Runner -- A Desktop Alternative KEYBOARD EQUIVALENTS AND ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS Keys / Colors / Pic selection / Disk Selection Copyright (C) 1993 by Dave Thorson Version 1.61 November 18, 1993 Note: While this file doesn't necessarily contain more advanced material, it assumes you already know a lot about Runner. Before reading this, you should have read SETUP.HLP, STARTUP.HLP, MENU_BAR.HLP and DIALOG.HLP. You should also have tried to use Runner a bit to understand the basics. $$ Keyboard Equivalents Anything you can do with a mouse in Runner can be done without a mouse as well (in fact, there are some things you can't do with the mouse). If your mouse should die, something in the ST lets you use the arrow keys to move the mouse pointer. Press Alternate and the arrows to move in any direction. Alternate and Insert are like pressing the left mouse button, and Alternate and Clr Home give a right mouse click. For finer positioning use Shift Alternate and the arrow keys. (hey, this was built into the machine by Atari, give them credit, not me!) Runner improves on this basic idea: you can also use the up and down arrow keys without Alternate to move the mouse up an down in menu lists. A right arrow selects a program to run or menu to open, and a left arrow moves up one menu level. Insert acts like a left mouse click and Clr Home acts like a right mouse click. In addition, Runner supports keyboard equivalents for almost every GEM menu bar action. In the menu bar, there is always one upper case letter for each action. Press that key as a shortcut (upper and lower case both work). For those items with alternate functions, you can hold down Control with either a mouse click in the GEM Menu Bar or with its keyboard equivalents [Note for users of older versions: the Alternate key used to work the same way as the Control key, but now it's been reassigned to call a file selector for the desired drive -- press Alt-a for drive A:, Alt-b for drive B:, and so on. Use Control instead of Alternate to be safe]. Keyboard Equivalents for Pull-Down (GEM) Menus in Runner Desk: A - About RUNNER U - Use accessories File: L - Load RUNNER.CFG S - Save RUNNER.CFG ^S (Control/S): saves pic config file only I - Installed applications list B - Background load/clear ^F - Fix RUNNER (hold Control down and press F) Menus: P - add Program M - add Menu C - Change prog/menu D - Drop prog/menu R - Restore prog/menu Q - QuickKeys Show/Hide Colors: N - iNitial palette K - desKtop palette G - backGround palette T - Text palette (with Control, these use selected color palette for background pic also) $$ Several other keys are important to Runner's main screen (in fact, the only keys that are NOT currently used are W, E, J, V, ", \, Delete and keypad "."): Help - views the file RUNNER.HLP if it is available. You can change this file to add new information or drop things you no longer need (use any word processor that lets you save the file in "ASCII" mode, or turn off Word Processing mode). In File View, pressing Help displays a key reminder box. Undo - quick exit from Runner - dialog box makes sure. Esc - cycles through the following (shown in upper right corner): MINI-RUN: runs next program from Mini-Run. HOLD SCR: holds screen after next program exits MRUN/HLD: both Mini-Run and Hold Screen will be used normal: displays time/date or blank Tab - forces display of all menu items, regardless of the current resolution. This lets you Change or Remove programs without switching resolution. Press Tab again to hide items for wrong resolution. The "registered" symbol (an "R" within a circle) appears next to all programs or menus not normally visible in the current resolution. Think of the "R" as a Resolution warning. Backspace - switches time/date display in upper right corner through each of the following display types: a. None b. Time display c. Date display d. Alternating Time and Date display Note: MINI_RUN, HOLD SCR or MRUN/HLD will replace time or date display (see Esc key, above). [ - switches time format between 12 and 24 hour display ] - switches date format between mm/dd/yy and dd/mm/yy Space - displays file selector open to last used directory. Programs selected will be run, other files will be viewed unless they are for an installed application (then it will run and load the selected file). Return - selects program to run or menu to open. Keypad - 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,(,),/,*,-,+ select color registers to change. The Enter key normally works as Return, and keypad "." is not used. See Color Changes below for more. ; - changes menu background space mode. Try this with a picture displayed to see what it does. Pressing ";" key cycles between each of three display modes. < - moves menu left one space; press rapidly (but do not hold down) to move several spaces without waiting for redraw. > - moves menu right one space (see "<"). / - centers menu on screen (default position). H - hide text - lets you see whole background picture. Move mouse or press a key (it will be ignored) to restore screen. Z - sleeps (hides text and picture) to blank out screen (see "H"). O - turns menus On and Off (different than Hide or Sleep because mouse and other keys can still be used when menus are off). X - swaps previous path used in file selector with current path; press X before going to file selector. Y - calls the Regions program. For keys associated with using a file selector or with File View, see the file FILSELCT.HLP. $$ Picture Loading Shift 1, shift 2, shift 3,... shift 9, shift 0 all can be used to load picture files and related configuration files. Picture file names can only be assigned to these keys or changed in the Regions program. $$ Colors Runner Version 1.30 added support for changing the Current Palette from within Runner. Runner supports four different color palettes (sets of colors): Initial - the colors Runner first uses when it starts) Desktop - colors used on the desktop before starting Runner Background - colors used by the current background picture Text - colors used only in File View The Current Palette is one of these four, noted by a check mark in the Colors pull-down menu. The Current Palette is the set of colors used when accessing a file selector or running a program from Runner. When viewing files from the file selector (File View), only the text palette is changed. From Runner's main screen, any of the palettes can be changed, but they must FIRST be made the Current Palette by selecting them in the Colors menu. To change colors within the Current Palette, simply select the color register you want to change on the keypad. This diagram shows each key and +------+------+------+------+ the symbol appearing on it, with | ( 10 | ) 11 | / 12 | * 13 | the color register (r0, r1 and +------+------+------+------+ so on up through 15). Background | 7 r7 | 8 r8 | 9 r9 | - 14 | is always register 0. Text color +------+------+------+------+ varies with resolution. In high | 4 r4 | 5 r5 | 6 r6 | + 15 | res (mono) it's the opposite of +------+------+------+------+ the background color (reg.0). In | 1 r1 | 2 r2 | 3 r3 | | medium res, register 3 controls +------+------+------+ Enter| text color, while 1 and 2 are for | 0 r0 | | | any other colors. In low res, +-------------+------+------+ register 15 (the + key) controls text color. Once you have selected a color register, press the R, G and B keys to change the color. With Shift, these keys increase the Red, Green and Blue content. Without Shift, they decrease it. The color value is displayed (for example, 777 for a bright white or 005 for a medium blue). Increasing R, G, or B when it's already at 7 wraps it around to 0, and decreasing from 0 wraps around the other way to 7. Another color register can also be selected by pressing another keypad key. A color block to the right of the RGB values will help you know which register affects which color. When all the colors are set the way you like, press Enter or Return to accept them. Press Esc instead if you don't want to keep the changes (you'll still need to press Return to exit). Colors changed in this manner from Runner's main screen become the new Current Palette. What happens next depends on what palette (iNitial, desKtop, backGround or Text) was selected in the GEM menu bar as the current palette before changing colors: * If iNitial was selected and you Save Runner's config file, then these changed colors will be saved as Runner's iNitial palette and will be used the next time you start Runner. * If desKtop was selected then when you exit Runner, these changed colors will be used for your ST's desktop. * If backGround was selected, then these colors will be saved in the picture configuration file for the current background picture, if you save Runner's config file or use Control-Save to force a save of only the picture config file. * If Text was selected and you save Runner's config file, then these changed colors will be saved as Runner's Text palette for future use. [end of KEYBOARD.HLP]