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Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS

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On 20/01/2021 01:19, Harriet Bazley wrote:
> The GUI was the selling point for RISC OS, which wasn't really targetted
> at command-line programmers - most users today probably don't have the
> faintest idea what the character for 'go up a directory' is, and few of
> them type in anything other than a leafname, since all files are
> normally saved by drag and drop from a 'savebox' and the destination
> directory is selected visually.
> 
> Knowledge on that level ceased to be important to the general user once
> the days of the BBC Micro were over.  (I think the RISC OS 2/3 User
> Guides may contain more useful stuff about 'star commands' and system
> variables than the later ones, which is why I hung onto mine.)

One command line thing dating back to the BBC Micro caught out a new 
user recently. They found that doing a *Help Commands in a graphic task 
window or bash window would grind to a halt stop and lock up the 
desktop, but it wasn't a bug.

This is down to paging mode, first seen on the BBC Micro, where the OS 
would stop after each screen full of output, so you could read it, and 
you then pressed shift to show the next page. This is similar to the 
Unix more or less programs, but with one crucial difference - there is 
no indication on screen that you need to press anything to continue.

Normally page mode is only invoked outside the desktop or from the F12 
prompt, it's not normally supported by taskwindow handlers such as Edit 
or Zap. But !GraphTask, and it seems bash, do pass the Ctrl+N code which 
enables paging to the VDU system. I did think of disabling it, but then 
having the output pause in a graphic task window is still useful, as it 
doesn't have any scrollback capability.

---druck

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Some questions about developing for RISC OS Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2020-10-27 16:18 +0800
  Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Jean-Michel <jmc.bruck@orange.fr> - 2020-10-27 12:40 +0100
    Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2020-10-27 20:14 +0800
      Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS News <chrisjohnson@spamcop.net> - 2020-10-27 12:35 +0000
        Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2020-10-28 01:40 +0800
  Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2020-10-27 13:03 +0000
    Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2020-10-28 01:17 +0800
      Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2020-10-28 11:01 +0000
  Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Bryan Hogan <spam@nowhere.invalid> - 2020-10-30 04:25 +0000
    Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2021-01-19 22:34 +0000
      Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2021-01-20 01:19 +0000
        Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS druck <news@druck.org.uk> - 2021-01-20 15:35 +0000
          Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Jonathan Harston <jgh@mdfs.net> - 2021-01-25 11:42 -0800
            Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS druck <news@druck.org.uk> - 2021-01-27 08:58 +0000
  Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2020-11-03 10:31 +0000
    Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2021-01-19 22:55 +0000
  Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2021-01-18 14:09 +0000
    Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Steve Fryatt <news@stevefryatt.org.uk> - 2021-01-18 23:04 +0000
      Re: Some questions about developing for RISC OS Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2021-01-19 16:03 +0000

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