                                   BackBoot                  v0.10
                           Written by Thomas Leonard
                           Modified by Martin Avison

Brief
~~~~~
Opening a directory for the first time can be slow, as the filer boots all
the !applications inside. One way round this is to Filer_Boot the contents
of these directories when the computer starts, but this means that your
boot sequence takes ages!

BackBoot waits until the computer hasn't been used for ten seconds and then
starts booting directories. As soon as you click with the mouse or press a
key, BackBoot stops and waits for another ten seconds.

In this way all your directories will become booted after a while and you can
change into their directories quickly!

It should now work on all versions of RISC OS from v3.00 to v5 (32bit)

 
Conditions
~~~~~~~~~~
This program is FREEWARE, so you can copy it and pass it around as much as
you like as long as you don't change anything.

There is no warranty, but please report any bugs you find.


Simple Instructions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edit !BackBoot's Config file to configure which directories to boot:

  Open a Filer window containing !BackBoot

  Shift double click on !BackBoot to open a !BackBoot Filer window 

  Use Edit, StrongEd, Zap or whatever to create a Config file.
   containing a list of the directories whose contents you want booted.
   Drag directories with Ctrl may insert the directory name. 
   Eg:
   	  ADFS::4.$.Diversions 
   	  ADFS::4.$.MyApps
   	  ADFS::4.$.Games

  Save the Config file in the !BackBoot directory

  Move !BackBoot into '!Boot.Choices.Boot.Tasks' (RO 3.5 and later)
   or   *WimpTask it somewhere after the desktop starts (pre RO 3.5)
   or   Configure Boot to run !BackBoot (RO 4)

When you restart your computer, BackBoot will load. After about 10 seconds
of inactivity it will start booting apps (your hard disk light may flicker).
If you use the keyboard or mouse it will stop and wait.
When it has finished it will quit itself automatically.


Advanced Instructions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By default the time between Wimp Polls for !BackBoot is 0.5 second.
If you want to change this add a line to Config
	  Poll=nnnn
where nnnn is the Poll time in centiseconds

By default the time !BackBoot waits after mouse/key activity is 10 seconds.
If you want to change this add a line to Config
	  Wait=nnnn
where nnnn is the Poll time in centiseconds

These take effect at the point in the Config file, so if you really want to
change the times after some directories have been booted, you can!

Any Config line starting in | is taken as a comment, and ignored.

If there are any errors found during the backboot process, at the end an
error box will be displayed and a file !BackBoot.Errors will show what was
wrong.

 
How to improve it (or any of my other programs)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Write to me with suggestions, money, bug reports, money, praise, money, or
just to tell me that you use the utility and can't find any bugs!

This was originally written by Thomas Leonard ...
e-mail :             tal197@ecs.soton.ac.uk
WWW    : http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~tal197

Thomas is no longer doing RISC OS stuff, and has given me permission to
change and release !BackBoot, so for versions greater than v0.01 you had
better complain to backboot@avisoft.force9.net.       Martin Avison  


History
~~~~~~~
05/10/97  v0.01  Initial version by Thomas Leonard
  This worked (at least for me) up to RO v4.33, where it failed HORRIBLY.
  The most common one was Abort at Instruction Fetch at &01D301F8, but also
  included many other aborts, lockups, and even a Bad Free Space Map (which
  fortunately seems to have been a lie!)
10/12/02  v0.02  MSA Changed TIME to MonotonicTime
12/12/02  v0.03  MSA Avoided R14_svc corruption in some_event
  This stopped the v4.33 aborts - could have caused other problems on
  any other RO version as well.
13/12/02  v0.04  MSA Changed to 32-bit neutral?
27/12/02  v0.05  MSA Added Chris Bazley's changes to use Config file
  Thanks to Chris for allowing this
28/12/02  v0.06  MSA Added Poll= and Wait= to Config file
29/12/02  v0.10  MSA Release version
