moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer) (10/01/87)
Just got my upgrade to VersaTerm 3.1 -- hoo hah! When used with my beta
Juggler/Multi-Finder, it downloads programs in the background very nicely.
A real pleasure to use...
Included were some notes on new features in 3.1 (and 3.0, if you're not at
that level yet). Also some "tech reference information". I'm posting it
here for your edification...
Have fun.
======================================================================
***********************
VersaTerm 3.1 New Features
***********************
August 1987:
<1> VersaTerm now has multitasking features when used with the
MultiFinder*. Terminal sessions, file transfers and printing may
all be executed in the background! Operation is simple, when
performing any of these tasks, simply click on another layer's
window and watch VersaTerm continue to work in the background!
Contact your Macintosh dealer for information on obtaining the
latest version of the MultiFinder.
<2> Personalized startup dialog. When VersaTerm is first launched,
it will ask the user to enter his/her name and organization. Be
careful typing, these two strings will always appear at startup. Some
users may wish to enter their serial number as the organization,
the format, SN #XXXXX for example, looks nice.
<3> Pop-Up menu user commands are supported. If you have a Mac Plus
or greater and are running System 4.1 you have a new feature called
"pop-up menus". In VersaTerm, if you hold down the Command key
while you mouse-down (anywhere on the screen, except the menu bar)
a pop-up menu containing the user commands found in the Commands
menu will be displayed.
<4> A "Find" command has been added to the Edit Menu. This allows the
user to search back through the text buffer for a particular string
of characters. When selected, the user is prompted for a search
string, if OK, the search process begins from the first line off the
top of the current screen, searching from left to right on each line.
When a match is found, the match to the end of the line is selected
and positioned at the top of the screen. If the Option or Shift key
is depressed while this item is selected, the search is repeated with
the same search string.
<5> Text translation for customized text filtering and foreign character
translation. The Extras... dialog has two entries "Filter Text" and
"Translate Text" replacing the previous "Filter Save Stream" option.
"Filter Text" does exactly what "Filter Save Stream" did. The more
powerful option "Translate Text" allows the user to ignore and or
replace a character with another character. This process is
bi-directional, eg. both Send Stream and Save Stream are effected
by this option (among many others; File transfers, Paste, Save
Selection, etc.). The default translation table maps the standard
US extended characters like % and ' to ASCII characters, like o and B.
Refer to the technical section below for the details on editing
translation tables.
<6> The DEC VT100 and DG D200 Text Attributes may be remapped by
the user, as well as specifying a color to each attribute. If the user
selects "Text Attributes..." from the Emulation menu while in a text
emulation, a dialog is shown describing five different attributes
and a choice of seven styles and seven colors. Therefore each
text attribute may have both a color and a style associated with it.
<7> The size (rows and columns) of the Text emulation window is displayed
as the user "sizes" the window.
<8> A Long Break can be generated by a Command Macro of ^+, (carrot plus).
***********************
VersaTerm 3.0 New Features
***********************
April 1987:
<1> tweeks for Mac II and Mac SE compatibility.
a) Supports the Standard and Enhanced "ADB" Keyboards.
b) The text emulation window may be sized vertically up to the limits
of the screen, while also providing extended VT100 and DG D200
emulation. (Mac II provides 36 lines vertically)
c) Supports three (3) graphics screen sizes optimized for...
512 x 342 -- Standard Mac
640 x 480 -- Mac II (VersaTerm PRO only)
1024 x 768 -- Third party Large Screens (VersaTerm PRO only)
d) Supports solid color on the Mac II, (VersaTerm PRO only).
<2> more "Option Key" tags.
a) An option-key tag of "." will be executed on Startup. This may be
used to select your favorite emulation as well as opening DA's.
b) Option-key tags of '0' through '9' may be used. If a character
'1' through '9' and '0' is tagged to a command, then F1 through
F10 will generated that command.
<3> If a DA is opened, most of the menus are disabled, whereby the user must
"mouse" the emulation window. Now the "About VersaTerm..." menu
changes to the title of the last active emulation window title when
a DA is active. When selected, this menu activates the previous
emulation window.
<4> Keyboard Scrolling with arrow keys...
Command-UP performs a "Page Up" on the active vertical scroll bar.
Command-DOWN performs a "Page Down" on the active vertical scroll bar.
Command-LEFT performs a "Thumb Top" on the active vertical scroll bar.
Command-RIGHT performs a "Thumb Bottom" on the active vertical scroll
bar.
<5> Edit before performing a Paste.
If the Option Key is depressed while selecting either "Paste" or
"Copy/Paste" a one-line dialog will be presented, allowing the user
to edit the Clipboard before performing the paste. Remember that
the arrow keys may be used to scroll around in the dialog.
<6> If the user has an ADB keyboard (ie. a Mac SE or Mac II), an option in the
"About VersaTerm" dialog allows the user to not use the Command Key
as the Control key, thereby allowing the use of Command Key shortcuts.
If "Use CMD as Control" is checked, the CMD key is the control key. If
the entry is not checked, predefined keyboard shortcuts will appear.
Note that this option is saved in your settings document.
*********
Tech Stuff:
*********
o "Kmap = 129" Resource... Function Keys
-------------------------------------
The "ADB" Enhanced Keyboard for the Mac II and Mac SE
has a few function keys.
If a character '1' through '9' and '0' is tagged to a command, then F1 through
F10 will generated that command. If not, a string will be sent to the host.
The "Kmap = 129" resource contains a structure:
struct FunctionKeys {
char CString[8];
} FunKey[30];
In DEC VT100 emulation only...
If no modifiers are depressed while depressing the function key, Fn, then
the string, FunKey[n-1].CString, will be sent to the host. If any
modifier is depressed (ie a SHIFT) while depressing the function key, Fn, then
the string, FunKey[n-1+30].CString, will be sent to the host. By default
Fn generates the sequence <ESC>n<CR>, (ie F10 is <ESC>10<CR>), this
generates common IBM protocol converter 327x function keys.
The "extended keyboard" keys located just above the arrow keys may also be
programmed via the "Kmap = 129" resource. As above,
if (where 30 <= k <= 35) FunKey[k].CString[0] != 0x00
then the string FunKey[k].CString is sent
to the host. The keys: "help", k = 30; "home", k = 31; "page up", k = 32;
"del", k = 33; "end", k = 34; and "page down", k = 35. If a modifier is
depressed while typing one of these keys, the standard Mac function will
be performed, overrideing the defined string.
o "Kmap = 256" Resource... Text Translation
---------------------------------------
This resource allows the user to translate text to and from the standard
ASCII character set and the extended character set of the Macintosh.
The best example is with foreign keyboards, the British pound symbol #
may replace the US # symbol, but when saving a doccument, the user would
like the ASCII # character to be translated to the eight bit British
pound symbol, #. If the Monaco font 9 font was editied such that # was
replaced with #, the user could type # on the British keyboard, see
# on the screen, send # to the host, but save # to a file. IE it works
as you would expect. The Extras... option "Text Translation" must be checked
for the translation to be active.
This 256 byte resource either filters or maps characters that come from
the host as well as characters sent to the host. If ASCII[n] represents
the n'th character in the array of this resource, the mapping results in
n = ASCII[n];
therefore, if ASCII[n] is the same as n then no translation occurs. In the
example above ASCII[0x23] is 0xA3 and ASCII[0xA3] is 0x23. (0x23 is # and
0xA3 is #) if ASCII[n] is 0x00 then the character n is ignorred.
NOTE: Both the Text Translation table and the Keyboard Keymap is
saved in the user's settings document. The application's resource values
setup the default values, and the settings document overrides the default.
There is one exception, if VersaTerm is launched by opening the
application icon, not a document icon, then the resource values will be
used, and obviously, the term_data file will contain the resource values
when saved. A user may merge a new resource description to an existing
document by renaming the document term_data and launching the
VersaTerm icon and performing a save settings.
o "VATM = 0" Resource... Options
-----------------------------
The new features section of your manual describes one option byte that
experienced user's may change. The byte location of this option has changed,
but the meaning remains the same.
* Options: byte # 32 (last byte)
======================================================================
What a machine!
DAVE BARRY'S "1986 in Review" -- Mar. 6th:
In the Middle East, Iraq uses up all its young
men and has to borrow some from Iran so they can
keep having a war.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, hplsla, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
CREDO: You gotta be Cruel to be Kind...
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>