Saxonia Issue 02 Part 009

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in 

Saxonia

 · 5 years ago

  

Recode or update 
By Rumrunner/VOID 
[l 

I guess that most people who have seen issue 1 of this mag would say 
that this issue is a total recode, as most visible has changed. That's 
perhaps taking things too far. 

Let's take a look at what has happened since issue 1 :[1  

- No more scrolling, article changes a page at a time 

- There's clipart support 

- You can load modules from disk using F1-F3 

- Top and bottom panel is changed 

- The text-output routine supports double size font and draws lines and 
  such 

- Even though the mag has more bitplanes in the textwindow, it uses less 
  chipram than issue 1, it's still compatible with Amiga 500[0  

So, why have I made all these changes to the code? It's a long story, but 
we'll start at the top and see where we end up. It all started with me 
wanting to print only the line of text that was to be scrolled onto the 
screen, then scroll it. As you perhaps know, the code used for issue 1 
drew the whole article onto the screen at once and scrolled by changing 
the bitplane adress. This takes up quite a lot of ram, and the articles 
had to be split up if they were long, the limit was 340 lines. If I'm not 
wrong, I set aside 256k for the screen. Now, imagine using this when 
adding three more bitplanes for more colours, that would surely take up 
a lot of ram. 

So I started the mentioned scrolling system, writing a line as it was to 
be scrolled onto the screen, that is. It all worked out wery well, and 
I made this change to the code rather quickly, as I intended from the 
very start to update the code after the first issue. So after making the 
scrollerroutine and some other things, like scrolling ability with the 
mouse and joystick as well, I got some cliparts to try out. However, 
scrolling four hires bitplanes at a time didn't look good as it jerked 
away. I guess I could have fixed this by working some more on it, but 
I also got new ideas that wouldn't work good if the articles were to 
scroll as in issue one. So I decided to rewrite most of the texthandling 
routines. Since one whole page should be updated at a time, I had to have 
more than 12 lines of text on screen at once, so I had to leave the panel 
used, although I didn't want to. I really liked the man drawn by 
Malmis/Nature. At least I kept the goodlooking font you can see below 
the text, because of the aboventioned, and because I wanted to keep at 
least something that could be regocnised from issue one. 

These changes gave some rather strange problems which needed to be sorted 
out. First of all, for some reason or another, the bigfont used below 
didn't display properly unless there were two identical letters following 
eachother. In that case, the last one was displayed properly, but still 
not the first one. I found out that it was the fifth bitplane that, for 
some reason or another got displayed a word too far to the right, even 
though the output routine was exactly the same as in issue one. Then, 
after hours working on this on and off, I found out that it was the 
diwstrt and diwstop setting in the copperlist that couldn't be used as 
they were. I set up the bitplanes for the bottomscreen just after 
entering the pal area on the screen, and then it didn't work. Changing 
the copperwait to just before entering the palscreen solved the problem. 

The new look didn't cause much more problems than that, as most of the 
other new effects were finished before I dropped the scrolling, so they 
could just be copied over. 

I still have some ideas to code for the mag in the future, but I decided 
to keep it like it is now for issue two, as I don't want to work so much 
that it bores me to death, [2 it's important to remember that the scene is 
a hobby and not your workplace.[0  I want mention the new ideas I have, by 
the way, you will have to wait and see when they come. 

If you wonder what has happened to the old code, I still have it, and I 
might work on it now and then. People knowing me would most certainly 
describe me as one of the most stubborn people you can find, so perhaps, 
when everything is sorted out, I will start using it again. I will also 
consider other possibilities, for instance, if somebody wants to start 
a messagebox or anything else using the code, they might perhaps get it. 
I am perhaps willing to supply the code if you supply a font and panels. 
Contact me if you are interested. 

If articlewriters wants to format their articles, they should read the 
information contained in the appropriate article.