HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: wsinda@wsintt02.info.win.tue.nl (Dick Alstein)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: CFD: Icon names in templates
Date: 14 Dec 92 13:43:02 GMT
Reply-To: wsinda@info.win.tue.nl


This posting is a Call For Discussion. Its purpose is solely to
start a discussion about possible solutions to a problem that
many programmers will have come across, and, hopefully, get some
cooperation from Acorn in solving it.

When you are developing an application that uses templates, your
application must know the numbers of icons in order to support
their function. But when you are adding icons to a template (e.g.
to extend the functionality of the application), you may have to
change the icon numbers.

Upon which you have to adapt the program. You may have to check
every line in which an icon is referred to. Of course you can get
around it partly, by setting a constant or variable (e.g. put a
line like '#define OK_button 2' in a C header file). But you
still have to take care that the icon numbers in the template
definition match those in the program. It becomes a real pain if
you tend to develop a program stepwise (add a feature, test it,
add another feature, etc.).

A solution is to give the icons names, and add these to the
template definition, just as the templates themselves have
identifiers. Then you would only have to look up the icon number
that is linked to the name, at the start of the program. And the
icon references would remain correct throughout revisions of the
templates (provided that the icons keep their - unique - name, of
course).

To make this work, the following is needed:

* A standard for icon names, defining their maximum length and
the way they are stored in a template file. This means that the
file format of template file must be extended. The current
format definition does have room for such an extension.

* A template editor that supports it. It must be able to read,
edit and save the icon names. (I'm currently working on one, and
it shouldn't be too difficult to add this feature.)

* Plus, ideally, a patch module providing an SWI to search for
the icon number belonging to a name. So you can write something
like: SYS "Wimp_IconNameToNumber",,"SaveBox","OK_button" TO ,,,nr%)

Reactions, please. Alternatives, additions, likes & dislikes,
opinions, ... Something like this probably already exists in
other windowing system (Mac, X windows, MS-windows), but I'm not
familiar with any of those. Maybe someone in the know can
describe one of'em. Anyone from Acorn care to react?

Dick Alstein
From: AWilliams@melbourne.uucp (Alan Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Anybody know about a Quickpacket reader for RISC OS?
Date: 16 Dec 92 08:50:21 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

Does anybody know anything about a piece of software useful when 
communicating with bulletin boards, that can assemble and disassemble files in a 
format known as 'Quickpacket'

If you know of an Acorn port please could you let me know.

I would appreciate a reply by mail (AWilliams@acorn.co.uk) since I will not see 
the net the next month or so.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: lorcan@avistic.demon.co.uk (Lorcan Mongey)
Reply-To: lorcan@avistic.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: Impression file format
X-Mailer: ReaderS for the Acorn Archimedes
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 00:29:47 +0000

In article <1992Dec8.112419.19538@aston.ac.uk> davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk
(Mik Davis) writes:

> Actually, this is getting to be a rather acute problem. Does anyone
> know of any way of transferring files from an arch. to a Mac running
> MSWord whilst retaining at least some of the layout.
 
Have you tried the Impression Business Suppliment? I believe it does
import/export in various PC-world formats.
 
Lorcan

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: /G=Owen/S=Smith/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk
Subject: Re: High res Colour Printing in RISCOS 3.1
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 13:40:20 GMT

blacka@logica.co.uk wrote:

>However, I discovered that the 3.1 driver does not support
>colour in resolutions above 180x180.  I appreciate that high
>resolution colour printing is not for those in a hurry, but
>on occasions one is prepared  to wait.

>Is this a restriction on the way that the Acorn driver
>software works or can it be sorted out by adjusting the
>printer config file.

If you haven't read it already, read what I wrote on App2 in the
Printers.Epson.Read_Me file (assuming you're using the Epson.LQ-860 file as
recommended for the Star XB24-10 in the Star.Read_Me file). The
Epson.Read_Me file entry for the Epson.LQ-860 says:

"... Colour is available for the non interlaced graphics resolutions ie.
180 by 180 DPI or lower (for an explanation as to why colour is not enabled
for interlace printouts, see the comments above about the Epson.JX-80
file). ..."

The entry for the Epson.JX-80 says:

"The "Epson.JX-80" printer definition file is the same as the "Epson.FX-80"
file, except that it uses colour for non interlaced graphics printouts ie.
120 by 72 DPI or lower. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, interlaced
colour printing would involve an excessively large number of  print head
passes (8, 12, 16 or 24) over the same line on the paper. Secondly, on the
second or subsequent interlace passes, the light ribbon colours (eg. yellow)
would be printing on top of dark colours already on the paper. This causes
contamination of the lighter ribbon colour and seriously reduces usable
ribbon life - unless you are happy with muddy yellows."

This explains why I didn't put colour interlaced resolutions in. In a school
environment (and many others), it just isn't appropriate as it takes forever
and destroys the ribbon in no time at all (and schools can't afford to waste
consumables like that). Kids being kids, it is very likely that left to
their own devices they'll select what appears to them to be the best
resolution ie. the highest.

As to what you can do about it, all you need to do is play around with
!PrintEdit for 10 minutes. I did actually try 360 by 360 colour on a Star
LC24-200, starting with a brand new ribbon. It took FOREVER to print (16
head passes per line) and the paper was a soggy mess afterwards. The 180 by
180 printout of the same picture actually looked better. (There was a review
of colour dot matrix printers in Acorn User about 18 months to 2 years ago
that said the same thing ie. 180 by 180 looked better than 360 by 360.) On
top of this, when I tried it the ribbon needed changing after just one page
of 360 by 360 - the yellow just wasn't yellow anymore after over-printing so
much on darker colours. I stand by my decision not to make interlaced colour
resolutions available in the supplied printer definition files. If you want
to add it yourself, go ahead. !PrintEdit is all you need.

Owen.
From: colin@archie.integrity.nl (Colin Smale)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Printing Problem
Date: 16 Dec 92 23:33:53 GMT
Reply-To: colin@archie.integrity.nl
Organization: Colin Smale's Archimedes Rucp installation test

I have just been printing an Impression document to my ageing dot-matrix
printer by 'printing' first to a file, and subsequently dragging the file
onto the printer icon after configuring it to use the parallel port again.
The Printout file was +/- 100K in length. After about 2/3 or 3/4 had been
printed, I got an error box with the message 'Internal Error: Address
Exception at &038B5BE0'. This points to somewhere within the BASIC module. I
tried several times, with the same result, albeit at very slightly different
points on the page; I tried keeping an eye on the Queue, and it appeared to
occur as the percentage indication (which is wrong, as it counts the bytes
put into the buffer so it is based on 32K more having been printed than has
actually hit the paper) reaches 100%. Printing the same document directly
goes OK. The actual size of the Printout file was 102951 bytes.

Anyone got any clues?

Colin Smale

-- 
Snail-mail:	Colin Smale, Spechtenkamp 87, NL-3607 KE Maarssenbroek, NL
Tel.:		+31 3465 69038 (voice)
E-mail: 	colin@integrity.nl
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: nas20@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Subject: Re: lha de-archiving
Reply-To: nas20@phx.cam.ac.uk
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 21:26:39 GMT

In article <memo.810571@cix.compulink.co.uk> amclintock@cix.compulink.co.uk writes:
>In-Reply-To: <724350017.8794@minster.york.ac.uk> pjt-b@minster.york.ac.uk
>
>TITLE: lha de-archiving
>
>> I am in need of a utility to de-archive lha compressed files.
>Ok.
>
>> Do any versions of Spark or arcfs handle these?
>Not that I know of.
>

SparkFS handles lha archives (and just about everything else !) Contact
the author, David Pilling, for details - or look in one of his ads.

Nick.
--
Nick Smith, Rm.226, Churchill College, Cambridge ! Email: nas20@uk.ac.cam.phx
.sig quote wanted - must be under guarantee.     ! Tel: (0223) 465596
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: tytgat@esat.kuleuven.ac.be (John Tytgat)
Subject: TeX/Wimp/Morley SCSIFS/keyboardhandler
Originator: tytgat@rilke
Reply-To: tytgat@esat.kuleuven.ac.be (John Tytgat)
Organization: K.U.Leuven, Belgium
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 10:11:59 GMT

These questions are posted on behalf of Simon Baas, who can't post
for himself...

If you want to reply, then reply to the following adres :
                   mp17@rulhp2.LeidenUniv.nl

John
tytgat@esat.kuleuven.ac.be
BASS

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

1. Is it possible to modify TeX so, that it uses the Risc OS
   outline fonts ? I want to be able to convert a TeX file to
   something readable without needing the whole TeX font set as
   it takes up lots of space.

2. When using Wimp_GetWindowInfo to read a window block, you also get
   32 bytes for each icon the window contains.  How do you know how
   many icons a window contains ? Note : You can't use the word at location
   84 in the window definition, because when you read that word using
   Wimp_GetWindowInfo you also get the icon blocks ! And you do not know
   the size of the block of memory to allocate... :-(

3. When I use Wimp_GetIconState to read icon data, I can also read icon
   data of non-existing icons.  Why isn't an error generated ? It would be
   nice if the flags would be updated when using XWimp_GetIconState...

4. Has anyone noticed this "bug" in the Morley SCSIFS :
   When clicking on the iconbar icon the root filer window is opened as
   usual, but as a side-effect, the current directory is reset to the root.
   This is very annoying, in particular when running a Task Window which
   is processing files without full pathnames.

   Morley claims that the drive must be mounted each time the user clicks
   on the iconbar.  But ADFS doesn't mount the disc...
   Can anyone shed some light on this.  Is the behaviour of the Morley card
   normal ?

5. Does anyone know how to write an international keyboardhandler ?

Simon Baas
mp17@rulhp2.LeidenUniv.nl
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Programming Artworks?
Date: 18 Dec 92 11:05:18 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

derijkp@reks.uia.ac.be (Peter De Rijk) writes:

>I need to make rather specialised drawings (for the molecular biologists
>under you: RNA secundary structure models). Rumour has it that it is 
>possible to write extensions to Artworks. I would like to know whether this is 
>indeed possible, how it is done, how difficult (or easy) it is, and what the
>possibilities are. I need the possibility to create the drawing on basis of a 
>data file.
>I think I would also need following features:
>      dynamic grouping: The drawings are kind of tree like: when the user 
>         selects a branch (for instanse to rotate it), all depending branches 
>         should be selected and rotated together with the parent.
>      Text following a line, but the letters allways stay horizontal when 
>         rotated (yes somewhat like rotating a group of characters in 
>         RISC OS 2 Draw)
>I would like to know whether it is possible to implement these things 
>in/together with Artworks, well, for a non official developer that is.

If you only need to manipulate the tree structures, and no other fancy
objects it may be easier to make your own program from scratch that
just uses the Draw/Artworks data format and calls the module for
display. I have made programs that generate Draw format and have used
the Draw module for display. The hard part may be to program the
interactive manipulation part. I think something as fundamental as
selecting and grouping objects may be exceedingly difficult to change
in Artworks. I think the Artworks extensions are intended for adding
new kinds of objects and new transformations on existing objects.

	Torben Mogensen (torbenm@diku.dk)
From: gilbertd@cs.man.ac.uk (David Alan Gilbert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Screen goes white while accessing drive
Date: 14 Dec 92 14:17:33 GMT

Hi All, Does anyone have the same symptoms?

I've got Risc OS 3.1, ARM 3 (Leading edge) Morley
uncached SCSI card.  When I copy a lot of stuff
from floppy to hard drive in say mode 16 occasionaly
the screen goes white for a second or two - while
accessing the hard drive.  I didnt think this
should happen with an ARM 3 and I definitly
thought it shouldnt happen on hard drives.

Morley says it is Risc OS which does it - but I thought
this only happened if you ran out of bandwidth or something
similar?

Any suggestions - Dave
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: hobbs@rocks.enet.dec.com (Mike Hobbs)
Subject: Remote Arc control via serial port
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 02:16:15 GMT


I have a need to do remote control of an A310 over a serial modem link
and I'm wondering what software there may be that does this?

I can do some of what I want just by getting the remote user to type in
*FX3,5  *FX2,1  but this has many problems especially if you want to go
back to the desktop and resume Hearsay for zmodem ftp.  In my case the
user at the other end gets confused with instructions longer than
"Press f12 and type *FX2,1" and automating procedures over the wire is
very difficult.

I'm currently trying to write some Cscript code to allow Hearsay to
send OS commands to the CLI but I'm having trouble with that because I
don't have enough knowledge of how Hearsay's Cscript routines get
invoked whilst Hearsay is running.  Any wizards out there with
experience?  (I don't want to pester David Pilling unless I have to,
and I don't expect I'll get a reply from Risc Developments this side of
Christmas).

Ideally what I want is a program that can be invoked on the remote A310
which can send all serial port data to the CLI and invoke zmodem or
other ftp from the command line.

Mike Hobbs
hobbs@rocks.enet.dec.com
From: csudp@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr R E Broadley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: adfsbuffers
Date: 20 Dec 92 23:14:43 GMT
Organization: Computing Services, University of Warwick, UK
NNTP-Posting-Host: lily.csv.warwick.ac.uk

I have an A5000 with R3.0. I was told to set my adfsbuffers to 0K due to a bug
in the OS, but this caused floppy disk read/write to be much too slow. What
should I have my adfsbuffers set to?

Also, writing to a PC format disk is very slow. Might have have something
incorrectly configured which is causing this?

Thanks for any help given,
	Richard
-- 
Richard Broadley,	       (      ...  rebroad@uk.ac.warwick.dcs      .
Dept of Computer Science,      )      ..    csudp@uk.ac.warwick.csv      ..
University of Warwick,         (      .     rbroadle@isis.cs.du.edu     ...
Coventry CV4 7AL, UK           )      .....................................
From: J.P.OBroin@newcastle.ac.uk (Jason O'Broin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Finding the CSD
Date: 17 Dec 92 17:41:46 GMT
Organization: Computing Laboratory, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK NE1 7RU.


In article <1992Dec16.124633.1@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz>, banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz writes:
>In article <1gke2bINN2up@swan.doc.ic.ac.uk>, mybg@doc.ic.ac.uk (M Y Ben Gershon) writes:
>> dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk (Denis Howe) writes:
>[bits deleted]
>> -Set FS <FileSwitch$CurrentFilingSystem>
>> -SetEval CSD "<FS>:"+FileSwitch$<FS>$CSD
>> 
>> I am sorry to disappoint you, but this does not work either!  It remains
>> constant and is not altered when the csd is changed.
>
>   Of course it doesn't. It is not a code variable. To do what you want
>would reqire writing some short assembler. This approach is designed to
>allow you to find out the CSD at a *particular point in time*. This is
>useful for Obey scripts that need to know the CSD or whatever but is by no
>means intended to be a continually updating CSD variable.
>

Would it not be possible to create a macro variable which did an eval as above?
I don't have access to a machine at the moment, so I can't play with the idea.

Jason
--
( Recommended Reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance 
                       Robert M. Pirsig                                       )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: /G=Owen/S=Smith/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk
Subject: Re: adfsbuffers
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:08:33 GMT

m_sattle@informatik.uni-kl.de (Matthias Sattler) wrote:

>What are adfsbuffers really good for?

>They should speed up the (hard)disc access but in fact they don't.
>I tried many different tests (hd-speed tests, compiling c programs, ...)
>on the harddisc of my A540 (RO2) with adfsbuffers 0 and adfsbuffers 256k.
>EVERY test with adfsbuffers configured was slightly slower than the test
>without adfsbuffers.
>Hmmmmmm... funny isn't it?

Not really. Since the A540 has a SCSI hard disk, changing ADFSBuffers isn't
going to make the slightest difference. What you need in this case is some
SCSIFSBuffers, but Acorn SCSIFS doesn't support buffers. Brian Brunswick's
SCSIFS does, and is obtainable as Partitions on Newcastle. ADFSBuffers
should measurably speed up your ADFS floppy accesses, but be careful what
sort of access you time. OS_GBPB random file access benefits a lot more than
OS_File Load and Save.

Owen.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: CFD: Icon names in templates
From: Gavin.Flower@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Gavin Flower)
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 20:26:03 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci., Victoria Uni. of Wellington, New Zealand.

In article <1992Dec15.100256.27370@gate.esat.kuleuven.ac.be> tytgat@esat.kuleuven.ac.be (John Tytgat) writes:
>In article <1992Dec14.223454.12513@cs.aukuni.ac.nz> jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA) writes:
[...]
>>So any suggestions I will collect and pass on to him if he doesn't get them
>>for himself...
[...]

Sometimes, it would have been useful to have the details of 2 icons
visible at the same time, for comparison and checking purposes.
Possible this could be added.


Gavin
-- 
Tomorrow's Society                              | flower_g@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
    Depends on                                   ----------------------------
Today's Children  - help us raise them properly! 
*******  These comments have no known correlation with dept. policy!  *******
From: gpcec@westminster.ac.uk (Tom Kirby-Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: RISC OS 3 validation strings.
Date: 14 Dec 92 11:23:54 GMT
Organization: University of Westminster

Plea for RISC OS 3 details...

	Does anyone have any info on the new (ish ) validation strings for
RISC OS 3. I need the ones that allow 3D type icons ( where can I get hold
of details for the "offical" set that everyone is on about ? ). Secondly
I understand its possible to make the pointer change shape when its over
a icon. Does anyone have the validation str' for this too? I "think" the 
ones I need are "P" and "K" ( not sure ). 
	Any help very much welcomed... Oh, thanks to all for sorting out
the resspr / indirected icons business. Much clearer. WHY wasn't all this
IN the manual WHERE IT BELONGS??? "Myth and Lore" is not the best way to
spread this kind of information!

		Just trying to be, Tom.

-- 
/---| The University of Westminster : BSc Computer Science. Hons, Year 3 |---\
| Tom Kirby-Green            Email : gpcec@sun.pcl.ac.uk  or  Silence@Arcade |
\----------| "Merry XMas to all, and a Windows(tm) free new year". |---------/
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: m_sattle@informatik.uni-kl.de (Matthias Sattler)
Subject: Re: adfsbuffers
Organization: University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 20:36:21 GMT

/G=Owen/S=Smith/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk wrote:

>>What are adfsbuffers really good for?

>>They should speed up the (hard)disc access but in fact they don't.
>>I tried many different tests (hd-speed tests, compiling c programs, ...)
>>on the harddisc of my A540 (RO2) with adfsbuffers 0 and adfsbuffers 256k.
>>EVERY test with adfsbuffers configured was slightly slower than the test
>>without adfsbuffers.
>>Hmmmmmm... funny isn't it?
>
>Not really. Since the A540 has a SCSI hard disk, changing ADFSBuffers isn't
>going to make the slightest difference. What you need in this case is some
>SCSIFSBuffers, but Acorn SCSIFS doesn't support buffers. Brian Brunswick's
>SCSIFS does, and is obtainable as Partitions on Newcastle. ADFSBuffers
>should measurably speed up your ADFS floppy accesses, but be careful what
>sort of access you time. OS_GBPB random file access benefits a lot more than
>OS_File Load and Save.
>
>Owen.

Things definitely are slower with adfsbuffers configured.

Matthias Sattle

email: m_sattle@informatik.uni-kl.de
From: erikp@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl (Erik van de Pol)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: CFD: Icon names in templates
Date: 16 Dec 92 09:54:51 GMT
Organization: MCGV Stack, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

TMOTA (jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz) wrote:
: wsinda@wsintt02.info.win.tue.nl (Dick Alstein) writes:
: 
: (a lot)
: 
: So any suggestions I will collect and pass on to him if he doesn't get them
: for himself...
: -- 
: _________________  "I'd like to answer this question in two ways:
:   /____ _ _/_ __       First in my normal voice, and then
:  // / //_//_ /_/       in a silly, high-pitched whine." (Monty Python)

It would be very nice if such an editor would allow panes to be defined without a pain. I mean: if you now have a pane, you have to construct a mechanism that
will do all the pain-handling for you. If you want to alter the position of the
pain, you have to dig in your code and alter it there too.

A new meta-icon that would allow you to enter text instead of lines of text.
More or less some kind of (very simple) text editor. This may not be easy, but
if this program does all kinds of 'standard' interface control, your programs
can be created much quicker.

Oh and eh, if you have a chance, go to somebody who has a NeXT computer and playwith NeXTStep for a while. I am sure you will have plenty ideas after a session
on a NeXT.


-- 
.....................................................................
>> Erik van de Pol -- (erikp@stack.urc.tue.nl) -- Phone: 01659-4625
>> Snail: Mgr Nelislaan 10 / 4741AB / Hoeven / The Netherlands
>> Send flames to your local Fire Squad; they know how to handle them.