QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

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mk79
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Re: QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

Post by mk79 »

dilwyn wrote:Don't expect a Windows or QPC2 operation to remove these headers!
After much (years) of deliberation (within my head) QPC2 will support these headers in a future version. I'm not very fond of them, but every solution has its drawbacks here. Of course I will only add them on files that need them, i.e. mainly executables, and they are even removed once the header changes back to normal.

Cheers, Marcel


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Andrew
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Re: QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

Post by Andrew »

dilwyn wrote:I hope I'm not misunderstanding this - there seems to be a glaring error or misunderstanding here.

Of course you will end up with unuable files - QemuLator is responsible for addign/removing the header bytes, not QPC2.

QemuLator is a pain in the **** with these headers, it costs me so much time with submissions to my site that people seem unable to understand what is going on.

On any media which does not understand QL executable file headers, QemuLator adds its own header preamble. Normally, if copying to QDOS media using QemuLator, the files are "un-QemuLatored" invisibly. However, if files are copied directly from a native QemuLator folder using Windows or rimilar, these headers don't get removed.

Simple answer - use QemuLator to copy to a QDOS medium such as ramdisk before putting them in a QXL.WIN - that way QemuLator removes the headers by itself.

Don't expect a Windows or QPC2 operation to remove these headers!

Or am I missing something very obvious here???
You are perfectly right. But it took me a while to figure it out and reach the same simple solution :)


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dilwyn
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Re: QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

Post by dilwyn »

mk79 wrote:
dilwyn wrote:Don't expect a Windows or QPC2 operation to remove these headers!
After much (years) of deliberation (within my head) QPC2 will support these headers in a future version. I'm not very fond of them, but every solution has its drawbacks here. Of course I will only add them on files that need them, i.e. mainly executables, and they are even removed once the header changes back to normal.

Cheers, Marcel
Thank you Marcel.


Jack_Free
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Re: QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

Post by Jack_Free »

Andrew :

Will you continue to develop?
Why are not boot files running?
Is this fix somehow?
Are you planning to edit, open, change, and save files? (BOOT, _BAS)
Only OPEN works.
Will it ever be possible to change the device letter (WIN_1, WIN_2, etc.) in the future?

Thanks for the information.
Jack


Sinclair QL + SGC, Sinclair QL+QL-SD.
Excuse my English, I use google translator :-)
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Andrew
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Re: QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

Post by Andrew »

I will continue developing it - I will post a compiled version soon (and the source code)
It is possible to change the device : just press ctrl-d (for left panel device) or ctrl-r (for right panel) then write the device name: eg: mdv1_, flp1_ etc.
I am not planning to add a custom feature to edit _bas files or text files. I feel that there is no need to reinvent the wheel, as there are many good editors available. But I could add a feature to automatically start your preferred editor and load the selected file.

What I still could not figure out is a way to start executing _bas files. So any help from the community will be much appreciated with this !
(if i stuff a "load xxx_bas" into the keyboard queue, the queue will still be consumed by my program and not by Job 0 Basic)


Jack_Free
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Re: QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

Post by Jack_Free »

Yes it would be great.
Sometimes it is useful to edit a BOOT file if you have multiple programs on a disk in different directories.
Then you need to change the contents of BOOT files.
For example, FLP on WIN1_

I very much appreciate your work, and I wish a lot of success.


Sinclair QL + SGC, Sinclair QL+QL-SD.
Excuse my English, I use google translator :-)
martyn_hill
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Re: QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

Post by martyn_hill »

Hi Andrew!
Andrew wrote:IWhat I still could not figure out is a way to start executing _bas files. So any help from the community will be much appreciated with this !
(if i stuff a "load xxx_bas" into the keyboard queue, the queue will still be consumed by my program and not by Job 0 Basic)
The trick here, in principal, is to first select the right Keyboard Queue (that would normally happen by manually pressing CTRL-C until the right CON window/queue is selected), before then issuing TYPE_IN or its equivalent.

There is a Turbo TK command to achieve this, assuming that you know the Chan ID of the target CON window (easy in our case, as this is typically '0' for Job-0's CON window #0). The command is COMMAND_LINE and, from Turbo TK v3.34 onwards, can actually take either a Job ID (it'll search for the first CON chan for that Job) or Chan ID.

The following sequence should therefore work:

COMMAND_LINE 0
TYPE_IN "command_goes_here"
(or QUEUE% from DIYTK)

It'll be necessary to ensure that Job-0 is actually waiting to receive input on Chan #0 prior to issuing COMMAND_LINE - so at the very least, the compiled job would need to be started with EXEC/EX rather than EXEC_W/EW.

Good luck!
Last edited by martyn_hill on Sun Jan 20, 2019 4:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.


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tofro
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Re: QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

Post by tofro »

Andrew wrote: What I still could not figure out is a way to start executing _bas files. So any help from the community will be much appreciated with this !
(if i stuff a "load xxx_bas" into the keyboard queue, the queue will still be consumed by my program and not by Job 0 Basic)
You need to first pick SuperBASIC to the top of the pile to select SuperBASIC's window. This is done using COMMAND_LINE from Turbo Toolkit (and obviously will only work from a compiled program or a daughter SBASIC, and when no BASIC program is currently running there) like in

Code: Select all

10000 DEFine PROCedure SBASICCommand (commandLine$)
10010   COMMAND_LINE
10020   PAUSE 5
10030   TYPE_IN commandLine$ & CHR$(10)
10030   RETurn
10040 END DEFine SBASICCommand
The PAUSE in 10020 might or might not be necessary to give the system a bit of time to pick SuperBASIC to the front.

If you are on SMSQ_E, you should be able to use the THING interface to even start a new SBASIC interpreter for the Basic program. You might also want to have a look into FileInfo that might be installed on many system - This allows you to "execute" plain files by file extension (for example, start your favorite editor when you execute a _txt file) similar to MS Windows

Tobias


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mk79
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Re: QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

Post by mk79 »

Andrew wrote:I formated another card on Monday and started to install on it all that I had on the first card, this time using only QPC. Till now, it works if I use only QXL and RAM drives (no copying from DOS drives) but every time I put the card into the PC WIndows wants to check it for errors - and half of the time says it fixed some errors. I will try another card during the week-end, when I have some more free time.
So, have any more strange things happened or is QL-SD now working correctly with this setup?

Marcel


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Andrew
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Re: QLCOMMANDER - testers and help needed

Post by Andrew »

mk79 wrote:So, have any more strange things happened or is QL-SD now working correctly with this setup?

Marcel
I was very busy in the last weeks and did not had much time for the QL - but everything worked well.
This week-end I will have time to play with the QL - update QLCommander, install a mouse, try a few programs - and I will know for sure. But I hope it will work correctly.


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