' In late May I received from Mark'Gladding an early and incomplete (but'working) version of Magnetic Pages 2'which is the follow-up to Magnetic'Pages 1.3, the program used to compile'this magazine. At that time I had not'received many submissions for the'magazine and I thought a good idea'would be to do two versions of'ShareWorld on the one disk, with one of'them being produced with the new'Magnetic Pages as a comparison. This'wasn't to be though as enough stuff'came in to easily fill a disk and any'spare time I expected to have quickly
disappeared.' For the above reason I've not found'nearly enough time to look at Magnetic'Pages 2 as I would have liked. (MP2'from now on.) This is a pity as it's'one fascinating and powerful program.'It has about as much resemblance to
MP1.3 as Workbench 2/3 has to
it's v1.3. MP2 looks like
being one of THE Amiga
programs for producing
interactive, multi-media
publications. Please take
into account that the version
I've been testing is still
under development and the
final version may differ in
many ways from what I'm about
to describe.
Despite me not having put
a magazine together with MP2
yet, "Amsmag", (the Auckland
Amiga clubs' disk magazine),
has been produced with MP2
since May and it's much
faster and a lot more easy to
use than disk-mags created
with MP1.3.' I said "publications" above as'that's the term used for what MP2'creates. An MP2 "Publication" consists'of one or more "Documents" which are'each made up of one or more "Pages".'These pages are a single screen in any'Amiga graphic mode and can be larger'than the display, in which case they
scroll under mouse control.
[3mPages
' On an MP2 page can be the following,'and this is probably not a complete
list.'* Pictures. A full-screen one can be'used or a mixture of many brushes. They'can overlap each other or any of the
following.'* Text. This has built-in editing and'any standard Amiga fonts can be used'with the usual styles and formatting.'Background and foreground colours can'also be chosen as well as a shadows.'Hypertext is also available though I'haven't worked out how to use it. It'does work though as it's used in
Amsmag.'* Line graphics in the form of straight'lines, circles, rectangles, ellipses'and polygons. These are structured'graphics and can be easily re-sized'after placing on the screen. Except for'the line, all can be filled with any'available colour, with a separate!colour for the border if desired.'* Animations. These can be an anim,'(which I assume means full screen),
anim-brush or in CDXL format.'* String gadgets. These are for users'of the publication to enter text or'numbers and I assume the entries are
stored as variables somewhere.'* Variable gadgets. These are for%displaying text or numeric variables.
* Lists. These place a box
on the screen (with a
scroll bar) for displaying
lists of various types. You
could for instance, in the
case of a magazine, use one
as an index to the art-
icles.
* Buttons. These are much
like pictures except when
activated they will either
display a second picture or
be inverted.
Despite only some of
these being named gadgets
and buttons, ALL of the
above "objects" (as they're
called) can be made inter-
active in various ways
through what are known as triggers.
[3mTriggers
' Triggers are at the heart of MP2 and'are where it's interactive power comes'from. Trigger's, once set up, can be'activated by left or right button mouse'clicks, entering or exiting a page or'document, menu selections, the time of'day, the date, phases of the moon,'key-presses, hypertext links and so on.'OK, so the phases of the moon are not'directly supported, but I'm sure they'can be made to activate a trigger one
way or another.' Once a trigger is activated, a'mini-language comes into play. Among'it's commands are ones for moving'through pages and documents, hiding and'revealing objects, colour cycling,'playing animations, sounds, music,'speech, and CD Sounds, executing'AmigaDOS commands and ARexx programs as'well as executing other triggers. I'm'not sure how variables are used in'relation to triggers but there's ones'to set "global trigger variables" and'to set a trigger's "condition'expression". There's also menu commands'for saving pictures, animations,'sounds, music and text as well as ones'for keeping and using bookmarks as well#as taking notes and text searching.
"
[3mUser Friendly
' While learning all the above may'take a while, the interface for editing'objects is superb. Clicking on an'object, (such as a picture or a text'box), selects it while double clicking'on it opens it's appropriate editing'window. If you know how to use Work-'bench 2 or above then you'll know how'to move, re-size or multi-select MP2'objects. MP2 goes further though in'some respects. Once more than one
object has been selected,
(with the old way using the
shift key, or with the new
rubber-banding method),
they can for instance be
spread vertically or
horizontally by the simple
method of placing two lines
as the outer limits. Simple
and flexible methods like
this abound. The window of
icons for adding lines and
text boxes etc. which is
shown on the first page of
this article is also on
screen at all times.
Figuring out how
everything relates in MP2
is taking me a while but
this is mainly due to I
think sparse documentation'and a good number of crashes - which'are to be expected in an early,'unfinished version of an application of'this size. A good tutorial will be'needed to explain the structure of MP2'to new users I suspect, but I still'think if crashes didn't keep slowing me'down, I could figure it out with the'information Mark's supplied so far. The'biggest hassle I've had is with'understanding "Resources". This is'where objects are stored that are'available to all documents. I now have'a feel for them but it took a while,'mainly due to the number of things that'can be stored in them. Everything from!palette's to triggers. (I think.)' One other feature not mentioned so'far is MP2's ability to cache documents'in memory. How much RAM is used for'this can be set by the user of the'publication and if you've got the%memory it makes things run very fast.' In the introduction to the docs of'MP2 Mark rather underestimates what may'be able to be done with this when he'says, among other things, (like using'it for kiosk displays and museum'exhibits), it could be used for'"illustrated books and interactive'(twisterplot) books". Assuming the'variable commands are reasonably'flexible, full-blown, interactive,'graphic adventures should be able to be'knocked up by those with a bit of'talent. Given that MP2 is designed with'CD-ROM support, the sky's the limit for'what could be achieved by MP2 with
these types of games.' Promised for MP2 in one Amsmag was'the ability to display AGA graphics as'HAM pictures on non-AGA machines. I'tried to get this to work but without'success. Whether this has not been'implemented or AGA graphics can only be'added when using an AGA machine, I'm'not sure. It would be nice though if'non-AGA users could add AGA pictures to'the documents they're making so they'can see them in HAM mode (in the'finished publication) and AGA users can'see them in their full glory. You'listening Mark? (: If this was possible'and this mag keeps going and moves to a'two-disk affair, on the second disk'could be an MP2 mag for all the AGA'only stuff and any AGA graphics.'Finally I'd be able to please'everybody! Having just bought Blitz and'with MP2 starting to become workable'I'm in the happy state of having two'exciting new things to learn - and'wanting to use both of them all the
time. Oh for more time!' MP2 looks like being an application'that's going to have a lot of praise'heaped on it by the Amiga press when'it's finally launched, assuming Gladd-'ing can cut out the understatement -'twisterplots and kiosk displays indeed!'And assuming it's debugged properly,%it'll deserve all the praise it gets.' Magnetic Pages 2 is planned as a'commercial product though this may be'affected by the uncertain state of'affairs surrounding the Amiga market at'the moment. It's certainly of com-'mercial quality and if I was Samsung'(or whoever) I'd make him an offer he'couldn't refuse. Mark Gladding's'address can be found in the "About"
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