| 1 | Welcome to the Master Level! |
Get ready to plug in to the best features of BEX! Master Level BEX is only available when your Apple has at least 128K memory. All Apple IIc's and IIgs's qualify; no Apple II Plus can. If you have an Apple IIe without an extended 80 column card, you will have to install an extended 80 column card to make use of the Master Level. Appendix 4 discusses sneaky ways to take advantage of some Master Level features when your Apple has only 64K memory.
What to Expect from this Manual
To use the Master Level, we assume that you have read, understood, and practiced the material in the User Level. We expect that you are familiar with chapter selection, editing, printing, and Replace characters. The User Level summarized much of the material that you learned at the Learner Level. But at the Master Level, we focus solely on the new features. A summary of all the features available at the Master Level is in the booklet we call the Thick Reference Card.
Part 1: Overview of Master Level Features
BEX's prompts are much shorter at the Master Level.
Instead of prompting Main Menu: BEX prompts
Main: Whenever BEX wants a chapter name or drive number, the
prompt is simply Chapter: If that's not brief enough for
you, read Section 9 to learn how to change BEX's prompts yourself. And if
you're feeling truly adventurous, Section 9 also explains how to change
the braille translation tables.
Speeding Up BEX
Section 2 introduces the Ready chapter. Up to now, the chapters you have worked have always been stored on disk. The Ready chapter is stored in the Apple's memory. You can copy its contents to disk when you want to. For the Apple IIe and IIc, the Ready chapter can be six BEX pages; for the Apple IIgs, the Ready chapter is 20 BEX pages. Because moving between pages in the Ready chapter happens totally in memory, it's a lot faster.
Greater Input/Output Control
At the Master Level, you can turn any of BEX's four output channels off and on when you wish. You can also change screen size at the Menus as well as in the Editor. You can have a braille or print device capture a small part of the computer dialogue for future reference.
You can set up automatic procedure chapters that record your keystrokes as you use BEX. At a later point you can replay these auto chapters, similar to running a player piano.
As you configured at the Learner and User Level, you probably wondered what a class S - Specific printer was. Well, Master Level Section 5 tells all. There's a new group of format commands that send escape codes to a specific printer. Section 5 also explains how to embed format commands within words; how to insert discretionary hyphens in your text, and even how to write about BEX format commands.
Contextual Replace
The largest Section in the whole of BEX is Master Level Section 6. That's because it provides the ins and outs of Contextual Replace. You can turn replacing on and off within a chapter. You can specify whole classes of characters in one stroke. You can ask for much more restrictive conditions than are possible with regular Replace characters. Without a doubt, Contextual Replace is the most intricate and powerful part of BEX. Contexual Replace made it possible for us to produce this manual in both large print and braille from one set of data.
The way to tell BEX to unlock all these new features
is by creating a Master Level configuration. To set up a Master Level
configuration, answer the Enter configuration: prompt with
the & ampersand character. The configuration questions at
the Master Level are identical to the User Level questions with one
exception: the final question is Do you have an extended disk
system? You definitely want to answer Y when you have 3.5-inch
drives or an extra memory card in your Apple. See Section 3 for the
details.
Enjoy!
| 2 | The Ready Chapter |
The Ready chapter is a special chapter which you can create and use only at the Master Level. We call it the Ready chapter because it is always ready to use, and because you specify it using the right bracket, which the Echo speaks as "ready." The Ready chapter does not exist on any disk drive; instead, it exists in the auxiliary memory created by your extended 80-column card. The size of the Ready chapter depends on your Apple model. BEX keeps up to six Ready chapter BEX pages in the auxiliary memory with Apple IIc and the Apple IIe; with the Apple IIgs, the Ready chapter is 20 pages long.
You create and manipulate the Ready chapter much as you would any other BEX chapter. Because manipulations on the Ready chapter do not involve floppy disk access, they happen in a flash. Moving from one Ready chapter page to another, for example, is just about instantaneous. Using the Ready chapter minimizes disk swapping when you have a one-drive system.
● Gone in a Flash
The Ready chapter also disappears in a flash when you
turn off computer power. However, it remains intact when you do a
warm boot; that is, when you reboot without interrupting
power. You can do a warm boot by depressing control and open-Apple, then
pressing the Reset key; or by entering PR#6 at the BASIC
prompt. Because a warm boot does not change the Ready chapter, you can
reboot with a different configuration or establish a new configuration
without erasing the Ready chapter. However, we recommend you save the
Ready chapter to disk, if possible, before doing a warm boot, in case of
loss.
The chapter name for the Ready chapter is just one
keystroke: ] known as the right bracket. To use the Ready
chapter with any BEX function, enter its single right bracket name at any
Chapter: prompt. The crucial difference between the Ready
chapter and a chapter on disk is permanence. When you want a lasting
version of the information in the Ready chapter, you must copy it to a
disk chapter with a different name.
Part 1: Uses for the Ready Chapter
There are as many uses for the Ready chapter as there are for any BEX chapter. When you are doing a lot of work on one chapter, it is very efficient to copy it into the Ready chapter and proceed to edit and operate on the Ready chapter. The Master Level requires the additional 64K memory from an extended 80-column card, so in addition to the Ready chapter, the routines for printing, the Editor and Replace characters are always loaded in RAM. These operations and some others, like Copy chapters, do not require disk access. When you use the Ready chapter, BEX glides along with barely a disk access.
The main hurdle in using the Ready chapter is remembering that it is there. Now that you are at the Master Level, you are encouraged to change your habits and use the Ready chapter.
Whenever BEX prompts for Chapter: you can
use the Ready chapter: in Print chapters or Multi-function print, as the
source or target for braille translation or Replace, in Input through
slot, or even as a transformation chapter or automatic procedure chapter.
If you have a one-drive system, you can use it as the target chapter when
reading a ProDOS textfile into BEX.
Suppose you want to produce a letter in both print and
braille. You write it in print form in the Ready chapter. You then copy it
to a chapter called ULTIMATUM on disk. Then you use the Ready
chapter as both source and target chapter for grade 2 translation and
replacing with a transformation chapter. You copy the Ready chapter, now
containing your final braille, to the ULTIMATUM2 chapter.
The Ready chapter is perfect for temporary
information. For
● Editing the Ready Chapter
Editing with the Ready chapter is a treat. Moving between pages, and in and out of the Editor do not entail disk access time.
When you enter ] at the Editor
Chapter: prompt, you create a fresh Ready chapter if it is
not already occupied. To use the Ready chapter for editing something
already on disk, copy the disk chapter to the Ready chapter.
When you edit in the Ready chapter, you still have a regular-size clipboard of up to 4096 characters. As in any other chapter, the editing work on your current page is only in the page buffer until you save the page in memory. The current page is saved in memory when you change pages, enter control-P 0, or press control-Q.
When you leave the Editor with control-Q, your current
Ready page is saved, but not on disk. When you want to save it to disk,
use Copy chapters with ] as the source chapter.
You may have more pages in your Ready chapter than your computer's Ready chapter page limit. BEX automatically saves extra pages to disk. We discuss this further in Part 2: Ready Chapter File Structure below. Of course, you are making most efficient use of the Ready chapter when you keep to the page number limit, which is 20 for the Apple IIgs, and six for the Apple IIc or IIe.
When you want to clear the Ready chapter, so that it contains no text, you can use Kill chapters on the Second Menu. Kill chapters deletes any pages in the Ready chapter which happen to be saved on disk.
●
There is, however, one operation which does
not work with the Ready chapter. This is option N - Name
change for chapters on the Second Menu. You can't specify ]
as either the source or target chapter. The Ready chapter must be called
] and only the Ready chapter can. Therefore, you can't
specify ] as either source or target for option N - Name
change for chapters on the Second Menu.
Part 2: Ready Chapter File Structure
The file structure for the Ready chapter resembles the
ordinary chapter file structure. Its page files are lettered
sequentially: ].A then ].B and so on. The
files ].A through ].F (or
].A through ].T on the Apple IIgs) are stored in
auxiliary memory instead of on disk. Each of these files is actually a
pocket of auxiliary memory which can hold up to 4096 characters. The
directory for the Ready chapter is also kept in memory. Files
].G (or ].U on the Apple IIgs) and beyond, are
disk files saved on your default data drive.
As with ordinary BEX chapters, the correspondence between page numbers and the one-letter file extensions can vary. When cutting pages and Page Menu manipulations are not part of a chapter's history, the page file extensions for pages 1, 2, and so on are in alphabetical order. As you may recall, page manipulations change the correspondence between the page number and its letter extension. When you kill pages or move them in the Edito, the new pages keep their old extensions. When you cut a page or use Grab pages, each newly created page file takes the next available extension for that chapter. When you copy a chapter, the copy uses the same extensions as the original.
These considerations are equally true for ordinary BEX
chapters and for the Ready chapter. They are just more crucial for the
Ready chapter, since you want to use extensions .A through
.F or .A through .T
wherever possible.
Suppose you have a seven page chapter called
MANIFESTO whose page file extensions are all in alphabetical
order. You see its pages listed as MANIFESTO.A through
MANIFESTO.G when you do a disk catalog. You then kill pages 3
and 4. When you do a file list, here is what you get:
MANIFESTO.A
MANIFESTO.B
MANIFESTO.E
MANIFESTO.F
MANIFESTO.G
MANIFESTO
Next, you copy chapter MANIFESTO to the Ready chapter.
Page 5, with its G letter extension, is written to disk, even
though you are not over the page limit. When you Copy chapters, the letter
extensions remain the same. Any page with extension .G is
always written to disk, no matter what page number it is in
your chapter. If for some reason the first page of your Ready chapter has
extension Go, that page is written on disk, and requires disk
access whenever you move onto it.
Three options on the Second and Page Menus solve this problem. Options M - Merge chapters and A - Adjust page sizes on the Second Menu, and option G - Grab pages from another chapter on the Page Menu create new chapter directories. These options use alphabetical order for extensions as they create new page files.
For example, suppose you copy the chapter MANIFESTO
using ] as your target chapter. When you do a file list of
] on the Page Menu, you see that page 1 has the letter
extension Go, and is written to disk. Next, you use Merge
chapters, specifying just MANIFESTO for the source chapter, and the Ready
chapter for the target chapter. When you do a file list of the Ready
chapter this time, you see that the page letter extensions are in
alphabetical order. When you use Merge chapters instead of Copy chapters
to move the chapter MANIFESTO into the Ready chapter, you solve your disk
access problem. No pages
Page manipulations on the Ready chapter itself, as
well as some Editor commands such as control-C control-P to cut pages,
also take its page extensions out of alphabetical order. When you have
unnecessary disk files, you may wish to straighten the page files. For
example, you can use Merge chapters with chapter ] together
with no chapter, or Grab pages from chapter ] into a disk
chapter, and then copy that disk chapter back into the Ready chapter. In
the process, you reletter your pages alphabetically, and you also back up
the Ready chapter on disk.
● Fix Chapters and the Ready Chapter
When you use Fix chapters on the Ready chapter, the
result is different from Fix chapter with a disk chapter. Because there is
no disk file for the file extensions A through
Go, or A through T on the Apple
IIgs, BEX can't know how many characters are in each page. Therefore,
every Ready chapter page in memory is restored to 4095 characters. It is
as if you did RUN 999 to all the pages in memory. When you
need to use Fix chapters on the Ready chapter, you must delete excess
material in the first six pages on the IIc or IIe, or the first 20 pages
on the IIgs. However, Fix chapters works normally with any Ready chapter
page written to disk.
● Keep a Disk in the Default Data Drive
One of our staff was editing a six page Ready chapter
without a disk in her default drive. When she cut a page, she created a
seventh disk page, which needed to be written to disk. Since there was no
disk in the drive, BEX could not save the page. She got the message
Cannot write to disk. Insert a data disk in drive 1 and press any
key. This created a one page chapter called SAVE on
drive 1. Instead of saving the page as a part of her Ready chapter, it was
saved into a separate chapter.
] and SAVE, with SALVATION as the target
chapter. Now she had the seventh page along with the rest of the text from
her Ready chapter. With that done, she deleted the SAVE chapter. As her
last step, she copied the text in SALVATION back into her Ready chapter,
only this time she had a disk in her data drive.
The moral of the tale is always have a disk in your default data drive when you work with the Ready chapter!
| 3 | Extended Disk Systems |
In this Section you learn how to use more than two 5.25-inch floppy disk drives with BEX. Part 1 provides the conceptual framework, explaining the virtual drive number system BEX uses to keep track of disk drives. Part 2 explains how you answer the configuration questions concerning extended disk drive systems. In Part 3 you learn the ins and outs of RAM drives, which can dramatically speed up your BEX use. Part 4 deals with 3.5-inch disks, sometimes called microfloppies, which are easy to slip in your pocket and can hold almost 800K of data. Part 5 deals with the Sider, the only hard disk system that BEX supports. Finally, Part 6 provides four sample combinations of extended disk systems.
Part 1: Assigning Virtual Drive Numbers
At the Learner and User Levels of BEX, your disk drive options were simple: one or two. Either way, they had to be 5.25-inch floppy disk drives, connected to a single disk controller card. Now at the Master Level, you have many more options: You can have more than two 5.25-inch disk drives; you can have one or two 3.5-inch disks drives; you can set aside portions of memory to be used as RAM drives; and you can use a Sider hard disk drive. We use the term extended disk systems to include all these options.
When DOS 3.3, the Apple operating system, addresses a disk drive, it uses the combination of the slot where the disk controller card is plugged in and the number of the drive on that card. For the vast majority of Apple IIe systems, the first drive is slot 6, drive 1; the second drive is slot 6, drive 2. Even though the Apple IIc doesn't have slots, the same addresses are used: the internal disk drive is slot 6, drive 1; the external disk drive is slot 6, drive 2. Things are a little more complicated on the Apple IIgs because it often comes with 3.5-inch disk drives instead of or in addition to 5.25-inch disk drives--more on this in Part 4.
When you configure an extended disk system, BEX asks you to assign a slot and drive number to each virtual drive number. From then on, you access the disk in a particular slot and drive by the single virtual drive number you have assigned to that address.
Finally, before you configure an extended disk system, you need to know which drive the Apple boots from. Unless you have recently rearranged your disk drives or added new equipment, your Apple generally boots from the disk drive in slot 6, drive 1, which we refer to as the booting drive. You know this empirically, as you've been booting BEX successfully up to now.
For those with disk controllers in other slots, here's the nitty-gritty. The Apple IIe and IIc always attempt to boot from the first drive connected to the disk controller card in the highest numbered slot. When your disk drive controller is in slot 6, and slot 7 does not contain a disk controller card, the Apple boots from slot 6, drive 1. When you add another disk controller card with two drives in slot 5, the Apple still boots from slot 6, drive 1, because 6 is higher than 5. In short, the Apple IIe and IIc boot from the highest drive number.
On the Apple IIgs, booting is determined by one
Control Panel setting. When the Control Panel Startup Disk
function is set to Scan, then the IIgs searches for a bootable disk in any
slot. You can also specify any numbered slot or a RAM or ROM drive for
Part 2: Configuring an Extended Disk System
We'll demonstrate the general procedure with a
straightforward example. Other configuration dialogues are shown in later
Parts; Part 6 provides four sample combinations of various devices. Assume
you have two 5.25-inch disk controller cards, one in slot 6 and one in
slot 5. Each card has two disk drives plugged into it, for a total of four
drives. After you have answered all the printer questions in a
configuration, here's how the rest of the dialogue goes:
Do you have a extended disk system? Y <CR>
Virtual drive 1 is the Main program disk
For virtual drive 1
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
For virtual drive 2
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 2 <CR>
For virtual drive 3
Enter slot: 5 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
For virtual drive 4
Enter slot: 5 <CR>
Enter drive: 2 <CR>
For virtual drive 5
Enter slot: 0 <CR>
Enter a name for this configuration: FOURDISK
You may notice that this dialogue is similar to configuring printers. You assign a virtual drive number to the combination of slot and drive number. From then on, the virtual drive number is how you reference that disk drive. You end the naming process by entering zero for the slot number. BEX prompts you with the next virtual drive number in sequence until you supply eight addresses or enter zero.
A RAM drive is a portion of the Apple's memory that acts like a floppy disk. RAM is an acronym for Random Access Memory. You can read and write information between a RAM drive and a floppy disk. A RAM drive is very similar in function to BEX's Ready chapter. All "disk" access happens in a flash, because you don't have to wait for the mechanical head on the disk drive to move around over a physical disk.
| Caution! | The most important thing to remember about RAM drives is this: Any information on a RAM drive disappears when you turn off the power! When you want to keep a lasting version of your work, you must conscientiously copy chapters from the RAM drive to a physical disk drive. |
At the Master Level, you can configure RAM drives to hold data, and you can also configure one RAM drive to hold the programs on BEX's Main side. Things speed up dramatically when BEX runs from a RAM drive--moving to the Page Menu, for example, takes just as long as loading the Editor or Print options.
In order to configure a RAM drive, your Apple must contain more than 128K of memory. You get this extra memory by plugging a memory card into your Apple IIe or IIgs. Although the Apple IIc does not have slots, it's possible for a computer dealer to install extra memory in a IIc, as well.
● Two Kinds Of Memory Cards
There are two distinct types of memory cards: the auxiliary slot cards and the regular slot cards. The difference between them is where you plug them in and how they are partitioned. BEX works with both kinds of memory cards.
The auxiliary slot cards are plugged in
to the auxiliary slot of the Apple IIe. They provide 80-column capability
as well as extra memory. As with any 80-column card, the Apple addresses
an auxiliary slot card as if it were in slot 3, even though it's not
The Apple IIgs does not have an auxiliary slot; instead, it has a memory expansion slot. As far as BEX is concerned, a memory card plugged into the Apple IIgs's memory expansion slot is treated as if it were an auxiliary slot card in an Apple IIe. Apple IIgs users should follow the instructions for auxiliary slot cards.
The regular slot cards can be installed in slot 1 through slot 7 in the Apple IIe or IIgs. Examples of regular slot cards are the Apple Memory Card made by Apple, and the RamFactor card made by Applied Engineering. You can't use a regular slot card for DOS 3.3 RAM drives in a system that also contains a Sider hard disk.
Plain old DOS 3.3 does not have the capacity to create and work with RAM drives. However, it's possible to make minor disk operating system modifications, commonly called patches, that enable DOS 3.3 to work with RAM drives. BEX takes advantage of three different RAM drive patches. For auxiliary slot cards in the Apple IIe and Apple IIc, BEX uses RAMDRIVE, a program written and distributed by Applied Engineering. For expansion slot memory in the Apple IIgs, BEX uses RAM 3.3, a special patch written by David Holladay. For the Apple Memory Card in the Apple IIe or Apple IIgs, BEX uses patches located in the card's firmware. At the end of this Part, we discuss some of the idiosyncrasies you can encounter when working with regular slot memory cards.
● Installing and Checking Out Your Card
For instructions on installing RAM cards, check
Section 5, The Cookbook, in the Interface Guide. Turn off the power to
your
Once the card is installed, use option W - What is in
this computer at the Starting Menu. When BEX says # RAM drives
available through slot 3 then BEX has recognized an auxiliary slot
card. If BEX does not display this message, then it has not recognized
your memory card. Check to make sure the card is properly installed.
When you install a regular slot card, What is in this computer should list it as an Apple Memory Card in its appropriate slot. When you install a regular slot card in slot 5, yet BEX says it's an "unknown card," do not worry. Option R - Recognition of cards on the Starting Menu lets you teach BEX about cards it does not recognize. You use Recognition of cards to tell BEX that the "unknown card" in slot 5 is actually a "Regular Slot Memory Card." More details in Interface Guide Section 15.
● Dividing the Memory Into RAM Disks
The memory on a regular slot card is treated as a
single, large RAM drive. When you have a one megabyte Apple Memory Card in
slot 5, its address for configuring purposes is slot 5, drive 1. Once
configured, this RAM drive has a lot of room. You get
1480 sectors free when you press the number sign at any menu.
Both Apple Engineering's RAMDRIVE software and RDC'S RAM 3.3 program divide the memory into 192K RAM drives, holding more than 700 sectors. How many RAM drives you get depends on how much memory is in the card. To find out exactly how many sectors are in each of your RAM drives, press # at any BEX menu. The maximum amount of memory that RAMDRIVE or RAM 3.3 can manage is one megabyte--five full RAM drives. Any additional memory above one megabyte is ignored.
As you can see, most RAM drives hold significantly
more data than a 5.25-inch floppy disk, which starts out with 140K or 528
● Configuring RAM Drives for Data
As with any extended disk system, you must establish a
BEX configuration that references the RAM drives. In the following sample,
all the RAM drives on an auxiliary slot card are used as
data drives.
Do you have a extended disk system? Y <CR>
Virtual drive 1 is for the program disk.
For virtual drive 1
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
For virtual drive 2
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 2 <CR>
For virtual drive 3
Enter slot: 3 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
For virtual drive 4
Enter slot: 3 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
<beep> Error! Illegal duplication with virtual
drive
For virtual drive 4
Enter slot: 3 <CR>
Enter drive: 2 <CR>
For virtual drive 5
Enter slot: 3 <CR>
Enter drive: 8 <CR>
<beep> Error! Enter a number between 1 and 5; or
zero to cancel
For virtual drive 5
Enter drive: 3 <CR>
For virtual drive 6
Enter slot: 0 <CR>
Enter a name for this configuration: RAM <CR>
In this configuration, the booting drive and the program drive are both in slot 6, drive 1. The default data drive is drive number 5. Unless all the chapters you create are completely disposable, it is absolutely crucial that you copy your chapters from a RAM data drive to a floppy disk before you turn off the power!
Also shown in this example are two of the error messages BEX provides when you enter nonsensical values. Remember, you can press <CR> for a summary of RAM drives available when BEX prompts for the slot number.
● Configuring a RAM drive as the Program Drive
You can establish a configuration where the Main side of BEX is loaded to a RAM drive. If you have enough memory, you can have RAM data drives as well. When BEX is loaded on a RAM drive, moving between menus takes less than one second. Since you already have a floppy disk copy of your BEX program, loading the BEX Main side to a RAM drive requires less concentration on your part. It's like using an extra backup of your BEX disk. If lightning strikes and your Apple's power is affected, you won't be losing crucial data.
As we said in Part 2, BEX always looks for the program disk in virtual drive 1. When you load the Main side of BEX on the RAM drive, virtual drive 1 is not the booting drive. You can still boot BEX, because the Apple takes care of booting. Once BEX is booted and you enter the name of the configuration, BEX knows to look in virtual drive 1 for the Main side of BEX. Here's one possible arrangement for a 512K auxiliary slot card:
In this particular configuration, the default data drive is one of the two larger RAM drives. Notice that the virtual drive numbers do not have to follow the order of the full addresses of the disk drives. The program drive is always virtual drive 1, in this case, slot 3, drive 1. The booting drive is virtual drive 2, which is physically slot 6, drive 1. You could rearrange the virtual drives to suit your tastes; but to load BEX onto the RAM drive, you must assign virtual drive 1 to a RAM drive.
Once you set up a configuration with virtual drive 1 as a RAM drive, you're ready to go. With the Boot side still in the disk drive, press <space>. BEX checks to see if the Main side software is loaded on virtual drive 1. When it is loaded, you quickly move to the Main Menu. But when it's not loaded, BEX automatically uses FID to load the Main side software onto the RAM disk. At the appropriate time, BEX prompts you to insert the Main BEX disk and to press any key. When you need to access the Starting Menu, first go to the Main Menu and insert the Boot side of BEX into the booting disk drive, then press <space>. To get back to the Main Menu, press <space> at the Starting Menu. You can't load the Starting Menu on a RAM drive; you must access the Starting Menu from disk.
Preventing havoc when RAM drives share programs and data
Once you have loaded BEX onto the RAM drive, virtual
drive 1 contains all the BEX program chapters as well as any
data chapters you put there. When you have a regular slot memory card,
which is treated as one vast RAM drive, then you definitely will be
writing data chapters on your program drive. If you told BEX to perform an
operation on all the chapters in virtual drive 1, you would
change the BEX chapters ZQFOR and ZQREV which
contain the translator tables. BEX
To prevent BEX from messing with any chapters on your Main side, lock their directory files before you install them on your RAM drive. You can use FID'S option 5 - Lock Files to lock every file on your Main side.
| Caution! | Make sure to unlock any chapter from the
Main side before editing: Quit BEX and type UNLOCK FILENAME,S#,D#
<CR> using the appropriate slot and drive numbers. Then type
RUN <CR> and edit your chapter successfully. When you
edit a chapter and make any changes at all, BEX must change the
information in its directory file. When you quit or move between pages,
and the directory file is locked, BEX prompts: Cannot write to disk,
insert data disk in program drive and press any key and saves the
current page buffer in the SAVE chapter. |
● Using RAM Drives
BEX treats a RAM drive like any other data drive. When
virtual drive 3 is a RAM drive, then editing chapter 3LETTER
creates a chapter named LETTER on drive 3. One big difference
is that RAM drive access is totally silent. This can be a little
disconcerting. When you have an auxiliary slot or memory expansion card,
there is a visual indicator of disk drive access. You only
see this when you use a non-HI-RES screen; in the lower right-hand corner,
an inverse W shows writing and an inverse R
shows reading.
You can add an audible indicator as well. When you
boot BEX, hold down the open-Apple key until you hear a sound. For an
Apple IIe, it's a clicking sound; for the Apple IIgs it's a low
moan. When you do this, you add an audible indicator for RAM
The crucial thing to remember is you lose your data if you lose power. You must copy your chapters to disk before turning off your computer. In fact, we recommend that you routinely copy your chapters to disk at least every half-hour. In Section 4, Part 3, we explain how you can catalog more than one disk drive at the Page Menu. When you configure your RAM drives all in a row, use this feature to check to make sure you've saved all your RAM drive data.
You can use almost every BEX option with a RAM drive, with three exceptions:
INIT HELLO at the BASIC prompt, you would "crash" the RAM
drive, and you would have to reboot BEX. When you have an auxiliary slot
card or memory expansion slot card, you can erase all the contents of all
RAM drives. As BEX boots, it loads the RAMDRIVE or RAM 3.3 software. When
you depress the solid-Apple (or Option) key as BEX boots, the contents of
all RAM drives are wiped clean.Redirecting virtual drive 1 at the Starting Menu There's one additional complication when you run
the Main side from a RAM drive. As we've stressed, virtual drive 1 is
always the program drive. On the Main side, the programs BEX needs are on
the RAM drive you've configured as virtual drive 1. But when you switch to
the Starting Menu, the programs BEX needs are on the floppy disk in the
booting drive. When you use the Starting Menu, virtual drive 1 is
temporarily redirected to the booting drive. When you <space> back
to the Main Menu, virtual drive 1 becomes the Main RAM drive again. As
mentioned in Part 2, there's an on-line reminder of which virtual
drive number references which physical disk drive. Press D at any BEX
menu; when BEX responds The 105 filenames barrier and regular slot cards Two factors limit how much data can fit on a DOS 3.3
disk of any sort: the free sector count, and the number of filenames.
Clearly, the free sector count is not a problem here; a regular slot
memory card gives you lots or room. However, plain DOS 3.3
can only manage 105 filenames per "disk." Because the auxiliary and memory
expansion card RAM drives are subdivided into drives, you usually don't
bump into this 105 filename barrier. But on a one megabyte regular slot
card, you're bound to encounter it sooner or later. When you attempt to save the 106th file, DOS reports
the And this is where you can get into trouble. Suppose
you have five 20-page BEX chapters. They are stored as 105 files on disk.
Even if each of the pages of these five BEX chapters contained only one
character, you would get a The limit of 105 filenames is particularly problematic
when you have a regular slot memory card, and you load BEX's Main side
onto a RAM drive. The BEX Main programs are at least 35 files; this leaves
just 70 possible filename slots for your BEX chapters. Can't write to disk errors in the Editor and RAM
drives Way back in Learner Level 5, we described how BEX
attempts to salvage the page buffer when something goes wrong when you
quit or move between pages. BEX uses the Part 4: 3.5 Inch Disk Drives The designers of DOS 3.3 never anticipated a device
like the 3.5 inch disk drive. This is a pity, because these little disks
are delightful: they are compact, sturdy, and they can hold almost 800K of
data. But DOS 3.3 can never cope with more than 400K on one disk.
Fortunately, Gary Little wrote a modified disk operating system named
AmDOS, which allow access to 3.5 inch disks. Even more fortunately, Mr.
Little licensed us to include AmDOS on the BEX disk. The AmDOS on the BEX
disk has been slightly modified to work smoothly within BEX. Refer to the Interface Guide, Section 1 on the Apple
IIgs for information on connecting 3.5 inch drives to your system. If you
are going to do a lot of work with 3.5 inch disks, you may want to
purchase a full featured version of AmDOS at $20 US--check Appendix 5 for
the address. AmDOS gets around the 400K limitation in DOS 3.3 by
dividing each 800K disk drive into two 400K disks. (It's yet another
virtual drive scheme!) Even though the two 400K disks are physically on
the same magnetic medium, they are treated as if they were two totally
separate disks. The tricky part is how these 400K disks are addressed:
both drive numbers on the first disk drive are always odd, and on the
second disk drive they're always even. Suppose your 3.5 inch disk controller card is plugged
into slot 5. AmDOS treats the first 3.5 inch disk drive as if it were two
distinct 400K drives: one in slot ● Configuring BEX with 3.5 Inch Disk Drives Let's say you have two disk drives in your
system: one 5.25 inch floppy drive in slot 6, drive 1, and one 3.5 inch
drive in slot 5, drive 1. You could configure this way: Virtual drive 1: slot 6, drive 1 Virtual drive 2: slot 5, drive 1 Virtual drive 3: slot 5, drive 3 In this sample, your default data drive is virtual
drive 3, one half of the disk in the 3.5 inch disk drive. And that
information is always going to be on that half of the 3.5
inch disk. Suppose you established a different configuration that reversed
the virtual drive numbers for the 3.5 inch disk, like this: Virtual drive 1: slot 6, drive 1 Virtual drive 2: slot 5, drive 3 Virtual drive 3: slot 5, drive 1 You write a chapter on drive 3 in the first system. To
print that same chapter with the second system, you look on drive 2. ● Initializing and Using 3.5 Inch Disks Once the AmDOS software is loaded into the
Apple's memory, you can no longer initialize 5.25 inch floppy disks.
So, it's important to understand when BEX loads the
AmDOS software. There are two Starting Menu actions that make BEX load the
You initialize a 3.5 inch disk using option I -
Initialize disks. When you supply a virtual drive number corresponding to
the 3.5 inch controller card, BEX realizes that you need AmDOS, and loads
it. With the sample configuration above, after you start initializing,
entering 2 or 3 at the Once you have initialized a 3.5 inch disk, you can no
longer initialize 5.25 inch disks until you reboot. You can't copy 5.25
inch disks either, because the first step in BEX's Copy disks is to
initialize the target disk. The other action that loads AmDOS is when you move
from the Starting to the Main Menu. When you have done either of these
actions, you simply can't initialize 5.25 inch disks. Therefore, before
you begin using a configuration that includes 3.5 inch disks, sit down and
initialize a stack of floppy disks! If you must initialize a floppy disk
after AmDOS is loaded, then save your data and reboot BEX. Can't copy entire disks Besides the initializing disks issue, there's
just one limitation on BEX use with 3.5 inch drives. You can not use
option C - Copy disks to make copies of 3.5 inch AmDOS disks. (You can
only use Copy disks for 5.25 inch floppies before you load AmDOS.) To get
material on or off a 3.5 inch disk you must use the normal machinery of
BEX (copy chapters, translation, replacing, etc.) or use FID. To use FID,
AmDOS must be already loaded. All you need to do is move to the Main Menu
and then move back to the Starting Menu and press F. Option R - Read textfiles to chapters on BEX's Second
Menu can read ProDOS textfiles stored on ProDOS 3.5 inch disks. With our
sample, you would insert the ProDOS disk in the 3.5 inch drive, then enter
either virtual drive number 2 or 3 when BEX prompts for the textfile to
read. You can Read the textfile to a RAM drive, to the Ready chapter, or
to a DOS 3.3 floppy disk. As mentioned in User Level 10, however, BEX can
only read ProDOS textfiles that are stored at the root level
of a ProDOS volume. If the 3.5 inch ProDOS disk was named
Part 5: Sider Hard Disk The Sider hard disk, manufactured by First Class
Peripherals, is the only hard disk system supported by BEX. You can only
configure a single Sider with BEX; BEX won't be able to work with
additional Siders daisy chained on to the first Sider. You
can configure an extended disk system that includes both auxiliary card
RAM drives and the Sider. However, you can not load the Main side of BEX
onto the RAM drive when your configuration includes the Sider. With DOS 3.3, you cannot install a regular slot memory
card and a Sider in the same system. The Sider disk controller card
contains special patching software to work well with DOS 3.3. The regular
slot memory card also patches DOS 3.3. Unfortunately, the DOS 3.3 patches
are different, yet they occur at the same point in DOS.
Section 13 of the Interface Guide is devoted to extensive installation
instructions for the Sider, including tips on partitioning the Sider into
different operating systems. The DOS 3.3 partition of the Sider is further
subdivided into numbered volumes. When you set up the Sider,
you establish some number of small volumes containing
approximately 140K However, when you configure the Sider, you do not
establish a distinct virtual drive number for each Sider volume. Instead,
you enter one virtual drive number for the slot and drive of the
Sider's disk controller card, and then provide the total number of
DOS 3.3 volumes. You also provide the volume numbers for the Boot and Main
sides of BEX. ● Configuring the Sider Once BEX has the Sider volume numbers, it
automatically generates a list that pairs a virtual drive number with the
Sider's volume number. Since the BEX Main program is contained on the
Sider, you must make the Sider virtual drive 1. Since the Sider is usually
installed in slot 7, virtual drive 1 is slot 7, drive 1. Here's the
end of a sample configuration dialogue, after you've answered all the
printer questions:
For the question about how many volumes, use the
number from the Sider initialization (the sum of the small and large DOS
3.3 volumes). For the questions about the boot side volume and the main
side volume, give the volume numbers where you copied the program disks.
From that point on, you answer the virtual drive number questions as
always. ● Using the Sider Whenever you boot from the Sider, you are presented
with the Sider's Master Menu, which has seven choices. The default
choice is number 3, Boot from DOS partition. Press <CR>, and you run
the DOS 3.3 Moving between the Main and Starting Menus is the same
as always: press <space>. BEX treats each volume in the Sider as a separate disk
drive. In the sample configuration, the default data drive is a floppy
drive, virtual number 50. Virtual drives 2 through 48 are all Sider
volumes, virtual drive 49 is also a floppy disk drive. As always, virtual
drive 1 is the program disk. When you're at the Main, Second, or Page
Menus, virtual drive 1 is redirected to the Sider volume containing the
Main programs. When you're at the Starting Menu, virtual drive 1 is
redirected to the Sider volume contains the Boot programs. See Part 3 of
this Section, Redirecting Virtual Drive 1 at the Starting
Menu for an explanation of what's going on. Of course, it may take some time to get used to having
many megabytes of storage on a hard disk at your disposal. Automatic
procedure chapters, discussed in Section 8, are particularly handy tools
when combined with the Sider. Section 4, Working with Chapters, discusses
some Master Level features that help you keep track of all those Sider
volumes. ● BEX uses a patched DOS 3.3 that speeds up disk access.
The Sider uses a more conventional version of DOS 3.3. You will notice
that some accesses to floppy disks are slower on the Sider. On the Sider,
you do not get the free sector count at the top of a catalog. But you can
enter number sign at any BEX menu to obtain the free sector count on any
of your virtual drives. Part 6: Four Sample Configurations The following four samples are based on Apple systems
we use here at Raised Dot Computing. You will notice that, where possible,
we load the Main side software on a RAM drive. This maneuver so speeds up
the system that it's irresistible. MB Apple IIe with four virtual drives Combining a regular slot memory card with two floppy
disks, this set-up is excellent for massive data manipulation with
Contextual Replace. With a one megabyte card, you can copy BEX to the RAM
drive and have plenty of room left for your data. Virtual Drive 1: slot 5, drive 1 (Apple Memory Card) Virtual Drive 2: slot 6, drive 1 (floppy drive 1 and
booting drive) Virtual Drive 3: slot 6, drive 2 (floppy drive 2) MB Apple IIgs with eight virtual drives The one megabyte of memory in the IIgs' memory
expansion slot is divided into five RAM drives, attached to slot 3. A
single 3.5 inch disk drive becomes two virtual drives; the 5.25 inch drive
is basically only used to boot the system. In this configuration, the
booting drive and the default data drive are the same. 521K Apple IIe with hard disk In this configuration the Sider comes first, then the
RAM drives, and then the floppy drives. You cannot load the Main side
software onto a RAM drive when you boot from a Sider. Virtual Drive 1: slot 7, drive 1 (Sider Hard Disk,
booting and program drive) Number of volumes: 43 Boot side volume: 2 Main side volume: 3 Virtual Drive 44: slot 3, drive 1 (RAM drive 1) Virtual Drive 45: slot 3, drive 2 (RAM drive 2) Virtual Drive 46: slot 3, drive 3 (RAM drive 3) Virtual Drive 47: slot 6, drive 1 (floppy drive 1) Virtual Drive 48: slot 6, drive 2 (floppy drive 2) 512K Apple IIc with four virtual drives The Z-RAM from Applied Engineering acts just like an
auxiliary slot memory card. With the Main side loaded in RAM, you only
need to use the internal disk drive. This makes the Apple IIc reasonably
portable. Virtual Drive 1: slot 3, drive 1 (RAM drive 1) Virtual Drive 2: slot 3, drive 2 (RAM drive 2) Virtual Drive 3: slot 3, drive 3 (RAM drive 3) Virtual Drive 4: slot 6, drive 1 (internal floppy
drive and booting drive) With the many drives that are available at the Master
Level, knowledge of how to specify chapters and alter chapter names
becomes all the more important. In this Section we discuss the many ways
of specifying chapters. In Part 1 we review methods of chapter selection
introduced in User Level Section 4, Part 1. In Part 2 we introduce two new
target chapter naming methods. In Part 3 we discuss two methods of
managing your data. Part 1: The Chapter Prompt Like most prompts at the Master Level, the prompts for
chapters are quite short. BEX simply asks for Whenever you type a chapter name or naming method, BEX
assumes you're writing and reading on the default data
drive. When you are using an extended disk system, the disk drive
numbers you use at chapter prompts are the virtual drive numbers you
established in your configuration. The highest virtual drive number is
always your default data drive number. When you have configured with four
drives, your default data drive number is 4. ● The Ready Chapter You can indicate When you enter ● Summary of Chapter Selection This chart summarizes the chapter selection features
available at the Master Level: Part 2: Target Chapter Naming Methods All the target chapter naming methods described in the
User Level are available at the Master Level. In addition, you can always
use the Ready chapter as a target chapter (except at option N - Name
change for chapters). In fact, you can specify the Ready chapter when you
use I to individually name the target chapters. At the Master Level, there
are two additional naming method options: drive number 0 and the period
prefix. ● Using drive number 0 in a target chapter naming method
directs each target chapter to its home drive, the same drive
as the source chapter generating it. For example, suppose you specify
source chapters on both drive 2 and drive 3 and use naming method 0S. Each
source chapter generates a target chapter by the same name on the same
drive and thus overwrites itself. Drive number 0 is always available when
you are naming one or more target chapters. However, it is most useful
when you have specified source chapters from more than one drive. ● The Period Prefix The period prefix enables you to use a target chapter
naming method even if you have given only one source chapter. When you
have more than one source chapter, the period has no effect, and BEX
operates as if you had specified a naming method without the period. The
period character goes after the drive number, if present, and before the
letter that specifies the naming method. It tells BEX, "This is a naming
method, not a chapter name." For example:
The result is a chapter named MASTERPIECE on drive 6. This means that you have to type a chapter's name
only once in its life: when you create it. After that you can
always specify it by number, and modify its name using a target chapter
naming method. Limitations of the period prefix You cannot use the period prefix to name
a target chapter in a list of individually named target chapters. When you
use target code I, you must type each target name. For example, suppose
you are copying chapters from drive 3, a RAM drive, to drive 8, on disk.
You have a list of three chapters, and use the I naming Section 7 discusses using the period prefix in
automatic procedure chapters. The period prefix enables the same procedure
to work with a list containing one chapter or with a list containing many. ● Target Codes This chart summarizes the possibilities: ● Here's an example to show what you can do when
you combine scanning methods and target codes: Suppose you have chapters
on three separate drives, all of which you need to use Replace characters
on, and you want to keep them on the same drives. Ordinarily, you would
use Replace characters three separate times, once for each drive. But by
using a combination of the plus sign when scanning for chapters, and drive
number 0 when specifying the target chapter naming methods, you can do it
in one step. For this example, we use three drives: drives 1 and 2
are RAM drives, and drive 3 is a 5.25 inch disk drive. There are two
chapters on each drive. First, you scan each of the three drives for the
chapters that need replacing, by using the plus sign before the drive
number to tell BEX to select more chapters. You choose the chapters from
the numbered list, then move onto the next drive, until you have specified
all the chapters. Next, BEX asks for a target chapter naming method. You
could use any naming method, but you use the S naming method, to make
things simple. Here's how the dialogue looks:
Part 3: Two Features With Whole Disk Catalog Since you can have many disk drives at the Master
Level, you need more tools to help you manage data. Two features help you
with option W - Whole disk catalog on the Page Menu. ● Catalog More Than One Drive When you press W for the Whole Disk Catalog on the
Page Menu, you can obtain a catalog of a range of disk drives. This
feature makes it easier to keep track of the many volumes in a Sider hard
disk, or of chapters in RAM drives. This feature is available at all
Levels, but is most useful when you have more than two disk drives. As when you're specifying chapters on more than one
drive, you use the plus sign You must enter the drive numbers in ascending order;
if you entered ● Using ampersand Chapter CAT now contains all the characters that
appeared on the screen between entering Master Level printing features focus on some of the
finer distinctions in your output. In this Section, we describe embedding
$$ commands in words, controlling how lines break, and touch on embedding
printer control codes in your chapter. Part 1: The Special Spacing Commands BEX's formatter divides your text into output lines.
Before this, the lines always broke at the <space> or <CR>
that defines a BEX word. <Control-S>, the sticky space token, lets
you define a space that is not a word boundary. <Control-T>, the
touching token, can replace the initial and final space in BEX $$ format
commands. ● Activating the Special Spacing Commands Some printers use <control-S> and
<control-T> as control codes; you must tell BEX when to pay
attention to these two characters in your text. To have BEX recognize
them, you must first activate the commands with a special format command:
$$ss activates the sticky space token and the touching token (see below)
for the rest of the print stream. To disable special spacing, use $$d or
reload the print program. If you have entered the sticky space token and
the touching token into your text but you did not enter $$ss also, no
space appears between the characters surrounding the tokens. You may want to use <control-S> or
<control-T> as printer control codes in your chapter. When you do,
place the $$ss after where the codes are entered in your text. Before the
$$ss, the formatter sends the <control-S> and <control-T>
codes through to your printer. ● The Touching Token: <Control-T> The <control-T> touching token
allows you to omit the space before a $$ command, and still have that
command executed. When enabled by $$ss, a <control-T> in your text
allows you For example, to underline War and Peace
inside of parentheses, type:
Recall from User Level Section 7, Part 8, that
suppressing underlining before a final period, comma, semicolon, or colon
happens automatically when enabled by $$sp, and does not require any
fussing with <control-T>. The Grade 2 translator treats any control character as
a space. This is important to keep in mind when you are embedding BEX $$
commands within words and intend to translate this text. Suppose you want
to emphasize the third syllable in the word computerized:
Since the <control-T> takes the place of the
spaces required before and after any $$ command, this word prints with the
third syllable in boldface. When you translate this word, the final
<control-T> separates the syllable er from the format
command $$eb. This separation turns the translator back on, so the
translated result is
● The normal use of the <control-S> sticky
space token is as a nonbreaking space. Enabled by
$$ss, a <control-S> in your chapter is printed as a space in your
output. However, the <control-S> is not treated as a word delimiter
for printing. Text connected by sticky spaces is treated as one BEX word
and is all printed on the same line. In other words, a <control-S>
creates a space in your output that is not a space in your text. For example, suppose a character in the story you're
writing has three middle initials. It would be confusing if his name was
broken between lines. when you type
● Writing about BEX $$ Commands Using
<Control-S> Using a program to write about itself is always a
little tricky. When we write about BEX format commands, we use the sticky
space token. A <control-S> sticky space before the dollar sign in a
format command is not a real space. So the format command or
indicator is not executed; it is appropriately spaced as an individual
word in the text. For example, when we wrote about the underline command
in User Level, Section 7, we printed the command by typing:
<control-S> The sticky space token also makes it possible for us
to write about the paragraph token with its parentheses: ( $p )
is typed in the text as eight keystrokes: ( <control-B> S $ p
<control-B> S ) Remember that each <control-S> takes two
keystrokes: control-C then S. These control characters provide the formatter with
ways to break a line in the middle of a word. ● The Discretionary Hyphen: <ASCII 31> Use the discretionary hyphen to tell the formatter
where to place a hyphen if it breaks that word between lines. If BEX
doesn't break the word between lines, it won't print the hyphen. To enter a discretionary hyphen in your text, hold
down the control key and press the hyphen. In a HI-RES screen mode, a
discretionary hyphen is represented in the Editor by a small, uppercase
S with a vertical line down the right side and a horizontal
line underneath: much like the <ESC> character in your text. When
you arrow over a discretionary hyphen, the Echo says "ASCII 31," which
sounds like "As-key three one." You can enter a discretionary hyphen manually in
extra-long words in the Editor, or you can write a transformation chapter
to insert a discretionary hyphen at suitable syllable boundaries. If you
write a transformation chapter, be cautious. If you asked to insert
<ASCII 31> before ation for example, you'd get
discretionary hyphens in n-ation and st-ation,
as well as longer words. Also, this works best for print chapters. You can created an auto chapter that replaces
<ASCII 31> with nothing and then runs the translator. See Section 7
for instructions about creating Auto chapters. ● The Discretionary Linebreak: <ASCII 30> The discretionary line break tells the printer that
it's okay to break a line at that particular spot. For print output,
this is a Hold down the control key and press the number
You only have to do this in chapters for print output.
BEX's Grade 2 translator automatically places discretionary line breaks
after hyphens and before and after dashes when it translates. ● Activating Discretionary Hyphens and Linebreaks For either of these control characters to work, you
have to activate them at the beginning of your chapter with a $$sd
command. This is just like using $$ss to activate sticky spaces. However,
you may want to use <ASCII 30> or <ASCII 31> as printer
control codes in your chapter. When you do, place the $$sd after where the
codes are entered in your text. Before the $$sd, the formatter sends the
<ASCII 30> and <ASCII 31> codes through unmodified. In braille chapters, you do not need to enter $$sd.
All output devices configured as braillers automatically
include $$sd when printing. Part 3: Repeat a Character The format command $$vrX repeats the character
X to the end of the current line (as defined by whatever
margins are in effect). X may be an underline, dash, the
space character, or any other printable character. Only one $$vrX command
works For example, a form requires the word
City at the left margin, the word State
two-thirds of the way across the line, and the word ZIP
almost at the right margin. Wherever words don't appear, you want
underlines. With a carriage width of 65, these commands would do the
trick:
● Kram a Word Kram one BEX word on the right margin:
$$vk is used in combination with $$vrX in tables of contets or menus. For
example:
You can use the sticky space token if you want more
than one word at the end of the line. For example:
The sticky space makes the three words into one BEX
word. They appear as three separate words in the printed
text. There is a limit, however. The word you have crammed to the right
margin with $$vk cannot be more than 32 characters Part 4: Embedding Printer Control Commands in
Your Text Many printers allow you to print fun things like
boldface fonts, superscripts, subscripts and foreign language letters; you
can change line spacing, use fancy vertical tabs, and turn on headline
mode. Diligent study of your printer manual will yield what characters you
need to enter to print these wonders. Since you can type any ASCII
character in a chapter, it's easy to embed the commands into your
text: you just type them in like regular BEX words. BEX doesn't recognize
them as commands, and sends them through to your printer. Once the printer
gets them it starts doing the fancy stuff. Another drawback is that some printers default to
normal print after every <CR>, which is usually at the end of every
line. Every time characters printed with the control command are broken
between lines, the characters on the second line revert back to normal.
Also in this case BEX cannot help you. When your printer control commands include characters
such as <ASCII 30>, <ASCII 31>, <control-S> or
<control-T>, your printer will not receive them if $$ss or $$sd is
active. When you need to deactivate the commands in order to send a
control command to your printer, you must reset the formatter to default
with $$d. Part 5: Using a Specific Printer When you define a printer in your configuration, you
have seven printer classes to choose from. When you declare your printer
as a specific printer, you can make use of 11 more format
commands. These format commands control boldface, superscripts,
subscripts, and other tasks. The essential difference In all, there are five possible tasks. The various
tasks are listed below. Your printer may not support all five, so you
still have to refer to your printer manual. For example, the original
Apple ImageWriter does not support subscripts and superscripts. BEX
ignores any request for subscripts or superscripts sent to an original
ImageWriter. How does BEX know what codes to send? When you define
a printer as specific in your configuration, BEX reads the
control code information for your specific printer from the
● Printer Features Supported You enter $$eX format commands in your text; BEX
transforms into the appropriate printer control codes. The commands
control the following features: Not every printer has the ability to execute
every one of these features. When the printer is not capable of executing
a format command, then BEX doesn't send out any codes to the printer. Also, any $$eX command in your text gets appropriate
handling no matter what kind of printing device you are using. They do nit
affect printing to the screen, voice and video review mode, etc. The same
$$eX command has the appropriate result with whichever specific printer
you use (as long as the particular task works on that specific printer).
So you get the advantages of exotic printer codes without having to change
your text for different printing devices. What's more you do not even
have to know the printer's escape codes, except for deciding how to
declare your printer in your configuration. The $$eX commands do not work in running
headers or footers. When you need bold type in a running header or footer,
you have to include the appropriate escape sequence in your text, and not
a $$eX command. For a list of printers supported by BEX, see Section 4
of the Interface Guide. Part 6 tells how to add a new printer to the list
of specific printers by modifying the PRINTERS chapter. ● Configuring a Specific Printer There is room in a configuration for only one list of
escape codes. This means that you cannot configure one printer to be an
Apple ImageWriter and another printer to be a Diablo 630. You can set up
two different configurations, one for the ImageWriter and a second
configuration for the Diablo. However, you can configure two different
printers in one configuration when one of the printers is configured as a
generic printer. For example, configuring a Diablo as a specific
When you want to configure a specific printer, answer
S when BEX prompts for a printer class. You are then asked ● When Your Printer is not Listed There are hundreds of printers on the market.
Obviously, this list only covers a small number of printers. If your
printer is not on this list, it is probably compatible with one of the
listed printers. Check your printer manual. You may find an explicit
statement of compatibility or printer emulation. When the manual says a
printer emulates an FX-80, for example, then configure it as an FX-80. When your printer manual is lacking any statement of
compatibility, it still may be compatible. You will have to do some
research in your printer manual. First, look up the control codes for
underlining and bold face printing in your printer manual. Next, boot up
BEX and use option P - Printer control code display. Choose the type of
printer, dot matrix or letter quality. As BEX lists each printer and its
control codes, compare the codes to those of your own printer. When you
find one that has codes that match perfectly with those of your printer,
make note of that printer. Configure your printer as a class S - Specific
printer, using that name. Everything should work well. When no listed
printer is completely compatible, see Part 6: Adding your Printer to the
List. ● Specific Printer Commands Eleven BEX $$ commands begin with $$e. These commands
signal BEX to send out the printer control codes from the PRINTERS table.
The letter e is a mnemonic for the fact that Changing characters per inch Only the following three values for the number of
characters per inch (cpi) are supported: These commands behave very differently from the
conventionaland commands. The Grade 2 translator cannot use
their appearance to place italics signs, and they are not affected by the
$$sp special punctuation mode mentioned previously. In general,
useand where ever possible. However, two situations call for using the escape code
underlining: when your printer does not interpret control-H to mean "back
up one character" (some dot-matrix printers fall in Printer commands and the touching token Many applications of subscript and superscript will
require using the touching token. Here's an example using subscripts:
Part 6: Adding Your Printer to the List Option P - Printer control code display on the
Starting Menu prints the contents of the PRINTERS chapter to the HI-RES
screen. For clearer voice output BEX spells each entry, using the arrowing
vocabulary. BEX prints the table entries in order. Press <space> for
the next printer; press <ESC> to return to the Starting Menu. When
your printer does not match any of these combinations, do not panic. You
can add to the table in BEX that contains the specific printer control
codes. The chapter called PRINTERS on the Boot side of your
BEX disk contains the escape codes for the specific printers. You can
inspect and add to these lists. To get a list of the escape commands for
supported printers, use option P - Printer control code display on the
Starting Menu. This prints the contents of chapter PRINTERS:
To add your printer to the PRINTERS chapter, first
make a backup copy of PRINTERS. Treat chapter PRINTERS like any other BEX
chapter. Use the Editor to change the PRINTERS chapter. Page one is for
letter quality printers, page two is for dot matrix printers. Page three
is for the Apple LaserWriter Postscript Driver. If you're interested in
how this works, write us for details. Each item in the table is separated by a delete
character. The end of the table is indicated by two backslashes. Each
printer name starts with a backslash. To add a new printer to the list,
delete the last backslash, then type in the printer codes. Type the codes
in the order listed below. After each item, enter <DEL>. When the
printer does not support a feature, enter <DEL> alone for that item. To make it easier, make a block copy of one
printer's list as an outline for your own, and clipboard it onto the
end of the list. When you do this, make sure you have altered each entry.
End the page with <DEL> for the last entry, then two backslashes to
signal the end of the list: Here are the fourteen items required for each printer: There are 14 delete characters in each
printer's entry. Don't forget to finish the page with <DEL> and
double backslash. Once you are sure you have the right codes in the table
formatted properly, set up a new configuration referencing your specific
printer. You have two tests to see if you've entered the codes
correctly: The first is to see if option P - Printer control code display
on the Starting Menu lists your printer. This means BEX can use the table,
because you've entered the correct number of <DEL>s and backslashes.
The second test is in using your printer. Only by using your printer will
you know for sure that you have entered the right codes. As we mentioned at the start, BEX uses the entries
from this table when it executes all $$eX commands. For example, the third
entry, 10 characters per inch, defines what BEX sends to your printer as
it executes the $$e0 command. If you want to, you can enter the escape
codes that start double wide printing in place of the codes for ten
characters per inch. When you do, $$e0 turns on double wide printing for
that printer. By now you're familiar with option R - Replace
characters on the Main Menu. You know that you can use Replace characters
to dramatically modify text. Contextual Replace adds two more tools to the
Replace characters workbench: pattern strings and
on and off strings. A contextual transformation
chapter can use either the pattern string tool, the on or off string tool,
or both. Part 1: Overview of the Tools In basic Replace, each transformation rule pairs a
find string with a change to string. In
contextual Replace, each transformation rule has three parts: the find
string, the pattern string, and the change to string. Pattern
strings consist of special characters, (called pattern
codes), that provide you with wild card functions. One pattern
code means "find this letter whether it's upper- or lowercase."
Another pattern code means "find any digit." We explore all thirty-four
pattern codes in great detail in Parts 3 and 4. You can combine the
various pattern codes to do some pretty nifty things. Suppose you want to change lowercase letters to
uppercase letters. With basic Replace, all your finding and changing must
be explicit; you must write 26 transformation rules--like the LCUC
transformation chapter on the BEXtras disk. Find a and change
to A; find b and change to But, and so on
through Zebra. Contextual Replace's pattern strings enable you to
write a single transformation rule that finds every lowercase letter and
changes it to its uppercase equivalent. In contextual Replace, the find string alone does not
specify what's found. It's the combination of the
find string and the pattern string that defines what's found and
where the change to string is placed in the target chapter. On and off strings allow you
to selectively Replace material within a chapter. You decide on a group of
characters that serve as a "green light" or beginning point to start
replacing. Once the program encounters this on string, it
starts executing all the As a quick example, you could define BEX's
center-and-underline command, $$h as your on string, and BEX's paragraph
( $p ) indicator as your off string. Combining these on and off
strings with the single case-changing transformation rule mentioned above,
you can use Replace characters to make all your headings uppercase. The transformation chapter that accomplishes the feat
in the above example is just 22 characters long. But this brevity has its
costs: Contextual Replace's pattern codes are quite cryptic. In fact,
contextual Replace is almost a programming language. Like any language,
you need to learn the vocabulary and the syntax to become a fluent user.
And as with all language acquisition, learning about contextual Replace is
not a linear process. You may find yourself reading and rereading this
Section, and wondering if you will ever understand it. Then one
day--whoosh!--it all makes sense. Allow enough time for the learning process Unlike some of the other material in the BEX Dox, you
must read this Section front to back to make the most of the information
provided here. Here's why: As you begin learning any language, you
only know a few words and a few ways to put the words together. It's
difficult to be eloquent until you have a range of vocabulary and syntax
under your belt. In the following pages, we provide many elementary
samples to assist you in understanding contextual Replace's
vocabulary Part 2: The Elements of Contextual
Transformation Chapters In User Level Section 8, we provided a sample of
typing changes directly that illuminates how basic transformation chapters
are structured. The same process should provide insight into how
contextual transformation chapters are put together. But before you can
start typing contextual changes directly, you need to learn a little bit
about on and off strings and pattern codes. As mentioned briefly in Part 1, on and off strings
allow you to activate and deactivate the execution of transformation rules
within a chapter. With basic Replace, you define a unique character to
serve as a terminator. The terminator defines the end of the
find and change to strings. This is also true in contextual Replace.
Additionally, you may define two unique strings that serve as
the signals to start and stop replacement. You don't have to
define on and off strings: When you enter no characters as on or off
strings, then all transformation rules are executed for the entire
chapter. The on and off strings may be any length, from 1 to 80
characters. Generally, the on and off strings are different from each
other. In any one transformation chapter, the characters you define as on
and off strings cannot be replaced. (When you're a real hotshot you can
break these rules--details in Part 5.) As mentioned in Part 1, contextual transformation
rules consist of three parts: find, pattern, and change to strings. Each
pattern string is made up of pattern codes; each code has a specific
meaning. Each character in the find string is paired with one pattern code
in the pattern string. The combination of the find string character and
the pattern code define what happens during replacement. An example of a
pattern code is the ● Typing Contextual Changes Directly The best way to learn about the elements of contextual
Replace is to just dive right in and try it. Here's the first task:
In the When you enter your single terminator character at the
first Once the on and off strings are defined, you begin to
create transformation rules. The transformation rule begins with a find
string. In this case, we're finding the word blind. Then
comes the pattern string. Each character in the find string is paired with
the pattern code character in the same relative position. The first find
string character pairs with the first pattern code; the second find string
character pairs with the second pattern code, and so forth. In this
sample, each letter in the word blind is paired with the
pattern code lowercase it. There are five letters in the word
blind, so there are five lowercase x pattern codes. The change to string functions exactly as it does in
basic Replace. It defines what the find string is replaced by; in this
case, the words vision impaired. The
combination of the find character and the pattern code
define what BEX finds and changes in your chapter. As always, the change to string always ends with the
terminator. When you press your single terminator character at both the
The structure of contextual Transformation
chapters As with basic Replace, you have an opportunity to save
the list of transformation rules in a transformation chapter. In the
sample, we save the rules in a chapter named QT. When you edit the QT
chapter, you find all the characters you typed between the ## $p #$$c#blind#xxxxx#vision impaired###
Each contextual transformation rule consists of the
find string, a terminator, the pattern string, a
terminator, the change to string, and one more terminator.
The list of rules in a contextual transformation chapter always ends with
three terminators in a row. The total number of terminators in a
contextual transformation chapter is always divisible by three. When your pattern string contains all lowercase x
pattern codes, then Replace only finds characters that exactly match the
find string, removes them from the target chapter, and replaces them with
the change to string. (Exactly what basic Replace does.) With the QT
sample, we have only taken advantage of one of contextual Replace's
tools: the ability to switch replacement on and off within a chapter. We now change gears and discuss pattern codes in
greater detail. We return to the topic of on and off strings again in Part
5. So far, the only pattern code we've discussed is
lowercase it. If that were the only pattern code, then contextual Replace
wouldn't be much of an improvement over basic Replace. But lowercase x is
just one of 34 pattern codes that together provide you with a flexible, if
cryptic, way of manipulating text. Three pattern code groups Every pattern string must contain some number of
pattern codes. The pattern codes divide into three groups:
departing codes, boundary codes, and
specials. How the four specials work is a little
complicated--we defer a complete explanation until Part 4. The fifteen departing pattern codes and fifteen
boundary pattern codes are drawn from the same set of fifteen letters.
When the letter is lowercase, it's a departing pattern
code. When the letter is uppercase, it's a boundary
pattern code. Some of the fifteen letters are mnemonic, but we ran out of
clever names halfway through. Part 8 and the Thick Reference Card provide
an alphabetical listing of all pattern codes, so don't try too hard to
memorize them all. In the sample in Part 2, the QT contextual
transformation chapter pairs a departing pattern code with
every character in the find string: the lowercase letter it. The find
string characters are removed from the target chapter. When you pair a find string character with a
departing pattern code, then the character in the source
chapter that satisfies the combination of find and pattern strings is
removed from the target chapter. The departing pattern codes show BEX
where to place the change to string in the target chapter. When you pair a
find string character with a boundary pattern code, then the
character in the source chapter that satisfies the combination of find and
pattern strings remains in the target chapter. The boundary pattern codes
allow you to specify a context for replacement--one of the
reasons we call this option contextual Replace. Here's a single transformation rule that
illustrates the difference between departing and boundary pattern codes.
The task is to change the Roman numeral II to the Arabic digit 2 whenever
the text discusses literary braille. The terminator is the number sign:
One rule governs where boundary pattern codes may
appear in the pattern string. Boundary codes cannot interrupt a string of
departing pattern codes. Boundary codes can appear as the initial
characters in the pattern string, as the final characters in the pattern
string, or both initial and final. But they cannot appear in the middle of
a string of departing pattern codes. Departing pattern codes must be
contiguous. That is, departing pattern codes must touch in
unbroken sequence. The departing pattern codes define where BEX places the
change to string in the target chapter. If the departing pattern codes
were interrupted by boundary codes, BEX wouldn't know where the change to
string should go. The "II to 2" rule above shows initial boundary codes;
the other possibilities are shown in some of the many samples that lie
ahead. Find and pattern strings are the same length Each pattern code is paired with one character in the
find string. Therefore, the find strings and the pattern strings must be
the same number of characters. When you type contextual changes directly,
BEX refuses to accept a pattern string that's shorter or longer than
the find string. With this basic information under your belt, you're
ready for the guided tour through the pattern codes. In the rest of this
Part, we examine each pattern code in detail. Some pattern codes are
pretty obvious; we just describe what they do. Many other pattern codes
are more subtle. To make their function clear, we provide samples of where
you could use the pattern code under discussion. Some of the
samples show a lowercase departing pattern code, others show
an uppercase boundary pattern code. Remember, each of the
fifteen pattern code letters can be used either way. ● Pattern code B: Blank Space This pattern code stands for just one character, the
space. (Think of the letter b in the word
blank.) It's actually a redundant pattern code, since
you can also specify the space by pairing a space in your find string with
the exact pattern code X or it. We included this pattern code to help make
your transformation rules a little more legible, as you see in subsequent
samples. ● Pattern code W: Total Wild Card The pattern code letter W means every possible
character you can have in a BEX chapter. (Think of the letter
w in the word wild.) Technically, this means
every ASCII character from zero to 127; this includes all control
characters, the space character, all the digits and letters, all
punctuation and symbols. Because the W pattern code stands for every
possible character, it really does not matter which find string character
you pair it to. Before you can write successful transformation rules,
you must analyze the patterns inherent in the data you're changing. Both
contextual and basic Replace execute your transformation rules in order,
one BEX page at a time. The program compares the first rule with each and
every character. When it finds a match, then the change to string
characters are inserted in the text. Once all the characters are compared
with the first transformation rule, BEX repeats the process with the
second transformation rule. It's crucial to consider how the initial
rules in a transformation chapter may change the patterns inherent in the
data you're replacing. We return to this topic again after we provide a
sample using the lowercase w wildcard. Sample: deleting BEX format commands Your BEXtras disk contains a chapter named
BEX format commands can vary in length. In between the
two dollar signs and the space, there are some number of lowercase letters
and frequently some digits as well. Some format commands contain
punctuation symbols, like the plus sign, minus sign, or asterisk. We write
six transformation rules to find and delete format commands from three to
seven character long.
This sample shows that a contextual transformation
chapter may contain more than one pattern code. In fact, a contextual
transformation chapter could contain many combinations of all 34 departing
and boundary pattern codes. The second rule ensures that all subsequent $$
commands follow a regular pattern, that is, they all start with two dollar
signs and end with a space. Although we urge you to precede and follow
every $$ command with a space, it's also possible to jam a series of
$$ commands together. All the other rules in this transformation chapter
depend on a boundary space after the $$ command. As it happens, the RESUME
chapter contains this text:
The next five rules specify every possible format
command, starting with three-character-long commands and working up to
seven-character-long commands. The third rule's find string is one
possible format command that's three characters long: $$c. The
pattern string begins with two lowercase x pattern codes that define
exactly two dollar signs as departing characters. While the next departing
pattern code, lowercase w, is paired with the specific character
c, because it's a total wild card, this rule also
matches $$b, $$d, $$h, $$r, and $$z. The last pattern code is a boundary
uppercase B, standing for a space. (Uppercase X means the same thing; the
B code here improves readability.) Since we enter the number sign
terminator at the The fourth rule's find string shows the $$p5
format command. Since the p5 characters are paired with two
When you edit the RESUME-NO. chapter, you find many
extra spaces. These spaces separated $$ commands in the original RESUME
chapter, and were "thrown away" when BEX prints. You could use the
Reversing the order would delete characters The order of the transformation rules in the STRIP
DOLLAR chapter is crucial. If you reversed the order of the rules,
searching first for seven-character format commands, next for
six-character, and so on, you could delete portions of your text in
addition to the $$ commands. Suppose the RESUME chapter contained the
following characters:
Here's why: The departing pattern code w matches
every possible character. The transformation rule really says, delete two
dollar signs and the next five characters, as long as the space boundary
exists. It just so happens that $$mr8<space>A<space> satisfies
this rule. These are five characters between the initial two dollar signs
and for <space> after the article .A. ● Pattern code I: Ignoring Capitalization You pair the pattern code I with a letter in your find
string. Pattern code I means: find exactly this letter in two situations,
when the find string letter is uppercase and when it's
lowercase. (Think of the letter i in the word
ignore.) When the pattern code is uppercase I, then its find
string partner is a boundary, and remains in the target chapter. When the
pattern code is lowercase i, then its find string partner departs.
Here's how we modify the "II to 2" rule from the QT transformation
chapter (shown in Part 2) to make it more general (the terminator is
number sign again):
● Pattern codes S, U, and L: Generic Letters These three pattern codes focus on the letters of the
alphabet. The pattern code S stands for any letter of the
alphabet, as long as it's lowercase. (Think of the letter
s in the word small.) The pattern code U is the
opposite of S; U stands for any letter of the alphabet that's
uppercase. (Think of the letter u in the word
Sample: Inserting underlining for single letters The task here is one we actually faced while revising
this edition of the BEX Dox. In the earlier edition, when we were
discussing an individual letter, we would enclose that letter in double
quotes. In this edition, we italicize a single letter. We didn't want to
make all those changes manually! The following sample transformation rules
delete the quotes from around a single letter, and insert BEX's
underlining commands,and. The number sign serves as the terminator once more.
The first rule changes the opening double quote:
This rule illustrates the contiguous departers
requirement. Because departing pattern codes must touch, a pattern string
of Now that we've dealt with the opening double quote,
the second rule handles the closing double quote.
These two transformation rules accomplish the task at
hand for many occurrences of quoted letters. The only exceptions are when
punctuation touch the quoted letter. One could write a series of rules
like this:
● Pattern code P: punctuation and symbols The pattern code P stands for punctuation and symbols.
(Think of the letter p in the word punctuation.)
Its definition is actually a process of elimination: P means anything
that's not a letter, not a digit, not a control character, and not a
space. Note that many of the symbols on this list are not what your
English teacher taught you as "punctuation." For the record, a complete
Sample: Inserting underlining for single
letters, continued Returning to our underlining letters transformation
chapter, the P pattern code is used to match various combinations of
punctuation touching quotations. The next two rules place the begin and
finish underlining when a symbol of enclosure--parentheses, brackets,
etc.--precedes the opening quote:
The next two rules cope with punctuation that appears
to the right of the closing quote:
Two more rules cope with the remaining possibility,
when the punctuation appears between the quoted letter and the closing
quote:
We don't bother with <control-T> s here, because
we use the $$sp command so BEX suppresses underlining of final periods,
commas, semicolons, and colons. A more elegant transformation chapter that
accomplishes the same task with fewer rules is discussed in Part 6. ● Pattern code D: Delimiting BEX "Words" The D pattern code stands for two characters: either
<CR> or <space>. (Think of the letter d in the
word delimiter.) A <CR> or space is how BEX defines a
"word" in the Editor. So far, our examples have assumed you format your
text with BEX's new-line ( $l ) and paragraph ( $p )
indicators. When you use hard <CR> s to format your text, then the B
blank pattern code does not sufficiently define a word. For example, the
last word on a line begins with a space but ends with <CR>. To make
the STRIP DOLLAR transformation chapter work correctly when your text
contains hard <CR> s, substitute the D pattern code for the B
pattern code. ● Pattern code E: Everything Except Space or
<CR> The E pattern code is the opposite of the D pattern
code. E stands for every character except two: <space> and
<CR>. Sample: Deleting BEX format commands, revisited When we introduced the wild card pattern code W, we
showed six rules that deleted BEX format commands. Now that we have the D
pattern code in our repertory, we can write transformation rules that find
BEX format commands ending with both <space> and <CR>. And now
that the E pattern code is at our disposal, we can delete all BEX format
commands with just four rules.
● The Q pattern code is a combination of the D and the P
pattern codes. It stands for space, <CR>, or any punctuation or
symbol. Although BEX treats the punctuation touching a word as part of the
word for Editor cursor movement, many times you don't want that
punctuation considered as part of the word when replacing. Sample: Expanding keyboard shortcuts As we promised in User Level Section 8, contextual
Replace makes it much easier to develop keyboard shortcuts for your data
entry. Suppose you type the three characters s-b to stand for
the word SlotBuster and the two letters vi to
stand for the two words visually impaired. The following
basic Replace rules would cause problems:
Aha! you think, I'll just modify the rules to include
a space before and after the shortcuts, like this:
The contextual Replace pattern code Q comes to the
rescue, as follows:
● Pattern codes N and A: Numbers The N pattern code stands for the digits zero through
nine. (Think of the n in the word numeral.) The
A pattern code stands for 62 characters; the ten digits plus any letter,
lowercase or uppercase. (Think of the letter a in the word
alpha-numeric.) For those who like formulas, pattern code L plus pattern
code N equals pattern code A. ● Pattern code O: Wild Card Minus One The pattern code letter O is a very handy code indeed.
It stands for every possible character except one--the find string
character it's paired with. (Think of the letter o in
the words other than.) When pattern code O is paired with the
dollar sign, then it matches every character except the
dollar sign. The sample task here is again drawn from our
experience at RDC. For formatting our large print output, we use JustText,
an embedded command typesetting program for the Macintosh Plus. All its
commands begin with left brace and end with right brace. The JustText
commands vary greatly in length; some are five characters long, while
others are twenty characters long. We usually prepare our text totally
with BEX, using contextual Replace to put the JustText commands where they
should go. Occasionally, however, we do data entry directly in JustText.
The transformation chapter that strips out the
JustText commands begins with several rules that change the few meaningful
JustText commands back to their BEX equivalents--we won't bother to show
you those. It's the last two rules in the transformation chapter that
show off the power of the o pattern code:
● Pattern code C: Control Characters The C pattern code stands for any control
character--technically speaking, the ASCII values zero to 31 plus ASCII
127. (Think of the letter c in the word
control.) In terms of characters you are likely to enter in
a BEX chapter, the C code includes <ESC>, <CR>,
<control-T>, <control-S>, <ASCII 30> (the discretionary
line-break), <ASCII 31> (the discretionary hyphen), and <DEL>. The C code can be very useful when you are working
with files from other computers that arrive at your Apple full of printer
control commands. Suppose you have a file like this; the only control
character you want to preserve is <CR>. Assuming that all printer
control commands are two characters long, you can reformat the text with
these rules:
Summary We've now defined the fifteen departing and boundary
pattern codes. We've also provided samples for most of them. Now it's
time to dive into the mysterious world of the specials. Part 4: The Special Pattern Codes The four specials "break the rules" we've
established so far. But in return for this inconsistency, you get the
ability to do even niftier things. The special pattern codes are the
caret, uppercase Z, uppercase Y, and the current terminator. Let's
look at these in reverse order. ● The Pattern String Shortcut In the very first contextual Replace sample, the
pattern string consisted of all lowercase x pattern codes. Just to make
your life a little easier, there's a shorter way to indicate that you
want an exact, departing match for every character in your find string.
Instead of entering a lowercase x for every character in your find string,
enter your single terminator character at the
● Pattern codes Y and Z: Case-changing Specials The uppercase letters Y and Z are like boundary
pattern codes with one difference. All the boundary codes result in no
change in your target chapter. Y and Z create a subtle change in your
target chapters. When the combination of a find string character and the
pattern code Y or Z is satisfied, the find string character changes its
case. Uppercase Y stands for any letter, just like the letter code L; but
when the find string partner is a lowercase letter, then that letter is
uppercase in your target chapter. Uppercase Z stands for any letter; when
the find string partner is an uppercase letter, it becomes lowercase in
your target chapter. ● Pattern code caret: Insert Change To String Here Up until now, all the pattern strings we've shown
contain at least one departing character. Sometimes, however, you don't
want to remove any of the characters in your source chapter
that satisfy the combination of find string and pattern string. The caret
Now that the full truth is out, we can state the full
requirements for pattern strings. A pattern string cannot consist solely
of boundary pattern codes. A pattern string can contain any number of
boundary pattern codes, plus either exactly one caret, or at
least one departing character. When a pattern string does not contain the
caret, then the number of characters in the pattern string is exactly the
same as in the find string. When a pattern string contains a caret, then
the pattern string is one character longer than the find string. You cannot have more than one caret in any one pattern
string, because the caret shows BEX where to insert the change to string.
If you had two carets, BEX would not know where to put the new characters.
Any one pattern string can not contain both a caret and any departing
pattern codes. When you find yourself wanting to mix and match this way,
you need to write two separate rules. Sample: Inserting commas in long numbers You've written a report with many large dollar amounts
and other numbers in it, but you realize that you've left out all the
commas between the hundreds and the thousands places. You can insert the
comma using the caret code (the number sign is the terminator):
Sample: Uppercase to lowercase You can make great use of the caret when the change to
string is empty. The following single rule accomplishes the same task as
the 106-character UCLC basic transformation chapter on your BEXtras disk.
Part 5: On and Off Strings in Detail With basic Replace characters, you can not selectively
change material within a chapter. Instead, you have to break out your
selections into separate chapters, Replace as required, then merge (or
clipboard) the changed text back in to your original. Contextual Replace's on and
off strings save you a lot of extra work. In Part 2, we
illustrated on and off strings by changing one word everywhere
except in a heading, which began with $$c It's also possible to explicitly insert
characters whose only purpose is switching Replace off and on. You want
these characters to be very distinctive; three percent signs
● Explicit, Non-printing On and Off Strings BEX's Grade 2 translator recognizes BEX's own
underlining commands. So $$ub both begins underlining in print, and marks
the beginning of braille italics. Likewise, $$uf finishes underlining and
ends braille italics. When the translator encounters $$ub, it begins
placing braille italics signs (dot 4-6, the period in screen braille)
before every word. When the translator encounters $$uf, it stops placing
italics signs. When the underlined passage is greater than three words,
then the first word gets a double italics sign (two dot 4-6's or two
periods in screen braille) and the last underlined word has a single
italics sign. Braille italics are used to represent various typeface
changes in inkprint. But with some books, the braille reader must be able
to distinguish between three typefaces: plain, italic, and
bold. Placement of boldface indicators follows the same rule as italics
indicators. Three or less bold words each begin with the single boldface
indicator Two of BEX's specific printer commands control
boldface in print: $$eb begins boldface and $$ec returns to regular print.
But the Grade 2 translator can't use $$eb and $$ec to place boldface
signs. When the book you're transcribing contains extensive text that
requires boldface indicators, it's time-consuming to place them all
by hand. Combining the Grade 2 translator plus off and on strings,
contextual Replace can automatically place boldface indicators. It's a three step process. Enter $$eb and $$ec in
your inkprint text. Then use basic Replace to transform $$eb to $$ub $$eb
and $$ec to $$uf $$ec. The translator ignores the $$eb and $$ec commands;
but because the $$ub and $$uf commands are there, it places italics signs
as always. The last step is using a contextual Replace
transformation chapter with an on string of $$ub $$eb and an off string of
$$uf $$ec. This transformation chapter changes BEX's formatter knows that braillers can neither
underline nor do boldface. When you print your final grade 2 chapters to
the braille previewer or an actual brailler, BEX suppress the action of
all $$ub, $$uf, $$eb, and $$ec format commands. Sample: Automatic braille boldface indicators To get automatic braille boldface indicators, you must
transform your data twice. In your inkprint data entry, type $$eb before
boldface text and $$ec when you return to plain text. Before translation,
use this basic Replace transformation:
The following contextual transformation chapter
changes the italics signs to boldface signs.
The pattern code meanings are for print
data, which is important to keep in mind when writing contextual rules for
braille data. For example, the P punctuation pattern code does not match
braille punctuation, where a comma is represented with a screen braille
digit 1 and the period is screen braille digit
4. ● Off Strings that Overlap Data While we don't recommend you find and change your
exact on or off strings in the same replacement, you can modify text
that's partly the same as your off strings. As BEX replaces
characters, it works a character at a time. Suppose your off string is the
first five letters of the alphabet: ABCDE. You
can find and change Sample: turning off underlining when $$h ends
with ( $l ) BEX's center-and-underline command, $$h can underline
for quite a while if you forget to end the heading with a paragraph
( $p ) indicator. Using a transformation rule that partly
overlaps the off string, you can insert the command to end underlining.
Here's how:
● Changing a Basic Transformation Chapter to
Contextual The transformation chapter named Here's how you use it. Suppose you have a basic
Replace chapter named Quit HARPO, and run Replace characters. HARPO is your
source chapter, the target chapter is named When your basic Replace chapter uses a different
terminator character, then modify MAKE CON. MAKE CON'S own terminator
is slash. When your basic Replace terminator is any character
except slash, simply use basic Replace to change vertical
bar to your terminator. Congratulations! You've plowed your way through some
pretty heavy material. In this Part of Section 6, we discuss various
techniques to help you make the most of contextual Replace. First, we
discuss BEX's error checking of pattern strings. Then we provide
guidelines for preventing data salad. We present some thoughts on
"elegance" in transformation chapters: how to get the most done with the
fewest rules. Finally, we offer some hints on creating contextual
transformation chapters in the Editor, and making hard copy versions of
contextual transformation chapters under development. Here's a general hint to make contextual Replace
more enjoyable: Obtain a memory expansion card, and configure an extended
disk system with RAM drives. While RAM drives are always fun, they're
especially useful when you're creating contextual transformation chapters.
When BEX is reading and writing to a RAM drive, it only takes a minute or
two to test the reliability of a transformation chapter. The less time
required for you to test, the more likely that you actually perform the
tests that guarantee smooth sailing. Add comments to the end of your transformation
chapters When BEX encounters the three terminators that define
the end of a contextual transformation chapter, BEX stops looking for more
transformation rules. You can insert any text you wish after the three
terminators. It's not always readily apparent what purpose a
contextual transformation chapter serves, especially when it's been
three months since you wrote it. We always add a sentence or two
describing the function of the transformation chapter, as well as when
it's best used, and the date it was last changed. ● Planning is All Even when you think you're a real
contextual hotshot, it's possible to do truly idiotic things. While
we were writing this But the rules in between the first and last two did
not work at all how we'd planned. Every time the letter a
appeared as an article, as in "this move was a mistake," the article was
underlined. Additionally, when a word ended with apostrophe
s or apostrophe t, the last letter was split
off and underlined. The third rule's pattern code of
The moral is: Never underestimate the power of
contextual Replace to change something you never considered. When you're
developing a contextual transformation chapter, never use the
same name for source and target. Only when you've tested your
chapter with a broad variety of data is it safe to use the S naming
method. ● Pattern String Errors When you start out writing contextual transformation
chapters, it's easiest to type changes directly. BEX prompts you for
the find, pattern, and change to strings, so you're less likely to get
lost. BEX also provides some rudimentary error-checking for your pattern
codes. This error-checking happens both when you type changes directly and
when BEX is executing rules from a transformation chapter on disk. How you
recover from the error depends on when it occurs. When you directly type a character that's not one
of the 34 valid pattern codes, then BEX beeps twice, prompts When you directly type the wrong number of pattern
codes in your pattern string, then BEX beeps, prompts Enter intentional error to get a second chance You can take advantage of these error-checking
routines when you realize that your find or pattern strings are simply
wrong. Suppose you enter the wrong characters in the find string; type
When errors occur with a transformation chapter
from disk Whenever BEX finds problems with a pattern string, it
always issues these error messages--even when the problems occur with a
transformation chapter loaded from disk. When you first begin to write
contextual transformation chapters in the Editor, you're guaranteed to run
into this situation at least once. When your pattern strings are too long,
too short, or contain invalid characters, then BEX issues one of the error
messages, right in the middle of the act of replacing. Any
and all correct transformation rules are executed for each BEX page until
BEX encounters the faulty pattern string. Then BEX saves the first page,
and goes on to the next page, again reporting the error when it encounters
the faulty pattern string. In short, BEX executes as many rules as it can,
saves the target chapter, and reports the number of times replaced. An example may make this clearer. Suppose you created
the #### #b#@#99#===# ###
BEX issues this error message at the exact point when
it tries to execute the transformation rule with the faulty pattern
string. It's instructive to take a look at these half-baked target
chapters; you may be able to see exactly where you erred. Once you're
comfortable with editing transformation chapters, you can edit a fault
chapter and insert two extra terminators after a rule to end the
transformation chapter prematurely. Run Replace again; if you don't get
the error messages, then delete the extra terminators and insert them in
the next rule. The fastest way to type changes directly Whenever you specify the Ready chapter by its right
bracket name, BEX assumes that the Ready chapter contains data, even if
it's empty. You can take advantage of this fact to quickly create a
contextual transformation chapter. Specify the Ready chapter as both
source and target chapter and type your changes directly. After you press
<CR> at the ● The time Replace characters requires to process your
chapters depends on the number and nature of rules in your transformation
chapter. You want to have as few rules as possible, but you also want to
transform as many characters as possible with each rule. When we introduced the L and P pattern codes in Part
3, we described transformation rules that changed single letters in quotes
to underlined single letters. The transformation rules there more-or-less
got the job done, but there's a more elegant solution. The following
set of rules is shorter and handles every combination of
punctuation touching the quoted letter, even when the source text contains
The first three rules change any initial
quote touching a single letter to <control-T>$$ub<space> even
though many situations won't require the initial touching token. The point
here is that when you don't need the touching token,
it's obvious. When underlining does not begin mid-word, the data
looks like The fifth, sixth, and seventh rules demonstrate find
and pattern strings that search for the minimum required. It
doesn't really matter whether the underlining begins mid-word or not, so
the find string for these three rules begins with the initial dollar sign
of $$ub. Also in Part 3, we demonstrated the o pattern code
with two rules that delete all JustText typesetting commands. These
commands always begin with left brace and end with right brace. The two
rules delete every character between a left brace and a right brace, then
delete the left brace-right brace pair that's left. While this
approach is remarkably economical, it's also quite
slow. Replace characters ends up comparing every character
in the source chapter against the transformation rule at least four times,
so it requires quite a while to strip out the commands. A much more efficient procedure would use a few more
rules:
● Creating Contextual Transformation Chapters in
the Editor Whenever you type changes directly, make a habit of
saving the transformation chapter, then editing it. (It's a good time
to add the comments we mentioned above.) The more exposure you have to
these chapters, the easier it becomes to create them from scratch. As we
mentioned in Part 2, contextual transformation chapters contain every
keystroke entered between the The one essential prerequisite is knowing how many
terminators you need. Every transformation rule has three terminators. The
total number of terminators in a contextual transformation chapter is
three times the number of rules, plus six. Four of that extra six are at
the start of the chapter, and the last two finish up the list of rules. Here's a quick review of the structure of a
contextual transformation chapter. All contextual transformation chapters
begin with two terminators. The on string, if you have one, goes between
the second and third terminators. The off string, if you have one, goes
between the third and fourth terminator. After these four terminators, the
list of transformation rules Every rule follows the pattern of find string,
terminator, pattern string, terminator, change to string, terminator.
Remember the pattern string shortcut: an empty pattern string specifies an
exact departing match for all characters in the find string. The list of rules always ends with at least three
terminators in a row. When your last change to string is empty, then the
chapter ends with four terminators in a row. When your last pattern string
uses the single terminator shortcut, and your last change to
string is empty, then your chapter ends with five terminators in a row. Sample: counting terminators in transformation
chapters Basic Replace characters can help you be sure that you
have the correct number of terminators. In this sample, we are creating a
Even if you need to use the <CR> character as
data in your rules, you can write a "development" version of the
transformation chapter that uses <CR> as terminator. In addition to
making it easier to move around in the Editor, when your terminator is
<CR> it's much easier to make a hard copy printout of your
work-in-progress. Here's how: in your development version, use a
different unique character to stand for <CR>. Suppose your
transformation chapter does not contain any tildes. You put tilde in the
development version wherever you want <CR> in your final
transformation chapter. Once all your development work is complete, you
use basic Replace characters on the development chapter to create the
final version. In this case, you change the <CR> terminator to
another character, like vertical bar, then change tilde to <CR>.
Suppose your development chapter is named Don't get dizzy! Using Replace characters to help you
create contextual transformation chapters is so self-referential that you
Finally, the Clipboard can be very helpful while
creating contextual transformation chapters in the Editor. You can type
the find string, then copy and insert it as the basis of the pattern
string. Overwrite each of the find string letters with the pattern code
you've chosen. When you write a series of rules that address slightly
different boundary contexts, copy one rule then use it as the template for
the next rule. ● Making Hard copy Printouts Because the pattern codes are so cryptic, it's
often difficult to hold all the interactions in your head. In our
experience, it's a lot easier to do your design work in
a hard copy medium. As we mentioned in the STRIP DOLLAR sample in Part 3,
the order of the transformation rules is often crucial to their success.
When you're working in hard copy, you can think up all the possible rules,
then shuffle them around to get the optimal order. To make useful hard copy print or braille editions of
your transformation chapters, you must change your terminator into a
two-character sequence; a unique character plus <CR>. The <CR>
makes each string a new line. The unique character $$vt $$vp aM6:42 alerts
you to an empty string, which would otherwise be a blank line. When <CR> is
used for data, then you must replace it with a different, printable
character. For example, when your transformation chapter contains neither
the vertical bar nor the lowercase letter z, change every
appearance of <CR> as data to lowercase z. Then change
your terminator character to vertical bar followed by <CR>. You must also change any other control characters in
your rules to printable characters, or you may find your printer doing
some pretty strange things. When the spaces in your rules are important,
change the space character to a printable character as well. When your transformation chapters contain $$ commands,
you have to "defuse" them in order to make a useful hard copy.
Sample: printable version of FIX TEXT Here's how you make a printable version of the
First, edit the chapter and see what's there. To
make a printable version, you must replace non-printing characters with
printing characters. But you must choose printing characters that are not
already present in the transformation chapter. If you don't then you would
not be able to make sense of the print out. The terminator is slash. There are four control
characters: <CR>, <control-J>, <control-H>, and
<control-T>. The simplest system is to substitute the plain letter
for the control letter. Locate for lowercase m,
j, h, and t: you get four
beeps because those letters aren't in FIX TEXT. Great! That means you can
substitute m for <CR>, j for
<control-J>, h for <control-H>, and
t for <control-T>. There are many meaningful spaces in FIX TEXT. A good
way to represent spaces is with the underbar. First, check to see if
it's already used. When you locate for the underbar you get several
hits, so that won't work. Try the asterisk character--none are present in
FIX TEXT, so you can use the asterisk to represent spaces. You're ready to
type these changes:
Before you can actually print the SP2 deletes all occurrences of two spaces, except when
they appear at the end of a sentence. FIX TEXT reformats data that's
been created by Input through slot and Read textfile. This data generally
is formatted as if it's been printed to disk; more details on Input
through slot are available in User Level Section 12. Textfiles are
discussed in Learner Level Section 12 and User Level Section 10. ● Inside FIX TEXT Copy the FIX TEXT transformation chapter before you
edit it, so you don't have to worry if you change something by mistake.
When you have a hard copy print or braille device, print out the PRINTABLE
FT chapter you created by following the instructions in Part 6. What FIX TEXT does FIX TEXT changes a blank line plus many spaces to
lines beginning with the BEX format command $$c; changes two <CR> s
to a BEX paragraph indicator; changes a single <CR> to a space;
changes two spaces to one; and attempts to place BEX's underline begin and
finish commands where ne $$. Most of its work could be accomplished with plain
Replace characters. However, since the rules for placing underlining
commands had to be Contextual, all of FIX TEXT had to be written in
contextual form. As supplied on the BEXtras disk, FIX TEXT does not
contain on or off strings. After we examine how the rules work in detail,
we discuss when on and off strings would be appropriate. The 16 rules in FIX TEXT are divided into two broad
categories. The first six rules deal with <CR> s and spaces. In
these rules, each find string is followed by two slashes; the pattern
string shortcut that means an exact, departing match for every find string
character. The first rule deletes linefeeds, also known as
<control-J> s. Many IBM programs end each line with two characters,
<CR><control-J>, while most Apple programs end each line with
just <CR>. By deleting the <control-J> s first, subsequent
rules apply equally to both type of line endings. The second rule changes two <CR> s followed by
11 spaces into two <CR> s followed by BEX's $$c centering command.
We settled on 11 spaces as a good solution through trial and error. If the
number of spaces is too small, then the rule would be satisfied by the
beginning of every paragraph. When your source material contains deeply
indented paragraphs then FIX TEXT would think every line should be
centered. But if the number is too large, then only very short headings
satisfy the rule, and you would need to place the $$c commands manually. Rule three changes three <CR> s to two
<CR> s, and the rule four turns two <CR> s into BEX's
paragraph ( $p ) indicator. We assume here that the source text
always has at least one blank line between paragraphs. Now that we've
defined the paragraphs, all other <CR> s are superfluous; rule five
changes any <CR> s that are left into a space. The sixth rule changes two spaces to one space. When
you want to have two spaces at the end of sentences, use the SP2
transformation chapter on the BEXtras disk after you've used FIX TEXT. The remaining ten rules cope with underlining and are
fully contextual. To make sense of these rules, you must first analyze
what underlined text looks like. We assume that the source computer
accomplishes underlining in the same way BEX does: There are three possible contexts: when underlining
begins; when underlining ends, and underlining "midstream." Understanding midstream underlining provides the key:
<control-H>, underbar, character, <control-H>, underbar,
character, over and over. We want to delete the <control-H> s and
underlines in this context. The pattern for the beginning of underlining is
defined as not like midstream underlining. When underlining
starts, the first four characters are a character that's not an
underbar; then the underlined character; <control-H>; underbar. We
want to place BEX's $$ub UNDERLINE begin command here. When underlining ends, the final characters are: last
underlined character; <control-H>; underbar; then a word delimiter,
like <space>, <CR>, or punctuation. We want to place BEX's
$$uf underline finish command here. If the word delimiter is not a
<space>, then we want to place <control-T> s around the
underline finish command. (The <control-T> touching
token is explained in Section 5, Part 1. It can replace the initial
and final spaces in BEX $$ format commands.) Rule seven searches for the beginning of underlining:
it inserts dollar, dollar, lowercase u, lowercase
b, <space> when the data does not follow the
midstream pattern. The combination of the find and pattern strings
specifies any character except underbar, followed by three
boundary characters: the total wildcard W, then exactly <control-H>
and underbar. The caret appears after the boundary O, so the-mand is
inserted before the first underlined character. The seventh rule inserts the-mand right next to
punctuation. Suppose you underline the first syllable of the word
despair enclosed in parentheses; your source data looks like
this:
Rule nine deletes all <control-H>-underbar pairs
that occur midstream. The initial <control-H> and
underbar are paired with lowercase x, so they depart from the target
chapter. Because the boundary patterns are total wildcard followed by
exactly <control-H> underbar, this rule does not match the last
underlined character in a word. The tenth rule matches the last underlined character
in a word, because the boundary character in the pattern string is D,
standing for space or <CR>. The <control-H> and underbar are
replaced with space, dollar, dollar, lowercase u, lowercase
b. BEX's underline finish command requires a final space or
<CR>; it's supplied by the character in the source chapter that
matched boundary code D. At this point, the only situation where
<control-H>-underbar pairs remain in the source chapter is the
pattern of last underlined character, <control-H>, underbar,
punctuation. Rule 11 matches this situation. The question mark in the find
string is paired with the E boundary code, meaning match everything
except a <space> or <CR>. The <control-H>
and underbar that depart are replaced with the underline finish command,
preceded and followed by the <control-T> touching token. Rule 12 gets rid of underline begin immediately
followed by underline finish. This pattern appears when the formatter that
did the underlining in the source chapter suppressed underlining for the
space between words. Turn Off FIX TEXT for Tables When your source text contains tables or columns, FIX
TEXT'S rules would create a disaster. Suppose you have a table with 6
columns and 15 rows printed to an 80-character carriage width. If
it's single-spaced, FIX TEXT changes the <CR> s that define the
end of each line to a space--and presto, you lose the line-oriented
structure of the data. FIX TEXT would also change the multiple spaces
between each column into a single space. Since FIX TEXT is a contextual
transformation chapter, you can simply switch off the execution of its
rules for the line-oriented portions of the text. Since FIX TEXT as supplied on the BEXtras disk does
not contain on or off strings, you can insert whatever characters you
prefer. The terminator in FIX TEXT is the slash. The first slash in the
chapter announces "Slash is the terminator." The second slash announces,
"This is a contextual rather than plain transformation chapter." The third
and fourth slashes are place holders for on and off strings respectively. For the sake of example, choose Place these on and off strings where appropriate in
your source chapter before using FIX TEXT. Whenever a transformation
chapter contains on or off strings, Replace begins off. None
of the rules are executed until the program encounters the first on
string. So you must insert To really automate the process, you write a
transformation chapter specifically designed to reformat tables; in this
chapter, make ● When to Use SP2 and What It Does Correctly formatted braille and typeset print always
contains just one space at the end of a sentence. On the other hand,
typewritten print contains two spaces at the end of a sentence. When you
enter text with two spaces, it's child's play to delete the extra
space before you make braille or typeset text. But when your original text
contains just one space after a sentence, it's massively boring to
insert the extra space by hand to make correctly formatted print. The contextual transformation chapter named
Before you examine SP2 in the Editor, make a copy. Its
terminator is <CR>. To make a print or braille hard copy, follow the
suggestions in Part 6; replace space with some printable character. The
discussion that follows assumes you have hard copy in hand. Before we analyze each of the 24 rules in this
chapter, let's sit back and think about how sentences appear in text.
Since we're going to be talking about sentences a lot, we use a shorthand:
The first character in S2 is either an uppercase
letter or punctuation, like a single or double quote. It's unlikely
that S2 begins with a digit, as most style books frown on this. (When a
number comes first in a sentence, most style books recommend you spell out
the number in words.) The last character in S1 is always punctuation. However, we can't define that punctuation with the P
pattern code, because that code includes a number of symbols that can
appear within a sentence. The percent sign and the asterisk
are just two samples of symbols frequently found in the middle of a
sentence. Without the P code, we must develop a list of possible
sentence-ending punctuation--and that's why SP2 contains so many
rules. The final analytical challenge concerns abbreviations.
The period character does double duty. Most sentences end
with period, but period often appears inside a sentence in
abbreviations like Mrs. and Still. SP2 tries to
define several patterns of letters that abbreviations can follow; SP2
attempts to delete two spaces when they follow these patterns and end with
a period. The next-to-last sentence in the previous paragraph is
a sample of a situation where SP2 fails. The period serves as the end of
the Still. abbreviation and as the end of the
sentence. There are several other contexts where SP2 is overwhelmed: a
computer program is no match for a human being when it comes to subtle
tasks like deciding where a sentence ends. We point out these problems as
we examine SP2 in detail. The terminator in SP2 is <CR>, making it easy to
move through the rules in the Editor. Although SP2 is contextual, it does
not use on or off strings. The first rule changes two spaces to one: all
subsequent rules insert an extra space where appropriate. The rules 2
through 15 parallel the rules 16 through 26. The first bunch define S2 as
beginning with an uppercase letter; the second bunch define S2 as
beginning with punctuation followed by uppercase letter. Rule two defines the most common arrangement of
characters between S1 and S2: period, space, uppercase letter. The single
departing pattern code b is changed to two spaces. The character preceding
the period could also be punctuation, for example, the British method of
placing the period outside quoted material. Rule 16 is parallel to rule
2--S1 is the same and S2 changes. For rule 16 S2 begins with punctuation
followed by uppercase letter. Rule three defines S1 as ending with question mark
instead of period; rule 17 shows S1 ending with period and S2 beginning
with punctuation. Rules four and 18 show S1 ending with exclamation mark. Rules five through 12 and 19 through 26 specify
various sentences that end with two punctuation characters. Rules 13 through 15 are the abbreviation-handlers.
Thirteen deletes the extra space after the honorary Mrs.
regardless of the case of the letters r and s.
Rules 14 is more general: the pattern codes match any two-letter
abbreviation where the first letter is uppercase. So in addition to Dr.
these rules match MR., St., AV.,
Ln. and literally hundreds of others. Because the first
pattern code is boundary Q, this rule matches an abbreviation with
touching punctuation. Rule 15 matches a single uppercase letter, like
those found in lettered outlines. There are many possible abbreviations,
and these three rules don't come anywhere near matching all of them. But,
it's important to compare the benefits gained with the effort
The final rule matches S1's that end with BEX's
underline finish command. The space before the first dollar sign is
printed, but the space after the lowercase f is not. The
final rule adds that extra space. Part 8: Contextual Replace Reference Enter terminator at first Lowercase Departing Pattern String Codes Uppercase Boundary Pattern Codes Special Pattern Codes Pattern string shortcut - Entering terminator alone at
Punctuation as defined by pattern code P When the Echo uses a different term from standard
practice, that term is included in parentheses): You can tell BEX to save a session at the keyboard as an automatic procedure chapter for future use. To use an auto chapter, you press control-A at the Main, Second, or Page Menus. BEX asks for the auto chapter's name, and then interprets each character in the chapter as if it were typed on the keyboard.
Part 1: Overview Auto chapters are like a piano roll for a player piano. You can use auto chapters to perform standardized, multi-step operations. You can use an auto chapter to perform an operation you do frequently. Even at the Learner Level, you can enter control-A to use an Auto chapter. In Learner Level Section 10, we described the Auto chapters are particularly useful when you configure an extended disk system. When BEX is running from a RAM drive or the Sider, you can direct repeated processing for several disks of data.
As an example, we made heavy use of auto chapters when writing this manual. The inkprint text of this manual is stored on the Sider hard disk. Creating the braille version requires four steps: transforming generic format information to braille-specific format information with Replace characters; then translating the resulting target chapters, then replacing again to fix minor translator problems, and finally proofreading the grade 2 text. We get everything ready at night, tell BEX to use an auto chapter that performs the first three steps, and our data is waiting to proofread in the morning. Part 2: Creating an Auto Chapter You can only create or invoke an auto chapter at one of the three menu prompts on BEX's Main side. You can't invoke an auto chapter at the An auto chapter cannot in turn call another auto chapter; you can't nest your operations. Finally, an auto chapter cannot include use of option A - Auto print from VersaBraille on the Main Menu.
While creating an auto chapter, you can use the Editor, move to any Main side menu and use any option there, and leave BEX with a Q to use DOS or Applesoft commands.
● Maximize flexibility To make an auto chapter reusable, avoid using specific chapter names at source and target chapter prompts. When you scan a drive for chapters, BEX always asks ● Commands you use to create an auto chapter After you press control-R, BEX remembers almost every keystroke. When you type a chapter name, then use the left and arrow to correct it, all the letters you type plus the ● Sample: Creating and using an auto chapter You want to automate killing the contents of the Ready chapter. As mentioned in Section 2, when you kill the Ready chapter, you are sure to delete any extra page files on disk. The first time through, you do this:
Now the next time you want to kill the Ready chapter, you do this:
and sit back and watch the fireworks. Notice that the first keystroke in the ZAP auto chapter is S. When you're already at the Second Menu, this has no effect. But because that S is there, you can invoke this auto chapter at the Main and Page Menus as well.
● Canceling remember mode When you regret something you've done after you press control-R, you can cancel remember mode by pressing control-R a second time. BEX responds In addition to canceling remember mode when you press control-R a second time, BEX automatically cancels remember mode whenever it encounters a disk error. Suppose you don't have a disk in your default data drive, and you do this:
This is a merciful feature: you don't want BEX to run away wildly with your data if it can't write to disk!
Shortcuts for Creating Auto Chapters You may find creating and using auto chapters trickier than you expect. Since auto chapters invite you to perform lengthy unattended operations, you must find a way to avoid changing disks midstream. This goes hand in hand with the flexible source and target naming methods, and especially the ability to As discussed in Learner Level Section 13, you can press You can create an auto chapter for a time-consuming operation by performing the operation on a disk containing a short dummy chapter. Use the period code when naming the target chapter. The auto chapter you save contains the same keystrokes you need to do a disk-full of chapters, provided you set things up to avoid disk full errors.
We recommend that your auto chapter begin with the command to get to the right menu. That way you can invoke the auto chapter from any Main side menu.
Part 3: Using an Auto Chapter While you can only create an auto chapter at the Master Level, you can use one at any level. You could create an auto chapter that demonstrates using BEX for a beginner. At all Levels, you invoke an auto chapter by pressing control-A at any menu on the Main side. How BEX responds depends on your level--at the Master Level, it's simply There are two ways to suppress Echo speech during the execution of an auto chapter. The simplest is to press control-X When you want to stop an auto chapter in process, you have two choices. Pressing Control-Reset stops an auto chapter dead in its tracks. You should never press Control-Reset when BEX is writing to disk, however.
Because auto chapters always stop when BEX gets a disk access error, another way to stop an auto chapter is to pull the disk out of a drive. The next time BEX needs to read from disk, DOS returns an I/O ERROR that stops the execution of the auto chapter. Never do this when BEX is writing to disk. Whether you use Control-Reset or create a disk error, the auto chapter is stopped, not paused. Typing Part 4: Editing and Modifying an Auto Chapter The final character in an auto chapter signals BEX to start paying attention to the keyboard again. When you edit an auto chapter, this final character seems to be a <Del> character, but it actually isn't. It's a high bit set character that you cannot type in the Editor. We use the highly scientific term magic <Del> to refer to the last character in an auto chapter.
When you edit an auto chapter, you must be very careful not to delete this last character. If you do delete it by mistake, then edit the VOICE ON chapter on the main side of BEX and copy its magic <Del> character to the clipboard. Then insert the magic <Del> character at the end of the auto chapter you're creating.
Once you're very familiar with BEX it's possible to create auto chapters from scratch in the Editor. However, it's very easy to forget just one <CR> that throws everything off. It's quicker to modify existing auto chapters. Every key you press at a BEX menu is interpreted as uppercase. This is also true when BEX is getting its keystrokes from an auto chapter, so don't worry about case when you type auto chapter information in the Editor.
● Auto chapters and the Echo In Section 8 we explore BEX's control-B commands that let you control all four BEX channels at any point. One pair of commands controls the voice channel: control-B V A activates the voice channel and control-B V D deactivates it. When you want to turn off Echo speech during the execution of an auto chapter, you place these commands in it. When you depend on Echo speech, you don't want to issue these commands as you're creating the auto chapter, because you won't know what the computer's up to. In this situation, you should edit the auto chapter after you save it. Insert the three characters ● Stopping an auto chapter before a menu prompt As mentioned in Part 2, you can only press control-S to save the auto chapter at a menu prompt. When you want to have an auto chapter that stops at another point in BEX, you can edit the auto chapter and delete some of the final commands, taking care to preserve the last magic <Del> character.
Here's a wacky example. You want to generate a proofreading copy of the text in your Ready chapter, and then compare the printed copy with the text in the Editor. At the Main Menu, press control-R to start remembering. Edit the Ready chapter, press Tab to insert, then type
then press control-Q to finish the insert and quit the Editor.
Print the Ready chapter to printer 1, then immediately press Press control-S to save the auto chapter, and supply ● Auto chapters and extended disk systems Here at Raised Dot Computing, we create braille editions of the registered customer list on a weekly basis. One auto chapter does most of the work; we need to make four minor changes in this auto chapter every time we use it.
This auto chapter kills all the chapters on the disk in drive 45 that end with a particular character. Then it reads the ProDOS textfiles in the disk in drive 44 to BEX chapters on the RAM drive 47, adding the Month and Date to the textfile names to make the source chapter names. Next, it jumps to the Main Menu, and translates all the chapters on drive 47 that end with the last digit in the date, writing the braille chapters on top of the inkprint. Next, it replaces all these chapters using the transformation rules in the In the Editor, the auto chapter looks like this:
We have to modify the asterisk and M-DD and D characters, so we start out by copying it to the Ready chapter. We locate for the asterisk and replace it with the last digit of the date of the previous braille edition. We locate for M-DD and replace it with As we introduced in User Level Section 2, BEX controls four output channels: screen, voice, braille, and printer. At the Master Level, you can issue commands to affect all four channels. You can change the screen size at menus as well as in the Editor. You can activate and deactivate output to any of the four channels. You accomplish these feats with control-B commands. These commands are not available at either the Learner or User Level.
Control-B Command Syntax You can issue control-B commands at any BEX menu, or, when you have Quit BEX, at the BASIC prompt. These commands are all three keystrokes long. The first character is control-B. The second character is one of four letters that signify which channel you're addressing: V for Voice channel; B for Braille channel; S for Screen channel; and P for Printer channel. The last character depends on which channel you're addressing; details below.
● Screen channel No matter how you configure, BEX always outputs on the screen channel. How many columns you request for the screen decides the default size. In the Editor, you can change the size with control-S S [letter] where [letter] is one of the ten screen size codes. (Check the Thick Reference Card for the codes to use.) At the Master Level you can also change screen size at menus with control-B S [letter]. Suppose you configure with Echo speech and 80-column screen. A partially sighted person wanders by and wants to know you're doing. At the Main Menu, you press control-S S L to set 20-column screen; now they can see what you're up to.
● Printer channel Generally, BEX only sends output to the printer channel when you tell BEX to print. Control-B commands let you send text to the printer channel while you're engaged in the computer dialogue. The command is control-B P #, where the number corresponds to the printer number. When you configure printer 1 as a VersaPoint embosser, then entering control-B P 1 sends all ● Voice channel The voice channel comes in two flavors. When you have an Echo or SlotBuster, the voice channel is a cooperative effort between BEX and TEXTALKER or SCAT. Alternatively, you can output the voice channel through a serial voice device when you answer the configuration question appropriately. Whether integral or serial, you can turn off the voice channel at menus with control-B V D. Turn it back on again with control-B V A.
When BEX recognizes an Echo or SlotBuster in your Apple, then BEX loads TEXTALKER or SCAT into memory. Even if you don't configure with Echo or SlotBuster output, entering control-B V A turns on speech output. Because serial voice devices must be defined in your configuration, you can't turn them on with control-B V A if you haven't configured them.
Inside the Editor, you can toggle the voice channel off and on. When the voice is active, control-S V turns it off. After you've turned it off, control-S V turns it back on. You can't turn on an inactive voice channel in the Editor; in other words, the voice must be on to turn it off with control-S V in the Editor.
● Braille channel An early configuration question asks There are two parts of BEX you can change. You can alter many of the prompts and messages that BEX generates. The text is stored in chapter You can also change the braille translation tables. Both tables are stored as BEX chapters on your Main disk. Chapter Both the MESSAGES chapter and the translator tables use a rigid structure. If you alter this structure, BEX won't work correctly. Of course, you never want to change your Master BEX disk, but you always use a working backup anyway (don't you?) Before you even contemplate making any changes, copy the original chapters to a backup disk. You can then recover from errors by copying the originals back to your working copy of the BEX disk.
Part 1: The MESSAGES Chapter On the boot side of BEX is a three page chapter called MESSAGES. This chapter contains the text of many of the prompts and messages produced by BEX. BEX loads one of these pages into memory when you supply a configuration name. Which page it loads depends on the level of the configuration: Page 1 is for the Learner Level, page 2 is for the User Level, and page 3 is for the Master Level. Actually, BEX doesn't load the page based on the BEX page number; it uses the page filename. BEX loads The MESSAGES chapter is the mechanism by which the prompts get shorter as you advance through the levels of BEX. If you are familiar with BEX, you can shorten the prompts to the point of being absolutely cryptic. You are limited by your imagination and the size of the page. No page of the MESSAGES chapter may exceed 3840 characters. After we discuss how you change the MESSAGES chapter, we supply some reasons you might want to do it.
The Structure of the MESSAGES Chapter The delimiter between text sections is the <Del> character. When BEX uses text from the MESSAGES chapter, it locates it by counting <Del> characters. For example, when you press X at the Main Menu, BEX outputs the 23rd message. It counts 23 <Del> characters, then outputs all the text up to the 24th <Del> character. As shipped to you, the 23rd message is If you accidentally add or delete a <Del> character, you can make BEX unusable, because most of the time it would be giving you the wrong prompts. So do be very careful. Please make a backup copy of the original MESSAGES chapter before you even think about modifying it.
When you think you've correctly modified the MESSAGES chapter, copy the new text onto the boot side with the chapter name MESSAGES. Make sure that the page files are in alphabetical order. Any changes that you make show up after you boot BEX with the altered MESSAGES chapter.
The final characters in each BEX page are the vocabulary BEX uses when arrowing in the Editor. As a test of your success, after you reboot with a modified MESSAGES chapter, move to all four menus, and list the options. Then use the arrow keys in the Editor. When everything works correctly, then you know you've done it right. ● Special characters in MESSAGES There are three characters in the messages chapter that control when a <CR> is sent to the voice and screen channels. Any <CR> in the MESSAGES chapter is executed for all channels. Any caret The tilde Order of Prompts in MESSAGES Chapter The remainder of items are the vocabulary used for voice output of arrowing in the Editor.
Here are some ideas for modifying the MESSAGES chapter. When you use 10-column screen mode, you can shorten all the prompts so they fit in one line. You could use Replace characters to change every appearance of the word chapter to uppercase C, saving you six characters per prompt. Our programmers prefer that prompts end with a colon or question mark, but if you generally set your Echo for most punctuation, you might find the colon intrusive. Again, use Replace characters to simply delete them.
If you feel that the computer should adopt a more servile attitude, you can change the menu prompts to be much more polite. You could replace A more practical example concerns the Page Menu. It's the only Master Level prompt that's two words long. We wanted to distinguish between the menu prompt and the frequent and then reboot. The high-pitched One last word of warning. All Levels of the BEX manual show many examples of user dialogue. When you change the MESSAGES chapter, then the program no longer matches what's in the manual. This could prove very confusing for beginners, so think before you edit.
Part 2: ZQFOR, The Braille Translation Table The grade 2 braille translator works by applying the rules in the chapter The ZQFOR table is broken up into 29 sections. Each section is separated from the next section by two consecutive <CR>s. The first section of the table holds the translation rules for the space character. The second through 27th sections of the table hold the translation rules for the letters, a through z. The 28th section holds the translation rules for punctuation characters. The last section holds the rules for returning from a special translation mode. Numbers are translated internally to the program. Control characters pass through without modification. Each rule takes up a line of text which is broken into one, two, or three parts. The first part is the matching string. Each letter of the text is matched against the string of all of the rules for the letter until one string matches or the end of the table for the letter is reached. The matching string is terminated by one of three letters:
There are other letters with a more specialized function--contact us if you need an explanation. Capital letters in matching strings direct the translator to apply a special rule to the text rather than matching rule against text one for one. Some of the matching string rules are:
A capital letter at the beginning of a match string is not compared directly with the text. Rather it is matched with a one character buffer that holds the computer's version of what was the last character it dealt with. This buffer, which we will call The last detail of the rule application process is the setting of boundaries of the portion of the string that is replaced. The only part that is replaced is the portion of the text that matches the part of the rule before the first capital (other than the before matching capital). For example, the rule, The best guide to changing the table, after the above, is the translation table itself. It provides a wealth of instructive examples. Part 3: ZQREV, The Back Translation Table The back translator turns a grade 2 braille chapter into a printable chapter. It performs the reverse function of the braille translator. As with the forwards translator, you should always make a backup copy of the The back translator driving table works in the same basic way that the translator table for the forward translator works. The back translator table is responsible for the entire translation process.
The back translator table has 65 different sections. Each section is marked by two <CR>s. The table sections are in the ASCII character order. The table starts with ten <CR>s. Then comes the section for space, followed by the section for ZQREV also has different capital letter special rules for the matching string. These rules are:
It is not trivial for the back translator program to determine what category a character is in.
For example, virtually every braille cell (every cell except space and dot 3)
can be turned into a letter in some circumstance. Hint! If you have a regular
slot memory card, you can write DOS 3.3 chapters or textfiles to
it, then quit BEX. Without turning off the power, start up QTC. You can
then tell QTC that your source disk is in slot 4, drive whatever, and QTC
quickly converts the DOS 3.3 BEX chapters on the DOS 3.3 RAM drive to
ProDOS textfiles on disk. This won't work with an auxiliary or memory
expansion slot card. Which drive? # enter question mark
followed by <CR>. When you do this at the Starting Menu, you may
press M to catalog the Main side RAM drive.DISK FULL error message, even if you have loads of
sectors free. Each BEX chapter is composed of several files: one binary
file DISK FULL error message if you
tried to save another BEX chapter to this disk. You must delete some files
from the RAM drive to free up filename slots for a new chapter.RUN 999 technique to
save the page buffer in a one-page BEX chapter named SAVE on your
program drive. Suppose you were editing one of the five 20-page
chapters mentioned above. You enter control-C control-P to cut pages. You
have just asked BEX to create another page file, but DOS 3.3 refuses to
accept this 106th filename. Because BEX has received a DOS error, it
swings into action, attempting to create a SAVE chapter--but DOS 3.3
refuses again. In this situation, BEX tells you Insert data disk in
program drive and press any key endlessly. But you
can't insert a different data disk, because it's a RAM drive.
Here's how you recover:PR#0
<CR>CATALOG <CR>DELETE command. As a last resort, you can kill
off the translator chapters, ZQFOR and ZQREV, and then RUN 999 <CR> and
BEX can create the SAVE chapter.
Caution! The BEX program disk cannot be loaded
onto a 3.5 inch disk. This means your Apple system must have at least one
5.25 inch disk drive in order for you to use BEX. Apple IIgs: When you have two 3.5 inch disk
drives, you must modify a Control Panel setting to access the second disk
drive. The bottom item on the Control Panel is RAM Drives: set both the
minimum and maximum size to zero. You must turn off the power for this
change to take effect. If you don't do this, then the IIgs will hide the
second 3.5 inch disk drive.
Which drive? prompt loads AmDOS. Caution! AmDOS initializes both 400K drives at
the same time. In our example here, initializing either drive 2 or drive 3
results in initializing both of them. /LETTERS BEX can read the textfile named
/LETTERS/SANDY on that disk. But BEX cannot read the textfile
named /LETTERS/JUNE/SANDY because the file SANDY
is stored in the subdirectory named /LETTERS/JUNE/
Do you have an extended disk system? Y <CR>
Virtual drive 1 is for the Main disk program disk.
For virtual drive 1
Enter slot: 7 <CR>
Sider Hard Disk
How many volumes: 48 <CR>
Boot side volume: 2 <CR>
Main side volume: 3 <CR>
For virtual drive 49
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 1 <CR>
For virtual drive 50
Enter slot: 6 <CR>
Enter drive: 2 <CR>
For virtual drive 51
Enter slot: 0 <CR>
HELLO program. Following the instructions from
the Interface Guide, you have modified this HELLO program to run BEX. So
after you press <CR> at the Sider's Master Menu, the next thing
you hear is your old friend BEX saying Enter configuration:
4 Specifying Chapters
Chapter: or
Target chapter: or Naming method: For selecting
chapters, all the User Level possibilities are available, with several
features unique to the Master Level. We have already discussed how you can
answer the chapter prompt with the right bracket to indicate that you are
using the Ready chapter. You can have more than two disk drives at the
Master Level. This means that you can answer the chapter prompt with
7CHAPTER or 8CHAPTER assuming that you have that
many drives.
] for the Ready chapter
at all but one chapter prompt: option N - Name change for chapters on the
Second Menu. When you specify the Ready chapter with Fix chapter
] at many
Chapter: prompts, BEX recognizes the Ready chapter. But BEX
does not recognize ] as a chapter name after it has given a
numbered list for a particular drive. When you're choosing numbers from a
list, then ] at the Chapter: prompt is just like
pressing <CR> alone.
NAME - chapter NAME on default data drive
(when you have an eight drive system, this is drive 8)5NAME - chapter NAME on drive 52 - scan drive 2 and present numbered list of
chapters/ - scan highest (default) data drive; when 8
is your highest numbered drive, then BEX scans drive 85/Q - scan drive 5 for chapters ending in
Q and present a numbered list+3 - scan drive 3, present numbered list, then
reprompt for more chapters+7/2 - scan drive 7 for chapters ending in
2 and reprompt for another chapter selection] - The Ready chapter
Chapter: MASTERPIECE
Chapter: <CR>
Target chapter: 6.S
Main: C
Copy chapters
Chapter: 3 <CR>
There are 3 chapters:
1 BIOPAPER
2 ESSAY2
3 CHEM NOTES
Use entire list? N Y <CR>
Naming method: I <CR>
For chapter BIOPAPER
Target chapter: 8.S <CR>
For chapter ESSAY2
Target chapter: 8.A-2 <CR>
For chapter CHEM NOTES
Target chapter: 8LAB NOTES <CR>
BEX begins to copy the chapters, then crashes with a
SYNTAX ERROR message. BEX tried to name the BIOPAPER chapter
.S and DOS 3.3 won't let a filename start with a period. At
this point you type RUN <CR> and copy the chapters
again, typing out the names.
3AXYZ - add characters XYZ,
write chapters on drive 3LXYZ - remove the last character, then add the
characters XYZ, write on default data drive7.S - same name, write on drive 70D - delete last character, write target
chapters on "home" drives.I - individually name target chapters (and
specify drive numbers, if desired)
Main: R
Replace
Chapter: +1 <CR>
There are 2 chapters:
1 PURPLE
2 RED
Use entire list? N Y <CR>
Select more chapters
Chapter: +2 <CR>
There are 3 chapters:
1 GREEN
2 BLUE
3 BROWN
Use entire list? N <CR>
Select chapters by number
GREEN
Chapter: 2 <CR>
BLUE
Chapter: <CR>
Select more chapters
Chapter: 3 <CR>
There are 2 chapters:
1 YELLOW
2 BLACK
Use entire list? N Y <CR>
Naming method: 0S <CR>
Use transformation chapter: 1REPLACE <CR>
Continue? Y <CR>
Chapter PURPLE done
Chapter RED done
Chapter GREEN done
Chapter BLUE done
Chapter YELLOW done
Chapter BLACK done
Replaced 50 times
+ to catalog more than one
drive. When Which drive? followed by your default data drive number.
Answer with a plus sign followed by a drive number followed by <CR>:
Page Menu: W
Whole disk catalog
Which drive? 8 +6 <CR>
through:
At this prompt, you enter the number of the highest
drive you wish to catalog:
through: 8 <CR>
Disk drive 6
501 free sectors
There are 2 chapters on this disk:
CHECKS 1 pages 322 size
ADDRESS 1 pages 86 size
Grand total 408 characters
Disk drive 7
398 free sectors
There are 2 chapters on this disk:
DIARY 2 pages 8122 size
PAPER 2 pages 4586 size
Grand total 12708 characters
Disk drive 8
456 free sectors
There are 1 chapters on this disk:
DATA 4 pages 11529 size
Grand total 11529 characters+3 <CR> through 1
<CR> you would receive a Bad range error
message.
& before the drive
number when specifying drives with option W - Whole disk catalog on the
Page Menu allows you to save the screen output of the Whole disk catalogs
in a BEX chapter. When you are prompted Which drive? enter an
ampersand & followed by a drive number, then press
<CR>. The ampersand, like the plus sign, allows you to scan multiple
drives. It invokes the through: prompt and you enter the
drive number of the highest drive you wish cataloged. When the catalogs
are complete, you are prompted for a chapter name. Here is an example:
Page Menu: W
Whole disk catalog
Which drive? &2 <CR>
through: 3 <CR>
Disk drive 2
87 free sectors
There are 3 chapters on this disk:
Q-SAVE 4 pages 7566 size
WW 2 pages 4956 size
LETTER 6 pages10745 size
Disk drive 3
502 free sectors
There are 1 chapters on this disk:
REPLACE 1 pages 54 size
Grand total 26227 characters
Save list as
Chapter: CAT <CR>2 <CR> and the
Chapter: prompt. This chapter cannot contain more than 2048
characters. 5 Printing
(<control-T>War and
Peace<control-T>)
comput<control-T>$$eb<control-T>er<control-T>$$ec<con
trol-T>ized
-put]iz$
But if you don't end the $$eb with <control-T>
the translator is off for all the characters after the $$ until the next
space. When your print is:
comput<control-T>$$eber<control-T>$$ecized
then the translator creates:
-mputerized
General<space>Montgomery<control-S>
T.<control-S>M.<control-S>J.<control-S>
Hambone
then his full name is never broken between lines.
Caution! We don't recommend translating chapters
containing this control character, as the translator treats <ASCII
31> as a space. If you typed know<ASCII 31>ledge
then you get "k<ASCII 31>l$ge instead of k
as you should get. Take out the discretionary hyphens before translating.
6 to enter a discretionary line break in your text. In the
Editor, a discretionary linebreak is represented by a small uppercase
R with a vertical line down the right side, and a horizontal
line underneath: like the discretionary hyphen and the <ESC>
character. The Echo speaks a discretionary linebreak as "ASCII 30", which
sounds like "as-key three zero."
City $$vr_ $$p40 State $$p53 ZIP <CR>
Ham and Eggs: $$vr. $$vk $1.00 <CR>
Ham and Eggs: $$vr. $$vk
$1.00<control-S>(Fridays<control-S>Only)<CR>
Caution! Printer control commands are treated
like spaces in the Grade 2 translator. Remove them from your text before
you translate. If you don't remove them from your text, they may cause
translation errors.
PRINTERS chapter on the Boot side into your configuration
chapter. This information is read into your computer's memory when
you boot BEX. Then, when the formatter encounters any of the 11 $$eX
commands in your text, it reads the specific control code from memory, and
executes it. It is possible to alter the PRINTERS chapter to suit your
taste. For example, while BEX defines $$e0 as 10 pitch for any specific
printer, you could modify the table to make $$e0 mean headline mode.
Altering the PRINTERS chapter is discussed in Part 6.
Is this a
dot matrix printer? Answer N for a daisy wheel printer. When BEX
prompts Enter printer code: press <CR> for your
choices. In Part 6 we explain how you can add a specific printer in the
PRINTERS chapter. When you do, its number is automatically added to the
list of specific printer codes.
H<control-T> $$el 2<control-T>
$$em<control-T>O
(in words, that's uppercase H,
subscript, the digit 2, stop subscript, uppercase O;
otherwise known as the formula for water).
Starting: P
This option displays the control
sequences for different brand name
printers.
Display codes for Dot Matrix?
Answer Y to this prompt only when you have a dot
matrix printer. When you have a daisy wheel printer, answer N to this
prompt. For example, answer Y when you have an ImageWriter; you answer N
when you have a Diablo 630. Consult your printer manual if you are unsure
about your type of printer.
<DEL>\\ 6 Contextual Replace
QUANDARY chapter, change almost every appearance of
the word blind to the words vision impaired.
Don't change blind to vision impaired when the word appears
in a heading. Here's how you type those change directly:
Main: R
Replace
Chapter: QUANDARY <CR>
Chapter: <CR>
Target chapter: QUANDARY-C <CR>
Use transformation chapter: <CR>
Enter terminator: #
So far, this dialog is familiar. Press R, supply
source and target chapter names, press <CR> at the Use
transformation chapter: prompt to type changes directly, and
establish which character serves as the terminator, in this case, the
number sign.Find: prompt, you signal BEX to begin contextual
Replace. Here's how it looks:
Find: #
Contextual replace
On string: <space>$p <space>#
Off string: $$p-1 $$c#
BEX responds with Contextual Replace and
prompts you to define your on and off strings. We don't want to change the
word blind to vision impaired when it appears in a heading.
The headings in the QUANDARY chapter all begin with $$c and end with a
paragraph ( $p ) indicator. We want to turn
Find: blind#
Pattern: xxxxx#
Change to: vision impaired#
Find: #
Pattern: #
Continue? Y <CR>
Chapter QUANDARY done
Replaced 9 times
Save transformation chapter: QT <CR>Find: and Pattern: prompts, you signal the end
of the list of rules. Our sample has only one transformation rule, so we
press the number sign terminator at the Find: and
Pattern: prompts. As with basic Replace, BEX prompts
Continue? Y and gives you one last chance to chicken out or
Use
transformation chapter: and Continue? Y prompts. It
looks like this:
All contextual transformation chapters begin with two
terminators. Between the second and third terminator are the characters
that serve as the on string. The off string
consists of the characters between the third and fourth terminator. After
these four terminators, the list of transformation rules starts.
Caution! The only significant spaces in
this Section are those indicated by <space>. Any other spaces are
there for ease of reading.
Find: Grade <space> II#
Pattern: XXXXXXxx#
Change to: 2#
The first six characters of the find string are
paired with uppercase X boundary codes in the pattern string. The only
time that Roman numeral II is replaced with Arabic digit 2 is when the six
characters preceding the Roman numeral are exactly uppercase
G, lowercase r, lowercase
a, lowercase d, lowercase e,
<space>. Clever readers will note that a basic Replace rule that
finds grade 2 and changes it to Grade II
accomplishes the same task. But stay tuned! We return to this issue again
shortly.
RESUME that's stuffed full of various $$ commands. The
task here is to delete every BEX $$ format command from this chapter. This
is possible because BEX format commands follow a pattern. They all begin
with two dollar signs. They all end with a space. (We assume here that the
text is formatted with BEX's new-line ( $l ) and paragraph
( $p ) indicators. Later on in this Part, we discuss how to cope
when you format text with hard <CR> s.)
Main: R
Replace
Chapter: RESUME <CR>
Chapter: <CR>
Target Chapter: 1RESUME-NO$ <CR>
Use transformation chapter: <CR>
Find: #
Contextual replace
On string: #
Off string: #
Find: <space> $$<space>#
Pattern: BxxB#
Change to: -#
Find: $$#
Pattern: xx#
Change to: <space> $$#
Find: $$c <space>#
Pattern: xxwB#
Change to: #
Find: $$p5<space>#
Pattern: xxwwB#
Change to: #
Find: $$ml4<space>#
Pattern: xxwwwB#
Change to: #
Find:<space>#
Pattern: xxwwwwB#
Change to: #
Find: $$ml+24<space>#
Pattern: xxwwwwwB#
Change to: #
Find: #
Pattern: #
Continue? Y <CR>
Starting to replace
Replaced 119 times
Save transformation chapter: STRIP DOLLAR <CR>
... long-range planning of the firm.<space>
$$mr-8<space> $p <space> NORTH FARM COOPERATIVE ...
If the second rule did not insert a space before
every $$, then the could not be changed, since it does not end with a
space.Change to: prompt, the change to string is
empty. Since the initial dollar signs and the next character are replaced
by nothing, they're deleted from the target chapter.SP2 transformation chapter on your BEXtras disk to delete all
the extra spaces. (In Part 7, we explain how SP2 works.) Once you add more
pattern codes to your repertory, it's possible to rewrite these rules
to not create those extra spaces--we provide an example of this later on
in this Part.
...<space> $l <space> $$mr8 <space> A
<space> mail-order ...
If the third transformation rule was:
Find: $$ml+24<space>#
Pattern: xxwwwwwB#
Change to: #
then the line of text would get mangled to:
...<space>$l <space><space>
mail-order <space> firm ...$$mr8 <space> A <space> text no longer exists.
Find: Grade <space> II#
Pattern: IIIIIBxx#
Change to: 2#
This rule finds and changes the Roman numeral II in a
variety of contexts. Because the boundary code I ignores capitalization,
Grade II, grade II, and GRADE II
all satisfy the combination of find and pattern strings.
Find: <space> "A" <space>#
Pattern: BxLXB#
Change to: $$p-1 <space>#
We're assuming that a quoted single letter, together
with any touching punctuation, is preceded and followed by a space. The
find string shows the letter A, but since it's paired
with the boundary code L, this rule actually applies to every possible
letter, regardless of capitalization. With basic Replace, we would have
had to write 52 rules to accomplish the same task. It's important to
include both the opening and closing quotes, because we only want to
change double quotes around single letters. Only one pattern
code is departing; the double quote is removed from the target chapter.
The change to string consists of the start underlining command.BxLxB is not allowed. When you want to modify text on both
sides of a given group of characters, you have to work on one side first,
and then the other.
Pattern: XXXXBLxB#
Change to: <space>$$uf#
Replace characters always executes the transformation
rules in the order you enter them. Therefore, after the first rule, the
emphasized letters no longer have opening quotes--they have the begin
underlining format command, $$ub. The find string for the second rule
reflects this change. The pattern string again contains a single departing
code, paired to the closing double quote. The change to string does not
need to include a space after the $$uf, because the space
after the double quote is paired with a boundary pattern code, B, which is
not changed in the target chapter. This space is still present in the
target chapter, where it serves as the space required after every BEX
format command.
Find: <space>"A,"<space>#
Pattern: BxLXXB#
Change to:<space>#
making one rule for every possible punctuation that
touches the quote marks. In addition to the comma shown, you would need
rules for the period, exclamation point, question mark, colon, left and
right parentheses, left and right brackets, semicolon, and several more.
But (as you're probably not surprised to discover at this point)
contextual Replace has one pattern code for this situation.
Find: <space>("A"<space>#
Pattern: BPxLXB#
Change to: <control-T><space>#
Find:
(<control-T>$$ub<space>A"<space>#
Pattern: PXXXXXBLxB#
Change to: <space>$$uf#
The <control-T> touching token is
discussed fully in Section 5, Part 1; it can replace the initial or final
space in a BEX format command. Because we only want to underline the
letter, and not the punctuation that precedes it, we need to begin
underlining after the initial punctuation. But if we inserted
<space> $$ub <space> there would be one space between the
initial punctuation and the letter. We replace the initial space with
<control-T> so we can start underlining within a BEX word. BEX
throws away the final space in the underlining command when it's
executed.
Find: <space>"A".<space>#
Pattern: BxLXPB#
Change to: $$p-1 $$ub <space>#
Find: <space>$$ub<space> A".<space>#
Pattern: BXXXXBLxPB#
Change to: <control-T>$$uf<control-T>#
The first <control-T> ensures that there's
no space between the letter and final punctuation. The second
<control-T> signals the end of the $$ command, so that the
translator turns on again
Find: <space>"A,"<space>#
Pattern: BxLPXB#
Change to: $$ub<space>#
Find: <space>$$ub<space>A."<space>#
Pattern: BXXXXBLPxB#
Change to: <space>#
Find: <space> $$ <space>#
Pattern: BxxB#
Change to: #
Find: $$p-1 $$x#
Pattern: XXe#
Change to: #
Find: $$p-1 $$<space>#
Pattern: xxb#
Change to: #
Find: $$p-1 $$<CR>
Pattern: xxD
Change to: #
The first rule finds the move-to-the-next tab
command, inserting a hyphen to separate what was separated with tabs. The
second rule finds any character following two dollar signs
except a <space> or <CR>. BEX repeatedly
executes this rule, deleting one character at a time from all format
commands. Once all the characters between the two dollar signs and the
delimiter are gone, the third and fourth rules clean up what's left.
The third rule deletes what's left when the format command was
not at the end of a line. The fourth rule deletes the two
dollars signs left when the format command ended with <CR>, but
leaves the <CR> itself. Try these rules on the RESUME chapter and
see what happens!
Find: s-b#
Change to: SlotBuster#
Find: vi#
Change to: visually <space> impaired#
When your original text has a sentence like The
villainous has-been twirled his mustache, then the above rules
create the nonsensical the visually impairedllainous haSlotBustereen
twirled his mustache.
Find: <space> s-b <space>#
Change to: <space> SlotBuster <space>#
Find: <space> vi <space>#
Change to: <space> visually <space>
impaired <space>#
but then neither keyboard shortcut is matched in this
sentence: The "s-b" card is useful to people who are vi.
Find: (Vi)#
Pattern: QIxQ#
Change to: ision impaired#
Find: (s-b)#
Change to: SlotBuster#
Although the find strings show left and right
parentheses, when paired with the Q pattern code, these rules find and
change vi and s-b in a host of different
contexts, whenever the shortcut letters appear as a word. By pairing the
initial letter v with the I boundary code, we match the
shortcut Vi at the start of a sentence. The first letter of
the shortcut remains in the target chapter, with the same case as it had
in the source chapter. Villainous and has-been
don't satisfy the Q pattern code, so you don't end up with nonsense.
However, if your text contains Roman numeral six, you're in trouble. As
always, it's important to know your data before you start writing
rules.
Find: {}#
Pattern: Xo#
Change to: #
Find: {}#
Pattern: xx#
Change to: #
The first rule matches the beginning of a JustText
command. The initial left brace is paired with uppercase X, so it remains
in the target chapter. The right brace, when paired with departing o,
means: delete any character except the right brace. This rule
is executed repeatedly, so it deletes each character in the JustText
command until all that's left are the initial and final braces. The
second rule deletes this residue.
Pattern: x#
Change to: <space>$l <space>#
Find: <ESC> O#
Pattern: cw#
Change to: #
Find: <space>$l <space>#
Pattern: xxxx#
Change to: <CR>#
These rules demonstrate another important technique
for Replace characters, both basic and contextual: temporarily
protecting a character from being changed. The first rule
changes <CR> to the new-line ( $l ) indicator. The only
control characters that remain are ones you don't want, so the second rule
deletes them. The third rule reverses the action of the first rule,
changing the new-line indicators back to hard <CR> s.
Pattern: prompt. The original rule looked like this:
Find: blind#
Pattern: xxxxx#
Change to: vision <space> impaired#
The next sample functions identically to this rule,
using the pattern string shortcut:
Find: blind#
Pattern: #
Change to: vision <space> impaired#
Caution! The Y and Z do not automatically
reverse the case of the find string partner letter. Y forces
an uppercase letter, and Z forces a lowercase letter. With the exception
of their case-changing abilities, Y and Z follow the rules for boundary
pattern codes.
^ character means: insert the change to string
characters at this point. With this special pattern code, you can
Find: 4321.#
Pattern: N^NNNQ#
Change to: ,#
This rule matches any four numbers, followed by
punctuation or a delimiter, and inserts a comma between the first and
second numbers. This takes care of a lot of cases. It doesn't matter
whether the numbers are whole or followed by two decimal places or whether
it's prec $$ by a dollar sign. However, this rule only works for
numbers in the thousands: when your data contains millions and billions,
you need to write more rules.
Find: -4321.#
Pattern: ON^NNNQ#
Change to: ,#
That's better! Now the rule matches four digits
followed by a space or delimiter, and inserts a comma between the first
and second digits, unless the first number is preceded by a
hyphen.
Find: A#
Pattern: ^Z#
Change to: #
The find string contains the letter A.
When paired with the boundary pattern code Z, this means find every letter
and make it lowercase. A pattern string can not consist totally of
boundary codes. We precede the Z with the caret, to mean insert the
change to characters here then pull the sneaky trick of creating an
empty change to string. No text is inserted; the target chapter contains
all lowercase letters.
%%% makes a good on string, and three ampersands
&&& makes a good off string. In part 7, we
discuss the FIX TEXT contextual transformation chapter, which
reformats textfiles into BEX chapters. When your textfile contains tabular
material, FIX TEXT would cause havoc. As supplied on your BEXtras disk,
FIX TEXT does not have on or off strings. When reformatting tabular
textfiles, insert explicit on and off strings in the data and in FIX TEXT.
_. underbar, period. The first word in a passage
longer than three begins with the double boldface _.. underbar, two periods, and then the single boldface
indicator precedes the last bold word.. the italics
indicator to a boldface indicator. The on and off strings prevent
every italic sign from changing to boldface. This means that
the only time italics signs are changed to boldface signs is when the
italics signs appear between $$ub $$eb and $$uf $$ec.
Find: <space> $$eb <space>#
Change to: <space>$$ub $$eb <space>#
Find: <space> $$ec <space># $$uf
Change to: <space> $$ec <space>#
Now you are ready to translate your inkprint into
grade 2 or grade 1 braille. The translator places italics signs
appropriately between all $$ub and $$uf underlining commands.
Enter terminator: #
Find: #
Contextual replace
On string: $$p-1 $$ub $$eb# $$uf
Off string: $$p-1 $$ec#
Find: <space>.#
Pattern: B^X#
Change to: _#
Find: #
Pattern: #
Continue? Y <CR>
The first find string character, <space>, when
paired with a boundary B, defines the context at the beginning of a word.
The period, when paired with boundary pattern code X, defines the first
character of an italicized word in braille. There may be two italics signs
or only one, but we actually don't care: we just want to insert the
underbar that changes the italics sign to a boldface sign. Warning! When you include the w wildcard
pattern code in a transformation chapter that uses on and off strings,
it's easy to "eat" your on and off strings by mistake. Suppose your
off string is #stop and one rule contains three w departing
pattern codes in a row. When Replace characters encounters
<space># it satisfies the rule, and the first two
characters of your off string depart--and your replacement never turns
off! The solution is to avoid the w wildcard. In this situation, it's
safe to substitute the o departing pattern code paired with number sign.
That way the off string is not affected by the replacement.
<space> ABC because
BEX hasn't encountered the full off string yet. But if your change deletes
the A, B, or C, you can find
yourself in deep trouble, because the full off string no longer exists.
You have to be careful when pulling this trick; we only use this technique
to insert material.
Enter terminator: #
Find: #
Contextual replace
On string: $$p-1 $$h#
Off string: <space>$l <space>#
Find: d <space>$l#
Pattern: WbXX#
Find: #
Pattern: #
Continue? Y <CR>
Starting to replace ...
The first character in the find string, when paired
with the boundary pattern code W, stands in for last character of the
heading. The next three characters are three-fourths of the off string,
but the missing last fourth is enough of an overlap to make the
transformation possible.
MAKE CON
on your BEXtras disk helps you transform a basic Replace transformation
chapter into a contextual transformation chapter. It places its own on and
off strings, which are the same character, then removes them at the end.
MAKE CON clearly shows just how far you can push contextual Replace! We
won't attempt to explain how it works, but it does work.HARPO whose terminator is vertical bar.
As supplied on the BEXtras disk, MAKE CON assumes that the basic Replace
terminator is vertical bar. Edit HARPO and insert two characters at the
beginning: <control-A> <space>ZEPPO and the
transformation chapter is MAKE CON. Once the transformation is finished,
edit ZEPPO. Delete the <control-A> <space> at the
start, and insert three terminators there. Advance to the end and add two
terminators. Presto! ZEPPO is now a contextual transformation chapter.
Enter terminator: #
Find: #
Contextual replace
On string: #
Off string: #
Find: <space>$p <space>#
Pattern: #
Change to: <control-P>#
Find: <space>$l <space>#
Pattern: #
Change to: <control-L>#
Find: <space> A <space>#
Pattern: Q^LQ#
Change to: $$p-1<space>#
Find: $$p-1<space> A <space>#
Pattern: XXXXBLQ^#
Change to: <space><space>#
Find: $$p-1<space>#
Pattern: #
Change to: $$p-1<space>#
Find: $$p-1<space>#
Pattern: #
Change to: $$p-1<space>#
Find: <control-L>#
Pattern: #
Change to: <space>$l <space>#
Find: <control-P>#
Pattern: #
Change to: <space>$p <space>#
Find: #
Pattern: #
The first two and last two rules work fine. The first
two temporarily change the new-line and paragraph indicators to control
characters, so the ( $l ) and ( $p ) are out of
harm's Q^LQ# was the source of the problem. We thought one rule
could catch both single letters alone and single letters in quotes. But
the final two characters in a word like don't also satisfied
the pattern code. Fortunately, we used different source and target chapter
names, so we just sighed and laughed at ourselves. (In fact, we were so
embarrassed that we just made the changes manually. Everyone has a bad day
sometime.)
Illegal
and throws away both the find
and bogus pattern strings you've just entered. BEX reprompts
Find: to give you a chance to do it right.Character
counts are not equal and again discards the most recent find and
pattern strings. Then BEX reprompts Find: to give you another
chance. Finally, when your pattern string contains all boundary codes, but
it doesn't contain the caret, then BEX beeps twice, prompts Pattern
string needs caret or one departing code and ignores the most
recent find and pattern strings. Again, BEX reprompts Find:
and waits for your next attempt.<space><terminator> as a pattern string and BEX
rebels, giving you an opportunity to try again.DUMB TRANS transformation chapter:
The first rule changes every <space> to an
at-sign. The second rule's pattern string does not contain any of the
34 valid pattern codes. You ask BEX to use this DUMB TRANS chapter to
Replace characters in the RESUME chapter. Once you specify the different
target chapter, like RESUME-TEST, and commence replacing, you hear an
enormous number of clicks as BEX changes all the spaces to at-signs. Then
you hear two beeps and the Illegal character in pattern
string error message. Next, you hear and see a BEX program function
that's usually hidden from you; BEX saving the binary file of the
target chapter page. The last thing you hear is Replaced 408
times after BEX has saved the imperfectly replaced RESUME-TEST
chapter. If the RESUME chapter had two pages, you would hear the error
message twice.Continue? Y prompt, BEX almost instantly
tells you Replaced 0 times and allows you to save the
transformation chapter. You can save it to disk, or even in the Ready
chapter, and then edit the transformation chapter you've just created.
("a," "b," and "c").
Enter terminator: #
Contextual Replace
On string: #
Off string: #
Find: "a"<space>#
Pattern: xLXB#
Change to: <control-T><space>#
Find: "a".#
Pattern: xLXP#
Change to: <control-T><space>#
Find: "a."<space>#
Pattern: xLPXB#
Change to: <control-T><space>#
Find: <space><control-T>#
Pattern: xx#
Change to: <space>#
Find: $$ub<space>a"<space>#
Pattern: XXXXBLxB#
Change to: <space>#
Find: $$ub<space>a".#
Pattern: XXXXBLxP#
Change to: <control-T><control-T>#
Pattern: XXXXBLPxB#
Change to: <space>#
Find: #
Pattern: #<space><control-T> and the fourth rule
deletes this unnecesary <control-T>. The moral is: when a few rules
can insert more than you need, you can then delete the
"extra" later on in the transformation chapter.
Find: {}}}}}#
Pattern: Xooooo#
Change to: #
Find: {}}}#
Pattern: Xooo#
Change to: #
Pattern: Xo#
Change to: #
Find: {}#
Pattern: xx#
Change to: #
The first rule deletes a six-character JustText
command in one swipe; the second deletes a four-character command; the
third deletes any commands that are left, and the fourth rule again
deletes the residual braces. The second version accomplishes the same task
in around half the time as the first.
Enter terminator: and
Continue? Y prompts. Whenever possible, use <CR> as
your terminator. It makes moving around in the Editor much simpler since
you can control-G and control-R between strings. To move to the next rule,
you enter control-A 3 control-L.WHITE contextual transformation chapter; its terminator is
the vertical bar:
Main: R
Replace
Chapter: WHITE <CR>
Chapter: <CR>
Target chapter: WHITE <CR>
Use transformation chapter: <CR>
Enter terminator: <CR>
Find: |<CR>
Change to: |<CR>
Find: <CR>
Continue? Y <CR>
Starting to replace ...
All this replacement does is change the vertical bar
terminator to itself. When it's finished, BEX announces
Replaced # times and lets you save the transformation
chapter. That # corresponds to the number of terminators in the
transformation chapter; when it is divisible by three, then you have
probably put terminators in all the right places.DEV and
WHITE will be the name for the final transformation chapter.
Once the DEV chapter is ready, you go through this dialogue:
Main: R
Replace
Chapter: DEV <CR>
Chapter: <CR>
Target chapter: WHITE <CR>
Use transformation chapter: <CR>
Enter terminator: #
Find: <CR>#
Change to: |#
Find: ~#
Change to: <CR>#
Find: #
Continue? Y <CR>
Starting to replace ...
FIX TEXT contextual transformation chapter on your BEXtras
disk. It's a pretty stinky sample, since FIX TEXT contains <CR>
s as data, several other control characters, and BEX $$ commands. (We have
an ulterior motive for picking this sample; in Part 7 of this Section, we
analyze how FIX TEXT works.)
Replace
Chapter: FIX TEXT <CR>
Chapter: <CR>
Target chapter: PRINTABLE FT <CR>
Use transformation chapter: <CR>
Enter terminator: <control-H>
Warning! Arrow keys used as data!
Enter terminator: #
Find: <CR>#
Change to: m#
Find: <control-H>#
Change to: h#
Find: <control-T>#
Change to: t#
Find: <control-J>#
Change to: j#
Find: /#
Change to: /<CR>#
Find: <space>#
Change to: *#
Find: #
Continue? Y <CR>
Starting to replace
Replaced 155 times
Save transformation chapter: SHOW CODES <CR>
Remembering back to User Level Section 8, the left
and right arrow keys are generally used to correct your strings as you
type them directly. When you need to include <control-H> and
<control-U> in your strings, you press the left arrow at the
Enter terminator: prompt, as shown above. From that point,
you have to type your rules perfectly, since you can't use the left and
right arrow to fix mistakes.PRINTABLE
FT chapter, you must edit it and insert the $$z command at the very
beginning.
FIX TEXT and SP2 are two
contextual transformation chapters on your BEXtras disk. In this Part, we
examine what they do and how they do it.
the first four characters match the seventh rule, so
your data is transformed to
(<space> d <control-H>_e
<control-H>_s <control-H>_pair)
The eighth rule changes the
$$ub<space> to
<control-T><control-T> The initial
<control-T> means BEX's formatter recognizes the underline begin
command; the final <control-T> means the Grade 2 translator
recognizes the end of the $$ command, so the following characters are
translated.@@text
for the on string and @@lines for the off string. Edit a copy
of FIX TEXT. Place your cursor on the third slash; press control-I, type
the six characters @@text and press right arrow. Now press
control-I, type the seven characters @@lines and press right
arrow again.@@text at the first occurrence of
non-tabular material in your source chapter. When you @@lines immediately before it and
@@text immediately after it. Now you can use Replace
characters on the modified source chapter, with the modified FIX TEXT as
your transformation chapter; it won't destroy the format of tables.@@lines the on string and @@text
the off string. The last step is removing @@lines and
@@text from the transformed chapter. Naturally, you write a
transformation chapter that just deletes the on and off strings.
SP2 is on the BEXtras disk. (We originally thought of calling
it SPACE THE FINAL FRONTIER, but that's a lot to type.) Use SP2
whenever you want to create appropriately formatted typewriter-like print
output. The rules in this chapter delete all occurrences of two spaces,
then add two spaces after sentences, then delete two spaces after
abbreviations.
Find: prompt to
get into contextual Replace. Number of terminators in contextual Replace
transformation chapter must be divisible by three. Total number of
terminators is three times the number of transformation rules plus six.
First two characters are terminators, then (optionally) on string,
terminator, off string, terminator. When on string is present, then
contextual Replace begins off. End list of rules with three
terminators.Pattern string: prompt means an exact match, equivalent to
pattern code of all lowercase x! - exclamation" - double quote# - number sign$ - dollar sign% - percent& - ampersand (or and)' - apostrophe( - left parenthesis) - right parenthesis* - asterisk (or star)+ - plus, - comma- - hyphen (or dash). - period/ - slash: - colon; - semicolon< - less-than= - equals> - greater-than? - question mark@ - at-sign[ - left bracket\ - backslash] - right bracket (or ready)^ - caret (or up-arrow)_ - underline` - grave accent{ - left brace| - vertical line (or vertical bar)} - right brace~ - tilde 7 Auto Chapters
VOICE ON and VOICE OFF auto chapters. But you can only create auto chapters at the Master Level.
Naming method: prompt or any other BEX prompt. You can't create or use an auto chapter at the Starting Menu.
Use entire list? N even if there's only one chapter on the disk. In Section 4, we explain the period code for the target chapter naming method. When you place a period between the drive number and the naming method letter(s), BEX can correctly interpret a naming method even if it's prompting for Target chapter name: instead. These two features make it easier to write auto chapters that work the same way whether there are one or 10 source chapters.
Start remember mode and begins storing every key you press in a special buffer.
Auto chapter: BEX copies the buffer full of keystrokes to the chapter name you provide.
SlotBuster: Control-R is the SlotBuster's enter line review command. You can't type control-R to start remember mode, because SCAT gets the command first. Pressing asterisk (shift eight) is the same as pressing control-R. 64K Apple: The limit on the keystrokes in an auto chapter is 256.
Main: control-R
Start remember mode
Main: S
Second: K
Kill chapters
Chapter: ] <CR>
Chapter: <CR>
O K to proceed? N Y <CR>
Chapter ] done
Second: J
Main: control-S Main: control-A
Auto chapter: 1ZAP <CR>
Cancel remember mode and abandons the keystrokes it was remembering.
Main: control-R
Start remember mode
Main: D
Which drive? 2 <CR>
Cannot read the disk
Disk error!
Cancelling remember mode
Main:
Auto chapter: At all levels, you must type in the name. You can't scan the disk for an auto chapter. Once you have given the chapter name, your typing at the keyboard is ignored, because the Apple is getting its input from the auto chapter. The Apple speaker clicks each time the Apple accepts a character. You also hear all of the messages and prompts that you would hear if you were typing things in.
RUN does not restart it.
where you want the Echo to stop talking, and insert where you want speech to turn on again.
$$s3$$l2$$ml5$$vf$$rDraft -<Del>-
] as your name so you can edit it right away in the Ready chapter. Now, locate for DRAFT on your program disk. Whenever you want to create a proof copy, press control-A and type 1DRAFT <CR> When the printout's done, BEX is ready for you to edit the Ready chapter; your cursor is waiting at character position 0.
AW-TRANS chapter on the disk in drive 45. The replaced target chapters are written on drive 45, so we can take the disk downstairs for brailling. The final step is to print the ALERT chapter; this chapter just contains ten SK45/*<CR>Y<CR>Y<CR>R44<CR>Y<CR>46.A M-DD<CR>JR46/D<CR>Y<CR>46.S<CR>45AW-TRANS<CR><CR>G46/D<CR>Y<CR>45.S<CR>P45ALERT<CR><CR>SW<CR><Del>
Auto chapter: we respond with ] <CR> and wander away. In around 15 minutes, we hear ten beeps and we know the information is ready to braille.
8 Input/Output Commands
Do you have a braille device for all the material going to the screen? When you answer Y then you have configured the braille channel. After you have, control-B B D deactivates the braille channel, and control-B B A turns it back on again. In the Editor, you can turn off output to the braille channel with control-S B. When you want braille channel output again, entering control-S B a second time does the trick. As with the voice channel, you can only turn the braille channel off in the Editor when it's on to begin with. 9 Changing Your BEX Disk MESSAGES on the Boot disk. As shipped to you, the messages are fairly formal. You can change Main Menu: to What now, hey: if you like, thereby giving your BEX a beatnik personality.
ZQFOR contains the forward translation table used in grade 2 translation. Chapter ZQREV contains the reverse translation table, used in Back translate from grade 2.
MESSAGES.A for the Learner Level, MESSAGES.B for the User Level, and MESSAGES.C for the Master Level. When you edit this chapter, make sure that the page file extension letters follow this pattern.
The
^ instructs BEX to send a <CR> only to the voice channel. Some voice devices won't speak until they get a <CR>, so almost every prompt ends with caret. If you remove the caret, then you won't get immediate voice output with DECtalk or Votrax.
~ character marks a <CR> that only appears in 80-column or 40-column non-HI-RES screen modes. When you use any large print screen mode, the tilde in the MESSAGES chapter has no effect. In addition to the Start new? Y
RUN 999
Drive number or chapter name:
Main: with My wish is your command, Milady You could change Target chapter: to Phasers locked on target!
Page: prompts when you need to enter a BEX page number. You Page: if you added Echo commands. Replace the 17th entry in the MESSAGES chapter with:
Page: signals the menu prompt, while the low-pitched Page: means a page number.
ZQFOR to your text. The two page chapter ZQFOR is located on the Main side of your BEX program. ZQFOR rules are in a particular format that drives the translation process. Changing the table will change the way the translator works. You might want to change the table to improve the translator or to add your own, nonstandard rules to it. We would appreciate receiving information about any problems you find with the existing Grade 2 translator.
Warning! Changing ZQFOR may result in program crashes. Never contemplate making translator changes without making a backup copy. To make a backup copy, copy chapter ZQFOR to a data disk.
haddS - prevents the use of the dd contraction in favor of the had contraction in the word haddock.
N,NE1Z1 changes a comma in between numbers (like in 100,000) to the computer braille for comma, then changes the before character from a comma to a number to keep the translator from inserting an unneeded number sign before the 000. There are special meanings for certain characters after the Z. These are:
bVVX copies the b to the output, but not the two vowels afterward that matched. The rule QbeLLLE2 replaces the be with the computer braille 2 (dropped b).
ZQREV translation table chapter before making any changes. Failure to make a backup copy can cause frustrating circumstances.
! the the sign. After the table for @ comes the 26 letters, followed by the section for getting out of computer braille.