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Prefix 1.0
The Header Construction Program
(c) 1990, 1991 Atari Corporation
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INTRODUCTION

Prefix is a small GEM based program that is designed to assist 
Developers in creating and attaching headers to Control Panel 
Extensions (CPXs). If you aren't familar with Atari's Extensible
Control Panel and it's software interface, please read the 
Developer Specification. It can be downloaded in text format from 
CompuServe, GEnie or can be acquired from Atari's Developer Support
Group at (408) 745-2568.


RUNNING PREFIX

To use Prefix, run the program from the desktop by double-clicking
on it. Since you are all knowledgeable developers, we will assume 
that you have no problems do this! 
 

OK, I AM IN PREFIX, NOW WHAT?

Probably the first thing you will want to do is edit a header. To
do this, select the "Edit Header" menu item under the "Header" drop
down menu. 

Wow!  A large dialog box appeared! This is the main interface for
editing the contents of your header. You can enter the Title for 
your CPX, the Icon Text, the version number (the default is 01.00),
the CPX ID value, etc. You can also set various flags for the CPX
you are creating. For example, if you would like your CPX to be 
loaded as a RAM resident CPX, you could click on the small box in
front of the words "Ram Resident" under the Flags option. There are
other flags that are available to be turned on or off for your CPX.
These flags are described in detail in the XControl Specification.

The last section of the dialog box is the Icon Information section.
This the area in which you can load an Icon or view your CPXs 
Entry in the XControl Panel. When you look at this box, one of the
first things you might notice is the medium sized amount of white 
space located to the left of the "Load Icon" button. This is because
Prefix displays a copy of the icon you have loaded in that space.
You can load an icon by clicking on the "Load Icon" button and 
selecting a filename from the File Selector. Once Prefix has loaded
your icon into memory, it will display it in the space to the left
of the "Load Icon" button.

The last button in this area is "View CPX Entry." This button will 
take you to a smaller dialog box that allows you to see just what 
your CPX's entry will look like! Handy, eh? Underneath the sample 
of your CPX's entry, there are sliders to allow you to change the 
Icon and Text Color in your CPX's entry. You can change the default
colors that are displayed in XControl by simply changing these
values. If you decided that you don't want the values you have 
selected, click on the CANCEL button and they will return to whatever
the previous value was (the default colors are 1 and 1). The CPX 
Entry dialog is also accessible from the "Header" drop-down menu 
by clicking on the menu item "View CPX Entry." If you have accessed
the View CPX Dialog from the Edit Header menu option, clicking CANCEL
or OK in the View CPX Entry Dialog will return you to the Edit 
Header Dialog Box.

Last but not least, clicking CANCEL in the Edit Header Dialog Box 
will cancel _any_ changes you made in the Header at all. This 
includes and color changes you have made in the View CPX Entry!
Be careful..

THE FILE MENU

The "File" drop-down menu is pretty simple. It is broken down 
into four sections:

 -	"Load .HDR" and "Save .HDR" are the two options that handle
	the loading and saving of Header files. the .HDR extension
 	is used to designate a Header file. After selecting either 
	or these menu items, you will be presented with a File 
	Selector. Just select the file you wish to use.

 -	"Load from .CPX" and "Save to .CPX" allow you to use the 
	Headers that already been attached to a CPX file. Both 
	options work in the same manner as "Load .HDR" and "Save
	.HDR" described above.

 -	"Attach to .CP" will probably be your most used menu item
	here. This is the guts of Prefix: Attaching a .HDR file to
	a .CP (NOTE: a .CP file is a CPX file that does not have 
	a header attached. When you compile your CPX with your 
	compiler, you would create a .CP file, then use Prefix to
	create a header and attach it to create the CPX file). It
	will first ask you to select the name of the Header File,
	then the name of the .CP file, and finally the name of 
	the final CPX. All input is done from a standard File
	Selector.

 -	"Quit" is self-documenting. It allows you to exit the program.
	One small note, the program will ask you if you would like
	to Quit if you have made any changes. 

That describes all of the options available in the "File" menu.
One last thing to note: if you select a filename that already
exists on a "write-to-disk" option, Prefix will ask you if you
would like to overwrite the file via an Alert Box. Click on 
Yes or No depending on what you want to do. This may come in 
handy if you mess up and select the wrong file.

FINAL NOTES

Some of you may have noticed that there is no provision to edit
the magic number in the header. This is done on purpose. This 
number is the equivalent of a "header version number" for the
Control Panel. If we decide to make changes to the Header format,
we can change this number to let the Control Panel know it is
handling a new header type. 

Last but not least, this is version 1.0 of this program. I am 
planning to add default directories, installed application 
features, command lines, etc. to this program in the near future.
If you have suggestions for Prefix, I would like to hear them.
This program is not intended to be a solution to all and I am 
sure that there are people out there who will write their own 
Prefix type programs. But, if you have a suggestion or know of 
a way that Prefix could be improved, please feel free to drop me
a line and let me know!

-- John Townsend
   Atari Corporation
   GEnie: 	TOWNS
   USEnet:	towns@atari.uucp



