Archive Magazine CD 1995

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

/ Archive Magazine CD 1995 / Archive Magazine CD 1995.iso / text / hints / volume_8 < prev

Wrap

Text File | 1995-08-02 | 77.2 KB | 1,662 lines

Hints and Tips 8.1 • Disabling capslock − It has been pointed out that the capslock key is not used very often, and usually only causes confusion when you hit it accidentally. (This is a polite way of saying that there had been another emission of blue smoke from the Editor’s desk as I HAD JUST HIT <CAPSLOCK> ACCIDENTALLY AGAIN!!! Ed.) 8.1 To solve this problem, a short module was written to disable the capslock key. When the module is loaded, the key will act as a Caps key, but will not lock, i.e. it acts like a shift key but only affects letters − the numbers and symbols are unchanged. If you need to re- enable the capslock function, press <f12> and type *rmkill disablecaps. 8.1 The module, which works on all Archimedes and Risc PC machines, is on the monthly program disc. Matthew Hunter, NCS. 8.1 Peace has now been restored in the Editor’s office! As far as I’m concerned, this module is the best thing since sliced bread. Thanks, Matthew!! Ed. 8.1 • Risc PC hard disc power-saving – Since the advent of RISC OS 3, there has been an option in the IDEDiscs section of Configure for setting the spin down delay on the hard drive − similar to the screen blanker. This is almost always greyed out, preventing it from being used, the exceptions being the A4 portable and some A3020s. (Some third party interfaces also support the option, but this hint does not apply to them.) This makes sense since, with portables, the battery life needs to be preserved. This is less important on a desktop machine and, also, there is some question as to the long term effects of spinning the drive up and down more than necessary. 8.1 It is possible, however, to control the drive in this way even if you have a different machine, providing that the drive supports the powersave IDE commands. On the monthly program disc is a command line program “powersave”. Double click on “!SetDir” which will make sure you are in the correct directory, press <f12> and type “powersave 4” <return>. This will give you the list of options and the current spin status for drive 4 (which will be meaningless if you are not using ADFS to control the drive). There are three control options detailed below. 8.1 “powersave spindown <drivenumber>” will spin down drive <drivenumber> (4 or 5) immediately. If the drive is not spinning and you try to access it, there will be a pause while the drive is spun up before the access takes place (occasionally you can open a directory without spinning up the drive since it is cached in memory and the drive is never accessed). 8.1 “powersave spinup <drivenumber>” will spin up drive <drivenumber> (4 or 5) immediately. 8.1 “powersave delay <drivenumber> <delay>” will set the power-saving delay for drive <drive number> to <delay> seconds − note that it is rounded down to 5-second accuracy but the timing is not particularly accurate anyway. This will not be configured, so if you want to use this feature, you will need to run powersave during the boot sequence. It is worth making the delay longer rather than shorter since continually spinning your drive up and down could reduce your drive’s life expectancy – you do this at your own risk. 8.1 One area where this does have a major impact is on the Risc PC − most of the noise comes not from the fan but from the hard drive, so if you spin down the drive, you can hardly hear the machine at all. Matthew Hunter, NCS. 8.1 • Splitting Impression documents over several floppy discs − Over the past six months, I have spent a lot of time working with Tony Tolver of T-J Reproductions and one thing that always amazed me was the number of methods used by people to split an Impression document over two or more discs − after all, how do you get a quart (or 10Mb) into a pint pot (or 800Kb/1.6Mb)? 8.1 The methods I have seen include: PacDir, ArcFS, CFS, Squash and breaking down the document and moving the contents of Chapter2 onto further discs and then compressing them all. 8.1 All of these are relatively time-consuming, particularly the last one. I was sure there ought to be a better way and then I found it by accident after upgrading to Hard Disc Companion v2.50 from Risc Developments. I read the manual and found that it was easy to back up just one file or directory, so here is an easy way for you and for the recipient of your file to split Impression documents. 8.1 1 Install Hard Disc Companion on your iconbar in the usual way. 8.1 2 Single click on the icon which opens a window. 8.1 3 Click <menu> and choose Destination, Floppy0 and 800K or 1.6M as appropriate. 8.1 4 Under Preferences, you can select how you wish to make the backup, i.e. Very Quickly but with no compression or relatively slowly but with maximum compression. The choice is yours. 8.1 5 Under Files, choose Backup and a window opens onto which you drag your Impression document. 8.1 6 Finally, click on Start on the main window and simply follow the on- screen prompts. 8.1 7 Send your file to the destination address. 8.1 Upon receipt, all that needs to be done is to insert the last disc (so it helps if you label them, 1,2. . . etc) and open the window. Two files are seen: !Restore and Data. Double click on !Restore to install it on the iconbar and drag Data over the icon. Click again on Restore and a new window opens. Simply drag the icon to a new directory or the root and follow the on-screen prompts. The document will be fully rebuilt on the recipient’s computer. 8.1 It may interest you to know that I created a dummy Impression document to test this. It was 20Mb long and I used Hard Disc Companion v2.50 to split onto six 800Kb floppies at maximum compression − it worked faultlessly. 8.1 Hard Disc Companion v2.50 costs £45 +p&p +VAT from Risc Developments or £52 from NCS. Keith Parker, Southall. A 8.1 With Risc Developments going into liquidation, we aren’t sure about the availability of Hard Disc Companion but, presumably, Beebug Ltd will be taking it over. Ed. 8.1 Hints and Tips 8.2 • A3000 bulging case − My early A3000 had, from the start, a standard Acorn monitor stand upon which was a AKF17 monitor. Of late, I found the upper case section, on the left hand side by the power supply, had started to bulge out from the bottom section. This was caused by the weight of the monitor supported by the Acorn stand only on the extreme edges of the case. 8.2 In my job as IT Technician at school, I had noticed (having removed countless covers for various reasons) there have been two upgrades to the cases, and one of the upgrades had special strengthening and interlocking around this area, no doubt with this in mind. The latest, Mk 3 version is available as an Acorn spare part. The base of the new case requires a lot of work in removing the PCB and any upgrades, and the power supply design has changed making the changeover awkward. However the new case lid will fit onto the old base and this alone offers enough strength to cure the problem. K R Coton, Solihull. 8.2 • Disabling POST test (and other useful ‘bits’) − One of our customers found that because the POST (Power On Self Test, or the software that makes the screen flash pretty colours at switch on and flashes the floppy light at you when things go wrong), had been partly disabled, meaning that his SCSI drive was not given sufficient time to get ready before the SCSI card demanded its attention. Some people may have disabled this after installing certain versions of the VIDC enhancer. The POST will always be reactivated by a delete-power on, but there is a more subtle way of switching it on or off. Byte 188 (&BC) of the CMOS RAM contains 8 bits which affect various miscellaneous configuration options. 8.2 Bits 0-1 ROMFS Opt 4 state 8.2 Bit 2 cache icon enable state 8.2 Bit 3-5 screen blanker time: 0=off, 1=30s, 2=1min, 3=2min, 4=5min, 5=10min, 6=15min, 7=30min. 8.2 Bit 6 screen blanker/Wrch interaction: 0=ignore Wrch, 8.2 1=Wrch unblanks screen 8.2 Bit 7 hardware (POST) test disable: 0=full tests, 1=disable long tests at power-up. 8.2 RISC OS 3 PRM, 1-358, Acorn Computers Ltd. 8.2 The program disc contains a simple program for altering the state of any of these bits. David Webb, NCS. 8.2 • Inkjet printers and paper quality − A number of items have appeared here and elsewhere on how to realise to the full the potential quality of printouts with ink-jet printers. At 300 dpi, one would think it ought to be indistinguishable from the output from a laser printer with the same resolution. 8.2 Why is there a problem? All papers are made from fibres, matted together; thus, if you put a drop of liquid onto a piece of paper, the fluid will flow between these fibres, carrying with it any dye or colourant: hence the fuzzy edges of the output from inkjet printers with unsuitable papers. Coating the paper can eliminate the problem, but at a substantial cost. However, with careful design of the paper making process, it is possible to minimise (though not eliminate) this ‘bleeding’. 8.2 I wrote to Hewlett Packard and asked for their recommendations They came up with two types of paper and their suppliers. I got some samples, and both were very good but, by a small margin, ‘Versoix Copy’ seemed to me the better (and cheaper). The other, ‘Reyjet’, is close behind and both are streets ahead of most ordinary photocopier paper. Neither is very expensive (about £3.00 per ream for Vesiox and £5.50 for Reyjet) but neither are very readily available. If you write to the distributors, they will send you samples and the name of your nearest stockist. 8.2 Versoix Copy − Darent Paper Agencies, Wandle House, Riverside Drive, Mitcham, Surrey, CR4 4SU. (0181-640-4102) 8.2 Reyjet − Denian Paper Ltd, Unit D2, West Mill, Imperial Business Estate. Gravesend, Kent, DA11 0DL. (01474-569919) Barry Humpidge. 8.2 • Irregular text frames in Publisher − In response to one of Keith Parker’s wish-it-did-that moans in the Comment Column (8.1 p31), I would suggest that whilst irregular text frames would be nice, the use of a regular frame “framed” by a couple of repelling irregular graphics frames (drag an empty drawfile into blank frames) does the job, with a little fiddling. John McCartney. 8.2 • Large banners in Impression − To create a six foot long banner, or similar, using Impression, create a new master page, “Banner”, width 72“, depth 8”, Landscape, margins 0.5 with one column. Quit the master pages and alter the chapter of the document, selecting “Banner” as the master page. Change the font size to around 400 point and centre the text. Type the banner message. Print out on tractor fed continuous paper (sideways!). Vector offers some useful banners ready made, or you can use Impression’s Borders in ‘Alter Frame’, to enhance the finished article. Irene Quinn, Thetford, Norfolk. 8.2 • Laser Direct on the Risc PC − If you are upgrading to a Risc PC and have an elderly Laser Direct card, it will not work if it is “Issue one” (the computer will not initialise after the board has been plugged into one of the expansion slots). This type can be quickly identified by the fact that it is the only version where there is a ribbon cable connecting the circuit board to the printer output socket. Computer Concepts will exchange this type of board for the latest version for £100. You will probably also need a copy of the most recent version (2.63) of the printer driver disc at £10. David Smith, Edinburgh. 8.2 • More Sleuths on the case − If you are lucky enough to have lots of memory on your machine you can run two or more copies of Sleuth at the same time, so that if you are OCRing several pages of text, the rate of OCRing can be considerably increased. On a simple test run, two copies running saved 36% on the time taken and three copies saved nearly 50% on the time! It then occurred to me that using more than one copy might be infringing the software licence, but on checking with Risc Developments, I was assured that this was not the case. Philip Foster, Cambridge. 8.2 • Turbo charging draft printing with a Deskjet printer − What I didn’t realise, until I tried it by accident, was that the ‘Draft’ button on the printer worked with graphic (e.g. output from Impression), as well as ‘straight’ printing. Thus, with your printer driver set to 150 dpi, and the ‘draft’ light on, you can produce readable copies for proof reading in virtually no time at all! Barry Humpidge. 8.2 • Turbo Driver v4 and Dongles − If you are using CC’s Turbo Driver v4 on a computer with a bi-directional parallel port, via a dongle, the status signals don’t get through. This includes signals, such as “paper out” and “printer offline” etc. If the driver software is looking for these signals you may find that printing is blocked. To bypass the problem call up the configuration dialogue box and configure to ignore status signals. Nick Harris, Norwich. A 8.2 Hints and Tips 8.3 • A3000 bulging case (Archive 8.2 p62) − In the hint last month, I suggested replacing the plastic cases of A3000 computers. In the text I sent to Paul, I made some mention of safety aspects but Paul edited them out. (Oops, sorry!) Please note that, for a variety of reasons, you should not attempt to change the bottom case if your power supply is the cardboard-covered type. If you are unsure, I would be happy for you to write to me or ring me on 01564-776745. Keith Coton, 118 Purnells Way, Knowle, Solihull, B93 9ED. 8.3 • Binder problems − A number of people have said that, when they reached the end of Volume 7, the last magazine wouldn’t fit into the binder. Let me assure you that they do fit in the binder (well, just). If you can’t get them in, it could be because you have been putting the rods into the holes instead of into the slots. The holes are there only for use when the volume is incomplete, i.e. with a half-full binder, the magazines tend to flop about and the rods easily come out unless you put the rod for the top issue into an appropriate pair of holes. I suppose we ought to send out instructions with the binders, but having used the same binders for 8 years, I forget that they are new to some of you. Sorry! Ed. 8.3 • Day of the week function − I agree entirely with the basic message of Cain Hunt’s article, “Why bother programming?” (8.1 p29). When I write number-crunching programs in Basic, I ‘print’ the results to a spool file, which I drag into Impression and format into a suitable presentation document. 8.3 One helpful comment, if I may, is that the calendar shouldn’t need to be told the day of the week of January 1. The function to use (which returns a value in the range 0=Sunday to 6=Saturday) is: 8.3 DEFFNNewYear(Y%)=(1+1461*(Y%−1)DIV4−(1+ (Y%−1)DIV100)*3DIV4)MOD7 8.3 Colin Singleton, Sheffield. 8.3 • Impression’s single-file document icon − In Archive 8.2 p.19, Paul complained about the very dowdy grey icons that Impression Publisher and Style use for their documents. 8.3 Fortunately, this is easily changed: All you have to do is look for the sprite called file_bc5 in the three directories !Sprites, !Sprites22 and !Sprites23 inside Impression’s application directory, and the sprite called docsprites inside Resources.Sprites; you can replace them with whatever icons you prefer − I took the Impression II document sprite and changed its background from white to pale yellow to be able to tell the two types of documents apart. Jochen Konietzko, Köln, Germany 8.3 This was one of many similar suggestions. Thanks to all who attempted to put me out of my misery. My desktop is now resplendent with white I’s and yellow I’s, so now I can see which I is which. Ed. 8.3 • Inkjet paper quality (8.2 p63) − Reyjet paper can be obtained from ‘Staples (Office Superstores)’. The price, a few months ago, was £2.39 (+VAT) per ream. I have found these stores to be well worth a visit, in terms of both choice and price. Their catalogue contains a paper/printer type compatibility chart and lists five types suitable for b/w inkjets (from 80gsm to 100gsm, one in A3 size) and three for colour inkjets. The Superstores tend to be Home Counties-based (Croydon, High Wycombe, and Staples Corner in London) but they have other stores through the country (e.g. Leeds, Cambridge, Swansea, etc.) though I do not know if they carry full stocks. Bob Bourne, Ware. 8.3 If anyone can’t get Versoix paper locally, it is readily available from Viking Direct at £5.49 per ream or £19.95 per 5 reams, both excluding VAT and delivery. Eight reams or more are delivered free, usually overnight. Viking Direct are on Freephone 0800-424444 and have a very wide range of general computer and office supplies. Jim Nottingham, York. 8.3 • Impression’s “Some fonts not found” − Since the arrival of Impression Style and Publisher, I have read repeated complaints about the fact that both versions still replace fonts that have been used in a document but are currently not available, with the default font. Coupled with this complaint, usually, is a wish that there should be an option to abort and install the missing fonts (most recently in Archive 8.1, p.31). 8.3 I can’t quite see the point of these complaints. I work with just three or four fonts most of the time, so that one of the all-singing, all- dancing font handlers like FontDirectory would be a waste of money for me. Therefore, I have simply distributed my fonts over four directories − a small one with those few fonts that I use most often and, one step down in the directory structure, the rest, grouped according to their general look. 8.3 When Impression Style now gives out its “not found” message, all I have to do is let RISC OS 3.10 “see” the relevant font directory, then press <f12><return>, and the missing font will be loaded into Style. 8.3 Problems really only occur when you load someone else’s document with fonts which you don’t have. In this case, it would be nice if Impression gave the option to choose the replacement font. You could then use something really noticeable like Dingbats, so that it would be easy to locate the style or effect that needed changing. Jochen Konietzko, Köln, Germany. 8.3 • NoCaps II − After the hint in Archive 8.1 regarding disabling the capslock key I had a request for a version that would respond normally to capslock, but turn it off when shift was pressed. This could be useful for things like postcodes, where it is easier to turn capslock on than to get confused about when you need to press <shift>. Rather than adding this functionality to the original module, I generated a new version, which is more economical on space than having both in one, and you are only likely to use one or the other. The two modules are on this month’s disc as NoCaps (disable capslock as before) and SNoCaps (shift disable capslock). Matthew Hunter, NCS. 8.3 • Powersave & libraries − Several people have expressed interest in the powersave program from issue 8.1 of Archive, but have had difficulty incorporating it into their !Boot sequence. I will therefore describe how to install it. (The methods apply equally to other command line programs you may wish to run − just replace powersave in the description below with the program you wish to install.) 8.3 There are three basic ways around this problem. The first thing to do (whichever method you use) is to find your boot file. If your machine has RISC OS 3.11 or earlier, the boot file will be in the root directory of your hard disc (unless you have moved it). On the Risc PC you will have to hold down shift (to open application directories) and double- click on !Boot, Choices, Boot, Tasks, in that order, as you go down the directory structure (clicking with <adjust> each time will close the previous filer window − useful in this situation). Once you have located your boot file (called ‘!Boot’) hold shift and double-click on it to load it into !Edit. Find where in the boot sequence you wish to run the program and insert a blank line. Make sure the cursor is at the start of the blank line, ready for the command that will execute the desired program. 8.3 Probably the easiest method is to use an absolute reference. Copy powersave somewhere ‘safe’ and preferably out of the way so that it does not clutter the hard disc. Type “RUN ” and then hold down <shift> and drag the ‘powersave’ icon, from where you put it, into the text window containing the boot file set up above. When you release <select>, you should see the full pathname appear in the text file following the run command. You can then set up the parameters as described below. 8.3 The second possibility is to set aside a special directory where you keep all your command line programs. Fortunately, Acorn provide such a system, the Library directory, which on pre-Risc PC machines is, by default, a directory called ‘Library’ in the root of your hard disc. On the Risc PC, there is a directory inside the !Boot application, also called ‘Library’. Open the appropriate Library directory and copy powersave into it. You can then type ‘powersave’ into the blank line in the boot file ready for the parameters to follow. 8.3 This is fine except that it relies on default settings, and puts programs into Library that you only use very rarely. The method I use therefore is to put the programs, and utility applications that I load only during the boot sequence (backdrop picker, configuration tester, for example), into a directory, say ‘BootLib’. I then have a line in my Boot file ‘set BootLib$Path full::pathname.$.for.BootLib.’ as appropriate for the location of the BootLib directory. Again, this can be found by Shift-dragging BootLib into the text editor, but note that, to be successful, the path must end with a full stop. I can then run any program in Bootlib with the command ‘BootLib:progname’. This is longer for a single program, but I only have to set bootlib once, and then reference it several times. I have an absolute reference, so the default settings do not affect it, and the library directory is kept for frequently used programs. It is also far simpler to move the directory − if you use the first method, you have to re-enter the full pathname for every program that has moved. If I move BootLib, however, I only have to change the line where BootLib is set, and all the programs will work as before. 8.3 Once you have got the program ready to run by one of the three methods above, all you need to do is to add any parameters to the end of the line as appropriate for the program. In the case of powersave, an example would be ‘delay 4 120’ for a two minute inactivity delay before spinning down the drive. Do not use ‘spindown’ in your boot sequence. Doing so will force the drive to spindown part way through the boot, and immediately spin back up again, causing unnecessary strain. Matthew Hunter. 8.3 • Publisher: editing effects − It is possible to edit effects as if they were styles and even then to turn them from effects into styles. If you look inside !Publisher, in the Resources directory is a file called UK. In it is a line: “Cnf1:” and if you change this to read “Cnf1:E” and re-save it, then from the next time you load Publisher, you will find that effects become editable just as if they were styles. 8.3 This partially solved a problem caused by the change to Publisher. 8.3 With Impression II, when articles came in that had bits in bold, I would just put them into the magazine and the “bold” bits would come out as Plantin.Semibold. (I prefer to use Plantin.Bold because the body text is Plantin.Light and the full bold face, although OK for headings, looks too dark within the body of the text.) This worked because, prior to Style and Publisher, anything using the bold effect was given the name “bold” and, in the magazine, the “bold” style was defined as using Plantin.Semibold. 8.3 However, if contributors us <ctrl-B> for bold, when I load it into the magazine, it forces the text into Plantin.Bold. At first, I had to edit “by hand” every single occurrence of the bold effect, changing it into my bold style! The way I now get round it is to go to the incoming file, click on a piece of “bold” text and press <ctrl-f6> to edit the style. The effect then appears in the style editing window as something like “Effect17”, or whatever. All I have to do then is to change this name to “Bold” and this then becomes a style rather than an effect and, when loaded into the magazine, it automatically assumes my Plantin.Semibold style. Ed. 8.3 • Publisher: finding styles and effects − If you are given a document that contains a huge range of effects and styles, as I often am, it is good to simplify it before pasting it into another document. (You would be amazed at the complex combinations of styles and effects people use in their documents!!) You have the choice of a quick <ctrl-A><ctrl-N> to remove all styles and effects and then re-insert the styles you really want or of leaving in some styles and removing others. But how do you know which style/effect does what? Well, styles are easy because you can use search and replace to find them. The menu button next to the “Find what:” box allows you to enter the name of a style. Then add an “@” and it will find the first occurrence of anything in that style. 8.3 Finding effects is more tortuous and can only be achieved if you have used the Cnf1:E trick mentioned above. So, if you press <ctrl-A> and look across on the Style menu, you will see a list of ticked styles and effects. Suppose you decide you want to find what and where “Effect 598” is. The trick is that you double-click on a word and use the Style menu option to apply Effect 598 to it. Pressing <ctrl-f6> will then bring up Effect 598 on the Edit style window. Click on “Show on style menu” and OK it. Now you can go to the top of the document and use <f4> to find that effect as it will now appear on the find style menu. The only bit of really bad planning here is that, if you want to look at each of the occurrences of this effect and get rid of some of them, you cannot use <ctrl-N> to remove the effect because <ctrl-N> is taken to mean “next match” when you are searching! Drat! Keystroke to the rescue again. I have programmed <alt-N> to give me the menu selection, Style − Clear all styles. Ed. 8.3 • Screenload on the Risc PC − It has been pointed out that the *screenload command appears to work differently on the Risc PC from previous machines, in that it no longer loads into the current graphics window but loads at the bottom left corner of the screen instead. In fact the operation has not changed, but is modified by the new mode system. A screenload will load the sprite to the screen, changing mode if necessary, and it is the mode change that causes the problems. For example, if, while in mode 31, you screenload a sprite, defined in mode 27, the computer will change to mode 27 first. Changing mode redefines the graphics window, so you will find that (on any machine) the result of the following program will be to place the sprite in the bottom left hand corner of the screen (assuming there is a sprite called ‘test’, defined in mode 27 in the currently selected directory). 8.3 MODE 31 8.3 VDU 24;100;100;600;600; 8.3 *SCREENLOAD test 8.3 This is because the graphics window set by the VDU 24 is reset by the mode change implied in the *screenload. Adding the lines. 8.3 VDU 24;200;200;600;600; 8.3 *SCREENLOAD test 8.3 to the end of the program will successfully move the sprite to 200,200 before plotting... except on the Risc PC. This occurs because the mode is already set to 27, so the mode is not changed, and the graphics window remains intact. The problem with the Risc PC is that when the machine tries to change into mode 27 (after the first screenload) it ends up as a 640 by 480, 16 colours, 60Hz mode. Therefore, although the sprite is loaded, the machine is not actually in mode 27, so the next screenload also tries to change to mode 27, resetting the graphics window again. Unfortunately changing the mode in which a sprite is defined is does not cure the problem. If you need to move the sprite away from the bottom left corner, you will need to use sprite calls to load and plot the sprite yourself. Matthew Hunter, NCS. 8.3 • Style file size − The Impression Style manual says that: “Deleting unused master pages does not make the document significantly smaller” (page 180) and “Single file format has the advantage that files are smaller. This is useful for short documents such as letters” (page 17). However, there is no comment on the merits of deleting unused styles, so I thought I would check it out. 8.3 Taking a two page letter built on a letter master page and with a sprite picture (25,240 bytes), I have tested these statements out. The Info Box gave: 8.3 Document Pages: 2 Size: 171Kb 8.3 Text Stories: 19 Memory: 6Kb 8.3 Chapters: 1 Words: 452 8.3 Graphics Pictures: 5 Memory: 147Kb 8.3 When saved, the document took up 175,912 bytes (single file) or 176,543 bytes (directory) 8.3 The reason for the massive size is that I had four master pages for different letter-type documents, each with the logo graphic. So, after removing three unused master pages, the document took up: 42,792 (single file) or 44,367 (directory). 8.3 The document had fifteen other unused master pages which took up between 188 and 1,216 bytes each − when all were removed, the document shrank to: 35,316 (single file) or 36,851 (directory). 8.3 If I saved the text only, with no style information, it only occupied 2,332 bytes. 8.3 As I already have the picture stored elsewhere, I only need to keep the text and that does not need any style or frame information and so my final storage needs will not be 176Kb but about 2Kb which can then be very effectively archived. 8.3 What I have learnt from this: (1) save all writing as text files if possible, (2) redundant styles do not take up a large amount of space and there is no benefit in removing them for storage reasons and (3) be careful how many times you save graphics, especially in dormant master pages! 8.3 I will now remove many of the master pages from my default document and save them in separate documents (or in useful groups as I don’t think you can merge master pages into one document!) for when I need them. This will also have the knock-on effect of having smaller initial documents in memory which will load more quickly! Robert Lytton, Leeds. A Hints and Tips 8.4 • Risc PC monitor configuration − One of the biggest problems people have had with the Risc PC is finding that their machine will not drive the monitor correctly, either because they are using a non-standard monitor, or they have accidentally configured the machine incorrectly. The !Mon application aims to rescue you from this situation. 8.4 The program has a number of local monitor definition files, which it will try in turn. One of them should give a usable display on your monitor, after which you should set up your machine again so that the configuration is correct. 8.4 In order to use the program, you will need to do the following, typing blind where necessary: 8.4 a) Turn on the computer and wait for it to finish booting up (wait until the hard disc activity stops). 8.4 b) Insert the program disc into the floppy drive. 8.4 c) Press <f12>. 8.4 d) type “adfs” and press <return>. 8.4 e) type “mount 0” and press <return>. 8.4 f) type “start” and press <return>. 8.4 This will start the program and try the first monitor definition file AKF11/12 which will not work on the AKF60’s/85’s supplied with the Risc PC, but it is better to try this one first than a high end monitor definition file which could damage a TV resolution monitor. You can cycle through the available monitors by pressing <space>. Alternatively you can jump to any of the files by pressing the appropriate number key, the most useful are 4 (AKF60) and 5(AKF85). When the program loads a new monitor definition file it will pause for two seconds, to give the monitor time to catch up, and then beep. If you have a stable picture€, press <y> to finish, followed by <return> to get back to the desktop. Note that this will not reconfigure your machine – if you switch off without reconfiguring, you will have the same problems next time – but it will get you a working system. This program is on the monthly program disc. Matthew Hunter, NCS. A • DPatch/DongleKey – This program was on the Archive 7.9 Program Disc to unlock Impression/Artworks dongles which otherwise can prevent printing taking place. 8.5 If all CC dongles are removed from a machine, DPatch must be deleted from the !Boot file. Without a dongle fitted, DPatch will cause all printer output to be corrupted. I discovered this when transferring Publisher and Artworks from A5000 to Risc PC and attempting to set up the A5000 with a Star XB24-10. The Risc PC does not need the patch to allow printing to go ahead in the absence of Publisher or Artworks. S Goddard, Bury St Edmunds. 8.5 • Garbled *Screensave: This is a cross between a bug-report and a note saying, “If this happens to you, you’re not going mad”. I’ve just started using !Quickshow, a neat little slide-show utility from DeskTop Projects. When it saved a completed screen to disc, it seemed to write a garbled sprite, with blocks of the sprite moved around internally. Examining the code showed that the program simply displays the sprite on screen and then does a *Screensave to write the sprite to disc. Furthermore, the corrupting of the sprite didn’t occur when I wrote to floppy rather than to my hard disc. Writing a one-line Basic program to perform a screen dump replicated the bug absolutely consistently, and only in mode 15. I conclude that, on my A310, RISC OS 3.10, with version 1.16 of the Oak SCSI software, with a 270Mb Quantum drive, in mode 15, *SCREENSAVE to the hard disc has a bug – somewhere! I don’t know what to suspect, but if you ever encounter garbled sprites, don’t blame the application – or tear your hair out! Stuart Bell, Horsham. 8.5 • Tablemate warning − Unless your table is small, DO NOT type your data directly into Tablemate. Instead, type it into a CSV file using Edit and import that. I have two tables several pages long and did not import the text. As a result the only way I can now edit them is by exporting drawfiles and patching them back together. Peter Bond, Carnforth. A 8.5 Hints and Tips 8.6 • DPatch/DongleKey − Contrary to S Goddard’s comments about DPatch (8.5 p32), in my experience, DPatch is needed on the Risc PC if a Publisher dongle is fitted, but Publisher has not been loaded. Any comments? F Jukes, Leeds. 8.6 • Mode summary − This was written for those with hires/multisync monitors and shows what is available. 8.6 The choice of screen mode is a trade-off between the various factors and how much you want to get on the screen and one time. 8.6 Refresh speeds depend on the individual, but I find the 51Hz of mode 102 flickers too much on my monitor, so I designed 107. The higher the better with refresh rates. 8.6 Speed refers to how much the screen mode slows down the ordinary Acorn computer. To keep the screen re-drawing quickly, use a mode with a higher figure. 8.6 Square screen modes give a better idea of what the final result will be like, though rectangular modes are usually quite adequate except for accurate graphic work. 8.6 All the information was gathered using Flip Top from Computer Concepts. Steve Hutchinson, Gloucester. 8.6 • Style/Publisher file sizes − Robert Lytton was writing about graphics eating up disc space when used on several master pages within an Impression document. I had the same problem with my “stationery” document, containing master pages for A4 letterhead, A5, US letter (for sending a fax to North America), comp slip, etc − each had my squiggly logo − about 30Kb compressed. 8.6 I was pleased to find that Impression’s ‘Select-Adjust trick’ works: Make a blank frame on each master page, drop the graphic into one of them, then click <Select> on it and <Adjust> in all the others. Bingo! The graphic appears wherever you want it but only once in memory. The “master” chapter behaves in the same way as ordinary chapters in the document. Jim Nagel, Glastonbury. 8.6 • Updating software − When updating a piece of software, it is tempting to simply copy the new version over the old version with the newer option set. This is not ideal, however, since it leaves old redundant files in the application, taking up space. Therefore it is better to delete the old version (or move it elsewhere if you are worried about losing it) before installing the new. Roger Darlington, Manchester. A 8.6 Mode Size Memory Refresh Speed Colours Shape 8.6 Acorn standard modes 8.6 12 640×256 96k 100Hz 4.79 16 Rect 8.6 20 640×512 160k 51Hz 4.7 16 Square 8.6 21 640×512 320k 51Hz 2.59 256 Square 8.6 27 640×480 160k 59Hz 4.57 16 Square 8.6 28 640×480 320k 59Hz 2.12 256 Square 8.6 31 800×600 256k 37Hz 4.69 16 Square 8.6 39 896×352 160k 60Hz 4.51 16 Rect 8.6 40 896×352 320k 60Hz 2.08 256 Rect 8.6 Modes from Newmodes, VIDC enhancer or WW modes 8.6 66 832×288 128k 79Hz 4.57 16 Rect 8.6 67 832×288 256k 79Hz 2.03 256 Rect 8.6 98 800×600 256k 57Hz 4.99 16 Square 8.6 (99 should be 256 colour version, but my Taxan 770+ won’t work with it) 8.6 102 1152×448 256k 51Hz 5.06 16 Rect 8.6 107 1088×432 256k 60Hz 5.13 16 Rect 8.6 Hints and Tips 8.7 • Desktop Font − If you find you are losing information on RISC OS 3.5 because your desktop font means that characters are truncated in icons designed to take the System font, remember that you can select the system font, until software producers catch up. Alternatively you can edit the offending templates using FormEd, or similar. Peter Prewett, South Australia. 8.7 • “Gang screen” in RISC OS 3.5 − In RISC OS 3.10 there is a hidden “gang screen”, showing the names of the people who worked on the version; does anyone know if such a thing also exists in version 3.5? Or can it be that the developers have, this time, only put that picture into the “50-99” directory of !SlideShow images? Jochen Konietzko, Köln, Germany. 8.7 If you open the RISC OS 3.5 info window (press <menu> over the iconbar acorn) and use the menu button to click out the word “team” on the letters of “Acorn Computers”, it will initiate a list of names for you. Matthew Hunter, NCS. 8.7 • !KeyStroke’s KeysLib − If you use KeyStroke, you should take a close look at the small Basic programs inside the KeysLib library − some of them are very useful! 8.7 My personal favourites are forceAback and forceAfront which give you quick access to parts of the Pinboard hidden by a window. ForceAback puts all windows behind the Pinboard (you can see that they aren’t simply closed if one of them extends down onto the iconbar) and forceAfront reverses the process. To hide the windows, you define a keystroke for a *Command: 8.7 Text: *Run <Keystroke$Lib>.forceAback 8.7 The equivalent text for forceAfront will make the windows reappear. Of course, you must make sure that the filer has ‘seen’ KeysLib for this to work. Jochen Konietzko, Köln. 8.7 • Long file names in RISC OS 3.5 − In Archive 8.6 p.68, Keith Hodge made a little wish list for future versions of RISC OS; one of those wishes was ‘long file names’. The manual for the German RISC OS 3.50D does indeed state that a name must be between one and ten characters long but this does not seem to be the whole truth. I have grown accustomed to using the Cropping option in RISC OS 3.10, which meant that I did not have to count if the intended name had exactly ten or maybe more letters but on my Risc PC those slightly too long names are not cropped! 8.7 As the picture shows, it is possible to type in up to 30 characters before there is an error message “Name too long”. This seems to work only in MemFS − surely there should be a way to implement it everywhere? Jochen Konietzko, Köln. 8.7 (This doesn’t seem to work on the UK version of RISC OS 3.5. Ed.) 8.7 • Saving Wolfenstein games − Have you, too, noticed that sometimes, when you save a game in Wolfenstein 3D, the name disappears, giving an ‘empty’ slot in the Save window? 8.7 If you have, you probably use CC’s !Compression. I have found that on my RISC PC, as long as the !CFS.!Run file is open, the save option of Wolfenstein 3D does not work properly (If you don’t know how to find out which files are open, there’s a little PD utility called !FileMan which lists all open files and allows you to close them one by one.) Jochen Konietzko, Köln. 8.7 • Talking !Alarm − I have always wanted to have alarms which spoke to me but I could not find a way to do this. When I dropped sound files onto the Alarm Set window, all I got was a silent graph from Audioworks or Soundlab. However, there is a way, thanks to an idea given to me by David Pratt who used to run GemPD. I have used this on the Risc PC, but I see no reason why it shouldn’t work on any other machine. There is probably a clever ‘programmers type’ way to do this, but I am a simple ‘drag and drop’ person with no programming skills at all. You just need two small Utilities obtainable from PD. They are !Compress and !Player both by David Radford and obtainable from Datafile. 8.7 Using the Oak Recorder and !Soundlab, make Armadeus files of anything you want Alarm to tell you. My first recording was of my wife saying “It’s midnight − time to come to bed!” I also recorded snippets like “Coffee time” and, I have to confess, “Time to watch Neighbours”. 8.7 Using !Compress, make compressed versions of these files. You must not keep the uncompressed files in the computer or !Player seems to get confused and an unholy row erupts! 8.7 Now load !Player into your Risc PC Bootfile in Choices.Boot.Tasks. When you drop one of the compressed sound files into the Alarm Set window, choose Task alarm and set the time and day, !Player in the boot file activates the sound exactly on time. 8.7 “Are there any drawbacks?” I hear you cry. Well, I found that having done their job, the compressed sound files seem to remain open, so that when the computer boots up each morning it goes happily through each recording again playing them until finished. But a small price to pay for having a talking chum who tells you what to do each moment of the day. No doubt there will be someone who can tell us how to stop this little problem. Christopher Jarman, Winchester. 8.7 • Turbo Drivers and Printers 1.28 − the current versions of the Turbo Drivers complain that they need a later version of !Printers when you try to install them into the latest version of !Printers, currently being shipped with new Risc PCs. This can be circumvented by copying the install program to your hard disc, and editing the copy by removing line 91 of the !RunImage file (that is the 91st line of the program, not Basic line 91). The Turbo Drivers should then install correctly. If you do not wish to attempt this then get in contact with Computer Concepts. CC Technical Support. A Hints and Tips 8.8 CC Turbo Driver v4 − I’d like to pass on to other Archive readers some answers that I received from CC. 8.8 1) The command *Printer$BlackScale is no longer supported by the v4 TurboDrivers; instead, CC offer “sophisticated colour correction tables”; those for HP printers are “shortly” to be released. 8.8 2) The Turbo module which could be used in earlier versions of the TD to enable other printer drivers to use the dongled cable has been replaced by the program !PrintQFS, which is cunningly hidden within !System.!CCShared. 8.8 By the way, CC informed me that Style has reached version 3.07. Free upgrades from v. 3.04 can be obtained in the usual way − by sending in master disk 1. (Don’t forget to send the return postage!) 8.8 Jochen Konietzko, Köln, Germany u 8.8 Fireworkz Pro − I reported some problems with version 1.20 to Colton Software and was told (in a letter dated 15th March) that the latest version, 1.20/50, fixes most of these problems. Version 1.21 “is due out in about three weeks”. (Colton are currently saying, “it will be available during April”. Ed) The upgrade procedure here is to send in both program disks − don’t forget − return postage! 8.8 Jochen Konietzko, Köln, Germany u 8.8 Printing from text editors − I mentioned, in my review of lottery packages, that one of them would not print on my LaserDirect, because it ‘prints’ to a null file instead of to the printer. I have now stopped trying to use Zap for the same reason. If I drag a text file to the printer icon (with Zap installed instead of Edit), it prints properly but if I try to print the document currently displayed on the screen, it does not. I don’t know whether this is a general problem or whether I have overlooked some control parameter. 8.8 Colin Singleton, Sheffield u 8.8 Many text editors, including both Edit and Zap, cheat when you try to print and send the data directly to the parallel port. This is fine if you have a standard printer, but if you use a different connection (e.g. serial or laser direct), the file will not be printed. Also, if you use a Turbo Driver, it is circumvented by Edit, so the text is corrupted. There are a couple of ways around this. 8.8 You can save to a file and drag that to the printer icon, or try dragging the file from the save box to the print icon. This should have the same result and it means that you don’t have to delete the file afterwards. With Zap, you can also press <shift-print> rather than <print> which will force the printout to go via the printer driver. Since Zap allows you to reconfigure the keyboard shortcuts, you can set <print> to print via the printer driver. (Choose Edit keys from the options submenu, find the print keymapping which, by default, will be set to Quickprint and change it to Printfile. Save the keys file and choose Reload keys again, from the options submenu for the change to take effect). 8.8 Matthew Hunter, NCS u 8.8 Wolfenstein bugs − A few days after I had sent my Wolfenstein hint (Archive 8.7, p.12) to Paul, I found that sometimes the saved files remained open even though the !Cfs.!Run file was not. I turned to PowerSlave for help and this is what Eddie Edwards told me: 8.8 There is a bug in Wolfenstein’s code which means that the files are only closed when the current directory is on the same filing system as Wolfenstein. Since I use ADFS and SCSI, this would often not be the case. 8.8 The recommended remedy is to add, at the start of the !Run file, a Dir<Obey$Dir> command. 8.8 This fix seems to work perfectly. 8.8 Another problem I have is that Wolfenstein always kills my computer’s beep. This bug can be fixed by adding: 8.8 Channelvoice 1 MyVoice 8.8 to the end of the !Run file. 8.8 Jochen Konietzko, Köln, Germany u From COmment COlumn Turbo Drivers (not a) problem − The problem of Printers 1.28 with the current versions of the Turbo Drivers has, apparently, now been fixed, so please do not remove line 91 (as we stated in Archive 8.7 p13) of the !RunImage file! If you still have a problem, contact Computer Concepts. 8.8 CC Technical Support u Hints and Tips 8.9 Canon BJ200 + CC TurboDriver − I have had a number of problems with this combination, and thought my solutions may help others. 8.9 The first problem concerned the output of IBM ProPrinter strings. These occur because the BJ-200 printer definition file supplied is an IBM definition file, and should therefore be labelled as BJ10 since IBM strings cannot be used in BJ200 mode. The converse also applies, i.e. BJ-10 mode cannot handle Epson strings. I then used an Epson printer definition file from the Acorn supplied discs, and all the problems disappeared. 8.9 The second problem concerned printing from Basic. I have written a WIMP application which writes out a series of results for the bridge club of which I am a member. I need to write direct from Basic so that I can alter the print style and line and row spacing to produce the best layout, using the comprehensive spacing and styles provided in BJ200 mode. It makes no sense to write these strings to the screen so I use *FX3,10 to start the printed output and *FX3,0 to stop it. Everything prints perfectly, but a drawfile will not print afterwards. I eventually discovered that the *FX3,10 caused a Turboqueue file to be created, but the *FX3,0 command leaves the file open and thus hangs the printing process. I finally received a letter from CC today and I quote:- 8.9 “Regarding the Basic printing ‘problem’. The operating system itself will not close the printout file after a *FX3,0. Indeed, we have reported this as a bug to Acorn. However, if you immediately follow the *FX3,0 command with a VDU3, then the file will close correctly.” 8.9 I have tried it and it works! 8.9 John Wallace, Crawley 8.9 CD-ROMs − With the advent of magazine CD-ROMs, which usually come in a soft plastic sleeve, the safe storage of these can be made using a 5¼“ disc box. 8.9 Ted Lacey, Southampton 8.9 Cursor movements in Publisher − There have been moans about one aspect of Impression Publisher in various Acorn magazines: <shift-cursor> no longer moves the cursor by one word, but is used for selecting text. 8.9 In the latest version (1.05) of Publisher, the Preferences dialogue box contains the option “Shift Cursor Word Move”, so you can take your pick. 8.9 Jochen Konietzko, Köln, Germany 8.9 Debugging via the serial port − Why has no-one extolled the virtues of a second machine connected via the serial port? Even on the old BBC B, this can be very useful. A trivial Basic program on the second machine will print out the incoming data stream. Debugging time can then be cut by such simple things as 8.9 os_cli(echo Start of initialise() {serial: }); 8.9 in a C file. Clearly this is rather basic; a variadic function like printf() is much more flexible, but the general usefulness, especially when working on desktop applications, is considerable. Besides, there must be lots of old machines around gathering dust. I use an old mono Kaga monitor I’ve had since soon after the BBC first came out, and an old 310 with no disc drive. 8.9 John West, Surrey 8.9 Deskjet 540 problems − I recently bought an HP DeskJet 540, the replacement for the DJ520 and then spent a frustrating weekend trying to get it to work with my A5000. I got beautiful printouts but it took half an hour to print an A4 page. I tried the latest Acorn DeskJet driver sent to me by Gerald Fitton, but it was no better than previous versions. 8.9 As soon as Monday came, I phoned Acorn and they had just heard from their Australian office that other people had similar problems. Since the DeskJet 540 is software controlled and the Centronics protocol has been slightly modified, the 540 and A5000 were incompatible. 8.9 The earlier Deskjet 520 was perfectly suitable to work with the A5000 but it was now officially off the market. Fortunately, the shop where I purchased the 540 gave me a full refund when I explained the dilemma, and I knew that I had seen a 520 recently in another store. I was lucky and purchased the last one in stock − its monochrome resolution 600 by 300 is the same as the 540 but it does not have the colour upgradability of the 540. 8.9 Acorn say that the 540 should work satisfactorily with the Risc PC but not with earlier computers, due to hardware differences in the controller. 8.9 (I gather that, after further investigation, it seems that the problem is only with certain A5000s, not with all of them. Ed.) 8.9 Michael Nurse, Cambridge 8.9 Gang Screen in RISC OS 3.5 − With reference to Hints & Tips (Archive 8.7), the list of names can be initiated by four clicks of the menu button over any part of © Acorn Computers Ltd, 1994, although it sometimes refuses to work again until after a reboot. 8.9 M R Buckland, Daventry 8.9 Impression printing − Now, I know you all know this, but... for months, I have been cursing the fact that, with Acorn’s new printer drivers and LaserDirect, printing one file too soon after another causes a “not enough memory to print” error and you have to wait and try again. Well, I discovered today that if you grab several files together and drop them on the printer driver icon, they print off, one after the other, without so much as a hesitation. I wish someone had told me before!!!!!!! 8.9 Ed. 8.9 More uses for the serial port − One of the pieces of software built into the A-Link is the terminal software which could be used to receive the debugging data, described by John West above, on a Pocket Book. 8.9 I find this combination useful for another task as well. There are at least two PD applications which allow you to set up a task window (as you get from ctrl-f12) which takes input from, and outputs to, the serial port, which means I can run command line utilities without taking up desktop space, and even if someone else is using the computer for other tasks. 8.9 Matthew Hunter, NCS 8.9 Printing from text editors − Contrary to Matthew’s comments (Archive 8.8 pp28/29), in my experience, Edit does print in response to <print> but Zap does not. Dragging the file-save icon to the printer icon does work with both packages. I will stick well clear of <shift-print>, however. Zap prints a black (NOT blank) page! 8.9 There remains one problem, however, which is common to Edit and Zap. If the document contains a line of text which is too long to fit on one line, it is truncated! This did not happen before I upgraded to RISC OS 3 Laser Direct and Printers 1.22. Previously, Edit inserted a CR/LF to print the rest of the line (I did not have Zap then). 8.9 Colin Singleton, Sheffield 8.9 Risc PC Apps directory − As Keith Hodge has pointed out in his excellent Risc PC column, the correct place to add applications into ‘Apps’ on the iconbar is in !Boot.Choices.Boot.PreDeskTop, by adding lines such as: 8.9 AddApp adfs::HardDisc4.$.Utilities.!ArcFS 8.9 You may have noticed that the first line of this section reads: 8.9 AddApp Boot:^.Apps.!* 8.9 which displays any application, i.e. a directory whose filename begins with a ‘!’. This means that any normal directory whose filename does not begin with a ‘!’ will not be displayed inside Apps on the iconbar. So, if there are any applications there which you never use, you could place them in a directory (called ‘Not Needed’ say) and they will not be displayed, although they are still accessible through Apps on the hard disc. 8.9 The converse of this is that lines such as that given above for adding applications into Apps need not, in fact, be placed in the file PreDesktop − they can be anywhere. Therefore, you can have a small Obey file which adds a selection of your favourite applications at any time. This saves cluttering up the Apps directory display with everything you might conceivably need until you actually need it, and it saves on memory and time taken to Boot the machine, as the !boot files of your chosen applications are not run, and their sprites are not loaded, until you choose to add them to Apps by using your Obey file. 8.9 Matthew Hunter, NCS 8.9 Risc PC audio expansion − The audio header required by the audio mixer for the Cumana Indigo CD-ROM drive, and the identical Acorn and ESP 16- bit sound upgrades, is link 14 which was not fitted on some early machines. The link is located at the top right corner of the motherboard if you are looking at the machine from the front. It is a row of five pins, with links connecting 1-2 and 2-4. Pin one is closest to the back of the machine. If this link is not fitted, get in contact with Granada who will replace your motherboard for one fitted with the correct connector. Currently, the Cumana and 16-bit upgrades are mutually exclusive, but ESP are working on an audio mixer to enable the 16-bit sound and CD sound from any CD-ROM drive to be combined. 8.9 Matthew Hunter NCS 8.9 Risc PC font size − There was a request in Archive 8.8 p38 regarding the font size for the outline font used in place of the system font. Full details are given on pages 220 and 221 of Volume 5 of the RISC OS 3 PRM’s, but the following example Obey file will demonstrate the method. It should be placed in the PreDesk directory of the !Boot sequence. 8.9 configure wimpfont 0 8.9 set wimp$font Trinity.Medium.Italic 8.9 set wimp$fontsize 192 8.9 set wimp$fontwidth 160 8.9 The last two lines allow you to alter the height and width of the font, as desired. 8.9 It will only have an effect on text which an application regards as system text − an application which uses its own fonts in icons will not be affected. 8.9 David Springle, Cheshire 8.9 Window behaviour − I found that, when two windows containing a word processor are open, it is possible to scroll one window and simultaneously type into the other window. Further investigation has shown that it is possible to do this with Zap (v. 1.20), Edit (v. 1.50), Desk Edit (v. 3.00) and Publisher (v. 4.01). These are the only ‘word processors’ (for want of a better collective name) I have access to. It is also possible to mix the WPs in the windows, e.g. the scrolling window could contain a Publisher document and the typing window could contain a Zap page. This only breaks down with Edit as the scrolling window. When the Edit window is scrolled, this becomes the active window and typing is not possible in the other window. (Why? Can it be changed?). 8.9 Dave Livsey, Devon 8.9 Window behaviour II − Usually, if you have clicked on a window titlebar (using select), to move it, or bring it to the front of the window stack, processing will continue in the background − this can be seen by having !Alarm counting seconds on the iconbar. If the window you are using has a pane attached, however, you will find that the processing stops. This is because clicking on the titlebar brings the window to the front of the window stack, and the application then brings the pane to the front. The window holding the pane is then no longer at the front, and the WIMP tries to bring it to the front again, and so on. Using <adjust> does not have the same effect, since it does not try to alter the order of the windows. 8.9 Matthew Hunter, NCS 8.9 Hints & Tips 8.9 Exporting text − When exporting text from HolyBible into Impression, I suggest that you use an intermediate ‘template’ document. There are two reasons for this. First of all, you may not like the style definitions that ExpLAN have provided. So, in this dummy document, you can edit the definitions to taste. Then, as you export the DDF text into that document, it will take on your own style definitions. The second reason is that when you export some DDF text, it brings with it thirteen style definitions. When I want to quote a single verse in the God-slot, I don’t want the Archive magazine style-sheet clogged up with all of those styles, so I drop the DDF text into the dummy document. I then mark the text <ctrl-A>, copy it and paste it into the God-slot. That way, it only brings with it the styles it actually uses. 8.9 HolyBible problem − Has HolyBible hung up on you? It has stiffed my machine twice now and both times it occurred when I was marking some text ready for export. Now I know that this isn’t a statistically significant sample(!) but I wonder if anyone else has had similar problems? I was working on a 10Mb Risc PC and (I think) the only other applications I had running at the time were Impression, Edit and Keystroke. If you get hang-ups too, please report them to Gabriel, giving as much detail as possible: what machine? memory configuration? other applications running? what you were doing at the time? etc. 8.9 Paul Beverley, NCS u 8.9 Hints and Tips 8.10 Debugging via the Serial Port − (Unfortunately, we had problems importing the text into Impression when we put this hint in last month’s magazine. Sorry for any confusion that we caused − it was our fault and not John West’s! The correct version is as follows...) 8.10 The os_cli line makes use of the system redirection to send the text to the serial port, and so it should have read: 8.10 os_cli(“echo Start of initialise() 8.10 {serial: }”); 8.10 More details of redirection can be found on page 419 of the RISC OS 3 User Guide. The new Acorn C/C++ does not support os_cli, so you should use _kernel_oscli instead. 8.10 From Basic, the OSCLI command is the direct equivalent. 8.10 OSCLI “echo Start of PROC_init 8.10 {serial: }” 8.10 John West, Surrey 8.10 Disc protection − Of the 100+ readers’ floppy discs I’ve processed over the last few months, there was a fair smattering of broken cases, mangled sliders and disc errors. In every case, the defective discs had been sent in paper envelopes without further protection from the rough and tumble of Her Majesty’s mails. This prompts me to repeat Ed’s recommendation of many moons ago that it is well worthwhile giving your discs adequate protection in the post. Jiffy bags or board-backed envelopes cost only a few pence from stationers and, provided any covering documentation is limited to a couple of pages, you are unlikely to exceed the 60g limit for 19p/25p postage. 8.10 Jim Nottingham, Pocklington 8.10 Impression borders − The built-in borders in Impression provide ¼ point, 1 point and 4 point thick black borders (numbers 1, 2 & 3), but how do you get a 5 point border? There is no way for the user to specify the thickness and, also, the lines don’t join properly at the corners, as you can see... 8.10 Here is a simple way to make your own line borders using Draw: 8.10 Create a new Draw document and set the zoom to 8:1. Show the grid and lock to it. Set the grid spacing to 0.125 inches with 9 subdivisions − since one point equals 1/72 inch, each subdivision is one point. For a 5 point line make a rectangle 5 squares wide and about 30 squares deep. To make the corners square, you need to make a 5 by 5 square immediately above the rectangle. 8.10 Finally, set the fill colour of both to black and the line colour to none and save the file in your border directory. 8.10 You can also make curved or bevelled joins by changing the corner square into a sector or a triangle. 8.10 To get half point thicknesses, you need to set the number of subdivisions to 18. 8.10 Unfortunately, the 8:1 maximum zoom in Draw is too small to do quarter point lines directly, so you need to construct them double size and then “magnify” them by 0.5, or else use Artworks with a 4000% magnification. On the monthly disc is a selection of plain rectangular borders from ¼ point to 6 point thickness. 8.10 The only remaining problem is that Impression puts the borders around the outside of the frame so, with thick borders, you can’t use the “snap to frames” feature to get your alignment right when the frames have different borders, as you can see from the frame opposite. 8.10 Cain Hunt, Cambridge 8.10 Mouseballs − Logitech mice sometimes begin to slip when a glassy film of material builds up around the periphery of the rollers which contact the mouse ball. This can be as little as 0.5mm wide but is very tenacious. Using a piece of metal or wood to dislodge the material can easily damage the rollers. With a bit of patience it can be softened using isopropyl alcohol on a cotton bud. Lint free cloth is even better. This takes a few minutes of gentle rubbing to do the trick. One of the rollers is spring loaded and is a little more difficult. A clean cotton bud holding a little IPA can be used to rub around the mouse ball to remove the stickiness. If an Archive type mat is used, a gentle wash with warm water and detergent will delay the problem recurring. Everything has to be completely dry before reassembly. 8.10 Les May, Rochdale u 8.11 LaserDirect double flush − I asked for help last month (8.10 p25) with what to do when I get a paper jam on my LaserDirect LBP8. (This turns out to be one of those everybody-knows-about-it-except-me problems.) Apparently, all I have to do is click on the LaserDirect icon on the iconbar while holding <alt> down. This brings up a LaserDirect Status window telling me the paper is jammed and offering me a way of escape which I accept gratefully. 8.11 Many thanks to all those who wrote or phoned to tell me what a gumby I am. I had been using the ‘Flush printer’ menu option from the ‘Printer Queue’ window (adjust-click on the iconbar icon) instead of LaserDirect’s own flush system − you stupid boy! 8.11 (Mind you, from some of the suggestions people made, like “hit <f12><return>”, I suspect that I may not be the only person to have had this problem and not realised how simple the solution was!) 8.11 Ed. 8.11 Printing from Basic programs (e.g. 8.10 pp21/47) − Here are a couple of short points which may help. Firstly, ‘Page printing’ via a printer driver. 8.11 The key SYS calls recommended for ‘proper’ printing via the desktop still work in non-Wimp mode, so it is fairly straightforward to produce hard copy of text output directly from Basic programs − albeit in ‘graphic/page printing’ style. 8.11 A sequence which certainly works is:- DEF PROCprint SYS “PDriver_PageSize” TO width%, height%,left%,bottom%, right%,top% pf%=OPENOUT(“printer:”) SYS “PDriver_SelectJob”,pf%, “Printer Test” LOCAL ERROR ON ERROR LOCAL:SYS “PDriver_AbortJob”,pf%:CLOSE#pf% : ENDPROC rect%!0=0 rect%!4=0 rect%!8=(right%-left%)/400 rect%!12=(top%-bottom%)/400 trans%!0=1<<16 trans%!4=0 trans%!8=0 trans%!12=1<<16 plotat%!0=left% plotat%!4=bottom% SYS “PDriver_GiveRectangle”,0,rect% ,trans%,plotat%,&FFFFFF00 SYS “PDriver_DrawPage”,1,block%,0,0 TO more% WHILE more% SYS “ColourTrans_SetGCOL”,0 MOVE 0,(top%-bottom%)/400 ............ (BASIC print commands − see text) ............ SYS “PDriver_GetRectangle”,,block% TO more% ENDWHILE SYS “PDriver_EndJob”,pf% RESTORE ERROR CLOSE# pf% ENDPROC 8.11 The above assumes that you have a global error call in operation, and you will need to add to the ON ERROR LOCAL line to restore to that call. Also, you need to have declared certain variables earlier in the program, such as... 8.11 DIM rect% 16 DIM trans% 16 DIM plotat% 8 DIM block% 16 8.11 All the normal Basic printing commands seem to work OK, i.e. PRINT, PRINT TAB(), VDU8, 9, 10 and 11, but be careful of VDU28 and 31 (and, of course, VDU1). 8.11 With care, you can therefore merely insert (at Basic’s print commands above) the call to whatever routine puts your required text onto the screen. 8.11 Secondly, what about using of text files? Although it isn’t printing directly from Basic, there are some advantages in using text files, as others have noted − not least being that your printer driver is likely to use ‘character printing’, and you can view and edit via Edit, if you want. 8.11 Extending the thoughts offered by others (and assuming you want to get a hard copy of something you’ve put on the screen) then the following PROCs can be used to put text line by line on the screen in the way you want it and, at the same time, construct a corresponding text file for subsequent dragging to your Printer Driver or into !Edit. 8.11 10 MODE27 20 file%=OPENOUT(“textfile”) 30 CLOSE#file% 32 *SetType textfile Text 40 PROCfile_and_centreprint(“Text File Test”) 50 PROCfile_and_blankline 60 PROCfile_and_printtab(10,“First Line at TAB 10”,TRUE) 70 PROCfile_and_printtab(10,“Second Line at TAB 10, but held ”,FALSE) 80 PROCfile_and_printtab(50,“to await this at TAB 50”,TRUE) 90 END 10000 10010 DEF PROCtextfile(textline$, return%) 10020 REM return% is TRUE/FALSE flag 10030 REM to tell BPUT# to make <RETURN> action after text or not 10040 file%=OPENUP(“textfile”) 10050 10060 REM Put pointer to end of file ready for more text. 10070 PTR#file%=EXT#file% 10080 10090 IF return% THEN 10100 BPUT#file%,textline$ 10110 ELSE 10120 BPUT#file%,textline$; 10130 ENDIF 10140 CLOSE#file% 10150 ENDPROC 10160 10190 DEF PROCfile_and_centreprint (string$) 10200 REM Prints a string centred on screen, 10210 REM and puts a corresponding string into a text file. 10220 10230 LOCAL tab%,screenwidth% 10240 REM First find screenwidth in Mode being used, 10250 SYS “OS_ReadModeVariable”,-1,1 TO ,,screenwidth% 10260 10270 tab%=((screenwidth%+1)-LEN(string$)) DIV 2 10280 PRINT TAB(tab%)string$:REM To screen 10290 10300 line$=STRING$(tab%,“ ”)+string$ 10310 PROCtextfile(line$,TRUE):REM Corresponding string to text file 10320 ENDPROC 10330 10360 DEF PROCfile_and_blankline 10370 REM Prints an empty line on screen, 10380 REM and puts a corresponding string into a text file. 10400 PRINT:REM To screen 10420 line$=“” 10430 PROCtextfile(line$,TRUE):REM Corresponding string to text file 10440 ENDPROC 10450 10480 DEF PROCfile_and_printtab(tab%,string$,crlf%) 10490 REM Prints a string on screen at the designated tab position, 10500 REM and returns a corresponding string for a text file. 10510 REM ‘crlf%’ is TRUE/FALSE flag to determine if screen printing 10520 REM** is to end with <Return> or not (i.e. semi-colon or not). 10530 10540 gap%=tab%-POS 10550 REM ‘gap%’ needs to be calculated before printing to screen. 10560 10570 IF crlf% THEN 10580 PRINT TAB(tab%)string$ 10590 ELSE 10600 PRINT TAB(tab%)string$; 10610 ENDIF 10620 10630 line$=STRING$(gap%,“ ”)+string$ 10640 PROCtextfile(line$,crlf%):REM Corresponding string to text file 10650 ENDPROC 8.11 I am still trying to get ‘character printing’ via a Printer Driver direct from Basic! 8.11 (We have one that we have used at NCS for years. I’ll put it on the monthly disc. Is that what you want? Ed.) 8.11 Ray Favre, West Drayton 8.11 Runny letters − Some people don’t realise that the ink used by inkjet printers is water-based and is therefore not waterproof. This isn’t normally a problem but it can become one when addressing envelopes! In rainy weather, my postman often delivers letters where the address is all but illegible, and if the ink had run in this way before it had reached my local sorting office, I would probably never have received it. 8.11 The solution is very simple. Most stationers sell a ‘fixer’ for use with rub down lettering (Letraset etc.). This is actually a very fine, clear, varnish in aerosol form. It’s quite expensive, around £3, but a can will last many years. Just lightly spray it on the address or label (it dries in a few seconds) and your letter will arrive safely even in a monsoon. 8.11 David Holden, APDL 8.11 Transferring text files using Hermes − There is an increasing interest these days in exchanging text files between Acorn RISC computers and PCs. There are two major differences − PC text files end with a ctrl-Z (ASCII 26) character and have CR LF (ASCII 13 + ASCII 10) characters at the end of each line. Acorn text files have only an LF character at the end of a line and have no special end character. Hermes (v1.22 onwards) is able to handle most of the conversion in either direction. 8.11 To convert an Acorn file to PC, open the Hermes application window and display the Pipe parameters. Change the Line End to CRLF and click on “OK”. Drag the text file to Edit, use <ctrl-down> to move the cursor to the end of the file and add ¤CTRLZ¤, then resave. Ensuring that no application has the input caret, drag the text file onto the Hermes iconbar icon. After a few moments, the converted file will be piped to Edit where it can be saved to the DOS disc. 8.11 To convert a PC file to Acorn, change the DOS file to Text (&FFF) and open an Edit document, making sure it has the input focus. Drag the DOS file onto the Hermes iconbar icon and the converted file will be sent direct to the edit document with all the CR characters stripped out. The ctrl-Z character at the end can be deleted manually. 8.11 Hermes raison d’etre is to facilitate transfer between packages and this cross-platform interchange is an extension of that philosophy. 8.11 Mike Logan, Base 5 Technical Graphics 8.11 Underlining Impression’s bugs − If you are editing a style, and adding ‘Underlines 2’ to it in Publisher (4.05), make sure that any existing text in that style does not have underlines set as an effect. If the effect is set, strange things happen, and the window goes black! 8.11 Brian Cocksedge, Midhurst, W Sussex u 8.11 Hints and Tips 8.12 ‘Bad compression field’ − We have had a number of comments on the subject of the Bad compression field error produced by Laser Direct and the TurboDrivers, so many thanks to everyone who wrote in − too many to mention you all. 8.12 The main causes seem to be either a lack of memory, or a lack of disc space. The usual memory saving techniques apply, quitting unused applications, reducing the screen resolution or number of colours and so on. Lack of disc space is most frequent on floppy-only machines for obvious reasons. During printing, a file is placed in the !Scrap directory, so to ensure that you have as much space as possible, create a scrap disc (preferably 1.6Mb if your computer will support it), containing only the !Scrap application, and make sure that you double click on that version before attempting to print. This will require additional disc swapping, but should allow printing to continue successfully. 8.12 NCS. 8.12 Booting problems − When exchanging the 80Mb hard drives in our two A5000s for 430Mb drives, I reset the machine to auto boot, and had the desktop auto boot option set, but do you think it would boot? The solution was to issue a *OPT 4,2 command, from which point everything behaved as anticipated. There were no discernible differences on *STATUS. 8.12 This is a known bug in RISC OS 3. When you tick the auto boot option, this should be set, but unfortunately it is not. The reason it makes no difference to the status is that it is not a configuration option, but, in fact, it writes the option to the disc. (If you do a *CAT then the top line should read something like Dir. SCSI:: Words.$ Option 00 (Off); the option given will be the second number in the *OPT command.) MH. 8.12 Alan Jackson, Oamaru, NZ. 8.12 ‘Formatting’ hard discs − This has been covered several times in the past but, unfortunately, we have had a number of people recently who have experienced difficulty in preparing hard discs for use. While we cannot provide a step-by-step description, since all the controller cards are supplied with different software, many of the operations which need to be completed are similar. 8.12 Remember that, for your particular system, you will need to read the manual supplied with your hard disc controller card, or the HFORM section of the manual if you are using a native drive (for example an IDE drive on the Risc PC). 8.12 The most important point is that you MUST NOT actually format the drive. If you do, you are more likely to damage the drive than make it usable! All modern drives have the low level formatting laid down during the manufacturing process, and trying to reformat the drive is likely to damage the original formatting, but not completely replace it, rendering the drive unusable. 8.12 Instead you need to initialise the drive. The precise wording will depend on your controller card − Morley SCSI and HForm give you an option to “Format or just Initialise the drive”, and the Cumana SCSI 2 card requires that you set up ‘partitions’ on the drive. The initialisation process involves writing out RISC OS information about the position of files on the drives, contents of the root directory and so on, but does not do the potentially dangerous low level formatting. 8.12 NCS. 8.12 Quicksort − An error crept into Colin Singleton’s Programming Workshop last month − at some point, the Basic program detokenised incorrectly. All the ASC commands should be replaced with a minus sign to make the program work. Thank you to all those who rang or wrote to point out the error. 8.12 NCS. 8.12 Screenbanks − Following on from Matthew Hunter’s Programming Workshop article on screen banking (Archive 8.8 p69), errors may not be displayed because the error is written to the screen bank being updated, and not the screen bank being viewed. By using the following procedure, you can link both screens back together. 8.12 DEF PROCresetscreens 8.12 SYS 6,113,SB_bank% 8.12 SYS 6,112,SB_bank% 8.12 ENDPROC 8.12 The procedure could be called via the ON ERROR mechanism, or at the end of the program. 8.12 Peter Prewett, Stirling, South Australia. 8.12 Snippet − Snippet is still a useful utility for screen grabs etc, but refused to perform with my Risc PC. I queried 4Mation and obtained the latest upgrade (in very short order and at no cost, which prompts me to raise my hat to them), but still found the same problem of freezing the machine when I tried to save a screen. The solution to this seems to be to select a screen mode of no more than 256 colours, upon which, Snippet behaves like the old friend it has always been. 8.12 Alan Jackson, Oamaru NZ. 8.12 Upgrading Video RAM − When upgrading the VRAM in your Risc PC from 1 to 2Mb, it is necessary to remove the 1Mb board and return it to be upgraded. You should make sure that you reconfigure your computer to use a screen resolution/number of colours which is possible even with no VRAM, before removing the 1Mb board. If you do not do this, you will find that you will need to reconfigure the computer ‘blind’, as the high resolution modes are not available if there is no VRAM present, and no picture will be displayed. 8.12 Fred Williams, Staffordshire. 8.12 Wimp bug (RISC OS 3.10) − If you are a Wimp programmer and have experienced apparently inexplicable ‘Abort on data transfer’ and ‘Address exception’ errors ‘at’ addresses in the Window Manager module, especially just after your program has quit, you may be interested (or, like me, relieved!) to know that the problem may lie in a bug in the Wimp. 8.12 According to a letter from Acorn, “there was a bug with ‘slabbed’ icons (those with the R option in the validation flags). If you click on a slabbed icon, and the program deletes the window it is on, or quits before the wimp has a chance to redraw it, problems can arise.” 8.12 Hugh Eagle, Horsham. 8.12 Windows on the Risc PC − I would like to warn CD-ROM users that, due to the fixed palette on the PC card, many CD programs will not work properly − giving psychedelic colours which can lock up the computer. We have found by pressing <f1> (in Windows) that the Windows help will be opened, from which you can return to Windows. This prevents having to reset the computer. Acorn/Aleph One are working on a fix for this problem. 8.12 Peter Hughes, Desktop Laminations.