PPMore 1.7 User Manual Jul 22, 1990 Preface ======= This program is freeware, this means that you can copy it freely as long as you don't ask any more money for it than a nominal fee for copying. If you want to distribute this program you should keep this document with it. This program cannot be used for commercial purposes without written permission from the author. If you have suggestions or remarks about this program, or if you find any bugs, please let me know. Write to the following address: Nico François Corbielaan 13 3060 Bertem BELGIUM Contents ======== 1. An introduction 2. Usage 3. Control 4. Using PPMore from other programs 1. An introduction ================== This program was written to complement one of my other utilities, PowerPacker (a command and data cruncher). It is used to read normal ascii text files or text files crunched with PowerPacker. The program itself is about 10K long and when you know you save about 60% when you crunch a text file, you can see that this could save a lot of space on your disks. PPMore was written as a more replacement (as you could have guessed :-), so I tried to keep the keyboard commands the same as well as adding some new. There are two main differences between PPMore and More, PPMore uses gadgets and it always loads the complete file in memory (More only loads part of the file and will load the rest when needed). If you can live with these differences, you can replace More with PPMore anywhere you want. If you haven't got PowerPacker you are of course missing one of the main features of this program. PowerPacker is available as shareware (up to version 2.3b) or as a commercial program (version 3.0a). Order a copy for $17.50 (Europe) or $20 (outside Europe) from the following address in the UK. AMIGANUTS UNITED, 169 Dale Valley Road, Hollybrook, Southampton, SO1 6QX, ENGLAND. Phone: 0703 - 785680. The commercial version offers several enhancements like 40 to 50 times faster crunching and overlay crunching. 2. Usage ======== PPMore can be used in four different ways. - First of all via the CLI: If you enter PPMore without arguments you will get a usage template. You use PPMore like this: PPMore [] [] The program will then load the ascii file and display it. If the file was crunched using PowerPacker 2.0 or higher PPMore will first decrunch it for you. If the file was encrypted you will be prompted for the password. The options are explained in section 4. PPMore can be made resident so it doesn't have to be loaded every time you use it, use the ARP ARes command or the c: Resident command for this. You can't make PPMore resident when it is crunched !! The file is supplied as an uncrunched command file with the pure bit set. If you enter PPMore without options, you will be presented with either a file prompt or a filerequester (if arp.library or asl.library is available). Entering PPMore with a directory instead of a file as an argument will also get you a requester, but it will be positioned in the directory you specified. Enter 'PPMore ?' for a little usage message. - Via the WorkBench: There are three different ways of using PPMore via the workbench: you can set the default tool of the (crunched) text file to 'PPMore', you can single click the PPMore icon and then double click the text file icon or you can double-click the PPMore icon and enter the filename in the string gadget (or the ARP filerequester) you will be presented with. You set the default tool by single clicking the icon of the text file and selecting 'Info' from the workbench menu. You will get a window with several gadgets in it, click in the string gadget where it says 'Default tool' and enter ':ppmore'. PPMore should be in the root directory of your disk for this to work, if e.g. it's in the system directory you should enter ':system/ppmore'. Last of all select the 'Save' gadget. NOTE: - PPMore will add '.pp' to the filename when the file wasn't found. This is very useful in the WorkBench enviroment: you can make an icon for 'text.doc' but name the file 'text.doc.pp'. Now the WorkBench will show an icon with 'text.doc' as name, but if you doubleclick it 'text.doc.pp' will be displayed. (As long as there is no 'text.doc' file in the directory !) - Once you are in PPMore press 'L' to load a new file, this is especially useful if the arp.library is available. 3. Control ========== PPMore can be controlled by keyboard or by intuition gadgets. To get a summary of the keyboard commands press , the function of the gadgets shouldn't be hard to understand. A few notes on printing: - The printer.device has to be in the devs: directory for PPMore to be able to print, you should also have a correct system-configuration for your printer. - You can continue to read the text when PPMore is printing (this IS a multitasking computer ! :-), you can't quit when printing is still in progress ! 4. Using PPMore from other programs =================================== If you are not a programmer you can skip this section. PPMore has two power options to make it possible to use it from other programs. This way you don't have to include a text displayer in your programs, you just execute PPMore with one (or all) of the following options: -@mem,len,flags[,name] If you specify this option PPMore will not load a file but instead it will display a chunk of memory. You specify the memory addres and length in the command line as well as some flags. The current version only has one flag: PPMORE_FREEMEM = bit 0 of the flag-word = 0x1. When this flag is set PPMore will free the memory after it has finished, if it isn't set PPMore will just exit and leave the memory alone. This way your program can start PPMore with the PPMORE_FREEMEM flag set and exit before PPMore has ended. PPMore will then free the memory instead of your program. The address, length and flags must be presented as HEX longwords seperated by a comma. These options can be followed by another comma and a string to give the memory chunk a name, if this string is omited PPMore will use the name 'memory'. This string ends with the end of the command line so it can contain spaces. -Sscreen or -S* With this option you can use PPMore on another screen. You must provide a screen address in HEX. PPMore will the open the main window on this screen. If you specify a '*' instead of a screen address the frontmost screen will be used. Examples: o PPMore -@1A000,1D4E,0,my chunk PPMore will open a window 'Listing of my chunk', start displaying at address 0x1A000 and stop at address 0x1BD4E. The memory will not be freed after PPMore exits. o PPMore -Sc2d8a0 -@1A000,1D4E,1,my chunk Same as previous but now PPMore will free the memory chunk and open the main window on the custom screen with the screen structure on address 0xc2d8a0. o PPMore -S* myfile Load and display the file 'myfile' and open window on the front screen. NOTE: - The options are case sensitive. - The @ option must always be the last option on the command line. - If you open PPMore on another screen PPMore will not check if the screen closes !! PPMore should always finish before this screen is closed ! - I advise you to use the ARP 1.3 SyncRun and/or ASyncRun instead of the AmigaDOS Execute function to execute PPMore from your programs because the ARP functions also work when your program has been started from WorkBench. I suppose Kickstart 2.0 will offer some better ways of executing programs. - Watch out when using these options, it is very easy to crash the Amiga if you don't know what you are doing !!! As always, I hope you find this program useful ! PROGRAM HISTORY: ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.0 First release. ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.1 '.pp' suffix added to filename when file not found, very useful in WorkBench enviroment. PPMore now also loads encrypted files. (PowerPacker 2.3a or higher) ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.2 Rewritten some routines in assembler, results in a slightly faster and smaller PPMore. Keyboard input improved. Autorepeat of keys is ignored so you can keep on pressing without typing it 20 times ahead ! Gadget input also improved, now handles repeat. PPMore now prompts for a filename when double-clicked from WorkBench. ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.3 PPMore can now be made resident and is reentrant. (provided PPMore is not crunched) Improved error reporting, the main window only opens when PPMore is going to display the file. File is checked to see if it is an ASCII (text) file. Two new power-options for use of PPMore from other programs: -@ to display memory, -S to open window on a custom screen. Fast assembler search function added. Display position is displayed in titlebar (percentage). Goto n% function added, replaced 'Refresh' gadget with this function. Decrunching is 15% faster. 'Exit PPMore' only selected when button is released on top of gadget. NO bugs removed because none where found. :-) Only about 700 bytes larger than version 1.2 ! ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.4 Bug fixed: PPMore 1.3 was not 100% pure, version 1.4 is ! ASCII check less strict (e.g. now allows files to contain a '©') Another 300 bytes shorter than version 1.3 :-) ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.5 Bug fixed: search/goto window always opened on WorkBench screen. Find previous also implemented. Load a new file from within PPMore. PPMore uses ARP file requester if arp.library is available. Line count, as well as goto line. Display position as percentage or line number. Keypad = movement. (for PC-lovers, yek :-( ) PPMore now supports all keymaps !! I think especially german and french Amiga users will be grateful for this. Less than 600 bytes longer than version 1.4 (I love this :-D) ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.5a Decrunching is 40% faster, this was a stupid mistake in 1.3 to 1.5, I accidently used a slower instead of a faster decrunch routine :-( ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.5b The Guru isn't with me lately, after using a slow decruncher in 1.3-1.5 by accident I now used a fast but faulty decruncher in 1.5a. It sometimes didn't decrunch correctly, this has now been fixed. The decruncher is still 40% faster than the 1.3-1.5 one. (and it's 2 bytes shorter :^D ) ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.6 Bugs in search fixed, didn't work correctly when used in large files and sometimes didn't work at all :-( Error output goes to the console when you start PPMore from the CLI, WorkBench error reporting still in small window as before. The ASCII check was made less strict (again). I got a lot of complaints from German users trying to display german documents, this should now no longer be a problem. If you deactivated the window when PPMore was loading PPMore would hang until you resized its window, this has been fixed. (Actually, I worked around this problem, I think it was an Intuition bug :-) PgUp, PgDn and the shifted arrow keys now do an immediate page up/down without scrolling, SPACE and BS still scroll up/down. Changed some things so PPMore runs better on Kickstart 2.0, next version of PPMore will probably be a Kick 2.0 only version so I can make use of all the new goodies of the new OS :^) ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.6a Small update on special request. Now possible to dump just the visible page to the printer instead of the entire file. ***************************************************************************** VERSION 1.7 No Kickstart 2.0 only version yet. Changed some stuff so PPMore looks best on Kick 2.0 and still runs on Kick 1.3. Uses the all new powerpacker.library => shorter code :^D Starting PPMore from the CLI with a directory as an argument now puts up the requester positioned in that directory. Extremely useful once you get used to this :^) Small bug fixed in search routine, it sometimes missed an occurence. PPMore filters out form-feeds and replaces them with
. If you are running Workbench 2.0 PPMore will use the asl.library instead of the arp.library (for the filerequester). Now fully supports system & screen fonts different than topaz 8. Automatic refresh when you resize the window (only on Kick 2.0, couldn't be done on 1.3 because of bug in console.device) Used different technique to find workbench screen size, using NormalDisplayRows no longer seemed to work on 2.0 ?!?!? ***************************************************************************** PPMore 1.7 written by Nico François (Yes, Nico is my first name :-) thanks to Holger Lubitz for the many bug reports :^) and all the useful suggestions. (c) 1990 Nico François / PowerPeak // Thanks to \X/ Amiga for being the best computer ever !