Runner -- A Desktop Alternative FILE SELECTOR USAGE Running and Viewing Other Programs Copyright (C) 1993 by Dave Thorson Version 1.61 November 18, 1993 Runner can use use the standard Atari file selector almost like a window from the desktop: you can run programs and view files from the file selector. This only works when you call the file selector directly from Runner, not when another program calls it, even if the other program is run from within Runner (I'm not a magician or a CodeHead, you know!). Access to the file selector can be also handy if you want to see what's on a disk, since a file selector displays the filenames and folders. This can be even handier if you're using Universal Item Selector, since now you have access to Copy, Move, Delete, Rename, Format and Print capabilities, among others. $$ There are several ways to access a file selector: * Click on the title line at the top of a menu list. * Press the Space Bar to access a file selector box. * Hold down the Alternate key and press a letter key. While pressing the space bar starts in the last used drive and directory (folder), using an Alt-letter key will start it in the last-used directory of the corresponding drive as follows: Alt-a A: Alt-b B: Alt-c C: and so on.... $$ Exiting a File Selector Click on Cancel, or click OK without selecting a file. The file selector goes away and you're back in Runner. $$ Running a Program from a File Selector Select a program file ending in .PRG, .TTP, .TOS or .APP, and Runner will try to run that program. For .TTP programs, Runner asks you for a command line (what you would type into the dialog box displayed by the Atari desktop when you run a .TTP program from a window). When you exit the application program, the item selector will appear again. If you want to run a program using Mini-Run from the file selector you have two choices. Press the Esc key before going to the file selector. "MINI-RUN" will replace the time or date displayed in the upper right screen corner (press Esc again to turn this off and disable Mini-Run). Then, the next program selected will be run by Mini-Run (even programs loaded into one of Runner's menus). The other method is to hold down Control when selecting the program. If you want Runner to hold the screen after another program exits, press Esc twice before going to the file selector (press ing Esc on the menu screen cycles from normal to Mini-Run to Hold Screen to both Mini-Run and Hold Screen and then back to normal (which is blank or a time/date display). $$ Running Installed Applications If you click on a data file for an installed application (described in DIALOG.HLP), that application will load and use the file you selected. For example, clicking on "HI_MOM.DOC" in the file selector would load the Word Writer program on my computer, and my letter to Mom would be loaded into Word Writer for me. $$ File View If you select any other file, Runner will attempt to display it on the screen as text, using its built-in File View. If the file is too big to fit at one time (the current file buffer size is 128K, awfully large for most text files), then only the first part of the file will be loaded. Then, when you exit File View, a dialog box asks if you want to load the next part or if you really want to exit. The choice is yours! The file view screen displays the name of the file, the percent of the file viewed so far (if the screen says 29%, then the text line at the bottom of the screen appears 29% of the way through the file). If a very large file had to broken up into sections, then the top screen line also tells you which section you are viewing and an estimate of how many sections there are altogether. The bottom line shows the most-used commands available at that point in the file. Here's a complete list: B - Move back one page: Press the "B" key, the UP arrow, or click the Right mouse button. Space - Move forward one page: Press the Space Bar, the Down arrow, or click the Left mouse button. Q - Quit File View: Press the "Q" key, the Undo key, the Return key, or click Both mouse buttons at the same time (Runner is smart enough to let you hold down either mouse button first, then click the other one, and release them both; you don't need real precise timing). T - Go to Top of file: Press the "T" key. If the file is split into sections, this only takes you to the top of the current section of a very large file. W - Wide or Narrow text (Low and Medium Res Color only): Press the "W" key for wide characters in 40 columns, and press it again for narrow characters in 80 columns. This is handy for some files that are formatted for 40 column display, or or if you like bigger letters. It may not always be pretty but it's there.... H - Move down about half a screen, handy for times when the stuff you need to see most is split across two screens. P - Print current screen: Press the "P" key to print the text from the currently displayed page. This sends TEXT to your printer, not the lengthy series of pixels sent by Atari's built-in screen dump. Handy if you need to grab part of a file for a quick listing without printing the whole thing. F - Send Form Feed: Press the "F" key to send a Form Feed character to the printer, which on most printers causes the current page to be ejected. Use this to space out screen prints across several pages as needed. Note: a Form Feed is issued automatically for every three screens printed (at 19 lines per screen, three prints about fill a page). The screen print count is reset to zero when you press "F" or when an automatic Form Feed is sent. S - Search for text: Press the "S" key to start a text search. You will be prompted to enter text, up to 12 characters. If you press Return without entering any text, the search will be cancelled. Searches are normally case-insensitive, that is a search for "runner" will find "Runner", "RUNNER", and "runneR". To perform a case-sensitive search, hold down the Control key when you press "S". Then upper and lower case characters must match exactly. Feel free to add a space before or after your search string if needed, so that a search for " day " does not find "Monday" or "daytime". The search stops at the first page containing the text string. If the string cannot be found, the last displayed page is re- displayed. During the search, the "percent viewed" indicator is updated but otherwise the screen is unchanged. A - Search Again: Press the "A" key to search again for the same text string. The search resumes on the next screen or at the top of the currently displayed screen if you have moved backward, forward, or to the top or bottom of the file. "A" can be used to continue a search across sections of the same file. As with "S", hold down Control when you press "A" to do a case-sensitive search, otherwise the search will be case- insensitive. You can mix both types of searches as needed. C - Cancel search: Press the "C" key to cancel a search in progress. The screen from which you started the search will be redisplayed as if the search had never happened. I - Interrupt search: Press the "I" key to interrupt a search in progress. The screen being searched when you press the "I" key will be displayed. This is a quick way to get through a long file: search for a string that is not in the file, such as "XYZZY", and when the "percent viewed" indicator shows a number you like, interrupt the search. If you let an unsuccessful search get to the end of a file, the search is cancelled and you will see the starting screen again. ? or Help: Pressing these keys displays a "key reminder box" designed to help you remember which keys to use when viewing a file. The keys to press are shown in upper case (for example, you'll see "Top" and "Wide" in the box. $$ More Control To simply view a data file that would otherwise cause an installed application to load, hold down Control when selecting it. Since this bypasses use of an installed application there is no way to force Mini-Run to run an installed application with Control; you'll have to press Esc before entering the file selector as mentioned above, or set up that application (with the Change command - see MENU_BAR.HLP) to always use Mini-Run. $$ Additional Complexity for Added Benefit Hold down Control when you exit a program run from a file selector, or when you exit File View, to skip the return to the file selector and instead go straight back to Runner's menu screen. This saves you some keystrokes or mouse presses but it's more brain baggage to carry around. ;-) [end of FILSELCT.HLP]