Aminet 4

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Aminet 4 / Aminet 4 - November 1994.iso / aminet / comm / term / vltj5867.lha / VLT / docs / VLT5p576.doc < prev

Wrap

Text File | 1992-08-23 | 69KB | 1,461 lines

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | D I S C L A I M E R N O T I C E | | | | This document and/or portions of the material and data furnished | | herewith, was developed under sponsorship of the U.S. Government. | | Neither the U.S. nor the U.S.D.O.E., nor the Leland Stanford | | Junior University, nor their employees, nor their respective con- | | tractors, subcontractors, or their employees, makes any warranty, | | express or implied, or assumes any liability or responsibility for | | accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, appara- | | tus, product or process disclosed, or represents that its use will | | not infringe privately-owned rights. Mention of any product, its | | manufacturer, or suppliers shall not, nor is it intended to, imply | | approval, disapproval, or fitness for any particular use. The U.S. | | and the University at all times retain the right to use and dis- | | seminate same for any purpose whatsoever. | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ Tektronix is a trademark of Tektronix, Inc. VT100 is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation. | | VLT 5.576 Additional Documentation | ================================== (C) Copyright 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 by W.G.J. Langeveld Stanford Linear Accelerator Center | VLT 5.576 | ========= | | This is VLT 5.576, a bug-fix update to VLT 5.517. Where this | doc file differs from the one for version 5.517, you will see change | bars, such as in front of this paragraph. We will first summarize the | bug fixes and changes from version 5.517. If the problem was only | present in version 5.517, this is indicated by (5.517) at the end of | the item. | Please, read also the sections in the rest of the file that | have changed. | | Tektronix section changes and fixes: | | - VLT could get confused about whether Tektronix graphics was supposed | to be displayed in the main VLT screen or in a separate window | with a certain combination of menu selections. Also, the menu now | correctly displays which "screen" is being used. | - A miscflags option was added to prevent panel outlines from being | drawn. Added by request. | - VLT now handles <esc>? properly when interpreting XY coordinates | that are arguments to other escape sequences. | - Whether or not X,Y coordinates are displayed numerically during graphic | cursor operations is now saved in the Tek configuration file. | - An error in redrawing plots was fixed which would sometimes lead to | the last line segment not being plotted. This also affected saving | the data in any form. | - An error in the PostScript save code was fixed. After saving a file | in PS format, another file saved that way might start drawing at the | wrong point. | - A small problem with turning on and off the graphics cursor from the | menu was fixed. | | VT100 section changes and fixes: | | - The Swap-BS-DEL menu option used to also affect ctrl-H. It no longer | does. (5.517 bug only) | - By popular request, the top four keys of the numeric keypad now work | like they used to. There is, however, a miscflags option to force them | to send VT100 sequences under all circumstances. (5.517) | - After using a +i startup script, the screen would open without | displaying the cursor. | - If the console window was open, it was usually impossible to close | the screen. (5.517) | - There were major problems finding and/or opening fonts, especially | under AmigaDOS 1.3. These should all be fixed now. No more "Can't open | any font" messages. (5.517) | - There was a possible window for an infinite menu loop, where the first | menu option (Capture Session) would continuously open a requester. | - A reported crash of the built-in BEEP function, when no channels were | available, was not reproduced. The code was, however, bullet proofed, | and an IO-Torture hit removed. | - The command line option +i could not be used to start an initial | ARexx script in contrast to the documentation. It now can. | - There was a problem with the OwnDevUnit support when changing from | one serial device to another. (5.517) | - There was a problem with case sensitivity while opening libraries | under certain circumstances. (5.517) | - A workaround was installed to fix problems with some file requester | replacements that do not emulate ASL properly. Note, that the use of | file requester replacements is not recommended. (5.517) | - A precaution was added when aborting ARexx programs. | - Two subcommands were added to the "window" command: open and close. | "Window close" does the same as "clear close", except that it does | not clear the window. When the window is reopened, text that used to | be there will still be there. "Window open" does the same as "activate | vt100", but has no effect if the VT100 window is already open. | - VLT was never able to execute ARexx scripts with spaces in their | file names. It now treats filenames with spaces correctly, except when | they are sent to "AREXX" (using the @@ command) rather than "REXX" | (using @), for technical reasons. | - Some restrictions on the maximum size of VLT's windows were removed and | VLT should be a little happier to open up on a super-hires Workbench in | places near the right edge. | - There is now a miscflag to turn off escape key use for exiting scripts. | - An addition was made to the "baud" command to allow one to set arbitrary | serial speeds. | - The send and emit commands now accept strings with *X00 in them, and | don't stop sending there like they used to. Traps and waits and ons | can now also have *X00 in their match string. | - The IF script command was changed. It now executes its arguments | synchronously with the schedule in which the if appears. See the changed | documentation on the IF command. | - The continue command now allows an argument: the name of a schedule to | "continue". | | Changes in other files: | | - The VLTPhonebook ARexx scripts were fixed in various ways: they now | properly start the "setup" function if no phonebook is assigned; they | now look much better when used under AmigaDOS 1.3; some bugs in the | VLTPhoneDial.rexx script were fixed. (5.517) | - SetMiscFlags.vlt was modified in various ways: it now looks much | better under 1.3; two flags were erroneously switched in the Tektronix | part; entries for the four new flags were added. (5.517) | - FifoBBS.rexx was changed in two ways: it now doesn't pop up requesters | so often when a device is not found; it now ignores RING messages | during the logon sequence. | - The review window sliders now have the proper new look. | - A restriction on the size of the review window when opening on screens | wider than 1024 pixels was removed. | | | Most asked questions | -------------------- | | The following is a set of notes based on the most frequently | asked questions or reported bugs. | | - There are a few problems with the ASL file and directory requesters. | As to the file requester, when used in multiple select mode, doesn't | actually select the file if you double-click on it. This is used only | in the phonebook. Rather than double-clicking, click on Okay after you | have selected some files. The directory requester does not activate its | drawer gadget when it opens, and also doesn't execute an implicit | "Okay" if you hit return. And finally, it has been pointed out that | some file requesters have different colors than others. This is a | feature, not a bug: there is a difference between file requesters that | "save" things and ones that "get" things. | - There are several file requester replacements in the public domain. | VLT does *not* support these. If you use them, you do so at your own | risk. While VLT does nothing special to make them fail, it has been | found that many of them cause problems. | - There are several programs that cause VLT to drop characters when | receiving data, when these programs are run at the same time as VLT. | This is a problem caused by such programs, not of VLT. Suspect programs | are those that mess with the way the Amiga multitasks or that try to | monitor the tasks in the system (but there are others that work fine). | - There are some old versions of ToolManager (which allows you to run | programs from a Workbench menu, which do not set the "progdir:" assign. | If you run VLT from the tool menu this way, VLT may not be able to find | all the files it needs. | - The Special Keymap menu item is often used the wrong way. Do *not* | set the VLT special keymap to that of your country! Use the special | keymap *only* if you have a keymap editor (such as keymaped) and | then only set those keys you really want to change to a non-null | value. | - Sometimes it looks as if VLT is not using the version 2.0 3-D look. | This is caused by a mismatch between the color assignments and the | actual color values. You can set VLT up so it has your color settings | and still has proper "shine" and "shadow" colors. See CustomColors.scp | for an example, or WorkbenchColors.scp on the Workbench. | - The font VLT uses must have both an 8 and an 11 pixel tall version. | Suppose you want to use a font called SubtleBlue, then there must be | a directory called fonts:SubtleBlue, and files called | fonts:SubtleBlue.font, fonts:SubtleBlue/8 and fonts:SubtleBlue/11. | Furthermore, these fonts must both be 8 pixels wide and monospaced. | Under 2.04, only fonts that show up in the font requester are | acceptable to VLT. Some day, this restriction may be lifted. | - If you use "sunmouse"-like programs, i.e. programs that run in the | background that cause windows to be activated when the mouse pointer | is within the boundaries of that window, then many things in VLT | may become annoying. VLT now puts up busy pointers for the main VLT | window if a requester is up, and when the mouse pointer is not in | the requester, the requester window is often not active. Therefore, | "sunmouse"-like programs are not recommended. | - Since it is now possible to close VLT's main screen, one may wonder | how to reopen it. One way is to just rerun VLT. This causes VLT to | reopen the screen and put up the famous message "But I'm already here!". | Alternatively, one can send VLT an ARexx message such as "window open", | or "activate vt100". | - The documentation for using ConMan was a little confusing - this has | hopefully been fixed. | - There's an assign you can make to redirect where the TekCapture.000x | files go. This assign is TekStore:, and it must be a directory or a | device somewhere. | - Problems are often reported with FifoBBS when run in "remote" mode. | These problems are hopefully reduced with the current version, but | some care may still be needed. Consider what happens: someone tries | to call the modem of the system running VLT and FifoBBS. The modem | sometimes sends "RING" to VLT, and this used to cause VLT to think | someone hit a return, and so FifoBBS would send the "Username:" | prompt out the modem. Very often this would abort the connection | right there, since modems typically abort the connection process if | one sends them data before a connection is established. But even if | the modem did not abort, modems usually echo the data that you send | them if the connection is not established yet. So the entire Username: | banner text would be sent back to FifoBBS, which would interpret it | as someone trying to log on, and this would clearly interfere | massively with the real log-on process. So it is advisable to set | the modem to not report the "RING" messages and to not echo data, | on the system running FifoBBS. Most modems can be set to do this. | - A lot of people think that the review buffer's size is limited to | 8192 bytes. They come to this conclusion because they try to adjust | the buffer size in the wrong place. The "Buffer Size" option under | the "Comm" menu is not the correct place - this adjusts the buffer | VLT uses for the serial device itself. The review window has menus | of its own, and the "Buffer Size" option there is the one to use. VLT 5.517 ========= This is VLT version 5.517. Compared to version 5.045, the previous release, quite a few things changed. One of the major changes is that since version 5.100, VLT is compiled using the SAS C compiler. (All releases up to and including 5.045 used Manx C). Since this allowed linking with cres.o, VLT is now residentable. Also, it at first got quite a bit smaller. Unfortunately, a sufficient number of new features were added so that the actual size is somewhat larger than for the previous release. The other changes mainly involve AmigaDOS 2.04. VLT now uses the ASL requesters when running under 2.04, has 2.04 public screens, and uses a new Palette requester written with GadTools. However, VLT still works great with AmigaDOS 1.3. But there are quite a few new neato goodies as well. The ones that are of most interest to most people are probably: improved mouse support and programmability, and cut and paste directly from and to the main screen using the clipboard. There are also some nice ARexx programs included, the major one of which is a simple phone book. So far the good news. The bad news is that not everything I wanted to go in went in. So it is entirely possible that just the thing you really wanted in there didn't make it. That doesn't mean I think it's a bad idea, just that I didn't have time, and I wanted to bring out a new version now rather than wait until I had more time to do the others. If you want to see some of the new things quickly, then skip ahead to the sections where the NeatStuff script is mentioned. Okay, enough of the preliminaries, here are the details. Things that may affect *** COMPATIBILITY are marked with as such. Willy Langeveld, 24 March 1992. Changes to the Tektronix emulation ================================== Not too many changes here, but let's get them out of the way. Additions and Changes --------------------- A new miscflag setting was added: miscflag 256 causes Tektronix alpha mode text to appear on the VT100 screen, rather than on the Graphics screen. Added by request. Support was added for <esc> ID <esc> IE (disable and enable GIN mode). Some people with Tektronix 4107 graphics may now be able to get GIN cursors. This sequence allows setting up VLT for multiple cursor returns in a row. The cursor will remain displayed until the last cursor report is sent. VLT will now also support <csi> n m sequences in Tektronix mode, if n is in the range 30 to 37. This feature can be turned off with the miscflags value 1024. The sequences that cause the screen to flip from VT100 to graphics and v.v. are now seperately adjustable to not cause flipping of the screen, in a new (largish) submenu. *** COMPATABILITY: There used to be only one sequence that was adjustable this way. When you run the new VLT, the setting of that switch *may* have been lost. The little text window which used to display the x/y position of the graphics cursor was taken away: it caused too many problems. Instead, the X/Y position is now displayed in the Tek window itself. The enter GIN mode sequence ESC SUB is now also checked for in the VT100 part of VLT, to allow GIN cursors to come up on some systems. "Use" and "Cancel" buttons were added to the Color Options requester. Another command was added: tek menu <menunum> <itemnum> [<subnum>] This command allows one to execute any Tektronix screen menu item just as if it was selected from the menu. The size and position of the Tektronix window are now also saved to the Tektronix config file (which for this reason now has a slightly modified form). The Tektronix window now also has a close gadget when it is on the Workbench. All of VLT now uses the Commodore busy pointer. | | A miscflags option was added to prevent panel outlines from being | drawn. The value is 8192. | Whether or not X,Y coordinates are displayed numerically during | graphic cursor operations is now saved in the Tek configuration file. | Bug fixes --------- Some bugs were found during the conversion to SAS C. Others were found independendly. All of the ones listed below are now fixed. - In incremental mode, an ENQ sequence from the host would return an undefined cursor position. - A change was made to TekProlog.ps to fix a bug with "marker mode": when the marker is a simple dot, the PostScript file would have the data, but the size of the "dots" it would print was zero so they would not show up. - Opening a window on the Workbench could fail under certain conditions. A last ditch effort is now made to open the window 640 x 200. - Some work went into trying to limit overwriting the window borders when on the Workbench. - A few other bugs were found that are unlikely to have caused any trouble. - The method by which the spacing of graph text was determined was relaxed a little. It should now more often get the actually specified spacing rather than its own idea of what a good spacing would be. VT100 Part ========== VLT installation and "paths" ---------------------------- | | This section assumes that you have read the "Installation" file | carefully. If you haven't read it yet, do so now. One of the more powerful, but unfortunately somewhat confusing new features of VLT is that it searches for all the various files it might need in various places. The previous version only checked in one place and that was it, and you basically had to install VLT by copying files all over the place. This is no longer the case, but there are a few gotcha's you may run into. So read this section carefully. VLT now checks "paths" for all kinds of things. This allows you, for example, to install all of VLT's files in a directory called, for example work:VLT. The setup is, however, very flexible. For example, if you wanted the VLT fonts to go in fonts:, then just install them there. Or you could store them elsewhere, say in hd3:sundry_fonts. Just assign vlt_fonts: to this place, and VLT will find them. In fact you don't even have to call VLT's main directory "VLT". Under 2.04, VLT will automatically know where the program file lives. Under 1.3, the same is true, but you have to assign vlt: to the place VLT's executable lives, and VLT will check there. Note: due to a bug in AmigaDOS 2.04, VLT will not remember where it lives if it is made "resident". In that case, you will have to make an assignment just like in the 1.3 case. Notice, that VLT will use the included VTPrefs.dat (and TekPrefs.dat) files if it can find them. If you'd prefer to use the ones you had already from previous VLT versions, rename the ones included with this version to something else, or copy your own over the ones supplied with this archive. See also the discussion about the script called "NeatStuff.scp", in the mouse programming section. There are many instances where VLT does these checks along paths. The path is a little different depending on whether VLT is looking for a file or is putting up a file requester. When VLT is looking for a file, it will search a set of likely directories, in sequence, until the file is found. (In the tables below, "progdir:" stands for the place the VLT executable is located). You really don't have to worry about these. Just install VLT in a directory all its own, and everything should work fine. If you're upgrading from a previous version of VLT, you may choose to copy all the scripts in the rexx and scp directories of the archive, to where your scripts are now. In that case: do *not* create rexx and scp directories in the place where you store VLT's executable! Or else, VLT's requesters will come up pointing there rather than where your scripts are. Alternatively, you may want to copy your own scripts to the rexx or scp subdirectories of VLT's location. Take care not to overwrite the scripts that came with this archive! If you want to customize things your own way, then check the lists below. File(s): | Path that is searched (if directories exist): -----------------+----------------------------------------------------- TekProlog.ps | current-dir vlt_s: vlt:s progdir:s s: TekPrefs.dat | current-dir vlt_s: vlt:s progdir:s s: VTPrefs.dat | current-dir vlt_s: vlt:s progdir:s s: .scp scripts | current-dir vlt_scp: vlt:scp progdir:scp | vlt_rexx: vlt:rexx progdir:rexx rexx:vlt | rexx: s: ARexx macros | current-dir vlt_rexx: vlt:rexx progdir:rexx | rexx:vlt rexx: s: fonts | current-dir vlt_fonts: vlt:fonts progdir:fonts fonts: libraries | current-dir vlt_xpr: vlt_libs: vlt:xpr vlt:libs | progdir:xpr progdir:libs libs: devices | current-dir vlt_devs: vlt:devs progdir:devs devs: -----------------+----------------------------------------------------- When VLT puts up a requester and doesn't know where to look yet, it will bring up the requester pointing to the first directory it can find in the path. The following list shows which path it follows. Notice, that if your script files (for example) are all, say, in s:, but a rexx: directory exists, then VLT will show you the directory for rexx:, without your files, when it first comes up, because rexx: is higher on the priority list. VLT can't know ahead of time that your scripts aren't there. So store your scripts in the first place on the path that exists. Note, that you can always fool VLT, by assigning vlt_rexx: to wherever you happen to have stored your VLT rexx scripts, no matter which other directories exist, because that's where VLT checks first. Similarly for the other paths. Item | Path that is searched: -----------------+----------------------------------------------------- devices | vlt_devs: vlt:devs progdir:devs devs: current-dir XPR libraries | vlt_xpr: vlt_libs: vlt:xpr vlt:libs | progdir:xpr progdir:libs libs: current-dir VLT scripts | vlt_scp: vlt:scp progdir:scp | vlt_rexx: vlt:rexx progdir:rexx rexx:vlt | rexx: s: current-dir ARexx macros | vlt_rexx: vlt:rexx progdir:rexx rexx:vlt | rexx: s: current-dir keymaps | vlt_devs:keymaps vlt:devs/keymaps | progdir:devs/keymaps devs:keymaps current-dir Tek "archive" | vlt_archive: vlt:archive progdir:archive current-dir | VT100 prefs | vlt_s: vlt:s progdir:s s: | Tek prefs | vlt_s: vlt:s progdir:s s: -----------------+----------------------------------------------------- Now, it is perfectly possible that you have previously saved certain things in your configuration files. For example, you might have saved: libs:xprzmodem.library as your default file transfer protocol. In that case, when you select a new protocol to use, VLT will show you a requester for XPR protocols for libs:, with xprzmodem.library in the file gadget. All you have to do now is to point VLT to where your xpr libraries really are, select the proper xpr, and save the configuration again. Changes relating to AmigaDOS 2.04 --------------------------------- VLT now uses 2.0 public screens under 2.04. Under 1.3 it still uses screenshare.library. VLT now uses the ASL file requester under 2.04. Under 1.3 it still uses the ARP file requester. It also uses the ASL font requester under 2.04. Under 1.3 it uses a simple string requester for fonts. Note, that ASL requesters have a different color and some different properties depending on whether they are used as a "get" requester or "save" requester. VLT acquired a new palette requester written using GadTools. VLT now uses the C= Busy pointer. Requesters, review.library, menus and gadgets now use the System Default font, if it is an 8 by 8 monospaced font. NOTE: VLT still needs arp.library for various other functions! An ARexx Phonebook ------------------ There's a phonebook included, written in ARexx. Run, from VLT, the script called VLTPhoneBook.vlt (you may want to assign it to a function key or menu later on). The phonebook pretty much installs itself. The first time you do anything, it will ask you whether you want to assign VLTPhoneBook: to somewhere. Say that you do, and assign it to the "phonebook" directory that came with this distribution. You can then create entries, modify them, delete them, and show them. You can use these options multiple times, so you could have a few "create"s and a few "show"s open at the same time. Once you have created some entries (there are a few samples in this distribution) you can select them for dialing using a multiple select file requester. Once selected, you can click on "Start Dialing Sequence". The program that's then called is VLTPhoneDial.vlt. This program then finds the "dial_file" and dials the first entry in it. Then it will try to establish a connection, and if it works, it will wait until the user clicks on "Resume Dialing Sequence". If there is no connection, it will continue on to the next entry on the list and try all entries until a connection is established. The looping will continue until all connections have been successfully connected to once, or until the "Abort Dialing Sequence" button is hit. Note, that some portions involve multiple-select file requesters and these only work under 2.04. Presumably these could be written to be more useful under 1.3. Make sure that all the VLTPhone*.vlt and .rexx programs are copied to somewhere on VLT's search path. Also, for any of this to work, you must have rexxarplib version 3.0 (available in a separate archive on a BBS near you). The New Paste Facility ---------------------- There is a new Paste facility which can send the contents of the clipboard or text files to the host with adjustable character and line delays. It is in a separate menu which has options for all the send modes, a cancel option, and several other options. The Paste from ClipBoard option will start sending the current clipboard contents. The Edit/Paste ClipBoard option will give you the opportunity to edit each line before it gets sent. The Paste from File and Edit/Paste File options do the same for files, after bringing up a file requester. The Cancel Paste option aborts the current paste operation. The options for Character and Line Delay allow you to set the delay after each character and line respectively. The Line Prefix option will allow you program a string to be sent before each line sent. Everything can also be programmed using script commands. The way the review buffer's Edit/Send works was changed. When you want to get something from the review buffer, you now should select it, copy it to the clipboard, and then use the "paste" facility to paste the clipboard contents into VLT. The menu subitem "View" was therefore moved to the VLT menu as a regular item, and the "Edit/Send" subitem was removed. The entire paste facility really works using the script command "paste". See the scripting section for how this works. A note on the clipboard ----------------------- Things that are cut or copied to the clipboard are always put there in a certain (IFF) form. In the case of VLT, the only IFF form we're interested in is the one concerning text, called FTXT. Part of the standard IFF form is that they must contain an even number of bytes. Of course, it could be that you copied an odd number of characters to the clipboard, but this is kept track of by putting the number of characters in as part of the IFF form. In that case, the IFF needs to be "padded" with another byte. Now there is a problem: some older applications don't accept clips that are padded. Sure, these applications are broken, but what if that's the only bug and otherwise it works fine, and worse, you happen to own it? VLT has, for this reason, always written clips to the clipboard without padding them. The rationale was: it keeps these broken applications working, and other applications that aren't broken, all turn out to not care one way or another. However, with AmigaDOS 2.04 came a new library, called iffparse.library. More and more applications are starting to use this library to read clips from the clipboard, and guess what: iffparse.library *does* care whether the clips are padded or not. What it all boils down to, is the following. If you notice that pieces of text you clip from VLT don't show up in your favorite editor, wordprocessor or shell, then you should set VLT to pad clips. This can be done using the miscflags command, see elsewhere in this file. There is a nice ARexx program called SetMiscFlags.vlt that allows you to set the various flags from a window with gadgets. Turn the very first one on, and save your configuration and you should be fixed. Mouse Programming and Secondary Cursor -------------------------------------- *** COMPATIBILITY: This part was modified in incompatible ways. The mouse can now be programmed in sixteen different ways. Separate programs can be given for the mouse by itself and the mouse together with shift, ctrl, alt, shift-ctrl, shift-alt or shift-ctrl-alt keys. Not only that, but seperate programs can be given for when the the left mouse button is pressed or released. A special program is "auto", in which case the mouse behaves just like it used to do when "Mouse Support" was selected from the menu, if you hadn't programmed it specifically to something else. This menu option was moved down in the Operation menu, and no longer has a checkmark - it is in principle always on, though the unqualified mouse button is likely not programmed to do anything. If you select this menu item now, a requester appears to let you edit all the different mouse programs. If you used to have "mouse support" turned on, you may find this item to be preprogrammed to "auto", if not, then it is most likely not set to anything. If you had programmed it to do something else entirely, most likely that program will show up. In the program, you used to be limited to a sequence of %d's (and %x if you wanted). You can still use %d, (but not, say, %2d!) but %x now means something else! In fact, substitutions will no longer be made in a fixed order (unless you continue to use %d), but according to the following recipe: %X = current mouse X position %Y = current mouse Y position %x = current cursor X position %y = current cursor Y position %l = number of lines on currently on the screen %c = number of columns currently on the screen %q = the qualifiers the mouse was pressed down with Note, that VLT guarantees that left-mousebutton release (up) events will be treated the same way as the preceding left-mousebutton down press. What this means is, that if you pressed the mouse button down while ctrl was also pressed, you can let go of the ctrl button *before* releasing the mouse button, and VLT will still execute the program that went along with the ctrl selectup program. Together with the powerful new "movecursor" additions, you can now program the mouse to provide cut and paste facitlities! To get a feeling for how this works, run the script NeatStuff.scp in the scp directory. (If you are using the vtprefs.dat file that came with this version, then you don't have to run NeatStuff). This will have programmed the following things. - If you click ust the left mouse button by itself: Normally does nothing, but if there is a highlighted area, it gets rid of it. - Shift left mouse button: Sends enough mouse moves to the host to get the cursor to the place where you clicked. This doesn't work with all hosts. - Ctrl left mouse button: While holding down ctrl and the left mouse button you can drag out an area. When you let go, it is put into the clipboard. The area stays highlighted. If you want to get rid of it, just click the mouse without holding down ctrl. If you want the select another area, just click and drag again, while the ctrl key is down. - Alt left mouse button: If you hold either Alt button down and click anywhere, and there is an area already highlighted, then the highlighted text is pasted to the serial port. The area now becomes unhighlighted. - Shift ctrl left mouse button: Click on a "word" on the display and it will be put in the clipboard. It will stay highlighted. If you want a different word, just click again while shift and ctrl are still down. - Shift alt left mouse button: Puts up a window with the column and row of where the mouse was clicked. - Ctrl alt left mouse button: For you bixen: click on a conference/topic combination on BIX (like "microsoft/other"), and it will resign the topic for you. - Shift, ctrl, alt left mouse button: Combines well with shift ctrl left-mouse. Suppose you wanted to enter a combination of words on the command line, without typing them in (they are already in various places on the screen). Now usually you want these words to be spaced apart with a number of spaces. What you do is this: use Shift-ctrl left-mouse to highlight the first word. Now also press the alt key and click the left mouse button on the command line where you want the word to appear. Spaces will be sent until the cursor is in the column where you clicked (minimum one space), and then the word will be pasted in. Repeat for the other words. For this to work, a new thing was added, which I'll call a secondary cursor. It, too, is manipulated completely from script commands. Since you just ran NeatStuff.scp, you will also find that your ALT and SHIFT-ALT cursor keys and a few keypad keys have been changed. Now, when you hold down ALT, and use the cursor keys, then a second cursor will appear. You can move it around using ALT cursor keys. When you also hold down shift, then you will increase the size of the cursor using the right arrow and down arrow buttons, and decrease the size using the left arrow and up arrow buttons. When you hit the keypad 0 button with ALT, the area currently spanned by the cursor is clipped out and put into the clipboard. The area will stay highlighted. Had you also held down the shift key while pressing the keypad 0, the cursor would have disappeared after clipping. To get rid of the second cursor if it is currently up there, just hit alt or shift-alt with the dot on on the keypad. To paste the current clip to the screen, you can use either alt plus the Enter key on the keypad, or shift-alt with Enter, or the menu options in the Paste menu. Alt-Enter will allow you to edit the lines before they get sent. Technical note: Alt and shift-alt keypad keys used to only perform the preprogrammed functions if the keypad mode was "application" (i.e. not "numeric"). *** COMPATIBILITY: Now, alt and shift-alt keypad do nothing if they are not programmed (or redefined in the special keymap, see later), but if they are programmed, they will perform their preprogrammed function no matter if the keypad is in numeric or application mode. To see how this magic is accomplished, just switch program mode on and do the same operations. Instead, the program mode requester will show up and show you what the programs are. You can also just look at the NeatStuff.scp program. Incidentally, the NeatStuff.scp program will also have programmed some nice User Menu programs. Check them out, and change them to what you'd prefer. If you want to keep all these programs around, just save your configuration after running NeatStuff. You don't have to run NeatStuff ever again in that case! For further explanations on how all this works, see the next section about the new script commands. Additions to the script language -------------------------------- The @ command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The @ sign can now be used to execute .scp files as VLT native scripts, or to launch .vlt and .rexx scripts as ARexx programs. This makes it much easier to start scripts, which one used to have to do using "exit" (as in "exit myscript.scp") for native scripts, and using a construct like "rx (call myscript.vlt)" for ARexx scripts. Note that the '@' was already used in the programming of function keys and the like to indicate that a particular key should execute a script. Now the '@' is a full-fledged script command in its own right, with a few extra features. You can also launch REXX programs from VLT that will execute under "AREXX" rather than "REXX". To do this, add an extra @ sign in front of the script name. To summarize: the script command: @SomeScript.vlt runs a macro under REXX, which means VLT needs to wait until the script exits before VLT can exit itself. If instead: @@AnotherScript.vlt is used, the macro will run under AREXX, which means that it doesn't require VLT to hang around until it exits. The disadvantage is that the default host for the macro will now be REXX rather than VLT, with no way to find out VLT's port name! But you can now pass arguments to programs launched in either of the above methods. So, you can get around this problem by launching program A using a single @ sign. It will know who the default host is. If program A does the following: /* A.vlt */ vltport = address() "@@B.vlt "vltport exit then program B will be launched by VLT with the correct VLT port name as an argument. Program B can then still send messages to the correct VLT, and yet not need VLT to stay around. You might ask: why have VLT launch the program in the first place rather than just having ARexx do it? This is because VLT has a particular search order for .vlt scripts that regular ARexx does not have. The way program A works, B.vlt will be found if it is in VLT's search path for ARexx scripts. | | Due to a technical problem with the AREXX port, you cannot use the @@ | combination if the name of your script file or the directory or device | in which it lives has one or more spaces. | | The BAUD command | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | | In order to allow one to use "odd" serial speeds, the "midi" | setting has been made programmable. The default setting is 31250 bps. | To program the speed to a different value, issue the command: | | baud midi <new-value> | | where <new-value> is the serial speed you would like. This can be used | to access speeds that are not "preset" values available from the menu, | such as 600 bps, as used by X10 controllers, or 115400 bps for those | that think that 57600 is not fast enough. | Note that the new value is *not* saved in the configuration | file, and the value is not extractable using EXTRACT. Strictly provided | for "quick hacks" and "odd situations". The CANCEL command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *** COMPATIBILITY The cancel command can no longer cancel the script it executed from (this was never the intended behavior). Use "exit" instead. There is a new argument allowed for the script "cancel" command, and this is used in the phonebook code. Basically, the cancel command now allows commands of the form: cancel <scriptname> <cancelflag> What happens is that the script <scriptname> is cancelled, and if that script was run from an ARexx context, the ARexx context will now have a value assigned to VLT.CANCELFLAG equal to <cancelflag>. This allows you to use scripts that sit around indefinitely, and that can be cancelled by various other scripts. By using the cancelflag, you can then tell what caused the script to be cancelled. The COLOR command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Not sure if this was mentioned in the manual before, but the color command has an option "REQuest", which brings up VLT's color requester. The CONFiguration command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This command has the syntax: CONFiguration SAVE [<filename>] It allows you to save VLT's configuration, as if the command were issued from the menu. The configuration file will be saved according to the "path" search mentioned earlier. If the <filename> argument is specified, it will be saved with that name. If no directory is specified, the path wll be searched for the file. If the file is not found, it will be created in the current directory. If the <filename> argument is not specified, the file will be saved over the last read preferences file. The CONSole command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The console command was added and it has several options. CONSole Open : opens the console window. CONSole Close : closes the console window. CONSole Specification <console string> : specify console string. CONSole Height <height> : specify amount of space to leave at the bottom. *** COMPATIBILITY: The "consolewindowadjust" command was deleted. If you don't want VLT to change the text display just because there is a console, then specify a console height of 0. The console height that you set with this command does not actually affect the size of the console window that you may want to open - it only specifies how much room to leave at the bottom for a console (or whatever else). The default is 55 pixels. | The CONTinue command | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | | The Continue command can now be used with the name of another | schedule as an argument. This allows one schedule to continue another. | This can be used to synchronize schedules. For example, consider: | | # ScheduleA.scp: | # | A: | @ScheduleB.scp | pause | ... # other stuff. | | and: | | # ScheduleB.scp: | # | ... # stuff that needs to happen first. | continue A | exit quiet | | What happens is that Schedule A executes Schedule B. Normally, Schedule | A would merrily go on. Now however, it encounters the pause command and | waits. Meanwhile, Schedule B executes what it needs to execute. It then | uses the "continue A" command, which causes Schedule A to break the | "pause" condition, and Schedule A then executes the rest of its comamnds, | while Schedule B exits. The DISPLAYCrascrlf command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This command turns on or off whether incoming carriage returns are displayed as if they were CR's followed by LF's. The EXTRact command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This command was updated to have many more extractable items. See the updated "extracttest.rexx" in the rexx directory. One notable item that can be extracted is VLT's current internal "clip" buffer. Using the "paste clip" command this feature can be "abused" to find out what is currently in the Amiga clipboard. The FAULT command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This command now can return some more error messages. The FONT command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With the font command, you can change VLT's font. The font will still have to pass VLT's notorious test of existing in both an 8 point and an 11 point tall size. The width must be 8 points, and the font must be monospaced. The Function command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This command hasn't changed, but the four sequences that used to be listed as "reserved", are now applicable to ALT and SHIFT-ALT Delete and Help, respectively. The HANDshake command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The keyword "cts/rts" is now allowed for the handshake command as a substitute for the "7-wire" option. The IF command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This command was changed quite a bit. It now allows an "else" clause as well as a "not" qualifier. Typical usage would be: if tek (do a tek command; another one) else (do some VT100 stuff) It also has a "not" option: you can use: if not echo (do stuff) The number of things one can check for has been greatly expanded beyond the "tek" and "vt100" which used to be the only options. The full list follows: TEKtronix If we're in Tektronix mode, this is true. VT100 We're in VT100 mode. ECho Local Echo is currently turned on. NUMerickeypad The keypad is currently in numeric mode. APPlicationcursor The cursor keys are currently in application mode. SWApbackspacedelete The backspace and delete keys are swapped. HELpkeylf The Help key is set to send a linefeed. SHIfttabesc Shift-Tab sends <tab> <esc>. LOCal VLT is in "local" mode, i.e. keystrokes are not sent ECHOLinefeeds The return key, when pressed, echos a cr + lf. SENDLinefeeds The return key, when pressed, sends a cr + lf. CLIP VLT currently has something in its "clip" buffer. SECONDcursor The secondary cursor is currently displayed. SELECTdown The left mouse button is currently down. The commands execute on the same schedule that the "if" command was called from, so you can include goto's that refer to labels outside the set of commands inside the "if", and also exit commands, and they will all work the | right way. ***COMPATIBILITY: In contrast to earlier versions of VLT, the | commands execute *synchronously*. For example: | | if vt100 (emit "foo"; delay 1; emit "bar"); emit "done" | | If "vt100" mode is currently active (as opposed to graphics mode), then | first "foo" will appear, a delay of one second will follow, then "bar" | appears immediately followed by "done". In previous versions, one would | have the rather counter-intuitive situation where first "foo" would appear | and "done" immediately afterwards. Then, after a delay of one second, "bar" | would appear. The KERmit command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The kermit command supports, in addition to BYE and the other options, also a FINish option. The KEYMap command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The KEYMap command can now be used to set a different special keymap. Syntax: keymap <keymap name> | Note, this command should not be used to set the VLT keymap to that of | your country: VLT already uses most of the system default keymap. Use | only for keymaps that change those keys you really want to change. The LOCAL command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ VLT can now be set to "local" mode using the "LOCAL" command ("local yes/no" or "local on/off"). In this mode, any keypresses will not be sent to the host. The MENU command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A new command was added to the scripting facility: menu <menunum> <itemnum> [<subnum>] It executes that particular menu item, as if it were selected using the main window's menus. Note that when counting items, "bars" are also considered to be items. The MIScflags command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A few more flags were added to miscflags. The 256 and 1024 flags were explained in the Tektronix section. The 512 flag turns off OwnDevUnit checking. The 2048 flag turns off the activation of message windows. The 4096 flag causes the VLT screen to pop back to the front after an upload or download is finished. Since there are so many miscflags options now, the interface for setting them has been improved. Here's how the "miscflags" comamnd syntax is now: miscflags <number> or miscflags {add | remove} <option> [[{add | remove}] <option> [...]] where <option> is one of the following: Name old flag bit ----------------------------------- PADdedclips 1 DISplayoff 2 NOMessages 4 SERialshared 8 TEKNOPointer 16 UNBufferedcapture 32 NOLocalprint 64 - not used - 128 ALPhaonmainscreen 256 NOOwndevunit 512 TEKNOAnsicolors 1024 INActivemessages 2048 AUToactivate 4096 | TEKNOBoundary 8192 | VT100toprow 16384 | NOEscapescripts 32768 You should not use the number when using the "add" or "remove" form, but the name instead. Note that there is an ARexx program, "SetMiscFlags.vlt", that has a nice user interface for these flags. The MOUsesupport command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The mousesupport command used to be available to turn mousesupport on or off, and to optionally set a new program string for mousesupport. The on/off (or yes/no) options now are used to program the mouse without shift/alt/ctrl keys to the string "auto" for both select up and select down, for some amount of *** COMPATIBILITY, but not a lot. The new syntax of the command is: MOUsesupport [shift [ctrl [alt [selectup [selectdown]]]]] <program-string> By default, no qualifiers are specified, and selectdown is implied. Just as in other things of this kind, <the program-string> has to start with a ~ to be interpreted as a script command. There is one exception: the keyword "auto" is reserved to mean automatic generation of cursor key sequences, as it used to be when "mouse support" was on but no special program was present. The MOVecursor command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One of the major changes is in the command MOVecursor. It used to be only for moving the text cursor. If only two coordinates are specified, the command still applies to the text cursor. When, however, three or more coordinates are specified, the command applies to the secondary cursor. The syntax then becomes: MOVecursor <x1> <x2> <y1> [<y2>] where <x1> ... <y2> can be specified as <x/yn> = [RELative | ABSolute] <number> where the number is a row or column specification, either in absolute screen coordinates, or relative to the text cursor. Alternatively, the coordinates can be specified as: <x/yn> = MOUSE In this case, that coordinate is set to the current X or Y position of the mouse, depending on the position. For example, the command move rel 0 mouse 12 mouse would display the secondary cursor with the top/left corner positioned at the column of the current text cursor (rel 0) and at line 12. The bottom/right edge would be at the current mouse position. Note that the coordinates are sorted appropriately to disallow negative-sized cursors. To see this command in action, check the scripts in "NeatStuff.scp" The PASte command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The PASte command is another major new command. The menu options internally use this command to perform the paste operations. It arguably works in somewhat of a funny way, since it requires a loop to actually paste something. A paste operation is accomplished in a couple of steps. First of all, the contents of the clipboard or a file, or a string, must be loaded into VLT's internal paste buffer. This is accomplished using the CLIP, FILE, or STRing options. For example, the command: paste clip retrieves the Amiga clipboard contents and stuffs it into VLT's internal buffer. Similarly, the commands paste file work:foo/bar.txt and paste string "This is a test" stuff the file work:foo/bar.txt or "This is a test" into the internal buffer. Only one paste operation can be active at a time. A paste operation can be aborted using: paste CANcel This causes the current internal buffer to be emptied and deallocated and, indirectly, any paste operation currently in progress would abort. So, now that we have something in the internal buffer, we need to paste it into VLT's input stream. Since paste uses character and line delays, this operation can actually go one character at a time. In that case, each "paste" command by itself will only send a single character. If the character delay is zero, each "paste" command will cause a full line to be sent. So we need to loop until there is no longer anything left in the internal buffer. This can be done automatically by using the command: paste AUTO What this does, internally, is loop until everything is pasted. The following loop accomplishes in principle the same thing: $1: paste; goto $1 but it has the side effect of causing a script error when a paste is attempted when the internal buffer is finally empty. A better way (and this way is used in "paste auto") is to use the new option to the "if" command: $clipprog: paste clip; $1: paste if clip else exit goto $1 Now, when the internal buffer is empty, the "clipprog" exits before it does another paste. In this context, you can also use the "edit" option. "paste edit" does the same as "paste", except it brings up a string requester before it actually pastes the text into VLT's input stream, and allows you to edit the lines. Similarly, you can use "paste edit auto". The paste command has two more subcommands. They are: paste PREfix <paste line-prefix> paste DELays <line delay> [<character delay>] to program the prefix to be used before each line that is pasted, and the line and character delays. The REView command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are two added options to the review script command: N and V. V is for "Append" and N is for "Append To" and requires another argument, the file name. See the changes in the review buffer below. The SCHedule command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The schedule command can now be used to execute the contents of a function key. The syntax is SCHedule Function <key number> The TEKtronix command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A subcommand was added: tek menu <menunum> <itemnum> [<subnum>] It executes that particular menu item, as if it were selected using the Tektronix window's menus. Note that when counting items, "bars" are also considered to be items. The TITlebar command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This command takes arguments on/off or yes/no or toggle. If "titlebar on" is used, VLT's custom screen will have a displayed titlebar both on the main screen and on the Tektronix screen. VLT will correctly take the title bar height into account when calculating where to display text. | The WINDOW command | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Two subcommands were added to the "window" command: open and close. | "Window close" does the same as "clear close", except that it does | not clear the window. When the window is reopened, text that used to | be there will still be there. "Window open" does the same as "activate | vt100", but has no effect if the VT100 window is already open. The XPR command ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The XPR INIT command used to only accept an INIT string if the protocol was set to external, using "transfer protocol external". Otherwise it would report an error. Since all protocols are really external these days, the requirement was relaxed. XPR INIT now will always allow you to send an init string. However, it is up to the user to determine that the correct protocol is currently loaded. Other major changes -------------------- - Some changes were made to the review buffer. The review window acquired two more menu items: "Append" and "Append To..." allowing direct append to files, avoiding the little requester warning you the file already exists. When trying to "Save" to a file that already exists, the requester will still come up. There are two added options to the review script command: N and V. V is for "Append" and N is for Append To and requires another argument, the file name. The review.library was also modified to report to VLT that a key was hit other than the arrow keys or shift or control. VLT now deactivates the review window if it is displayed and treats the key as if it was hit in the main VLT window. This greatly reduces the number of times you have to go to the mouse to click in the main VLT window. - Message window now come up active, which is esthetically much more pleasing. However, they do notice when activity is going on so they still go away automatically when you continue typing or click a mouse button. Also, they do not activate if the main VLT window is not active. Moreover, this feature can be turned off using a miscflags option (see the script section). - VLT can now be started with an ARexx startup script. VLT will automatically look for a script called VLT_Startup.vlt. If a file is specified using the +i command line option/Tool Type, then that file is checked automatically to see if it is ARexx or VLT native script language. - One can now specify the "VTPrefs" and "TekPrefs" files by name on the command line (or in the icon). The options are +p <VTPrefs-filename> and +t <TekPrefs-filename> respectively. One can now also tell VLT not to use any VTPrefs or TekPrefs file by specifying -p and/or -t respectively. - There is a new command line option, "-n", which starts each invocation of VLT with a new name (up to a limit of some 25 invocations). The names are of the form VLT.n with n between 1 and 25. If VLT comes up on the Workbench, then each invocation has its titlebar lowered by 10 pixels. - Menu options have been added to save configuration files "as..." some other file name. Together with the previous item, this allows for much more flexible setups. - You can now program all of the main VLT screen's right-Amiga abbreviations to your favorite ones. See the Program Mode submenu. - When VLT's screen would be closed, it would no longer interpret incoming data. Now it does, the review buffer is properly updated, and escape sequences from the host, including those containing Amiga commands will now work even if the screen is closed. This also means that if you reopen the screen some time later, you will see the most recent data. - A special keymap can now be selected. This keymap should consist mainly of NULL entries. Where the entry is not NULL, VLT will use that entry instead of the one in the default (country specific) keymap. These entries can be of the "string" kind, and when they start with a ~ or ~@, they will be treated as if they were function keys, i.e. they can execute commands or scripts. This allows people to customize their keyboard setups for VLT completely. You do have to | use a Keymap Editor to do this. Note: do not just set this keymap | to be that of your country. You'll be very unhappy. See also the | new KEYMAP script command. - The window size and position are now saved in the config file, by popular request. (This is only of importance to using VLT on the Workbench). | - The way the console string is handled was subtly changed. The console | used to only work if you had ConMan, because only ConMan was able to | open up on VLT's screen. Under AmigaDOS 1.3, this is still true, and | you have to continue to use ConMan (or WShell 2.0 if you have that). | Under 2.04 you may want to continue to use ConMan, but by default | VLT will now use the 2.04 console handler. This means that the default | is that the console string no longer starts with con:s*/ (or cnc:s*/ | if you mounted ConMan's cnc: instead of running ConMan). Instead, | VLT will appends: /screen VLT to the string before using it to | open the console. Of course, if you want to use ConMan, this doesn't | work. You will have to add the s*/ part back in. If you do have | WShell 2.0, then the new way will work, since WShell 2.0 is compatible | with 2.0. If you do put in the s*/, then VLT will not add the /screen | VLT part, if course. (In addition, VLT only does that when it is on a | custom screen, and of course, rather than VLT, it will use the actual | name of the screen. You will not see this part when you try to program | it, and you should not include the /screen part in your console string, | or else it will fail if you run VLT with another name). | *** COMPATIBILITY: To sumarize, the default for the console string now | uses the AmigaDOS 2.04 form, without the "s*", under AmigaDOS 2.04. - When the console is open, VLT no longer polls it using WaitForChar, but actually sends it packets. VLT now also knows about the Console's window pointer and activates the console when needed. Also, the console window size and position are now saved to the configuration file, so if you use the %d form of the console string, it will use the last saved values. - A console menu file is now included for those that have WShell 2.0. All menus of VLT's main window are duplicated in the console window, if this file is used. Note, that WShell doesn't support checkmarks. | This only works under AmigaDOS 2.04. - ARexx error messages now are much more descriptive. Ironically, VLT has to run an ARexx macro in order to get the actual error text. - If VLT is started with too little stack (<10240) VLT now allocates its own stack. - On-line help. When you run the ARexx macro MenuHelp.vlt from VLT's ARexx Macro... menu item, you will see a little help window to get (brief) help for all VLT's menus. Just follow the instructions. Some minor changes ------------------ - You can now execute a script command to set VLT up with a screen titlebar. See the "titlebar" script command. - Menu options for the more well-known XPR's were added. - The Unit requester in the Comm menu no longer has an Okay gadget. This means you can hit return in the string gadget to accept the default. - All VLT's windows and requesters now have front/back gadgets. - The Version menu item is now called "About" and lists more legalese. 8^( - Automatic printing can now be redirected from prt: by assigning the logical name vlt_prt: to a directory. - A few new error messages were added and can be expected when using ARexx. - VLT now supports Chris Wichura's OwnDevUnit standard for arbitrating access to serial devices. This can be turned off using a miscflags option. - An option was added to display cr's as cr/lf pairs. - A Kermit Finish option was added in the menu and as a script command. - When both the VLT screen and the Tektronix screen are behind other screens, then the Tek screen will no longer jump to the front where it otherwise would. - The amount of space left at the bottom of the screen for the console window is now programmable through the script command "console" - The specified detail/block pen now also affect VLT's screen title bar. On the other hand, menus always use detailpen 0 and blockpen 1. - Another check was added to the code that sends messages to REXX. Also, if REXX is not currently running, you get a message to that effect when you try to run a REXX macro. - When you send stuff using the console window, message windows that may have popped up will now be removed when you hit return. - The "marks" that appear in trace mode used to leave ghosts all over the display when in "Quick Render" mode. This was fixed by effectively turning Quick Render off when trace is on. - The program "Ping" was renamed to "PingServer" to avoid clashes with a networking program of the same name. Bug fixes --------- The number of bugs that was found and fixed is not that large. Here are the ones known to have been fixed (though others may have been fixed as part of rewrites - of course, new ones may have been introduced 8^). In random order: - A number of problems were fixed when running VLT from the Workbench. When using the icons that were included in some early versions of VLT, VLT would lose memory. It was also possible for the VLT executable to become locked. The reason for this isn't quite clear, but it has something to do with the icon file itself. Please use the icons that are included with this version of VLT. Or, select the information item in the Workbench menu for the icon. When the information window comes up, resave the icon. Note that this problem may also account for a reported problem that starting VLT from the Workbench could cause a Read/Write Error requester to appear, even though there never really was any such problem. Also, the way VLT starts from icons is much different now. *** COMPATIBILITY As a side effect of this change, VLT no longer changes to the directory of the icon as it executes each of the scripts associated with the icons. - A long standing bug with handling cursor movement escape sequences was hopefully fixed. The bug only occurred when a scrolling region was also in effect. - The "close clear" menu option didn't check if the screen was locked and could cause trouble. A few other commands that would close the screen without checking were also fixed. - Review buffer script commands were a little picky. Some had to be put in in upper case, and some needed weird quoting in order to be accepted. Some erroneous commands (missing command or args) could lead to trouble. - A parsing error when xpr libraries were not in libs: was fixed. - After selecting a new serial device, the unit requester would come up. Clicking on the close gadget did not abort the selection of a new device. - Specifying prt: in the review buffer "save as" requester didn't work. - VLT now checks for serial port errors on QUERY, SETPARAMS and DoIO's. Errors are now reported right away, not at the next write as it used to be. VLT now uses the io_Actual as returned by DoIO, rather than trusting the io_Actual handed back during the previous QUERY. - A security gap was fixed in FifoBBS.rexx. - When capturing, the handling of cr/lf and lf/cr pairs was made a lot smarter. - A timing problem was fixed in XPR serial port handling. This was only a problem under AmigaDOS 1.3. The timer device didn't zero the "tv_secs" field. - The serial device code was again changed in places. - Some work went into not overwriting window borders when on the Workbench. - Cancelling scripts with multiple ON's could crash VLT. - When the Tek screen was open, the "But I'm already here" message would appear on the Tektronix screen and would therefore usually not be seen. - The script command "file receive" would cause enforcer hits when using xprxmodem (xprxmodem expects a non-null filename). - On automatically started ZMODEM downloads, VLT would fail to ring the bell when the transfer completes. - Alt and shift-alt keypad used to only use the preprogrammed functions if the keypad mode was "application" (i.e. not "numeric"). *** COMPATIBILITY: Now, alt and shift-alt keypad do nothing if they are not programmed (or redefined in the special keymap). - Some VT100 compatibility problems were fixed. A reported problem with either setting scrolling regions or insert/delete line or characters was fixed by bullet proofing the code some more. - Under 5.045, scripts could cancel themselves by referring specifically to their own name. Since this is the same function as "exit", it was never the intended behavior. Scripts can no longer "cancel" themselves. - An old bug was perhaps fixed: the transfer status window often didn't display the right protocol name. - The "extract rendermode" command sometimes extracted the kermit mode instead, depending on which rendermode was set. - There was a problem with clearing the screen and restoring of text. This was seen most easily by setting VLT to use the Workbench, making the window really small, clearing the screen, and making the window large again. - A long-standing bug with reading script files was fixed: if the last line of the script had no trailing line-feed, the last character was ignored. - The VLT xpr_finfo call-back function would return garbage data when asked about info types it didn't know about. - The VLT xpr_options requester sometimes used to return more than one bit if string gadgets were changed, if the last gadget clicked was a "COMMAND" or "COMMPAR" type. - The programmode command didn't adjust the menu check marks. That's about it! Have fun... 8^) Willy.