If you have just bought a copy of !Blinds, then please ignore
this text file. It is intended for existing owners of Blinds
who may have had an earlier version from Quantum Software.

==============================================================



Owners of !Blinds who have returned their discs for upgrading
should read the Help text file of !BLupgrade and read the rest 
of this text.


V1.26
-----
32bit aware version.
Added the wee function that if you drag a file from the Filer to a directory
on a blind with the SHIFT key pressed then the file will be MOVED rather than
copied.

This version is also compatible with the alternative BASIC program BRANDY.
BRANDY allows very long path lengths so !Blinds will no longer throw up an 
error if you added a icon to a blind with a long pathname and then try to save
that setting.
Read all the BRANDY text file on how to force !Blinds to use this program.

V1.25b
------
Fixed a bug which stopped the Blind bar from shrinking when text
was removed from top or bottom blinds. 


V1.25
-----
Fixed a bug (Colour of text in a blind couldn't be altered) that
is introduced when users run the new Acorn Window Manager V3.97.
Also made small icons in a blind left-align when grid locking. 
Added some text below to this file.

V1.24
-----
Added 3D borders to the blind bars.

V1.23e
------
Corrects a minor problem with tool blinds linked to the input focus
of another application that had large amounts of windows. 
ie Scheme and Fireworks.
Note: memory usage has been increased from 96K to 104K

V1.23d
------
Corrects a pathname bug which appears when you drag files off a blind 
to another application or icon on the iconbar.

V1.23c
------
Corrects a possible error message when a sprite is placed on a blind bar.

V1.23b
-----
Corrects a sprite menu corruption when trying to place a sprite on a blind bar.

V1.23a
------
The settings of the colour and alignment of text on blind bars were
accidently left out when saving. Now fixed!


V1.23
-----
When selecting a sprite to change how an icon looks in Edit icon mode you
will notice a series of four options in the Edit Icons/Sprites menu. You can
now change the picture of an icon by choosing a sprite from one of three
menus.

The number of sprites you may have in your computer can be quite high and so
we've organised the sprites into three groups. Apps, Files and Others. APPS
is the application sprite pictures, FILES contains all the filetype pictures
and OTHERS contains the rest.

The fourth option NONE simply means you click on this if you don't want a
sprite to appear in an icon! 

To have two pictures on the one icon, simply choose the first one by
clicking on the sprite name in the menu with the ADJUST mouse button and
then the choose your second picture by clicking with the SELECT mouse
button.

P.S. 
If you notice in the sprite menus that an image of a sprite is not
shown, but the name is then this simply means that the sprite was too large
to display in the menu.


Blinds now saves all the sprite pictures of any icons used on a blind into a
Sprite file at ...!Blinds.Sprites. This speeds up the booting of !Blinds as
it no longer need to boot every application on a blind in order to find out its
picture sprite. But it now also means that any applications on a blind are *not*
now booted when Blinds starts up.

Blinds is not really a bootup program so if you need to make a specific
application booted then you should really make use of your Desktop Boot menu option
via the Task manager icon.

(A later version of Blinds will probably have a new 'boot' icon menu option).



V1.20+
------
A number of new features have been added to V1.20.

1.
Clicking with the Select mouse button on the background of a blind 
will bring that blind to the front (not backdrop blinds though). 
                                  
2.
Clicking with the Menu mouse button on the background of a blind
will automatically switch !Blinds to the Icon edit mode.

3.
You can now select one or more icons and copy them easily with a click.

You highlight one or more icons in a blind and click on the Menu
mouse button. The 'New Icon' menu option will be replaced with
'Copy Icons'. Click on this to copy them.
 
To create a new icon now you will first need to have NO icons selected 
before you bring up the Edit Icons menu.

4.
Top and bottom blind bars can now have text or small sprites placed on
the bar (a future release will do left and right blinds with text as well).

Placing Text on a bar.
-----------------------
To place text in a bar you must first be in Window editing mode.
Click on the !Blinds icon on the icon bar and click on it until a large
'W ' appears.

Click on the Menu mouse button over the background of the blind of your
choice.

Move the pointer along the Blinds Bar menu option and click on the 'Text' line.
The blind takes the name of the window from the 'Name' option in the Edit Window
menu.

You can also align the text to the left, centre or right of the blind by
going to the Alignment option just below the Text option.

Placing a sprite on a bar.
--------------------------
This is the same operation as for changing the look of an icon.

!Blinds only knows about sprites which are in the common 'Sprite Pool'. To 
add a sprite to this pool, drag the sprite to the !Blinds icon on the icon bar.

When you resave the Default file when you are happy with any changes you may 
have done then only the sprites you have used are also saved alongside the 
Default file in  file called 'Sprites'.
                                       

5.
Now when you save the Default file, which is your normal action to save your
settings, !Blinds will now save all sprites used on blind bars or as icons
in a seperate collective sprite file called 'Sprites' next to the Default file.


6.
It is now possible to run !Blinds from a command line or Obey file using
different Default and Sprite files.
This is useful for classroom or network environments where you only need to have
one copy of Blinds and just use different Default and Sprite files for each user.

For example:
A obey file could have the following line.
(Assuming that !Blinds has been seen by the Filer).

Run <Blinds$Dir> <Default file pathname> [Sprites file pathname(optional)]

for example...

Run <Blinds$Dir> IDEFS::IDEDisc4.$.Default IDEFS::IDEDisc4.$.Sprites

or just plain...

Run <Blinds$Dir> IDEFS::IDEDisc4.$.users.Paul.blinds

Please notice that you can call it whatever you like.


7.
Bug fixes to do with the dragging of files from an application to a blind.




V1.13c
------
Minor fix for very long pathnames causing errors.

V1.13b
------
Minor fix for removing extra space that appears at the end of
the Commands/Normal writable menu line.
Cured a font problem on Risc PCs if the user used the system font
instead of outline fonts. 

Added the support BASIC file 'Inserttext'. This file allows you to
insert text at the caret of an application by double clicking on a
Blinds icon. See the Blinds examples section below on 'Characters'
for more details.
 

V1.13
-----
Minor fix for left type blinds occasionally losing their bars.


V1.12
-----
This version adds proper support for the Filer interactive copying window
when dragging an object from a blind to a Filer window.



Also
--------------------------------------
From V1.11 onwards...

Autowithdrawn option removed. You now need to double click with the ADJUST
Mouse button in order to run the application/open the directory, etc.
and the blind window will shut automatically. This is more in keeping with
the RISC OS Style Guide.

We have added a directory called 'Examples' which contains some examples of
blinds that can be easily set up by the user.

(!Blinds currently saves its blinds information in the form of text files).

To see these blinds drag the 'text file' of your choice to the !Blinds icon
on the icon bar.


Apps1 & Apps2
-------------
These blinds simply shows the applications from the Apps ROM directory in
two different ways.

If you want to remove the blinds just enter the W editing mode and choose
the Edit Window/delete menu option. 


ftype1 & ftype2
---------------
These two blinds show a collection of icons.

Any file dragged onto one of these icons will get its file type changed to
the same type you dropped the file on. A handy utility which takes up NO
more valuable RAM!

One blind has no text, the other has the file types displayed under each
icon.

If you want to remove the blinds just enter the W editing mode and choose
the Edit Window/delete menu option. 

Edit
----
This blind shows how you can setup a blind to be linked with an application.
This small blind will ONLY appear if !Edit is loaded and if you pop up an
!Edit text window and click within it (giving it the input focus). A small
blue bar will appear to the right of the !Edit window and if this blind is
opened you will see a directory of the root of the RAM disc. (If you do not
normally have a RAM disc configured please make a temporary one for this
example, any size will do). Now imagine you have just produced your latest
masterpiece in !Edit and you want to save your work. Normally you have to
find your Filer directory to place your text. This is usually a pain!
 
Because !Blinds allows files which are dropped to a directory to be
automatically saved to within that Filer directory, dragging the !Edit Save
dialogue box icon to the RAM disc directory within the blind will cause
!Edit to save the file to the RAM disc! Quick and with NO fuss!

Correctly setting up a blind in this way for each of your favourite
applications means no more hunting for Filer directories!


modes
-----
This blinds sits on the icon bar and displays lines of text. Each line of
text when double clicked upon will change the screen display mode to the
mode descripted. What is happening is that !Blinds is performing a *command
called 'Wimpmode XX'. Have a look in the Edit Icons/Commands/Normal menu
option.

This blind and its icons can be easily altered to suit your own personal
setup.

Characters
----------
This blind is new from v1.13b onwards and allows the user to specify one
or more characters to be inserted at the caret by simply double clicking
on the Blinds icon.
If you look at the Commands/Normal menu line you'll see the line
'Run <Inserttext> X', where 'X' is one or more characters.
For example if you double click on the '' icon it will insert ' me...'
to the caret (if present).
You could very easily make your own with your address, phone number,
credit card number or various other details!

NOTE: If you use a text editor called !Zap, then you'll find the
international characters of this blind don't work! This is a bug in !ZAP...



Making Blinds perform Ctrl-X keypresses
---------------------------------------
Several customers have asked if it is possible to make a double click
on a Blind icon perform the equivalent of Ctrl-B or Ctrl-C, etc.
This can be done by altering the Normal Command of an icon.

First select your icon and popup the 'Edit Icons' menu and move to the
Commands  Normal  menu and delete any text in the field.
Enter:
*FX138,0,X
where X is the ctrl number of the key you want.
ie. A is 1, B is 2 etc.
So for example Ctrl-C you would enter *FX138,0,3

**Using this method you can only perform Ctrl-A to Ctrl-Z **
**There is no commands in RISC OS for Ctrl-Shift-letter   ** 

To make use of other keys like Print, F1 to F12 you need to use:
*FX153,0,X
where X is a number from 128 to 204.

128 Print     136 F8      202 F10
129 F1        137 F9      203 F11
130 F2        139 Copy    204 F12
131 F3        140 
132 F4        141 
133 F5        142 
134 F6        143 

To make F1 become Shift-F1 add 16
To make F1 become Ctrl-F1 add 32
To make F1 become Ctrl-shift-F1 add 48
ie Ctrl-Shift-F9 becomes 185


---------------------------------------------------------------------------


We hope this gives you some examples of what !Blinds is capable of!

 Quantum Software from 1998


   