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Amiga MG 2a Release Notes
-------------------------
This file attempts to document the Amiga-specific features of MG 2a.
Except where otherwise noted. It is assumed that you already know
about the point and the mark, buffers, windows, extended commands, and
the various areas on the screen that all versions of MG maintain. If
you don't, see the MG documentation (what there is of it) for more
information.
Amiga Credits
-------------
The Amiga Intuition terminal driver is the combined effort of Mike
Meyer and Mic Kaczmarczik. Others who helped and/or inspired good
ideas for the MG terminal driver include Steve Walton, Leon Frenkel,
Marcus Brooks, and Tom Rokicki. Steve Walton is also responsible for
the dired mode. Lastly, Bob Larson redesigned the MG keymap system,
making it possible for function keys and mouse clicks to be
``first-class citizens''.
OPTIONS
-------
This section is for people who have their own C compiler. If you
don't have a C compiler, you will hopefully have a version that has
everything compiled into it.
There are a bewildering variety of extra goodies available as
compile-time options when you construct an Amiga MG. If you select none
of them, you save on disk and memory space, but lose out on some
features and versatility.
The Makefile provides documentation on these options and what to do
to make them work, but here is a quick overview:
STARTUP -- You can configure MG so that it will look for a startup
file in either the current directory or the AmigaDOS s: (startup)
directory. An example startup file is included in the distribution,
and also see the STARTUP section below.
MENU -- If this option is used, MG puts an Intuition menu bar with
major editing commands at the top of the screen, just like a "real"
Amiga program. (See the section on the MENU for more info).
BROWSER -- This has got to be seen to be appreciated. The Browser
program turns the menu bar into a way to select files on a disk. First
you select a disk, then a directory on the disk, then a file or
subdirectory on the disk, and so on, all in the menu.
MOUSE -- This option turns on the Amiga hot mouse. You can click
on a character and move point to that spot, and that's just the
beginning. (See the MOUSE section for more.)
FKEYS -- This option turns on support for all the extra Amiga
function keys. This enables the HELP key, which runs the function
"describe-key-briefly". Arrow keys work -- shift-arrow keys apply to
words and paragraphs. (See the KEYBOARD section.)
NO_BACKUP -- This is actually a default option; #defining NO_BACKUP
disables backup files.
When chosen, this #define modifies the action of the save-buffer (C-x
C-s) command. Normally, save-buffer writes out a new copy of the buffer
to disk, thus destroying the contents of the original file. If BACKUP
is enabled, MG will rename the file to filename~ (with a tilde character
at the end), before the new copy is written out. This keeps the
next-to-last copy of your file around on disk, so you can recover from
bad mistakes.
To avoid filling up disk space too quickly, by default MG does *NOT*
make backup files; to do so, enter the command "M-x make-backup-files",
which enables making backup files the next time you enter C-x C-s to
save a file. If you give an argument to the function (by typing "C-u
M-x make-backup-files", for example), backup files are not made.
DO_METAKEY -- When this is enabled, Amiga MG uses the ALT key to
implement the META key found on some terminals. This means that you
can type ALT-f (in one keystroke) to go forward one word, instead of
ESC-f, which requires two.
CHANGE_FONT -- This allows you to set the font used by the Amiga
console device driver when it draws characters in the MG window.
For instance, this lets you use a slightly taller font for editing
when using interlace mode under 1.2. MG cannot handle proportionally
spaced fonts, but will allow you to use them (with rather confusing
results) if you really want to.
MODE_RENDITION, {TEXT,MODE}_{FG,BG} -- These are #defines that
determine the default rendition of the mode line and the foreground
and background colors of the text. See the COLOR section for more
info.
CHANGE_COLOR -- If you want to be able to mess around with the
foreground and background colors of the text window, this option
allows you to do that. You can also specify the way the status line is
rendered (plain, boldface, italics, or reverse video).
USE_ARP -- Amiga MG2a uses a few functions which are part of the
library for ARP, the AmigaDOS Replacement Project. Work-alikes for
these routines are provided for those without a copy of arp.library,
but as a future version of Amiga MG will require ARP and it has so
many other redeeming values, it is recommended you obtain a copy.
DO_ICONIFY -- This turns on the ``amiga-iconify'' function,
described in more detail below.
THE MOUSE
---------
The Amiga Mouse can invoke no less than 24 different functions.
Mouse clicks are essentially treated as keys by the MG, even though you
click the mouse and hold down qualifier keys to get them.
Mouse keys come in three groups of eight, the groups being:
Mouse keys -- when clicked in the text of a window
Mode-Mouse keys -- when clicked on a window's mode line
Echo-Mouse keys -- when clicked in the echo area
Inside each group, which of the eight keys you get is determined by
the combination of Shift, CTRL and ALT keys you are holding down when
the mouse button is pressed. So yes, there really is a
Ctrl-Meta-Shift-Mode-Mouse button. Note that the Meta (M-) prefix
*MUST* be the ALT key. Prefixing a mouse click with ESC will not work.
Mouse keys are generally bound to functions that affect the text in
the selected buffer. If the Intuition mouse pointer is located inside an
MG text window (i.e. an area where text is being edited), then a Mouse
key is sent to the editor when you click the mouse. The buffer
associated wth the window the pointer is in is made current, point is
set as close as possible to the pointer (the character under the
pointer, if possible), then the command bound to that mouse button is
executed.
If the mouse pointer is in the mode line - the line that is in a
different typeface (usually backlit, maybe black instead of white) --
when the mouse button is clicked, a Mode-Mouse key is sent to the
editor. The buffer that the selected status line is associated with is
made the current buffer, the point is set to the value of point for
that window, then whatever command is bound to that button is
executed. Most of the Mode-Mouse keys invoke functions that act on the
entire window or buffer.
Clicking in the echo line - the line at the bottom of the screen
where prompts and message appear - results in an Echo-Mouse key.
Whatever command is bound to that button will be executed. Since the
echo line is not part of a buffer or a window, all the functions bound
to Echo-Mouse keys affect the state of the editor as a whole.
The default bindings for the hot mouse (as distributed) are:
Qualifiers | Area clicked
|
C A Shift | Text window Mode line Echo line
-------------+---------------------------------------------------------
| dot to mouse forward page switch to other buffer
X | recenter backward page kill buffer
X | delete word split window describe key
X X | kill line delete window describe bindings
X | delete char goto bob suspend MG
X X | delete whitespace goto eob quit
X X | kill region enlarge window list buffers
X X X | yank shrink window toggle Intuition window
To help keep straight what the various keys do, notice that the
Status and Echo groups come in pairs; the shifted version of a key is in
some sense the opposite of the uns