TAKING A SHORTER PATH

                             by Bill Woolford.


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BIO.

    I am a recording engineer by trade, and recently I have started using
  the Amiga in my work.  At home I have set up an Amiga 3000 with a 120mg
  and a 1gig hard drive, running Studio 16 (8 track digital multi track
  recorder).  I bring home Radio programmes/interviews on a DAT tape, run it
  into the 3000, and edit/mix to the finished product.  I find that this
  setup shows up very favourably with the IBM based digital equipment at
  work, and a lot cheaper.

    Along side this is the humble Amiga 600 with 40mg hard drive.  I use
  this to prepare my music play lists, and any thing I need to keep a record
  of programmes.  For this I use Prowrite (word processor) and Superbase 4
  (database).

    This setup is used also to produce Entertainment programmes for one of
  our Airlines.

F KEY.
 
    When I bought my first Amiga, a 500, it had five icons to view after
  loading workbench.  These were RAM WORK SYSTEM 2.0 QUICKWRITE (word
  processor) and SUPERBASE (database).

    Well with three teenage children all wanting hard disk space for games,
  and my own programmes quickly filling up the screen, something had to be
  done.  I decided to group the programmes and place them in various
  Drawers.

    Opening up WORK soon revealed icon's like WORD PROCESSORS DATABASES
  GAMES UTILITIES etc.

    Before long if I wanted to get into Quickwrite (word processor) I ended
  up with a path like...........

    Work:Bill's_stuff/word_processors/quickwrite/quickwrite

    Putting all my programmes in a drawer (Bill's stuff) saved having the
  wrong programmes or files being erased when the kids started moving files
  around.  Purchasing a second Amiga was a better idea, but that came later.

    I now had to open five icons to get to Quickwrite.  An easy way was to
  open a blank screen on Quickwrite then save it to Work:.  Then by clicking
  on its icon (quickwrites) I would auto open the programme.  I ended up
  creating a letter blank that had the margins, paragraph indent, my address
  etc all attached to this Quickwrite icon sitting in Work, and by double
  clicking the icon would load Quickwrite and the letter blank.  I am now
  using Quickwrite's big brother Prowrite, but for text only document's
  (like this) I still favour going back to Quickwrite.

    My knowledge of the Amiga was and still is limited, and I like to
  fiddle, and try out new things and attempt to find out what makes it tick.

    By this time the 500 was replaced with a 600, and then I added the 3000.

    Now many people have knocked the 600, but for my work I have found it to
  be ideal.  Being smaller I can cart it around from place to place if
  needed, and it sits on my computer desk easier than the 500 (it took up
  too much room).

    I am using Workbench 2.1 and I started to check out the various
  programmes supplied with the WB disks, and tucked away in one of the
  drawers I came upon an icon called FKEY.

    One of its many functions is to set up the function keys to run any of
  the programmes on your hard disk.  Now instead of having to open several
  drawers to get to the programme in question it is a simple process to boot
  the Amiga (in my case a 600 or 3000) then when the WB screen appears press
  one of the function keys to launch the programme I need.

    One thing I find, is that quite often the manual does not make it clear
  just how to go about certain functions, and as I quickly found out it took
  reading a couple of books, a video, and a bit of experiment to finally get
  it together.

    These instructions are mainly for the beginner, as I found it difficult
  at first to comprehend lots of instructions when I first started out.

    This is how you go about the task using WB2.1
  
First lets find F KEY.

    Open System 2.0 (double click on its icon).  HARD DRIVE USERS.  For
  floppy users load Workbench then replace it with EXTRAS 2.1, and open this
  disk.

    Open TOOLS drawer.
    Open Commodities drawer.

    Open F Key.

    Select by clicking once on NEW KEY.

    Enter the function key number you wish to use (eg F1) in box.  To use
  the ALT + F1 combination enter ALT F1 (leave a space between ALT and F1.

    Next move the mouse to the COMMAND box and cycle through it by pressing
  the left mouse button until the box displays RUN PROGRAMME.

    Select COMMAND PARAMETERS by clicking in its box.
  
    Now type in the complete path to your programme.

    Add extra function key numbers and paths as required.

    At this stage nothing is saved so if you power down, all is lost.  To
  save your settings, select (with left mouse button) PROJECT from top left
  of pull down menu, then move mouse down until SAVE DEFINED KEYS is
  selected.  Release mouse button.

    At this stage you would need to open the FKEY programme every time you
  wanted to launch a programme you have set up.  To automatically run the
  FKEY programme all you need to do is copy it into your WB STARTUP drawer.
  
    Open System 2.0 then open WB startup and drag the Fkey icon into the WB
  startup drawer.  Now whenever you boot your Amiga, all the function keys
  you have set will be ready to launch the programmes.

  Only one problem, the FKEY window will also open.

    To get rid of this you need to alter one line within the FKEY icon.

  Select the FKEY icon.
  Select INFORMATION from pull down menu.

  Select the line in the middle of the window.

  CX_POPUP=YES

  Change this to CX_POPUP=NO

  Select save.

  The project is now complete.

    One last thing you can do is to make up a template out of paper or
  cardboard with a hole cut out of it so that it will fit neatly over the
  function keys.  You can then write against each key the name of the
  programme that it launches.  This way you don't forget which programme is
  attached to each key.


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