TSL.doc (11/Apr/1996) --------------------- TSL is a browser for DJs, music producers and people that deal with music in general. It can easily be used for other indexing purposes like books, floppy disks, etc. I wrote this program long time ago for the needs of my job as a radio DJ. I needed some software to index, sort, edit and search my song lists. The nice thing about TSL was that it could specify search method by artist or song, meaning the two separated columns could be searched independently. For example a search for White (as in "Nights in White Satin") would not return Barry White, while a search for 'limit' (as in "No limits") would not bring all the 2Unlimited songs up! Always begin by pressing F1 so that the lists comes up on the lower portion of the screen. With the UP/DOWN cursos keys we move by one song on the list while in one page. By LEFT/RIGHT cursor keys the list scrolls by page, which is 20 songs (entries). To search the list press 's' while a choise of the search method from FULL to SINGLE can be specified with F3. Pressing the SPACE BAR or ENTER the song will be highlighted (picked). The picked entries can be viewed or printed separately by pressing F2. Entries can be inserted by pressing 'i' while 'esc' stops the input. Also any entry can be edited by 'e' if it was inserted incorrectly. There is a special function of Greek characters. In Greece where TSL was originaly developed there are a few extra characters from ASCII 192 and above. That function with a combination of F1/F2 will switch from one character set to the ather. The good thing about TSL is that it uses a clean ascii file and the user can process it with any text editor (I use CED 3.5) and therfore data can be ported to any machine (PC/Macintosh/unix/hp48 calculators!!!). This way if you decide to quit Amiga (it will never happen but the heck with it!) your list is not lost, it can be moved to a different program. I use CED to insert all my new singles just on the bottom of the list and then use the TSL to sort them out. Once every month instead of exiting TSL by 'esc' I use F5 to save all changes. The main code was developed on AmosPro 2.0 and runs on ANY configuration as I tested the crap out of it on all amigas I got my fingertips on. While you are in TSL, use Left-Amiga + A to flip to Workbench. Just before the upload I modified the program a little bit and it now works on both display modes (NTSC/PAL). It was Nobelis' idea, almost all the routimes were re-written and they are now self-adjustable so that the TSL works on both sides of the Atlanitc (and other places as well!) The program is now smart enough to detect what machine it is running on! You just go ahead and execute it, don't worry about a thing! Oh! Btw you'll see 20 songs at a time on PAL mode while NTSC will display only 15, not a big deal. There will be more versions of TSL in the future ONLY if I get mail from other DJs that need the software. I think it is not very cool packing the AmiNET with software nobody will use! However, I will be uploading my song list frequently from now on which is vonstantly growing (and it is growing fast). Some of our other smart hacks, software and pix that made the AmiNET: games/board/ShanghaiII.lha utils/cli/MatchV2.0.lha pix/anim/AmiGlobe.lha pix/art/Domna.lha util/conv/Greek_decoder.lha In the LHa I included my own list with 3,300 signles. Very useful for DJs again. You might find some singles in there you just can't seem to recall from the top of your head. I consider it to be part of the History of Music. I am now employed by MUSIC FM 102.4 Arta-Greece For comments or correspondence with other DJs e-mail: melody@hol.gr Future: Faster loader File requester (using different databases) I'd like to thank Nobelis for all the beta testing and help with the docs. I think that was the first program that was being tested on the other side of the Atlantic, more than 7000 miles away! Alexis Katsadorakis Pl. Nayarinoy 19 Arta 47.100 Greece