******************************* * * * Text aus der Serie * * (c) GERMAN (Copyright) * * RHEIN-MAIN-SOFT * * Oberursel * * * ******************************* DEUTSCH ======= Toller Ersatz für die Fehlermeldungen der Worckbench. Einfach das Programmicon anklicken, die nächste Fehlermeldung sieht dann etwas anders aus. Lassen Sie sich überraschen !! Page 1 Arq Page 1 Arq Copyright © 1990,91 by Martin Laubach, Peter Wlcek and René Hexel All rights reserved Page 2 Arq Page 2 1. Introduction Arghh! There it is again... My favorite application just wanted to inform me of some important event. And there it appears, the much-hated standard system requester, that itty-bitty window that seems glued forever to the upper left edge of the screen, a requester that can only be acknoledged using the mouse or some much too cryptic key combination (ugh! been reading too much lyric lately?) It seems that although appearance of these system requesters has been improved in Kickstart 2.0 over 1.3, it wasn't nearly enough. Close, but no banana... 2. Who and why Especially Peter was very unhappy with the new style requesters in 2.0 (he doesn't like the 1.3 version either) -- "They have redone the Workbench, it now looks slick and shiny, but those requesters are about as awful as they could be", and "the design of the new requesters has already improved quite a bit -- compared to Kickstart 1.3. But yet they are not yet state-of-the-art". Having seen one of my earlier tools, "CR", that remapped the requesters under 1.3 to something a bit more appealing to the eye (and IMHO, kinda much more user friendly), he came up with the idea of redesigning those dialog boxes. In the beginning, I was not quite happy about rewriting my code to suit his rather perfectionist ideas ("now leave two pixels here, and don't forget that line of gray to the right...") -- no idea how he's done it, but he finally got me to the point to do him the favor. So here's the result. Note that it is trimmed to fit the "new look" of Workbench 2.0 (hires interlace -- any other resolution will make it look a bit weird). 3. What Arq, abreviation for -- well, I forgot --, is a little utility to improve the look and feel of system requesters under AmigaOS 2.0. Or, as Peter put it: "If you were ever used to those really professional Custom-Requesters for KS 1.3 from mjl, you were missing those under AmigaOS-2. Well -- here they are!" Since 1.57, Arq features a sound interface -- any appearing requester now may be accompagnied by some user-definable sound. What Page 3 Arq Page 3 Please refer to the respective chapter for more information about the sound interface. Arq wedges into Intuition's AutoRequest(), EasyRequest() and DisplayBeep() vectors (as well as CloseScreen(), but you won't notice that one), and replaces each of those routines by our artist's idea of a requester. Note that the graphics are stored in fax-like compression format. This means that you (a) won't be able to compress it much further, (b) having several Arq requesters open on a plain vanilla 68000 will slow down the system a bit. 4. How to Just "run arq" and enjoy the improved system messages. To stop it, just send it a ^C via the "break" command (though I doubt you'll ever want to quit it). Under 2.0, you can control Arq with the Commodities Exchange tool. You may freely enable, disable, or kill Arq. Also, when you start Arq a second time, it will remove itself from the system. The main advantage of those requesters is (apart their look), that we moved the strange combination of Left-Amiga-V and Left-Amiga-B to the ESC and RETURN key, which makes life quite a lot easier (no more knots in your fingers) -- though, of course, those are working too. Another possibility is to use the function keys, where F1 corresponds to the leftmost, F2 to the second, and so forth, gadget -- that way you can answer requesters with more than two buttons, like IconEdit's. Though written with 2.0 in mind, Arq does work under 1.3 as well -- but the layout will look a bit stretched in non-interlace mode. We will come out with an adapted version when the time is ripe (ie. bug me, and you'll probably get it [sigh]). Please also note that this command replaces some of the library vectors in intuition.library -- restoring them is per definitionem not a safe operation. While this works most of the time, you may witness wonderful things happening when there is another tool wedged in after Arq. So please be careful. How to Page 4 Arq Page 4 5. Sounding away Instead of building the sound capability into Arq itself, we chose to implement it following the client-server model: a sound playing server, as, for example the "upd" sound daemon by Jonas Petersson will do all the hard work, giving you the additional bonus of being able to play your favorite tunes from your ARexx programs... The following sound IDs are used, for the corresponding requesters and DisplayBeep -- please refer to upd's documentation how these work. · warn_write_protected · warn_insert_volume · warn_delete · warn_printer · error_task_held · error_read_write · error_general · warn_general · query_general · beep 6. License This material is © Copyright 1990 by Martin J. Laubach, Peter Wlcek and René Hexel -- All rights reserved. It may be distributed freely as long as the following restrictions are met: The distributor may charge a fee to recover distribution costs. The fee for diskette distribution should not be more than the cost to obtain the same diskette from Fred Fish. The distributor agrees to cease distributing the programs and data involved if requested to do so by the authors. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the program's executable code and documentation as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish only the original, unmodified program, with all copyright notices and disclaimers of warranty intact and including all the accompanying documentation, example files and anything else that came with the original. The author will not be liable for any damage arising from the failure of this program to perform as described, or any destruction of other programs or data residing on a system attempting to run the program. While I know of no damaging errors, the user of this program uses it at his or her own License Page 5 Arq Page 5 risk. License Page 6 Arq Page 6 7. Acks and Naks Amiga and AmigaDOS are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. ARexx by William S. Hawes. Perfectionism by Peter Wlcek. Sporting events, transportation and girls by the Beach Boys. upd by Jonas Petersson. Window centering code by Holger Gzella, with additional comments by Peter Cherna. 8. Postscript We are not really happy yet with the imaginery for "?" and "!". Should you have "THE" idea, please get in touch with any of us... Also, don't hesitate to yell when you've got graphics you'd like to see in the next version. 9. Reactions If you have any comments, ideas what could or should be improved, bug reports or just like to chat a bit, please feel free to contact me at one of the following addresses... I just *love* receiving mail! FidoNet: 2:310/3.14 Usenet: mjl%alison@cbmvie.at {cbmvax!cbmehq, mcsun!tuvie}!cbmvie!alison!mjl Peter, the graphics and animation wizard, can be reached 2:310/42 in FidoNet. Looking forward to reading from you, mjl Reactions Page 7 Arq Page 7 10. Road Map 1. Introduction .................................... 2 2. Who and why ....................................... 2 3. What ............................................ 2 4. How to ........................................... 3 5. Sounding away .................................... 3 6. License ......................................... 4 7. Acks and Naks ..................................... 6 8. Postscript ...................................... 6 9. Reactions ....................................... 6 10. Road Map ........................................ 7 Road Map ******************************* * * * Text aus der Serie * * (c) GERMAN (Copyright) * * RHEIN-MAIN-SOFT * * Oberursel * * * *******************************