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MultiView

MultiView lets you view files, including picture files, text files, AmigaGuide help files, sound files, and animated graphics files. It can display any type of file for which there is a data type file in DEVS:DataTypes. For more information on the data types used by MultiView, see page 4-28.

MultiView uses a standard file requester for loading files. You can load files into MultiView using the file requester provided or, because the MultiView window is an AppWindow, you can drag icons onto MultiView to load them.

When you loaded a standard Amiga sampled sound file into MultiView, clicking on the file's icon plays the sampled sound if your Amiga or monitor has speakers.

When you load an animated file into MultiView, the window or screen on which the animation is displayed has a control panel for manipulating the display. The control panel gadgets allow you to start and stop the animation and move forward or backward through it. This screen is illustrated in Figure 4-6.

Figure 4-6.

MultiView with Animation Control Panel

MultiView has four menus: Project, Edit, Windows, and Settings.

Project Menu

Open

Brings up a file requester to allow you to choose another file to display.

Save As

Saves object as ILBM or text files.

Print

Prints selected blocks or files.

About

Shows the MultiView release information and the type of document being viewed.

Quit

Quits MultiView.

Edit Menu

Mark

Turns on the block selection cursor and lets you select a block. (This is only available for picture files.)

Copy

Copies selected block to the Clipboard and deselects the block. If no block is selected, copies the whole file.

Select All

Selects the whole file.

Clear Selected

Clears the selected block or file without copying or printing.

Windows Menu

Use Separate Screen

Toggles between displaying the file on its own screen and in a window on the Workbench screen.

Minimize

Make the window as small as it can be.

Normal

Sizes the window to the contents size.

Maximize

Makes the window the same size as the screen.

Settings Menu

Save As Defaults

Saves the size, position, and location of the window for future use.

Tool Types

MultiView supports the following Tool Types:

CLIPBOARD

View The Clipboard instead of the file.

CLIPUNIT=<number>

Specify the Clipboard unit to use when using the CLIPBOARD keyword. The range is 0 to 255; the default is 0.

SCREEN

Indicate that you want the object to appear on its own screen, using the environment specified by the object. For example, if an ILBM was Low Res, then the screen would match.

PUBSCREEN=<name>

Indicate that you want the window to open on the named public screen.

FONTNAME=<name>

Font to use when viewing text objects. Note that the .font extension must be left off.

FONTSIZE=<number>

Font size to use when viewing text objects.

BOOKMARK

Go to the object and position specified by the bookmark.

BACKDROP

Indicate that the window should be a backdrop window.

WINDOW

Open the MultiView window on the Workbench screen without an object so that items can be dragged into it.

PORTNAME=<ARexx port name>

Allows you to specify an ARexx port name when you run MultiView. This name allows you to refer to a particular MultiView display from within an ARexx script. If no name is specified, each MultiView invocation is given a default name.

For more information on using MultiView with ARexx, see the AmigaDOS User's Guide.

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