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The Final Frontier 9
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Final Frontier 9 (Disk 2 of 3).adf
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LCARS
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LCARS_Text
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LCARS_History.pp
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LCARS_History
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1992-03-06
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280 lines
TF01
1,PROGRAMMER'S LOG
3,Development of the LCARS software by Luke Elliott
REVISIONS
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Date/times given are for completion of alteration.
DATE TIME ENTRY
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21-2-95 16:15 Fixed bug which caused samples to stop
playing after a few requesters had been
displayed. Requester routines now also
determine the screen display type (either
MenuMode like or full screen like a
slideshow) and position standard requesters
accordingly.
13-2-95 16:20 Release 2.2 sent to HQ!
12-2-95 17:00 Altered graphics routines. Previously, a ILBM
file was either copied to RAM (if not
crunched) or decrunched to RAM (if crunched)
before being displayed with the buffered IFF
routines. Now, if the file is not crunched it
is displayed "off the disk", with quite a
considerable memory usage saving.
10-2-95 ----- A memorable day...
27-1-95 13:00 Final final improvements before finally
sending an update - renamed lcars library to
lcsupport library in order to avoid possible
problems with the old version, since they are
incompatible. Final. Honest.
9-1-95 15:35 Final few improvements before sending Simon a
release-ready version (2.2). When a requester
is opened the window it is opened from is
locked (apart from in MusicControl -
later...).
8-1-95 17:00 More keyboard shortcuts added (to TextMode,
QuizMode and PrefsMode). Only leaves Music
Control and the standard requesters.
4-1-95 01:20 Finally rewritten Dos IO error handling
routines - those that display the "Insert
Disk" requesters. To the user should look the
same, but much tidier code (should cope with
most situations).
3-1-95 19:30 As a consequence of the new global event
handlers, in TextMode using the NEXT LINE
gadget would in fact move two lines (one for
GADGETDOWN, one for GADGETUP) -- no longer!
3-1-95 17:40 Major reshuffle. Previously, the LCARS
library contained the routines and data for
playing the sounds you hear in the program.
Now the sample playing routines have been
rewritten and put in the lcmusic library. The
actual sample data for the sounds is now in
the LCARS file itself. Unfortunately this
means it size has gone up again (by about
18K), but of course the LCARS library is 18K
smaller, and now just contains miscellaneous
support functions which really have nothing
to do with LCARS - but which LCARS, and other
programs I have written, can utilise. This is
a much more logical solution since all music
playing functions are now in the lcmusic
library, where they should be!
1-1-95 11:55 Two improvements: In TextMode, displaying of
files would be considerably slowed after
viewing the INFO screen. Fixed by removing
color from INFO screen. Secondly, the NEXT /
PREV line gadgets now respond the the user
moving the mouse back into the select box of
the gadget after moving it out and not
letting go of the mouse button (as RELVERIFY
gadgets should).
31-12-94 15:30 Finished perging of graphic data. The
executable is now 69K, as opposed to 145K
before work started. 3300 bytes of this is
chip (graphic) data, as opposed to 83K
before...! Gibber gibber! Also compressed the
background "bridge" sample by 50%, saving
almost 10K!
30-12-94 17:10 We now have background printing! You must
wait for the standard "INFINITE FRONTIERS"
header to be printed, and then you can carry
on doing what the hell you like - including
viewing other text files! However, you cannot
yet queue print requests. Is there any need?
30-12-94 15:20 All modes which interact with the main LCARS
window now use a global, recursive event
handler. Previously each mode dealt with its
own events, but now we have a single handler.
This is a pre-cursor to adding background
printing and will make the proposed
ScriptMode and HyperTextMode a hell of a lot
simpler (if they ever appear...)! Besides
which, the executable is smaller still!
22-12-94 12:15 Changed the QuizMode status screen (again).
It is now one of the new, flexible, LCARS
"Easy Requesters".
22-12-94 11:25 Main file now 81K! Saved lots of image data
by clever use of PlanePick / PlaneOnOff
variables. Another 8K could go, however...
21-12-94 01:32 Variable sized requesters, with any title
(not just SYSTEM REQUEST anymore). Check out
MenuMode INFO for an example...
20-12-94 12:15 Uncrunched executable length down to 85K!!
Requesters tidied up, all requester gadgets
now highlight to the same colour.
18-12-94 23:30 YES! It's university holiday time again, so
work on LCARS starts once again. The
executable was getting far too large (about
145K), so a serious purge was started - so
far, approx. 10K has been lost plus a 20K
file off the boot disk! There is another 30K
to go, however!
25-9-94 16:30 Altered LCARS library to improve generation
of random numbers for QuizMode.
25-9-94 16:15 "The word was given" (!) from Simon that
issue 8, the next release of LCARS (2.1)
would have quizzes in it, so a clean up of
QuizMode was next on the list. There were, as
far as I know, no bugs, but the code was a
mess! Now much more "LCARS friendly"!
18-9-94 21:15 Finished complete rewrite of all SoundMode
code. Music Control feature now has a
"ListView"-esque kind of list of modules
available. Tempo of modules (except MED
modules) can be controlled with a slider
gadget. Can now play another module without
stopping another first.
16-9-94 17:30 Started going through all segments of LCARS
to optimise/bug fix/improve/add new features.
First up is the LCARS library. AnimPointer is
now only a single structure - saves memory
fragmentation and will be faster. Interrupt
code about half its old length.
8-9-94 00:30 Removed alternate color support from
AnimPointer routines. It occured to me that
you may have two windows on screen, do
something in one which activates an
AnimPointer (and thus changes the pointer's
palette), then activate the other window to
do something in that - with a pointer with
strange colors. Messy! It is mentioned in the
3.1 development notes that a colors-per-
window system for the pointer may be
introduced in the future, but until then this
feature will be dormant!
4-9-94 23:52 Fixed a bug in the new AnimPointer code which
caused a software failure if the pointer was
displayed for a long while. I tried to
"include" a file which contained code twice,
but had the "Ignore Multiple Includes" option
in Devpac set - so the file was only included
once, meaning I was writing to an unallocated
area of memory!!
3-9-94 12:02 Complete rewrite of AnimPointer support in
LCARS library. New code is smaller, faster
and removes the annoying jerky movement of
the pointer under Kickstart 3. Also no longer
needs a separate task.
25-8-94 21:45 Added skeletal NTSC support. If running on an
NTSC machine the LCARS screen will open up in
interlace, so that all of the screen can be
seen at once. Of course, if a machine is
running Kickstart 2 or greater, then a screen
larger than the actual viewing area can be
scrolled around with the mouse, but this is
hardly a workable solution, especially when
dealing with scrolling text.
25-8-94 00:53 Simple alteration - changed the position of
the screen-swap gagdet to the top right of
the screen. I felt the old position was a bit
ambiguous - now simply move the pointer as
far up and to the right as it will go and
click. Then again, there's no real need for
it anyway...
21-8-94 16:58 Fixed bug which had "appeared" on keyboard
shortcuts in MenuMode. Somehow some spurious
code calling sample playing routines had
appeared in an interrupt server.
21-8-94 16:36 Bug fixed which caused sound effects execpt
for the background "engine" noise to cease
functioning after playing two music modules.
Found to be that the "access" sample was
called twice when loading a module, but only
waited for and freed once, so a channel was
lost each time a module was played!
18-8-94 01:20 LCARS interface for MusicList added. The STOP
gadget has been replaced by a permanent MUSIC
gadget which brings up a window from which a
module can be selected for playing (from the
MusicList), playing can be stopped or
restarted from the beginning and the tempo of
playback can be altered. Modules can now be
selected independant of mode - eg during
TextMode.
17-8-94 00:40 MusicList feature added - worked first time!
Allows selection of modules from a list. No
LCARS interface to run this yet.
16-8-94 12:54 Bug found by Allister Brimble in ProTracker
replay (not my code I hasten to add!). When
running on faster machines a busy wait loop
using dbra obviously didn't wait long enough!
Now uses a raster-line timer. Why don't
people listen to Commodore?
12-8-94 19:20 Updated LCARS font size 28. Now much thinner
and looks far superior (in my opinion!). Also
added new characters such as ()% etc... A few
changes to fonts 11 and 8.
CREDITS
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All code and graphics ................. Luke Elliott
(Except as noted below)
Original program design ............... Luke Elliott
Jason Dunning
Additional program design ............. Simon Plumbe
Music replay routines ................. Teijo Kinnunen
Peter Hanning
Additional music replay help .......... Allister Brimble
LCARS was created with the following hardware and sotfware:
Amiga 500 with Kickstart 2.04 and 1MB RAM (originally)
Amiga 600 with 30MB HD and 2MB RAM (for a short while)
Amiga 1200 with 60MB HD (currently!)
StereoMaster
HiSoft Devpac 3.02
DICE 2.06.21
Deluxe Paint
FED, the Workbench 1.3 font editor!
The Art Department 1.0.3
Protext 4.362
and other utilities to numerous to mention...
Enjoy!