****************************************************************************** FLIP Version 2.0 by Lars Eggert in May 1990 ****************************************************************************** About the program ----------------- Ever had to switch between screens that had no back/front gadgets? Pressing ´LeftAmiga´ and ´n´ or ´m´ often does not help. We need a program that can switch between screens at any time. We could use ScreenX, but I find it too large and too difficult to use quickly. Flip can be the solution. It has several remarkable features: * Flip opens a small window on the screen we are currently working on. We just click on the arrow and the next screen appears. Flip opens its Window on our new screen and we can either switch again or stay here and terminate Flip. * Flip allows us to bring the Workbench to front at any time, from any screen with only one simple mouse click. * Flip can close any screen and all Windows on it. Useful to free some resources of crashed tasks. * Flip has an unique ability: It can sort the screens, so that the title bars of the all screens are visible at one time. * Flip can pull all screens up at one time. * Flip can bring all Windows of a screen to front one after the other. * Flip can be fully used without mouse. Programmers do not have to leave the keyboard to use Flip. How to use Flip --------------- Just start Flip from Workbench or from CLI. The window which will open looks somehow like this: --------------------------------- |[ 1 ] TITLEBAR ============= | |-------------------------------| | | |[ 2 ] |-----| |-----|| | | 7 | | 8 || |[ 3 ] |-----| |-----|| | | |[ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ]| | | --------------------------------- All gagets are numbered here, to ease explanation: [1] CloseWindow gadget (or use ESC key): Terminates Flip. [2] FRONT gadget (or use ´f´ key): Brings a new window to front. The Flip window will be the first, though. [3] UP gadget (or use ´u´ key): Pulls all screens up. Useful after SORTing the screens (look [5]). [4] NUKE gadget (or use ´n´ key): Nukes (closes) the active Screen and all windows on it. Be careful! This will immediately crash the system if any program wants to use the screen for output. USE ONLY IF NO VALUABLE DATA IS IN THE SYSTEM! [5] SORT gadget (or use ´s´ key): Sorts all the screens in a way, that all titlebars are visible at one time. Useful to get a quick look at all open screens. [6] INFO gadget (or use ´i´ key): Displays program information. [7] WB gadget (or use cursor up or down keys): Brings Workbench to front no matter what screen is active. [8] NEXT gadget (or use cursor left or right keys): Brings the next screen to front. What you should not do with Flip -------------------------------- THIS WILL CRASH YOUR SYSTEM FOR SURE: * If you nuke a screen while a program is running on it. * If you nuke the Workbench. * If you nuke a screen if there is only one opened. THIS MAY BE UNHEALTHY TO YOUR SYSTEM: * If you close a screen by ending a program if flip has its window open on that screen. * If you nuke a screen without exactly knowing that no task will use it any longer. OTHER RISKS OF USING FLIP: * Flipping while some task opens or closes its screen. I do not know what will happen, because this never occured to me. But I can imagine it could be fatal. * Bringing windows on the screens of other programs to front. This may make the output of the program unreadable, because it presumes that its windows have a certain order. In spite of all those risks I described above, Flip seems to be rather safe. It has never crashed since I use it. ****************************************************************************** FLIP is Public Domain. You may copy or swap it as you like. Note that you use this program at your own risk. I will not be liable for any damage the usage of this program might do to your data. (It never did any damage to my own files, but heaven knows...) I would like to get comments and suggestions on how to improve the program. Source code is available by sending me a disk and $5 or equivalent amount in any other currency. Lars Eggert Im Flutgraben 23 6337 Leun-Bissenberg West Germany Phone: 06473 / 1695 Hey, if you like to, you can send me some of your programs. But please do not send any pirated software. I will use your disk for harddisk backups then. ******************************************************************************