Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!mit-amt!mit-atrp!ralph
From: ralph@mit-atrp.UUCP (Ralph L. Vinciguerra)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: TxEd plus, ARP, and Arexx hints
Message-ID: <2303@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: 14 Apr 88 17:22:00 GMT
Sender: usenet@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: ralph@atrp.media.mit.edu
Distribution: na
Organization: MIT Amiga Users Group c/o MIT Cognitive Info. Processing Group
Lines: 54
Keywords: TxEd Plus, ARexx, icons, ARP

I have just received TxEd Plus and am very pleased. I also got ARexx with
it so I could see just how these things are coming along.
Along the way I ran into a couple problems and others might want to know
how to work around them. Or, maybe I was doing something wrong ?

Icons problems:
  Although TxEd has a switch to turn icon creations on and off, I feel that
the icon-on mode is done incorrectly. I use the Workbench for all my
tasks (editing, Tex'ing, VT100'ing, etc.). The problem is that if you
enable TxEd plus's icon creation, if trashes the icon you had originally.
And worse, is puts a strange value in the Default Tool field: "E". Huh ?

  First, it shouldn't touch the icon image. I make my own clean and small
icons and I don't want them trashed.
Second, if it's legitimately creating an icon, the most reasonable
assumption about what default tool to use is the tool and it's invokation
path in the first place.
Let's say I keep TxEd in my C: directory and I have it named "ed".
Then the right default tool is "C:Ed, not "E". I think MaxiPlan does
it right.

  The solution to this problem is to turn the icon making mode OFF.
If you want a new text file to edit, first use the workbench to duplicate
an existing text object, rename it, and start TxEd by double clicking it.
I successfully use the VT100 emulator this way. Before I download, I pop
out to the workbench and create blank files with icons first. This
technique can almost always succeed in making it possible to use non-icon
oriented programs from the workbench. Except when they can't be started
by shift selecting. Now if I could just find an icon oriented version of
the ARC program !

Crashing on the USER menu:
  For some reason, until I properly installed ARexx, TxEd would start O.K.
and run but if I selected the USER menu, immediate GURU !
All is fine after I have things fully installed.

Bad ARP v 1.0 docs file and command:
  The ARP docs file on the distribution disk with TxEd was damaged so
this problem may have been described there.
The Mount command doesn't seem to properly mount VD0:. I tried it
very carefully in my Startup-Sequence and manually, with no luck. So much
as a "cd vd0:" will cause the system to reboot. The old mount command
needs to be used instead.

Good luck, and I hope this helps anyone in the same boat.

Disclaimer:
  These problems I mention in the above programs are small ones, which are
EASILY worked around, and I must say that at this point I'm WILD about
using these programs constantly.
The TxEd to ARexx macro capability is great, I hope SuperBase adds a port.
Maybe a news reader could be created....download the days news while you
have dinner and read at high speed later that night.....

Ralph