Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaUtilCD1.iso/FileMover/Dopus5/Dopus511.lha/dopus_pch.lha/ReadMe.511

Text File | 1995-06-20 | 15.7 KB | 389 lines

                  Directory Opus 5.11 Update Release

                  ==================================

The following  changes and  additions have  been made to Directory Opus
since the first release of version  5.0.   A number  of bugs  have been
identified and  fixed and  several new commands and functions have been
added.  We have always believed that one  of the  really nifty features
of DOpus  5 is  its extensive  use of  Drag & Drop principles.  In this
version, we have added even more support for this activity.


The NEW FEATURES include:-


1.   We have  added ability  to play  soundtracker modules  to the PLAY
     command.    We  still  believe  that  there  are  some  very  good
     commercial   and   PD/Shareware   programs   (for   example,   the
     OctaMedPlayer  and  Delitracker)  which  do a much better job, but
     many users wanted the ability built-in  as in  DOpus 4.   The PLAY
     command will now handle some of these formats but not all.

2.   A BEEP  command has  been included  in the internal commands. This
     simply makes a "beep"  sound to  notify you,  for example,  when a
     sequence of commands have finished.


3.   The  Directory  Opus  screen  can  now  be made the Default Public
     Screen. A new toggle menu has been added to the Settings Menu.

     Programs which do not open their own screen will generally use the
     default  public  screen  when  opening  windows. For example, with
     Dopus as  the  default  pubscreen,  most  workbench  programs, the
     Shell,  Clock  and  other  utilities  will  now  open on the Dopus
     Screen. (Note: This behaviour  IS  dependent  on  exactly  how the
     application program has been written.)

     Obviously, this  setting has  no effect  when Opus is running as a
     Workbench replacement

4.   The DeviceList command has been expanded with addition of the FULL
     parameter switch.   This  will expand  the Assign list to show the
     full path of single and any multiple-directory assignments  in the
     system.   If not  specified, the  device list  will be  in the old
     format (unexpanded assigns).

5.   More Drag and Drop functionality!

     A.   The "Selection Destination" requester  is  now  an AppWindow.
          You can  now drag  & drop a destination drive onto the window
          to set the path.

     B.   You can now drag and drop within Function  Editors; either to
          swap function  lines around  within the one editor or to copy
          function lines to another  editor.  If  you  hold  down shift
          while you  drag a  function line  from one editor to another,
          the entire function will be copied.

     C.   You can now drop files on Program Group icons to  add them to
          the group.  Before you  had to actually open the group to add
          new entries.

     D.   You can now change item  positions  within  the  Menu Editors
          using  drag  and  drop.  (instead  of  with  the Move Up/Down
          buttons)


6.   Non-DOS disk icons are now shown (like in Workbench); a new option
     (Environment/Display  Options/Hide  bad  disks) allows you to hide
     these icons again if you wish to unclutter your backdrop window.


7.   Added "Skip All" button to Copy function.   Now, if  a file exists
     you now get the option to skip all, meaning ALL files that already
     exist will be skipped.


8.   Added "Lister Options" to Environment configuration.  You  can now
     turn the device list off in new listers, change the behaviour of a
     double right button click to  bring  up  the  Format  Editor  in a
     lister, and can set the default size of new listers.


9.   Added popup  menu to custom Button Bank window (right mouse button
     over button window title bar), with Iconify feature.



AREXX CHANGES AND ENHANCEMENTS

1.   A new feature has been added to the {f} and {o} sequences.  If you
     specify a  minus sign  (-) after  the letter, the filename will be
     stripped of any suffix. As an example,

               AmigaDOS   rename {fu} {f-}.lzx

     would replace any suffix the selected file had with a  .lzx suffix
     (eg rename "ram:test.lha" "ram:test.lzx")

     This and the above changes makes possible the following (extremely
     tricky) function to convert LHA files to LZX automatically:

               AmigaDOS   makedir t:lzxtemp
               AmigaDOS   lha -x -M x {fu} t:lzxtemp/
               AmigaDOS   cd t:lzxtemp
               AmigaDOS   lzx -e -x -r a {fu-}.lzx #?
               AmigaDOS   delete {f} quiet force
               AmigaDOS   cd ram:
               AmigaDOS   delete t:lzxtemp all quiet force


2.   A new parameter, STEM, has been  added to  the ARexx  lister query
     command.  Examples are :-

     a:   With the "lister query entry" command


          lister query handle entry #0 stem fileinfo

          The fields returned are:

               NAME      - file name
               SIZE      - file size
               TYPE      - type (<0 = file, >0 = dir)
               SELECTED  - 0 or 1
               DATE      - seconds since 1/1/78
               PROTECT   - protection bits (long value)
               DATESTRING- datestamp in ascii form
               PROTSTRING- protection bits in ascii form
               COMMENT   - file comment (if any)
               FILETYPE  - file type (if any)

          Without  the  stem  keyword,  the  information is returned in
          RESULT as before.


     b:   The "lister query  selfiles"  and  similar  commands  can now
          return information in STEM variables. For example,

               lister query handle selfiles stem files

          The fields returned are:

               COUNT     - number of entries
               0         - first filename
               1         - second filename
               ...
               COUNT-1   - last filename

          Without the stem keyword, the names are returned in RESULT as
          before.


     c:   The "lister query all",  "lister  query  source"  and "lister
          query  dest"  commands  now  accept  a  STEM  parameter.  For
          example,

               lister query all stem listers

          The fields returned are:

               COUNT          - number of listers
               0         - first lister handle
               1         - second handle
               ...
               COUNT-1        - last handle

          Without the stem keyword, the handles are returned  in RESULT
          as before.


3.   There previously  was no  way to get the return value from a DOpus
     getstring ARexx command (ie  which button  was selected).  This is
     due  to  the  way  rexx  return values are specified (you can have
     either RESULT or RC, but not both, for  some strange  reason). The
     button  value  from  this  command  is  now returned in a variable
     called DOPUSRC. RC will always be 0 from this command,  and RESULT
     will contain  the string entered unless cancel was selected, or no
     string was entered. The new DOPUSRC variable may be used  by other
     commands in the future.


4.   Added a new {Ql} sequence to get the source lister handle

5.   Added  "parent"  and  "root"  custom  handler  messages.   In this
     version 5.11, these are only sent when you use the side parent bar
     or press / or :.

6.   Added new  commands 'dopus  addtrap' and  'dopus remtrap' to allow
     more control over individual  listers by  custom handlers.  From a
     given  Lister,  any  button  events  which  generate internal Opus
     commands can now be trapped by a custom handler.  (For an example,
     see the  Trap-Test.dopus5 script in the new Dopus:Arexx directory.
     Messages sent as the result of a trapped  function (eg  Copy) will
     contain the argument portion of the function string as argument 5.
     Trapped functions are now used when  it is  the destination  of an
     operation that has a custom handler, as well as the source.

7.   If you  specify the "quotes" flag after a "lister set custhandler"
     command, then any filenames sent to the handler as the result of a
     drop, dropfrom, trapped function, etc, will be enclosed in quotes.

8.   A new  action, "path",  is sent  if the user presses return on the
     path field of a lister with a custom handler active.




     O--------------------------------------------------------O



MINOR CHANGES AND BUG FIXES

The following minor problems have been identified and fixed in this 5.1
update  version.    These  fix  all  the  knows bugs reported to us for
version 5.0  and  5.1  (german  version).    The  problems  and changes
include:-


.    Fixed  some   problems  with  multiple-line  functions.  This  was
     intermittent but many multi-line commands in buttons did  not work
     reliably.

.    The string  returned by "lister query selfiles" is now the correct
     length.

.    Mouse position was not being checked correctly for  a double-click
     when selecting a button to edit.

.    Fixed problem  with filename  quoting in commands. For example, if
     you had {f}.old, this could come out as :

               "ram:testfile".old

     It now correctly comes up as :

               "ram:testfile.old"

.    The  "inactive"  message  when  a  lister   is  closed   was  sent
     prematurely, so  that under  some circumstances (high cpu load for
     instance), a "lister query" would  indicate  that  the  lister was
     still  present  even  though  it  had  been  destroyed.  Also,  an
     "inactive" message was not being sent if the lister was empty when
     it was closed.

.    The  "Select  Destination"  requester  would leave the lister list
     locked while it was open, meaning you wouldn't be able to open any
     new listers until the requester had been closed.

.    Projects with  a default  tool that  included a  relative path (eg
     "bin/installer") would not work.

.    If you deleted the right or middle button functions from  a button
     the dog-ear imagery would not be erased correctly.

.    The "inactive"  and "active"  messages now always contain the path
     of the lister in Arg4; Arg2  will also  contain the  path unless a
     title has been set in which case it will contain the title.

.    If you  dropped a button or another menu item into one of the menu
     editors, the  menu  list  display  wasn't  updated  correctly (you
     could end up with two highlight bars).

.    When  doing  WBStartup,  Opus  would ignore any programs that were
     only icons (ie default tools).

.    Hotkeys  using  lcommand  (lamiga)  would  not  work  from  lister
     windows in file mode.

.    New listers  opened with  the scandir  command or via hotkeys from
     the path formats configuration would always open at 0,0 instead of
     under the mouse pointer.

.    When DOpus  runs WBStartup  programs it  now respects the STARTPRI
     and WAIT tooltypes (but not DONOTWAIT).

.    The  way  "Workbench"  processes  are  launched  has  changed. All
     programs are  now launched by the one process which is established
     by the library. This means that  there is  not a  copy of DOpusRT5
     sitting around for each workbench process you have run.

.    Path  inheritance  should  work  properly  when  DOpus is run as a
     Workbench replacement (ie via LoadDB)

.    "Replace All" in copy was broken, fixed.

.    Fixed  problem  with  AppIcons;  if  their  initial  position  was
     off-screen, DOpus would not update sliders properly.

.    As done  by workbench,  DOpus now  grabs a pathlist when it starts
     up, and uses that for all program launching.

.    If you had 12 hour clock turned on it was  possible for  the "file
     already exists" requester to overwrite a buffer.

.    There was a problem using {s} in filetype functions.

.    Inserting {}  sequences in a function string via the popup list in
     the function editor now inserts with spaces as necessary.

.    Filetype saving and refreshing method modified.

.    On 68000 machines, a couple of bugs could cause address  errors on
     functions with odd-length parameters (eg Confirm NOTEVEN)

.    Non-existent drawers in icon mode can not be opened.

.    If  you  tried  to  replace  an  existing  file (via Copy) and the
     existing  file  could  not  be  deleted   successfully,  an  error
     requester is now shown (before it would fail silently).

.    Fixed some problems with the print module (blank pages, etc)

.    Minor changes to Text viewer including filter of CRs.

.    The  path  field  is  no  longer  cleared  if you enter an invalid
     directory to read in a lister.

.    The icons for iconified listers and button banks now show  up even
     if you have the display of AppIcons turned off.

.    Added key command to Remove program from group.

.    Lister/Snapshot   and   Icon/Snapshot/Window   now   snapshot  the
     text/icon state of the lister properly.

.    Fixed a problem that some people complained of where listers could
     be saved  and not  come up in the correct position (even with Save
     Layout turned on).

.    After discussions with Frank  Mariak, we  increased stack  size on
     palette box to prevent crashes for users running the CyberGraphics
     RTG systems  which uses  2K more  stack space  than standard Amiga
     graphics  libraries.  (Some  other problems with Cybergraphics and
     Opus 5  are  fixed  in  the  40.49  release  of  the Cybergraphics
     software.)

.    ARexx "dropfrom" now contains the source lister handle in Arg1 and
     the destination lister handle (if any) in Arg2.

.    The search string is now carried over into  the text  viewer, when
     using the Search command.

.    Added a  couple more key equivalents to the text viewer to make it
     more  like  Opus4  (t=top,b=bottom,q=quit,p=print, s=search,n=next
     search).

.    The "Select  Destination" requester should now appear for external
     functions as necessary.

.    Fixed problems with Alt-click on the toolbar in the blank area.

.    Copying a directory to a write protected or non-present disk would
     give the wrong error message.

.    With multiple button banks being edited, clicking Save on the bank
     editor would not save banks correctly (or at all).

.    Now only the Help key activates help (ie shift help, etc, will not
     do it).

.    The "lister  clear" command  no longer  clears your custom handler
     name. The "lister empty" command still does, but you are  now sent
     an "inactive" message correctly.

.    Added  kludge  for  ToolManger  to prevent poor system performance
     when it updates its tool menu  (the problem  will still  exist for
     anything else that adds lots of items to the tools menu at once).

.    Fixed problem  where iconified  lister icons  could be "relocated"
     but the display not updated correctly.

.    Opus would crash if you tried to open  a requester  (dopus request
     command) with more than 1024 bytes of text in it. Fixed.

.    'Output results' in the Search function was broken. Fixed.

.    Fixed problems  with reading  from CrossDos (PC0:) disks when text
     filtering and or text translation was enabled.

.    Fixed problem that would cause `  character to  appear in  the key
     field of path formats.

                  -----------------------------------

Dr Greg Perry, Brisbane, 20th June 1995
GPSoftware, PO Box 570 , ASHGROVE AUSTRALIA 4060
InterNet:  [e-mail]