August/September 1990 AMIGA Plus Disk Instructions If this is your original disk that came with AMIGA Plus Magazine PLEASE MAKE A COPY IMMEDIATELY! See BACKUP INSTRUCTIONS at the end of this text, if needed. Also, if you have only 512K memory close any other windows and programs before exploring this disk interface. ********************************************************************* * All programs on this disk are Copyright 1990 by AMIGA Plus and * * MAY NOT be redistributed. Any exceptions are specifically called * * "redistributable utilities." * ********************************************************************* Welcome to AMIGA Plus Disk Volume 2, Number 3. To scroll through the text in this window, drag the slider or click on the up-down arrows at the right side of the screen. Many of the programs on this extra-full disk are compressed due to their size. However, installing them onto separate floppies couldn't be easier. Just follow the directions with each program's instructions. To print these instructions, click on the PRINT INSTRUCTIONS button below. This AMIGA Plus Disk contains all these programs: TIGER CUB DEMO -- (1Mb RAM Required) This complete demo version of TIGER Cub by Dr. T's Music Software does everything the commercial version does, except save or print your music. This sophisticated MIDI sequencer works with your MIDI devices as well as internal Amiga sounds. The complete demo takes up nearly three quarters of a disk, but we used LHArc (included!) to crunch the whole demo drawer into one largish file (cub.lzh ... Ok so it's huge.) To un-crunch the demo, click on the INSTALL TIGER CUB button in this window and follow the simple instructions. Run the decompressed demo by double-clicking on the CubDemo icon in the TigerCubDemo drawer. You need at least 1 MEGABYTE of memory to run the demo! To hear the included song, HipHopDemo, select Load through the Project menu and double-click on the file HipHopDemo.CUB. Next locate the Utilities menu on the right side of the screen and select Internal Sounds. Then click on the "Load Instrument Bank" button on the bottom half of the screen and select the file HipHopDemo.SND. Once the samples have been loaded, return to the sequencer window by clicking on the "OK" button. Now press the space bar or click on the tape deck Play button to start the music. ABACKUP -- (Hard disk utility) This extensive hard disk backup program stores the contents of your hard disk on floppies, so you can recover the information if a crash occurs. We crunched the whole ABackup drawer down. To un-crunch the program, click on the INSTALL ABACKUP button below and follow the instructions. After you have decompressed the program, you must edit its configuration file to fit your system. Double-clicking on the ConfigureAbackup icon in the Abackup drawer leads you through the editing. Details of the configuration file are explained in the file Abackup.doc. FLASH JAPANESE -- Learn elementary Japanese the multimedia way with this CanDo application by Rob Griffith -- other languages can be substituted, if you type in the neccessary vocabulary. To run Flash Japanese click on the TEACH ME JAPANESE! box in this window. MODEMHELPER -- This is a very flexible FILE DECOMPRESSION CHAMBER by Mark Lanoux. Using ModemHelper, you can decompress files in any compressed format with a few mouse clicks. You can also easily select a destination for your files, and read instructions or execute scripts which are commonly included in "archived" files. ModemHelper requires that the ARP.library (on this disk) must be installed in your LIBS: directory of your Workbench disk. See the ARP.library instructions below for further details. ModemHelper can look up default settings for the archive format and such in a file called modemhelper.config in your S: directory. The modemhelper.config file on this disk has settings which will work with the LHArc archive utility included on this disk. In fact, ModemHelper uses these settings to decompress Abackup and the TIGER Cub Demo. To run ModemHelper (after installing the ARP.library) simply double-click on its icon. FINDIT -- This simple CLI database by Don Maxwell is actually an AmigaDOS script that searches text files for a given string. This makes it handy to set up an address book file, for example. We have included an example database file (AmigaManufacturers) on disk which contains the information on over 200 Amiga software and hardware companies. To use FindIt, open a Shell window and type: CD AMIGAPlus2.3: Then call FindIt by typing: FindIt "search string" Database AmigaManufacturers This will display all the lines in AmigaManufacturers which contain the words "search string" (There probably aren't any lines like that, but if you tried "Commodore" instead you should get something). WORKBENCH XPRESS (WBX) -- WBX is a small Workbench utility by Arnie Cachelin which makes your life easier by letting you execute CLI commands with a mouse. You can combine several commands in a single icon to create simple "scripts" for some of your more common operations. When you have set up your WBX icon to do what you want, you should rename it so you remember what it does. You can find some examples already installed in the WBX icon on this disk. To enter a command or series of commands into WBX's icon, click on the icon and select INFO from the Workbench menu. When the Info window command comes up, click in the ToolTypes window and edit the text. If there is no text, and no cursor appears in the ToolTypes box, click the ADD button. This will add a blank ToolType line below the current line. When you have added several commands, you can scroll through them by clicking on the up and down arrows. Extra command lines can be deleted by clicking on the DEL button. Whenever you enter or edit a ToolType entry, it is advisable to hit "return" before moving on to the next field. If you don't do this, the ToolTypes may run together. When the list of ToolTypes looks OK, click on the Save button. There are some other options for WBX which use the ToolTypes list in the Amiga standard way. These ToolTypes options are: WINDOW -- Specifies size, position, title of WBX output window, using the standard spec (WINDOW=CON:0/0/100/100/MyWindow). If no WINDOW is specified, WBX opens its default window. If no window is desired, the ToolType WINDOW=NIL: will work, but if the INTERACTIVE option is also set, then you will surely crash your Amiga. INTERACTIVE -- This option will allow interactive commands to receive input from the console window, just enter INTERACTIVE=(anything). This is primarily intended to allow scripts which require user input (e.g. via the ASK command) to be run with the EXECUTE command. The WBX window WILL NOT close automatically if this option is specified, but requires that an ENDCLI command be the LAST command encountered, either in the script or as a separate ToolType. You can also just type ENDCLI into the window to close it. If you forget to use this ToolType when you EXECUTE a script which uses ASK, the script will run fine, and get a NO to every ASK. To best use these ToolType options, they should all be at the bottom of the list, and be separated by a blank entry. When WBX reads your ToolTypes list, it looks for an empty entry to signal the end of the list. If you have a blank ToolType anywhere in the list, WBX will stop executing there. This would be a problem if the blank were before an important command, but it is very useful to keep WBX from trying to execute the WINDOW or INTERACTIVE ToolTypes. Of course if it does try, you will get a little error like "Unknown Command: WINDOW=NIL:". To separate the options from the commands, scroll to the last ToolType before the options start, and click on the ADD button. C language source code for WBX (WBX.c) is also on this disk. MICROBROWSER -- This small but powerful redistributable utility by Eric Schwertfeger gives you file requester convenience with most CLI commands. It functions like WBX described above; you enter commands into the icon's tooltypes, then rename it to something more appropriate. The MicroBrowser icon on this disk should be renamed to something like PrintAFile, since it is configured to copy a text file to the printer. In fact you could use it to print this text (Disk.doc). More examples are included in the icon's tooltypes. MicroBrowser requires the ARP.library, so read the section on the ARP.library below for further instructions. To avoid crashing your computer don't run MicroBrowser without the ARP.library! MicroBrowser is also valuable as a CLI command, because you can use the ARP file requester to select a picture to view or a file to un-arc. Setting up an alias to shorten a particular command line is also advisable, since the command ALIAS Pic "MicroBrowser COM c:show TITLE ShowPicture" will let you type "pic" and get a file requester to search for and view picture files. MicroBrowser can also be called with a left-Amiga and a function key by adding "KEY Fx" to the command line where x is the function key number. Further instructions are in the file MicroBrowser.doc. The assembly language source code for MicroBrowser is in the file mb.a. ARP.LIBRARY -- Two of the programs on this issue's AMIGA Plus Disk, ModemHelper and MicroBrowser, require ARP.library to be in your SYS:LIBS directory. To install this library, click on the "Install ARP" button in this window. This will copy the library into the LIBS: directory. Your Workbench disk must have about 20K free space! If you would rather not copy this file, you can double-click the LoadARP icon to let ModemHelper access the library on the disk AMIGAPlus2.3:. This will run the Loadlib command on this disk to tell the system about the alternate location of this library. By the way, ARP.library, the ARP LoadLib command and LHArc are all redistributable. ******* BACKUP INSTRUCTIONS ******* IMPORTANT: Make a BACKUP COPY of your AMIGA Plus Disk and then store the original in a safe place! First, open the write-protect tab on the original AMIGA Plus Disk. If you have multiple drives: Simply hold down the left mouse button and drag the AMIGA Plus Disk icon onto its destination disk icon. If you have a single disk drive: Click on the AMIGA Plus icon with the left mouse button. Then use the right-side mouse button to select Duplicate from the Workbench menu at the top of the screen, and follow the prompts. Rename your new disk AMIGAPlus2.3 by clicking on its disk icon (Copy of AMIGAPlus2.3) and selecting Rename from the Workbench menu. About This Issue's Disk ----------------------- Our super-friendly new disk interface was created by Arnold Cachelin using CanDo. The background IFF pic (AP1Base) is an actual Workbench 2.0 screen, pretty gadgets and all. This screen was used in two cards which were added onto the front of Rob Griffith's Japanese FlashCards CanDo deck. The whole deck was then bound into a stand-alone program and compressed with the shareware utility PowerPacker v2.3a. The earlier flashing of your pointer indicated that PowerPacker was decompressing this interface. The entire disk has been processed with Blitz A Disk (B.A.D.) from M.V. Micro (distributed by Centaur Software Inc.) in order to speed up disk access. The format is the same as all AmigaDOS disks, but the files have been reorganized so that the icons are found and displayed quickly. All programs on this disk are Copyright 1990 by AMIGA Plus and may not be redistributed. Any exceptions are specifically referred to as "redistributable utilities." P.S. Subscribe to AMIGA Plus magazine plus disk!!! 6 Issues for only $39.95. Call 1-800-234-7001 for credit card orders NOW! This phone number also works for back issues of the disk ($10.95) and magazine ($4), or both ($14.95)-- plus shipping charge. P.P.S. Or to order by mail, send your check or money order to: AMIGA Plus Disk Desk 544 Second Street San Francisco, CA 94107.