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Documentation for Most V1.31 Date : 11 Nov 1992 Author: Uwe Röhm Most is a 2.0 only textviewer which I wrote with full workbench support in mind. First at all an overview of interesting features: - unlimited number of windows - each text has its own process - search function - highly configurable - clipboard support - "click-and-load" function for includes - font sensitive GUI - PubScreen, CustomScreen or Workbench - AppWindow, AppIcon - ARexx Port - localization with locale.library - XPK support - pipe support - as mentioned, kickstart 2.0 is requiered Table of Contents =================== 1. Copyright 2. Background 3. Configuration 4. Keyboard commands 5. Menus 6. Most's window 7. The search requester 8. The AppIcon 9. XPK support 10. pipe support 11. ARexx Port 12. Ideas, Bug reports 13. current versions 14. Thanks 1. Copyright =========== Most 1.31 is published under the concept of GiftWare! So if you find Most a useful tool (and of course use it) please make me a present of any kind - and make me VERY happy. Beside this I keep my Copyright: Copyright (c) 1992 by Uwe Röhm You MUST get my aggreement if you wish to publish Most in a commercial product. Especially it is not allowed to use Most for military purposes of any kind which includes using Most in companies which plan or only support military products. You are allowed to include Most in PD packages which cost less than $10.- ! But I ask you to keep the archive together. You have to include the documentation with each version. Thank you! 2. Background ============ There are some goals I try to achieve with Most: - full workbench support - easy to use with mouse AND keyboard - flexibility - memory friendly :-) So Most uses a window for EACH text - there is no possibility to use it like Commodore's More in a shell. Of course you can choose another screen to open on or even an own CustomScreen. How much windows are opened by Most and where they are is absolut without interest and only limited by the amount of free (chip-) memory! As each text is displayed in his own window there is also its own process behind. Cause of the windows are absolut independent of each other. Especially you can send ARexx commands to different windows simultaneous and you are free to open new Most windows even if previously opened windows are "busy" - there is Most's main process which handles all texts and some global ARexx commands. To be memory friendly and to display very huge texts even on a 500KB system Most does buffering. Small texts, which fit completly into the buffer, are read only once and closed than so that you can e.g. edit and save it again. But if the text is larger than the configurated buffer length (yes, of course you can change the buffer size, but read on :-) ) Most will do some sort of "paging". So memory usage will be limited by the buffer size you specified (little memory -> small buffer). On the other hand this slowes scrolling and searching down!!! Sorry for this, but if you have enough memory just increase to buffer size to - let's say - 2 MB. Don't be afraid. Of course Most only uses the amount of memory it needs if a text is smaller than the buffer ;-) There is one exception of the paging method: XPK packed files. In the current version Most does NO PAGING to XPK files but reads the complete file into memory. Perhaps this will change in future, perhaps it will stay... Oh, I nearly forgot that Most can diplay all ANSI sequences. Without this it wouldn't be a real textviewer. As I don't want to do old work again and again I decided to use the console.device. This enables you to mark lines and copy them with "Amiga C" into the clipboard! (Don't use the FASTSCROLL Option if you want mark something). I regret that there are also some problems: - You can only mark text inside the visible text portion. - Scrolling is quiet annoying on an "normal" Amiga without 680x0 (x > 1). - Don't load binary files. I warned you!!! 3. Configuration =============== Most does the following configuration steps on startup: 1.) internal defaults 2.) environments "Most/Most" und "Most/FileReq" (When used from shell local environments will be read first!) 3.) Shell-start: parse command line WB-start : parse ToolTypes And now, ladys and gentlemans, here are the options to be used in 2.) and 3.): FILES list of filenames to be displayed (shell only!!!) PUBSCREEN name of PubScreen where Most will open its windows on PORTNAME overwites the default ARexx portname "MostPort" STARTUP name of an ARexx Macro executed every time Most opens a window WX=WINDOWX X-coordinate of Most's window WY=WINDOWY Y-coordinate of Most's window. -1 for centered windows WW=WINDOWW width of windows (defaults to 600) WH=WINDOWH height of... (defaults to 400) SM=SCREENMODE A valid screenmode Most will use to open its on screen with (which will be a PubScreen named 'Most'). You can get a list of the avaible screenmodes of your system if you start Prefs/ScreenMode. ATTENTION! The names of the screenmodes are different for most versions of the monitor files. Remember that you must specify a valid name, which means, that you must spell it exactly as in the monitor files. If in doubt start Prefs/ScreenMode and read the listview. FONT name of a font to be used. The name must include the '.font' postfix. Don't forget it! And be careful with proportional fonts. FONTHEIGHT works only together with the FONT option (see above). if not specified Most uses the system default font's height. APPICON a switch, which lets Most use an AppIcon on workbench. If you start Most with the APPICON option and without further file names, Most will only put its AppIcon onto workbench and stay in background. (Read on for more details) ICONX X-coordinate of Most's AppIcons ICONY (see ICONX) FASTSCROLL a switch to force Most to use console without the copy option. This will (slightly) increase output speed... WORDWRAP a switch to AVOID word wrap. ATTENTION! Without word wrap Most will scroll long lines quiet strange ;-) BUFLEN very interesting option to justify Most's buffer size. In general: On small systems use small values, on larger systems try higher buffer sizes. BUFLEN defaults to 50 KB (which is quiet small :-) ). Texts smaller than the buffer size will be read complete into memory and use only the necessary amount of memory. QUOTES you can specify a sequence of quote characters. These characters will be used for the "click-and-load" option: If you doubleclick on a word which stands BETWEEN a quote character Most will try to load a text named like this word. This is very useful for programmers as you can view include files very easy! Default: "'<>(){}[] DIRS specify one or more directories Most will search in if you use the "click-and-load" function (see above). All directories must be seperated by | Example: DIRS "Include:|TexInputs:|LC:Include/" ENDS Postfixes to be appended on include files with the "click-and- load" function (see above) in the given order! Example: ENDS ".c.h.tex" 4. Keyboard commands =================== In the current version Most supports all (and more!) keyboard shortcuts well known from More. Future versions will allow custom keyboard commands... * Scrolling CURSOR DOWN NUMERICALPAD 2 RETURN ENTER one line forwards CURSOR UP NUMERICPAD 8 DELETE one line backwards SHIFT CURSOR DOWN SPACE PAGE DOWN one page forwards SHIFT CURSOR UP BACKSPACE "b" PAGE UP one page backwards HOME "<" jump to beginning of text END ">" jump to end of text * Searching "n" search actual searchstring again "." ignore upper/lower case "/" searching with distinction of upper/lower case "f" "s" open search requester (if it es opened, search string) * load new text "l" * information HELP "h" * start editor (as configurated in ENV:Editor) "e" * close text ESCAPE "q" 5. Menus ====== Project New... Opens a new window and brings up a filerequester where you can choose a text file to be displayed in the new window. If you cancel the filerequester the window will be closed. Open... Asks you for a new file to be loaded into the current window Edit... Starts the editor with the current text via RUN. The name of the editor can be configurated in ENV:Editor Info... Pops up an information requester where you find some useful information to the current text like name, length, line count, visible lines, XPK packername and a short comment if the text has been loaded completely into memory or if it uses an buffer. Quit Quits the current window (and if it was the last one Most at all) Move Move through current text as the menus describe. Search suchen... Opens search requester (described later) and activates its string gadget. If the search requester is open this menu is disabled. forwards backwards Search string forwards/backwards (only with open search requester) Extras Refresh page Reset console and redraw page Execute ARexx Macro... Asks for an ARexx Macro to be executed. Settings save global Prefs Save actual settings in two environments in ENV: and ENVARC:. A subdirectory Most will be created automatically. All known options from workbench or shell start are saved and also the dimensions and position and the pattern string of the file requester. local Prefs Does the same as above, but uses local shell variables. This only works if you started Most from a Shell! 6. Most's window =============== * Gadgets Beside the system gadgets there are three further ones which control text scrolling: You can use the scroller continously by click-and-draging or for scrolling one page forwards/backwards if you click under/above the knob. The knob's position represents the current text position, its height the relation between the visible and the total text length. Use the arrows to scroll one line in the correspondending direction. * Mouse "Click-And-Load" function If you doubleclick into the window Most will look at this position to find a word which is limited by one of the configurated quote characters. This word (can include spaces!!) will be treated as a filename for which Most searches first in the current directory and than in each further configurated (DIRS option) directory. Most will also try the plain filename and than (if not found) append each prefix given with the ENDS option. The first found file will be displayed in a new window. If no name matches, the screen will flash (DisplayBeep). Example: Doubleclick on " #include <exec/exec.h>" between < and >. the file Include:Exec/Exec.h will be loaded, if you specifed DIRS Include: on startup. clipboard support If you don't use the FASTSCROLL mode you can easy mark any text in the visible text by click-and-dragging (drag without releasing the mouse button). Copy the marked block with "Amiga-C" into the clipboard. The current version doesn't support paste from the clipboard. * AppWindow Take any "real" icon (no AppIcon) on workbench and drop it in Most's window. It will be loaded into the current window. If you drop more than one icons Most will open further windows. 7. The search requester ====================== Here you can enter a search string and also manipulate the three search option. Therefor you can use the mouse and/or the keyboard shortcuts indicated by the underlined characters. Additionaly you have the same functionality as in the main window! So no annoying re-activation of Most's textwindow. - All menus are avaible as in the text window. Only the menu "search" will be disabled and instead "search forwards" and "search backwards" are unghosted. - Beside the mentioned Requester shortcuts you can use ALL normal keyboard commands like scrolling with the cursor keys!!! (Be sure the string gadget isn't activated) 8. The AppIcon ============= The AppIcon has two functions - Doubleclick A filerequester will come up where you can choose a file to be loaded and displayed. If you select CANCEL Most will show a security requester where you can quit Most. - Icons Drag-and-drop one or more icons on the AppIcon and they will be loaded. Comments: Most uses his own program icon as its AppIcon. Perhaps I will support custom icons in the future but not yet ;-) The coordinates of the AppIcon can be saved with "Save Settings". Use the options ICONX and ICONY for exact placement of the AppIcon. 9. XPK support ============= Main goal of Most's XPK support is to hide any consequences of packed data from the user. This means, that any packed file (with XPK) will automatically be unpacked from Most if the XPK packages is correct installed. The only hint you get is in the information requester, where the line "XPK-packer:" will show you the used packer (usually you see "---" there). There is only one thing special with XPK packed data: The file will be loaded completely into memory and no buffering will be done! On the other hand if you don't have XPK you can use Most without any difference. The xpkmaster.library is not required by Most to run at all. Of course in this case XPK packed data will not be unpacked :-) 10. pipe support ============== As a new feature Most 1.31 supports pipes. This means, that you can type something like "type foo | Most" at your (W)Shell prompt and Most will show the output of the first type command in its window! As I said this feature is brand new. So I regret that I couldn't test it for all possibilities. Please report me any failure. There are two small problems: XPK doesn't work with pipes (or better: I don't support it ;-) ). Second there is the problem with pipes that you cannot know how much data therein will be... So one effect is, that you cannot scroll back to the start of an file if you scrolled over the bounds of a buffer and the other one is that the size of the buffer will be maximum bufferlen every time. If the pipe's data fits completly into the buffer you have no restrictions for scrolling. But if the data is to large - Sorry. 11. ARexx Port ============ Beside the global ARexx port "MostPort" (or the name you gave it with the option PORTNAME on startup) of Most's main process each text window has his own private ARexx port. To select a window first send the command "GetFileList" to the global port. You will receive a list of the avaible windows and its portnames. All following ARexx commands can be send to a private window port, but Most's main port does only understand the first 6 commands "GetFileList", "GetScreenName", "Quit", "OpenNew", "Set" and "Request". All other commands will return an errorcode of 20 if send to "MostPort". Sorry, but the ARexx port isn't complete today. Especially it lakes some interesting set commands. You also cannot specify a custom portname for Most's main process. But I'm working :-) The following ARexx commands are supported: GetFileList In RESULT you receive a list of avaible textwindows and their port names. Format: {<windowname> <portname> }^+ GetScreenName get the name of the PubScreen of the current window Quit Quit Most and close ALL windows. Also the AppIcon will be removed. Request Simple possibility to open a custom requester and to call for a user decition. In RESULT you get the 0 for CANCEL, 1 to... for the left to right gadgets. Format: REQUEST <Title> <Gadgets> <Text> Set set some internal parameters like CASE ignore upper/lower case ON/OFF WORD search only for whole words ON/OFF BACK search backwards ON/OFF NOT IMPLEMENTED YET!!! OpenNew Like Open, but loads the text in its own new window. Open Load a new text into the current window. If you don't specify a filename, a filerequester will appear. Close close the current window ToFront bring the current window (and its screen) to front GetWindowDims get the dimentions of the current window in RESULT Edit start ENV:Editor with the current text Info open information requester FirstPage show first page LastPage show last page NextPage show next page PrevPage show previous page NextLine scroll one line forwards PrevLine scroll one line backwards GotoLine jump to the given line (as first line of visible page) Search Without argument: open search requester With searchstring: search for the given text 12. Ideas, Bug reports ==================== As mentioned before Most isn't complete today. There are some points I will improve in the future. I also have Commodore's Style Guide in mind and will follow its rules the next release better. I'm absolut interested in any kind of responds - ideas, enhancements requests, criticism or bug reports. Call me, write me, mail me. I will hear you! My address: Uwe Roehm Woerthstr. 18 8390 Passau Germany EMail: roehm@kirk.fmi.uni-passau.de Fido: 2:246/200.5 13. current Versions ================== You can download the current version of Most from forwiss.uni-passau.de (132.231.1.10) in the directory pub/amiga/local/UweR. You will also find other interesting software in pub/amiga/local.... 14. Thanks ======== I want to thank my beta testers David, Uli, Karl, Holger, Stefan und Stefan ;-) A special thanks to Urban for his sugesstions and XPK.