Archive Magazine 1997/ARCHIVE_97.iso/text/hints/vol_10/issue_08

Text File | 1997-08-11 | 13KB | 278 lines

Hints and Tips
10.8
ANT/StrongED Éfeatureæ Ö If you view an email in Marcel by using the
Éload into editoræ icon, and then try to drag and drop some (or all)
of the text from StrongED to another application, it works fine Ö but
only once! If you try it a second time, it fails with öThis item is
locked to stop changes being made to itò from StrongED. Thereafter,
all subsequent attempts drag and drop from StrongED to any other
application will fail with the same error, irrespective of whether
Marcel is involved.
10.8
I finally discovered the reason for this. When you do a Éload into
editoræ, Marcel creates a Élockedæ file Ö so if you try to edit it,
StrongED tells you öText is write protectedò. (Edit, by the way,
ignores the fact that the file is Élockedæ and lets you edit it
anyway!)
10.8
Now, if you try to do a drag and drop from a write-protected file,
StrongED lets you do it but it creates a temporary ÉScrapFileæ in the
scrap directory. Then, when it has finished dragging and dropping, it
cannot delete this ScrapFile because it is locked, so it is a
permanent resident in your scrap directory!
10.8
The only answer seems to be öDonæt use StrongED to drag and drop from
Marcelæs email viewerò. Instead, use the ösave emailò icon, drag the
file to the iconbar, and then drag and drop the bit of text you want
over to the target application. Guttorm Vik has kindly agreed to
change the way StrongED operates in order to avoid this problem.
10.8
Ed. <[e-mail]>
10.8
(Have you sent Guttorm your ú10 registration yet?!?!?! Thereæs no
excuse Ö here are the details.)
10.8
ARM multiply Ö In Archive 10.5 p40, Mark Slatter was asking about
information on the multiply instruction on the StrongARM. I have
written an ARM mnemonic database for the Psion/Pocket Book,áwhich may
be of use to him. It can be found onáHensa under the RISCáOS section,
in directory e/e159, or on my home page at www.bleep.demon. co.uk. If
there is interest, I could probably convert it to a common database
format, i.e. CSV or TSV. Iáhope this is useful.
10.8
Kevin Moore <[e-mail]>
10.8
Artworks files in Impression Ö There is a problem with embedding
Artworks files in Impression documents. If the Artworks file contains
rotated Artworks text, Impression doesnæt always display it. After
much head scratching, I tracked this down to a bug in the Impression
Run file: rotated text in Artworks needs the CC FontDraw module which
is supplied with Impression but not loaded until Artworks is loaded.
10.8
To fix Impression Publisher Plus, load its !Run file into Edit, and
add the line:
10.8
RMensure FontDraw 1.07 RMLoad <Impress
10.8
 ionPublisherPlus$Resources>.RMStore .FontDraw
10.8
(note that this should all be on one line). If you have Publisher or
Style, you will need to change the directory name as appropriate (i.
e. use ImpressionStyle$Resources instead).
10.8
Paul Skirrow, Octopus Systems <[e-mail]>
10.8
Buffer overflow Ö Iæve got an answer to Alex Cessfordæs Ovation
problem in the Help Column (10.7 p54). The error isnæt caused by
Ovation itself, but by the bit of RISC OS that generates commands
from the !Run Obey file. It happens if it tries to generate a command
line longer than 256 characters.
10.8
The problem line will contain something like:
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Run <Obey$Dir>.!RunImage %0
10.8
where %0 gets expanded into the name of the file to be loaded. If
Ovation Pro has something considerably more complicated than this,
and the file has a long path name (I expect Alexæs file is buried in
a very deep directory structure) this can happen, especially if
Ovation does something like my program, WinEd. It runs one of two
programs depending on whether itæs registered:
10.8
IfThere <WinEd$Dir>.User Then /<WinEd
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$Dir>.!RunImage 4096 %0 Else
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/<WinEd $Dir>.Register.!Run 4096 %0
10.8
which generates two copies of the file name within the command line.
Incidentally, the / is short for *Run and I provide my own version of
IfThere with WinEd for pre-Risc PCs.
10.8
If he runs the file from floppy, it has a much shorter path name, and
if Ovation is already loaded, a Wimp message is sent to it, bypassing
the above process. The message still places a limit on the path name
length, because a Wimp message can be no bigger than 256 bytes in
total. Thatæs never been a problem so far, but I wonder if this has
any connection with Acornæs reluctance to remove the 10 character
filename limit?
10.8
The DDEUtils module provided with Acorn C (and installing a StrongARM
should also automatically put a copy in System) will probably fix the
!Run problem because it contains a patch to allow longer command
lines Ö the C linker often needs very long commands to pass it a list
of files to link.
10.8
Tony Houghton <[e-mail]>
10.8
Creating neat screenshots Ö Your hint on this topic in Archive 10.7
p20 made me wonder if youæve come across !WindowRd. You load it,
position the pointer over the window to be screenshot and press both
shift keys. The result is confined to the window, lifted clear of the
background. It works too with those windows that disappear when the
mouse is moved and clicked away from them.
10.8
Itæs PD, so itæs freely distributable.
10.8
Jack Evans <[e-mail]>
10.8
Excellent, Jack, thanks for pointing that out. Iæll put a copy on the
monthly program disc. It was actually on the 9.11 program disc, but I
didnæt realise the significance of it then. Thanks too to Jason
Tribbeck for writing it in the first place! If any contributor to
Archive would like a copy, do let me know and Iæll happily send it to
you.
10.8
Ed. <[e-mail]>
10.8
Credit card numbers Ö If you really want to confuse the öinternet
credit card thiefò, simply place the credit card number in a
drawfile. If you just typed in the number, these figures would be
readable within the ASCII of the resulting file, but if you convert
the text to path (SelectÖ>Convert to path), it is totally unreadable
unless they have an Acorn machine! The resulting file is only about 6
or 8Kb, which is not an unreasonable overhead, and it can be halved
by !Squashæing it.
10.8
Martijn Claassen, Argos Computers <[e-mail]>
10.8
Hires monitor modefile Ö At a big computer fair, I found an offer I
couldnæt refuse: a three year old Sony VRT16-HA 17 inch monitor,
labelled Digital GDM 1661, guaranteed in working order but without
any documentation. I brought the wonderful beast home but had a hard
time taming it.
10.8
First problem: this monitor is fed by three coaxial red, green and
blue cables, but where do the sync signals enter? The official
solution is to impose both sync signals on the green video, but this
involves polarity inversion, and similar hanky-panky, that tends to
impair the video quality. However, at the back of the monitor (hidden
behind the hood) I discovered fully prepared entry points for the
separate H-sync and V¡sync signals. No mixing needed Ö just two extra
leads to the RiscPC video connector did the job.
10.8
Now the second problem arose: what line frequencies did this monitor
expect from my Acorn? Itæs definitely not a standard VGA signal Ö
nothing like it. It took a lot of experimentation to find out that
this beauty takes no less than 67,000 lines per second Ö and thatæs
an awful lot more than regular multisyncs need. However, MakeModes
helped me out and, in due course, I had constructed a complete range
of modes, from 160╫256 right up to 1600╫1200. The lower resolutions
could be accomplished by Éoverscanningæ: each picture line is
followed by one or two empty lines, effectively lowering the scan
frequency from 68 to 34 or 23 kHz. The result is visible of course,
but quite acceptable since the picture is steady, not interleaved.
10.8
A more serious drawback comes from the continued high scanning speed.
A low resolution picture needs less memory, but this memory is
nevertheless scanned (in bursts) at top speed. With fast video RAM,
the maximum pixel rate for a RiscPC is 115 million per second, and
even StrongARM cannot improve on that. This means that hires 32-bit
colours can only be executed at low resolution modes: 400╫300 or less.
10.8
Above all, this just shows that the Acorn RiscPC is one of those very
rare machines that can cope with non-standard monitors like this
super-hi-res Sony/Digital beauty.
10.8
Anybody interested can give it a try Ö I have sent Paul the Modefile
to put on the monthly disc.
10.8
Paul Porcelijn <[e-mail]>
10.8
Magazine storage Ö Several readers have written in to say that Neat
Ideas Office Supplies (0800-500192, faxá0800-600192) do still have
some A5 magazine boxes. This is true as I bought some myself to try
them. If you want to buy some yourself, do, but I donæt think they
are suitable for selling through Archive. First of all, they are
frustratingly too wide to hold twelve magazines without them flopping
about, and too narrow to take twenty-four. Also, Neat Ideas only have
limited stocks left, and the manufacturer is not producing any more
unless he gets a large enough order to make it worthwhile.
10.8
Another possibility has been suggested by Mr R Drayton of
Loughborough Ö holders öideal for 12 magazinesò from Office World
(code 034-736). However, they cost ú2.99 +VAT each and he also warns
that you should check the quality of them. One had a faulty spring
clip and had to be returned. Office World are on 0800-500024 and
offer free next day nationwide delivery for orders over ú50 +VAT, but
they also have 50 stores around the country.
10.8
Ed.
10.8
StrongARM cache Ö The *Cache command has some undocumented options in
StrongARM RISCáOS 3.7 machines. The usual syntax is:
10.8
*Cache On | Off
10.8
As StrongARM users will be aware, turning off the cache to load
applications, can be a rather slow affair Ö but there is a compromise
solution! You can use any combination of the following switches after
the *Cache command to enable certain StrongARM features, and disable
all the others:
10.8
I Ö Enable instruction cache
10.8
D Ö Enable data cache
10.8
W Ö Enable write cache
10.8
For example, *Cache IWD would be identical to *Cache On, and *Cache
IW gives roughly ARM610 performance and allows most applications that
donæt like the StrongARM cache to load successfully.
10.8
Chris Coe <[e-mail]>
10.8
Zap colour Ö The colouring facility in Zap is one of its most
attractive features, although some people struggle to set the options
for the different modes. To set the options for a particular mode,
you first need to select the mode in the Options->Mode menu, and then
set the options you want to use for that mode, again using the
Options menu.
10.8
The most useful options are in the Options->Display menu which allows
you to set the colours and width for each mode.
10.8
When you have finished entering the options, put the mode back to
Text (to make it the default) and use the Options->Save Options menu
to save the new options for future use.
10.8
I have my Text mode set to give light blue text and my task window
set to give orange text, so I can immediately tell what kind of
window I am looking at. This can be very useful when there are lots
of open windows. You can also enable 74 character word-wrap for
email, and long lines for C code.
10.8
Paul Skirrow, Octopus Systems <[e-mail]>
10.8
Zip drives and PC cards Ö I have a little warning about Zip drives
and PC cards. Basically, do not attempt to access any Zip disc from
the PC card, then switch back to RISC OS and attempt to access it
from there, as it can cause all sorts of disc errors and data loss. I
had my first 100Mb loss a few weeks ago and it was extremely
frustrating. For absolute safety nowadays, I always obey the
following rules:
10.8
1. Dismount any Zip disc before running the !PC application. (This
ensures that any disc write caches are emptied and the data is
committed to the disc.)
10.8
2. Do not access the Zip drive from RISC OS while the PC card is
running. (You can still have the software loaded if you wish, but
even just reading from the Zip drive can cause big problems.)
10.8
3. Use the manual eject button immediately after exiting from the PC
card to dismount the Zip disc, then reinsert it so that RISC OS
recognizes any new data that you have stored onto it.
10.8
You could probably get away with less, given some experimentation,
but I will leave that to others, as my data is really too important
to risk on these things.
10.8
If your Zip disc does go wrong (and we are, of course, talking about
DOS formatted discs here), it is much better, in my experience, to
use Scandisc for DOS to recover the data rather than any other tool
(including Scandisc for Win 95).
10.8
Chris Coe <[e-mail]>
10.8