Hints

Send us your hints and tips on any aspect of using RISC OS itself or RISC OS products

[Here is a short selection of hints from volume 1 of Foundation RISC User.]

Click to jump to the following hints:

A hidden feature in Draw

Aaron Timbrell
One of the nice features of vector drawing packages like ArtWorks is that they make it very easy to produce smooth curves. If you chain a string of Bézier curves together, then the control points are adjusted on either side of the join so that it's invisible. Similarly, in ArtWorks, when you drag on a curved segment's control point, the corresponding control point of the next curved segment moves as well (unless you specifically prevent this from happening), meaning that the curve remains smooth and even.

In Draw, the situation is somewhat different. Although the control points are adjusted to make a smooth curve when you are placing curved segments in a path initially, this does not happen when you subsequently edit the path. Then, when you drag on an orange control point, the smooth join is destroyed, and you end up with an ugly point which you have to try to straighten out by eye.

One of the lesser-known features of Draw, though, is that you can get it to mimic ArtWorks' default behaviour: just hold Shift down while you're dragging an orange control point, and the corresponding control point on the next curved segment will move at the same time, keeping the join smooth. In fact, it's even more flexible than that. You do, of course, sometimes want to have a pointed join between curved segments. If you have created one, then dragging on an orange control point with Shift held down doesn't straighten out the join; it moves the corresponding control point such than the angle between them remains constant. This is both logical and very handy.

Launching multiple files

Richard Hallas
A feature of RISC OS which is often overlooked is its ability to open multiple files with a single drag operation. For instance, dragging a selection of items (files, directories and applications, say) from a filer window onto an unused portion of the icon bar will cause the directories to be opened, the files to be loaded into appropriate editors and the applications to be run, all in one quick and easy motion.

The same is true for dragging files into applications; if you have a lot of HTML files, say, you can drag them all to your Web browser's icon (or to Edit, say, to view the source code) to open them all simultaneously. The effect is the same as dragging all the files sequentially to the application in question, but is an awful lot quicker than dragging icons one by one.

RISC OS 4 Invaders RISC OS Invaders

RISCOS Ltd
Fed up with work? Need a quick diversion? Why not fire up RISC OS Invaders, the shoot-'em-up 'Easter Egg' game built into RISC OS 4?

Yes, it really does exist. To play the game, just go to Basic (either from the command line or from a task window) and enter the following:

    SYS "OS_Module",2,"IRQUtils"

The command is provided on this CD as a one-line Basic program; you might like to save it to your hard disc for easy access.

The game starts as soon as you execute the above command, and you'll find yourself as an 'alert triangle ship' at the bottom of the screen, firing at filer icons that are weaving their way down the screen towards you. Use the following keys to control your 'ship':

Z ... Left
X ... Right
Return ... Fire

New filetype icons appear with successive waves, and as they change they require more hits to be destroyed, so you'll need to be fast and accurate. Don't let them reach the bottom of the screen, or it's game over. It is possible to win the game. Have fun!

RISC OS 3 users: sorry, but there aren't any hidden games in your version of the operating system. Another excellent incentive to upgrade to RISC OS 4!

Multi-window operations in RISC OS 4

RISCOS Ltd
A couple of undocumented operations exist in the RISC OS 4 window manager, which might sometimes prove handy. They are as follows:

Multiple close: <Ctrl-Alt-Select> on a window's Close tool
Multiple iconise: <Ctrl-Alt-Select> on a window's Iconise tool

In other words, if you want to close lots of windows quickly, click <Ctrl-Alt-Select> on any window's Close tool.

More usefully, to iconise lots of windows simultaneously, click <Ctrl-Alt-Select> on any window's Iconise tool.

Note that these operations only work on similar windows; that is, a multiple-close operation will only affect windows that have Close tools, and multiple-iconise operations will only affect windows with Iconise tools. Note also that the multiple-iconise operation only works on Iconise tools: although clicking <Shift-Select> on a window's Close tool will iconise it, clicking <Shift-Ctrl-Alt-Select> on a Close tool will not perform the multiple-iconise operation. (It will do a multiple-close instead.)