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Download issue 9 - Total Amiga Magazine

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SUPPORTSUPPORTthe second section of the pop-up menu.Click Save in the window.Top TipsRobert Williams dishes out another selectiontantalising tips.DrawStudioPostscript PrintingAs DrawStudio supports printing throughTurbo Print for full quality, most peopleprobably don’t use its Postscript output.However, as far as I can tell one limitationof DrawStudio is that it can onlyprint on A4 paper, I have an A3 printerand even if I set the page size to A3 inDrawStudio when I print, I still only getan A4 size portion. So sometimes I printusing PostScript through GhostScript orinto an EPS file which I then place on apage and print from PageStream. Forquite a while I’ve been puzzled that mostof the time this works fine but occasionallyGhostScript throws a wobblyand won’t print a particular file. Aftercomparing the files that won’t print withthose that will I think I have found thesolution... dotted lines. Any DrawStudiofile that contains a dotted line will notprint through GhostScript. I don’t knowwhether this is a bug in DrawStudio’sPostScript output or in GhostScript butanyway now I know how to get aroundit... avoid dotted lines!PageStream BackupsPageStream keeps a backup wheneveryou save a document so you can easilyrevert to an older revision, by default itsaves three revisions. If you are workingon a large document these backups cantake up a large amount of disk spaceand also increase saving times. On the“General” page of the PageStreamPreferences window you can set thenumber of revisions to be kept and thedirectory where they will be stored, youmay want to turn the feature off altogetherif saving times are important.Also be sure to check your backupsdirectory regularly and delete unwantedfiles.CyberVision 64/3DZorro III SupportTwo SEAL members have fallen foul of aproblem with some DCE manufacturedCyberVision 64/3D cards which does notseem to have been very well publicisedso I thought I would mention it here.First off a bit of history, the CyberVision64/3D is a Zorro II/III graphics card originallymanufactured by Phase 5.Shortly before Phase 5 closed it waspassed to DCE who started producing anew version of the card which also supportedthe fast Zorro II feature of thethen new Apollo Z4 A1200 busboard.Unfortunately it seems that in the earlybatches this change broke the Zorro IIIcompatibility of the card. The two SEALmembers mentioned purchased secondYou control PageStream’s backups from this page of the Preferences window.hand DCE manufactured CV64/3Ds fortheir A4000s and neither would work,with both CyberGraphX and Picasso 96either locking up during boot or beingvery unstable. As soon as a Phase 5CV64/3D was inserted the machines ranreliably again. The only reference I haveseen to this problem was in an Eyetechadvert some months ago where theysaid something like “CyberVision 64/3D,now Zorro III compatible”. So I assumelater batches of boards have this problemfixed. Be warned if you have a ZorroIII machine and are looking for aCV64/3D graphics card find out whomade it, if it is a DCE card make sure itcomes from a later batch which is ZorroIII compatible!NOTE: According to the CV64/3D FAQon www.vgr.com/cybergfx the boarddoesn’t have a jumper to force Zorro IIoperation in a ZIII machine so that is nota possible work around.Setting the CDDA Iconand Default CD PlayerThe CD file system is the software whichallows your <strong>Amiga</strong> to read data CDs in aCD-ROM drive, when you insert anaudio CD most file systems show aspecial icon on the Workbench usuallynamed CDDA (Compact Disc DigitalAudio). As an audio CD does not containfiles what happens when you openthis icon? The two most common CD filesystems, AmiCDFS (uncrippled shareware)and CacheCDFS (supplied withCheck the icon you choose is a Projecttype. RaWbInfo, shown here, can beused to change the type if required.IDEFix, OS3.5 and 3.9) start an audioCD player when you double click theicon so you can listen to the audio CD.Changing the IconThe first thing you may want to do is tochange the icon used by the CD filesystem to show an audio CD. For bothfile systems the icon is stored in theEnv: directory which is copied fromSys:Prefs/Env-Archive/ on boot up. Theicon for AmiCDFS is in the Sys subdirectoryand is calleddef_CDDAdisk.info. CacheCDFS usesCDDA.info directly in the Env-Archivedirectory. To change the icon for eithersystem simply find an icon you prefer(there are plenty on the OS3.5/9 CDsand yet more in collections on Aminet) ,copy it to the appropriate directory foryour file system and rename it. You willalso need to check that it is a projecttype icon, if you use Directory Opus 5 orRaWbInfo you can do this from theIcons/Information requester, otherwiseuse an Icon Editor.Changing the Icon TypeRaWbInfo (freeware Informationrequester replacement, included withOS3.9):Click once on the icon, select“Information...” from the “Icons” menu. Inthe window appears go to the “Type”menu and select the type required. ClickSave in the window.Directory Opus 5 (commercial filemanager and Workbench replacement):Click once on the icon, select“Information...” from the “Icons” menu.Right click anywhere in the windowappears, select the type required fromCacheCDFS Preferences has lots ofoptions but the ones we’re interested inare on the Audio menu.Icon Edit (Utility supplied with <strong>Amiga</strong>OSin the Tools drawer):Choose “Open...” from the “Project”menu and select the icon in the filerequester. Select the type required fromthe “Type” menu, choose “Save” andthen “Quit” from the “Project” menu(note this is from the OS3.9 version,older versions may vary slightly).Selecting a PlayerNow you’ve got a nice icon the next jobis to make it call up the player of yourchoice. You need to have an audio CDplayer program set up and configured soit runs properly when you double click itsicon. Doing this is beyond the scope ofthis tip but take a look at our CD featurein Clubbed <strong>issue</strong> 4 for detailed information.AmiCDFSThis file system calls the default tool ofthe def_CDDAdisk.info icon when youopen the CDDA icon on Workbench. Soto set the player you want to use go tothe Sys:Prefs/Env-Archive/Sys drawerand find the def_CDDAdisk icon, selectthe icon and open the Icons/Informationwindow. In the default tool text gadgettype the full path to your player. For exampleI use a CD player called“Plugged” which I keep in a directory onmy Work partition so my default tool is:Work:Utilities/CD/Plugged/Plugged.CacheCDFSBy default CacheCDFS will play the CDstarting from track one when you doubleclick the CDDA icon. If you want tochange this you can use the nicepreferences program which can usuallybe found in the Sys:Prefs drawer. InCacheCDFS Preferences go up to the“Audio” menu, first check that the “AudioOn” and “External Audio Player” playeritems are enabled (ticked). Then selectthe “Player Path...” item, this brings up afile requester where you can chose theprogram file of your audio CD player.Once that’s all set simply “Save” thosesettings.NOTES: With both file systems you mayfind you need to reboot before thechanged settings take effect, especiallyif you’ve had an audio CD in the drivebefore making the changes. For thesesettings to work you must have a CDaudio player configured and working foryour drive, both file systems simply runthe external program you choose.ACDB’s GUI couldn’t be more simple!CDDBMany audio CD player programs offerthe option of entering the title of eachdisc and the names of all the tracks,once the details are saved the programcan automatically find the track list whenyou insert the CD again. If you have alarge CD collection this soon gets prettytime consuming, not to mention boring!In 1997 an Internet database calledCDDB became available, this holds informationon thousands of CDs. Untilrecently CDDB used an open protocolfor access and many CD player programsused this to connect to CDDBand retrieve the details of a CD, savingsome typing. Then the owners of CDDBchanged the method of access andprovided development support only forspecific platforns, Windows, Mac andUnix. In addition the owners of thedatabase now insist users register forthe service and that every applicationmust be validated before it accesses theservice. Of course this leaves smallerplatforms, including the <strong>Amiga</strong>, out inthe cold.Fortunately there is a solution, a free CDinformation database has been developedand is available athttp://www.freedb.org this is compatiblewith the original CDDB protocol andmost applications can be set to use itsimply by changing the server they connectto for CD information. You shouldset your software to use the server:freedb.freedb.org, more information canbe found on the freedb website.CDDB support is not widespread in<strong>Amiga</strong> audio CD player utilities but thereis a solution, acdb.lha which can befound in the disk/cdrom directory onAminet. This utility can read the ID ofone or more CDs and then connects to aCDDB server to retrieve the track information.To make it work with freedbyou just need to edit the tooltype HOSTto read HOST=freedb.freedb.org,remember to set the DEVICE and UNITtooltypes to point to your CD-ROM too.ACDB then creates CD information fileswhich are compatible with many <strong>Amiga</strong>CD player utilities.34CLUBBED - Issue 9Winter 200135

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