@database Introduction.guide @remark ENGLISH VERSION @author Kevin Winspear @(c) "Copyright İ 1994 K.Winspear." @$VER: Intorduction.guide(29/06/94) @wordwrap @font topaz.font 8 @node Main "Introduction" AmigaGuide, AmigaGuide.info, amigaguide.library, WDisplay, WDisplay.info İ Copyright 1991-93 Commodore-Amiga, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced and distributed under license from Commodore. @{" " link "Introduction"} Introduction @{" " link "Introducing Workbench"} Introducing Workbench @{" " link "Window"} How to use Windows @{" " link "Icons"} How to use Icons @{" " link "Menus"} How to use Menus @{" " link "Copying Files"} Copying Files @{" " link "Renaming and Deleting"} Renamingand Deleting @{" " link "Formatting and Copying Disks"} Formatting and Copying Disks @{" " link "Licence"} Licence @{" " quit} Now I Know? (Close Window Load Workbench) Introducing WB and AmigaDOS - Kevin Winspear 1994 AMIGAGUIDE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS-IS" AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE; NO WARRANTIES ARE MADE. ALL USE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY IS ASSUMED. @endnode @node Introduction Introduction Why did I put these disks together? Well it all started when a friend of mine bought an Amiga 1200 and like most people did not have a clue how to use the Workbench never mind the AmigaDOS. He told me he bought 'Basically Amiga' but he had trouble getting starting with it, so I looked at the disks and he was right. It gave some good info but sometimes it would crash the system. Well he kept ringing up with another question, so in the end I decided to put these disks together. He later said, and I quote: "They are great I think the idea of double - clicking on Icons and opening Windows and using your Workbench menu program, are fab. You have really thought about the beginner." The idea of these two disks is to Introduce you to the Workbench 2 or 3, I thought the best way to get to no your way around the Workbench is to actually click on icons, open drawers and use the menus but instead of starting programs you get a READ ME file on that subject. After all getting to know anything is to experiment. This Workbench is a reconstruction of Workbench 2.0, and Workbench 3.0 extra programs added, the program's themselve's have been taken off but their icons have been left on. I have changed the icons to project-icons to call AmigaGuide files. So the idea is you open windows double-click on their icons and they call the AmigaGuide files on that subject. I've done it this way so you will get to know your way around the Workbench and Extras disks. I have also put together a program called Workbench Menu's, the idea is that it is a reconstruction of the Workbench Menu's, the program will be at the top of the screen, when you click on 'Now I know (close Window and load Workbench)' then follow the instructions in the Menus Window. When looking at any of the pictures, just click the left mouse button, to continue. If your looking at an Animation then click your right mouse button to continue. All the Picture's and Animation's are on the ExtrasX.X disk, so if you don't have an external drive you will have to swap disks a couple of times. ****************** Introducing * ADDRESS:- * All rights are * ----------- * WB and AmigaDOS * K.Winspear * reserved to the * 10 Colenso St, * is Copyright * Hartlepool, * author. * Cleveland, * By K.Winspear. * TS26 9BD. * * ENGLAND. * * * ****************** @{" " link "main"} Return @endnode @node Window Windows. All Workbench windows have what are known as 'gadgets' attached to them that perform certain operations on that window when you click on them. In many ways gadgets are very similar to icons. Let's take a look at what each window gadget actually does. @{" " system "workbenchx.x:c/ppanim extrasx.x:Window.anim"} See Window Animation 1. CLOSE GADGET:- As its name seems to strangely suggest, the close gadget is used to close a window. That is, to remove it from view. Once you've closed a window, the Amiga forgets all about it so it's up to you to double click on the disk or drawer icon that displayed the window in the first place if you wish to view the same window again. 2. DRAG GADGET:- The drag bar is a bit of a multi-purpose gadget. When you're not using it, it displays lots of useful information about the disk that it is currently in use including its name, the number of bytes used by the files on that disk and the amount of space that is free. If you click once on the drag bar and hold onto the mouse button and then move the mouse, the drag bar will also allow you to move the window to a new position on the Workbench screen. This can be handy for arranging windows when several overlap. 3. SHRINK GADGET:- If your Workbench screen starts to get a little cluttered then you can remedy the situation a little by clicking on each window's shrink gadget. This gadget simply shrinks the window to a minimum size. Click on it again and the window will return to its original size. 4. DEPTH GADGET:- If a window is being obscured by another window it can be brought fully into view simply by clicking on its depth gadget. If you can't access the window without moving the window that obscures it, that window can be sent 'behind' the window you're interested in by clicking on its depth gadget. 5. SLIDER GADGET:- Because the Workbench allows you to fix the position of an icon (or group of icons) which a window, it may not always be possible to view them all at once. If an icon is hidden, it can be brought into view by dragging the appropriate slider gadget up or down, left or right. That will cause the area within the window to 'scroll' in the direction of the slider gadget. You can tell whether there are icons hidden from view because the slider gadget that controls the direction of scroll that the icon can be found in will shrink. If, for example, the vertical slider bar (this is the bit you click on) shrinks and moves to the top of the slider gadget, then there are files below the window boundaries. In order to access these hidden icons, simply click on the slider bar with the left mouse button and, while holding that button, drag it in the direction of the hidden files. 6. SCROLL GADGETS:- The scroll gadgets work in a very similar way to the slider gadgets covered above but instead of scrolling the contents of the window smoothly, they are scrolled in discrete steps. There are four of these gadgets, one for each direction of movement. 7. SIZE GADGET:- The size gadget allows you to shrink or expand the window to a new size. It's operated simply by clicking and holding the left mouse button and dragging the outline of the window that will appear to its new size. @{" " link "main"} Return @endnode @node Icons Icons Virtually all the operations offered by the Amiga's Workbench are geared towards working with disks and the files and directories that they contain. When you insert a disk into the disk drive inside your Amiga, the Workbench will automatically sense its presence and a disk-shaped icon will appear on the Workbench screen. This is Workbench's way of letting you know that it's successfully found the disk and it's made it available to you. You'll notice that the Workbench will also display the name of the disk below its icon - the Workbench disk, for example, will have the label Workbench2.0 (if you have the 600) or Workbench3.0 (for the 1200) below it. All disks can have their own name which is stored on the disk in what is known as the directory track. You can view the contents of a disk from the Workbench too simply by moving the mouse pointer over the disk icon and double clicking on it. The Workbench displays the contents of a disk by opening up what is known as a window. Windows are another important aspect of the Workbench that you should be aware of. They basically act as frames that are used to contain a groups of related icons. Each program, file or directory within the 'root directory' of a disk will have its own icon and the Workbench will group them together inside a single window. Icons are used by the Amiga's Workbench to represent particular objects or operations in a pictorial form. The Workbench uses primarily three different type of icon - disk icons, drawer icons and file icons. Disk icons are automatically attached to any disks that you insert in the Amiga disk drives and they provide a quick and easy method of identifying a particular disk from any others you may have inserted into other (external) drives. When you double click on a disk icon, the Workbench will display its contents in a window. Drawers are slightly more complex as they are treated as almost disks within disks. A drawer is essentially a pigeon hole on a disk that is used to split files into groups. The best way to understand drawers is to think of the drawers in a bedside cabinet - although all the drawer belong to the same cabinet, each drawer can contain its own unique contents and unless you're a scruffy so-and-so, the drawers can help to organize the contents of the cabinet considerably - you could have underwear in the bottom drawer, socks in the middle drawer and your magazines in the top drawer. Without drawer, all of these items would be mixed in together and the result would be nothing short of chaos (putting a magazine on your feet whilst reading your socks can be embarrassing!). When you display the contents of a disk that contains drawers, only the files that are in the same directory as the drawers themselves will be displayed. If you want to display the contents of a drawer, you have to double click on the drawer's icon and the Workbench will display a second window containing all the icons for the files (or drawers) within that drawer. Lastly, file icons are attached to the individual file on your disk. Each file can be anything from a simple data file (such as a picture you've drawn in DPaint) to a program which can be run by double clicking on its icon. @{" " system "workbenchx.x:c/ppanim extrasx.x:Icons.anim"} See Icons Animation @{" " link "main"} Return @endnode @node Menus Pull down Menus Another feature of the Workbench is its pull down menus which drop down from the top of the screen when you move the mouse pointer over the Workbench title bar and hold down the right mouse button. Pull down menus simply contain lists of operations, with each item in these list capable of performing a particular task. Each menu item will have the name of the operation attached to it so you'll know exactly what each one does. Don't worry, they're not at all cryptic. These menus (there should be four of them) can be accessed by holding down the right mouse button. Once you've done this, the text displayed within the Workbench titlebar should change to the names of the four menus. Now simply move the mouse pointer over one of these menu heading and the menu attached to that heading should be displayed. You can then select an operation from that menu by moving the mouse pointer down through the menu, highlighting each menu items as it moves. When the mouse pointer is over the menu item you're interested in (it should be highlighted), click the left mouse button and hey presto - the operation should be performed! Not all pull-down menu items will be so immediately accessible. Some require you to do something else first before they are made available. A good example of this is the Format Disk... option which I shall be taking about later. In order for this option to be available, you need to have clicked on the icon for the disk that you wish to format. If an operation is not available, it will not be highlighted when you move the mouse pointer over it and its name in the menu will be ghosted. The Workbench isn't the only program that uses pull down menus. Most Amiga application such as word processors, paint packages and music programs use exactly the same technique, so once you've mastered the Workbench's pull down menus, using other programs becomes a doddle. @{" " link "main"} Return @endnode @node "Introducing Workbench" Introducing Workbench IMPORTANT - ALWAYS MAKE A COPY OF THE WORKBENCH DISK & WORK WITH THAT ********* ********************************************************* Most people's perception of a computer is a complex beast that requires a PHD in computer science just to operate. With the Amiga's Workbench, however, this couldn't be further from the truth. If you've managed to master the basic techniques of hand to eye co-ordination and you know how to operate the mouse controller that came with your Amiga, then you're already half there! The key to the Amiga's simplicity is the Workbench, a program bundled with all Amigas that allows you to perform common everyday operations such as loading programs, copying and examining disks without having to get bogged down in computer jargon. The Workbench, like all similar WIMP-based (Window, Icon, Menu, Pointer) front ends is a development of the system pioneered by those bright sparks at Xerox's Palo-Alto Research Laboratories. Back then computers were operated by typing in complex commands via a keyboard. Although this system worked, it contributed more than its fair share to the technofear that surrounded computers little more than a few years back. Most 8-bit micros used this technique too, although in a much simpler form. The basic idea behind WIMP-based systems like Workbench is that even if you don't understand the language that the Amiga uses, you can still operate your machine simply by pointing and clicking. It's a bit like the technique that most of us use when trying to buy something in a foreign country (that is unless you know the lingo off by heart!). Say, for example, you were in Japan and you wanted to buy a lovely hot pasty. You could try asking for it in English but chances are that the shopkeeper wouldn't know what you were talking about. You could even try asking for it using a couple of lines that you had learnt on the way to the shop, but then he'd probably end up wondering why you had asked him for directions to the beach! A much simpler way of getting what you wanted would be to simply point at the pasty you wanted - no matter what language that shop keeper understood, gestures such as these are universal. All you've got to do then is to try and suss out the currency without the shopkeeper ripping you off! Obviously, it's very unlikely that your Amiga will ever try to sell you a pasty, but the techniques are pretty much the same. The basic idea behind the Workbench is that you communicate with your Amiga by moving an on-screen pointer around the screen using the mouse controller. In turn, the Amiga displays little pictures (icons) that represent certain operations. By moving the mouse pointer over an icon and then clicking the left mouse button, the operation associated with that icon will be performed by your Amiga. When you click on an icon, the icon image should appear to be reversed - don't worry, this is simply the Amiga's way of showing you that the icon you've just clicked on has been selected. There are two ways of actually selecting an icon, however. If you click once, then you're simply telling the Workbench that you'd like to perform an operation on that icon. If you double click on an icon (press the left mouse button in quick succession), however, you're telling the Workbench that you'd actually like the operation associated with that icon to be performed. Workbench treats the programs that it attaches icons to in exactly the same way - if you wanted to load a paint program, for example, you'd have to double click on its icon in order for it to be run. If you find that even when you double click on an icon program still doesn't run, then chances are that the time between your first and second mouse clicks is to great - try double clicking a bit faster and it should work. @{" " link "main"} Return @endnode @node "Copying Files" COPYING FILES. The Amiga's Workbench isn't just designed to handle the task of viewing the contents of disks - you can perform all manner of common operations on the contents of a disk including the copying of files between disks and drawers, deleting and renaming files. We've already looked at how to load a program from the Workbench, so let's take a look at a couple of the more common housekeeping chores you might want to perform on the contents of a disk. Copying files from the Workbench is very simple indeed once you understand the basic techniques involved. The Workbench allows you to copy either a single file or a group of files either to another directory on the same disk or to a completely separate disk altogether. The easiest of these two operations is the copying of files between directories on the same disk - all you have to do is to display the contents of the source drawer and the destination drawer by double clicking on their associated drawer icons. If all went well, you should see two windows on the Workbench screen - one containing the file that you wish to copy and the other showing the contents of the drawer you wish to copy that file to. All you have to do to actually start the copying process is to move the mouse pointer over the file, click and hold the left mouse button over the icon and then (whilst still holding down the mouse button) drag the icon into the destination drawer and let go of the left mouse button. When you drag the icon, it should follow the mouse pointer across the screen. If all went well, the disk drive light should come on and within a second or two the file will be copied to its new location. Copying files between disks is somewhat more involved unless you're lucky enough to own an Amiga equipped with two or more disk drives. If your Amiga only has a single drive, however, follow these simple instructions. First, insert the disk containing the source file and then double click on the disk's icon to display its contents. Enter the drawer containing the file and then remove the source disk. Don't close the windows you've just opened, however - we'll need them later! Next, insert the disk that you'd like to copy the file to and then double click on its disk icon to bring up a window containing its contents. Double click on the drawer you'd like the file copied to and, once it appears, move the mouse pointer over the icon for the file that you'd like to copy (you didn't close the windows when you removed the source disk, did you?) And then click and hold the left mouse button and drag the icon across into its new drawer. Unless you've got a twin-drive system, the Amiga will prompt you to swap the source and destination disk a couple of times, so just follow the on-screen prompts and you won't go far wrong. @{" " link "main"} Return @endnode @node "Renaming and Deleting" RENAMING AND DELETING FILES. Once you start working with your Amiga, whether you're drawing pictures in your favourite paint program or writing letters to long lost friends, you'll undoubtedly find that you'll eventually want to rename disk, drawers, and even files. To rename any type of icon, simply move the mouse pointer over it, click on it with the left mouse pointer and then select Rename from the Icons pull down menu. If you selected the operation correctly, a requester should pop up onto the screen containing a string gadget (a string gadget is simply a type of gadget that you can type text into) with the current name of the icon you've selected. When you click the mouse pointer inside the gadget, a cursor should appear that marks where any text that you type will be entered. Simply delete the existing name (using the backspace key) and the enter the new name. Once you're happy with the new filename, press the return key and the Amiga will rename the file using the name you entered. Files and even drawers can be deleted just as easily and they can be renamed too. You may find the after using the same disk to hold all your files it will start to become rather full after a while. This is where the Workbench's delete function comes in handy. The use of the delete function is pretty obvious - it removes a file or drawer (and also the entire contents of that drawer) from the disk that they are on, freeing up valuable disk space in the process. To delete a file, simply select it with the left mouse button and then move the mouse pointer up to the Icons pull down menu and select the Delete menu item. A requester will then appear asking you if you're really sure about what you're trying to do. Be very careful - once you've deleted a file or drawer, it's virtually impossible to get them back! If you are sure, however, click on the 'Ok' gadget and the Amiga will start to remove the file or drawer from your disk. @{" " link "main"} Return @endnode @node "Formatting and Copying Disks" FORMATTING AND COPYING DISKS. If you've already played around with Workbench, you may have noticed that the Amiga doesn't like blank disks unless they are formatted first. If you try saving a file onto a disk that hasn't been formatted beforehand, the Amiga will reject it. Don't worry - this doesn't mean that the disk is in any way damaged. All you have to do is to format it and the Amiga will then happily accept the disk as one if its own. Formatting is a very simple process that essentially 'prepares' a disk. It's a bit like buying a chest of drawers from a DIY centre - to conserve valuable warehouse space, the DIY centre sells the drawers in kit form. When you get them home it's down to you to prepare (build) the kit into a usable chest of drawers. What's more, disk's are a lot more reliable than flatpack furniture (mine keeps falling apart!) So once a disk has been formatted, it doesn't have to be formatted again. Formatting a disk under the Workbench is very simple indeed. Start by removing your Workbench disk and then insert the disk that you wish to format. Although a disk icon will appear on the Workbench for that disk, this doesn't mean that it has already been formatted - if the disk name is 'DF0:????' then the disk will have to be formatted. Click once with the left mouse button on the disk's icon and then select the Format Disk... option from the Icons pull down menu. The Amiga should then ask you to re- insert your Workbench disk. Do what it says and then after a few seconds disk access you'll be asked to reinsert the blank disk. After a few short checks (just click on the 'Ok' gadget to skip these), the disk will start to format. As the disk is being formatted, the Amiga will display a small graph showing the progress of the formatting process and on the Amiga 600 it will show you a count down. Once this is done, the window will close and your disk will be renamed Empty. It's now ready for use!! ********************************************************************** * IMPORTANT: ALWAYS WAIT UNTIL THE DISK DRIVE LIGHT IS OUT BEFORE * * REMOVING DISKS. THIS APPLIES WITH ANY SOFTWARE YOU ARE * * USING. * ********************************************************************** @{" " link "main"} Return @endnode @node "Licence" L I C E N C E ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ Introducing WB & AmigaDOS is released by F1 LICENCEWARE It is a copyright program and may not be duplicated or altered without the written permission of either F1 or the author. You have permission to (and are encouraged to) make ONE backup copy for personal use only and also to install OnLineHelp on your hard drive using the supplied Install program. In the event of you selling your hard drive, OnLineHelp and any backup copy must be sold with it or permanently removed from it. Introducing WB & AmigaDOS is supplied "as is" without representation or warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including without limitation, any representations or endorsements regarding the use of, the performance of the program and associated files, its reliability, appropriateness or suitability for any task, the entire risk as to the use of this program is assumed by the user. In no event will the author or F1 LICENCEWARE be liable for any damages, direct, indirect, incidental or consequential, resulting from any defects in the program or its associated files. This disclaimer shall supersede any verbal or written statement to the contrary. Breathe out!... @{" " link "Main"} Return @endnode