Bc2000 (for the BCF2000 & BCR2000)

--- In bc2000@yahoogroups.com, "k5kip_1999" <k5kip_1999@...> wrote:
> Good morning Mark!

"One man's morning is another man's night."?

>  > > Another thought -
>  > > Import preset in the Presets window.
>  > > So - select a preset in the Presets window. (empty or full)
>  > > File>(suggested new element)Import preset.
>  >
>  > This is a lot trickier than you might think: I'd have to reprogram BC
>  > Manager's BCL interpreter so that it does NOT accept any other data
>  > than a preset. And should we accept a memory preset (i.e. one with
>  > $store attached)?
>  >
> 
> Yeah, I see what you mean, yes it would have to filter out the $store 
> and any $Global stuff and how would you define that filter?  Ignore 
> $Global to $preset and $store x to $end.
> Then tack $preset back in at the front, and $end...
> My only reason for the request is for building banks of presets from 
> other separate syx or text/bc2 files.  Perhaps there is already a
way to 
> do this, without opening and closing and copy pasting...

Actually, this morning I suddenly realized that you can basically
simply use the File -> Open feature from the B-Controls window,
because it does NOT first initialize the whole data area before
loading the data from the input file. So the input file can contain
any BCL data you like: presets or even individual buttons etc.
The only "problem" is that the Open operation renames the "current
file name" to your imported file each time. So I think I could simply
add an "Import" operation to the same menu that simply doesn't rename
the "current file name".

>  > > Is there a way to have the print strips actually bring up the
printer
>  > > dialog?
>  >
>  > Why would you want this? (And which dialog exactly?)
>  >
> If I am working on a computer without a printer or one with several 
> attached, print strips sends the file to whatever the default
printer is.
> Here's an image of what I was thinking.
> 
>
[URL=http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?image=printselectns2.gif][IMG]http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/1197/printselectns2.th.gif[/IMG][/URL]

First of all: It turns out that under Windows there are really a LOT
of printer-related dialog boxes! I think I recognize this type of
dialog box, but I somehow can't produce it on my computer (Windows
XP(+SP2)). So how exactly do you get to see this dialog box?

Secondly: I think you can already do exactly what you want (i.e.
deviate from the default printer) via BC Manager's main menu: Options
-> Printer. As I realized only a few weeks ago, it turns out that
anything you set in that dialog box only holds for the current run of
BC Manager: once you restart BC Manager you get the defaults again.

> What format is it now? I mean you have to send this to print as 
> something, right?

Frankly I have no idea how it works. BC Manager just defines a printer
object (as defined by a programming library I'm using), then it draws
a number of lines and characters on that printer's "canvas". So I
suppose it uses the native printing language of the actual printer
being used.

> I think the print dialog I mentioned about has print to file
(checkbox), 
> which is, I think, a .prn.

Yes, I already noticed the "Print to file" checkbox in your dialog
box. So that's curious too: for some reason the programming library
I'm using doesn't lead to that "offer".
(In fact, I guess the ".prn" file contains indeed exactly the
printer-dependent instructions for printing.)

> First I was thinking of as a .bmp or something.

It might be possible, but the main problem with bmp is that the
resulting file gets pretty huge if it has to represent a
high-resolution (e.g. 600 dpi) image, even in black & white.

Last Saturday, after your first question about print files, I
experimented for several hours with Windows metafiles (emf/wmf). These
should be able to provide a very compact representation of the drawn
objects (i.e. lines + text, in case of BC element strips), but in
accordance with my previous experiences with metafiles, it turned out
to be very hard to get them right in terms of scaling etc., in
relationship with the image and word processors that can read
metafiles. And besides, a metafile doesn't constitute a 1-to-1
representation of what you get when you print to the printer directly,
so it's kind of dangerous in that sense. Anyway, I'll see if I can get
the metafile format correct quickly, otherwise I'll abandon it for the
moment.

> I will stop giving you more work. Except for one thing - undo.

This is a bit ironic, perhaps: from a programmer's point of view, an
"Undo" feature (in particular an application-wide one) is absolutely
one of the most horribly difficult and time-consuming things to
implement: I don't think I've ever seen a professional word processor
or programming environment whose Undo function was NOT buggy in some
way. The problem is this: the more editing operations a program has,
the more difficult it is to keep track of all the interacting effects
of these operations, hence the more difficult it is to reverse all
these operations. So I don't think that it is on the cards in the near
future, but I've added it to the "Wish list"...

> I have had to restart bcmanager several times, when I cut a line then go
> to paste but do something in the wrong order. This is the case, say when
> I am revising a layout.  Moving things around to better suit me.  I get
> stuck, I copy something then paste or paste the last thing before i
> cut... I really need an undo. Otherwise I have to stop close not save,
> start over since last save and I don't save after every single move,
> although I could.

Instead of closing, couldn't you just reopen the current file?

One thing that might also help in this respect: you can open as many 
"B-Controls" as you wish (you don't have to "link" each of them to a
real BCF/BCR or even a file) - so instead of saving your intermediate 
presets (or even buttons etc.) to file, you could copy them to another
"B-Control" now and then.

Mark.