The Datafile PD-CD 3/PDCD_3.iso/utilities/utilsf/funckeys/!FuncKeys/!Help

Text File | 1995-05-01 | 13.5 KB | 287 lines

Help for FuncKeys: The PD demo version

Introduction
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
FuncKeys is a function keystrip manager for the RISC OS desktop. It allows
you to save and load various sets of key definitions for use with RISC OS
applications. Once loaded, you simply need to click on the icons to press
the function keys - no more messing with 15 different keystrips!

FuncKeys will work in any screen mode, and will automatically resize it’s
window whenever you change mode. It now also correctly alters the font
aspect ratio when you change to modes with a different pixel ratio.

FuncKeys uses no icon, just a window, as an icon would be a waste of space.
The window appears straight away as soon as FuncKeys loads. The menu for
FuncKeys can be accessed by clicking MENU inside the FuncKeys window.

You may notice that the FuncKeys window has no title bar. This is so that
it doesn’t use up too much room. If you want to drag the window around,
then use one of the areas of the window where there are no keys (eg on the
left).

To run FuncKeys, you must have the font ‘Homerton.Medium’ on the font path.
This shouldn’t be a problem apart from on RISC OS 2 floppy systems.

Registering
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
This version of FuncKeys is Public Domain, and may be distributed freely,
although if you find the program useful you are supposed to register, by
sending me £5, to receive the full version.

If you register by sending £5, you will receive the latest version on disc,
which has the choices window fully working. The rest of the disc will also
be filled up with PD written by SJPD (James Hunter & Myself), plus any
other decent new PD we have at the time. Once registered you may:

• Send for the latest version at any time afterwards by simply sending me a
disc and SSAE, and asking for the latest version. Please state which
version you currently have. If I don’t have a newer version, I’ll hang onto
your disc until I make one. If you have an email address, let me know and
I’ll inform you of any new versions. You can email me as [e-mail].

• Request other features to be added to the program. I will try my best to
add these, but I can’t do everything! A few ideas I have had which I might
add if people request them are: Font and sizes saved with each KeyDefs
file, window closing (down to a small box or an icon?) when no ‘known’
applications have input focus, a gadget on the top right hand side of the
window to toggle the ⇧^F key row on and off. ANY updates to the program
will probably only happen to the registered version, this PD demo version
will stay as it is.

And don’t forget that once registered, you get your name in the choices
window!!! The Help file also contains full file format information.

PLUS the full version has many more KeyStrip definitions with it including:
1stWord+, Acorn DTP, Armadeus, ArtWorks, Chameleon, DeskEdit, DisAssem,
Draw, DrawPlus, Digital Symphony, Edit, Hearsay, Imagery, Impression,
Notate, Poster, Poster 1.60, Rhapsody, Snippet, Squirrel, StrongED2, Vector.

This PD demo version has had all the features in the choices window
disabled. Register your copy now to get these flexible features...

The latest full version 2.14 contains even more choics: the window can be
forced to stay at the top of the screen and can be made to close when not
in use.

Please make cheques payable to ‘Simon Hatliff’. My address can be found
near the bottom of this file. You will get a fast turnaround.

Usage
¨¨¨¨¨
To use FuncKeys, simply click on the grey icons. The rows (from bottom to
top) represent the F key, Shift+F, Ctrl+F and Ctrl+Shift+F (this top row
may not be shown -- see below). The key F12 is not included in the window
as Acorn stated that applications shouldn’t use this key in their programs
(Due to RISC OS 3 using it), so there’s no point wasting space with it!

Defining your own
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
To make your own keystrips, choose ‘Define’ from the menu, which will
become ticked. This will turn all the key icons to writable icons. It will
also change the ‘Key defs for:’ icon in the info box to writable. The ‘Load
defs’ option will be greyed out, as will the autoscan option in the choices
window, and autoscan will be disabled (so that KeyDefs don’t start loading
themselves while you are defining).

To clear the contents of all the icons, choose ‘Clear’ from the Define
submenu. Choose ‘Show all’ from this menu if the top row is not shown, and
you want it to be.

You should fill in your own definitions (not forgetting the info box), then
save your KeyDefs (see below) BEFORE unticking the Define option. The
buttons will then return to normal.

Saving
¨¨¨¨¨¨
Once you have defined a keystrip, you may well want to save it. To do this
simply use the ‘Save defs’ submenu, which is accessed via the ‘Save defs ⇨’
menu option. If you just enter a leafname (eg. ‘KeyDefs’) then the file
will be saved to the !FuncKeys.KeyDefs directory. This means it can easily
be loaded next time FuncKeys is loaded (see below).

The file format is a simple text file. You should be able to work out how
to define your own in an editor (such as StrongED2 or Edit), but you
shouldn’t need to. [NOTE: The file format has changed since version 2.00,
due to the addition of Ctrl+Shift+F keys. FuncKeys does, however, still
load in the old format strips as well so if you made any of your own your
hard work isn’t lost.]

Loading
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
When FuncKeys first loads, it scans the ‘KeyDefs’ directory inside it. Any
files saved into here (see above) will be included in the ‘Load defs’
submenu. This allows an easy setup for multiple applications’ keystrips.
Just choose the name of the KeyDefs file from this menu, and it will be
loaded for you.

The main menu
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
Info...   ⇨ Leads to program info box (includes the ‘Key defs for:’ icon)
-----------
Define      Switches between define and normal mode (see above)
Choices...  Opens the choices window (see below)
Load defs ⇨ Leads to ‘Load defs’ submenu (see above)
Save defs ⇨ Leads to the ‘Save defs’ submenu (see above)
-----------
Quit        Removes the program from memory

Choices
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
The choices window allows you to customise FuncKeys to your liking. You can
choose the outline font to be used, and the X and Y sizes of the font for
each dirrefent row (this can be useful as the top rows often have longer
labels). If you don’t want a different Y size then deselect the option icon
between the arrows.

The ‘Scan for task with input focus’ option (or autoscan for short) has the
following effect when turned on: FuncKeys will scan every half a second for
the task with input focus. If the task changes and FuncKeys has some
KeyDefs for that task, FuncKeys will load in the required file for that
application. This means that, providing you have KeyDefs for all your main
applications, FuncKeys will always show correct information relevant to the
task you are actually using.

If the taskname is the same as the filename of a file saved into the
!FuncKeys.KeyDefs directory on a previous occasion, this file will load. If
you can’t put the taskname into a filename then you must map the filename
to the taskname in the Setup file. See below.

The ‘Condense window if top row is blank’ option, when selected, will not
display the top (⇧^F) key row if there are no definitions for it. This is
useful because not all applications use this row, and it saves a bit of
space if it’s not there. It this option is off then the top row will always
be shown.

You can also choose the default keystrip to be loaded on startup. Clicking
OK will reflect any changes (such as font/sizes) in the window.

NONE OF THE FUNCTIONS OF THIS WINDOW WORK IN THIS PD DEMO, THEY ONLY WORK
IN THE FULL VERSION (see above).

The Setup file
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
Inside the !FuncKeys directory is a text file called ‘Setup’. This file
controls a number of things about the way in which FuncKeys works. Load it
into an editor such as StrongED2 or Edit to change any of the following.
Read the comments in the Setup file for more information.

• You can make FuncKeys look in another directory instead of !FuncKeys.
KeyDefs. This could point to a RAM disc if you have a floppy only system
(but don’t forget if you make any new KeyDefs to copy them back to disc),
another directory on your hard disc, or even ResourceFS (RISC OS 3). You
must put your KeyDefs files in a suitable module to use ResourceFS, and it
will of course be read only.

• For autoscan, FuncKeys needs to know the name of the application AS IT
APPEARS IN THE TASK MANAGER. This name sometimes can’t be the same as the
10 letter filename, as it’s either too long or contains characters that the
filer can’t handle. If this occurs then you can map the filename to the
actual name. This is done by adding a line to the setup file of the format
‘filename:appname’. An example of this would be ‘DrawPlus:Draw Plus’ or
‘1stWord+:1st Word Plus’.

Known problems & limitations
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
When autoscan option finds a task and changes the keystrip, it loads the
file from the !FuncKeys.KeyDefs directory. This will be fine for hard disc
users, but floppy users may be asked to change discs a lot. If you use
floppies, either don’t use autoscan, or copy !FuncKeys to RAM disc before
running it, or alter the setup file to point to the RAM:$.KeyDefs, and copy
the KeyDefs directory into the RAM disc before running it. You may alter
the !Run file to do this ON YOUR OWN PERSONAL COPY ONLY.

If you have autoscan on, you choose define, define a keystip, and then turn
define off without saving the new keystrip, if the caret is in a task
recognised by FuncKeys then you will lose the strip you have just defined.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!

Version history
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
1.00    First working version. Used only the Overscan template file.
1.01    Window now movable.
1.03    Save box added to menu & load code (drag to window) added.
1.04    Load menu added.
1.05    Define option added to menu.
1.10    New window added for mode 12/15 use. Also added Norm/Over Obey file
        to switch between the Normal & Overscan window. Also several small
        bug fixes.
2.00    Redesigned for RISC OS 3.10. Template now features 3D icons and
        outline font text (to fit more in & look nicer). Also new look info
        & save boxes. Now you can drag any window (Main, Save & Info)
        around on unused parts. Can now load a file on start up if
        required. ‘Clear’ menu option added. More key definitions provided.
        !Help reader scrapped -- takes up room and we all have our
        favourite editor to read text files in (I use StrongED2). Now has
        ‘Auto scan’ option.
2.01    Added extra Ctrl+Shift key row with option to show it, or not. Also
        only shows this row on loading a KeyDefs file in if it is required.
        Fixed small bug which meant that after defining a new keystrip,
        FuncKeys thought that it still had whatever was in before, so
        autoscan didn’t work properly. Now when you choose define, the
        autoscan option is turned off and greyed out, and when define is
        unticked, the required keystrip for the caret owning task is loaded
        back in (if autoscan is on). Also icons made a bit thinner
        (vertically).
2.02    No longer suffers from ‘unable to bind font handle’ bug. Now
        includes an extra Mode 27 template file (previously released as
        ‘FuncMode27’, and an extra KeyDefs dir for Mode 27 defs. The
        required template file and KeyDefs dir are used depending on what
        mode you start FuncKeys up in.
2.10    Now works in all modes, and on RISC OS 2, has choices window, runs
        faster, can use any font in any size, and is jolly nice all round!
        Released as PD demo with choices window disabled, only available in
        the full version.

Boring © notice
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
Please see the ‘Registering’ section near the start of this file.

You may distribute this application freely so long as all the following
files (and directories) remain in the !FuncKeys directory, untouched:

     !Help, !Run, !RunImage, !Sprites, KeyDefs (dir), Setup, Sprites,
     Templates.

     The KeyDefs dir should contain at least: 1stWord+, Acorn DTP,
     ArtWorks, Draw, DrawPlus, Edit, Hearsay, Impression, Poster,
     StrongED2. You may alter these (eg shorten the legends for thinner
     modes, these were made for Mode 31) but please distribute it with the
     ones I supplied if you can.

You may not add any files of your own to the !FuncKeys directory (apart
from any additional definition files in the KeyDefs directory).

I take no responsibility for what is provided in the KeyDefs directories,
other than those files listed above. Feel free to add your own defs before
distributing the app. NO OTHER FILES SUCH AS README OR FROM? FILES MAY BE
ADDED TO THE KeyDefs (OR !FuncKeys) DIRECTORY.

This applcation may not be sold for a profit. If you want to use it in your
PD library or upload it onto your BBS then that’s fine, so long as you do
not charge for the application in any way, and that you DON’T add any other
files to the !FuncKeys directory. You may make a small charge for P&P and
media though.

Apart from that, please copy this application to everyone you know!

If you have any bug reports or ideas for improvements then PLEASE write to
the address below. Send a disc and SSAE and I’ll send you my other programs
and some other new PD. If you are sending a disc then please include an
SSAE or I’ll make a profit of 1 disc! Donations also welcome!

Contacts
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
How to contact me:

snail: Simon Hatliff
       4 Elmlands Grove
       Stockton Lane
       York
       YO3 0EE

email: [e-mail]

© Copyright Simon Hatliff 1992

This help file, as all code, was written and edited in StrongED.