
                                Why Black Hole II ?
                               =====================
                               
A long time ago there was an application called Black Hole. This application
was slow, ponderous and not very pretty. It was public domain. It ran on
RISC OS 2. I wasn't happy with it, things had to change, thus Black Hole II
was born. This is a list of the changes made since Black Hole II was first
created.

1) Support for RISC OS 2 was removed. Black Hole II now requires RISC OS 3.10
   or later.

2) All Filer operations are now run by Filer_Action. The advantages of this
   are:
    i) A dramatic speed increase when deleting large numbers of files.
    ii) Any errors which occur are trapped by the filer and should not crash
    Black Hole as happened very occasionally in the original (I can't think
    of everything.....)
   The disadvantages are:
    i) When copying to the bin, Filer_Action ignores the access status of
    files. Thus if Force is off, you still get all the locked files copied
    although they aren't deleted. However, I don't anticipate many people
    using this program with Force off.
    ii) For Retain Structure, the original would simply not delete any
   directories. Filer_Action cannot do this, so the structure has first to
    be copied, then written back once the deletion has finished.
    iii) Copies cannot be squashed as they are copied. This version has a
    Squash option on a menu and an automatic 'Squash on Shutdown' option.

3) The file finder has been dramatically speeded up and Archive
   compatibililty included. Wildcarded searches are now possible, with
   multiple search paths and multiple search names.

4) DOS partitions are recognised and treated as directories.

5) The bin structure has been changed to have a separate subdirectory for
   each day of use. This allows more organisation of your rubbish (which
   may or may not be useful) and also allows the auto deletion to be much 
   faster, which will stop people from shouting at me.

6) Because people complained about my options and radio icons, I've taken
   them out. The program now uses whichever icons are standard on your
   machine.

7) 3d icons have been adopted. I have no idea what the Acorn guidelines are,
   so I've adopted those used by Computer Concepts and Simon Huntingdon's
   Interface module, since Acorn seem to have copied their icons. (Note: No
   relation between S.H. and CC is implied.......(got to cover myself!))

8) The Info window has got sillier.

9) I have added an option to use outline fonts in the menus. I like this, but
   some people prefer consistency - that's why it's an option. Also it does
   NOT look good in mode 12....
   Also, Acorn's latest WIMP actually DOES use an outline font instead of the
   system font. (We knew you'd get there in the end, Acorn!)

10) The iconbar sprites change from low-res to high-res (and vice-versa) 
    automatically when you change mode (provided you select the option).
    This is done simply by *IconSprites, which requires disc access so I
    made it optional. If you are using Andrew Hersee's Filer2 with the
    WimpSprites module, then the command *WimpSprites will be used instead,
    which will ensure that the thing still works.
    This will also work with the AddSprites module.... Anybody else want to
    write a module to annoy me?

11) A slightly more sensible (ie non-random) version numbering system has
    been introduced.

12) When not doing anything, BlakHole2 takes up less than 1% of available
    background time, even with the Clock, Spin,and Screen Saver selected.

13) Black Hole responds to the Task Manager's "Create Boot File" message. In
    other words, if you save a Desktop Boot file from the Task Manager while
    Black Hole is loaded, a line will be inserted in the file to run Black
    Hole. Thus Black Hole will be run automatically on bootup.
    (Thanks to James Miller for this one.)

14) The BlackHole module has been created. This allows trapping of Filer
    deletions and also allows BlackHole to notice when something is copied to
    or removed from its Bin directory and to update its iconbar message
    accordingly.

15) The BASIC program has been compacted. I apologise to all those people
    who enjoy "improving" my code, but the thing simply wouldn't fit in
    memory otherwise. To crunch the program I used the exteremely speedy
    !BasCrunch by Ragnar Hafsta.

16) Made the Config window a resizable composite window. Thanks to Robin
    Watts for the algorithm to make it re-sizable.

17) Added 'Module Kill', 'Run File', and 'Add Tiny Dir' options to the menu.
    These were things that I always wanted an application for....

18) Prettied up the file finder - now uses outline fonts in its results
    window, the main window is a resizable composite, and it has loads more
    options.
    
19) Versions older than 2.14 had a little window which popped up to ask
    questions and report things to you. This was really an alternative to
    the rather basic RISC OS error box. With the advent of RISC OS 3.2, the
    argument for consistency between applications has grown stronger, and 3.2
    has a much prettier error box. Consequently I now use the RISC OS error
    box for all information/confirmation things. People with 3.1 will just
    have to suffer. This was also an attempt to save some memory. It failed.
    
20) Some versions of Black Hole II had a facility whereby the program would
    automatically convert Bin directories from the old format to the new.
    This has been removed for several reasons:
      i)   The old Bin directory format is very old.
      ii)  The routine took up valuable memory.
      iii) The routine didn't work.

21) I've added extra help files and Help buttons on some of the windows.
      
22) Fixed Singularity so that it works properly across filing systems.
    Finally!
    Erm, except for ArcFS and SparkFS....
    
23) Ran out of room in my 64K wimpslot.

24) Increased wimpslot to 96K. This enabled the file finder to work and also
    allowed me to stop using overlays and to stop stealing small chunks of
    memory from the module area.
    
25) Added Blackout screen saver.

26) Iconbar clock now resizes if a font is selected, so any size font
    (almost) can be used. Usually it manages to get the icon centered
    vertically on the iconbar too.
    
27) Added a facility whereby BlackHole can be run from read-only media,
    putting the default bin in !Scrap and the default options files in
    !System.
    
28) Added the ignore floppy discs and ignore certain filing systems options
    to Singularity.
    
29) Wrote the Master Help System and updated the Help files.

30) Added !Ukelele, which was originally a separate application that never
    got used.

31) Added a complete list of modules to the Module Kill menu instead of
    the writeable icon.
    
32) Changed the way Singularity copis files so that it now works with SparkFS
    
33) ...unless you use Spark Dirs as a compression method.

