JPTermComm BETA version (c) Copyright 1994 Jonathan Potter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This program, as you _just_ may have guessed from the title, is yet another term package. WHY YET ANOTHER TERM PACKAGE? Why another one? Well, I didn't like any of the existing ones when I started writing this (which was about 3 years ago), and recently I decided I had done so much work on it that I may as well attempt to finish it off. I'm not going to bore you with a feature list, to try to entice you away from your existing term program. I've become slightly apathetic towards the Amiga market recently, so if you like the look of this program, great! Use it! Otherwise, it's no skin off my nose. It is considerably smaller than the other leading term programs around (it's OS 2.0+ only btw), and has most of the necessary features to make it a fully functioning terminal package. WHY BETA? This version is still in the BETA test stage. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the time over the past 4 months or so to actually finish it off completely, and it looks unlikely I will be able to in the near future. So, I figured that instead of it sitting here doing nothing it may as well be out there being tested. Note that I have been using this program fairly constantly over that time period and there are no major crashing bugs that I know of; no doubt, however, testing by more people will reveal some stragglers. WHERE ARE THE DOCS? Hey, the program isn't even finished yet, instructions are a minor concern :-) Hopefully it all should be pretty straight forward; most people shouldn't have much trouble picking it up. HOW TO INSTALL IT You'll need a data directory for it to store it's configuration files in. This must be assigned JPTC:. You'll also need some XPR libraries if you want to do any file transfer; these must be in your LIBS: path. Otherwise, just run the program. WHAT'S LEFT TO DO? There are several things still to be completed before I can drop the BETA suffix from this program. These include a complete ARexx port, full "internal multitasking", the Iconify function, the entire Script menu, and several other minor things. At this stage, there are only a few ARexx commands actually implemented (I'll list them below), and the "internal multitasking" (read asynchronous requesters) has only got as far as the About and General configuration requesters. There is one existing bug that comes to mind; if the window is resized, the contents are supposed to be redrawn, but aren't (at least, not correctly). So, if you come across this one, don't bother reporting it. One other thing left to do is to pick a better name for the program; if you have any suggestions, please sing out. THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR Basically, if you're going to use this program, please just keep your eyes open for anything anomalous. The ANSI and VT100 emulations are as solid as I could make them with available documentation and testing procedures, however if you find something they don't cope with (VT100 doesn't even attempt to handle 132 columns btw), feel free to let me know. Otherwise, yeah, just report all bugs you find to the address(es) below. DISTRIBUTION This beta version is freely distributable. Once I've got a suitable stack of bug reports, and enough time to work on them and to finish off the other outstanding things, I'll release the final version. At that stage it will probably be shareware (though I haven't decided this). If this is the case then everyone who sent in a bug or suggestion report will receive a free registration. The person who suggests the best name will get two :-) THE AUTHOR That's me. Jonathan Potter, PO Box 289 Goodwood, South Australia 5034. Please don't write to me though as I hate answering letters. If possible, send all bug reports to : Internet jpotter@itd.adelaide.edu.au BIX potty CIS 75300,361 Fido 3:800/805 In case you're really keen, fax is +61-8-2938941, and fone is +61-8-2932788. That's all. Have fun! APPENDIX A :-) These are the ARexx commands as implemented so far. Send BYTE/K/N,CANABORT/S,EOL/S,TEXT/F Sends formatted data out the serial port. BYTE allows you to specify a single character, otherwise the entire line of text is sent. CANABORT is a flag indicating whether you can abort the text send (this is done by pressing a key or mouse button, I think). EOL is a switch indicating whether an end of line character is sent. SendRaw DATA/N/A,SIZE/N/A This allows you to send raw data out the serial port (file transfers via ARexx? :-). DATA must point to the address in memory of the block of data, and SIZE is the number of bytes to send. Display BYTE/K/N,EOL/S,TEXT/F Displays formatted text on the screen (does not send out the serial port). BYTE lets you specify a single character, otherwise again it's an entire line of text. EOL is the end of line switch. DisplayRaw DATA/N/A,SIZE/N/A Displays raw data on the screen. Takes the same parameters as SendRaw. I used this to test the ANSI emulation code; what practical use it has I've no idea. :-)