Short: Ancient MultiBoot for AmigaDOS Author: PLL Developments Uploader: aminet aminet net Type: util/boot Version: 1.1 Requires: execute Architecture: m68k-amigaos ## ## ## ## ## ###### ## ##### #### #### ###### ###### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ###### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## #### ##### ## ## ##### #### #### ## V1.1 MultiBoot V1.1 (27-Mar-93) Copyright (c) 1990-1993 PLL Developments All rights reserved A TimeZone Release 1 CONTENTS ============ This LhA Archive contains the following files: Directory MultiBoot - MultiBoot program + documents MultiBoot 9316 - MultiBoot V1.1 MultiBoot.doc 9265 - MultiBoot Documents V1.1 MultiBoot.doc.info 766 - Icon for MultiBoot Docs 2 INTRODUCTION ================ There are currently a lot of programs which allows you to startup other programs/startup-sequences from a menu with a simple click of a mouse button. However, most of them are generally quite large, refuse to run certain programs properly, or in the worst case, have music and graphics attached and are very memory hungry, so they become pretty unusable to run from harddisk. MultiBoot is a small no-nonsense program which allows you to (multi)select multiple startup-sequences/programs from (hard)disk during boot. It is very easy to use, fully intuitionized and configurable and it even has a timeout for unattended operations. 3 INSTALLATION ================ MultiBoot will run on any Amiga system with any KickStart and isn't limited to be just a WB1.3 or WB2.0 tool. MultiBoot requires the command Execute and the 'StartUps' below (spelled EXACTLY as shown) to operate. The command Execute is located in the c: directory on your Workbench disk. If MultiBoot can't find Execute in your c: directory, it will also look in the current directory or your path for the command. In fact, you can copy MultiBoot in any directory you like, but I recommend to copy it into c: also, for the best operation. MultiBoot looks in your s: directory if it can find the following files: StartUp.1 StartUp.2 StartUp.3 StartUp.4 StartUp.5 StartUp.6 StartUp.7 StartUp.8 StartUp.9 StartUp.10 StartUp.11 StartUp.12 StartUp.Default These files are your alternate startup-sequences. Since Execute processes these files, the format is exactly the same as your 'normal' startup-sequence which is located in your s: directory and can be edited with your favourite text-editor or word-processor. As you can see, twelve different startup-sequences are possible, with one additional startup-sequence, StartUp.Default, which is executed after MultiBoot times out. If MultiBoot can't find a StartUp, an appropriate error message will be generated. Since MultiBoot's command line arguments are rather long to type in every time, you have to add the line 'MultiBoot' with the optional arguments to your 'normal' startup-sequence. MultiBoot isn't limited to be just the first or the last entry in your startup-sequence, in fact, it could be anywhere! 4 THE ARGUMENTS ================= You can get MultiBoot's command template by typing from CLI: MultiBoot ? The following text is displayed on screen: Usage: MultiBoot [ colour] Watch the syntax! Everything between <> MUST exist and everything between [] is optional. <text1 ... text12> are the texts of the twelve gadgets that will be displayed in a window on screen. Yes, you counted right, that takes at least 12 arguments each separated by a single space to let MultiBoot function! Followed by, [<timeout> <title> colour] which is optional and let you specify the window timeout, title and colour. Note that if you specify timeout, you don't have to include title and colour, if you want to specify title, you MUST specify timeout but don't have to include colour, if you want to specify colour, you MUST specify timeout and title! If you have typed the correct number of arguments, the MultiBoot window pops up in the upper left corner of the screen, waiting for you to select a gadget. Here, you can multi-select the gadgets, which will startup your predefined StartUps (s:StartUp.1, s:StartUp.2 ... s:StartUp.Default) in logical order (from StartUp.1 to StartUp.12 or in the MultiBoot window from upper left to lower right). StartUp.Default is intended for unattended operations and will be invoked after MultiBoot times out. If you have selected your gadgets, you can click the big OK gadget and all selected startups will be executed. If you select no gadgets and just click on the OK gadget NO startups will be executed. Alternatively, if you select a few gadgets and press the close gadget in the upper left corner of the window, again NO startups will be executed. <text1 ... text12> ------------------ These twelve arguments let you specify the texts in the gadgets. (text1 refers to s:Startup.1, text2 refers to s:StartUp.2 etc.) You can type a maximum of 10 characters in one gadget. If your string is larger than 10 characters, things will get very ugly. Note that you can quote your text to center your text or to make blank gadgets. <timeout> --------- The number of seconds you want MultiBoot to execute StartUp.Default. Use 0 seconds if you want no timeout. The default timeout is 10 seconds. That means that you have exactly ten seconds to select the appropriate gadgets and click the OK button or else StartUp.Default will be executed. If you want to suspend the countdown, you can just click outside the MultiBoot window. The window will be ghosted and the countdown stops until you click in the MultiBoot window again. <title> ------- Let you specify the window title of MultiBoot. You can type a maximum of 29 characters. The default text displays MultiBoot's current version number and compilation date. <colour> -------- Let you specify the window background colour. Use values 0-3 on a four colour WorkBench screen. Use Value 1 if you are using WorkBench 1.3. Use value 2 if you are using WorkBench 2.0 (the colours are reversed). The default value is 2. 5 EXAMPLE =========== Currently I am using MultiBoot to optionally load ARexx, WorkBench, Shell, Snap, DirectoryOpus and ZKick (still I don't own WB2.0 in ROM) on startup. You see, when I want to play a game from harddisk I don't need DirectoryOpus, ARexx an lots of other programs in the background. It's also possible to choose between WorkBench or Shell or BOTH! Alternatively MultiBoot helps me to decide to choose between WB1.3 or to softkick WB2.0. Anyway, the choices are unlimited! Recursive use of MultiBoot is also possible with the Assign command. If you are smart you know how to do it. One last thing, if you want to do an EndCLI, don't define it in StartUp.1 but in StartUp.12. If MultiBoot detects an EndCLI, all other StartUps after EndCLI will be aborted. Of course, that's where EndCLI was made for... A nice way to debug is to look at the Command-00-T0x temporary file, that will be written in your T: directory. Example: MultiBoot > NIL: NoQuotes " Center" "Empty" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" 15 "Red Limbo Squad" 3 The MultiBoot window pops up with in the first three gadgets the text NoQuotes, Center and Empty, the other nine gadgets are blank. NoQuotes refers to s:StartUp.1, Center refers to StartUp.2, Empty refers to StartUp.3, the next gadget "" that is blank, refers to StartUp.4, etc. The timeout is 15 seconds. The window title contains the text Red Limbo Squad, and the window background colour is 3, red in my case. All error messages are not displayed on the screen and are send to NIL: in case you select a blank gadget. 6 REVISION HISTORY ==================== V1.0 05-Dec-90 Internal - Initial Release V1.1 27-Mar-93 - Added colour argument for compatibility with WB2.0 - Scans gadgets from upper left to lower right instead of the opposite. Regards this time to: RLS, MegaByte, Turbo-Ties, EuroSoft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f /_ __ /_ / /___ _/__ __/___/ /_ __/___ _/ / Y \ / Y/ Y Y ___// Y Y / : / :/ _· / | _/___/ : / · / / _/ · / / ._ ___/ :__/ Y / / ____/ _/ . / / / / ·/ : / _/ ___/_ __ / / / . Y / Y / / / / ·/ ·/ ______/ __/______ /_____/_________ /____ / -==========/========/==========/===================/=->F&A/===============- For Updates And BUG reports Contact Mystical Places At: +31-10-4779507 (16k8 DuAl) sysop: ThC Or Call To The Other JuStiCe Boards: CASTLE ROCK [WHQ] +41-31-879-0966 MOZART'S MANSION [USA] +1-904-765-0360 -=============================================================================-