November 24, 1990, Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, Canada. Aztec_C Power Steering (APS V0.9b) (©1990 Sylvain Duford) Designed with CanDo V1.022 (©1989 INOVAtronics Inc.) Freely re-distributable as long as you leave this archive intact. WARNING: THIS IS A BETA VERSION, IT HAS ONLY BEEN TESTED ON MY SYSTEM. I DECLINE ANY RESPONSIBILITIES FOR ANY PROBLEMS OR DAMAGES INCURED WHILE USING APS. INTRODUCTION: Hello fellow Aztec C users! If you've been drooling over the new SAS C intuitionized interface, here is my first attempt at producing something similar for Aztec C V5.0. APS will allow you to select all the switches for CC,AS,LN,DB,SDB and MAKE simply by clicking on a graphic screen. No more looking up the manual! APS will also let you set the Environment variables and will show you compilation errors directly in the source. You can also edit the MakeFile and launch CC,AS,LN,DB,SDB,Make and your own editor with a click of the mouse. You can also control APS from your editor via ARexx, but ARexx is not required to use APS. REQUIREMENTS: Any Amiga with at least 1 Meg of RAM and 2 floppies, 2 megs and a hard drive highly recommended. You will also need DeckBrowser, a Freely Redistributable utility from the authors of CanDo, available on most BBS's. INSTALLATION: You can put APS in any directory but I like to put it in my Aztec/bin directory. You will require DeckBrowser in your C: directory for APS to run properly. You should also put the APS.defaults file in your s: directory. The files with the .rexx extension are example macros of how to control APS from your editor, if you have ARexx and wish to use this feature, you should put those in your rexx: directory. APS will also require the following files in the C: directory; newcli, endcli, run and delete. Also make sure you have a T: directory assigned somewhere. To start APS, simply type 'Run >nil: APS' in a CLI or SHELL. I personnaly start APS from an IconX script that also opens a SHELL window. This allows me to test my compiled programs, or to do other CLI work like using DIFF or GREP. After starting APS for the first time, you should immediately click on 'SET ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES' and enter the proper paths for CLIB, INCLUDE and CCTEMP, click on 'DONE' once you are finished. You should then click on APS' Defaults ->'SET' and enter the proper paths for your BIN and SOURCE CODE directorys as well as the 'run' command you want APS to use (ie run or runback). Click on 'DONE' again and then select the EDITOR 'OPTIONS' gadget. This will let you enter the full Path and name for your own text editor. Click on 'DONE' and then on APS' Defaults 'SAVE' to save these new settings to disk. You should now be set to start using APS. HOW TO USE APS: If you are already familiar with Aztec C 5.0, then using APS should be trivial. You can enter the name of the source file you want to work with, in the SOURCE -> text field. After entering 'RETURN', APS will translate this into the standard object file and program names based on the source name minus the extension. If you wish you can modify the last 2 names, but be sure to use 'RETURN' to get out of those text fields so that APS can register the changes. You can now control all options for CC,AS,LN,MAKE,DB and SDB by clicking on the appropriate 'OPTIONS' button. Once in one of those control panels you can click on the white buttons to the left of the switches you want to turn ON. When an option is ON then it's button will show a check mark, clicking on that button again will turn the switch back to OFF. Some switches also require that you enter some text, in those cases, after turning the switch to ON, the appropriate text field will be activated and the cursor placed in it. Once again, be sure to type 'RETURN' when you are done typing text in order to let APS register the changes. Some control panels (like the compiler's) have further options available by clicking on the appropriate buttons. As you must have noticed, the complete command line options are shown at the bottom of each control panel. You can also click in that text field and directly edit the cmd line options. Once you are satisfied with the options you selected, clicking on 'DONE' will bring you back to the main control panel. If instead you click on 'CANCEL' or on the window's CLOSE gadget, these options will revert to their initial settings before going back to the main control panel. If you now click on the APS' DEFAULTS 'SAVE' button, all the selected options will be saved to disk, and automatically reset next time you start APS. When you are in MAKE's control panel, you can click on 'EDIT MAKEFILE' to edit the current MakeFile. You can also enter some command line macros and a list of files to make. If no files are listed, make will 'make' the first file encountered in the MakeFile. The debugger's control panel only allows you select which debugger to use, ie SDB, SDBF or DB. If you select one of the 2 SDBs, you will be given a chance to enter further cmd line arguments before the debugger is launched. You can now launch any of those commands by simply clicking on the appropriate 'LAUNCH!' buttons. These commands will use the appropriate file name based on those you entered on the main control panel. If you get any compiler errors, and if you have set the -wq switch in the COMPILER/WARNINGS control panel, you can now click on the 'SHOW/EDIT ERRORS' button. This will bring up a simple text editor with your source file displayed in it. This editor will also place the cursor on what the compiler believes to be the first error, and a description of the error will be shown at the top of the window. You can now select one of the menu otpions or equivalent hot keys or click on the appropriate buttons to move to the next or previous errors. You can also SAVE the edited source file or select QUIT. Choosing QUIT will NOT save the source file, clicking on the window's close gadget is equivalent to clicking on 'SAVE & CLOSE'. If you prefer to use the QuickFix option in concert with the Manx's Z Editor, just enter the appropriate options in the CCOPTS and CCEDIT environment variables. CONTROLLING APS FROM YOUR EDITOR: If you have ARexx installed on your system and own an ARexx compatible Editor, you can control APS from inside that editor. In order to do this, simply write some ARexx macros that will send the appropriate commands to the ARexx port 'APSRexx' (Case sensitive). The allowable commands are: Assemble, starts AS Compile, starts CC Debug, starts DB,SDB or SDBF Edit, starts your EDITOR Errors, starts APS' Errors Editor Link starts LN Make starts Make All of the above commands except 'Errors' will accept a file name as a parameter (ie; 'Compile' 'Main.c') If no file name is specified, APS will use the appropriate one as already entered on the main control panel. Make will accept several filenames to be 'made' but as one parameter (ie; 'Make' 'Main Calc Prog'). The 'Errors' command always defaults to the last Source File compiled or if none was compiled during the current session, to the Source File name entered on the main control panel. These commands behave exactly like if you had clicked on the corresponding buttons of the main control panel. If you are still unsure of how to use these commands, look at the example macros included in this archive (.rexx files). CONCLUSION: That's it for this short documentation file on APS. This is only V0.9 and it is untested on any other systems than mine. I have tried to design it so it would work on any system, but yah never know! So please send me any bug/incompatibilities reports, and/or suggestions to make this program better. You can reach me on CompuServe's Amiga Forum or EMAIL, my ID# is 76056,1655. You can also write to me at: Sylvain Duford 122, 12th Street N.W. Portage La Prairie Manitoba, Canada R1N-2T1 I'd like to thank INNOVAtronics Inc. for producing CanDo, a truly amazing package that made it possible to design this user interface in days instead of months.