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pubchange012.lzh
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PubChange.doc
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NAME
PubChange (>= OS 2.0 commodity to change the default public screen)
AUTHOR, VERSION & COPYRIGHT
Steve Koren
Version 1.2, January 1993
Requires AmigaDos 2.04 or later
PubChange is copyrighted freeware. It may be distributed on PD disk
collections costing no more per disk than the price of a current Fish
disk. PubChange may be uploaded to BBS systems. It may not be sold
for a profit or modified without permission of the author. However,
you are free to give it away to friends, etc.
SYNOPSIS
PubChange [ CX_PRIORITY=n ] [ NEXTSCREEN=string ] [ PREVSCREEN=string ]
[ WBSCREEN=string ] [ CURRSCREEN=strings ]
Where:
NEXTSCREEN = The AmigaDOS commodity key specification to bring the
next screen to the front.
PREVSCREEN = The AmigaDOS commodity key specification to bring the
previous screen to the front.
WBSCREEN = The AmigaDOS commodity key specification to bring the
workbench screen to the front.
CURRSCREEN = The AmigaDOS commodity key specification to set the
default public screen to the topmost screen.
See your AmigaDos manual for a description of acceptable commodity
strings.
FUNCTION
Brings the next (or previous) screen to the front, and if this new
screen is a public screen, it is made into the default. "Shanghai"
mode is not affected. It is especially useful with "POP CLI"
Commodities or other commodities which launch applications on the
default public screen. For best rests, it should be used in
conjunction with a public screen manager utility.
DESCRIPTION
Public screens in AmigaDos 2.04 and higher are useful to increase the
size of your working environment or to open windows on application
screens. There are many public screen managers available to perform
the task of opening and closing these public screens in various
configurations. However, the use model is not quite intuitive; you
must always take an explicit and often cumbersome step to make the
new public screen into the default. If you fail to do this, all your
windows will open on the old default public screen instead of the one
in front. There are several utilities to pop the current public screen
to the front whenever a new window opens on it, but I found that
exactly backwards. Instead, I preferred that whichever screen happens
to be in front is made into the default public screen.
PubChange is designed to provide a more intuitive use model. The
concept is that whichever screen you bring to the front becomes the
default screen at the same time as it is brought to the front. Any
windows which ask to open on the default public screen will open on
this screen.
PubChange is a commodity and can be disabled or killed with the
Commodity Exchange. It does not have a graphical user interface.
Instead, it is controlled via workbench icon tooltypes or command line
arguments. It should be installed in the WBStartup directory. The
supported tooltypes are:
CX_PRIORITY=<n>
NEXTSCREEN=<string>
PREVSCREEN=<string>
CURRSCREEN=<string>
WBSCREEN=<string>
NEXTSCREEN brings the next screen to the front, and if this screen is a
public screen, it is made into the default. PREVSCREEN brings the
previous screen to the front, and if it is a public screen it is made
into the default. WBSCREEN always brings the workbench screen to the
front, and this is made into the default public screen. CURRSCREEN will
set the default public screen to the frontmost screen (useful if you
used something besides PubChange to bring a screen to the front).
NOTE: PubChange will *not* set "Shanghai" mode in the public screens it
brings to the front. Use your public screen manager to do this for
alternate public screens, or use the application which has opened the
public screen to do it for application public screens.
NOTE: If the most recent screen brought to the front with PubChange is
not a public screen, the default public screen will remain the same as
it was before this screen was brought to the front.
PubChange can be stopped with the Commodity Exchange, or by double
clicking again on its workbench icon. If it detects an error when run
from workbench, it exits with no error message. If launched from the
CLI, it uses its command line parameters as tooltypes, and will set a
return code as listed below.
The default values for the tooltypes are:
CX_PRIORITY=0
NEXTSCREEN=lcommand m
PREVSCREEN=lcommand p
CURRSCREEN=lcommand c
WBSCREEN=lcommand w
Thus, the left amiga-M combination cycles through screens just as it
did without PubChange installed, but new screens brought to the front
will be made into the default public screen.
NOTE: PubChange was written under AmigaDos 3.0. However, it only asks
for 2.04 libraries (V37), so it should also work fine under 2.04.
However, I haven't been able to test this.
A good public screen manager to use with PubChange is "ScreenManager",
(sm_1_13c.lzh), a freeware utility by Bernhard M Llemann. This utility
lets you set up public screens non-interactively from a startup script,
in any screen mode in the display database.
RETURN VALUES
17 - Unable to allocate Cx broker.
18 - Unable to allocate Cx object;
19 - Can't create a message port. Out of memory?
20 - Can't open an AmigaDos library. PubChange needs V37 libraries,
as used by AmigaDos 2.04 or later. It won't run under 1.3.
KNOWN BUGS
B1. PubChange does not print out a usage message if called from the
CLI. It is best to install it into your WBStartup drawer
B2. There is no GUI.
B3. PubChange doesn't look at the screen "back" gadget - only the
keyboard equivalents. Perhaps in the next version.
BUG REPORTS
Send bug reports to me at:
Steve Koren
405 Pulsar St.
Fort Collins, CO 80525 USA
303-226-4985 (USA)
koren@fc.hp.com (email)
I may or may not fix them. Can't hurt to try though.