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NewPop v4.0 by Loren J. Rittle
Tue Apr 23 04:14:13 1991
Newpop is based upon:
>
> /* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> |_o_o|\\ Copyright (c) 1986 The Software Distillery. All Rights Reserved
> |. o.| || This program may not be distributed without the permission of
> | . | || the authors.
> | o | || Dave Baker Ed Burnette Jay Denebeim John Mainwaring
> | . |// Gordon Keener Jack Rouse John Toebes Doug Walker
> ====== BBS:(919)-471-6436
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
>
> POPCLI III by John Toebes © 1987 The Software Distillery.
> All Rights Reserved 235 Trillingham Ln, Cary, NC 27511
>
> Contributions to continue development of this and other fine products for
> the Amiga should be sent to the Software Distillery at the above address.
Additions and modifications Copyright © 1989, 1990, 1991 Loren J. Rittle.
Permission is hereby granted to distribute this program provided both this
documentation accompanies the executable and that no charge is made for its
distribution. (As in the original PopCLI III documentation. - LJR)
I assume that this statement includes the right to modify the source and
futher distribute the modified work under this same agreement. - LJR
[Special note to Matt Dillon: I wanted the damn clock! :-) PS: I use
DMouse and NewPop at the same time, Thanks Matt for all your great
Amiga code. The fish disks would be a lot less full if there was no
Matt Dillon. And we would have no D* programs to kick around! :-) - LJR]
NewPop is designed to solve a few problems at once. First it provides a
simple way of starting another CLI at any time without having to load
workbench or exit whatever program you may be using. Second it has a
builtin screen saver mode that automatically turns off the Amiga display
when there has been no input for a given period of time. On the blank
screen, a cute little Q*X-type pattern dances about changing colors slowly
over time. Finally, a discreet informative backdrop window opens in the
titlebar region of the WorkBench screen. This window reports the current
date, a rough indication of CPU usage and SCSI disk I/O and available
memory [Note: In past releases of NewPop, this information was rendered
directly into the titlebar of the WorkBench Screen. It was decided that
this is a system unfriendly thing to do, thus the information was moved to
a backdrop window that is placed in front of the titlebar. The bad aspect
of this change is that you may no longer click on that part of the titlebar
to slide the screen up and down. Such is life. This problem is being
looked into.].
Once NewPop is running, you can use it to get a new CLI from whatever
program you are running by pressing Left Amiga and ESC at the same time.
What this does is to bring the workbench screen to the front and then start
up a new CLI window on the workbench screen. This is extremely handy when
you start a program from the CLI and then find you need to do a CLI
another command.
The other major function that NewPop performs is to blank the screen for
you. This saves on the wear of the monitor phospher. It will do this for
you automatically any time that you have not pressed any key or moved the
mouse for a given period of time regardless of what has been written to the
screen. This is useful when you leave the Amiga on unattended so that you
don't have to mess with the brightness control or worse yet turn the
monitor off putting wear and tear on its power supply. Furthermore it only
takes a touch of the mouse or any key on the keyboard to bring it all back.
NewPop adds two blanking features not found in PopCLI releases:
1) Instant blanking --- to invoke, move the mouse to the upper right corner
(within five pixels of the corner) of the WorkBench screen (it's
location, even if another screen is in front of it). Remove mouse from
zone to disable instant blanking feature. It is also possible to turn
on a HOT KEY for the instant balnker and to configure which corner(s)
trigger the instant blanking (see .newpoprc).
2) Defeat blanking, in other words, stop blanking from occuring even if
timeout period has expired --- to invoke, move mouse to the lower right
corner of the WorkBench screen. Disable defeat blanking by removing
mouse from zone. One can also enable a HOT KEY that will trigger the
defeat blanker and, as above, the corner(s) that trip the defeat
blanker can configured (see .newpoprc).
Starting NewPop:
----------------
To use NewPop, you need to execute the following command after setting
up the configuration file, [s:].newpoprc (see below):
Run <nil: >nil: NewPop
Note: NewPop v3.0 and later uses a file called .newpoprc to find the user
options that override the compiled in defaults. NewPop searches for this
file at startup time in the following directories, in order:
Current Directory, S: Directory. (see .newpoprc for more information)
All command line options are considered obsolete.
Terminating NewPop:
-------------------
Once NewPop has been installed, you can terminate it with the command:
break [cli number of running NewPop]
[or if you forgot to `run' it, a control C in the window NewPop is
running in will stop it.]
Note: With NewPop v3.0 and beyond, NewPop must be stopped and restarted if
you want to change any options.
Installing NewPop:
------------------
To install a copy of NewPop on your workbench, put a copy of NewPop in your
C: directory and edit the Startup-Sequence file in the S: directory to add
the NewPop command.
Copy .newpoprc to your S: directory, and then edit it to your own tastes.
Or under 2.0:
At least the last time I checked, NewPop could be safely placed in the
WBStartUp directory (I don't remember the exact directory name).
Copy .newpoprc to your S: directory, and then edit it to your own tastes.
NewPop should run fine from the WorkBench. Double click on it's
icon once to start it and again to stop it.
Making an icon (.info file) for NewPop is left as an exercise for the
reader. [Sample Icon is now included... :-]
Some Notes:
-----------
The Helvetica.font (size 9) as distributed by Commodore on the Extras disk
from release 1.3 (maybe 1.2 also) must be in your fonts: directory. If
the font NewPop needs is not available, it will quit without an error
message, and without a crash :-).
[Note: It appears Gold Disk made their own version of the Helvetica font
and shipped them with a few products. Some of the sizes (size 9 at least)
are present in both distributions (Gold Disk's and Commodore's). The
problem lies in the fact that the fonts are different. Very different!
See the FONTNAME section of .newpoprc for more details on Gold Disk version
problem.]
NewPop's technique for determining SCSI I/O usage may or may not work with
your device driver. All I can say is check it out yourself. It does work
with the A3000's onboard SCSI device and the "scsi.device" device driver.
With this information, I would guess that it works with all Commodore SCSI
controller, but I don't know for sure. You may change the name of the task
to watch in .newpoprc.
NewPop's pseudo titlebar window can be made dragable by recompiling
with the WEWANTWINDOWDRAG define uncommented. See .newpoprc.
See .newpoprc for more user configurable options and features of NewPop
v4.0 and for more details on all of the above features and options.