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- 07/08/94
- Become a Power User Part 2
-
- * In a directory viewer, Select marks the first item you want
- to act upon, and Adjust allows you to add or remove additional
- items. All marked items will then be acted upon when the
- selection is dragged somewhere or a menu operation upon the
- selection is chosen.
-
- * Double clicking Select runs a file, opens a directory, or
- loads an application. If you use Adjust instead the window which
- you clicked in will be closed as well. This helps dramatically
- in keeping the desktop tidy!
-
- * When you make a menu choice using the Select button the menu
- disappears. If you need to make several choices from a deep level,
- or are experimenting with settings (eg choosing the colours for
- a !Edit window) this quickly gets tedious. If you use Adjust
- instead the menu will stay on the screen, open to whatever level
- of submenus you had reached. Note: This is provided by the
- application concerned, so may not work on every application.
-
- * If you want to bring a window to the front, the usual method is
- to click Select on the title bar. However, you can also click on
- the adjust size icon in the bottom right (when it is present), or
- use the toggle size icon in the top right.
-
- Next month: New features in RISC OS 3.
-
-
- Changes in Filetype allocation
-
- There are 4096 filetypes, &000-&FFF. Originally half of these were
- set aside for users, with the remainder shared between Acorn,
- AcornSoft and other developers.
-
- During the past year it became apparent that the rate of allocation
- of filetypes has been reaching the level where some rearrangment is
- necessary to avoid running out of filetypes in certain areas in the
- future.
-
- The new distribution of filetypes is:
-
- &000-&0FF - End-users’ personal (ie non-distributed) usage
- &100-&3FF - End-users’ distributed software (eg PD/Shareware) (Allocation by Acorn)
- &400-&9FF - Commercial software (Allocation by Acorn)
- &A00-&AFF - Commercial software (was AcornSoft) (Allocation by Acorn)
- &B00-&DFF - Commercial software (Allocation by Acorn)
- &E00-&FFF - Acorn use
-
- The highlights of the new distribution are:
-
- * User area halved to 1024 filetypes
-
- * 75% of the user area is now allocatable by Acorn on behalf of
- PD/Shareware programs
-
- * More filetypes free for commercial software
-
- * Some redundant areas opened for general allocation
-
- Obviously, many programs exist already which have used filetypes
- from the area &100-&7FF. If you are the author of such a program,
- please inform us. We will then record your usage of that filetype
- so that a double allocation does not occur in the future. Please
- note though - this ‘amnesty’ applies only to existing programs - for
- new programs you should contact Acorn to apply for a filetype. Write
- to Customer Services (Filetypes), Acorn Computers Ltd., Acorn House,
- Vision Park, Histon, Cambridge CB4 4AE.
-
- First Word Plus printing
-
- 1st Word Plus is a little different to most applications because it
- uses it’s own printer drivers instead of the normal RISC OS drivers
- (!Printers/!PrinterDM etc). If your printer is not one of those
- supported (or cannot emulate one of these) then you will need to write
- your own printer driver. This is easiest done by amending the source
- file of an existing driver to contain the correct command codes for
- your printer. Brief details of how to approach this task are given in
- the 1st Word Plus User Guide.