The Amiga operating system is well designed, but for some reason it has always
lacked a decent textviewer. Commodore developed the More tool for reading plain
text, and Amiga Guide and MultiView offered more enhanced features, including
datatype recognition and such like. I wanted a textviewer which would look good
and blend in with all my other Workbench patches. I started developing EvenMore
in 1996 as a hobby. It started off fairly basic as textviewers go, but now
EvenMore offers functions such as proportional font support, multi-coloured
text, file conversion plugins, and more. EvenMore is entirely programmed in
AmigaE/ECX, which is an excellent programming language developed by Wouter van
Oortmerssen and Leif Salomonsson.
Here are its main features
--------------------------
o Plugin system for viewing many different file types, such as AmigaGuide,
HTML, WordWorth, MSWord, RTF, directories, etc.
o Supports ANSI escape code sequences for text formatting, including full
colour text for certain file types
o Links are clickable in HTML, AmigaGuide, directories and other file types
o Drag and drop files on the window to open them
o ARexx port for remote control
o Search function
o Configurable menus for frequently used documents
o Clipboard support
o Locale support
and more...
Here are the recent changes
---------------------------
o Developed MUI interface for EvenMore's main window. The main text area is
still controlled by my own custom text display code, but the GUI layout is
now handled by MUI. This means a lot of code that was taken up with
creating the main interface has been removed. The EvenMore executable code
has shrunk to around 85k, a saving of around 45k. The interface is simple
by MUI standards, and because it uses my own code for text display, it
should remain fast enough on slower computers. I was originally against the
idea of developing an MUI interface for EvenMore as I always felt MUI,
while it looked nice, was rather bloated. I also wanted EvenMore to run on
systems that did not have MUI installed. But with MorphOS being developed
with MUI as the standard interface, and AmigaOS 4 also supporting it, it
makes sense to use it to remain compatible with the new operating systems.
Removed iconify and menufy code, as this is handled by MUI automatically.
Removed appwindow code, as this is handled by MUI.
Removed ReqTools and ASL requesters. Now uses built-in MUI ASL requesters.
Removed GadTools interface code and all associated settings in the settings
plugin.
Removed screen preferences and window position preferences as this is
handled by MUI automatically.
Removed gadget icons and associated gadget help code along the top of the
window.
Removed borderless window option, as this is not really that useful.
Simplified menus, removing a few items that were not really useful.
Filestring gadget now has its own PopASL requester button thanks to MUI.
Removed smooth scrolling, as it isn't really that smooth compared to MUI's
pixel by pixel scrolling. May develop proper pixel scrolling later.
Removed progress bar. Could impliment an MUI version, but it is not really
necessary as computers are so fast now, you would hardly notice a file
loading.
Removed confirm quit setting and "multiple copies". EvenMore will only open
once instance of itself by default, and will pass arguments on to the open
copy via arexx.
Removed page overlap scroll setting and wheelmouse scroll setting. Not really
useful. Wheelmouse scroll default will be 3 lines.
Removed ARexx commands that are not really that useful. MUI has a built in
ARexx port which has common commands for controlling the main interface
anyway. I have added my own commands to this for controlling file operations.
Added left and right arrow gadgets for browsing opened files. Removed History
menu due to complications of updating menus in MUI. May look at history menu
again at a later date, or consider reimplementing other image gadgets.
Removed built-in keyboard help text. Refer to the EvenMore manual for this.
Removed built-in XPK loading and saving of files, as I don't have the MorphOS
modules of these in ECX. May progam a plugin to take care of loading XPK
in the future. Also removed XPK preferences from preference plugin.
Fixed installhook problem with MUI interface on MorphOS, so the interface
should function correctly most of the time.
There are still a few things to be ironed out though. Please read the docs.
Updates available at http://www.evenmore.co.uk
I cannot expect to be able to develop this program much further, as I am a
Christian and believe Jesus Christ will return very soon. If I do not reply to
any mail for months and months, then the development of this program has
ceased.
|
aminet net>