Double border for grouping.
5.8
2   Triple border for default action icons.
5.8
3   Triple border for writable icons.
5.8
4   Single recessed border.
5.8
5   Standard single line border.
5.8
6   Triple recessed border similar to type 3.
5.8
Border type 0 and 3 can be followed by a comma and then a number between
0 and 15 to define the colour to slab to.
5.8
Pointer definition Ö you can define an icon so that the pointer changes
shape when over the icon. This is done by placing a P (or p) in the
validation string followed by the name of the sprite containing the
pointer shape. Try sprite ptr_double.
5.8
Many others may be available with other parameters for the above options
but until the RISC-OSá3 Programmersæ Reference Manual is available we
wonæt really know. Most of the above is available in RISC-OSá2 by using
the Interface module by Simon Huntington.á P Bedford, Peterborough.
5.8
Å   Iconised windows with Impression (RISC-OSá3) Ö If you want to
distinguish Impression documents that have had their windows iconised,
generate an icon called Éic_impressioæ and place it in the !Sprites file
in the !Impress directory. Mine is the Impression quill & pot in a
window (ic_?).á P Bedford, Peterborough.
5.8
Å   Menon hotkey Ö If you use Menonæs hotkey facility, a problem can arise
in that it may not work if you have a window open that contains the
caret (e.g. Impression). However, it will work if you hold the alt key
down at the same time as the hotkey i.e. <alt-ctrl-H>. P Bedford,
Peterborough.
5.8
Å   Oak drives with Acorn SCSI card Ö If you are using an Oak drive with
an Acorn SCSI card (e.g. if you own an A540), you may find that you are
unable to dismount the drive and that you get a ÉBad parametersæ error.
5.8
Hard drives that are formatted using an Oak SCSI card include additional
information in the boot block which the Acorn card objects to. To solve
these problems (especially annoying with removable hard drives!), you
will have to format the disc with Acornæs SCSIDM.
5.8
Unfortunately, it is not that simple. When the desktop is started up,
the Acorn card looks at all of the drives that are available. Once it
sees an Éincorrectlyæ formatted Oak disc, it will not allow SCSIDM to
access the drive. This means that you will have to start up outside of
the desktop in order to format the disc. This can be done by typing
*Configure Language 0 <return> from the command line and then pressing
<ctrl-break>.
5.8
Once this has been done, you can format your drive in the usual way Ö
see pages 11-12 of the SCSI Expansion Card User Guide.
5.8
To start up in the desktop again, simply type *Configure Language 4
<return> from the command line and then press <ctrl-break>.á Adrian
Look, N.C.S.
5.8
Å   PC file transfer revisited Ö When transferring text files from PC to
the Archimedes (or vice versa), it is necessary to convert the carriage
returns (CRs) to line feeds (LFs) and vice versa. This can be done using
the search and replace facility of Edit, but it is much quicker just to
use the in-built transfer ÉCR<->LFæ which is available from the ÉEditæ
submenu or to press <F8>.á GáRiley, Cheshire.
5.8
Å   PC screen fonts revisited Ö In Archive 4.12 p10 there was a hint that
explained how to change the screen font of the PC Emulator to any BBC
screen font. Since then, the program has been updated to include EGA+
and ECD definitions.
5.8
The EGAROM looks to contain two sets of character definitions: EGA+ 16╫8
cells and ECD 14╫8 cells, as opposed to the ROM file which (amongst
other things) contains the 8╫8 cells used in the other modes. The
following program will convert these character sets for EGA+ and ECD
modes in a similar manner to my previous program:
5.8
REM >EGAFONT
5.8
REM Merge BBC FONT file into !PC EGAROM file
5.8
REM NB. *** COPY ORIGINAL EGAROM FILE BEFORE RUNNING THIS ***
5.8
:
5.8
ON ERROR REPORT:PRINTö at line ò;ERL :CLOSE#0:END
5.8
DIM rom% &2000,C%(7)
5.8
R$=ö:4.!PCEM.EGAROMò
5.8
OSCLI(ö*LOAD ò+R$+ö ò+STR$~rom%)
5.8
:
5.8
F%=OPENIN(ö:4.BBCFONTS.NEWFONTò):REM File of type &FF7
5.8
:
5.8
REPEAT
5.8
A%=BGET#F%
5.8
IFA%<>23THENPRINTöThis is not a BBC font file!ò:END
5.8
O%=BGET#F%:PRINTöChar &ò;~O%;ö ò;: VDU23,255
5.8
REM  EGA+ chars 16x8 Ö double horiz. thickness
5.8
P%=O%*16
5.8
FORI%=0TO7
5.8
C%(I%)=BGET#F%:C%=C%(I%):VDUC%
5.8
REM Ö assemble 8x8 char array
5.8
rom%?(P%+2*I%)=C%
5.8
rom%?(P%+2*I%+1)=C%
5.8
NEXT
5.8
VDU255:PRINT
5.8
REM  ECD chars 14x8 Ö blank first and last three rows
5.8
P%=&1000+O%*14
5.8
rom%?(P%+0)=0:rom%?(P%+1)=0
5.8
rom%?(P%+2)=0
5.8
FOR I%=0TO7:rom%?(P%+3+I%)=C%(I%): NEXT
5.8
rom%?(P%+11)=0:rom%?(P%+12)=0
5.8
rom%?(P%+13)=0
5.8
UNTIL EOF#F%
5.8
CLOSE#0
5.8
:
5.8
OSCLI(ö*SAVE ò+R$+ö ò+STR$~rom%+
5.8
ö + 2000ò)
5.8
END
5.8
This program has been tested in both modes by squeezing every last byte
out of my A3000 and through the use of the PD multisync Éemulatoræ Ö I
could just about stand the flickering! The ECD characters are a little
smaller due to the difficulty in mapping the default 8 onto 14 rows,
however, it does result in greater line spacing and arguably improves
readability.
5.8
Finally, I suppose that if anyone needs to redefine the MDA1 outline
font (has anyone found anything which uses the MDA mode?), they could
use !FontEd or a similar application to change the font name of their
preferred outline font to MDA1. The MDA0 font would appear to contain
definitions for the Éadditionalæ IBM character set and, as such, is less
likely to require redefinition.á PáBready, Glasgow.
5.8
Å   Printer buffers Ö RISC-OS 3 provides a configurable printer buffer.
Use the command:
5.8
*Configure PrinterBufferSize <n>K
5.8
to set the buffer size to <n> K in length. This does not seem to be used
by the RISC-OSá3 printer drivers but is used outside the desktop
environment. To check the buffer has been configured, perform a <ctrl-
reset> after the configure command, go into Basic and type:
5.8
PRINT ADVAL(-4)
5.8
the result will be the size of your printer buffer.á PáBedford,
Peterborough.
5.8
Å   Translator tips Ö Translator can easily be used to convert a sprite
from one screen mode to another. From the Translator menu, simply
deselect the ÉPop upá>áAuto modeæ option, and then select the ÉProcess >
Sprite output > Output mode > Currentæ. Select the desktop mode for the
output sprite and drag the sprite to be converted onto the Translator
icon. Finally, save the converted sprite from ÉMiscá>áSaveá>áFullæ
option.
5.8
When printing foreign graphics files on a monochrome printer, better
results can be obtained by selecting the ÉBlack and whiteæ option from
the Translator menu i.e. the sprite is converted into 256 grey scales.
(I think this is because there is less distortion of the colours than
when fitting the sprite to the 256 desktop colours available and then
the printer driver using ColourTrans to convert them to monochrome
information.) CáPaul, Manchester.
5.8
Å   Waiter and MultiFS clash Ö You canæt run The Data Storeæs Waiter with
the version of MultiFS that comes with the new PC Emulator. You must
quit Waiter before running MultiFS.á JáThompson.
5.8
Å   Window bug (RISC-OSá3) Ö There is a bug in the windows redraw routine.
If you use !FormEd to define a window with a vertical scroll bar, no
horizontal scroll bar and no size icon, then turn on the horizontal
scroll bar, being careful not to cover where the size icon would be with
the menu, you will see that no box is redrawn in the area where the size
icon should be. If you drag other windows over this window the result is
a mess in the area where the size icon should be. As this example shows,
the result is not as expected.á P Bedford, Peterborough.
5.8
Å   Window movement (RISC-OSá3) Ö If you use <adjust> in the scroll bar
areas to provide reverse movement, you may find useful the facility for
complete window scrolling. If you click adjust and hold on either slider
bar, the pointer vanishes and if you move the mouse, the window is
scrolled in the same direction. This only works if both scroll bars are
on a window.á P Bedford, Peterborough.ááA
5.8
5.8



Image-setting
5.8
Hints & Tips
5.8
Å   Make sure you ask the image-setting bureau to produce films in a form
that your printer can use. e.g. Can he use Éright reading positiveæ?
5.8
Å   Only use high quality PostScript fonts such as the range from EFF ù
mistakes can be expensive.
5.8
Å   Ensure that the client Éacceptsæ a bromide Éproofæ before having the
work printed.
5.8
Å   Scanning Ö if you do your own scanning, rather than having it done via
a bureau, use the lowest possible scanning resolution that is consistent
with the screen resolution being used by the printer Ö i.e. a 150 l.p.i.
screen (a typical value for high quality magazines) requires no more
than 150 dots per inch scan, assuming a reproduction ratio of 1:1.ááA
5.8

Hints and Tips
5.9
Å   Auto-destruct! Ö There are applications, like Impression, that have an
auto-save facility. Auto-save is a very helpful facility and I use it
myself but, with Impression (and perhaps other applications), there is
an option to auto-save without prompt. In other words, every few
minutes, without you being able to stop it, it will save the current
document on top of the original document on disc. If you canæt already
see the danger of this, an anecdote might help...
5.9
Tord Eriksson sent an article (over 400k long including various draw
files) all the way from Sweden on a single floppy disc and there was no
space on the disc for a duplicate copy of the document. I loaded the
article and was playing around with it prior to editing it for the
magazine. I was trying to see if the text was all one story and so had
cut and pasted various bits when suddenly I got the message öThe file
has just been savedò. Fortunately, I hadnæt actually deleted anything
important just prior to the auto-save, but it does go to show that you
should never send a file to someone else having left the preferences set
to auto-destruct, sorry, I mean auto-save. Ed.
5.9
Å   Compression Ö Contrary to the review of Compression in Archive 5.2
(page 57) it is possible to initiate cfs directory displays from script
files. This might prove useful for those who want to use cfs as the
default filing system and who want to automatically display the root
directory on switching on the Archimedes. The problem is that the line,
5.9
Filer_OpenDir CFS#SCSI::Work.$
5.9
will not work unless the CFSmodule is active and it is inadequate to
simply run the !CFS application before this line in the script file. The
trick is to set up a !Boot application (as always) and to use this
applicationæs !boot (or !run) file to load the CFSmodule and activate it
before calling the script file. Assuming the !CFS application is hidden
away on the hard disc in the directory $.Utils. Filehndlng, this can be
achieved using the following commands:
5.9
|Load CFS
5.9
RMEnsure CFSModule 1.10 RMLoad $.Utils.Filehndlng.!Cfs .CFSModule
5.9
RMEnsure CFSModule 1.10 Error CFSModule not loaded
5.9

5.9
|Initialise CFS and set the
5.9
|scratch dir for it to use
5.9
|in handling files
5.9
NewCFS SCSI:4
5.9
CFStemp SCSI::Work.$.!System
5.9
|The !cfs !boot file should be
5.9
| run to allow the correct icons
5.9
| to be öseenò by the system:
5.9
$.Utils.Filehndlng.!Cfs.!Boot
5.9

5.9
| run desktop, load applications
5.9
| and display root directory
5.9
Desktop -file <HardBoot$Dir> DeskBoot
5.9
The script file, in this case called DeskBoot, used to load the
applications and open the root directory should be something like this:
5.9
Run <r>!System
5.9
Run <r>!Scrap
5.9
Run <r>!FontsPlus
5.9
Run <us>!StickyBD
5.9
Run <um>!Alarm
5.9
Run <uf>!Dustbin
5.9
Filer_OpenDir CFS#SCSI::Work.$
5.9
The commands ö*Newcfsò and ö*CFStempò are not documented in the
Compression manual but are explained in sufficient detail in the *Help
feature of the CFSmodule itself. (Type *help cfsmodule for a list of the
commands, then do a *help for each individual command for more details.)
5.9
There is an example !boot application on the monthly program disc.á Rob
Wears, Birmingham.
5.9
Å   Speeding up SQuirreL Ö If, like me, you often have lengthy queries and
reports for the SQuirreL database to perform, you may have wondered why
it makes no difference at all when you drag the table in question onto a
RAM disc.
5.9
The reason for this is that SQuirreL makes extensive use of the !Scrap
application; if you copy this, too, to the RAM disc and double click on
it, the hard disc will be silent.
5.9
Just donæt forget to double click onto the version of !Scrap on your
hard disc when you remove the RAM disc!á
5.9
Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, Germany.ááA
5.9
5.9

Ovation Hints & Tips
5.9
The following was submitted by Hilary Ferns, for which we are very
grateful. She adds that the Ovation manual is full of hints and tips
like these (and identical to some we have already published Ö oops!).
5.9
Å   Selecting tools Ö Using <select> to choose from the toolbox will
automatically return you to the text insertion icon after you have
performed one action with that tool. Using <adjust>, however, will allow
you to remain with your chosen tool until you decide to select the next
tool again yourself. This is useful when you want to draw several lines
or frames, or link a number of successive boxes.
5.9
Å   Using picture frames Ö The default Éinsetæ for a picture frame is 0
mm. (For a text frame it is 1 mm.) Ovation will scale your imported
picture with the bottom and left sides aligned to the frame. I have
discovered on many occasions these sides of a picture (Draw or Sprite
format) to have been slightly cropped. This is not always obvious on
screen but is quite noticeable when printed. I now offer various answers
to this problem.
5.9
1. Set inset to 1mm before importing the picture.
5.9
2. If you want to move the picture within the frame, whatever the inset
you are ln danger of losing a fragment on any edge. You can give
yourself more space by either increasing the frame size (often not
suitable) or by decreasing the size of the picture by 1% in each
direction.
5.9
3. Remember too that holding down shift while moving the picture will
restrict movement to horizontal and vertical directions only, thus
enabling you to move the picture more accurately.
5.9
I find the keyboard short-cuts for scaling a picture within a frame
particularly useful <shift-ctrl-G> to scale and <shift-ctrl-H> to fill
the frame.
5.9
Å   Text to Draw path object Ö The character selection application
(!CharSel) supplied with Ovation, apart from offering access to
alternative characters, also allows a single character to be changed to
Drawfile format. To do this, you select the character with <adjust>. The
resulting Drawfile icon can then be dropped into an Ovation picture
frame. Various interesting effects can be obtained by using these
characters in headings (together with a bit of imagination!).
5.9
Å   Default style-sheet Ö In the !Ovation application directory is a
style-sheet called ÉDefaultæ. This is the one used each time you load
Ovation and click on the icon to open up a document. This can be
replaced with a style-sheet of your own choice, e.g. one you use
regularly, but it must be called ÉDefaultæ. This would mean that you
will always have your own particular choice of paragraph styles defined
when Ovation is run. This is a very useful facility not to be missed.
5.9
The next few hints and tips were sent by Aneurin Griffiths from Trefin,
Dyfed. Again we are most grateful and are glad to see a number of
readers redressing the Impression/Ovation balance by sending in some
really useful Ovation tips.
5.9
Å To draw short lines using the öline-toolò Ö Draw a long line, even
passing through text, and press <select>. Now shorten the line by
placing the pointer on the red box at the Élong endæ of the line, and,
using <select>, shorten the line to the required length.
5.9
Å Printing labels using computer sheets with 2 or 3 rows of labels Ö If
the sheets are not A4 size, adjust the page size on the printer menu.
Carefully measure the distance from the top of the sheet to a point half
way between the first label and the second label. Use ÉView 200%æ and
mark a horizontal guide line by placing the pointer on the side ruler
and pressing <select>. (Fine adjustment is possible using <adjust>.)
Measure the distance from the mid point previously taken to one mid-way
between label 2 and 3. Carefully draw a guide line as before. Other
guide lines can now be drawn with the same spacing.
5.9
Vertical guide lines can now be drawn in the same way. Now draw a text-
frame in the first of the rectangular spaces, allowing space for the
margins around the label. At this stage it is a good idea to save the
layout as öBlnk_xyò, where values for the label size could be coded.
5.9
Enter the text in the text frame. Then select Object Ö Duplicate Frame,
and enter the appropriate number (Érequirementæ Ö 1!). Without changing
the instructions further, a stack of labels will be shown. These are now
easily moved to their positions on the grid using <adjust>. Obviously,
the labels on one printed sheet may be all the same or assorted. It is
sensible to make the first printout on an A4 sheet and then the A4 and
the sheet of labels may be matched from the top and left margins. Any
necessary adjustments can be easily made. Using this method the sheet
feed system is used. This works very well with a Canon BJ130e printer.
5.9
Å Using Ovationæs spelling checker Ö It is important to realise that the
checker must be started at the beginning of each Chapter when checking a
document composed of more than one Chapter. After Ch.1, select the first
page of Ch.2 and start the spell check again.
5.9
This from Albert Kitchenside, Addlestone, Surrey:
5.9
Å Importing Text from PipeDream Ö The Ovation manual recommends
importing PipeDream text by holding down <ctrl> while dragging the
PipeDream text file into an Ovation frame. This has the effect of
converting single line terminators into spaces to allow Ovation to
reformat text within a frame. However, Albert finds that lines between
paragraphs and headings are erroneously removed using this method. He
has sent a Basic program which processes files correctly prior to import
into Ovation. They are in the directory PD/OV on the monthly program
disc.
5.9
Impression
5.9
Hintsá&áTips
5.9
Å   More than 76 graphics per chapter Ö If you really want to have more
than 76 graphics per Impression chapter, then use David Pillingæs ArcFS
to store your document. You will then be able to store an unlimited
number of graphic files, but you may find the access times a bit slow!
Also, RISC-OS 2 users should be aware that a bug manifests itself after
the 9358th file and filenames become confused. Ö Martin Sperl, Austria.
5.9
Å   More than 76 fonts available at once Ö Continuing the Étrickæ above,
it is also possible to have an unlimited number of fonts available
simultaneously by copying all files from your !Fonts directory into an
ARCFS archive (plus all the extra fonts that you have always wanted to
use), and then insert the following line (for example, assuming the new
archive is called öFontò) into your !Boot file within the new archived
font directory:
5.9
Set Font$Path ARCFS#Font:$
5.9
You can then cause the new set of fonts to be loaded automatically by
inserting the following line within your system startup sequence (after
ArcFS has been run!):
5.9
OpenArchive SCSIdisc4::ARCFS#Font
5.9
(You need to substitute the name for your own hard disc in place of
SCSIdisc4.) Also, please note that to avoid a speed penalty in system
startup, you do not have to use compression when creating the font
archive and you will still save approximately 2k of disc storage per
font. Ö MS
5.9
Å   Viewing the screen without moving the cursor Ö Hold down <Shift> and
<Ctrl> and then use the arrow keys. It changes your view on the
document, left, right, up and down, without moving the cursor position.
This is useful if you donæt want to have to change the magnification to
something smaller, and thus lose the legibility of the screen font. Ö
David Crofts, Bury St Edmunds
5.9
Å Large capitals in normal text Ö If you like having a large letter to
add emphasis to the start of a paragraph but have found that the
subsequent line is spaced too far beneath, there is a solution:
5.9
Edit the Main Heading style (or create a new style), clicking on the
120% button, and then changing the Line Spacing box to the same as the
Font Size box e.g. 24pt as default. The problem, as you can see above,
is solved! Ö DC
5.9
Å   Substitute for colour in documents Ö Try a little variety in Black and
White. For a poster I did recently, I redefined some of the font colours
in styles to grey palettes. This gives an interesting variety to the
print density if you have a decent printer driver. Ö DC
5.9
Å   Bullet point Ö <shiftÖbackspace> is a short-cut to enter a Å bullet in
the text. Ö DC
5.9
Å   Deleting styles from the menu Ö another of those hints that everyone
else probably knew about all along...
5.9
When you merge pieces from several old documents into one new text, this
often means that your style menu becomes unnecessarily long.
5.9
You can delete those unwanted styles in the öedit styleò window, with
one snag:
5.9
If you click first onto a style in the style list, then on öedit styleò,
any attempt to delete that style will bring up an error message.
5.9
This is because clicking into the style list automatically selects a
style at the cursor position.
5.9
Therefore, after you open the edit window, you must first deselect the
style before it can be deleted!á Ö Jochen Konietzko, K÷ln, Germany
5.9
Å   Installing Impression on the A5000 Ö While helping a relative to setup
his A5000/Impression system, we discovered that the installation program
for the DTP installs the old Font Manager (v2.44) onto the !Fonts
directory and all the old files associated with it. The ability of the
new Font Manager (v2.49) to address multiple font directories is lost
and Impression only Éseesæ either the ROM fonts or the hard disc fonts.
I suggest that anyone installing Impression is urged to remove the
support files in the fonts directory after the installation process
(leaving the actual fonts themselves behind) and reload the files within
the fonts directory on the Apps 1 disc. Hopefully, Computer Concepts
will alter the !Install program to take account of the changes in RISC-
OS 3.áÖ David Woods, Glasgow
5.9
Å More on Impression styles Ö Various readers have written with queries
on styles called Étableæ and Édefaultæ that appear on the style menu
with Impression version 2.16. These are not (in themselves) new program
features or bugs Ö they are just extra styles stored as part of the
!Default document stored in !Impress.Auto. The facilities provided by
the Étableæ style are all as documented in the very first Impression-2
User Guide and are automatically set up for you if you import spread
sheet data using the LoadCSV+ loader which comes with the business
supplement. If the extra styles cause you problems or conflict with any
of your own style names, all you have to do is open a blank document,
edit the offending styles and click on the delete button to remove them
and save the document with the name !Default in one of your own
directories. Now quit Impression, open !Impress.Auto and move the
öoriginalò !Default document elsewhere and replace it with the one you
just created. Now when you start Impression, the offending styles will
not appear. You may like also to set up your most frequently used master
pages and other styles using the same method. Ö Rob Sherratt,
Felixstowe.
5.9
Å   !Impression with !Compression Ö The message from Impression
öIncompatible document versionò means you are trying to load the adfs
icon into the application rather than the compressed icon!!á Ö Ned
Abell, Kidderminster

Hints and Tips
5.10
Å   RISC-OS 3 & DOS filenames Ö DOS filenames (including extensions) are,
in general, longer than the maximum length of a valid ADFS filename (10
characters). It is not always possible to copy or move DOS files from
hard disc partition or floppy discs directly to the ADFS.
5.10
The !MultiFS utility, as supplied with the PC Emulator, solves this by
allowing you to truncate the DOS filename while the translation process
takes place. Another very useful option (which I often use when copying
files from C programs) is to force !MultiFS to handle DOS extensions as
directories (hierarchical).
5.10
However, when the filetype of a DOS partition on your ADFS hard disc is
set to ÉDOSdiscæ, RISC-OS 3 will display a filer window for the
partition when you try to open the folder, while !MultiFS just ignores
it (i.e. no :C drive on the iconbar). This is all very nice but RISC-OS
3 doesnæt offer the nice name translation options mentioned above. To
enable !MultiFS to display your DOS partitions just set their filetype
to Édataæ before you start !MultiFS. Remember to use the command line
and not the filer menu, because the latter doesnæt allow you to change
the filetype of DOSdiscs. I inserted three lines for each DOS partition
in the !MultiFS !Run file to swap between ÉDOSdiscæ and Édataæ type
partitions when !MultiFS is started:
5.10
*Filer_CloseDir <PCe$Drive_X>
5.10
*SetType <PCe$Drive_X> Data
5.10
directly after setting the system variable <PCe$ Drive_X>, and
5.10
*SetType <PCe$Drive_X> DOSDisc
5.10
at the end of the !Run file (although the comment tells us not to do
so).
5.10
Unfortunately, there are some bugs in !MultiFS: When you copy to a
MultiFS filer window, you must ensure name translation is not set to
hierarchical, otherwise you will end up with wildcards (É?æ) in
filenames. When this happens, you must use DOS itself to delete the file
because RISC-OS fails to wipe those objects. Another bug appears if you
shut down your system after using !MultiFS. This results in an error
report and a task manager crash.á Paul Groot, Holland.
5.10
Å   Sprite does not exist error Ö In answer to last monthæs query in the
Help! section, the ÉSprite does not existæ error only occurs with the
old version of the printer drivers. It can be solved by simply using a
later version of the printer driver e.g. v2.44 or later (as per
Shareware Disc 17).
5.10
Progammers take note: The error is cause by programs that print sprites
using their names and not their pointers.
5.10
Many thanks to all those who called Ö too numerous to mention!
5.10
Å   High resolution PostScript? When printing sprites to !PrinterPS, the
resulting output may be lower quality than, for example, a 600 dpi
LaserDirect (using !ShowPage), even when printing at 300 dpi. A solution
is to change the configuration file of !PrinterPS to make it think the
resolution is higher e.g. change the Épxresæ and Épyresæ parameters to
600.á J Thorn, Cardiff.
5.10
Å   Problem with Font$Path Ö I recently experienced a problem with
Impression 2.16 that took a long time to solve. The problem manifests
itself by Impression, on starting, reporting an error ÉNot Foundæ. If
you select OK to continue, the following error is reported ÉIllegal
window handleæ and at this point you have to quit, because continuing
results in the second error message. After about two hours of trying to
find the problem Ö as the error messages are not particularly helpful Ö
I discovered that the problem lay with Font$Path.
5.10
I have two !Fonts directory, one with a small number of outline fonts
and one with a large number. Also, my second font directory pulls in the
fonts in my first directory by use of the Font$Path variable. I had
moved the locations of these directories from an Apps folder to the root
folder of my hard disc and this was causing the problems. The ÉNot
Foundæ error is caused by Impression not finding the first directory in
the Font$Path and the second error is caused by the fact that a Font
Menu canæt be created, as the specified directory does not exist.
Indeed, most applications that support outline fonts will also give
similar error messages.
5.10
I have written a small program (on this monthæs program disc) that will
test the validity of Font$Path and a call to this program should be
placed as the last line in any !Fonts.!Run file. A copy of FontTest will
need to be copied into all !Fonts directories i.e.
5.10
| !Run file for !Fonts (version 0.11, 10-May-89)
5.10
|
5.10
Iconsprites <Obey$Dir>.!Sprites
5.10
|
5.10
| Kill newer versions of Font Manager
5.10
|
5.10
RMKill FontManager
5.10
RMKill SuperSample
5.10
|
5.10
RMEnsure FontManager 2.42 RMLoad <Obey$Dir>.Fonts
5.10
RMEnsure SuperSample 0.04 RMLoad <Obey$Dir>.Super
5.10
|
5.10
SetMacro Font$Path adfs::
5.10
HardDisc.$.!Fonts., <Font$Prefix>.
5.10
Set Font$Prefix <Obey$Dir>
5.10
|
5.10
<Obey$Dir>.FontTest
5.10
The program firstly checks that Font$Path exists and then reads the
environment variable and checks its size. The length of this variable
has to be greater than zero for it to point to a valid !Fonts directory.
5.10
It then checks that every reference in Font$Path points to a valid
directory. This is done by an OS_File call (line 680) which will return
2 if the filename given is a directory. If the file reference does not
exist, an error will be generated and the Fonts directory !Run file
needs to be modified.
5.10
I have included an example of the problem on the program disc in the
ÉExampleæ directory. If you click on !Fonts2 an error will be generated
as the Font$Path contains a reference to a file !Fonts3 (not a direc
tory). Andrew Ferguson, London.
5.10
Å   ArcFS and sticky backdrops Ö I have a backdrop application on my
machine with all the sprites for the various applications held in an
archive in order to save disc space. In order that the sprites can be
seen, in theory they should be de-archived first. Thanks to my son,
Neil, I have the following set of ArcFS commands in the !Run file of my
!Boot application on the hard disc.
5.10
RMEnsure ArcFS 0 RMLoad System: Modules.ArcFSMod
5.10
RMEnsure ArcFS 0 Error I cannot find the module
5.10
OpenArchive <Boot$Dir>.SpriteLib Sprites
5.10
IconSprites ArcFS#Sprites:$. !Sprites
5.10
CloseArchive Sprites
5.10
C Walker, Wymondham.
5.10
Å   Elite Commanders Ö On this monthæs program disc, there is a program
which allows you to edit Elite commander files. There are also three
commander files with missions to accomplish. S Edwards, StourbridgeááA
5.10
5.10

Vector Hints Ö not in the manual!
5.10
If the paths rotate the wrong way, you get...
5.10
5.10
If the paths rotate the örightò way, you get...
5.10
5.10
If the paths originate at the same point, you get...
5.10
5.10
Remember, always have the same number of points in the paths. The
interpolation in the first example was without reversing or flipping
either of the paths.
5.10
5.10
The paper margins are shown on the main window and the printer setup
menu is used to deselect those pages you donæt need.
5.10
The Eppler profile was öplottedò on an A0 page. The paper margins shown
are A4 size.
5.10

5.10
5.10



Impression Hints & Tips
5.10
Å   Mailmerge in Impression: So it seems that there are no tips like old
tips (Archive 3.9 p20). I claim that Charles Moir learned the trick he
uses from me! Just one point to add, though. You have a choice between
linking frames on a master page and not linking. If you link, the text
flows through the frames on a page and then on to the first frame of the
next page. This is probably convenient for small mailing lists without
use of a database. If you do not link frames, text flows from page to
page within the homologous frame. I recently helped to run a biggish
scientific meeting which involved mail shots to about a thousand
potential delegates and a full feedback of booking information to about
450. The database resided on a Mac, the most widely-used computer in the
lab, and an output file was generated in <Tab> separated format, ported
to a DOS disk, then to PipeDream. Individual columns (fields) or groups
of columns were then extracted, linefeeds replaced by
5.10
s, and the fields dropped into the right frames of the first page.
Perfect registration was retained: the last personæs details did belong
to him! All I had to do was to edit some of the less wise entries in the
öcommentsò field of the database, which might have been taken as casting
aspersions on the intelligence, rationality and financial or moral
rectitude of some the participants! This method obviates the need to
generate a report format for your database. You just extract the data
you want for each of your frames and drop it in. Some fields get used
twice, such as parts of names, once for the address (lined up with an
envelope window), and once for the Dear... line.
5.10
We also produced sheets of individualised meal tickets. The purpose here
was to ensure that none of the three eating places got all the dele
gates. We operated a öswap-shopò but needed to know who was swopping
with whom. Named tickets solved this. In this case, I extracted the
names once and dropped then into the first (unlinked) frame. To make a
copy in the next frame (╫450), <Ctrl-T> to mark all the text in the
frame, 450 pages deep, <Ctrl-C> to copy it and then <Ctrl-V> to paste it
into each frame. The printer who perforated the sheets was quite
impressed by the product: he had never seen the like. He certainly had
no idea how easy it was (save for feeding 450 sheets of card into the
laser printer).á Mike Hobart, Cambridge.
5.10
Image setting Ö Another firm which does image setting is Stylus
Publications Bureau of 98 Wilberforce Road, Finsbury Park, London N4
2SR. They also do colour slides and CibaChrom prints and overheads from
Draw and Impression. However, they covered so much of their literature
with gold leaf that I wonder if they are still trading!á Mike Hobart,
Cambridge.
5.10

Hints and Tips
5.11
Å   A5000 hard disc replacement Ö One drawback with the A5000 is that the
40M hard disc quickly fills up. Being in this position, I decided to
replace mine with a larger one.
5.11
Researching prices, I found that IDE drives bought direct from suppliers
advertising in magazines such as Personal Computer World are much
cheaper than the same drives advertised in the specialist Acorn
magazines. Would any IDE drive work? A friend told me that Seagate IDE
drives did not work correctly on A5000s but Connor (as already fitted to
my A5000) and Maxtor (as fitted to another A5000 I know of) should be
OK, as well as Quantum. Another friend recently bought and fitted an NEC
drive to his A5000.
5.11
I bought a 120M cached Quantum drive (the GM120AT). The drive, from SMC
who advertise in PCW, arrived the day after I ordered it.
5.11
The fitting was extremely simple. After a backup and power off I removed
the cables, undid the four screws under the old drive (it is necessary
to remove all the drive cables and lift out the metal bracket to which
the drives are fastened) to release it and slotted in the new one Ö no
problems! The drive was already low-level formatted and, although the
hard disc formatter supplied with RISC-OS 3 didnæt recognise the disc
shape, I just selected ÉInitialiseæ and that was it. The drive worked a
few seconds after switching on.
5.11
In use, the drive feels very fast. I have measured a data transfer rate
of 1060k/sec, compared to 800k/sec for the original drive and an average
access time of 7ms(!) as compared to 18ms.
5.11
Similar drives advertised specifically for the A5000 in the Acorn press
are ú50¡ú100 more. Some of these include splitter cables, allowing the
old drive to remain (there are already mounting holes for a second drive
on the A5000, drilled in the case below the floppy disc drive). I intend
to make my own in the next few days Ö it will cost about ú10.
5.11
So I would recommend anyone wishing to upgrade their A5000æs internal
disc drive to do it themselves. Just obey the following rules:
5.11
ÖááShop around for the best deal in the general computer and PC press.
5.11
ÖááBuy a low profile 3╜ö AT IDE drive made by Quantum, Conner, Maxtor or
NEC.
5.11
ÖááMake a backup of your old hard disc before commencing the changeover.
5.11
ÖááUse the RISC-OS 3 hard disc formatter to initialise the new disc, no
need to format.
5.11
ÖááIf you want to use both drives, Maplin Electronics sell everything
you need to make the splitter cables.
5.11
Perhaps a list of known A5000-friendly IDE drives could be compiled?á
Seßn Kelly, Leighton Buzzard
5.11
Å   Acorn SCSI card Ö If you buy the CDFS/FSCSI upgrade for the Acorn SCSI
card, there is a link change to be made on the AKA31 version of the card
but if you have one of the older AKA30 cards, it is slightly more
complicated.
5.11
The upgrade consists of putting a 27512 EPROM in place of the existing
27256 EPROM. To enable the extra address lines, hardware modifications
are needed. Links 1, 3, 4 and 5 remain unchanged but link LK2 was open
and has to be closed and link LK12 was closed and has to be opened. On
the AKA31 boards, these changes can be made by moving a link but on the
AKA31, this will involve cutting a track on LK12 and soldering a link on
LK2. This should not be attempted unless you are competent to make such
a modification and it will, in any case, invalidate the warranty on the
board. Acorn dealers should do the modification for you although there
may be a charge unless you buy the upgrade from them. Tudor Jones,
Barnet.
5.11
Å   Automatic kerning and RISC-OS 3 Ö The font manager has this facility.
Currently it is only available with the standard ROM fonts (Trinity,
etc.). Presumably, EFF will update their fonts to include kerning pairs.
To use auto-kerning, simply set bit 9 of R2 in all calls to SYS
öFont_Paintò.
5.11
10 REM >KernDemo
5.11
20 REM Example of automatic kerning
5.11
30 REM For RISC-OS 3 ROM fonts only
5.11
40 MODE 15:OFF
5.11
50 SYS öColourTrans_SetFontColoursò,0,0,
5.11
&F0F00000,14
5.11
60 SYS öFont_FindFontò,,öTrinity. Mediumò,50*16,50*16 TO hdl%
5.11
70 SYS öFont_SetFontò,hdl%
5.11
80 REM Kerning off first
5.11
90 SYS öFont_Paintò,,öWAWA no
5.11
kerning here!ö,%0000010000,10,500
5.11
100 REM Kerning on now
5.11
110 REM Set bit 9 in R2
5.11
120 SYS öFont_Paintò,,öWAWA this is kerned.ò,%1000010000,10,300
5.11
130 SYSöFont_LoseFontò,hdl%
5.11
The ease with which this can be done leads me to wonder why CC havenæt
provided it as an option in Impression.
5.11
To rotate fonts, set bit seven of R2 in öFont_ Paintò and pass the (draw
style) transformation matrix in R7. Note that old style calls to
öFont_StringWidthò, etc donæt take account of kerning or transformation.
A new SWI öFont_ ScanStringò is used to do this. Rob Davison, New
Zealand
5.11
Å   Basic 1.05 Bug Ö A really annoying bug exists in all versions of Basic
except the floating point version supplied on the RISC-OS 3 application
discs.
5.11
Consider the following two statements (type them in if you feel like
it.)
5.11
a=210
5.11
b=2.10*100
5.11
These two variables should hold the same value. They seem to be the
same, as you can check with:
5.11
PRINT a,b
5.11
IF a=b PRINT öSAMEò
5.11
etc.
5.11
If you have RISC-OS 2 then both the above checks will say that they are
the same. RISC-OS 3 Basic 1.05 will not print ÉSAMEæ in the second test.
The reason for this can be revealed by trying the following:
5.11
PRINT INT(a),INT(b)
5.11
PRINT STR$(a),STR$(b)
5.11
These problems seem to occur because of the limited accuracy of floating
point numbers in Basic. My program stored times at centisecond resolu
tion internally and I wanted to scale these times to seconds for the
user. I did a usertime=centitime/100 but ran into problems when I tried
converting the usertime variable back into a string with STR$(usertime)
5.11
My solution (and Iæm not saying itæs a good one) is as follows:
5.11
A short ARM code routine intercepts the WRCHV vector and stores
characters printed in a buffer. The routine is linked in just before a
PRINT realvar statement and killed off just afterwards. You can then
extract the string from the buffer via normal means. An example program
follows:
5.11
10 REM >string
5.11
20 REM provides a STR$( function
5.11
25 REM that avoids some floating
5.11
30 REM point problems in Basic
5.11
40 REM By Rob Davison, May 1992
5.11
50 REM Public Domain
5.11
60 REM
5.11
70 PROCassy
5.11
80 PRINT öFirst the old way -ò
5.11
90 PRINT STR$(2.10*100)
5.11
100 PRINT öShould be ò;FNstr(2.10 *100)
5.11
110 PRINTæöAnother exampleò
5.11
120 PRINT STR$(0.6)
5.11
130 PRINT öShould be ò;FNstr(0.6)
5.11
140 PRINTæöBye now.ò
5.11
150 END
5.11
160 DEFPROCassy
5.11
170 DIM code% &100
5.11
180 REM æpossyæ is a buffer. Can be scratch space but MUST
5.11
 be big enough.
5.11
190 DIM possy &100
5.11
200 FOR opt=0 TO 2 STEP2
5.11
210 P%=code%
5.11
220 [OPT opt
5.11
230 .intercept
5.11
240 STMFD R13!,{r0-r3 }
5.11
250 LDR R1,posaddr
5.11
260 STRB R0,[R1]
5.11
270 ADD R1,R1,#1
5.11
280 STR R1,posaddr
5.11
290 LDMFD R13!,{r0-r3 ,PC}
5.11
300 .posaddr EQUD possy
5.11
310 ]
5.11
320 NEXT
5.11
330 ENDPROC
5.11
340 REM this is the string function
5.11
350 DEFFNstr(number)
5.11
360 LOCAL ERROR
5.11
370 ON ERROR LOCAL SYS öXOS_Releaseò ,3,intercept,0:REPORT:PRINT ERL:END
5.11
380 !posaddr=possy:REM reset pointer to start of buffer
5.11
390 SYS öXOS_Claimò,3,intercept,0 :REM claim the vector
5.11
400  PRINT number
5.11
410 SYS öXOS_Releaseò,3,intercept,0 :REM and release it immediately
5.11
420 REM Extract the string and get rid of leading/trailing rubbish
5.11
430 str$=$possy:WHILE LEFT$(str$,1)= CHR$32:str$=RIGHT$(str$,
5.11
LEN(str$)-1):ENDWHILE
5.11
440 WHILE ASC(RIGHT$(str$,1))<32: str$=LEFT$(str$,LEN(str$)-1)
5.11
:ENDWHILE
5.11
450 =str$
5.11
Rob Davison, New Zealand
5.11
Å   Basic V rounding errors Ö Last month, (Archive 5.10 p19) Mr E. Hollox
asked for help with the STR$ rounding. I hope that the following will
help solve his problem. No actual specifics were given on his problem,
so Iæve assumed that heæs working with monetary units (i.e. two decimal
places). This may not be correct in this instance, but will probably be
relevant to a large number of users and should provide Mr Hollox with a
starting point for the solution he wants.
5.11
In simple terms, the solution is to avoid decimals; to work only with
integer variables. At first glance this may sound like an odd solution
when a number of decimal places are required, but itæs not as strange as
you may think.
5.11
Firstly, the use of integer variables does not restrict you to the use
of integer numbers Ö not when you are making use of STR$, anyway.
5.11
Secondly, integers make for faster programs, as Iæm sure everyone
realises (unless they program an Atari ST in GFA or Atari Basic!)
5.11
Thirdly, and more importantly, integers are far more accurate than real
numbers due to the way in which they are stored. The method of storage
does have a negative effect, however, in that your range of numbers is
restricted Ö though the range available should be enough for most
peopleæs needs. Page 21 of the Archimedesæ BBC Basic Guide details this.
Remember that the more decimal places you require, the lower the range
becomes.
5.11
So, onto the solution to the problem...
5.11
Your Érealæ number must be stored as an integer 100 (for 2 dp users)
times as big. Whenever any output is required, a routine must be used to
convert it to a string and insert a decimal point at the correct place.
For inputting, the reverse is required; the decimal point must be
removed.
5.11
The function FN_Int_To_Str carries out the decimalisation of your
integer number:
5.11
DEF FN_Int_To_Str(Int%)
5.11
LOCAL Real$
5.11
Int%=ABS(Int%)
5.11
IF Int%<10 THEN Real$=
5.11
ö      00ò+STR$(Int%)
5.11
IF Int%>=10 AND Int%<100 THEN Real$=ö      0ò+STR$(Int%)
5.11
IF Int%>=100 THEN Real$=RIGHT$
5.11
(ö        ò+STR$(Int%),9)
5.11
Real$=LEFT$(Real$,7)+ö.ò+
5.11
RIGHT$(Real$,2)
5.11
=Real$
5.11
You must call the function with string$=FN_Int_ To_Str(number%) where
string$ is your variable to hold the decimalised string and number% is
your variable holding the stored number. The routine returns the number
as a string with two decimal places, and right justified (in a ten
character field).
5.11
The minus symbol ruins the simplicity of the routine, so an absolute
value is taken of the number. Minus numbers arenæt difficult to cope
with but, as they werenæt part of the problem....
5.11
The function works by converting the integer number to a string and then
adding spaces to the left in order to right align it. This is done by
the three IF statements and, possibly, is the more complex part of the
routine.
5.11
In the first case, the number is lower than ten (i.e. 0 to 9) so the
final figure will be of the form öáááááá0.0xò Ö hence six spaces and two
zeros are added.
5.11
In the second case, the number is in the range 10 to 99, so the figure
will be ö      0.xxò Ö six spaces and one zero are added.
5.11
In the third case, the number is over 100 (over 1.00). In this case,
rather than add the correct number of spaces for its size (6 for 100 to
999, 5 for 1000 to 9999, etc.) we add the maximum required and truncate
the resulting string to its rightmost nine characters.
5.11
The result, in all three cases, is a right aligned integer number in a
nine character string.
5.11
Then we have the easy bit. The first seven characters of the string are
taken, a decimal point added, then the last two digits Ö problem solved.
5.11
The reverse function is even simpler:
5.11
DEF FN_Str_To_Int(Real$)
5.11
LOCAL Int%
5.11
Real$=FN_FormatNumber(Real$)
5.11
Int%=VAL(LEFT$(Real$,7))*100+
5.11
VAL(RIGHT$(Real$,2))
5.11
=Int%
5.11
This function is called with number%=FN_Str_ To_Int(string$) where
string$ is your variable containing the string and number% is the
variable that will contain the integer number.
5.11
The first thing the function does is to pass the string to another
function in order to ensure it is of the correct format before convert
ing it to a number. This is dealt with below.
5.11
The function then calculates the integer part of the number (positions 1
to 7 within the string), multiplies this by 100, and adds the fractional
part of the number (positions 9 to 10 Ö after the decimal point.) The
result, an integer number 100 times the real number, is returned to the
calling routine.
5.11
I could have simply used Int%=VAL(Real$)*100, making the routine much
simpler. Then the inaccuracy of real numbers is risked once more. In
between Real$ and Int%, the number is stored as real until it is
multiplied by 100 and put in the integer variable. The method Iæve used
circumvents this risk, but introduces another factor. The format of the
number within the string must be correct. For the above conversion to
work, this must be a two decimal place number, with the decimal point as
the eighth character of the string. This is where the third formula
comes in:-
5.11
DEF FN_FormatNumber(Number$)
5.11
LOCAL Length%,Point%
5.11
Length%=LEN(Number$)
5.11
Point%=INSTR(Number$,ö.ò)
5.11
IF (Point%=Length%-1) AND
5.11
(Point%>0) THEN Number$=Number$+ö0ò
5.11
IF (Point%=Length%) AND (Point%>0) THEN Number$=Number$+ö00ò
5.11
IF Length%=0 THEN Number$=ö0ò
5.11
IF Point%=0 THEN Number$=Number$+ ö.00ò
5.11
IF Point%=1 THEN Number$=ö0ò+ Number$
5.11
Number$=RIGHT$(ö       ò+Number$ ,10)
5.11
=Number$
5.11
This routine looks far more complicated than it actually is. The second
routine, above, passes its Real$ to this function which formats it to
two decimal places and ensures that the final string is 10 characters
long.
5.11
In this sense, it is a routine that can be used independently of the
other two; by calling it with New$=FN_FormatNumber(Old$) where Old$ is
the unformatted number and New$ is the result.
5.11
It works by determining first the length of the string, then the
position of the decimal point within the string. With a two decimal
place number, the position of the point would be 2 less than the length
of the string.
5.11
The first IF statement adds a single zero if the position of the point
is 1 less than the stringæs length but only if the decimal pointæs
position is larger than zero Ö in which case the number is an integer
and would have been accidentally multiplied by ten.
5.11
The second IF adds a double zero if the point is at the end of the
string. This is not done if the position of the point is zero, in which
case the string is null and represents nothing.
5.11
The third makes the string equal to ö0ò if it is found to be null.
5.11
The fourth adds ö.00ò to the end of the string if there is no decimal
point Ö i.e. if the number is an integer.
5.11
The combination of the third and fourth IFæs result in the null string
(öò) becoming ö0.00ò
5.11
The fifth IF adds a zero to the string if the decimal point is at the
very beginning Ö if the number is lower than one and is lacking the
leading zero.
5.11
Finally, before returning the result, a number of spaces are added to
the left of the number which is then truncated to the rightmost ten
characters. Hey presto, a nicely formatted number.
5.11
The three routines are on the enclosed disk, in the form of a procedure
library Ö details of how to use such are on page 92 of the BBC Basic
Guide.
5.11
Though the routines, as given, are for numbers with two decimal places Ö
and with a field width of ten Ö it shouldnæt be too difficult to alter
them for other requirements. Unfortunately, the higher the number of
decimal places, the more (and more complicated) IFæs are required. It
shouldnæt be too difficult to write routines that accept the number for
conversion, together with the number of decimal places and the field
width but, as I said before, this was just intended to provide Mr Hollox
with a starting point for his solution. Vince Hudd, Soft Rock Software.
5.11
Å   Bible Master with RISC-OS 3 Ö Having found a list of verses or cross
references, it is possible to import the text into an Archimedes word
processing (or DTP) package.
5.11
(i) Load the PC text into !Edit and then
5.11
(ii) Use the wildcard search and replace option searching for %[ $x76-
xFF] (note that the square brackets start with a space) and replacing
with a space.
5.11
This will remove all the screen control characters and multiple spaces.
The resulting text can then be saved and/or loaded into most word
processors.  S Wright, Basingstoke
5.11
Å   Deskjet 500C and RISC-OS 3 Ö Recent contributors on the subject of the
HP Deskjet 500C have tended to concentrate on the best type of paper to
use. I will not attempt to further that debate, but rather recount my
efforts to produce envelopes to match the quality of their contents.
This turned out to be less straightforward than I had expected but I
eventually succeeded. Most of my printing is from Impression Junior, so
the following will apply to Impression II users and, although I am using
an A5000,  the RISC-OS 2  drivers are not crucially different.
5.11
Using the Alter Pages sub-menu in Junior, create a custom page the same
size as the envelope. A standard A4 envelope seems to be 218mm by 110mm.
Create a suitable frame for the name and address and save the file as
Éenvelopeæ. Load the !Printers application and create a custom page of
the same size, also called Éenvelopeæ. I have used margins of 10mm all
round which show up unambiguously in the Junior window. Click on <Save
Settings> in the page set-up menu and <Save Choices> from the main menu.
Go to the Éconfigureæ option from the printer control menu, select the
new Éenvelopeæ option and click on OK. The printer margins will now be
visible in the Junior window. Insert an envelope face down in the out-
tray of the printer, sliding it into the guide slots provided and
keeping the right hand edge against the edge of the tray. At this point,
the HP manual is misleading. Do NOT press the envelope button on the
printer. Simply press <Print> on the computer and then <Return>. The
envelope will now be properly printed. If the envelope button on the
printer has been pressed, the envelope will be passed disdainfully
through the printer and the address will appear on the next sheet of
paper from the in-tray.
5.11
In the prison where I work, I have recently been involved in running an
Anger Control Programme which required a couple of dozen overhead
projector transparencies. These can be produced to a high standard on
the 500C and, of course, in full colour. The transparencies used must be
designed for use with inkjet printers since they require a special
material to absorb the ink. There is, however, one major problem Ö the
appropriate material is rather expensive. Hewlett Packardæs own
transparencies cost about ú75 inc. VAT for a box of 100. For me, this is
too many and far too much money. Eventually, I found that NOBO produce a
box of 50 for a slightly lower price per transparency and these should
be available from a good office supplies firm. The inadequate black
produced by the colour cartridge on the 500C is particularly noticeable
on an OHP and I found that a more satisfactory result could be obtained
by printing each transparency twice; once for black and once for the
coloured areas. Registration seems not to be a problem for the bold text
and graphics which are the norm for this kind of presentation. This
technique also saved an awful lot of expensive, coloured ink.
5.11
Incidentally, the UNDO facility on RISC-OS3 !Draw(or in !DrawPlus) was a
considerable help in creating the colour Éseparationsæ for this process.
I could delete either the black or the coloured areas of the image
before printing and restore them by pressing <F8>.  A Trout, Lancs.
5.11
Å   Deskjet 500 DIP switches Ö For those just buying Deskjet 500 printers,
it may be worth knowing that the default setting of the DIP switches is
not too helpful. Try the following settings instead...
5.11
           Bank A                         Bank B
5.11
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8   1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5.11
»  »  ¡  ¡  »  ¡  »  ¡áá      »  ¡  »  »  »  »  »
5.11
This seems to work OK Ö it sets things like skip-over-perforation OFF
and A4 paper instead of some US size.á Steve Hutchinson, Gloucester.
5.11
Å   Dragging solid sprites Ö RISC-OS 3 has, built in, the ability to solid
drag sprites from save dialog boxes. The solid drag option is stored in
CMOS in a Éhiddenæ location on bit 1 of byte 28. The following commands
will set bit 1 without disturbing anything else in this byte.
5.11
*Basic
5.11
SYS öOS_Byteò,161,28 TO ,,v%
5.11
v%=v% OR %10
5.11
SYS öOS_Byteò,162,28,v%
5.11
Now try saving a file from Draw/Edit/Paint, etc.
5.11
(Comparing the A5000 to an A440/1+30Mhz ARM3, the 440 runs at about the
same speed as the A5000 in mode 12, but at about 1/3 of the speed in
mode 28.)  Rob Davison, New Zealand
5.11
Å   Personalised application templates Ö Many users may not have realised
that it is often possible to alter the windows and templates used by an
application. Most programmers use the FormEd application or one of its
derivatives to create a Template file which contains the window
definitions used by the program and this can often be seen in the
application directory normally called, not surprisingly, Templates.
5.11
If you have a copy of FormEd, which is supplied with all Acornæs
compilers but is also available from most PD libraries (Shareware Disc
20, Ed), you can load these templates and alter them to suit your own
ideas and preferences. What you must not do is change the number of any
of the icons or the program wonæt behave properly. You must also be
careful if you create any extra icons that they donæt overlay any
existing button icons since the Wimp doesnæt report clicks on icons
which are hidden behind others with a higher number.
5.11
As an illustration, I have included a set of modified windows for Edit.
Since some of these now use sprites there is also a sprite file and you
must insert a line to load these in the !Run file or the windows will
look rather bare. For simplicity, I have included a !Run file with the
extra line in it.
5.11
Rename your existing !Run and Templates files something else (in case
you donæt like mine) and copy the files !Run, Templates and sprites2
into the !Edit application directory. Now when you run Edit the new
windows will be used.
5.11
Note that the main text window is also changed. When Edit opens a new
file the main text window opens in whatever form the template was
created. Just load the Templates file into FormEd and drag the text
window around the screen and resize it until you are satisfied. Then
save the templates. Next time you open an Edit window, that is the size
and position it will assume.
5.11
I donæt claim that these examples are particularly brilliant but they
are certainly an improvement on the original and will help to show how
you can customise standard programs. David Holden, Sydenham.
5.11
Å   Pinboard problems Ö Several people (well, at least two anyway!) appear
to have had problems with Pinboard running under RISC-OS 3. It would
seem that the Pinboard module is automatically UNPLUGged following an
exit from the desktop. One solution involves using an alias to re-
initialise the Pinboard. If you have a desktop !Boot file then, before
the Pinboard command (if there is one), insert something like the
following:
5.11
Set Alias$NewDesktop %RMreinit Pinboard |m %Desktop |m
5.11
Obviously, in place of NewDesktop you can use any name that you like
(note that abbreviations still work so, in this case, you could use New.
to carry this out.)  If you wish to re-run the !Boot file on exiting
from command line mode, add -F !Boot after the %Desktop command.  If you
do not have a desktop !Boot file, use the Desktop Boot function from the
Acorn menu on the iconbar.
5.11
From now on, to get back from the command line (after using the Exit
option), type New.  (or your appropriate alias) rather than Desktop.
5.11
Simon Moy, Norwich Computer Services.
5.11
Å   Truncated filenames and RISC-OS 3 Ö It took me a long time to discover
that you type *Configure Truncate off  to stop the O.S. automatically
truncating filenames when saving and therefore (possibly) overwriting an
old version of a file which I wanted to keep!ááA
5.11

Hints and Tips
5.12
Å   Free Space Ö (Ref to Archive 5.11 p21) Ö The call to check the amount
of free space on a disc is ADFS_FreeSpace. On entry, R0 points to the
disc specifier and on exit R0 contains the free space and R1 contains
the size of the largest object that can be created. E.g.
5.12
SYSöADFS_FreeSpaceò,ö:0ò to free%,largest%
5.12
Change the ADFS to RamFS, SCSIFS or whatever youære using.
5.12
Å   Free space on hard discs Ö For some time I had been concerned by the
apparent discrepancy between the figures returned by COUNT and FREE for
the space used by files on my SCSI discs. I was aware that COUNT only
counts the actual files and that FREE counts all the space used but I
still felt uneasy and my discs seemed to fill up alarmingly quickly.
5.12
ADFS floppies use 2k for every directory and there is an initial 4k
overhead for the map on E format discs. My impression was that the same
amount of space would be used for each directory in all Filecore
systems, including SCSI, but that the map would take more space
depending on the size of the disc.
5.12
So the first thing I did was to estimate the number of directories on my
120M disc. I make full use of the directory structure to organise my
data, not to any great depth but with some width. RISC-OS encourages
this and, of course, applications are directories too. I reckoned there
were well over 1000 directories on the disc, but at 2k per directory,
this did not account for the difference.
5.12
With a little experiment of adding a directory and looking for the
change in free space, I found that a directory was taking a staggering
28k! This was where the space was going, but why?
5.12
My Oak SCSI card is managed by their SCSIForm program which allows some
flexibility in defining the format of the disc. Having backed-up, I did
some experimenting with the parameters.
5.12
I changed the sector size, but the minimum value for the 120M disc was
512 bytes and, for a 42M removable was 256 bytes. I imagine the lowest
possible value of 128 bytes is only for small discs. Anyway, the changes
I made had only very small effects on space or disc transfer times. The
default is 512 bytes per sector, so I left it at that.
5.12
Next I changed the file allocation size. This defaults to 2k on the
large disc and 1k on the other. The minimum is 256 bytes. The larger
values are chosen, I believe, to speed up transfer times to large files
on larger discs. I did not think this parameter would have an effect on
the structure, but look at the table below. The results were impressive.
For a loss of transfer time of less than 5% I was gaining a saving on
structure of 7 times! There were similar results for the smaller disc.
5.12
   File Allocæn  (bytes)   2048
   1024   512   256
5.12
   Map Space (k)   57   47
   68.5   124
5.12
   Diræy Space  (k each)   28   15
   7.5   4
5.12
   Mode 0   (k/sec)   1959   1864
   1864   1864
5.12
   Mode 21  (k/sec)   994   955
   955   955
5.12
I have not delved any further into why more than 2k per directory is
taken in SCSI but the figures suggest 14 blocks are used: 13 are <256
bytes and the other is 512-768 bytes.
5.12
When I settled on a file allocation size of 256 bytes, I recovered about
30M of extra space on the larger disc Ö about ú200 worth, perhaps. Some
of this saving comes from taking much less space for the multitude of
small !Run,!Boot and !Sprites files.
5.12
The only other make of SCSI of card I have access to is a Cumana one in
school, running in a fileserver for 600 users. This too has 1000+
directories. The Cumana SCSIManager program only offers formatting with
default values, so I changed the format using my Oak card and made
similar impressive savings. The disc runs happily with the Cumana card,
as you would expect, but will not dismount. This is no penalty with
self-parking heads.
5.12
I then found an old ADFS hard drive and did the same check, finding that
a new directory takes 12k. RAMFS takes a straight 2k. I would be
interested to know if the same problem applies to IDE discs and what
formatting is possible with other SCSI cards.  Steve Drain, Portland.ááA
5.12




Impression Hints & Tips
5.12
àÅ   Problems with version 2.17 Ö If you are having problems with version
2.17 Ö such as the machine hanging up when you select large areas of
text Ö donæt blame Impression! Basically, what is happening is that CC
have implemented message-passing via the Wimp for their thesaurus and
these messages are rather large. This is a perfectly valid thing to do
under Acornæs RISC-OS programming guidelines but not all filing systems
have been written to allow for such large messages and they end up over-
writing areas of memory Ö hence the crashes. Filing system versions
known to be a problem are:
5.12
   Oak SCSI version 1.11
5.12
   Ian Copestake IDE version 1.13,
5.12
   Serial Port IDE version 1.01, March æ91
5.12
CC say... öIf your Archimedes gives problems, contact your Acorn
supplier or the appropriate company. Please do not contact Computer
Concepts Ö these problems are not caused by Impression but by the filing
system.ò
5.12
The Oak SCSI filer 1.11 has been replaced by version 1.16 but this Énewæ
version (actually two years old!) is available through Archive as an
upgrade for ú12 inc VAT.
5.12
The ICS filer 1.13 can be swapped for version 1.14 as a free EPROM
exchange from ICS. They also have a completely re-written IDE filer
(version 2) which is available from them for ú15 +VAT. The customer
returns the old EPROM afterwards.
5.12
The Serial Port filer 1.01 can be replaced with 1.02 as a free upgrade Ö
in this case, just send the floppy disc back to The Serial Port and they
will replace it.
5.12
Å Using borders Ö From David Wooldridge comes one of those tips that is
obvious to the initiated but might be new to some users. When choosing a
border in the Alter Frame window (view mode), donæt forget you can see
the various borders by pointing at the white border in the window and
pressing menu. A border picker window opens, allowing you to select from
all the available borders. This tip is in the manual but, as we all
know, not everyone reads manuals Ö own up, please, if this is new to
you! (Me for one! Ed.)
5.12



The Readers Write!
5.12
Å Laser Jet printing with RISC-OS3 Ö Gerald Fitton (of Pipeline fame!)
has experienced a problem when using RISC-OS 3, !Printers, Laser Jet II
and Impression. He has found that documents in the portrait format print
7 mm out of position on the vertical axis and are offset 5mm to the
right. This occurs even when the page borders are set to 0 mm. If he
increases the latter figure, the print out is further out of position.
As Gerald says, ÉWhat I need is a minus value for my borders. Help!æ Has
anyone else come across this particular problem?
5.12
Å Keeping track of Draw and Sprite files Ö In Archive 5.9 p37 Steve
Hutchinson was asking advice on keeping track of his Draw and sprite
files and was recommended two viewing applications. There is also an
easy hardcopy method namely !PicList which was on the Acorn User October
1991 disc after being upgraded from the May version. The application
makes a set of sprite öpagesò containing any Draw or sprite pictures
that are dropped into it. The pictures are displayed in a grid and are
labelled with their name/path above them. The application is easy to use
from the iconbar having options to:
5.12
Å   Set up the size of the öpageò (defaults to print size if a driver is
loaded),
5.12
Å   Set the number of columns and rows required Ö depending on the
required detail of each picture,
5.12
Å   Set the screen mode for the resultant öpagesò,
5.12
Å   Choose the path/name format to name each picture.
5.12
You can drop directories onto the icon and several pages are generated.
The pages can be stepped through to view and saved to make a hardcopy of
each page. Alan Wilburn, Hartlepool.
5.12
Å Auto destruct! Ö In the Hints and Tips section of the June edition of
Archive, there was a mention of possible problems with the auto-save
facility of Impression under the title öAuto-destruct!ò. Version 2.16
(and 2.17) of Impression does not appear to be as dangerous in this
respect. If the auto-save facility is turned on but with the öWith
promptò switch left off, a prompt will still appear on-screen before the
first time the document is auto-saved.
5.12
This also occurs the first time the document is auto-saved after it has
been reloaded. It is mentioned in the Impression 2.15 release notes on
pages 1 and 3.
5.12
Still on the subject of Impression, I have two problems that readers of
Archive may be interested in:
5.12
Spelling checker Ö If you check and replace a misspelled word by using
<Ctrl-W> to invoke the spelling checker, this appears to work correctly
except that if you have typed nothing after the word, it also has the
effect of <Ctrl-B> and returns you to basestyle. Obviously the solution
is to always type at least a space after the word before using <Ctrl-W>.
5.12
PrintBJ (the extension module to print draft text) Ö This makes a
reasonable attempt at interpreting styles as far as different fonts and
font sizes are concerned but seems unable to cope with rulers or effects
that control the position of the text on the page. Tabs it gets
completely wrong, right aligned text is centred, centred text is centred
but using a page width about three quarters of the actual width. This is
using the Canon BJ-10e. I have phoned Computer Concepts who suggested I
wrote enclosing example documents both printed and on disc. This I did
several months ago and have not received a reply. Has anyone else
experienced these problems or indeed found a solution? Nick Edgar,
Doncaster.
5.12
I can understand Nickæs problems and only print out in graphics format.
My method of working for proofing documents is always to print at a
lower resolution Ö and hence achieve a quicker print out. Users of the
Deskjet 500 have the option of using the draft mode on the printer for
this purpose and leaving the resolution set on the driver unchanged.