Short:    Asl/Arp/Req/Intuition requester to ReqTools patcher
Uploader: tboeckel@uni-paderborn.de (Thore Boeckelmann)
Author:   tboeckel@uni-paderborn.de (Thore Boeckelmann)
Type:     util/misc

TITLE
  AslToRT


VERSION
  39.1


AUTHOR
  Thore Böckelmann <tboeckel@uni-paderborn.de>


REQUIREMENTS
  Any Amiga® (compatible) computer with at least OS3.0 and
68020+ cpu.


DESCRIPTION
  AslToRT is a utility that is meant to replace RTPatch by Nico François, the
  original author of the ReqTools package. RTPatch has several bugs when running
  under OS3.x. It uses a very tricky mechanism to patch the desired libraries
  only when they are opened. This causes a very annoying behavior with
  asl.library. Under OS2.x this library kept its open counter equal to zero,
  which is no longer the fact for OS3.x. As a result the library's name is
  changed from "asl.library" to "asl.§ibrary", where the "§" stands for an
  unprintable character. The effect is, that asl.library will be loaded again
  and again, because it is no longer in memory with the correct name. This is
  very bad in the way Amiga shared libraries are intended to work. So you have
  no longer one copy of the library in memory, but several identical copies, of
  which each eats up your machines memory.

  AslToRT does all the things that RTPatch does, but in a (hopefully) much
  better way. Additionally you can choose very exactly which libraries and which
  functions should be patched to use the apropriate ReqTools function.


USAGE
  You can start AslToRT from either Workbench or Shell with the following
  options:
 
  ASLFILE/S,ASLFONT/S,ASLSCREEN/S,ASLALL/S,INTUIAUTOREQ/S,INTUIEASYREQ/S,
  INTUIALL/S,REQFILE/S,REQFONT/S,REQLONG/S,REQSTRING/S,REQTEXT/S,REQCOLOR/S,
  REQALL/S,ARPFILE/S,ARPALL/S,ALL/S,IGNOREHEIGHT/S

  ASLFILE/S: patch asl.library's file requesters
  ASLFONT/S: patch asl.library's font requesters
  ASLSCREEN/S: patch asl.library's screenmode requesters
  ASLALL/S: patch all of asl.library's requesters
  INTUIAUTOREQ/S: patch intuition.library/AutoRequest()
  INTUIEASYREQ/S: patch intuition.library/EasyRequest()
  INTUIALL/S: patch all of intuition.library's requesters
  REQFILE/S: patch req.library's file requesters
  REQFONT/S: patch req.library's font requesters
  REQLONG/S: patch req.library/GetLong()
  REQSTRING/S: patch req.library/GetString()
  REQTEXT/S: patch req.library/TextRequest()
  REQCOLOR/S: patch req.library/ColorRequest()
  REQALL/S: patch all of req.library's requesters
  ARPFILE/S: patch arp.library's file requesters
  ARPALL/S: patch all of arp.library's requesters
  ALL/S: patch all requesters of every library (asl/arp/req/intuition)
  IGNOREHEIGHT/S: ignore the height of file/font/screenmode requesters and use
    ReqTools' preferred window height

  You must specify at least one of these options, else AslToRT will exit
  immediately without patching anything.

  You can start and quit AslToRT at any time. Only requesters allocated after
  running AslToRT will be redirected to ReqTools. To quit AslToRT simply start
  it again.


INSTALLATION
  Copy AslToRT where ever you want, but SYS:WBStartup is a very good place


KNOWN BUGS
  reqtools.library is not able to emulate all details of asl.library. Especially
  the very new functionality introduced with asl.library V44 (OS3.9) cannot be
  done with reqtools.

  Some requesters by intuition/AutoRequest() cannot be patched to
  reqtools.library because they use some tricky mechanisms to place the text
  within the window, which reqtools.library cannot do (i.e. the device info
  requester of DiskSalv V2+).

  Most of Workbench's and dos.library's message requesters can be redirected to
  reqtools.library, but some cannot. These are the requesters that are build by
  intuition/BuildSysRequest() and intuition/BuildEasyRequest() and are displayed
  asynchronously. Although reqtools.library itself can do the same thing it is
  not possible to emulate intuiton.library's way by reqtools.library (i.e.
  Workbench's Version/Copyright requester).

  For those who are interested, AslToRT patches the following functions (if
  enabled via options):

  asl.library/AllocAslRequest()
  asl.library/FreeAslRequest()
  asl.library/AslRequest()
  intuition.library/AutoRequest()
  intuition.library/EasyRequestArgs()
  req.library/FileRequester()
  req.library/GetLong()
  req.library/GetString()
  req.library/NewGetString()
  req.library/TextRequest()
  req.library/ColorRequester()
  req.library/ExtendedColorRequester()
  arp.library/FileRequest()


HISTORY
  39.1 (03.01.2001):
    - initial Aminet release


COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER
  AslToRT is copyrighted 2001 by Thore Böckelmann.
  All rights reserved. This program is freeware, so no financial donations  
  required. Redistribution allowed if the package is left unchanged. The author
  is not responsible for any damage caused by the use or misuse of this
  documentation and/or the program(s) it describes.

  AslToRT uses the SmartReadArgs package by Thomas Aglassinger.


SEE ALSO
  ReqTools 2.9 User package