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Belgian Amiga Club - ADF Collection
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BS1 part 26
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The Director Toolkit v1.0.adf
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Executes
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1987-02-25
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|c7|t1|f2Executes|c3|t0|f1|r1
The programs in this drawer are designed to be run from the Director,
and provide extension features for Director scripts.|r1
While all of them are |c7CLI|c3 commands, they are primarily designed
to be run using the Director's |c7EXECUTE|c3 command.|r1
An exception is the |c7AssignIt|c3 program which is designed to replace a
.film file's icon and provide a running environment for Director films
that is easier to move to hard disks, etc. in the event you are producing
a film for distribution.|r1
|e
The programs contained in this section are:|r1
|c7|+4SaveIFF|+2- Save a Director screen as IFF file.|r1
|+4FileReq|+2- Director callable standard file requester.|r1
|+4WBMove|+3- Director control over WorkBench screen front/back.|r1
|+4AssignIt|+1 - Replacement .film icon and run program for easier|r1
|+4|+0|+2distribution.|c3|r1
Since all of the commands (except AssignIt) are |c7CLI|c3 commands, the
commands themselves are in the
|c7ToolKit:commands|c3 directory along with all the other
new |c7CLI|c3 commands. You can follow the instructions in the
|c7CLI_Commands|c3
drawer on how to install the commands for your system.|r1
|e
When producing a .film file that requires one of these commands, there
are several ways they can be used:|r1
|c7|+51. Copy to RAM: and use from there for speed.|r1
|+52. Assume they are in the current C: directory.|r1
|+53. Reference them in the current directory.|c3|r1
|e
The Director's |c7EXECUTE|c3 command does an |c7AmigaDOS|c3 system call
to the
|c7AmigaDOS|c3 Execute() function (not the same as the AmigaDOS "execute"
command) and contains an anomaly whereby programs being run under
|c7EXECUTE|c3 from a .film file invoked from a normal icon will always think
they are in |c7DF0:|c3|-, no matter where the files actually are. This
can make it difficult to insure that the command files can be found in all
instances.|r1
Symptomatic of such a problem would be that you may get various file not found
errors, or unknown command errors due to |c7AmigaDOS|c3 not thinking it is
in the correct directory for some of your |c7EXECUTE|c3 commands.|r1
If you experience such difficulty, you will want to investigate the
|c7AssignIt|c3 program, as it will assign the label |c7HERE:|c3 to the
current directory allowing you to reference such files prefixed with
|c7HERE:|c3 (see the AssignIt README for more information).
|e
|c7Copying to RAM:|c3|r1
In order to copy a |c7CLI|c3 command file to |c7RAM|c3 to eliminate disk
accessing during use, there are a couple of steps you will have to take:|r1
|c7|+81. copy the desired command(s) to RAM:|r1
|+82. copy the RUN command to RAM:|r1
|+83. Assign C: to RAM:|c3|r1
|e
You can perform these steps with the
|c7EXECUTE|c3 command something like this:|r1
|c7|+8EXECUTE v,"copy HERE:SaveIFF ram:"|r1
|+8EXECUTE v,"copy c:run ram:"|r1
|+8EXECUTE v,"assign c: ram:"|c3|r1
And then use the |c7SaveIFF|c3 command as described in the |c7SaveIFF
README|c3 file:|r1
|c7|+8EXECUTE v,"saveiff -d HERE:mypicture"|c3|r1
|e
The assignment of |c7C:|c3 to |c7RAM:|c3 is only necessary to eliminate
ALL disk accesses during the running of the final |c7SaveIFF|c3 command.
The |c7EXECUTE|c3
command uses the |c7RUN|c3 command and normally expects to find it in the
|c7C:|c3 directory. Thus it is necessary to reassign |c7C:|c3 to
|c7RAM:|c3|-.
|e
Note that
when your film ends, if the |c7C:|c3 directory is still reassigned to
|c7RAM:|c3|-,
it can cause confusion later when someone trys to run a |c7CLI|c3 command
and finds that it can't be found. You can use the old |c7FONTS:|c3
trick:|r1
|c7|+8EXECUTE v,"assign temp: c:"|r1
|+8EXECUTE v,"assign c: ram:"|c3|r1
and later:|r1
|c7|+8EXECUTE v,"temp:assign c: temp:"|c3|r1
This can also be useful as shown above in being able to reference commands
that were in the original |c7C:|c3 directory (such as the ASSIGN command)
which otherwise will not be able to be located by |c7EXECUTE|c3|-.|r1
|e
The |c7AssignIt|c3 program can be very useful in performing these kinds of
functions, as many of the above |c7EXECUTE|c3|-s can be performed by the
|c7AssignIt|c3 program instead, which has the added advantage of more
easily being able to undo the assigns after the film file has completely
finished no matter where it may have been completed or aborted.|r1
|e
The |c7Enhanced Blit Utility|c3 for instance, uses the |c7FileReq|c3
program, a copy of which is contained in the |c7BlitUtil|c3 directory
itself so that
the entire |c7BlitUtil|c3 directory can be dragged to a hard disk and work
with no other installation worrys. After reading the |c7AssignIt|c3
instructions
it may be useful to inspect the |c7Enhanced Blit Utility|c3
(EBU) icon to see how the |c7EXECUTE|c3|-s were performed.|r1
For example, the |c7Blit Utility|c3 will copy the file requester to
|c7RAM:|c3 before
running the Director film, and delete it afterwards. In this particular
instance, the |c7RUN|c3 command is not copied so all disk activity is not
eliminated, but speed is enhanced over |c7EXECUTE|c3|-ing the file
requester from disk with this technique.|r1
|e
|c7Assuming Commands in C:|c3|r1
If you are prepared to assume for your .film file that the commands
you need will always be in the |c7C:|c3 directory, you can simply specify
them directly without any |c7ASSIGN|c3|-ments or pre-preparation:|r1
|c7|+8EXECUTE v,"saveiff -d myfile"|c3|r1
Though be advised, the above example will always save |c7myfile|c3 to
|c7DF0:myfile|c3 when such a program is run from the normal .film file
icon. By specifying the complete pathname, or |c7RAM:myfile|c3|-, or
using a complete path as generated by the file requester for
instance, or using the |c7AssignIt|c3 program and |c7HERE:myfile|c3|-,
you can eliminate this problem.|r1
|e
|c7Assuming the current directory|c3|r1
If the |c7EXECUTE|c3 commands you are using are known to be in the current
directory (same directory as the .film file), you should not have
a problem with |c7EXECUTE|c3 finding the commands themselves and can
use the commands just as if they were in the |c7C:|c3 directory.
Again as described previously, file name parameters supplied with the
commands may think they are relative to |c7DF0:|c3|-. The previous
paragraph listed several ways to cure this side effect.