Section 13 of this User Guide is devoted to AMOS Professional Accessories. This Chapter explains how to manipulate the Configuration files to change the default settings of AMOS Professional itself. The other Chapters in this Section each deal with a specific accessory program, allowing the editing, creation or management of various AMOS Professional features.
Accessories are special utility programs that can be called up "over" another program that is being edited or tested, without disrupting anything that is "underneath". Any memory banks that are employed by the accessory program are totally independent of the main program. Existing data can be loaded from memory, disc or "grabbed" directly from other programs. Please see the BGRAB command, and the associated techniques as explained in Chapter 5.9.
When accessory programs are displayed over the current program screen, any music is suspended, and Objects are automatically removed from the screen. Your accessory program should check the suitability of the current screen during its initialisation, using the various SCREEN functions, or use the DEFAULT command to erase the existing screens altogether.
The IFF Picture Compactor accessory is detailed in Chapter 6.2, the Font Editor accessory is examined in Chapter 11.1, and the following Chapters cover the Object Editor, the Menu Editor, the Disc Manager, the AMAL Editor, the Sample Bank Maker and the Resource Creator, in that order.
The use of the [AMOS] main menu, regarding loaded accessory programs is explained in Chapter 4.1.
Defining a new accessory
Additional Editor accessory programs can be defined, provided that the program to be defined
as an accessory is a hidden program (with no window from the Editor), and that the program is
called from the Editor via the [AMOS] main menu or via a "Program to Menu" operation.
SET ACCESSORY
instruction: define an accessory program
Set Accessory
A program becomes an accessory by the simple inclusion of a SET ACCESSORY command in its listing, preferably immediately after a SET BUFFER instruction. The new accessory has the ability to communicate with the Editor, using the following two instructions.
CALL EDITOR
instruction: send instructions to the Editor from an accessory program
Call Editor function
Call Editor function,parameter,parameter$
Use this command to send instructions to the Editor. The function parameter refers to a special number, which is understood by the Editor to refer to a particular function. A list of all available functions, along with their code numbers, is featured in the [Editor] Help menu.