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From: spencer@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Facc ... an unanswered burning question (and daemons)
Message-ID: <4074@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Wed, 24-Jun-87 03:55:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: jade.4074
Posted: Wed Jun 24 03:55:32 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jun-87 07:46:01 EDT
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: spencer@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 51

In article <8873@amdahl.amdahl.com> kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) writes:
>
>On a more serious note (sigh), Bob Page makes some very good suggestions
>for the "daemonization" of thinks like Facc (however it's pronounced),
>popcli, etc.  All I can say is "right on, Bob"!
>
>/kim

I think that it should be noted at this point that there is a very
complete library exactly ment for things like those mentioned above.
It is called commodities.library.  Jim Mackraz (Author of "Intution:
the Motion Picture part II") has done up a system library that creates
an input handler deamon (as it were).  You tell it what you are
looking for in the input stream (Control-Shift-Middle Mouse Button-F10) 
and it will signal you when that comes across.  It allows you to write
PopCLI in about 10 lines of code, and could be used for control of all
sorts of deamon like things.  Infact for many programs it should be
possible to tell them to go away (close all windows and screens) and
sit in memory waiting for a certain key press before opening up again.
Jim's idea is for Multasking Desk Accessories.  These programs would
even eventually be started at boot time with the command
BindCommodities, which would look in the Commodities directory and
execute all the commands there.  

Figure, you got 8 meg of memory, but the 7.14 Mhz processor can't
control 25 Word Perfects (and you would get lost in the screens), but
if programs hid off in memory sleeping until a certain keypress they
would be much better than Mac Desk Accessories.  Imagine VT100 out
there, ready to start at anytime with a simple keypress.  Sure beats
MockTerminal on the Mac.

All this doesn't answer How To Keep The Actual Running Code Small,
when you would have window structures in it and all to talk to the use
through, unless you used Perry's idea of two seperate processes, but
it is along the same lines, but if all you even needed to say was
"Blank the screen now" or "Quit executing", than the key presses is
the way to go.

BTW:  With Jim's system, the keys that a certain program uses are all
user definable, so there are no clashes between programs trying to use
the same key (except maybe w/ Deluxe Paint, I hear that has LOTS of
keyboard commands!)

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Randy Spencer      P.O. Box 4542   Berkeley  CA  94704        (415)284-4740 
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