Conference 7.286::atarist

    I went and bought it. A CSD is included but not Asm or Resourse
    Editor. I have an Asm anyway. Claims ANSI compliance as of 86 standard
    via a /S switch. VDI&AES bindings look good, but no OSbind, (used
    Lattice).
                 
    Will report further later on.                    
    
    Steve

    PROSPERO C is on the Cover Disk of issue 17, September 1993 edition,
    of "ATARI ST REVIEW" magazine. The magazine also contains the first
    part of a series of tutorials.
    
    Brian
    

    Can anyone help.
    
    I have PROSPERO C and K RESOURCE. Both supplied on ATARI ST REVIEW
    cover disks.
    
    Q1) Does anyone know of the format for the use of TEDITINFO structure?
        I have some code fragments from LATTICE C but they are not
        transportable.
    Q2) K RESOURCE allows you to look at other, (well some) already created
        resource files as well as create them. There is a size limitation
        however. Do we know how big it can be and if there is any way
        around the size issue.
    
    Norman

    re .3
    
    I meant TEDINFO not TEDITINFO. Any C guru's out there?
    
    Norman

    re: 3 and 4
    
    q2: the size of a resource file is normally limited to 64Kbytes. This
    is because internally 16 bit numbers are used for addressing within the
    structure. It might be that K-resource has a limit on the number of
    icons too. I am not sure about that. If you need more, you have several
    options.
    a) add more resource files. Remember that you can only use rsrc_load
    once. The second file needs to be loaded in by your own routine
    rsc_nload or something, whatever you like.
    b) If you don't need all the resources at once, you can split them and do
    a rsrc_free in between. This saves memory too. 
    c) you can embed the resources into your program. This is nice because
    you can have only one .prg file and don't need the .rsc file, and you
    can use the same strings many times (like OK and Cancel) and so save
    memory. You can have both embedded and external resources in the same
    program. Embedded resources have the disadvantage that you cannot
    modify the resources as easily, and also that you have to do the fixing
    of the objects for the different resolutions. (objc_fix if I remember
    correctly).
    
    Q1: TEDINFO is the structure that contains text and masks for it.
    TEDINFO is normally defined in a file named gem.h or aes.h or gembind.h
    or aesbind.h or whatever in you include directory. I would recommend
    you get some literature on GEM programming, because in there all these
    things are explained. I have the Atari Profibuch but that is only
    available in German (and on older Dutch print). The Atari Compendium,
    or Modern Atari Systems Software (I think that was the title, sold by
    HiSoft). Another option would be to buy the docs for Prospero C. Those
    will have some chapters on GEM programming too.
    If you cannot afford anything, try to pick Tim Ohrens 'Professional
    GEM' series of programming articles from the net.
    
    Erlend.
    

    Hello Norman, 
    
    I will bring in the TEDINFO structure description tomorrow, hope I don't
    forget. 
    
    Concerning the size limitation of resource files: There is a RCS on the
    market called INTERFACE, that supports RSC files larger than 64K. If
    you want to see such an RSC, take a look at CONNECT.RSC (the background
    of your question? :-)). I don't have it, because I didn't need such
    immense RSC files do far, but Wolfgang told me that it's worth the
    inverstment ...
    
    Regards, Peter.

    re .5
    
    Many thanxs for your reply - the main issue is that I got PROPERO C
    free (virtually) and I am not sure whether to pay 40 pounds sterling to
    get the full compliment of books (currently on offer). My concern is
    that PROSPERO C appears (note I am a novice here) to be slow, old
    cumbersome; and I am constantly being told that there are much better
    versions around. The problem is the many pennies they cost :-(.
    
    re .6
    
    Many thanks for the reply. I am trying to get a handle (excuse the pun)
    on how to use the TEDINFO structure without buying the manuals.
    I have tried looking at CONNECT.RSC with K RESOURCE but the resource
    file is TOO BIG (80+ Kb). Th LASER C code fragments I have for TEDINFO
    will not compile; I tried hacking around with them but still get
    compiler errors :-(.
    
    Thanxs again Erlend & Peter.

    re .7
    
    40 pounds is a lot, but remember that Prospero C is a complete ANSI C
    compiler. A newer C compiler like Pure C or Lattice C will cost more
    than 100 pounds. Prospero C is old, possibly quite slow, and no longer
    supported (to my knowledge). I don't have Prospero C so I cannot tell
    you whether manuals are any good. Things you could try to improve
    performance is compiling from a ram disk (how much memory do you
    have?). Since diskspeed is pretty important when compiling this will
    speed up the process enormously.
    I really think people could give more help if you posted a) what errors
    the compiler generates b) the definition of TEDINFO in the include file
    (something like:
    typedef struct {
    te_ptext *char;
    ...
    } TEDINFO
    c) source code that generates the errors.
    I think it would be helpful for other ST programmers too.
    
    Erlend.