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Atari Mega Archive - Volume 1.iso
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1990-06-30
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LookIt! 1.0 Demo
PopIt! 1.0 Demo
Programs written by Doug Harrison
Copyright 1990 CodeHead Software & Doug Harrison
All Rights Reserved.
------------------------------------------------
Packing List
------------
The following files are included in the official Demo release:
a. LOOKDEMO.PRG
b. POPDEMO.ACC
c. REGACC.PRG
d. DEMO.TXT
If you receive a disk or archive lacking any of these files, then you
have an unauthorized version. Please see "Distribution Policy" below for
instructions regarding distribution of these files.
Distribution Policy
-------------------
You may freely distribute the LookIt! and PopIt! demos, as long as all
files listed under "Packing List" are included. Any alteration of any of
these files for any reason is forbidden.
Getting Started
===============
Before we discuss the PopIt! and LookIt! demos, you should place
REGACC.PRG (RegAcc) in the AUTO folder of your boot disk (and
POPDEMO.ACC in the root directory) and reset your computer. RegAcc is
a tiny terminate and stay resident program which gathers information
about desk accessories as they load, information impossible to obtain
once the computer has booted and the GEM Desktop has appeared. PopIt!
uses this information in providing its desk accessory hotkey services,
and LookIt! uses this information to provide a menu bar operable solely
from the keyboard. Even though REGACC.PRG is over 3,000 bytes long, once
it becomes resident, it never requires more than 1,000 to 1,500 bytes of
your memory.
PopIt! Demo Version 1.0
=======================
Installing PopIt!
-----------------
As described above, you first need to copy REGACC.PRG to your AUTO
folder. Then place POPDEMO.ACC in the root directory of your boot drive
and reset your computer. After the GEM Desktop has appeared, select
PopIt! from the Desk menu; the PopIt! window will appear, and in it you
will find a scrollable list containing the names of all the desk
accessories currently loaded (including those inside MultiDesk- version
2.0 or later is required).
Assigning Hotkeys
-----------------
When you run PopIt! for the first time (and every time for the Demo
version), no hotkeys will be assigned. To assign a hotkey to a desk
accessory, click once on the desk accessory name in the PopIt! list,
and then click on the "Assign button" (a short-cut is to Control-click
on the name). Observe the "info line" in the window; it will state
"Press a HotKey combination." The legal key combinations include: the
alphabetic keys, numeric keys (including the keypad), the punctuation
keys, the space key, the function keys, and any member of these sets
combined with some combination of the Alternate, Control, Left-shift,
and Right-shift keys (Alt, Ctrl, LS, and RS, respectively; LS and RS are
distinct keys). Since these hotkeys will be active no matter what program
you are running, you should strive to choose key combinations unlikely
to be used by any program, because once RegAcc sees a keypress PopIt! is
waiting for, that keypress is stolen, and a foreground program will not
register it. Good choices include combinations like Ctrl-Alt-Key,
LS-Ctrl-Key, etc.
Once you have entered a hotkey, you may later want to change it.
Select the accessory as described above, and press the new combination.
Press Undo to clear the hotkey definition. Press Return, Enter, or Esc
to cancel the assignment and keep the old definition.
Note that several important features are inactive in the Demo version
of PopIt! Among them are the abilities to save, load, and print
configuration files, which can contain hotkey definitions for as many
as 50 desk accessories. Naturally, the full version of PopIt! loads a
default configuration file at boot-time, so that hotkeys are assigned
automatically every time you turn on or reset your computer.
LookIt! Demo Version 1.0
========================
Overview
========
LookIt! is an incredibly fast, easy to use ASCII file viewer and
binary file editor. It features a custom user interface which overcomes
many shortcomings in GEM. Some of LookIt!'s feature include:
- super-fast text display, Blitter/Turbo ST not required
- as many as 32 files can be held simultaneously in memory
- fast regular expression as well as exact match searching
- saveable search strings (18 are available)
- binary file editing on both the hexadecimal and ASCII
representations of binary files
- flexible display options, including color and font size control in
high resolution modes
- printer options allow 40 byte strings to be sent before/after each
file and provide for draft/final and condensed print modes; margins
may be set and headers printed
- may be installed as an application for the GEM Desktop or
CodeHead's HotWire, to let you show files by double-clicking them
- flexible command line options allow loading of CFG files from
paths other than the default, automatic printing of files, wildcard
expansion
- a menu bar operable solely from the keyboard (try Alt-F and then
the arrow keys, Return, Esc, or Undo; don't forget the mouse works
as usual!)
- hotkeys for dialog box buttons and edit fields (use Alt-letter if
edit fields are present; otherwise the letter alone suffices)
- keyboard equivalent for Cancel buttons; Esc, Ctrl-Esc, Alt-Esc, and
Undo all exit a menu/dialog/alert
Part 1: Essential Concepts
==========================
The File List
-------------
The central LookIt! concept is the file list. The file list may
contain up to 32 files at any given time (the demo version is limited to
a maximum of two files, and the maximum file size for the demo version is
40K bytes). You can step forward and backward through the list, or you
can choose a file directly from a scrollable list containing the filenames.
The Display
-----------
LookIt! has two display screens; the "GEM screen" provides a menu
bar, while one views files from the "View screen." Assuming use of
the standard monitors, the View screen provides a full 80 columns,
and in monochrome, it supports the 50 line mode. LookIt! requires
a graphics mode resolution of at least 640x200 pixels, which is the
ST medium resolution mode.
View Mode
---------
Since LookIt! supports viewing of both ASCII and binary files, each
file has an associated type, which controls the view mode.
Opening a File
--------------
To open a file, select File Open from the menu bar. You will be
presented with a custom file selector, which is a bit different from
the GEM item selector and other replacements. Some of the enhancements
include directory navigation via constructs like "..\..\SRC" and much
improved editable field text editing (note that to back out one
directory level, you should click on the name of the directory in the
"Path" line or type "..\" followed by Return). File selection works
much like the GEM item selector, except that you may select multiple
files, adding them to the file list. Since the file list only has room
for 32 entries (two for the Demo version), any files above this limit are
ignored; that is, if you select 100 files, LookIt! will only acknowledge
the first n entries. However, if there isn't enough space in the file
list for the files LookIt! does acknowledge, you will be asked to remove
enough files from the list to make room for the new ones (this applies to
the _number_ of files, not the memory they require; LookIt! handles memory
management itself).
LookIt! provides several standard file extensions, and it automatically
opens files with these extensions in the proper view mode, Text or Binary.
Files that do not match any of the extensions are opened in Text mode by
default. You can override this as