Club Amiga de Montreal - CAM/CAM_CD_1.iso/files/019.lha/RSLClock.doc

Text File | 1986-11-10 | 11KB | 187 lines

    RSLClock is a superficially simple little utility that "runs"
unobtrusively at the end of the screen title bar.  The "close" gadget
and "window to front/back" gadgets are there, but they are hidden from view!
There it sits, indicating both the currently free memory, the time, and once
a minute, the date. It also "pops up" to the front of the Workbench screen,
once every minute. If you would like military time you can run the program
with "Run RSLClock long" it will then read out 12 hour time in AM/PM type
(hours & minutes), otherwise the default setting is Hours:minutes in 12 hour
style.
     SYNTAX:
        LONG (this will toggle military 24 hour time with HH:MM:SS style)
        BACK (this will create a "backdrop" black screen that can be toggled
                in/out by using left-Amiga N/M keys or by double clicking
                the menu button when the window is activated - use it
                to hide the current screen)
        NOPOPUP (this disables the feature to "pop" the clock window to front of
                workbench screen at the beginning of every minute)
        SPLITUP (this will split up the memory display into free chip and
                fast memory, separately)
        COLOR [B],[D] (this sets the colors of the window pen - first number
                can be 0-3, and background pen - second number can be 0-3.
                Any other numbers will give you the default colors)
        POSITION [X],[Y] (this sets the left top edge of the window if the
                given width allows it, should you be utilizing WB 1.2 in
                400 line Workbench mode use an asterisk * and a space before
                the position commands in order for the program to recognize more
                than 200 lines per screen)
        TINY (this shrinks the display window to its minimum dimensions)
        HIGHLIGHT [D] (this enables highlighting of the "Time:" type labels
                in the display window, by using 'I' instead of a number the
                labels will be made invisible)
        [disk drive] (i.e. DF1: this will indicate the number of free Kbytes
                on indicated disk drive, re-evaluated once every minute!)
        [# Kbytes before emergency shutdown] (i.e. 25 this will shut down
                this utility and reclaim the memory if your system's free
                memory falls below this point, default is 10 Kbytes!)
        "[command line]" (this will automatically run a program when the
                copyright notice submenu is selected (the notice that says:
                ***RSLClockPlus by Roy S. Laufer, ***) i.e. "RUN STARTERM"
                will startup Starterm if it is available!  Caution: this
                default setting MUST be the last arguments, and MUST be
                enclosed in quotations!)
         FULLWIDTH (this will enable a window the full width of the screen)
         ? (this will display syntax)

        Note single letters are the same as typing the entire command!
        As an example RUN RSLClock b s DF1: p 120,45  will run the program
with a backdrop screen, split memory into it's chip and fast components,
display info on DF1: and displace the window to the given coordinates!
*****************************************************************************
New In Version 1.1:
     This new update includes a menu which allows you to change all of the
available options of RSLClockPlus, after it is running.  An additional
feature available via the Menu is the ability to summon an emergency CLI
which runs completely independent of all other tasks.  Since RSLClockPlus
always pops up in front of all other Workbench windows, this may be helpful
when there isn't any other way to get into a CLI.  I found PopCLI redundant
with this feature available, but be cautious since this feature, like
EXECUTE, takes 40 odd bytes from your memory and won't give it back without
a warmboot!  A very small price to pay!.  Also, if the backdrop screen is
enabled and the RSLClockPlus window is activated, simply double clicking the
right menu button twice will toggle you in and out of the backdrop screen!
      In addition to the new features, the older features have been
"polished" up a bit!  Although the program is a bit larger than 1.0, I think
that it is worth it.  To the best of my knowledge it runs on both 1.1 and
1.2 (beta 4).  Please tell me if there are any problems running it under any
of the available versions of KS!
*****************************************************************************

*****************************************************************************
New in Version 1.11:
     There is an unfortunate flaw in the ctime() function which came with
my Aztec compiler, which I had to build a "fix" for.  Now the date will
not be displayed as "Nov 0" when in fact it is "Oct 31"!
     Another problem fixed in Ver 1.11 is due to the fact that the device
driver for the floppy drives think that there are only 488 bytes per block,
instead of 512, which is the way that INFO calculates it!  Since everyone
believes INFO, I have adjusted this "anomaly" so that the free bytes of the
disk drive will be the same as displayed using the INFO command!
****************************************************************************

****************************************************************************
New in Version 1.2:
     I have found out that there in fact is ONLY 448 bytes per block on the
disk drive!  the remaining 24 bytes are used by AmigaDOS as its overhead.
I have decided that in a rebellious mood I will display what space is really
available to you, the user instead of the "Public Relations" space available
indicated via the INFO command.  Truth is more important than having my program
agree with INFO's inaccurate value!  So back to a 5% discrepancy with INFO's
value!
     COLOR, and POSITION commands have been included in this version.  I happen
to prefer the default values (of course I do, I wrote them into it as defaults),
but if you people want to customize it you own liking, GO AHEAD! Of course,
the menu allows you to change colors "on the run".
     In previous versions only 3 significant digits were displayed for
Kbytes free on peripheral storage devices.  This is fine for floppies, but
not for hard disks.  In this version hard disks will be displayed with 5
significant numbers (if you have MORE than 99999K Bytes free, you shouldn't
be caring about your available free memory)!
      Another small feature added in this version update, is that once the
backdrop is enabled and brought to the front by double clicking the right
menu mouse button, simply hitting any key on the keyboard will bring back
the previously active screen and activate the last window used!
****************************************************************************

****************************************************************************
New in Version 1.3:
     The "PopUp" feature has been modified - it has an added "Hyper"
feature.  Use it with caution - it is able to PopUp onto any medium
and high resolution screen that is currently in front, but don't close
screens while RSLClock is on that screen, otherwise your Amiga may or
may not go BYE-BYE!  I tried to have it popup on lo-res, but the menus
get all screwed up.
     An additional device has been added to the menu choice.  It is called
VD0: for virtual device.  This is the device used in ASDG's recoverable
RamDisk device (no, I don't own one yet, but I can hope, can't I?).  If
you wish to, you may do an "assign VD0: ..." to poll any other device that
you wish.
     The window can now be shrunk to a smaller size if needed, either by
using the TINY command on startup or by selecting this feature on the
menu.
     A new highlight feature has been added to give a two tone option on the
display.  You can even choose to have the "Time:" labels invisible!
     The window color selection sub-menu has been made more "aesthetically
pleasing".
     An automatic command line execute function has been added.  If typed
at the end of the command which runs RSLClock (and enclosed in quotations),
by selecting the Copyright notice submenu you can summon any program into
being! For example, my startup sequence is Run RSLClock "Run WTP" - this way
I can run WTP (a PD terminal program) without dealing with my CLI!
****************************************************************************

****************************************************************************
New in Version 1.31:
     The only new feature in this revision is an option to enable a full
width window to minimize the screen splitting during scrolling, at the
cost of hiding more of the window behind RSLClock's window.
****************************************************************************

***************************************************************************
New in Version 1.32:
      Unfortunately some new features added to 1.3X have slowed down the
overall performance of the CPU.  As a temporary fix, pending either
optimization of the given features or elimination of them, I have lowered the
task priority of RSLClock from its previous one of 20 to -1.  Other than
some sluggishness in the seconds count during intensive CPU usage there
*shouldn't* be any problems.
       I have acted on another suggestion of moving the Time: title inorder
to improve the readability of the display.
****************************************************************************

****************************************************************************
Version "S":
     Some people really seem to like to see the seconds ticking by, so I have
made a very slightly modified version, noted with a "S" at the end of the
version which has this feature on both 24 military and 12 hour standard
styles.
****************************************************************************

     I know that there already is an abundance of "clock" programs, but this
is optimized for my own needs.  I hope that others find it useful!
     I would like to thank Addison-Wesley, without whose ROM Kernal books,
I would still be using my C compiler to compile "Hello there!" type programs.
     Please feel free to use this utility and distribute it freely.
     Given all the suggestions for additional features, I hope that this
program hasn't grown TOO BIG for a utility.  I am presently considering adding
an additional BACKSCRATCH option, using the chinese backscratch feature that
was never a well documented feature in the Amiga A1000 hardware specs, it will
scratch the user's back at a pre-selected interval!
     Feel free to comment, suggest, compliment, and disparage, as you wish!
     Happy Hacking!
                                                   -RSL-
AMuse BBS [phone]: Roy S. Laufer
CIS:  72435,1025
Delpi: RSLaufer


P.S. STILL LEFT TO BE DONE:
     I would like to TOTALLY blank the screen, i.e disable the video DMA, but
have yet to discover a "safe" way to do it!
     I would also like to incorporate a timer for automatic "black-out" of
the screen (ala PopCLI), but I will have to wait for an update of Aztec
so that I can use an assembler to do it right.  I've tried the 'C' source by
Perry K. in his "ScreenSaver", but find its accuracy erratic (to be kind)!
     If anyone has any suggestions, or 'C' source fragments feel free to
send them via any of the above BBS's!