newps 0.4
                                  17.7.96

                            by Andreas E. Bombe


    Introduction (What the hell is it?)

newps is a shell command with which you can create your own public screens.
I wrote this little tool because there are some programs which do not offer
any options to open on their windows on their own screens, but do offer
options to open on public screens. Since I don't want to run everything on
the workbench screen, I need to open new public screens myself, and to do
this easily (and automated from scripts) newps was written. It allows to
specify the name and resolution, size, etc. of a screen on the command line
and will close the screen on its own after the last window is closed on it.


    Disclaimer (blablabla...)

This small piece of software is Freeware, this means you can use it for
free. You can also distribute it freely, as long as you don't make any
profit with it and don't change the distribution. Furthermore I cannot be
made responsible for any damages to your software, your hardware, your
mental health or your home being invaded by extra terrestrians.

Please note that this piece of software is still in beta stage, i.e. it has
not been thoroughly tested and may crash your mashine when used.


    Usage (How does this ^#§!=*&% thing work???)

After the program is started, it will try to open the specified screen and
will then wait for ctrl c to be pressed or the last window on this screen
to be closed and then close the screen. With WAITCTRLC it can be configured
only to wait for ctrl c and thus leaving the screen open even if all
windows on it are closed.

Template:
newps NAME/A,TITLE/K,SCREENMODE=SCRM/K,WIDTH=W/K/N,HEIGHT=H/K/N,
DEPTH=D/K/N,WAITCTRLC/S,DEFDIMS/S,DEFPENS/S

Arguments:

NAME    Needs to specified, this is the name of the public screen.

TITLE   This is the title shown at the top of the screen. If this is not
        specified, the public screen name will be used as title.

SCREENMODE  Now to the complicated part. I wanted to create a small tool,
        so there are only hexadecimal ModeIDs accepted, which are quite
        difficult to construct (for non-programmers), see below for some
        examples. If this is not specified, the Workbench screen mode will
        be used.

WIDTH   Specifies the width of the screen, which can be wider than the
        resolution width (in this case the screen will be scrolled). If
        this is not specified, the Workbench screen width will be used.

HEIGHT  Same as WIDTH, but for height.

DEPTH   Specifies the number of colors in number of bitplanes. This means
        this number will be used as exponent to the base 2 to create the
        number of colors ( 1 plane -> 2 colors, 4 planes -> 16 colors,
        etc.). If this is not specified, again the Workbench value will be
        used.

WAITCTRLC   By default, newps will close the public screen and terminate
        when the last window on its screen is closed. If this is not
        wanted, specify WAITCTRLC and newps will wait for a ctrl c before
        trying to close the screen.

DEFDIMS If you don't specify width or height, the Workbench values will be
        used. But if you simply want the default text overscan size without
        specifying width and height, set this switch.

DEFPENS By setting this switch, the new screen will get the system default
        pens instead of a copy of the Workbench screen ones.


    Some of the most important screen modes (now it gets complicated...)

On default monitor:
Hires           0x8000
Superhires      0x8020
Hires/laced     0x8004
SHires/laced    0x8024

NTSC: add 0x11000 to def monitor values
PAL: add 0x21000 to def monitor values
Euro36: add 0x71000 to def monitor values
Super72: add 0x81000 to def monitor values
DblNTSC: add 0x91000 to def monitor values
DblPAL: add 0xa1000 to def monitor values

Multiscan/VGA:
Productivity    0x39024
Product'/laced  0x39025

Euro72:
LowRes          0x69004
Productivity    0x69024
LowRes/laced    0x69005
Product'/laced  0x69025

A2024:
10 Hz           0x41000
15 Hz           0x49000



    Known Bugs (grmph)

An Enforcer hit (word read from 0x0014) is created if newps fails to open
the screen. I can't find the bug in my source code, so it might be a
problem of the Maxon EasyObjects C++ classes, which are used in this
program.


    History

newps 0.1 (15.7.96) 11:56:28 by andreasb@destiny

First running version

newps 0.2 (15.7.96) 12:29:55 by andreasb@destiny

Changed behaviour when trying to close screen while a window
is still locking it (requester will appear only once on each
attempt to close screen with ctrl c)

newps 0.3 (15.7.96) 14:30:52 by andreasb@destiny

Added DEFDIMS switch
Fixed a serious bug in signal handling (a function to determine the
signal number was used before the signal class was constructed :-P )

newps 0.4 (16.7.96) 19:15:15 by andreasb@destiny

Changed library minimum versions down to 37


    The Author (the almighty one...)

Send bug reports, suggestions, thanks, lots of money and hardware to:

EMail: andreas.bombe@munich.netsurf.de

Home page: http://home.pages.de/~andreas.bombe/
        or http://homepages.munich.netsurf.de/Andreas.Bombe/
           (you can get the latest version of this program
            and my PGP public key there)

SnailMail:  Andreas Bombe
            Hansjakobstr. 123a
            81825 München
            Germany