Menu ~~~~ © M.Meany, 1991. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 4 Colour Version ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The disc menu system was written primarily for the ACC discs, hence the huge logo at the top. In this form it may be considered PD, use as you will,however,you are asked not to alter any of the display graphics. Should you wish to use a customised version of this menu for either a disc magazine of your own, or to circulate modules/graphics done by a group, you must first obtain my written permission. The logo at the top can be changed and I leave it to you to supply the GFX ( as an IFF brush, dimensions width 600, height 44, depth 2 ). The contents of the left most About gadget must be left for me. I am open to suggestions for addittional in-built support features. Usage ~~~~~ The menu runs by reading configuration files from disc. The first file read MUST be named acc0 and MUST be located in the current s directory. Sub menus are supported, these may be located anywhere on the disc. The reason for doing this is to allow a disc to be built up a directory at a time, as each directory is added so is a config file for it. All that then remains is a link to this config file from an exsisting config file. The Config Files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A config file is basically a straight forward ASCII file. You can create one using any basic text editor ( including ED on your original Workbench disc ). Each file referenced from the menu requires two lines in the config file. The first line defines what text will appear in the menu selection box and in what colour. The second lines informs the menu what action to take if this line is selected! The menu can load and decrunch config files crunched using Nico Francois PowerPacker, this can save upto 60% filespace on text files! Line 1: The Discriptor ====================== The first line should start with a digit from 0 to 3 that defines what colour the text following it should be in! Immediately after this digit should be the text that is displayed. The displayed text should not be more than thirty two characters, I assume you can count and do not check this! The menu selection box is filled with colour 2. This means that you should avoid using colour 2 for text, unless you wish to add entries that are invisible until selected! I tend to use colour 0 for section headings and information text, colour 1 for entries that do something and colour 3 for sub menu selections. Of course the choice is entirely yours! Eg's. ----- 1/ An entry for a text file covering weather prediction techniques (???). The entry is to be displayed in colour 0: 0Weather Prediction 2/ An IFF picture following this showing a satalite picture of the Earth, to be displayed in colour 3: 3Satalite Picture 3/ An entry for a sub-menu detailing low pressure zones, displayed in colour 1: 1>>>>Low Pressure Zones Line 2: Action. =============== The second line informs the menu what to do if this entry was selected. The first character on the line is the command to the menu, this must normally be followed by a filename. In all cases it is safest to enter the full pathname of a file, this leaves nothing to chance. The commands supported at present are: Command Action ------- ------ E Execute the following program (1). R Read the following text file (2). V View the following IFF ILBM picture file (3). P Play the following NoiseTracker module (4). p Stop playing a module (4). M Switch to following sub-menu (5). Q Quit the menu system (6). @ No action, ignore selection (7). Lets take a look at each entry in turn along with an example! (1) Execute a Program. ---------------------- Do not confuse this with the DOS command execute, used to execute script files. I have used E for Execute since R ( for Run ) was already in use for Read. This entry can be used to run a program from disc. Note the main menu page stays open, but you should avoid accessing it as nothing will happen! Eg's. ----- 1/ To allow access to a text editor from within the menu, use something along the lines of: Esys:tools/Ed In this case, the text editor is called Ed and is located in the directory sys:tools/. It may be that you wished to allow a certain file to be edited. Providing the editor accepts a command line argument, most programs do, then you could use something along the lines of: Esys:tools/Ed sys:docs/Letter This would cause the editor to be run and the parameter 'sys:docs/Letter' would be passed to it just as if you had typed it in at the CLI. (2) Read a Text File -------------------- The menu comes with a built-in text file reader. You specify the name of a text file and it will be loaded and displayed. The user can browse the file using a selection of gadgets. There is also a search facility and a print facility available. The menu is also capable of loading text files that have been crunched using PowerPacker by Nico Francois. Eg's. ----- Remember the weather prediction file mentioned earlier? Well suppose this file was located in the Weather_Docs directory on a disc called Met: and the file was named Prediction, this would give the file a full pathname of 'Met:Weather_Docs/Prediction'. So to instruct the menu to display this text file: Rmet:weather_docs/predictions The text displayer will decrunch the file if necessary. If a text file fails to load control is passed back to the menu. (3) View an IFF ILBM Picture File --------------------------------- First, I must thank Steve Marshall for supplying me with the ILBM loader source used for this routine, it hasn't let me down yet! An IFF ILBM is the standard format file produced by most commercial art packages, ie Delux Paint ( I, II, III and IV ), Photon Paint ( I and II ). The menu comes with a built-in picture displayer that handles all resolution pics I've so far encountered. It can also display 'brushes' saved from the above mentioned packages. A picture is displayed until the user presses the left mouse button. To get the menu to display a picture file, simply put the name of the file after the V command: Vmet:pics/satalite.pic This will display the picture called 'satalite.pic' found in the directory 'met:pics/'. If a picture fails to load control is passed back to the menu. (4) Play a NoiseTracker Module. ------------------------------- I included this feature basically because I have a lot of first-hand dealing with NoiseTracker modules ... If you want the replayer replaced with a different one ( eg, MED ), write to me! PowerPacked modules can be played by this routine. As with all other options so far, the filename of the module should follow the P command: Pmet:modules/hurricane.mod Here, the module in question is called 'hurricane.mod' and can be found in the directory 'met:modules'. To stop a module playing, you will have to include a 'Kill Music' option (or something similar ). A module will play until a 'p' command is executed. Note that the stop module command is a lowercase p while the play command is an uppercase P. The module will not effect the operation of the system. When the program quits, any module still playing will be stopped! (5) Switch to Sub-Menu ---------------------- To allow the menu system reflect the disc organisation and to allow related files to be accessed from individual menus, a sub-menu system has been employed. It does not have to be used as there is no limit ( except RAM ) on the size of a config file. Specifying a sub-menu causes the current menu to be forgotten and a new config file to be read from disc and used. The only restriction on this is that the first config file is called acc0 and is located in the s directory. Other config files can be called whatever you wish and can be located anywhere on the disc, as with all other commands so far you follow the command with the filename of the config file. If the config file specified cannot be found or loaded then a polite message appears in the selection box along with a QUIT option. There is no way of recovering from this, the user is forced to quit the menu, but at least he/she is told why! Eg. --- Going back to the hypothetical weather disc, suppose the config file for the low pressure systems menu was located in the directory 'met:configs' and was called 'low.menu', the following command would load it: Mmet:configs/low.menu (6) Quit The Menu. ------------------ Well all good thing have to come to an end and the user will eventually finish browsing your disc. To give the opportunity of quitting the menu gracefully, use the Q command. This does not require a filename after it! You can have as many Q commands as you wish in any menu ( or sub-menu ). Eg. --- Q (7) No Action. -------------- This feature allows you to make entries in the menu that, if selected, do nothing. You can use such entries for subject headings, usage instructions or just about any other message you wish. Eg. --- @ Bringing It All Together. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To finish off I will give an example menu based on the weather disc examples used above. NOTE: IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU PRESS RETURN AT THE END OF THE LAST LINE OF THE FILE, THE MENU PROGRAM SEARCHES FOR LINE FEED BYTES INSERTED IN THE TEXT BY DOING THIS. FAILURE TO DO THIS WILL RESULT IN THE LAST MENU ENTRY BEING IGNORED! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. In the example file below each line is numbered, this is for explanation only! Do not number the lines in a real config file, it will confuse the menu program no end! Each line starts after the > symbol. #### Start, don't include this line! 1 >0 Weather Disc >@ 2 >1 >@ 3 >1 Predicting The Weather >Rmet:weather_docs/predictions 4 >1 >@ 5 >1 A Satalite Picture >Vmet:pics/satalite.pic 6 >1 >@ 7 >1 The Howling Wind >Pmet:modules/hurricane.mod 8 >1 >@ 9 >1 Storm Emulation >Emet:c/animplayer met:anims/storm 10>1 >@ 11>0 Sub Menus >@ 12>3 Low Pressure Systems >Mmet:configs/low.menu 13>3 High Pressure Systems >Mmet:configs/high.menu 14>1 >@ 15>3 !!! QUIT !! >Q #### End, don't include this line! As you can see there will be fifteen entries in this menu. Entries 2,4,6,8,10 and 14 will show as blank lines that have no effect when selected. Entries 1 and 11 are examples of headings and have no effect when selected. Entry 3 will display a text file. Entry 5 will display an IFF picture. Entry 7 will play a noisetracker module. Entry 9 will cause an animation player to run. It will be passed the name of the animation file, 'met:anims/storm', to show. Entries 12 and 13 will pass control to other config files and hence other menus. Entry 15 allows the user to quit. If this was the main menu for the disc, it would be called acc0 and stored in the s directory. Running The Menu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The menu requires three things to run: 1/ An initial config file called acc0 in the s directory. 2/ The powerpacker.library in the libs directory. 3/ Run in the c directory. For this reason it is safest to run the menu from the startup-sequence of a disc employing it, no parameters required. Do not give the program an icon and run from the Workbench. There is a bug within the run ( E ) routine at present that requires a parent CLI. To avoid this use IconX, this can be used to set the s, c and libs directories to the required disc also. Example IconX script: assign c: met:c assign libs: met:libs assign s: met:s met:menu assign s: sys:s assign libs: sys:libs assign c: sys:c Feedback ~~~~~~~~ If you use this menu and would like to see improvements made, send your suggestions to me. Only letter with a stamped sae will be replied to. Mark Meany, 216 Bluebell Road, Southampton, Hant's. The Future ~~~~~~~~~~ As already mentioned, I am working on an eight colour version of the program. Hopefully I will have added more support functions also. Details of this will be available from Amiganuts United at the following address: 169 Dale Valley Road, Southampton, Hant's. Credits ~~~~~~~ Main Programming and GFX : Mark Meany ILBM loader + Interrupts : Steve Marshall powerpacker.library : Nico Francois