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-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- FormEd 2.87 - by Acorn Computers and the RISC squad
-
- with RISC Squad commentary
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Version 2.80 - 21/09/90
-
- Completed 21st September 1990 to version 2.80. Here's a list of all the
- things I did, as far as I can remember - I didn't make a list as I went
- along.
-
- i) Icons can now be selected/deselected by clicking the menu button
- on them whilst holding the SHIFT key down.
- ii) The icon dragging procedure - with the left button - now moves
- all of the selected icons in the window. Dragging with the
- right button (re-sizing) is unchanged.
- iii) The main menu structure has been split into an Icon menu and a
- Window menu - for convenience and for speed. Previous
- releases of FormEd were notoriously slow at creating their
- menus. Each of the two menus includes an option for calling
- up the other, which will then be opened as default on each
- subsequent occasion.
- iv) The Window menu is largely unaltered, but does include a 'save'
- option for saving only one template at a time. Be warned,
- font freaks - the save routine will check for anti-aliased
- fonts in all other windows too, so I don't know what will
- happen in that situation. Whatever it is, it shouldn't be
- fatal.
- v) The Icons menu is now far more versatile than before. Many
- choices are now available for all selected icons (in that
- window only) including specific choices from the EDIT ICONS
- submenu structure - notably BUTTON TYPE !!
- vi) The RENUMBER option is virtually as before, but the renumbering
- process can be optimised by the use of the MENU button whilst
- depressing the CONTROL key. This is identical to choosing the
- 'Renumber #nn' option directly.
- vii) The DESELECT ALL option deselects all the icons in the current
- window.
- viii) The COPY and MOVE choices may now be performed on either single
- icons or on all the selected icons.
- ix) The WIPE option may now be on selected icons, on a single icon or
- on any icon number specified. I find this useful in two
- instances - (i) When I import templates which have 'missing'
- icons that aren't used - see Paint's 'save' box, icon #1 is
- to the right and is '<CRAP>' (ii) If I can't find one of my
- own icons !!
- x) Note that any options which are either on 'selected' icons or on
- a specific icon can be controlled by clicking MENU over a
- specific icon for the latter, or on no icons (the window's
- work area) for the former. In such a case, if no icons are
- selected, you will be informed, eg. 'Wipe No Icons' - which
- will also be 'shaded out'.
-
- All in all, the lesson to be learned from this is - if you want any icons
- to be selected (in the finished template) - leave them to the end, so they
- don't screw up your work !
-
- PS I also put in an 'Info' box and attached it to the icon bar menu as
- expected. Plus, while checking up on the 'Save one template' job I
- re-enabled the facility to save off the entire file merely by choosing
- the 'Save templates' option on the icon bar menu. - this had been
- REMd out !
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Updates, Version 2.81 - 24/11/90
-
- The main problem bugging those people I knew of who were using this was
- that of the un-named windows not being saved. I have therefore included a
- new error in the 'save' routine such that the error 'Only the named windows
- were saved' occurs if any of the templates were un-named.
- I also fixed the 'Move Selected' option from the 'Icons' menu, which did
- absolutely nothing in version 2.80.
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Updates, Version 2.82 - 02/12/90
-
- Oops, version 2.81 was chronically buggered ! The aforementioned error
- occurred on every occasion, without exception. This is now completely
- fixed ! The extra features are as follows :
-
- i) It is now impossible to create un-named templates.
- ii) The identifiers of windows must be different on a non
- case-sensitive basis, i.e. It is not now possible to call one
- template 'Save' and a different template 'save' even though
- the names, strictly speaking, are distinct.
- iii) Clicking on the icon bar icon opens a dialogue box, prompting the
- user to enter the identifier of the new template. Press ENTER
- or click on OK to confirm; press ESCAPE or close the box to
- cancel.
- iv) Alternatively, a new template may still be created by the use of
- the icon bar menu structure. The normal rules for identifiers
- still apply.
- v) Any new template has its title bar icon set to text as before,
- but the text defaults to the identifier at the time of
- creation. This allows easy reference on a set of newly
- created templates.
- vi) As a result of all this, the errors such as 'Only named windows
- can be saved' and 'Only the named windows were saved' are now
- a thing of the past !
- vii) On a completely different point : newly created icons now appear
- directly underneath the pointer rather than a small distance
- above it.
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Updates, Version 2.83 - 23/12/90
-
- Aha, welcome back to all template designers. It's been exactly three weeks
- since v2.82 and in such a short time I found a lot to do to the program, it
- wan't hard. Have you noticed how all of these have been issued at weekends,
- i.e. Friday, Saturday, then Sunday twice ?
- I suppose I should tell you what I've done to it again - well, in order of
- appearance...
-
- i) The icon bar menu is restructured so that the templates and the
- sprites are handled independently. This also makes the main
- menu less tall, which looked very silly.
- ii) You will of course have noticed an unfamiliar option on this menu
- as soon as you tried it out after you'd read through part (i)
- i.e. the new 'Clear' option. Fairly self-explanatory, all it
- does is asks for confirmation, then clears all templates from
- memory. This is mainly useful for loading a new file etc.
- For example, if you want to pinch the save box from Edit, then
- you would load the templates from Edit, save off just the one
- template you wanted, clear the templates then re-load the old
- file, eg from RAM:. This saves either (a) deleting all of the
- templates in the file 'by hand' or (b) quitting FormEd and
- waiting for another copy to load and initialise (very slow)!
- iii) The next idea I had was to add a facility for certain 'default'
- icons, rather than the <Untitled> icon as before. This became
- a thorough restructure of the icons menu, to become a more
- filer-type menu tree. Here's how the new 'icons' menu looks.
- iv) Create icon - On its own, this creates the old <Untitled> icon,
- almost. The submenu has a variety of goodies on offer ;
- Text - Colour 12 bordered text icon (Click/Drag)
- Sprite - 'Free-standing' sprite icon (Click/Drag)
- Arrow - Colour 12 bordered arrow icon (Click/Drag)
- Option - Normal 'Optoff,Opton' icon (Radio)
- Radio - Normal 'Radiooff,Radioon' icon (Radio)
- Writeable - Normal text entry icon (Write/Click/Drag)
- Menu - Normal menu icon, eg 'OK' box (Menu)
- Comment - 'Free-standing' text icon (Click/Drag)
- e.g. the 'Name:' icon in a
- ProgInfo window.
-
- v) This is where the similarities to the Filer start. The third
- choice is either 'No Icons' or 'Selected Icons' or 'Icon #0'
- for example. The submenu yields to present the choices :
- Edit, Copy, Move, Wipe, and Renumber - all as in v2.82
- vi) By the way, the 'Button type' menu has been rigged to disallow
- types 12 & 13 (reserved) and type 11 is once again referred
- to as 'Radio'
- vii) Back to the filer, the next two choices are 'Select All' and
- 'Deselect All'
- viii) Lastly, 'Tidy Icons' removes any spurious icons that lie wholly
- outside the window's Work Area. Note that this is NOT the
- same as outside the opened window space. For example, in
- Paint's notorious SaveBox [see v2.80, (ix),(i)] the CRAP icon
- is within the Work Area, but the lack of scroll bars on these
- windows sometimes makes it seem to lie beyond these bounds.
-
- NB when using the default icons on the 'Create' submenu, make sure that
- you remember to set the button types of the icons, particularly the
- arrow icons (usually Auto-Repeat). The icons default to Click/Drag
- because they rarely appear in exactly the right place, so need moving.
-
- Happy templating ! !
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Updates, Version 2.84 - 07/02/91
-
- Thought for the day :
- When I use this - and I do, despite the bugs - I nearly always use the
- icons menu rather than the windows menu, but this poses an annoying problem.
- How does a lazy programmer (contradiction ?) like me delete a window without
- using the other menu ? Answer - put the 'Delete window' choice on BOTH.
- Completely against the idea of separating the two menus, but I don't care.
- I was quite stunned when I happened to notice how Acorn handled their icon
- indirection workspace - it goes like this. (i) DIM a large block of memory.
- (ii) Set a pointer to the start of this area. (iii) Whenever workspace is
- needed, use the memory at the pointer, and move the pointer on. (iv) When
- the pointer reaches the end of the buffer, annoy the user by generating
- errors. Actually, (iv) might have been 'by crashing without explanation' -
- but if it was, I've already 'corrected' this.
- To counteract this problem, the pointer is moved back to the beginning
- when the last template is deleted, or if 'Clear' is chosen from the icon bar
- menu. Crude, but still better than Acorn.
- I've been hassled a lot recently by my friend Anonymous 'Rabbit' (Unknown)
- 'cos he was getting worked up about the indirection buggy bits - apparently,
- when large, multi-indirected templates are used (waffle) the indirection
- buggers up so the icons start to contain bits of the !RunImage, i.e. it
- points to the WRONG BIT of application workspace. As a result, when you wipe
- it, bits of your (still running) program go missing, and crashes ensue.
- Alternatively, all the icons are inter-connected, so when you delete the
- unwanted bit of one, the other one does spurious things too.
- I think I've sussed it though; I looked at the code, changed a few things
- and now it seems to work, so to quote the ISV docs, 'Everyone is happy'.
- Rabbit was also whining about the way that the files were saved
- 'backwards' so that the window stacking is reversed. Big template files have
- to be kept tidy in this respect, it was annoying !
- I've just done another detail - when a single template was saved before,
- the 'Original' filename, as appears off the icon bar 'save' box, was changed
- to become that of the single template just saved. It was wrong, it's not
- now.
- The other (trivial) bug was that the colours menus did odd things;
- sometimes the icon colours menu was in monochrome, and always there were
- problems with mobile tick on the currently selected colour - particularly if
- a menu choice was made with ADJUST. This is fixed too. Acorn were previously
- reading the palette each time the tick moved, to decide which colours
- contrasted with which others - this is now, of course, done on the WIMP
- message which has something to do with palette changes, and it's faster too.
- Typical.
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Updates, Version 2.84b - 01/03/91
-
- Nothing fascinating, as usual - a minor bug fix to do with the
- 'Icon #nn.Edit.Text' bit of a submenu, from where the text sometimes goes
- walkies. The usual un-recreatable bug sort of idea, the icon would contain
- text, but the menu would suggest that it had a null text string.
- Also I added a new choice to the icon bar menu, 'Finish', which is exactly
- equivalent to 'Save Templates' then 'Clear Templates'. Some choices, i.e.
- 'Finish', 'Clear' and 'Save' are now shaded whenever there are no templates
- loaded into FormEd.
- I thought it would be a nice idea to be able to load an application's
- 'Templates' file by merely dragging the application to FormEd, so it now
- attempts to load the file '!ApplName.Templates', failing if it is not found,
- or if it does not have the file type &FEC (Templates). I was right about the
- nice idea, it's very convenient ! The slight fib is that the normal error
- 'This application has no Templates file' occurs even if it exists, but with
- the wrong file type. So who cares anyway ? Not my problem.
- Lastly, the general icons menu now opens such that the pointer is usually
- over the 'Selected icons' jobbie, making editing slightly easier, ta very
- much Mister WIMP, see you on the next version of FormEd.
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Updates, Version 2.85 - 15/04/91
-
- Back for more, masochist ? Even our goody-goody programmer who can't do a
- thing wrong otherwise Acorn will slap him on the wrist has taken a copy of
- 2.84b-and-a-bit because he got fed up with v1.something by Acorn shite co..
- By the way, those who know me - PLEASE - when you find a bug in this, don't
- just complain - TELL ME WHAT THE *?#!^& BUG IS !!!! That way I can debug it
- faster, n'est-ce pas ?
- Anyway; I don't like 12-long sprite names, or 12-long text entries for that
- matter, when they're not indirected. I've just ironed out some bugs; for
- example, I decided I'd had enough of not seeing save icons in xfer_send
- windows (ie when the sprite name is indirected) so I took out that 'feature';
- so now you can see them, whoopee, hurrah.
- I'm not sure exactly what was going on in the way of sprite-area handling
- (ie whether sprites are USER or WIMP) but the load and save bits now trap it
- all neatly (see the xfer_send job) and the WIMP area is always assumed.
- If you get an error (ie of the type with an error box and a line number) be
- careful no to choose 'Cancel' as this now quits FormEd without saving off.
- Those of you (ie most) who've played with v2.85 may have noticed one or two
- bigger changes :
-
- i) I took out the crappy sprite editing bits, leaving in just rename,
- copy, delete, load, merge and save. Note now that your own
- sprite files can be merged by SHIFT-dragging to the icon bar;
- if this worked, and the 'Sprites' window was NOT open, then a
- 'beep' tells you that it worked. (Actually, any FormEd window
- that isn't the 'Sprites' one will do.)
- ii) Select and Deselect icon (from the general icon menu) now have
- sub-wotsit-jobbies. (I suppose I should know their real names,
- having just read the new 'RISC-OS Style Guide', then wondering
- why I bothered).
- iii) Choosing [De]Select as normal has the same effect as before.
- iv) The dialogue boxes enable choices to be made governing which icons
- are (de)selected; any other icons are absolutely unaffected.
- Icons of a particular (or 'any') ESG can be chosen.
- Icons of a particular (or 'any') Button Type can be chosen.
- An icon's TEXT bit can be tested (yes/no/don't care).
- An icon's SPRITE bit can be tested (yes/no/don't care).
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Updates, Version 2.86 - 29/04/91
-
- Having played with Impression and found many of the bugs (the rest presumed
- to exist only when you're not going to immediately notice) I thought :
- 'Hey, those shaded icons and the icons that change the pointer shape really
- do look crap !' However, another anonymous accomplice of mine disagreed, but
- that's just the way he is, so he adjusted his copy of v2.85 to support this
- 'Interface' module he'd just acquired - which does all of the Impression-type
- junk for you.
- I took one look and said 'NO, NO, NO' a few times, but then took up his
- idea of using the MessageTrans module - so now refer to the 'Messages' dir.
- inside FormEd.
- Following that, I decided to support 'Interface' - as a user-configurable
- option. Hence on the 'Options' dialogue box you will now see the extra
- 'Support Interface' and 'Shade user-redrawn templates' icons. (The latter is
- present because Interface uses user-redraws to do it's icon borders, so
- normally you will have one OR the other selected.)
- In addition, the country name can be changed so that a different 'Messages'
- file is used - it is just the name of a file inside that directory. For demo
- purposes, I also include a 'Sarcasm' country - for users with a superiority
- complex.
- There is also a teensy bug fix - your choices in the (de)select dialogue
- boxes remain intact, ie are not cleared to the default 'Any, Any, Don't Care,
- Don't Care' set-up. This does not change the effect of choosing (De)Select
- without using the dialogue boxes.
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Updates, Version 2.87 - 23/06/91
-
- Good grief, it's been a long time since the last one...perhaps I've been
- doing some 'real' work for a change...??
- No bug fixes, 'cos I haven't found the bugs !!!
-
- OPTIONS: A new error message for when you choose a non-existant country.
- As before, it chooses 'UK' for you, but it tells you of your error
- in the previous language (for continental users rather than for
- Britons who piss about)
- MENUS: The two main menus ('Window' and 'Icons') re-open properly when
- you open one, move it and open the other (it used to open where
- you'd opened the first one)
- TEMPLATES: When FormEd loads, a window in the top-left called 'Templates'
- opens up listing all of the templates loaded. Double-clicking on
- a template name toggles its opened/closed state (ie. it will close
- an opened window and open a closed one.) SHIFT-double-clicking
- opens the appropriate window 'on top'.
- A menu from this window (รก la Filer) allows you further control
- over opening/closing, plus facilities for copy, renaming and
- wiping. By the way, don't be surprised if COPY doesn't seem to be
- working correctly - it SHOULDN'T work, but it seems to !!
- The 'Templates' submenu from the icon bar menu tree is now reached
- from this window too. (Create, Clear, Load, Save). The biggest
- benefit of this is that the screen does not get so cluttered !!
- Rabbit should be pleased, he's got absolutely HUGE template files.
- NOTE : closing a template no longer removes it from memory !!!
- HANDLES: A useful utility which displays a small window in the top-right of
- the screen which tells you which template the pointer is over, and
- (if any) what icon number. Most handy for looking over 'imported'
- templates.
- SHOW: Both 'Templates' and 'Handles' windows can be opened via the icon
- bar menu, and the 'Show' submenu.
- WORK AREA: The 'set work area' window has an extra option, 'Min'. Choosing
- this sets the work area to be equivalent to the visible area. This
- bypasses the previous practice of setting the values out of range
- via the keyboard, then using the arrows to set the values to their
- minimum settings.
- MOUSEFIX: Owners of the superb 'Mouse Fixer' module may wish to note that
- FormEd now sets the MouseFix variables MinSpeed, Acceleration and
- FrameCount to 1, 16 and 4 respectively. This means that delicate
- mouse control (moving and resizing) can easily be effected.
- NOTE: 'FrameCount' is not available in MouseFix 0.02
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- For those interested, here's Acorn's crap on the subject, as found in my
- application directory. Anything subsequently in this text file is unedited,
- excepting the last few lines (blanks and asterisks).
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
- Notes on using FormEd, 16-May-89
-
- FormEd is an editor of Template files. To understand this you need to
- understand the program interface of the Window System, as described in the
- Programmer's Reference Manual. The description here assumes an understanding
- of template files.
-
- FormEd is started by double-clicking on a template file after the FormEd
- icon has been "seen". This will cause FormEd to be loaded, and to display
- all of the windows in the template file. Alternatively, double-click on
- FormEd itself and it will be loaded with no current windows. If a template
- file does not appear to load properly, give more memory to FormEd before it
- starts using the Task Manager window.
-
- A template file is often constructed with reference to a specific set of
- sprites. A sprite file can be dragged onto the FormEd icon on the icon bar
- to set the available sprites. These are displayed in a window. Some previous
- versions of FormEd used to provide facilities for editing sprites, these are
- now provided only in the Paint application.
-
- Clicking on the FormEd icon creates a new window in the current template
- file, and displays it on the screen.
-
- The menu provided from the icon on the icon bar provides the following
- functions:
-
- Create window - similar to clicking on the FormEd icon, except that a name
- may be specified for the template.
-
- Load templates - allows you to type in the filename of a template file to be
- loaded, instead of dragging an icon from the Filer.
-
- Save templates - a save box for the templates being edited.
-
- Quit - quit FormEd. Beware that this has no "confirm" option, so any edits
- will be discarded instantly if you choose this menu entry.
-
- The template windows displayed by FormEd mirror precisely the size, position
- and properties of the windows in the Template file. The following actions
- directly affect the stored values:
-
- Close the window - deletes it from the template file.
-
- Move/scroll/resize the window - moves the default setup of the window in the
- template file.
-
- Clicking MENU on a template window produces a menu tree that allows a wide
- variety of alterations to the menu structure, based on the various control
- fields of a window structure as described in the Wimp documentation. It also
- allows you to create icons in the window. An icon, once created, can be
- moved and resized using drag-SELECT and drag-ADJUST. It can also have its
- properties adjusted by pointing at it and then clicking MENU, and following
- the "amend icon" submenu.
-
- The best way to experiment is to examine and update the template files
- belonging to the Applications Suite (saving the original first!). It's also
- possible to update the template files used by ROM utilities. These reside in
- the deskfs: filing system in the ROM. They are accessed via the environment
- variable Wimp$Path, so by updating this to search a directory of your own
- first where your updated template files reside, you can replace the window
- templates used by the utilities in the ROM.
-
- Your ability to drag and resize icons may be affected by a button type
- affixed to an icon: only those button types which generate the appropriate
- Wimp events can be dragged and resized directly. It's interesting to note
- that FormEd keeps no data structures describing each template window,
- relying on the Wimp to keep and manipulate each structure.
-
- FormEd keeps a file of sprites in memory which can be used in icons in the
- template being edited. The default sprite file used is the file Default
- inside !FormEd, which is in fact a copy of the sprites found in the RISC OS
- ROM. To load in a separate sprite file to use with your template file, drag
- the sprite file onto the FormEd icon.
-
- *****************************************************************************
-
-