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Saxonia Issue 02 Part 009
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.
