Archive Magazine 1997/ARCHIVE_97.iso/text/hints/vol_10/issue_12

Text File | 1997-08-11 | 8KB | 169 lines

Hints and Tips
10.12
2-D scrolling - (This is a hint that keeps resurfacing. If you know
about it, fine, but lots of people seem to miss out on it. Ed.) The
quickest means of scrolling a window is to use the scroll bars
(although, of course, you need to have the öInstant draggingò
selected in the Window Manager configuration), but what many people
donæt realise is that you can use <adjust> to scroll up/down and
left/right at the same time. So, just click and hold the adjust
button on either the vertical or the horizontal scroll bar and move
the mouse, and this will scroll the whole window in any direction you
like.
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Mohsen Alshayef, [e-mail]
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Archive CD-ROM - The Archive CD, contains the files of all the
Archive magazines, right back to Volume 4 Issue 5 - thatæs the good
news. The bad news (for some people) is that they are in Impression
format, but Ovation owners, donæt despair! First of all, the actual
words are there on the CD in text format, and you can search through
these using the text-search application provided on the CD.
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Also, and this is my main point, the Impression files are in
Édirectory formatæ. In other words, each magazine is not a single
file but a directory. So, shift-double-click on one and youæll see
something like:
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Then, in the CHAPTER2 directory you will find all the pictures that
go with the text. They are in Draw or Artworks format, the sprites
being embedded in drawfiles for some reason best known to the authors
of Impression. If you want to view the Artworks files, thereæs a
freeware Artworks file reader around.
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(Iæve put a copy of the Artworks reader on the 1997 Archive CD which
should be available shortly. Ed.)
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Elaine Kemp, Kings Norton
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Artworks speedy rotated text - Rotated text in Artworks files often
takes a long while to draw, whereas rotated text in Draw is often
much faster. The reason Draw whizzes along while Artworks ponders is
because Draw uses the standard font system and font cache while
Artworks uses its own FontDraw module. By default, the FontDraw cache
is quite small, so it must laboriously draw every character as though
it were drawing it for the first time. You can make it much faster by
using these two simple commands:
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*configure FDCharCache 96K
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*configure FDMetricCache 32K
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Of course, you can use larger values if you have a lot of memory, and
you should now find Artworks and Impression display rotated text much
faster.
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Paul Skirrow, Octopus Systems
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ÉFile openæ errors - The other day I was reluctantly forced to flick
through the RISC OS 3 manual and came across the *SHUT command. This
is nice and simple; it closes all those files which are Éopenæ on all
filing systems. Therefore, it solves the yucky ÉFile still open from
a previous operationæ error.
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Itæs a lot better than *BYE, or DISMOUNT from the iconbar filer menu,
since these shut down the directory window, meaning that you lose
sight of your file. *SHUT simply closes open files and lets you
access the file in question.
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Stewart Brookes, [e-mail]
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Thanks for that, Stewart. I used to use *SCSI then *CLOSE, not
realising that *SHUT works across all filing systems, instead of just
the current one. This is another of those Éobviousæ hints that are
only obvious if you are in the know. For people like me, they are
very helpful. Please keep them coming, folks! Ed.
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Fresco file downloading - When downloading a large file using Fresco,
it is easy to forget to have a directory ready to save it into.
Fresco pops up a save box but it disappears when you open a
directory, and some people resort to downloading the whole file again.
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If this save box disappears, just click in the URL line and press
<return> and it will re-appear without fetching the file again. Donæt
click on the reload button because that will re-fetch the file all
over again, making you wait.
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An even better way to download files is to shift-click on the link to
the file. This opens a save box immediately so you can tell it
wherever you want to put the file before it starts downloading.
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Paul Skirrow, Octopus Systems
10.12
Impression funny - (Well, not very funny!) I had real problems
editing the Puzzle Corner this month because each time I tried to
copy and paste it into a standard Archive file, it bombed Impression
totally and repeatably.
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Anyway, after some messing around I finally managed to track down the
problem. There were two MathGreek styles on the style list, and I
could see that the pasting of the text stopped (and Impression
bombed) at the first occurrence of MathGreek. So I saved the text
with styles (ctrl-f3), and you can see from the excerpt below where
the problem lies. (Iæve changed curly brackets to square.)
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This factorises as [öItalicò on](r [\178][\153]2[font
MathGreek]f[font] r+1) (r[\178]+ 2r[öMathGreekò on]
[\140][öMathGreekò off][öMathGreekò on][öSubscriptò on]f[öSubscriptò
off][öMathGreekò off]+1)[\160]=[\160]0 [öItalicò off], where etc...
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As you can see, the first time Colin used MathGreek, he used an
effect and thereafter he decided that he was going to use it a lot,
so he created a style, named öMathGreekò. What he was doing wasnæt
illegal, but Impression just couldnæt cope!
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I tried it myself on a new document and found that I could get a
similar effect. Impression didnæt bomb out but it certainly failed to
display the line containing the first occurrence of the effect.
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Moral: When creating a style, never use the name of a font. If Colin
had called the style öMaths bitsò or some such (spaces are allowed),
all would have been OK.
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(Donæt you just love Impression sometimes?!)
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P.S. I donæt believe it! Iæve just tried to paste Colinæs article
into the magazine itself and it has bombed again!!! This time, I
traced it to the dingbat I use at the end of each article. I have a
text file on my pinboard that I drop in which just says [font
Dingbats]u[font] - but with curly brackets, of course - where the öuò
turns into u. I have now created a style called End Dot which just
changes the font to dingbat, so my text file now says [öEnd Dotò
on]u[öEnd Dotò off] and Colinæs article pastes in perfectly. Hmmm!
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Ed., [e-mail]
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Lost Impression files - I recently deleted rather a lot of Impression
files (Arghhhh!!!!!). However, using Look Systemsæ Disc Rescue, I
managed to get most of them back. Here are some points to remember
which might save others some hair pulling.
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1. Speak to Adrian Look (he is very helpful).
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2. Single format files are fairly easy to recover. My version of
!Publisher saves the files starting with the sequence (at the sector
start) of öxV4ò. If you search for this, you also see the filename
nearby.
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3. Failing that, all my impression files contain the string öMain
Heading...ò
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4. All files seem to end öyV4ò (although this can also be found in
the middle of some files as well, presumably with embedded objects).
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(I can confirm that öxV4 and öyV4ò are generally applicable pointers
to look for in Impression files. Ed.)
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Mark Stephens, [e-mail]
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Sunlight and mice - donæt mix! This is a recurring problem that
catches people out in the summer time. It was last explained in
Archive 7.8 p21, but basically, if direct sunlight falls on your
mouse, it can confuse the optical sensors inside it, resulting in
erratic mouse pointer movement which disappears when you close the
curtains! The solution is to cover the inside top cover of the mouse
with foil, being careful to make sure that it is well stuck and canæt
short out any of the mouseæs delicate parts!
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Ed., [e-mail]