Club Amiga de Montreal - CAM/CAM_CD_1.iso/files/080.lha/RSLClock.doc

Text File | 1986-11-20 | 11KB | 174 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)
        BLACKDROP (this will darken the topmost screen to black without using
                extra memory inorder to create a  new "backdrop" black
                screen. It can be toggled in/out by double clicking
                the menu button when the window is activated - use it
                to hide the current screen)
        DIMMER (this will create a "dimmed" screen instead of a completely black
                screen - it works the same as the BLACK command)
        NOPOPUP (this disables the feature to "pop" the clock window to front of
                workbench screen at the beginning of every minute. "HyperPopUp"
                must be manually enabled!)
        SPLITUP (this will split up the memory display into free chip and
                fast memory, separately)
        FULLWIDTH (this will enlarge RSLClock's window to full width of the
                screen - this is to prevent "screen tearing" during text scrolls)
        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)
        HI_PRIORITY (this will boost RSLClock's priority from a default of 0 to
                it's old priority of 20 (the one I always use without problems)
        MOUSEOFF (a nice feature that will make the pointer disappear if not used
                for approximately 10-15 seconds)
        TINY (this shrinks the display window to its minimum dimensions)

        [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
                command is highlighted using the "Automatic Run Command"
                menu is selected 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 "curly brackets"!)
         ? (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 blackdrop 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!

*****************************************************************************

*****************************************************************************
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.
     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 1.4:
     Version 1.3 utilized linked IntuiTexts inorder to get the highlighted
effect.  At a priority of 20 it took up too much CPU time and slowed down
too many simultaneous tasks.  This lead to a "hacked" version of RSLClock
with a lower priority.  In ver. 1.4 the default priority is 0 with the option
to bring it up at its previous priority of 20.  Since the highlight feature
has been removed the whole program runs fast enough to be used at the high
priority without any noticeable CPU slow down.
     The backdrop screen now no longer creates a new screen, at the price of
more memory.  It just blacks out the top most screen.  Also an option exists
to simply dim the screen without totally blacking it out.
     A full length feature was added for those people that were disturbed by
the tearing effect when a screen's text scrolled while another window existed,
and was visible.  This feature will cause RSLClock's window to be the total
length of the screen and will not cause this visual effect.
     Mouseoff is a nice feature that I saw as a separate PD program, and thought
about how easy it would be to incorporate that feature in RSLClock.  In a sentence,
it will make your mouse pointer disappear if you don't use it for 10 to 15
seconds, and makes it visible the second that you start to use your mouse!
I use it all the time (but then, I don't use WorkBench)!
     The Automatic Run Command was given its own visible submenu and is generated
using curly brackets "{}" as delimiters, instead of quotation marks.
********************************************************************************


     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 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 to me!