ELVIS for the Psion 3a and Compatibles ====================================== 7th June 1996 Psion 3a version - 6.1 release INTRODUCTION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ This information is intended to provide information that is specific to the Psion 3a implementation of ELVIS. ELVIS was ported to the Psion 3a by Keith and Dave Walker. The port is based on the ELVIS v1.8 patch level 4 source. The key features of this port are: - Command level compatibility with the Unix "vi" editor program so that users of "vi" will instantly be able to use the ELVIS program. - The ability to edit larger files than arem possible with the Text Editor built into the Psion 3a. The file size is limited only by the size of the RAM disk that you can give to ELVIS to create its temporary files on. The port was done to provide us with an alternative text editor to that built into the Psion 3a that was more suitable to editing and amending source code files. This was done as part of developing a complete C development system hosted on the Psion 3a. This C development system is being released under the name of CPOC (which is a play on EPOC as the name of the Psion operating system and "C in your POCket" as a description of the capability). INSTALLATION AND RUNNING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The files provided are as follows: README The original ELVIS README file README.3a Psion 3a specific information ELVIS.APP The ELVIS program itself ELVIS.INI Sample initialisation file The ELVIS.APP file requires about 128K of system memory to run (64K code and 64K data). It is therefore only really suitable for running on the larger Psion S3a models or one which has been expanded with SSDs. The ELVIS.APP file can be installed in any directory that you like. We would recommend that you put it into either the "\APP\" directory or the "\CPOC\" directory on any drive. If it is placed in this location it will automatically be integrated into the CPOC system when it becomes available. If you have any resource files (files with names of the form ELVISnn.RSC) then these should be installed in an ELVIS sub-directory relative to the point at which the ELVIS.APP file is installed. These additional resource files are only used for nob- You can install ELVIS using the standard Psion-I sequence. As supplied, ELVIS will look for files in the \TXT directory on any drive that have a .TXT extension. By making use of list facility you can specify alternative file locations and file extensions. This is mentioned in section 16 of the User Guide manual (the chapter called "The System Screen"). If you have a command line processor (such as the CMDP package released by Psion) then you can also start ELVIS (or one of its aliases) from the command line. You will need to specify the full path name if you do not want to use the default one. Finally, if you have already loaded ELVIS you can use one of the built in ELVIS commands (such as the "r" or "e" commands) to load the required file. TEMPORARY FILE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While ELVIS is editing a file, it uses a temporary file to keep track of all the changes that you are making. The location of this temporary file is decided as follows: - If the ELVIS initialisation file exists (see below) and it contains a line such for the form set directory=A:\TMP\ then this is used as the location of temporary files. - If the ELVIS initialisation file does not exist and if the "TMP" or "TEMP" environment variables are set then the directory that they point to is used for the ELVIS temporary files. - If none of the above are true then ELVIS will assume the location "\" (i.e. the root directory of the default drive) is to be used for temporary files. It is the users responsibility to ensure that the relevant directory for temporary files does in fact exist. If it does not, then ELVIS will fail while loading. INITIALISATION FILE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The normal "vi" editor when running on a Unix system allows you to set up a file called ".exrc" that holds start up configuration details. The Psion 3a port of ELVIS uses a file called "ELVIS.INI" instead. This file (if present) is expected to be a text file that is held in the same directory as the ELVIS.APP file. This file is normally the easiest way to specify the location for the ELVIS temporary files. You can create an initial ELVIS.INI file by loading the WORD application built into the Psion 3a and saving the resulting file as file of type "TEXT". Subsequently you can use ELVIS itself to edit the ELVIS.INI file. To make it easier for you, we have provided a sample ELVIS.INI file. You can use this as a starting point, and tailor it to suit you particular system and preferences. There is a psion specific numeric variable called fontindex (fi) which can be used to specify the size of the font to be used. The variable can take a value between 0 and 4, the values representing the font sizes 6-point, 8-point, 11-point, 13-point and 16-point. By using this variable in the ELCIS.INI file it is possible to specify which font to use on startup. DOCUMENTATION ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The author of ELVIS provides a full manual on its use and facilities (about 120 pages). This manual is provided in the Unix ROFF format. If you want the raw ROFF format version of the documentation, then it is widely available on one of the many Internet sites that hold ELVIS source. A good site in the UK is "ic.ac.uk" (Imperial College). For Psion users, we have processed the ROFF format documentation files to produce a single formatted text file (about 200Kb in size). As we expect many of the typical users of ELVIS to already be familiar with the "vi" program, we have not included this documentation in the same package as the main ELVIS application program, but instead made it a separate file (ELVISDOC.ZIP) that you only need to download if you want it. CHANGING FONT SIZE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A special feature of the Psion port is the support for a range of different font sizes. You can toggle round the available fonts by using the Psion-Z keypress (or Psion-Shift-Z to go the other way). There is also a new 'set' option so that you can add your favourite font setup to the ELVIS.INI file. This 'set' option uses the keyword 'fontindex' (abbreviation is'fi') followed by a numeric value to specify the font. The values supported are: 0 6 point monospace font 1 8 point Swiss font 2 11 point Swiss font 3 13 point Swiss font 4 15 point Swiss font As you change the font size, the number of lines on the screen and the number of columns will be automatically adjusted to fit into the available screen area. You can find out the current settings of the fontindex and the number of screen ros and columns at any time by using the 'set' command with no parameters. LIMITATIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~ At this release we have not ported to the 3a the ancilliary programs that can be used in conjunction with ELVIS. These include programs such as "FORMAT" and "TAGS". Therefore any command which depend on the presence of such ancilliary programs will not work. Also the Psion 3a does not have a command shell, so the colon mode "!" command will not work. Finally due to the 64Kb limitation that the Psion 3a imposes as the maximum size of the code for any program, we have had to omit some of the optional features. For those who want to look at the section of the ELVIS documentation that talks about the options used when building it, the following details the build time options we defined to omit optional features NO_COLOR NO_CURSORSHAPE NO_DIGRAPH NO_ERRLIST NO_EXTENSIONS NO_FKEY NO_IF NO_LEARN NO_MKEXRC NO_POPUP NO_REFORMAT NO_VISIBLE FOREIGN LANGUAGE VERSIONS OF ELVIS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The ELVIS.APP file as supplied has all its messages in English. However the port of ELVIS was done with support for foreign languages in mind, so all messages are held in the form of a Psion Resource file. We do not actually have the skill ourselves to translate messages to a foreign language. What we are doing therefore is making the source for the English version of the ELVIS resource file generally available in the hope that others will be interested in doing the necessary translation. This source, and the necessary additional information to make use of it is being uploaded as the ELVISRSS.ZIP file. When such resource files become available, they will have file names of the form ELVISnn.RSC where 'nn' is the EPOC country code (01 for English). These files should then be installed in an ELVIS sub-directory relative to the location at which the ELVIS.APP file has been installed. On start-up ELVIS will look for such files, and if there is one present which has the correct country code for the Psion in question it will use it in preference to the built-in English version. CONTACTS FOR THE PSION 3A PORT OF ELVIS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The original ELVIS program was developed by Steve Kirkendall. Steve is aware that the Psion 3a port has occured, but is not actively involved in it in any way. The Psion 3a port was done by: Dave Walker email: d.j.walker@slh0101.wins.icl.co.uk compuserve: 100141,2626 msn: itimpi@msn.com Keith Walker: email: kdw@oasis.icl.co.uk CHANGE HISTORY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 20 July 1995 - Initial release for the Psion 3a 13 Aug 1995 - ELVIS program now a file based ".APP" file. - Faster screen updating. - The Temporary directory changed to default to the root directory of the current default drive. 15 Aug 1995 - After a :e, :n or :f command the file being edited is updated on the system screen. 20 Aug 1995 - Fixed the X p N and , commands (porting problem). Updated :version command with Psion release info. Moved messages into a resource file - frees about 5K in data area. :sh command now actualy runs contents of shell variable (but :!command still doesn't work) 04 Oct 1995 - Psion 3a 5th Release Psion-X writes file and exits elvis Shift-Psion-X exits elvis with no write Delete key on system screen now handled Elvis now goes "busy" when performing long task. (Shift-)Psion-Z changes font size. new :set variable fontindex fixed a couple of messages. 07 May 1996 - Psion 3a 6th Release - Rebuilt using the "286" option of the TopSpeed Compiler which produced enough code reduction to allow fancier handling of regular expressions to be included. This means that a number of more advanced Elvis options relating to the use of 'magic' are now available in the Psion 3a version. - Changes to make ELVIS use language dependent resource files when running on a non-English system. - The Resource file made generally available to encourage development of non-English versions. - Will now read screen size and try to use all the available space. If used under the Psion 3a emulator, the displayed size is now up to 50 lines by 100 characters (previously was 22 x 80). 07 June 1996 - Psion 3a 6.1 release - Corrected problem introduced in 6.0 release that meant Psion-Z only works for two smallest font sizes. - Reduced maximum lines displayed under Psion 3a emulator to be 29 lines x 80 characters as part of correcting problem.