FrontPub 1.1

                      Copyright © 1995 Gunther Nikl

                            All rights reserved




                          FrontPub is freeware

  Permission is granted to make and  distribute  verbatim  copies  of  this
program's executable 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.


                            NO WARRANTY

  There is no warranty for this software package. Although the  author  has
tried to prevent errors, he  can't  guarantee  that  the  software  package
described in this document is 100% reliable. You are therefore  using  this
material at your own risk. The author cannot be made  responsible  for  any
damage which is caused by using this software package.


                          What is FrontPub?

FrontPub is a small utility that automatically declares the frontmost screen
to the default public screen provided the frontmost is actually a public
screen. Together with the global public screen mode 'SHANGHAI' enabled all
windows that normally open on the workbench screen will now open on the new
default public screen. (Because FrontPub would no be very useful with a
disabled 'SHANGHAI'-mode, it will be switched on at program start). It uses
a verticalblank-interrupt server to monitor Intuitions frontscreen. All other
accesses and (possible) changes are done by the mainprogram. Currently FrontPub
does not support any arguments.
FrontPub should run on every Amiga equipped with at least V37 of the OS.


                              Features

- is a commodity, so it can be disabled/enabled/ended at any time
- exits if CTRL-C was received
- amount of needed cpu-time is negligible
- pure, can be made resident (not very useful though)


                            Installation

If you want FrontPub to be started every time the system comes up, its
recommended to copy it to the WBStartup-drawer so the workbench will load
FrontPub automatically. Otherwise copy the program to a directory that is
in the search path. Simple, isn't it?


                               Source

FrontPub was written in asm. Every assembler capable of handling includes
should be useable for assembling the source. No special includes required
(but LVO-definitions please).
To see if its possible to create a similar small executable in C, I also
wrote a c-version. The source for this version is for the "__saveds"
part very gcc-specific. But it should compile with any other compiler with
slightly changes. I used GCC 2.3.3 to compile (but any other version >2.3.3
is also ok). The resulting executable is not much bigger than the asm-version,
so shall I drop asm? :-)


                              History

1.0 - 16/01/95  initial version
                (not released)
1.1 - 25/03/95  frontscreen check changed, much safer now


                               Author

The author can be reached at the following addresses:

    gnikl@informatik.uni-rostock.de

      or snailmail

    Gunther Nikl
    Hans-Beimler-Strasse 17
    D-19370 Parchim
    Germany