Archive Magazine CD 1995/Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso/text/hints/volume_05/issue_08

Text File | 1995-02-16 | 13.3 KB | 334 lines

Hints and Tips
5.8
•   A5000 filing system problems − There have been more comments about
problems with losing files on the A5000. We suggested last month that
you take Acorn’s advice and configure the ADFSbuffers to zero. In the
light of further experience, we would suggest it even more strongly.
This problem occurred with Impression but we have had reports that it
also happens with other software. You have been warned. Ed.
5.8
David Pilling adds... In the last Archive, you had a piece from someone
saying that it is necessary to *configure ADFSBuffers 0 to make Acorn
DTP and Impression work properly. The official line according to Beebug,
is that unless A5000’s are configured like this, they will corrupt their
hard discs sooner or later. There are well documented cases of this
occurring. In addition, many programs, ArcFS and the Beebug hard disc
backup for example, won’t work unless ADFSbuffers are set to zero.
5.8
It is also common advice to load the SerialUtils module before attempt
ing to use comms programs. The naive point of view is that SerialUtils
does something clever that allows buffers to work. That is not so,
SerialUtils actually prevents buffers from doing anything. It is
therefore much more efficient to stop your comms program from loading
any buffer and not bother with SerialUtils. SerialUtils will apparently
also prevent things like printer buffers from working.
5.8
New versions of Hearsay cope with all this automatically and there is a
version that uses the buffer manager built into RISC-OS 3. However, we
are still having discussions with Acorn over whether this works properly
in RISC-OS 3 as fitted to the A5000.  David Pilling, Blackpool.
5.8
•   A5000 second floppy drive − In Archive 5.6 p12, it said that if you
were putting an external 5¼“ drive onto an A5000 it should be connected
into the middle socket of the three. That is not correct. It should go
into the one farthest East. The internal drive goes in the middle one.
The other point to note is that it said the external drive can be set to
ID zero or one. That it true but it should perhaps should have been
spelt out more clearly that it should NOT be set to either two or three.
If it is, it will not work properly. Ed.
5.8
•   Adjust clicking (RISC-OS 3) − Most people will, by now, have cottoned
on to the idea that clicking open a directory with <adjust> closes the
parent directory viewer and that clicking the close button with <adjust>
opens up the parent. One extension of this on RISC-OS 3 is that clicking
the close button with <adjust> while holding down <shift> doesn’t
actually close the window but does open up the parent directory.
5.8
•   Directory date stamps − When copying a directory and its contents, the
destination directory is created with the current date stamp, as opposed
to being created and then stamped with the date of the source object.
(Looking through the PRM I haven’t been able to find a way of stamping a
file to a date other than that held in the real time clock.)
5.8
In the case of application directories, the application directory’s date
stamp appears to be copied through, but on closer inspection this is not
so. The application directory is created with the current date stamp (as
for normal directories) however, the date which the filer presents the
user (for the date of the application directory) is actually the date
stamp of the !RunImage file.
5.8
RISC-OS 3 automatically detects an attempt to move from one directory to
another on the same media, and performs a Rename operation instead of a
copy, whereby the date is retained. (Possibly, RISC-OS 3 also has a
facility for stamping a filer object with a specified date, although I
will not know about this until the RISC-OS PRM is released!)  D
Lenthall, London.
5.8
•   Exiting the desktop (RISC-OS 3) − With RISC-OS 2, you could set up an
obey that would exit the desktop by making the last line:
5.8
FX 138,0,252
5.8
and as long as no text was output by the obey file, the desktop would be
exited. The same can be done with RISC-OS 3 by placing the above line in
the obey file twice. It also works with the keys, press <shift−ctrl−F12>
twice and the desktop is exited. Also when <shift−ctrl−F12> has been
pressed F12 (*Commands) and <ctrl−F12> (Task Window) still work!
Warning: If you do use this then the ADFS will be reset, losing the
current directory.  P Bedford, Peterborough.
5.8
•   Extra validation flags − With RISC-OS 3, a number of new validation
flags are available for when you are designing window templates. So far
I have found the following:
5.8
Border Flags − these require the border flag to be set on and give an
icon a 3D border similar to Impression’s, they all begin with a B (or b)
and are followed by a number to give the border type:
5.8
0   Single raised border.
5.8
1   Double border for grouping.
5.8
2   Triple border for default action icons.
5.8
3   Triple border for writable icons.
5.8
4   Single recessed border.
5.8
5   Standard single line border.
5.8
6   Triple recessed border similar to type 3.
5.8
Border type 0 and 3 can be followed by a comma and then a number between
0 and 15 to define the colour to slab to.
5.8
Pointer definition − you can define an icon so that the pointer changes
shape when over the icon. This is done by placing a P (or p) in the
validation string followed by the name of the sprite containing the
pointer shape. Try sprite ptr_double.
5.8
Many others may be available with other parameters for the above options
but until the RISC-OS 3 Programmers’ Reference Manual is available we
won’t really know. Most of the above is available in RISC-OS 2 by using
the Interface module by Simon Huntington.  P Bedford, Peterborough.
5.8
•   Iconised windows with Impression (RISC-OS 3) − If you want to
distinguish Impression documents that have had their windows iconised,
generate an icon called ‘ic_impressio’ and place it in the !Sprites file
in the !Impress directory. Mine is the Impression quill & pot in a
window (ic_?).  P Bedford, Peterborough.
5.8
•   Menon hotkey − If you use Menon’s hotkey facility, a problem can arise
in that it may not work if you have a window open that contains the
caret (e.g. Impression). However, it will work if you hold the alt key
down at the same time as the hotkey i.e. <alt-ctrl-H>. P Bedford,
Peterborough.
5.8
•   Oak drives with Acorn SCSI card − If you are using an Oak drive with
an Acorn SCSI card (e.g. if you own an A540), you may find that you are
unable to dismount the drive and that you get a ‘Bad parameters’ error.
5.8
Hard drives that are formatted using an Oak SCSI card include additional
information in the boot block which the Acorn card objects to. To solve
these problems (especially annoying with removable hard drives!), you
will have to format the disc with Acorn’s SCSIDM.
5.8
Unfortunately, it is not that simple. When the desktop is started up,
the Acorn card looks at all of the drives that are available. Once it
sees an ‘incorrectly’ formatted Oak disc, it will not allow SCSIDM to
access the drive. This means that you will have to start up outside of
the desktop in order to format the disc. This can be done by typing
*Configure Language 0 <return> from the command line and then pressing
<ctrl-break>.
5.8
Once this has been done, you can format your drive in the usual way −
see pages 11-12 of the SCSI Expansion Card User Guide.
5.8
To start up in the desktop again, simply type *Configure Language 4
<return> from the command line and then press <ctrl-break>.  Adrian
Look, N.C.S.
5.8
•   PC file transfer revisited − When transferring text files from PC to
the Archimedes (or vice versa), it is necessary to convert the carriage
returns (CRs) to line feeds (LFs) and vice versa. This can be done using
the search and replace facility of Edit, but it is much quicker just to
use the in-built transfer ‘CR<->LF’ which is available from the ‘Edit’
submenu or to press <F8>.  G Riley, Cheshire.
5.8
•   PC screen fonts revisited − In Archive 4.12 p10 there was a hint that
explained how to change the screen font of the PC Emulator to any BBC
screen font. Since then, the program has been updated to include EGA+
and ECD definitions.
5.8
The EGAROM looks to contain two sets of character definitions: EGA+ 16×8
cells and ECD 14×8 cells, as opposed to the ROM file which (amongst
other things) contains the 8×8 cells used in the other modes. The
following program will convert these character sets for EGA+ and ECD
modes in a similar manner to my previous program:
5.8
REM >EGAFONT
5.8
REM Merge BBC FONT file into !PC EGAROM file
5.8
REM NB. *** COPY ORIGINAL EGAROM FILE BEFORE RUNNING THIS ***
5.8
:
5.8
ON ERROR REPORT:PRINT“ at line ”;ERL :CLOSE#0:END
5.8
DIM rom% &2000,C%(7)
5.8
R$=“:4.!PCEM.EGAROM”
5.8
OSCLI(“*LOAD ”+R$+“ ”+STR$~rom%)
5.8
:
5.8
F%=OPENIN(“:4.BBCFONTS.NEWFONT”):REM File of type &FF7
5.8
:
5.8
REPEAT
5.8
A%=BGET#F%
5.8
IFA%<>23THENPRINT“This is not a BBC font file!”:END
5.8
O%=BGET#F%:PRINT“Char &”;~O%;“ ”;: VDU23,255
5.8
REM  EGA+ chars 16x8 − double horiz. thickness
5.8
P%=O%*16
5.8
FORI%=0TO7
5.8
C%(I%)=BGET#F%:C%=C%(I%):VDUC%
5.8
REM − assemble 8x8 char array
5.8
rom%?(P%+2*I%)=C%
5.8
rom%?(P%+2*I%+1)=C%
5.8
NEXT
5.8
VDU255:PRINT
5.8
REM  ECD chars 14x8 − blank first and last three rows
5.8
P%=&1000+O%*14
5.8
rom%?(P%+0)=0:rom%?(P%+1)=0
5.8
rom%?(P%+2)=0
5.8
FOR I%=0TO7:rom%?(P%+3+I%)=C%(I%): NEXT
5.8
rom%?(P%+11)=0:rom%?(P%+12)=0
5.8
rom%?(P%+13)=0
5.8
UNTIL EOF#F%
5.8
CLOSE#0
5.8
:
5.8
OSCLI(“*SAVE ”+R$+“ ”+STR$~rom%+
5.8
“ + 2000”)
5.8
END
5.8
This program has been tested in both modes by squeezing every last byte
out of my A3000 and through the use of the PD multisync ‘emulator’ − I
could just about stand the flickering! The ECD characters are a little
smaller due to the difficulty in mapping the default 8 onto 14 rows,
however, it does result in greater line spacing and arguably improves
readability.
5.8
Finally, I suppose that if anyone needs to redefine the MDA1 outline
font (has anyone found anything which uses the MDA mode?), they could
use !FontEd or a similar application to change the font name of their
preferred outline font to MDA1. The MDA0 font would appear to contain
definitions for the ‘additional’ IBM character set and, as such, is less
likely to require redefinition.  P Bready, Glasgow.
5.8
•   Printer buffers − RISC-OS 3 provides a configurable printer buffer.
Use the command:
5.8
*Configure PrinterBufferSize <n>K
5.8
to set the buffer size to <n> K in length. This does not seem to be used
by the RISC-OS 3 printer drivers but is used outside the desktop
environment. To check the buffer has been configured, perform a <ctrl-
reset> after the configure command, go into Basic and type:
5.8
PRINT ADVAL(-4)
5.8
the result will be the size of your printer buffer.  P Bedford,
Peterborough.
5.8
•   Translator tips − Translator can easily be used to convert a sprite
from one screen mode to another. From the Translator menu, simply
deselect the ‘Pop up > Auto mode’ option, and then select the ‘Process >
Sprite output > Output mode > Current’. Select the desktop mode for the
output sprite and drag the sprite to be converted onto the Translator
icon. Finally, save the converted sprite from ‘Misc > Save > Full’
option.
5.8
When printing foreign graphics files on a monochrome printer, better
results can be obtained by selecting the ‘Black and white’ option from
the Translator menu i.e. the sprite is converted into 256 grey scales.
(I think this is because there is less distortion of the colours than
when fitting the sprite to the 256 desktop colours available and then
the printer driver using ColourTrans to convert them to monochrome
information.) C Paul, Manchester.
5.8
•   Waiter and MultiFS clash − You can’t run The Data Store’s Waiter with
the version of MultiFS that comes with the new PC Emulator. You must
quit Waiter before running MultiFS.  J Thompson.
5.8
•   Window bug (RISC-OS 3) − There is a bug in the windows redraw routine.
If you use !FormEd to define a window with a vertical scroll bar, no
horizontal scroll bar and no size icon, then turn on the horizontal
scroll bar, being careful not to cover where the size icon would be with
the menu, you will see that no box is redrawn in the area where the size
icon should be. If you drag other windows over this window the result is
a mess in the area where the size icon should be. As this example shows,
the result is not as expected.  P Bedford, Peterborough.
5.8
•   Window movement (RISC-OS 3) − If you use <adjust> in the scroll bar
areas to provide reverse movement, you may find useful the facility for
complete window scrolling. If you click adjust and hold on either slider
bar, the pointer vanishes and if you move the mouse, the window is
scrolled in the same direction. This only works if both scroll bars are
on a window.  P Bedford, Peterborough.  A
5.8
5.8



Image-setting
5.8
Hints & Tips
5.8
•   Make sure you ask the image-setting bureau to produce films in a form
that your printer can use. e.g. Can he use ‘right reading positive’?
5.8
•   Only use high quality PostScript fonts such as the range from EFF –
mistakes can be expensive.
5.8
•   Ensure that the client ‘accepts’ a bromide ‘proof’ before having the
work printed.
5.8
•   Scanning − if you do your own scanning, rather than having it done via
a bureau, use the lowest possible scanning resolution that is consistent
with the screen resolution being used by the printer − i.e. a 150 l.p.i.
screen (a typical value for high quality magazines) requires no more
than 150 dots per inch scan, assuming a reproduction ratio of 1:1.  A
5.8
5.