NewMultiView 0.9ß (6.10.95) Copyright (C) 1995 by Michael Fedrowitz. All rights reserved. Welcome to the second public beta release of NewMultiView! Sorry, there's no proper documentation yet. For the moment you'll have to do with this ReadMe. This is program is GIFTWARE! If you like it and use it regularly, you are encouraged to send any kind of donation to the author. Distribution ------------ This piece of software is freely distributable with the following restrictions: - You may only redistribute the complete and unchanged archive. - You are only allowed to charge a reasonable fee for the medium and copying, but NOT for the program itself. - You must not distribute this program as a part of a commercial product without the prior consent of the author. Disclaimer ---------- This program is provided as-is WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, without even the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The author can under no circumstances be held responsible for any damages arising from using (or the inability to use) this program. Introduction ------------ With AmigaOS 3.0 the concept of datatypes and the MultiView program were introduced. This allows you to display all kinds of files with just one program. MultiView has a number of disadvantages though. You can't specify more than one file at a time, it has no wildcard support and it lacks a lot of important functions for many datatypes (e.g. you can't even search in a text file!). NewMultiView is a frontend for MultiView, which allows you to specify several files on the commandline, in the filerequestor or from Workbench, and gives you the possibility to call alternative programs for datatypes MultiView has only insufficient support for. NewMultiView doesn't need any third party libraries, it uses the standard datatypes.library which comes with AmigaOS 3.0+. But I might add (optional) support for some other library (maybe whatis.library). Requirements ------------ NewMultiView should run on any Amiga equiped with AmigaOS 3.0 (V39) or higher. Installation ------------ You can copy the NewMultiView anywhere in your path. It is recommended though to rename the original MultiView to OldMultiView (or some other name), rename NewMultiView to MultiView and copy it to SYS:Utilities/. NewMultiView needs a configuration file NewMultiView.prefs in ENV:, see below for details. If you wish to use the German localization instead of the English defaults, copy the supplied catalog to LOCALE:Catalogs/deutsch/. Configuration ------------- NewMultiView.prefs is a simple ASCII file, where you specify display programs for the various datatypes and a default program (usually the original MultiView). The format should be self-explanatory, just have a look at the supplied example configuration. If a program name contains spaces you have to enclose it in double quotes ('"'). After the program name you can specify any number of options, but don't put them into quotes together with the program name. Save your configuration to ENVARC: and, to immediately activate it, to ENV:. Usage ----- The template for NewMultiView is FROM/M,OPTS=OPTIONS/K/F. I.e. you can specify any number of files (or non at all), optionally followed by the keyword OPTS (or OPTIONS) and then any number of options, which will be passed through unchanged to the actual display program. Wildcards are of course supported. Workbench usage is exactly like the original MultiView, except that you can shift-select more than one file to be displayed. If you start NewMultiView without specifying any files (no matter if from shell, or from Workbench), a file-requester will pop up, where you can select the files to be displayed. Todo ---- - Support for some third party filetype identification library (suggestions which library to use welcome!) - Parsing of tooltypes - Multitasking option for displaying several files at once - Better documentation - Installer script - Prefs editor - ... (further suggestion always welcome) How many of these things I will actually implement, highly depends on the amount of feedback I receive! Address ------- Send any donations, comments, bug reports, etc. to: Michael Fedrowitz Felsenstr. 60 74081 Heilbronn Germany mfedrowi@ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de 2:246/1045.5@fidonet From 15 Oct to 15 Feb and 15 Apr to 15 Jul you can also use the following address (valid until summer 1997): Michael Fedrowitz Im Neuenheimer Feld 696 69120 Heidelberg Germany It is highly recommended to use email. If you want a response via snail mail, please include an SASE, if you're living inside Germany, one IRC, if you' re living inside Europe, two IRCs otherwise. IRCs should be available at your local post office.