Shareworld 9

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Shareworld 9 / Shareworld 9 (Disk 1 of 2).adf / SW9a / SWSI / SWSonicInterrogator.docs / SWSonicInterrogator.docs

Wrap

Text File | 1998-04-20 | 11.5 KB | 328 lines

(Note that these docs are for the previous version of SWSI. See the docs within the program for v1.7 info - such as how to look at the pictures in the Gallery.) ShareWorld Sonic Interrogator v1.06 Released with issue 8 of ShareWorld, May 1997 This program is copyright © Carl Read 1996, 1997 The music `Tomorrow' is copyright © Mike Richmond 1997 The Music `Chipchoon' is copyright © Mike Richmond 1997 SWSI is designed to run alongside the Amiga disk magazine ShareWorld. As well as playing the issue's music it also lets the user answer the ShareWorld Questionnaire while reading the mag, even if they autobooted it. Although designed for using while the mag is running, SWSI is a stand-alone program and can be run just like any other program. It was introduced with ShareWorld Six, released in April of 1996. This Documentation Reader The text in these docs can be scrolled using the buttons in the bottom right of the window or by using the slider-bar on its right side. You can also scroll the text by clicking on it and, while holding the mouse button down, moving the pointer up or down. There are five speeds of scrolling from fast-up through stopped to fast down. The window can also be resized - with the text wrapping tidily. The Help button on the main SWSI window will bring up this window, as will choosing Help from the menus. The Music Player Music will start playing when SWSI is first run and the program allows you to play with it using its various gadgets. These are all on SWSI's main window and are as follows... Volume Control These three gadgets alter the volume of the music. They are the `left' and `right' buttons and the slider gadget situated to the right of the word `Volume'. Clicking on the buttons will increase or decrease the volume while the slider may be used to quickly set the volume to somewhere near where you want it. The Filter The Amiga's low-pass audio filter may be turned off and on using the Filter cycling button. Note that what is said on the button is what will happen when you click on it and not the state the filter's currently in. So if it says `Filter On' then the filter is off and thus ready to be turned on. You know it makes sense... (Yes, I know, I should have used radio buttons - but this was a rushed job. Okay?) Stopping The Music The cycling button that says either `Silence' or `Music' is for turning the music on and off. When it says `Silence' the music should be playing - with clicking on `Silence' turning it off. (Yes, it should have been radio buttons too.) The Music Below the word `Music' is a box containing the modules you can listen to. The one selected will be highlighted. To choose another just click on its title. The Questionnaire Editor The Questionnaire part of SWSI is for the readers of ShareWorld to give their opinion of the various contributions to the magazine, the results of which appear in the Feedback section of the magazine. For each article, picture or whatever a rating can given and, if you wish, some comments added as well. These can be saved to disk and when complete, sent to the editor who'll add them to the next issue's Feedback. The following is a description of the various features of the Questionnaire Editor. (You will have to open up the window to see them all.) Name Enter your name in the text-entry box to the right of the word `Name'. This is just so we can keep track of the various questionnaires returned and it WON'T appear in Feedback. If you want it made know that the comments are yours then say so at the end of each one. The Index Buttons The `General', `Columns' etc. buttons mirror the Indexes in ShareWorld and are to let you quickly find the article you want to rate or to comment on. The Index Box Below the Index Buttons is the Index itself where you can choose the contribution you want to rate or comment on. The buttons and slider on its right are for scrolling it. Also, just below the scrolling buttons are a left and right button for quickly moving back and forth through them. Colours The twelve, coloured buttons to the right of the word `Colours' are for choosing the text and background colour of the text-editing box and the Help window. `*' `!' `?' `c' Making Your Opinion Felt The four buttons at the top-left of the text-editing box are for you to give a rating to the contribution you've selected. It's a three-star system and the four buttons mean the following... * Not bad. ** Very good. *** Awesome! More, more, MORE please! ? You didn't understand it. ! You thought it was crap. c Clears the rating should you get it wrong. Just click on these for each contribution, (after you've selected them from the Index), and the results will appear just above the buttons. Comments Should you have any comments on a contribution, after selecting it from the Index, type them into the text-entry box at the bottom of the window. Keep your comments as short as possible and don't waste space by just putting into words what you've indicated by whatever you gave as. a rating. Feedback is a big enough file as it is! The text-editor is a pretty standard affair (I hope) and has the following features... Word-wrap: No need to press Return at the end of every line - just at the end of each paragraph. It also tidies itself up should you re-size its window. Cursor controls: The cursors work as expected, (hopefully), and when used with shift will move to the top, bottom, left or right of your comments. Delete: A window will appear if you use shifted delete which will offer you the choice of deleting all of your current comments. This will ONLY delete the comments you're currently writing - and not any you've written about other contributions. Block Marking: Text can be marked using the mouse pointer in the standard way, letting you cut, copy, paste and delete you text. And that's about it. After you've rated and commented on all the contributions you can be bothered with, save the completed Questionnaire to disk using `Save As' from the Project menu. (That's `Save As' - NOT `Save Comments' from the Comments menu.) You can also load them back in again so you don't have to fill it all in in the one sitting. The Menus The three menus work in the standard Amiga way, meaning they can also be activated by pressing the right Amiga key and their keyboard equivilent - `Right Amiga O' for Open and so on. Project Menu New `N' Erases everything you've entered. You'll be given the option of canceling. Open `O' Opens a file requestor and allows you to load in a previously saved file containing Questionnaire data. Save `S' Saves the Questionnaire data to disk without using a file requestor. However, a requestor will appear if you've not already saved or loaded the Questionnaire data since starting SWSI. Save As `A' Opens a requestor and allows you to save the Questionnaire data to disk. About `?' Opens a window giving you some info on this progam. Help `Help' Opens a window, (meaning the window you're reading this in), which contains the documentation to this program - meaning these docs. Along with using the gadgets on the right of window to scroll through the docs, you can also click on the text in the window and while holding the mouse button down scroll the text up and down by moving the mouse up and down. Quit `Quit' Exits the program. Make sure you've saved your Questionnaire results before you do this. Edit Menu Cut `X' Cuts a marked block of text out of your comments and stores it so it may be pasted back in using `Paste'. Copy `C' Copies a marked block of text from your comments and stores it so it may be pasted back in using `Paste'. Paste `V' Pastes previously `Cut' or `Copied' text back into comments. Comments Menu Save Comments `M' This opens a requestor and allows you to save the comments you've written to disk. This is so you can then turn them into an article if you think they're getting a bit long for the meant-to-be-brief Questionnaire comments. This only saves the current comments that are displayed in the Comments' window and not all the comments you've so far entered. Delete Comments `D' This deletes all of the currently displayed comments. Previous `<' Moves you back a contribution - meaning up the menus. Next `>' Moves you forward a contribution - meaning down the menus. Finally Hopefully all this makes sense and the readers of ShareWorld use it - as it'll make the editor's job of compiling the next issue's Feedback a lot easier. I fully expect this to be pretty bug-ridden - especially in the text- editor. It was a rushed job and hasn't had much testing. I also expect it to crash when memory is low as Blitz doesn't handle low-memory too well. However, if you're carefull you should be able to fill in a Questionnaire with it - so good luck. Anyway, have fun, and any Questionaires you fill in should be sent to... Carl Read CyberCraft PO Box 14032 Mayfair Hastings 4201 NEW ZEALAND SWSI History 96.04.07 - v1.00: First version finished. 96.04.12 - v1.01: Had a report from an A4000 owner saying the program was crashing on their machine. This made me wonder if the Blitz commands RGBRed (and so on) should be used in preference to Red (and so on) on AGA machines so I've added a test for this in the program to see what happens. Also, while I was at it, I fixed a bug that was causing block-marking to write outside the text-box and another that was putting a cursor square in the Help window. 96.04.19 - v1.02. Figured out the real reason for the above `AGA machines' problem. I'd not been taking into account that using non-Topaz 8 fonts on 2+ Amiga Workbenchs causes a change in the window-bar size, which alters the reading of the mouse x,y positions. So I've altered that using WTopOff and, just to be sure, WLeftOff too. It would've been nice if you'd told us what those functions were for Acid... Oh, and I removed the `Check for AGA machine' routine as it is just possible that there's a few non-AGA Amigas out there with wb3 and 020s or better. 96.10.08 - v1.03: This is the version released with ShareWorld 7. Fixed a bug in the article window which was leaving previous article titles there if less than five articles were in the section. Where were the columns this issue, people?!? Removed the `joke' save response when users forgot to include their names. May have found the bug that was causing some to have trouble with the save routine too. And I've found and fixed the bug that was causing the text to get screwed up - hurrah! Text entry's still not perfect and I haven't even tried to stop the flashing when delete is used, but I think text will now stay as it was typed. I think... Oh yes, and I've added the all-important dots to the menus. Nothing's too much trouble to keep Mike Richmond happy. 96.10.10 - v1.04: Noticed a bug on the day of SW7's release! And after a few copies had gone out. Anyway, it no longer crashes now if you click on the text slider when there's not enough text in the window to slide. Also fixed up another little glitch which was giving the cursor a letter when you used the shift-cursor-right key combination to go to the end of a line. 96.10.23 - v1.05: Oops! You couldn't save a Questionnaire after loading in a previously saved one. Well, now you can. Thanks for pointing this out Mike. (: 97.05.24 - v1.06: Altered a few minor things of no importance.