Getting Started With OMEn October, 1994 (C) 1994 Esquimalt Digital Logic Inc. All rights reserved. The Contents: Why OMEn is a Little Different Most confusing items Installation Startup OMEn Mouse/Display Pointers Finding the Files: Getting out of a folder. The System Folder Directory Window Scroll Control The Demo Disk Opening (Running) Software Opening Document Files Starting Micro Word Program to Read the Document Files Copying Files Copying Between Floppies; Changing Floppy disks Copying the Demo Disk Ordering Why OMEn is a Little Different OMEn's user interface is a little different from other systems such as GEM or Mac. This is necessary to accommodate the true multi- tasking nature of OMEn, the new type of file system, and to create the "generic drag-&-drop" interface. These differences mean there are a few basic items to learn in order to work with OMEn, and these are outlined below. The items which cause the most confusion for new users are: a) having to drag windows from the top left corner instead of top center area. (This allows each window to have its own menu bar or buttons at the top of the window.) b) single clicking instead of double clicking, and use of the right mouse button (or left button with shift key held down) for some functions. c) No disk drive icons. Click on "DIRs" to open a directory window. Click on "Disk Drives" in that window to access the available drives, viewed as directory folders. d) Opening documents. To open a document, simply drag it into the application's window from a directory window, the same way you would copy the file by dragging it to another directory window, or delete it by dragging it to the trash. (Directory windows copy files, the trash deletes them; applications open them.) There are no file selection boxes with most OMEn software. e) Files in Memory. With most systems, when an application opens a file, the data from the file becomes the private property of the application until it is written back to disk. With OMEn, all memory becomes a "virtual RAMDisk" as required. Data being edited is in the form of a file-in- memory. The file, and its data, in memory may be accessed from its usual directory, by any application. Files can be copied from a disk into the Memory directory and vise-versa, by dragging between two directory windows. They can be opened to two or more applications at once for viewing or editing, by dragging them from their directory into the desired applications. Installation OMEn is already installed on the demo/shareware floppy disk. It is simply necessary to double click on "OMEN303D.PRG" to start it. To install OMEn on a hard drive: * start up OMEn * open two directory windows by clicking on "DIRs" twice at the top of the display. * open the "disk drives" folder in both windows * open the "Drive C" folder in one window * drag the "Drive A" folder from the other window into the one showing the files on "Drive C". * Drag the copied folder (still called "Drive A" even though it's now on Drive C) to "Rename" at the top of the display and rename it "OMEN". The installation is now complete, and OMEn will be able to find the Fonts and Settings folders on the hard drive whenever it is booted. Currently, it must be C drive that OMEn is installed on, the folder must be named "OMEN" and the "Fonts" and "Settings" folders must retain those names. Startup On the PC with Gemulator, it is necessary to start up the Gemulator 68000 (Atari) emulator, then follow the same steps as with the Atari version. On the Atari, OMEn is started by quickly double clicking on the OMEN259D.PRG (on PC: OMGL259D.PRG) icon or name in a GEM directory window. * * * * * At bootup, the system searches by name for Fonts and Settings folders in the following order: Drive C/OMEN/Fonts(Settings) Drive C/Fonts(Settings) Drive A/OMEN/Fonts(Settings) Drive A/Fonts(Settings) The boot drive should not have a label, because the label will replace the name "Drive C" or "Drive A" and the system won't be able to find the directories. Application software will look in "Fonts" to find scaleable text fonts and "Settings" to find system and program preferences. Unlicenced demo versions of OMEn ignore the prefs & settings in the "Settings" folder, but licenced versions can install a desired printer manager, individual sound files (for beep, alert, red-alert, ta-dah, and wait) and background picture, and automatically start up your most-used software. Desired video mode and communications settings are reinstated immediately. Because multiple programs can be started up quickly and don't tie up the system, automatically starting up software in OMEn is more useful than with other systems. OMEn Mouse/Display Pointers * "Click" means just one click: there is no double clicking with OMEn. * Atari and PC based OMEn use a virtual display which is twice as tall as the actual screen, except in Atari TT Hirez where the screen is already two full pages. In order to scroll down to see the bottom half of the display, simply move the mouse to the bottom of the screen and keep going - the display will scroll. To scroll back to the top, just move to the top and keep going in the same manner as going down. Finding the Files: The file management system is not complicated, but it does need a bit of introduction. There are no disk drive icons. Instead, a directory window for viewing files is opened by clicking on "DIRs" at the top of the display. Files are shown with their name followed either by a picture ("icon") (for types of files the system knows) or a four character file extension. Here are the current uses of icons: Folder Directory "Folder" Icon Binder Directory Custom Icon inside binder, or "Binder" Icon (Icons can be created using "Paint Booth") Text File Piece of Paper Program Running animal (you can "run" the program) I/O Protocol Diamond I/O Port Double Arrow I/O Channel mgr. Diamond with double arrow inside Sound Speaker Font Bitmap Letter "A" icon The directory window first opens showing the "Memory" root directory. In the memory directory are two subdirectories: "Disk Drives" and "System" which give access to DOS/GEM disk drives and to system files loaded into memory at startup, respectively. So, to start: * Click on DIRs at the top of the main window. This opens a directory window. The window starts up looking at the Memory folder, which is the root directory for the whole system, including the disk drives. * Click (once) on Disk Drives. This folder contains all the GEM/DOS drives and disks in the system. The available drives are shown as folders in the directory window. Drives don't have icons on the desktop. * Click on the drive containing the OMEn software. It opens to show the files and folders on the drive. Programs that you can run are shown with a "running animal" icon. * Click on a program to start it up. Getting out of a folder. To exit a folder to its parent folder, simply click on the name of the current folder, which is just above the list of files (on the second line of the directory window). On a colour screen, this name is on a blue background. To exit out from several levels of folders at once, click on the name at the very top of the directory window. If you are anywhere on a drive, this will exit to the Disk Drives folder showing the list of drives. If you are already in that folder, it will exit to the Memory folder. Since the Memory folder is the root folder, there is no way to exit outwards from it and clicking on this name will have no effect. The other folder shown in the Memory directory when you boot-up OMEn (besides Disk Drives) is System. It contains software which is always placed there when OMEn starts up. Below is a more detailed example of entering and exiting folders, with the System Folder. The System Folder To view the OMEn system files, first open a directory window (see above). Click on "System". The display in the window will change to show the files inside the "System" directory, and the word "System" will replace "Memory" on the second line of the window. OMEn's Input/Output manager files (except additional printer drivers) are in "System", and there are also some application programs there. Files in "System" are already loaded when OMEn is started, so they will start without accessing the disk drive. Clicking on a program will start it running - see "Opening Software", below. To leave the "System" directory, click on the word "System" up near the top of the directory window. This will exit from the current directory (System) and go out to the previous directory (Memory). Directory Window Scroll Control When there are more files in a directory than will fit in the directory window, the Scroll Bar along the left side of the window becomes active. To go up or down by a window-full of files at a time, click on the up or down arrow keys. To go up or down by just one file, click on the up or down carat symbols. To jump immediately to any area of the window, click on the desired position in the vertical scroll bar. To do "live scrolling", hold the mouse button down in the scroll bar area and move the mouse slowly up and down the scroll bar. The Demo Disk The demo disk contains many files. Each type of file is placed in an appropriate folder on the disk. To view files on the demo disk click on Disk Drives (in the "Memory" directory). The display will change to show all the DOS or GEM drives on your system. Click on Drive A (without moving the mouse). The list of the files in the main ("root") directory of the disk will be shown. At this point the name "Disk Drives" will be at the very top of the directory window, and "Drive A" will be underneath it. Of course, a directory can be opened for any drive on the system (floppy disk B and hard drives) by clicking on that drive. To find the application programs on the disk, click on the "Software" directory. To find the documentation, click on "OMEn User Docs" (shortened to "OMEN USE" if DOS or GEM copied it) and so on. There are additional directories for Fonts, Pictures and Sounds. The "Settings" directory contains a text file describing settings. Opening (Running) Software To open (run) an application program, you must locate it (above) and then click (without moving the mouse) on its name in the directory. The program will load and its window will open without affecting the rest of the display. Don't make the mistake of trying to run a program by clicking on its instructions in "E_Util Progs" ("or E_UTILPR") documentation directory instead of the program itself, which is in the "Software" directory. Opening Document Files Once an application program is running, it can open (view and edit) documents of its proper type. It is necessary to exit the "Software" or "System" directory where the program was found, and go the directory where the document file is to be found (See Viewing Demo Disk Files, above). Or, the "Software" directory can be left open and the document directory viewed in a second directory window, opened by clicking again on DIRs. When the document to be opened is located, press down the mouse button on the file and, with the button still pressed down, move the mouse into the window of the program that is to open the file. Then let go of the mouse button, and the file will be opened by the program. (With Micro Word and text files, it is easiest to drag the file to Micro Word's "File" button.) "Opening" a file can mean different things to different programs. Sound Player will play digitized sound files, while Font Demo will make a bitmapped font for display or printout from an outline font definition file. Here is a list of document file types for the demo programs. The programs not shown do not open document files of any type. PROGRAM OPENS FILE EXTENSION ICON Micro Word OMEn Text files TEXT Piece of paper Paint Booth Bitmapped pictures BM,BMAP,BM01,... None Sound Player Digitized Sounds SOUN Speaker Font Demo Outline Fonts PS3F,OM3F,PS None File Info Any file Binary Ed Any file (This utility is for programmers) Cheap OMEN TO ASCII - Same as Micro Word (changes it to "TXT" for GEM) Stereo Sound Rate Reducer Stereo Digitized Sounds SOUN Speaker By opening Micro Word, you can view (and print, and edit) the instructions for all the individual progams supplied. Starting Micro Word Program to Read the Document Files * Locate Micro Word in the Software folder on the disk. * Click on it to start it running. * Locate the document to be opened in its own folder. * Drag the document from the directory window to the File button in the Micro Word window. Micro Word will read it off the disk and open it. Note: The Micro Word you see in the Software folder is a binder called "Micro Word". It contains the Micro Word program, the Micro Word users' manual (plus any pictures used in that manual), and three different sizes of Micro Word custom icons for different screen resolutions. A binder is a disk directory, similar to a folder except that it doesn't open from the GUI to show the files. Instead, it works as if the entire binder with all its files was one file: a) If it is clicked on, the Micro Word program starts up. b) If the binder is dragged into a running copy of the Micro Word program (or other word processor), the Micro Word users' manual is opened. c) Directory windows look inside the binder for the appropriate icon and (if available) uses that instead of displaying a built-in system icon. d) Any resource files required by the application or the document in the binder are hidden from the user and safe from accidental deletion, but available to software. e) Of course, if the binder is copied, it is copied with all its "resources" (files) complete and intact. To open up a binder, rename it so that its name is different than the name of the program inside (by dragging it to "Rename" at the top of the display or to a running copy of the "File Info" program). Or change its FileType (extension) from ".BIND" to ".FOLD". Then it can be opened as a normal folder to access the files inside, by clicking on it. Copying Files Files in the Memory folder are not saved on a disk; they will disappear when you exit from OMEn or turn off the computer. This applies as well to any new files copied into the System folder, which is also in memory. To copy a file: * Two directory windows are required. If only one is open, click again on DIRs to open a second one. * Get to the folder where you want to copy the file to in the second directory window. (You have to be viewing inside that folder, seeing its files.) * Drag the file from the first directory window to the second one. It will be copied. Copying Between Floppies; Changing Floppy disks To copy files between disks with just one floppy drive: * Drag the file(s) into the Memory folder from the first disk, creating a copy of the files in memory. * Swap disks. After you swap floppies, exit from Drive A in the directory window back to Disk Drives. (proceedure described above) and then re-enter Drive A to open (read-in) the new disk. * Drag the files from Memory into the new disk directory to copy them to it. * Delete the files from Memory (if desired). To select several files, click on each one with the RIGHT mouse button. To select all the files, click "select all" from the "Dir Misc" menu near the top right of the directory window. If a disk has a "volume label" (a name), this name will be shown instead of "Drive A" once the disk has been opened. OMEn handles any MS-DOS or Atari disk format properly, including 5-1/4" disks. However, many PC BIOSes will not read disks except for 360K, 720K and 1440K sizes. Atari disks formatted for extra space to 800K, 900K, 1600K and so on will not work on these PCs (nor on Macintoshes). If you are using a 5-1/4" external drive on an Atari, you should run Atari Disk Drives I/O port in the System folder (click on it like a program) and set the "Floppy Seek Speed" to 6 or 12 milli-seconds instead of 3 milliseconds, which is too fast for most 5-1/4" drives. Copying the Demo Disk If the demo disk is copied from DOS or GEM, the file names are shortened to eight upper case characters and the file extensions are shortened to three characters. The best way to copy the entire demo from GEM is to format another disk and do a complete disk copy by dragging the drive A icon onto the drive B icon. From DOS, the "Backup" command is available. Many disk copy programs such as "Copy II" can also be used to copy all the sectors of the disk. From OMEn, without a hard drive, one floppy, and more than one megabyte of memory, drag the "Drive A" directory file into the "Memory" folder. Place the copy disk in the drive. Enter the original Drive A folder in "Disk Drives" to access the new disk. Open the copy "Drive A" in "Memory", then click on "Select All" from the "Dir Misc" menu. Drag the selected files to the directory of the new disk. Unfortunately, the current version of OMEn is quite slow with floppy disks due to an interaction between the ST BIOS and the multi- tasking. Friendly boxes showing the number of files and folders remaining haven't been put in yet, either. With one megabyte or less of memory and a single floppy disk, the entire disk can't be copied at once as there isn't enough memory. The files must be copied into "Memory" in groups, transferred to the new disk, and then erased from memory to free up space. Drive A must be closed and re-opened each time the disk is swapped. (It's easier to do the "Disk Copy" from GEM.) With two floppy drives, coping the demo to a disk in Drive B is easier. Enter the Drive A folder, viewing the original disk. Open a second directory window and enter the Drive B folder, viewing the blank disk. In Drive A, choose "Select All" from the "File Misc" menu, then drag the selected files to "Drive B". To copy the demo to a hard drive under OMEn is easiest. Open a second directory window, and go into "Drive C". Drag the "Drive A" folder into it from the first directory window. Rename the copy of "Drive A" (which is now actually on Drive C) to "OMEN" to complete the installation. Ordering We are pleased to have users run the demo, experiment with it, create and print text and colour pictures, and play sounds. However, Esquimalt Digital Logic Inc does not authorize productive use of the OMEn demos. If you find you are using OMEn productively, you are expected and required to support the product by ordering the licenced version: unauthorized use of software constitutes software piracy. OMEn can only become a major system with user supported funding to speed up further development and improve system quality. And your productivity can be enhanced even more with the configurability built into the licenced product. The licenced version will be further upgraded in the coming months as additional features are added, and upgrade disks will be automatically shipped free to licenced users. Until we sign up distributors and dealers, OMEn can be ordered directly from Esquimalt Digital (604-384-0499, fax 604-384-0575 VISA-Mastercard). More details are shown under "Licencing OMEn" under the "Help" menu while OMEn is running. Macintosh, Amiga, PC All the features put into OMEN-Atari which are not specific to the Atari are automatically included in the versions for other computers without extra work. Thus, the porting of OMEn to other types of 680x0 based computers is relatively simple, at least in principle. The Macintosh version must be run in monochrome mode and doesn't read HFS disks. It will be readied for release in the first half of 1995. It does run the same OMEn software as the Atari off a DOS or GEM disk (except for original Macs, Mac+, and some SE's that won't read DOS/GEM type disks at all). OMEN currently runs on the PC using the "Gemulator", a 68000 emulator for 386, 486 and Pentium. Even under emulation, OMEn runs quite acceptably on a 50MHz 486 machine. You can now take the same OMEN software disk and plug it into an Atari, a Mac, or a PC and run all the same programs. "OMEn for Gemulator" will be released in early 1995 with 16 colour VGA video modes and full DOS hard drive access. Look for OMGL259D.PRG (or whatever version number) demo on Genie. A "stand alone" version of OMEn for PC with custom 68000 emulation may be expected at later in the first half of 1995. The Gemulator is available for $99.95 US, plus about $60 US for Atari system ROMs (required by Gemulator), from: Branch Always Software attn. Derek Mihocka 14150 N.E. 20th street, Suite 302 Bellevue, WA, USA 98007 Fax: 206 885 5893 or from Toad Software Phone: 1-800-448-TOAD