

                        !Abode User Manual
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About !Abode
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Abode stands for Another Bunch of Desktop Enhancements. It is a
Swiss-Army-knife type of application. It combines several utilities, all
meant to make life on the desktop a bit easier. At each moment, only one
utility is active, depending on the mode Abode is in. There are five modes:

  1) Basic edit  -- To start the BASIC editor, and load files into it.
  2) Set type    -- To set the type of one or more files.
  3) Kill module -- To RMKill modules loaded in RAM.
  4) Access      -- To set or clear the delete-protection (and other
                    attributes) of files and directories.
  5) *Command    -- To execute a user-definable command.

For each of these functions there already are (Public Domain) utilities.
This one is written as a single application, so that the icon bar won't get
too crowded. It also saves some memory.

This file describes how you can get Abode to do all these things. However,
if you're familiar with this kind of utility, you'll probably only need to
read the ultra-short manual in the !Help file. Abode also supports the
interactive help application.

!Abode is FreeWare. For conditions of use, read the copyright notice at the
end of this manual.


Starting the program
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As usual, the program is started by double-clicking on its icon in a filer
window. It will install itself on the icon bar. You can bring up the main
menu in the normal way, by clicking the Menu mouse button over the icon on
the icon bar.


Switching between modes
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The main menu contains, besides the normal "Info" and "Quit" options, all
the modes. The mode that is currently active is indicated by a tick. You can
change to another mode by selecting one from the main menu. The icon on the
icon bar will also change. A faster way to change mode is by clicking on the
icon with the Select button. The program will then "cycle" through the
modes.


Mode 1: Basic edit
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When you drag a file from a filer window onto the Abode icon, the program
loads this file into the BASIC editor. You can only do this with files of
type Basic or Text. If you click on the icon with Select, the editor is
started without loading a file.

Abode can also load files that are saved from another application (like
!Edit), using the <Wimp$Scrap> file. Take care not to save your file with
this name once you have edited it in the Basic editor, because the
<Wimp$Scrap> file will be deleted after the transfer.

Another, slightly faster way to load a BASIC file is by double-clicking on
it while holding down the Shift-key. This does not work for Text files, to
prevent loading Text files that do not contain BASIC programs.

The Abode !Run file defines a couple of function keys, so that you can enter
much-used BASIC commands like RUN, EDIT, etc. with one keypress. You can
change these to your liking.


Mode 2: Set type
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In this mode, you can change the type of files. First you choose the new
file type, by selecting one from the "Set type" submenu (the default is
Text). The last menu entry is writable: useful for entering the type as a
hexadecimal value, in case it was not listed. The type of a file is changed
when you drag its file icon from a filer window onto the Abode icon.
Dragging multiple files also works.


Mode 3: Kill module
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This can be useful when you want to free some memory by removing relocatable
modules that are no longer needed. The modules that are loaded in RAM can be
seen in the "RMKill" submenu. Clicking on an entry will issue an RMKill
command. When Abode is in another mode, you can view the submenu, but will
not be able select a module.

Be careful with killing a module: if it is still used by another application,
that application will probably crash.


Mode 4: Access
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When in this mode, dragging an object onto the Abode icon will clear or set
the attributes of that object. You can also do this from the Filer menu, but
Abode works recursively. That is, if the object is a directory, the
attributes are also changed for every file in that directory (and for its
subdirectories, and for files in those, etc.). This also works for
applications. Whether the delete-protection will be set or cleared is shown
by the icon. You can toggle this by clicking on the icon with the Select
button. The other attributes (read and write access) can be set from a
submenu.


Mode 5: *Command
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This mode can be useful for executing CLI commands. You can enter this
command yourself in the "CLI command" submenu. Running the command can be
done in two ways: clicking on the icon with Select simply executes the
command, and dropping objects on the icon executes the command on each
of those objects.

Examples: (1) "Stamp" as command: dropping files sets the datestamp of those
files to the current time and date. (2) "Dir" as command: dropping a
directory changes the current directory to that one.


Options
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In the "Options" submenu you can set three preferences. If the first option
is ticked, the current directory will be set before a Basic file is loaded
into the editor. In this way, when you save your file with only a leafname,
it will be stored in the directory where it came from. The second option
enables Abode to load files with shift-double click. That is, if you
double-click on a file while pressing the Shift key, the file will be
loaded into the Basic editor. If the option is off (and no other application
loads it), the file will be run. The third option, when on, will ask you to
confirm the RMKilling of a module (just to keep on the safe side).

The menu contains two more items. One re-loads the file types, bringing the
type menu up-to-date. The last item saves the current setup in a file in the
!Abode application directory. This file is loaded when Abode is started.


Copyright notice
________________

I wrote this application for my own use. Most of the ideas behind it are not
original, but borrowed from utilities by Ferdinand Oeinck, Joris Roling,
Majid Anwar, and Emmet Spier. (Also copied some sprites, sorry guys!) Wrote
the program myself, though.

This program is FreeWare. If you like it, you may copy it and distribute it,
provided that you do not charge anything for it. You may change the program
to suit your own needs. If you think it's an improvement, then please send
the changes to me. Also, if you have any questions, bug reports or
suggestions for improvements, you can contact me at the following address:

Dick Alstein
Lijnslagerstraat 204
5625 BP  Eindhoven
The Netherlands

e-mail: wsinda@info.win.tue.nl
