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======================================================================== MagicFileRequester V1.3a Documentation 10-Apr-1992 ======================================================================== (C) Copyright 1992 by Stefan Stuntz - All Rights Reserved Copyright --------- The program MagicFileRequester and this documentation are written and copyrighted 1992 by Stefan Stuntz. They may be distributed freely as long as the following restrictions are met: The distributor may only charge a fee up to the costs of obtaining a public domain diskette from Fred Fish. The distributor agrees to cease distributing the programs and data involved if requested to do so by the author. The distributor may only distribute an unmodified copy of the original program, with all the supplied documentation and copyright notices intact. The program must not be used for commercial purposes without the written permission of the author. Disclaimer ---------- This software and documentation is provided "as is". No warranties are made with respect to the accuracy, reliability, performance or operation of this software and information. All use is at your own risk. The author is not responsible for any loss of data, damages to software or hardware that may result directly or indirectly from the use of the described program. ======================================================================== Roadmap ======================================================================== 1. Introduction 1.1. Motivation 1.2. Features 1.3. Basics 1.4. System Requirements 2. Installation 2.1. From Workbench 2.2. From CLI 2.3. Removing MFR 3. Using MFR 3.1. Basic Usage 3.2. Project Menu 3.3. DOS Menu 3.4. Search Menu 3.5. Design Menu 3.6. Activate Menu 4. Specials 4.1. Tooltypes 4.2. File Classes 4.3. Keyboard Jumping 4.4. CLI Interface 4.5. Directory Caching 5. Goodies 5.1. ArpToAsl 5.2. TagScreens 5.3. Find 5.4. TaskList 6. Discussion 6.1. Known Bugs 6.2. Future Features 6.3. Acknowledgements 6.4. How to reach the author A. Appendix A.1. Lowres and Highres A.2. Revision History ======================================================================== 1. Introduction ======================================================================== 1.1. Motivation --------------- A file requester is propably the most used program inside an Amiga. Unfortunately, all currently available requesters lack some important features, such as - Keyboard support. Since I operate my computer mainly from an arm-chair with the keyboard on my knees, my mouse is far away. I really need keyboard support. - Font support. I don't see a reason to force the user to a non proportional system default font or - even worse - to topaz/8 in a file requester. - Resolution support. The amiga has many different resolutions with different pixel aspect ratios. What do I want with a courier/13 font on a low resolution 320x200 screen? - Speed. This one's very important. Just look at ASL and you know what I mean :-) These were the main reasons for me to write my own file requester. MFR is the result and I hope, you will like it as much as I do. 1.2. Features ------------- - MFR is completely controllable via keyboard, so you will never have to touch your mouse when selecting files (of course you can, if you really want to). - MFR will use any font you want in it's display. Proportional fonts like helvetica look really marvellous. - MFR has the ability to quickly search your hard disk for any file, so you needn't remember each file's directory. - MFR can display pictures, play sounds, view archives, etc. with the aid of some external programs. - MFR looks very nice, especially on high resolution screens. - MFR has a sizing gadget. - MFR takes advantage of new Kick 2.0 features like file notification. - MFR can be customized through a wide range of tooltypes and menu items. - MFR is fast. - MFR is simply magic :-) 1.3. Basics ----------- MFR is not distributed like other file requesters. You do not get an additional library for your LIBS: drawer and you may not call MFR directly from within your own applications. All you get is a single program that replaces some library vectors at installation time. So every program that uses one of the supported file requesters will use MFR instead. MFR is especially designed for the new Kick 2.0 colors and resolutions. It will look best on a high resolution display with a pixel aspect ratio of nearly 1:1 (e.g. Hires + Interlace). Although MFR can be used on low resolution screens too, the 'feeling' won't be there. MFR is a commodity. You can control it like other commodities with the Exchange program from your Workbench Disk. 1.4. System Requirements ------------------------ As you probably noticed, MFR requires at least Kickstart 2.04 (also known as V37.175) to work properly. If you are still using Version 1.3 of the operating system, it's time to update now. You won't regret it. Particularly, the following libraries are needed: Library Min Version Place intuition.library 37 ROM graphics.library 37 ROM gadtools.library 37 ROM utility.library 37 ROM workbench.library 37 ROM icon.library 37 Libs: commodities.library 37 Libs: asl.library 37 Libs: iffparse.library 37 Libs: diskfont.library 36 Libs: req.library 1 Libs: All these libraries are part of the OS 2.04 distribution, except req.library, which can be found in the distribution archive of MFR. ======================================================================== 2. Installation ======================================================================== 2.1. From Workbench ------------------- Couldn't be easier. A simple double klick on MFR's icon will install it in memory. From now on, every ASL and REQ file requester will be replaced with a MFR. Of course you can (and I really hope you will) move MFR into "SYS:WBStartup/", so it will be launched every time you boot. 2.2. From CLI ------------- Since there seem to be quite many people out there, who do not use workbench, MFR can also be started from a CLI environment. The command run <nil: >nil: mfr install will do this job. Note that MFR will need the icon file "mfr.info" to read and store it's configuration. You have to provide this file in the same directory you start MFR from. 2.3. Removing MFR ----------------- If you really want to remove MFR from your system, you can do this by double clicking it's icon a second time, by calling "mfr install" from CLI again or with the Commodities Exchange program. A requester will pop up informing you that MFR has been removed. MFR will refuse to quit when there are some other programs still hanging around with open or just with allocated file requesters. In this case, MFR will inform you how many times it's locked. You will have to exit all these locking programs, before you can remove MFR from your system. ======================================================================== 3. Using MFR ======================================================================== 3.1. Basic Usage ---------------- After installing MFR with a double klick (see section 2 for details), start your favourite text editor and try to load a file. If the editor would normally pop up a REQ or ASL requester, you should now see MFR instead. MFR's window splits into six input areas, as there are the file list, the device list, the drawer gadget, the file gadget, the hide gadget and the show gadget. You should be familar with this outfit, as it is heavyly based on the old but popular REQ requester. Using MFR with mouse is not too different from using the REQ requester. I will not make too much words about it. Just try and klick around a little bit. However, using MFR with the keyboard needs a little more explanation. As you probably noticed, one of the six input areas is always the active one. Therefore it's marked with a blue bar (assuming standard WB 2.0 colors). This is where all your input goes. You can flip from one input area to another with the <TAB> and <Shift><TAB> Keys. Now try to activate the file list this way. You should see a blue bar on the first entry of the chosen directory. This cursor can be moved up and down with the arrow keys. To select a file, just move the cursor over it and press <RETURN>. To cancel the file requester, you can press either <Escape> or <Amiga><Q>. Note that all key combinations will also work from within a string gadget. If you press <RETURN> or <CursorRight> over a sub directory, MFR will dive in. With <CursorLeft> you can tell MFR to leave this directory and change to parent. If you are in a string gadget and want to activate the file list to move around a little bit, there is no need to browse through all other gadget with <TAB>. Just press <CursorUp> or <CursorDown> and the file list will be activated automatically. Multiselect of files can be done either with some shifted mouse clicks or with the space key (if the application enables this feature). 3.2. Project Menu ----------------- As every real amiga program, MFR offers a couple off pulldown menus. Let's see how they are used. The first two points of the <Project> menu are dedicated to load and save MFR's configuration. <Load Configuration> is propably useless because MFR loads it's configuration on startup. However, if you have configured some things you really don't like, just select this item and MFR will reload the startup configuration. <Save Configuration> saves MFR's configuration into the icon file "mfr.info", so it will be present next time you start MFR. Note that MFR's configuration is global for all file requesters. So if you change e.g. the gadget font in one requester, all other open requesters will be informed and updated. The <Clipboard> submenu holds three menu items that allow MFR to paste it's gadget contents to clipboard. Don't know if anybody will use these functions. <About> should be clear, <Okay> and <Cancel> simulate the actions of the corresponding gadgets at the bottom of the window. 3.3. DOS Menu ------------- <Parent Directory> should be clear, it does the same thing that <CursorLeft> in file list does. However, you can this with the shortcut Amiga-P even from within active string gadgets. <File Action> tries to do the configured action on the currently selected file. These actions and their configuration is describe later in this manual. The following three menu item, <Make Directory>, <Delete File/Dir> and <Rename File/Dir> do exactly what you would expect. They create direcotries, they rename files or directories and they delete files or directories. Note that MFR is no CLI tool, therefore these functions are not too powerful. You can neither delete non empty directories, nor copy files from one volume to another. Moving files around on the same volume is possible with the rename function. <Show Volume Pattern> and <Hide Volume Pattern> let you specify, which volumes and devices should show up in the device list. Since these list can get very large, you will propably need this feature some day. Just specify a valid AmigaDOS pattern in the popping up string requester. Note that AmigaDOS patterns are very powerful, consult your DOS documentation if you are not sure about all their possibilities. <Default Hide Pattern> is a pattern, that will be used for the Hide gadget, when the application does not specify it's own pattern. You can e.g. easily get rid off all ".info" files when you set the default hide pattern to "#?.info". <Entry Buffers> is a numeric value that controls MFR's directory reading mechanism. To understand this, you will have to know how MFR behaves when reading a directory. Since displaying the files in MFR's window takes some time, MFR will read more entries together and display them all at once. The number of these buffered entries is calculated automatically from the speed of the media. Thus, MFR will refresh it's display with every single file read from a slow disk device, but refresh only all 20 files with a harddisk. <Entry Buffers> adjusts the maximum number for these buffers, so if you set them e.g. to 1, MFR will not make any difference between fast and slow medias. Note that even with a value of 50 for <Entry Buffers>, you will not notice any change in the way MFR displays it's files. This is due to my list routines. But the scrollbar gadget will be refreshed much less with a high value and this will considerably speed up directory reading. There is a special value of 0 possible for <Entry Buffers>. This means that MFR will first read the complete directory in it's memory, and then display it all at once. This is the MFR's fastest way of directory reading, but you will have to wait until all entries are scanned. However, I prefer this mode and you should give it a try too. Kick 2.04 has the ability to inform a program when a file somewhere in a directory changes. With file notification, MFR will notice any change in the currently displayed directory and update it automatically. This can sometimes be a little bit confusing, so you can turn this feature on and off with the menu item <File Notification>. 3.4. Search Menu ---------------- MFR has the ability to search your harddisk for some files. Befor you can use this feature, you will have to create a data base consisting of all your directories and all your files. This can be done with the "UpdateDB" program from Larry Phillips "Find" package, which is included in MFR's distribution archive. If you are not familiar with "UpdateDB", please refer to Larry's documentation for details. Once you have created the data base, you can easily find any file you want. Just type the (partial) name into the string gadget and select the <Search File> menu item or use the '?' gadget right beside the file gadget. MFR will list all occurances of the concerning file togehter with the complete path in the file list. Just klick on the desired entry and you will be moved to it's directory with the appropriate information filled in the drawer and file gadgets. You can influence the way of matching with the four checkmark items below. Their meaning should clear. Additionally, MFR recognizes any pattern present in the file gadget. So if you e.g. want to see all your C or Assembler source codes starting with 'm', you could search for "m#?.(c|a)". 3.5. Design Menu ---------------- The <Design> menu is used to customize MFR's outfit according to your personal taste. It's divided up into four sub menus, as there are <Window>, <Scrollbar>, <Font> and <Sorting>. The <Window> submenu consists of six items, specifiying the window's size, position and background. With <Override Dimension> turned on, MFR will always use it's default size when opening. Otherwise, the application specified size will be used. The default size of MFR can be set with the <Set Default Dimension> menu item. When selected, it will make the current size of MFR become the default size. The same thing applies to <Override Position>. When set, MFR will ignore the application specified position and always appear either centered in the middle of the screen or centered under the mouse pointer, as specified by <Centered Window> and <Moused Window>. <Rastered Background> turns on and off MFR's background raster. With the <Scrollbar> submenu, you can select between four different scrollbar designs. Try them and see what you like best. My favourite is "Goonie". All designs are available either symmetrical (up arrow at top, down arrow at bottom) or normal (both arrows at bottom). If you consider the repeat rate of the arrow gadgets too fast, you can configure a delay for them with <Arrow Delay>. The <Font> submenu allows you to select the fonts you wish to use for MFR. MFR uses two independent fonts, one for the file and device list and one for the gadgets. Instead of selecting a specific font, you can also tell MFR to use the parent screens default font with the <Use Screen Font> menu items. Important: MFR has two different font and scrollbar configurations for low resoultion screens and high resolution screens (See appendix A.1. for details on resolution). Thus, if you are currently on a low resolution screen, you change MFR's lowres configuration and if you are on a high resolution screen, you change the highres configuration. The last submenu <Sorting> specifies the sorting order for entries in the file list. The meaning of the menu items should be clear. If not, just try them. 3.6. Activation Menu -------------------- Last, there is the <Activation> menu. It's mainly used to allow direct activation of one of MFR's input areas without having to cycle around. Additionally, there's a submenu called <Activation Priority>. There you can tell MFR wether to activate the file gadget or the file list on startup. ======================================================================== 4. Specials ======================================================================== 4.1. Tooltypes -------------------- Most of MFR's configuration can be adjusted with the menu items. However, there are some things that haven't made their way to a menu yet, so you will need to adjust them via tooltypes. CX_POPKEY defines the key sequence used to pop up a Magic File Requester. Don't know if it's really useful to pop up a file requester, but if you want, you can. CX_PRIORITY defines MFR's priority in commodities input chain. There should normally be no reason to alter this value. PATCHASL turns the patch for asl.library on and off. There should be no reason to turn it off, I hope. PATCHREQ does the same thing for req.library. PATCHREQTL same for reqtools.library MINPIXEL defines the minimum space reserved to display a file name. MFR adjusts the amount of displayed information according to the width of it's window. Try resizing the window to see how it works. MINPIXEL pixel will always be reserved to display the file name, unless the window is too small. REJECT defines a case insensitive pattern for task names. If you encounter a program that does not work with MFR, you can make MFR drop to the old file requester when being called from this task. Just find out the task name and add it to the REJECT pattern. You can use the program TaskList (see Goodies section) to list all tasks currently running. CLASS_0 - CLASS_9 Here you can configure some file classes for file actions. See the next section for details. The two tooltypes DONOTWAIT and STARTPRI are dedicated to workbench and should be left untouched, unless you know what you're doing. All other tooltypes are maintained with MFR's menu items. There is absolutely no need to alter them by hand. 4.2. File Classes ----------------- MFR has the ability to show pictures, play sounds, view archives, etc.. If you want to use this feature, you will have to tell MFR what to do with certain file types. This is done via the CLASS_0 - CLASS_9 tooltype entries. The syntax of a CLASS entry looks like this: CLASS_<n>=[<namepattern>],[<contentspattern>],<action> If you select the "File Action" menu item (or you press <Alt><Return>), MFR checks the current file against <namepattern>. If this one matches, MFR checks the first 256 Bytes of the file against <contentspattern>. In case of match, the command <action> is performed on this file. Note that <namepattern> is case insensitive but <contentspattern> is case sensitive. An ommited pattern matches always. The parameter <action> must be a valid command, exactly as if typed into a CLI. The first "%s" in <action> will be replaced with the full path specification of the current file. Note that formatting of the command is done via sprintf(), so you should be careful not to use other printf style formatting commands such as "%d" or "%x". Your machine may crash if you do so! If you use commands that print to the current console (e.g. all archivers), you must use IO-redirection. Some examples for file classes are: CLASS_0=#?.(lha|lzh),,lz >con:120/50/500/250/LH-Archive/CLOSE/WAIT v %s CLASS_1=#?.zoo,,zoo l >con:120/50/500/250/Zoo-Archive/CLOSE/WAIT l %s CLASS_2=#?,FORM????ILBM#?,display %s CLASS_3=#?,FORM????8SVX#?,play %s CLASS_3=#?.doc,,more %s 4.3. Keyboard Jumping --------------------- MFR offers a way for jumping through an alphabetically sorted file list. If you once are used to this method, you will be able to select files very quick. It works like this: Assume you have some hundred doc files in your directory and you want to select "Mungwall.doc". Just activate the file list and press the 'M' key. MFR will move you to the first entry starting with 'M'. This could be e.g. "MagicFileRequester.doc". Now, type a 'U'. You will be moved to the first entry starting with 'Mu'. This will propably be "Mungwall.doc", so you found your file with two keystrokes. All these keys are case insensitive. While you type these characters, they are displayed in MFR's status line. You can delete the last character you typed with the <Backspace> key. In this case, MFR will move you back to your position before typing the last character. 4.4. CLI Interface ------------------ MFR has a CLI interface that allows using the requester from within script files. Calling MFR with the following template mfr [DIR=<dir>] [FILE=<file>] [PATTERN=<pattern>] [TITLE=<title>] [OKTEXT=<oktext>] [CANCELTEXT=<canceltext>] [LEFT=<left>] [TOP=<top>] [WIDTH=<width>] [HEIGHT=<height>] [MULTI] [MATCHDIRS] [SAVE] [PATGAD] will pop up a file requester, wait for the user to select some file(s) and print the results (full path specification) to stdout. If the requester is cancelled, nothing is displayed. You can use this feature from a shell or arexx script, redirecting the result to a file for further usage. For example, the command mfr >env:result DIR=cap: PATTERN=*.cap TITLE="Select a capture file" will create an environment variable named 'result' which consists of the selected file. If you don't select a file, 'result' will be empty. MFR will return 0 if a file was selected, 5 if the requester was cancelled. A return code of 10 indicates an error (wrong parameters, out of memory, ...). Note that MFR will internally call the asl.library file requester, so if you didn't allow it to patch this library, you will just see an ASL requester popping up. 4.5. Directory Caching ---------------------- There's not much to say about that. As req.library, MFR will always remember the last read directory. This will considerably speed up subsequent calls of MFR with the same directory. ======================================================================== 5. Goodies ======================================================================== 5.1. ArpToAsl ------------- "ArpToAsl" is a tool by Fabio Rosetti. It replaces the file requester of arp.library with the ASL requester. Thus, ARP will in fact be replaced by MFR. Unfortunately, I didn't find the original archive of ArpToAsl. Only the executable is included. I hope, Fabio doesn't mind. You should put ArpToAsl somewhere in your startup-sequence, before starting MFR. It detaches, so there's no need to run it: ArpToAsl >nil: 5.2. TagScreens --------------- With Kick 2.04, there is a new method for programmers to specify which colors should be used for gadget and window rendering on their custom screen. MFR uses exactly this colors in its window. Programs that were developed before Kick 2.04 was released, don't know about this feature. Their windows and gadgets, including MFR will look a little bit ugly. "TagScreens" from Martin Berndt tries to patch the old OpenScreen() function to make these old programs use the new 3d look. Refer to "TagScreens.txt" for details. 5.3. Find --------- "Find" is a tool for fast file searching, written by Larry Phillips. It works in conjunction with a data base, including all your directories and files. MFR needs this data base for its search functions. Refer to "Find.DOC" for details. 5.4. TaskList ------------- MFR has the ability to prevent some specific tasks from using it. This is hopeful if you e.g. encounter a program that doesn't work with MFR or needs some special features of asl.library, not supported by MFR yet. When a file requester is called, MFR compares the specified REJECT pattern with the name of the calling task (ExecBase->ThisTask-> tc_Node.ln_Name). In case of match, MFR will call the old requester. To find out the name of the calling task, you can use a system monitor such as "ARTM" or "XOper" or the supplied utility TaskList. TaskList exactly displays the task name, checked by MFR. "ARTM" and "XOper" display some other things sometimes. Finding out the calling task's name may sometimes get a little tricky. The normal task name of "MultiPlayer" is e.g. "MultiPlayer", but this program creates a second task named "File Requester" to call a file requester. To prevent "MultiPlayer" from calling MFR, you would have to specify "REJECT=File Requester". ======================================================================== 6. Discussion ======================================================================== This section is intended to avoid unnecessary bug reports and suggestions. Please read this before you write a mail. But if you have additional ideas, bug reports or just some comments, write me. 6.1. Known Bugs --------------- - Not all of the ASL Tags and the related actions are supported yet. Since many of these Tags are new for Workbench 2.1 and the other ones are rarely used, I have some time left for implementation. Missing are currently: ASLFR_Screen ASLFR_PubScreenName ASLFR_PrivateIDCMP ASLFR_SleepWindow ASLFR_TextAttr ASLFR_Locale ASLFR_DoPatterns ASLFR_DrawersOnly ASLFR_RejectIcons ASLFR_RejectPattern ASLFR_HookFunc MFR will drop to ASL when this Tag occurs. ASLFR_FilterFunc MFR will drop to ASL when this Tag occurs. ASLFR_IntuiMsgFunc MFR will drop to ASL when this Tag occurs. - Not all of the reqtools.library features are supported yet (inluding multi-select!): RT_ReqPos RT_PubScrName RT_Screen RT_WaitPointer RT_DefaultFont RTFI_AddEntry RTFI_RemoveEntry RT_ReqHandler MFR will drop to reqtools when set rtFileRequest->Hook MFR will drop to reqtools when set FREQF_DOWILDFUNC MFR will drop to reqtools when set FREQF_MULTISELECT MFR will drop to reqtools when set FREQF_SELECTDIRS MFR will drop to reqtools when set - MFR does not work in conjunction with AssignX. Therefore it will drop to ASL when the window title matches "Assignment for*" or "Zuweisung für*". - Klicking on an active directory entry (the one with the cursor on it) and releasing the mouse somewhere else will cause some graphic trash to appear in MFR's window. - MFR seems to eat some memory. Each time you open a requester, you will loose about 1048 bytes. I tried hard to locate this problem but didn't succeed yet. - MFR is not totally clean against specifiying a too big font. You should be careful experimenting with euro/90 or something like that. - MFR seems to have some problems when called from rexxarp.library. Since I don't know if it's really MFR's fault (ARP is very buggy under OS 2.0, ArpToAsl could have problems too), I propably won't do anything about that until I patch arp.library my own. - MFR sometimes crashes when called from IconEdit. Better add it to the REJECT list. - Not really a bug of MFR. MFR will not work with programs that depend on some undocumented features of asl.library, such as remembering application's A4 register for callback hooks. Currently, I only know of VLT 5.517 depending on such strange things. As a result, VLT will crash the machine when calling a font requester with MFR installed. I tried to convince VLTs author not to rely on undocumented features, but had no success. Sorry to all VLT users. 6.2. Future Features -------------------- I think I am going to add some more features and enhancements to MFR in future. Here they are: - Drawing of the rastered background could be optimized. Seems it doesn't look too good. - Some kind of file name completion for the file gadget or some other method of selecting files with a few keystrokes. I think of the following: While you type a file name into the file gadget, all entries that do not start with your partial input string could be removed from the file list. If you e.g. type a 'S' as the first letter, you will only see the files starting with 'S'. Don't know if this is really a good idea but maybe I will try it some day. - Caching of multiple directories. There's no reason to limit directory caching to one single directory. - Customizable width for the device list. - Placing cursor at the end of the string gadget on startup. - Entries in the find list tend to become very long. Since the right part of a path is usually more interesting than the left part, I should maybe display it this way. - File actions will be moved to an external library, maybe in conjunction with CShell. Of course you will be able to call them without CShell from MFR, but configuration of file classes will be done elsewhere. File actions are not really a part of a file requester, they're useful in other applications too. - There should be a button or something to execute a file action. I haven't found a place yet. - Multiselect needs some more work. Better mouse support (no more need to shift-klick the first item, select with dragging) and perhaps a possibility to select/deselect all files at once. The number of selected files and bytes could be displayed in the status line. - At startup, the cursor in the file list should be moved to the file specified in the file gadget. - Localization. Ever wanted a norwegian file requester? - Auto detach from CLI. - Some kind of .fastdir support for specific directories. MFR could maintain a .fastdir file in frequently used and large directories (sound modules, iff pictures, docs, etc.), thus making scanning of these directories incredibly fast. - Replacing of some more libraries (arp, rct, kd_freq). - Loading of powerpacked FindDB:find.codes data bases. 6.3. Acknowledgements --------------------- Finally, I want to thank... Andreas Schildbach for many good ideas, for debugging and for some artwork. Stefan Becker for debugging CLI interface and eliminating some enforcer hits. Martin Berndt for debugging resolution detection and for the permission to include his program "TagScreens". Michael Berger for the set of Lores Icons. Ralf Kemle & for some more ideas and for testing MFR with Oliver Kilian good old 68000er. Oliver Vaross for additional debugging. Larry Phillips for his permission to include the "Find" package. Fabio Rosetti for his program "ArpToAsl". I hope I may include it in the MFR archive. Colin Fox & for req.library. I only need RealTimeScroll() Bruce Dawson but this ones really perfect. ... and all the other guys and girls (!) who reported bugs and made suggestions. 6.4. How to reach the author ---------------------------- If you have some additional ideas and/or bug reports, feel free to send a letter (E-Mail preferred) or to give me a call. You can reach me via Internet: stuntz@informatik.tu-muenchen.de Fido....: 2:246/46.10 (Stefan Stuntz) Z-Netz..: S.STUNTZ@AMC.ZER Snail...: Stefan Stuntz Eduard-Spranger Straße 7 D-8000 München 45 Germany Phone: (089) 313 12 48 That's all for know... Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish... Stefan ======================================================================== A. Appendix ======================================================================== A.1. Lowres and Highres ----------------------- MFR considers the following display modes as low resolution. All others are high resoultion. Lores, Hires, SuperHires, HAM, LoresDPF, LoresDPF2, HiresDPF2, SuperHiresDPF2, ExtraHalfBrite, VGAExtraLores, VGAHAM, VGAExtraLoresLace, VGALoresDPF, VGAExtraLoresDPF2, VGALoresDPF2, VGAExtraHalfBrite. A.2. Revision History --------------------- V1.0 (24-Jan-92) ---------------- - Initial release. V1.1 (05-Mar-92) ---------------- Sorry, I didn't have the time to implement many new ideas. This version is just a bug fixed and little enhanced V1.0, so don't expect too much. New features will come up in near future. - Some minor enhancements in design. - If the specified list font is 9 pixel or smaller, a second set of icons is used. - Because of problems with some programs, MFR will now cut off the slash following a directory name before returning. - An A2024 monitor is no longer considered LoRes. - The contents of Hide & Show gadgets are now passed back to the calling program, so they can be reused at later calls with the same structure. - The key combination <Alt><Return> now toggles between Drawer and Hide gadget or between File and Show gadget. - Fixed bug with the wrong calculated free disk space. - Fixed some other strange bugs. - MFR can now be called from CLI to pop up a file requester and print the results to stdout. See section 7.5 for details. - Added new tooltype NOTIFY to turn file notification on and off. - You may now select between six different scrollbar designs: Goonie, GoonieSym, Stuntzi, StuntziSym, Kick20 and Kick20Sym, configurable with the tooltypes SCROLLBAR and SCROLLBARL (lores). - MFR now uses the system-suggested colors for rendering (DrawInfo->dri_Pens). Images are also adjusted accordingly. - Late- and Nonbinding-Assigns are now displayed. - Added new tooltype DEFHIDEPAT to specify the a default value for the "Hide" gadget. If the application does not specify a hide pattern (ASL will never), DEFHIDEPAT is used instead. Otherwise, the given pattern and DEFHIDEPAT are concatenated using "(%s|%s)". - FAST keyword now obsolete. Instead, MFR measures the time for finding the next directory entry and increases/decreases its internal entry buffer accordingly. Thus, display refresh is rare with fast medias but often with slow medias. Maximum number of buffered entries is adjustable with the new tooltype ENTRYBUF (1..50). With ENTRYBUF=1, MFR behaves just like FAST=OFF. - Speeded up directory sorting algorithm. This will possibly result in faster directory reading on 68000 based machines. - Since MFR does for some reasons not work with 'AssignX' (I really don't know why... any ideas?), the ASL requester will be called when the window title matches "Assignment for*". V1.2 (17-Mar-92) ---------------- Sorry again, this is also just a bugfix. I messed up something with the file search mechanism in V1.1. Now it should work. - File searching did not work right in V1.1. Fixed this problem. - MFR 1.1 could only be started from within sys:wbstartup/. This has been fixed. - MFR now also rejects the german AssignX. - Due to a strange compiler behaviour, every string was stored about five times in the executable. This bug has been fixed. - MFR now has a second way of configuration. You may write your tooltype entries to the file "env:mfr.prefs", and MFR will parse them as usual. Entries in mfr.prefs will replace tooltypes in mfr.info with the same name. MFR recognizes changes in "env:mfr.prefs" and reloads it automatically, so you don't have to restart it every time you change your config. - Included the program "TagScreens" from Martin Berndt to force old style screens to use the new Kick 2.x look. V1.3 (06-Apr-92) ---------------- Yeah. Not just some bug fixes, a really new version with many enhancements. - Configuration mechanism changed again. No config file support anymore. When started from Workbench, MFR reads it's configuration from the .info file, as in earlier versions. - Since there seem to be quite many people out there, who do not use workbench, MFR can now be installed from CLI with the command "mfr INSTALL". Note that MFR will not detach (I was too lazy), so you should put something like "run <nil: >nil: mfr install" in your startup-sequence. The configuration will be read from the file PROGDIR:mfr.info, thus you must have "mfr.info" in the directory you start MFR from. To edit your tooltypes, you will still have to load workbench and use the 'Info' menu item. This should be no great problem however, because almost all configuration can be done via menu items now (see next point). - MFR can now be configured with various menu items. Have a look at them to see how they work. Note that the configuration is global for all file requesters, so if you change e.g. the gadget font, every open file requester will be informed and updated. Configuration can be saved with the <Project/Save Config> menu item to the location it was loaded from. - MFR now has the ability to use the parent screens default font for displaying (see the "Window" submenu). - If you set the number of EntryBuffers to zero, MFR will read a new directory completely before displaying anything. This is MFR's fastest directory reading mode, but you will have to wait until all entries are read. - MFR now caches the last directory to speed up subsequent calls with the same requester structure. - If you change to the parent directory, MFR now tries to place the cursor on the directory you just left. This makes it much easier and quicker to browse through your harddisk. - MFR can now create directories, delete files/dirs and rename files/dirs. With rename, you can even move your files around the volume. See DOS menu. - If MFR is in save mode and you type a non existing directory into the drawer gadget, MFR will create it if you confirm. - Implemented my idea of file selection. Pressing an alpha key in the file list (not in the file gadget!) will add this key to the search string and jump to the first entry starting with this string. Backspace will remove the last character from the search string. I tried several versions of file selection via keyboard and this one was my favourite. If you have some other (good!) ideas, let me know. - You can now tell MFR to activate the file list instead of the file gadget in some cases (see Activation menu). When MFR is opened for saving, activation of the file gadget always has priority. - MFR now has 18 different methods for sorting the file list (see Design menu): name sort, date sort and size sort with directories either first, last or within and with sorting order either low to high or high to low. Hope this will be enough for everybody. :-) - Fixed a bad bug that could crash the system if you tried to quit MFR with some allocated requester structures. - The list views are now more style guide compliant (no more extra pixel on top and bottom border). - Concatenation of default hide pattern and application specific hide pattern has been removed. Instead, an application specified hide pattern simply overrides the default hide pattern. - If the application specifies a show pattern, the default hide pattern is ignored. This avoids problems with mutual exclusive hide and show pattern (e.g. IconEdit with a default hide pattern #?.info). - Removed the 3d effect of the status line text. This was indeed a little overpowered. - Removed the about gadget in the bottom window border. :-( - More sophisticated calculation of the space occupied by date and time column. Should work with any font know. - Fixed bug with cursor right key in assign list. - A2024 was again considered lowres. This bug is now hopefully fixed for ever. MFR should know which config to use with all known display modes defined in "graphics/displayinfo.h". Unknown modes are considered highres. - Centering and mousing the window now also works on screens bigger than the maximum display size. - Added some clipboard support. You can now paste the current directory, the current file or the complete path to the clipboard (see Project menu). - If you consider the arrow gadgets as too fast, you may now configure a delay for them (see Design/Scrollbar menu) - You can activate MFR with a hotkey now. Configuration of this key is done with the CX_POPKEY tooltype (only one hotkey activated MFR at a time). - Many tooltypes changed their name and meaning. You should avoid editing them directly and use MFR's menus instead. - MFR is an AppWindow now, you can drag icons in it. This will only work with single icons, multiple drag is not supported yet. - If you encounter a program not working with MFR, you can tell MFR to drop to the old file requester when being called by this program. This is done via the new tooltype REJECT. MFR tests this pattern against the current tasl name (ExecBase->ThisTask->tc_Node.ln_Name) and drops in case of match. - Rewrote manual to reflect all the new features (I really hate writing manuals). V1.3a (08-Apr-92) ----------------- Since I go on holiday the next two weeks, I release this minor new version just for those of you that really hate the reqtools requester. - MFR now patches reqtools.library (tooltype PATCHREQTL). Several features (e.g. multi-select) are not supported. MFR will drop to reqtools in these cases. See Bugs section for details. - Fixed bug with monitor identification. - Included version 1.6 of TagScreens. V1.3b (10-Apr-92) ----------------- I hate that. Bugs over bugs. Thanx to Stefan Becker for reporting and fixing. - MFR's CLI interface had a bad bug. All BOOLEAN options (including INSTALL) did not work correct (enforcer hit on 68030, crash on 68000, nothing special on my 68020 :-)). This has now been fixed. - Enforcer hits during display refresh and notify events eliminated. - Detection of shared IDCMP did not work right. I corrected it and suddendly many programs used ASL again. Therefore, I removed detection of shared IDCMP, MFR will always use it's private port. This may cause some problems with some programs in some cases (e.g. IconEdit). Remember the REJECT keyword. - MFR now knows how to display file sizes gerater than 9.999.999 Bytes. - When the application supplies a complete path in the drawer gadget, MFR splits it up into drawer and file part.