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- 07/08/94
- Become A Power User !
-
- RISC OS provides a number of shortcuts which make performing many
- tasks easier and quicker. RISC OS 3 has introduced additional new
- features which improve the situation still further. To see the
- effects to best advantage, why not try them out as you read this?
-
- The Adjust Button
-
- The Adjust button is generally used to provide some option which
- behaves like the action produced by clicking Select, but is subtly
- different in some way. Alternatively it may provide a short cut to
- a dialogue window. The one thing it should never do is exactly
- duplicate the action of Select.
-
- Some of these facilities are provided within RISC OS, while others
- rely upon the author of an application to implement them in a
- standard manner. The action of the mouse buttons, and many other
- issues relating to the user interface, is covered in the RISC OS
- Style Guide (product code AKJ18).
-
- * The usual method of dragging a window is use the Select button on
- the title bar. This brings the window to the front as well, which
- can sometimes disrupt a layout of windows which has taken some time
- to build up. However, if Adjust is used, the window can be dragged,
- but will retain it's position in the stack of windows.
-
- * To move the work area of a window you may either drag the scroll
- bar, or click Select on the up/down/left/right arrows (if provided
- on that window). Clicking Adjust on one of these arrows moves in the
- opposite directions to Select, which saves having to move to the
- opposite arrow if you overshoot whilst scrolling a window.
-
- * The idea of Adjust performing the opposite of Select also appears
- in some dialogue boxes (eg the zoom setting in !Draw). Clicking
- Select will increment a value, but clicking Adjust will decrement
- it. Again, this helps to reduce mouse movement.
-
- * Clicking Adjust on the close box of a filer window will open the
- parent directory for the one which you closed. Some editors also
- support this - ie Adjust on the close box of an editor window will
- open the directory viewer containing the file which was being edited.
-
- Continued next month...
-
-
- Pound Signs and PC Emulators
-
- Some users have been unable to get the £ sign under the PC Emulator.
- This is due to there not being a £ key on a US layout PC keyboard.
- You can get reprogram the # key to produce the £ by adding:
-
- To AUTOEXEC.BAT -
-
- @ECHO ON
- PROMPT $e[35;156p
- CLS
- @ECHO OFF
-
- To CONFIG.SYS -
-
- DEVICE = ANSI.SYS
-
-
- Did you know ... ?
-
- If you drag a file/directory or application in to a RISC OS 3 !Edit
- window with the SHIFT key held down the name of the object is
- inserted. This can make building boot files much quicker! This also
- works with !SrcEdit which is supplied with Desktop C/Assembler.
-
- Programs which were written in C (including !Edit, !Draw and !Paint)
- have keyboard shortcuts available when a dialogue box is being
- displayed. Pressing F1 reacts like clicking the first icon (icon 0),
- F2 for the second (icon 1) and so on. In addition, if a letter key is
- pressed an attempt will be made to match it against a capital letter
- in a field. Thus, using !Edit's Find window as an example you can
- repeat the last search by pressing F4 F2 F1. Similarly when a match has
- been found you could use C or F2 to Continue, R or F3 to Replace and so
- on.
-
- Note that this may not work where the input focus is also within the
- window.
-
-