@DATABASE "AmCEx (Amiga Currency Exchange)" @WIDTH "80" @HEIGHT "100" @NODE "MAIN" "AmCEx (Amiga Currency Exchange)" @NEXT "Function" @TOC "MAIN" @{fg shine}AmCEx (Amiga Currency Exchange) - © 2001 strandedUFO@{fg text} @{fg shine}@{u} @{uu}@{fg text} This software is subject to the "Standard Amiga FD-Software Copyright Note". It is @{i}Mailware@{ui} as defined in paragraph 4. For more information please read "AFD-COPYRIGHT" (Version 1 or higher). @{"Function" LINK "FUNCTION"} @{"Requirements" LINK "REQUIREMENTS"} @{"Installation" LINK "INSTALLATION"} @{"Usage" LINK "USAGE"} @{"Customising" LINK "CUSTOMISING"} @{"Exchange Rate Updates" LINK "EXCHANGE RATE UPDATES"} @{"Technical" LINK "TECHNICAL"} @{"Conclusion" LINK "CONCLUSION"} @{"Program Updates" LINK "PROGRAM UPDATES"} @{"History" LINK "HISTORY"} @{fg fill}Live fast, code hard and die a beautiful death... (old c0DerZ saying)@{fg text} @ENDNODE "Noone told you when to run, you missed the starting gun..." @NODE "FUNCTION" "AmCEx: Function" @NEXT "Requirements" @PREV "MAIN" @TOC "MAIN" Function -------- Converts international currency, using rates stored in a local data file, which can be simply updated at any time by grabbing and saving an html file from a website. @ENDNODE @NODE "REQUIREMENTS" "AmCEx: System requirements" @NEXT "Installation" @PREV "Function" @TOC "MAIN" System Requirments ------------------ Any Amiga running OS3.1+ and preferably a 256+ colour screen. @ENDNODE @NODE "INSTALLATION" "AmCEx: Installation" @NEXT "Usage" @PREV "Requirements" @TOC "MAIN" Installation ------------ Simply unarchive to ram: and drag its drawer to your harddrive. That's all, you can stop reading now. @ENDNODE @NODE "USAGE" "AmCEx: Usage" @NEXT "Customising" @PREV "Installation" @TOC "MAIN" Usage ----- Doubleclick on the AmCEx icon. While the program is active, pressing the Help key at any time will display this page. The cycler gadget shows one of the five bases which the 5 rates relate to, though the program can calculate values from any base rate. To convert any currency, take the following steps: 1) Highlight the currency of your initial amount in the listview 2) Click the 'From' gadget 3) Type in the amount 4) Highlight the currency of your target money in the listview 5) Click the 'To' gadget Since I have used classes/gadgets/string.gadget for the Amount entry, the Amount gadget will only accept one '.' as a decimal point between the numeric digits you enter. One day that may be localised to accept a comma ',' in lieu of the '.', but maybe noone needs to use a comma anyway. The actual calculation will take place whenever you enter, in any order you like, the amount, and/or select either of the two currencies for source and target. AmCEx will recalculate the target even after the currency rates have been updated. The program directory contains the program's important data file (AmCEx.data), and the 'catalogs', 'help' and 'flags' directories. The latter contains all the flags for the countries listed on the particular pages, plus a 'backgrnd.gif' to display before the user has selected any other. @ENDNODE @NODE "CUSTOMISING" "AmCEx: Customising the program" @NEXT "Exchange Rate Updates" @PREV "Usage" @TOC "MAIN" Customising the program ----------------------- Look in the program icon's tooltypes. All that can be defined is there in brackets, showing the defaults that the program will start up with, with a few exceptions, like window pos. By default, the window will appear in the middle of the screen. A '0' after the DAYDATE tooltype will display the Updated: date normally, anything else will change it, so that weekdays will be substituted, the same way as happens with AmigaDOS datestamps. For the ????COL tooltypes the following colourpens are available on Workbench as standard: DETAILPEN or 0 BLOCKPEN or 1 TEXTPEN or 2 SHINEPEN or 3 SHADOWPEN or 4 FILLPEN or 5 FILLTEXTPEN or 6 BACKGROUNDPEN or 7 HIGHLIGHTTEXTPEN or 8 BARDETAILPEN or 9 BARBLOCKPEN or 10 BARTRIMPEN or 11 CURRCOL will influence the pen for the currency displayed under the flags, TRGTCOL stands for the Target display colour and DATECOL is the colour of the 'Updated:' date display. The file to be parsed can be specified in the icon's tooltypes. If nothing is specified, the default is: @{fg shine}"ram:exrates.html"@{fg text} @ENDNODE @NODE "EXCHANGE RATE UPDATES" "AmCEx: Exchange rate updates" @NEXT "Technical" @PREV "Customising" @TOC "MAIN" Exchange rate updates --------------------- The AmCEx.data file contains the three-letter flagnames, the currencies, and the exchange rate values for the five bases. To update these latter values, use the menu-item "Update Rates...". This will parse either one of two html files and then build the AmCEx.data file. Obviously the HTML file needs to be downloaded and saved from your browser first: @{fg shine}http://www.rate.co.uk/exrates.html@{fg text} @{fg shine}http://www.moneyextra.com/rates/currency/forex/mx_large.html@{fg text} So if you save "exrates.html" to RAM: as I do, the program will find it easily using the default value. @ENDNODE @NODE "TECHNICAL" "AmCEx: Technical information" @NEXT "Conclusion" @PREV "Exchange rate updates" @TOC "MAIN" Technical information --------------------- The above files looked easy to parse due to both having the same currency descriptions and blank delimited rate values. I did look through various sites, but these were the only ones to show the actual conversion rates in an easily accessable form. Although the list and baserate cycler will show up in the localized language, any parsing is still done using the English currency names. Due to the data file being ASCII, there may be a possibility to write some external rexx script that could parse any other web page the user wants to access, maybe in other languages too, the list of the 58 currencies and flagnames is presently hard coded inside the program and in English. Only the flagnames are restricted to the three letters + .gif filename, while currency strings can be up to 32 characters in length. The .data file starts with the word 'Bases' followed by up to five currency descriptions, all on the same line. From line two onwards live all the currencies, line by line, they are sorted by the three letter flag name. All fields in the data file are delimited by a semicolon ';', including the ends of the lines. The program, when it reads through the file, pokes 0s in those positions, to make them into C strings... @ENDNODE @NODE "CONCLUSION" "AmCEx: Conclusion" @NEXT "Program Updates" @PREV "Technical" @TOC "MAIN" Conclusion ---------- Now we're all ready to buy Amiga stuff from anywhere. @ENDNODE @NODE "PROGRAM UPDATES" "AmCEx: Program Updates" @NEXT "History" @PREV "Conclusion" @TOC "MAIN" Program Updates --------------- For program updates check my webpage at: @{fg shine}www.sufo.estates.co.uk@{fg text} or contact me by email at: @{fg shine}phin\@sufo.estates.co.uk@{fg text} @ENDNODE @NODE "HISTORY" "AmCEx: History" @PREV "Program Updates" @TOC "MAIN" History ------- v1.11 - released - Friday 21-Dec-01 01:32:15 Translated and localized all currency descriptors v1.10 - unreleased - Monday 10-Dec-01 07:35:48 Ran program source through CatComp, now it can support the international community it was made for. v1.0 - unreleased - Wednesday 05-Dec-01 16:45:28 English only and quite basic. @ENDNODE