@DATABASE "TTX" @AUTHOR Mike Archer @NODE main " TTX 1.0 ©1999 Mike Archer" ###### ###### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ### ## ## ## ## ## o ## o ## ## o (ToolType eXecute) ©1999 by Mike Archer --=*=-- @{"What is TTX ?" LINK "whatisit"} @{"INSTRUCTIONS" LINK "instructions"} @{"DISTRIBUTION" LINK "distribution"} @{" LEGAL BIT " LINK "legalbit"} @{" FUTURE " LINK "future"} @ENDNODE @NODE whatisit " TTX 1.0 What is TTX ? ©1999 Mike Archer" TTX is a small (720 bytes) utility that allows you to run commands before and after a program is run from workbench. I wrote this utility because I was sick of copying games onto my hard-drive only for them to ask "Please insert volume GameDisk: in any drive". Previously when this happened I had to create a script file to assign the disk-name to the directory on my hard-drive and give it a project tied into IconX. (You must have done this countless times yourself!) Now all I need to do is use TTX!!! @{"How do you use TTX then ?" LINK instructions} @ENDNODE @NODE instructions " TTX 1.0 Instructions ©1999 Mike Archer" Using TTX is easy. First you must install it into a directory that workbench looks for commands. "SYS:Utilities" is a good place. Now when you get a program that you wish to execute commands before/after you simply..... (1) Select the icon and bring up the Information window. ([A] + i) (2) Change the icon type from "Tool" to "Project". (3) For each command you wish to run before the program add a ToolType called TTX_BEFORE. (4) For each command you wish to run after the program add a ToolType called TTX_AFTER. (5) Make the default tool for the icon TTX. And that's it! EXAMPLE 1: PucMan Worlds PucMan worlds works fine on a hard-drive, but the map editor looks for the level data on the volume "PucMan2". So select the MapEd icon, change it's type to "Project", Make the default tool TTX. and add the following ToolTypes.. TTX_BEFORE=ASSIGN PucMan2: "" TTX_AFTER=ASSIGN PucMan2: Now when you double-click the MapEd icon, workbench will treat it as a project file (rather than a program) and pass it to TTX. TTX will search through the ToolTypes for any TTX_BEFORE tooltypes. It will find the command.. ASSIGN PucMan2: "" Before it executes this command it sets the current directory to the directory that the MapEd program was in. (Yes, move the directory and the assign will still be correct!!) Now it will execute the program with the same name as the icon. "MapEd" Once you exit from MapEd, control will be passed back to TTX which will then look for any TTX_AFTER tooltypes. It will find the command... ASSIGN PucMan2: This will remove the assign created for the program to run, you system is back to normal. I think this system is much easier than IconX, what do you think ? EXAMPLE 2: Deluxe PacMan Deluxe PacMan wont work on my machine because it doesn't set it's copperlist up properly. To get it to work you need a degrader type utility. I use RUNIT with the SCRBLANK parameter. So again rather than create a script file to do this I simply changed "DeluxePacMan" to a project icon, gave it TTX as the default tool and then added into the tooltype... TTX_BEFORE=RUNIT SCRBLANK EXAMPLE 3: MagicTV MagicTV is a useful commodity, but it causes the screen display to flicker on programs written in AMOS (and many others that set up their own custom copper lists and leave task-switching enabled.) With the program "CxCommand" you can disable/enable any commodities that are running, so you can use ttx to switch of MagicTV before the program runs and to switch it back on again afterwards. This is done as follows.... TTX_BEFORE=CXCOMMAND "MagicTV V1.0" disable TTX_BEFORE=WAIT 2 TTX_AFTER=CXCOMMAND "MagicTV V1.0" enable Note: When using CXCOMMAND you must give the name of the commodity that you wish to disable exactly as it appears in the Exchange window listing commodities running. (Capitals and lowercase must be correctly typed) @ENDNODE @NODE distribution " TTX 1.0 Distribution ©1999 Mike Archer" This program is freeware, copyright remains with the author. You may use/distribute this program freely as long as the program and accompanying files are kept with the program and remain unchanged. The source to this program is provided and you are free to change the program in whatever way you want, but if you distribute your changed version please make sure you either put remarks in the source to highlight what you have changed or distribute both your version and the original version together. (I don't want bug-reports about other peoples code :( @ENDNODE @NODE legalbit " TTX 1.0 Legal Bit ©1999 Mike Archer" This program comes with no warranty, if you use it you do so at your own risk. No liability what-so-ever will be accepted by the author or distributor of this program for any problems caused by it's use or misuse. If you do not agree with this, then do not use the program. @ENDNODE @NODE future " TTX 1.0 Future ©1999 Mike Archer" I hope to release a new version of TTX in the future. It depends on if I get time to suss out what I want it to do. I hope to add the following features... * Launch the program whose icon was clicked as a WorkBench task rather than a CLI command. Some programs need TTX and also look at their icon for ToolTypes. Run them from CLI and the ToolTypes are ignored. (This problem occurs using IconX too) * I would also like to code the features of RUNIT and CXCOMMAND into TTX, rather than have to call external programs. However I don't have the time to do this at the moment, if anyone fancies using the idea behind how TTX works and doing this, they are quite welcome to use my source-code (included). I don't expect any credit, just make your final release Public Domain or Freeware. @ENDNODE