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version 004 - by Gribnif

Good just became GREAT

How do you use your Atari? Do you dabble with drawing packages, write wordy letters or communicate via Comms packages. If so, you can reap the benefits offered by Geneva.

Whilst working on a project or just playing around it is often neccessary to edit other material which is imported into the program which you are currently working on. Until recently, the only option was to exit your current program, call up another to edit the image\text that you intended to import, then exit this program and re-run your original program. Still not satisfied with the "import"? Hey, hum. Repeat the cycle... Time lost, time and time again.

Preparing an article such as this one, to be shown in HTML format is a prime example of the above procedure - Lord only knows how I would have managed it without the help of Geneva for the constant editing and viewing and then re-editing this HTML script to my final satisfaction.

Geneva, from Dan Wilga of Gribnif, offers the elegant solution of task-switching. This is a situation where you would stop work in one program, call up another program; perform some function in this program and then resume work in your original program.

Tomes have been written about multi-tasking programs and the time savings possible when using such programs. Maybe, if you had an 060 processor and 14Mb of RAM to play with and the kind of brain that readily accepts multi-tasking and the pre-structuring of your work session that is neccessary to use multi-tasking gainfully then you could use MultiTOS to your advantage. For mere mortals, task-switching (which is Geneva's forte) is far more practical.

I used to be sceptical about the alleged benefits of multitasking until I bought Geneva. Version 002 was O.K. but a bit buggy. Version 003 was better in terms of functions and stability but I still only used it some 40% of my computing time. Version 004 is VERY good, offers far more functionality and stability and furthermore can use the "core" of MiNT to enable pre-emptive multitasking as well! In short, I now use Geneva some 95% of the time and would estimate, although it is difficult to quantify\verify, that I save some 40% on time in using Geneva over my "pre-Geneva" days. Until version 004 Geneva was solely a "co-operative" multi-tasker - applications get an equal share of processor time allocated to them, unlike MultiTOS which is a pre-emptive multi-tasker. The processor time allocated to individual applications can be altered to prevent programs from hijacking all the available processor time and holding other applications up. The downside of incorporating the MiNT "core" is that Geneva is now slower when running a multiple number of applications. Geneva takes very little overhead in terms of processor power with the result that either you do not notice any loss of speed whilst using it or at most a very minor decrease.

In general

Actually, Geneva does not require a desktop at all. The distinction between programs and accessories diminishes as Geneva will run as many as memory will allow, unlike MultiTOS, and also irrespective of their active\inactive status (PRG\PRX, ACC\ACX). TOS programs can be run in a window, too. Problem programs can be set to run by themselves by putting all other applications "to sleep" and there are many options to allow applications which are either badly written or use old system calls to be run successfully. Basically, there is VERY LITTLE that will not run within Geneva!

Installation is a simple matter of running the INSTALL.PRG which prompts you for the neccessary paths and disks. Geneva comes with an excellent manual - with a large section devoted to the "techie" types and a version of Geneva which allows the "techies" to analyse problems.

Feeling Sleepy?

Programs appear at the top of the list and accessories below, separated by a horizontal line. Active programs are shown in normal type whilst sleeping programs are shown in italics. Single tasking applications are shown in small type in the Desk menu. Sleeping programs are ones which are loaded in memory and are awaiting a keypress to awaken them. Applications can be opened directly from Geneva Manager by invoking Geneva's own file selector and you can quit Geneva if you are done with task switching. As an aside, Geneva's file selector is pretty useful and can create folders\copy\move\delete\search and is also configurable as to whether it shows folders in one column and files in another or, as is more common, files and folders together. My own preference is for Universal Item Selector but you are certainly no pauper when using Geneva's own offering. To assist it, Geneva uses a small PRG\ACC called Taskman.

Taskman manifests itself as a small window which appears on the screen. This window contains a list of loaded applications and their status (active\sleeping), accessories being denoted by a preceding small circle. This window, like others, can be iconized (made into an even smaller icon which when double clicked on will revert to its normal appearance) or "sent to the back"; this is neccessary in a program with the possibility of multiple windows displayed all over the screen. Clicking on a header bar will activate the "owner" application. All application windows contain this "send to back" device next to the "full window" square. Taskman contains three drop down menus - Files, Options and Settings.

File calls up Geneva's own file selector for an application to be run and also allows you to set the Execution Flags for applications i.e. whether the application should run in single tasking or multi tasking mode, memory usage (to prevent the application from demanding too much memory) and many options to allow ill behaved applications to run. Applications can also be put to sleep, awoken or terminated in "File" mode and you can even tell Taskman to depart from here. The Options menu allows you to set keyboaed shortcuts, many aspects of the appearance of windows (Yes, Geneva alters these for the better - in my humble opinion) and fonts used for the windows, the video resolution (although this will cause a reset, after a warning dialogue), access to the extensive Geneva Help and the option to save all the settings or to reload them.

Genevarun

All well and good, but how do I use it ?
Geneva can be set to auto-boot, as mentioned before, but it can be made to auto load programs in a set sequence ready for you to begin work immediately with all your most useful applications pre-installed. It does this by loading a GEM.CNF file at boot-up. This is a file which can be edited using a text editor in ASCII mode. An example is shown below :-

# GEM.CNF: written by INSTALL.PRG
setenv ACCPATH=C:\

setenv PATH=.,C:\GENEVA\GENEVA

setenv ACCEXT=ACC,ACX

setenv GEMEXT=PRG,APP,***,EXE

setenv TOSEXT=TOS,TTP

setenv RSCEXT=.,*.RSC

setenv SHOWHELP=C:\GENEVA\GENEVA\HELP\GNVAHELP

setenv TOSRUN=C:\GENEVA\GENEVA\GNVA_TOS.PRG

shell C:\THING\THING.APP #(substitute GEMINI\TERADESK\NEODESK here)

run C:\TASKMAN.PRG

run C:\GENEVA\GNVARUN\GNVARUN.PRG UTILITY1.GRP

runsleep D:\TEXT_WP\EVEREST.3_3\EVEREST.PRG

run D:\UTILITIE.S\CAB\CAB.APP

# end of GEM.CNF

This set up loads THING, TASKMAN, GenevaRun - with the command\parameter to show UTILITY1.GRP, CAB.APP and sets EVEREST in sleep mode ready to be called up by a keypress or by selection from the accessories menu bar. By using a Boot Up manager you could use any "batch" (GEM.CNF) file of your choice to set up Geneva as you wished.

Running Geneva

If you wish to "unload" any applications to release some memory select them from the Desk menu whilst holding the Control key. Geneva will ask if you wish to terminate (enter Arnie) and the program will be removed. Similarly, holding down the SHIFT key will "put to sleep" the selected application, suspending the application in its current state until awoken by clicking on the Desk menu entry or by clicking on one of its windows. For any applications which do not restore the screen to a recognizable form it is merely neccessary to press the key combination ALT SHIFT UNDO and the screen will be redrawn correctly. This key combination is configurable to avoid conflicts with applications that use the same combination for a particular function: as are several of the keyboard shortcuts that Geneva uses. Menu items, from applications in use, that may be needed regularly can be "ripped away" and placed in a window anywhere on the screen. This can then be freely moved around. Menus can also be prevented from dropping down until the bar is clicked on.

Geneva comes with its own Help System for the main program, and all the accompanying programs, which can be accessed at any time. Clicking on an underlined word in the Help viewer will take you to a related topic (… la ST GUIDE, HTML.APP, CAB.APP). Text portions (or all the page) can be saved out to for hard copy and a search facility is at hand. Also, available is a ASCII display and conversion table which will display the hexadecimal and decimal equivalents to an ASCII character and furthermore will allow the entry of that character into the current application !

In Conclusion :

Highly Recommended
Geneva costs £59 or £99 together with Neodesk 4.

FOR

• Nearly everything.
  
• Highly configureable.

AGAINST

• Very little :-
• 1 / Occasional "lock-ups"
• 2 / "No right click = double click" implementation.
• 3 / You'll soon be yearning for that extra memory upgrade !

Note
It is essential for the good management of your time to plan ahead a little whilst multi-tasking. You must load in the programs you require and also run at the highest resolution you are likely to need i.e. if image processing is required then it is likely that you will need to be in 256 colour mode - hence all other programs will need to be able to run in 256 colour mode (together with the speed decrease this will entail compared to lower resolution modes). If you have to change resolution you will have to perform a warm reset - thereby losing the current set-up of loaded programs (although it will re-load the applications listed in the GEM.CNF file). Geneva will warn you before switching resolutions.

Problems & Solutions

• 1/ Pagestream will not show a visible screen in 16 colour video mode - changing the "FLAGS" to single tasking cures this.
• 2/ Occasionally the fonts used for menu items will change to a very small one - albeit still readable. Quitting the current application usually restores the system font.
• 3/ Occasionally, when using THING and OUTSIDE and GENEVA, the TASKMAN window is "frozen" and entries in it are inaccessible. This can be overcome either by opening Taskman again from the Geneva Manager or by setting a GEM.CNF file to run 2 (two) Taskmans at boot-up.
• 4/ In some drawing packages the draw tool will only draw one "spot" even though you have the mouse button depressed and have dragged to some way away. Solution :- set the "Window Gadget Delay" (Miscellaneous Options) to , say, 50ms instead of the default 300ms.
• 5/ Doesn't like the PFX packed versions of Imagecopy. Unpack them!

Many of the newer applications support "iconization (?)" - Everest, CAB, Idealist, Papyrus, Kobold, Lzhshell, GenevaRun, Diskcake, Gembench, to name but a few. This iconizing is a way of creating space on the workscreen (by reducing the window belonging to an application to a small icons), yet by double clicking on the icon the application will re-open its window in the previous state. If you have several windows open in one application you can iconize all of them and the icons will appear in the bottom left of the screen progressing over to the right of the screen. All with a label on them at the top of their "mini window" so that you can identify them, and all can be repositioned around the screen. Double clicking on ANY icon will reopen the window and the application it "belongs" to. Neat.

If you already have an earlier version of Geneva you can upgrade it by using the patch programs available from Floppyshop and the ST Club.

Geneva Utilities Disk
Gribnif Software has announced full details of the new Geneva Utilities disk . The disk contains three utilities:

GENEVA VIEW

...is a text file displayer with a modern windowed interface and a menu of options within the window itself. Files can be displayed either one page at a time, or in one go, and the display uses GDOS fonts.

GENEVA DESK

...allows changing of the pattern and colour of the default desktop (the one which appears when you are not using a desktop shell, or when you run a single-tasking application). Lots of colour and pattern options are available and if you have NeoDesk 4 you can use its picture and Desktop Notes!

GENEVA MACROS

...is a macro recorder and editor that will store any sequence of timer, mouse button, mouse movement, or keyboard actions and then play them back when you press a key. Macros can be edited and the system can load a specific macro set for every application you run, dynamically changing them around when you switch between applications.

All three utilities come on one disk for US$15 plus shipping. The Geneva 1.04 upgrade announced last month is now available on a PD disk

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