fORCE ANSi ViEWER v1 6 This is the doc for fORCE ViEW v1 6 written by Red Haze fORCE (Darren Hazelton) in November 1995 in South Australia This viewer is written for the ansi group Force so you can view their wicked ansi art You can t look at any other groups art unless you register System Requirements Any 386 compatible computer with a standard VGA graphics card A sound card is nice but optional A monitor helps A keyboard might also come in handy (An extended keyboard is required ) Note You can t run it under Windows 3 x because it crashes (Thanks to Midas ) ( I haven t tried it under any other multitaskers yet The boring long-winded Instructions When you run FV you can run it in one of two front ends or have it completely command-line driven The first time you run it the Midas configuration screen will appear where you tell it about your sound card if you have one otherwise select no sound card The file MIDAS CFG will be created in the same directory where you put FV EXE Make sure you are realistic about the sampling rate you tell it to use especially on a 386 with an SB16 - don t expect 44 1kHz 16bit stereo to work well (It may but I doubt it ) ) If you want to run FV with the ability to play music disabled put N as the first parameter e g FV N If you want to run FV by command line just type in the file specifications after FV (and any switches used) Filenames without extensions are assumed to be filename * e g FV c ansi * d force somecool ans FV will go through * * in the c ansi directory playing any S3Ms MODs or MTMs which are in there and showing you any other files as ansi text Then it will show you that cool ansi in your d force directory After that FV will quit to DOS (or whatever other OS you happen to run it under ) If you want to view a S3M MOD or MTM as text rather than hearing it as music (pretty stupid if you ask me) just use n as the first parameter e g FV n c ansi * d force somecool ans While viewing all these files press ENTER or SPACE to go to the next picture ESC will quit FV to DOS immediately Songs will load and immediately go on to the next file This allows you to do things like FV d happy mod d happy ans e sad s3m e sad ans This will have the effect that you will be able to look at the happy picture with happy background music and the sad picture will have some other suitably sad music I dunno if anyone will use this feature but its there if you want it The other side of the coin is that if you have two songs in a row the first one will load but immediately get stopped to play the next one However if a song is the last in the queue FV will play the song FV until you press a key then it will return to DOS If you don t specify any files on the command line FV will go into one of two front end modes where you can navigate around the directory you ran it from The default front end has new graphics and also displays file SAUCE descriptions The parts of SAUCE which are shown are the Title followed by the Author The old front end (as in FV versions before 1 5) doesn t try to load SAUCE s - this makes file list loading a lot quicker if there are lots of files in the directory or if it is a slow drive (e g CDROM) It also displays files in 5 columns and has the old title screen You can use the old front end by using the switch F This must come AFTER N if you want to specify both e g FV F Note F is useless if you are using command line file specifications Functionally the only difference between them is that LEFT RIGHT arrows in the old front end move between columns but in the new one RIGHT is the equivalent of ENTER and LEFT is the same as ESC when you re viewing a file I did this so you can do everything with the cursor keypad Woohoo ) Of course you will never want to quit FV so quitting will never have a speed key Maybe I ll change it from ESC to CTRL ALT DEL one day Keys ENTER in a front end will load a file play a song change the current directory or change drives depending on what the cursor is on In viewing mode it will return to the front end if you are using one If you are using command line file specifications it will load the next file in the list SPACE is the same as ENTER ESC returns to the front end if you are using one and are viewing a file Any other time it will quit FV which is quite a useless feature ) F1 in a front end displays help including a list of all the keys F1 or ESC returns to the front end F2 toggles the ANSi viewing screen mode between 25 and 50 lines The current setting is displayed on the status bar in the front ends F3 in a front end allows you to select a new file extension filter (e g * ANS) Press ENTER to accept what you have typed in or if you want to cancel it press F3 or ESC Wildcards may be used F4 in a front end displays info and greets F4 or ESC returns to the front end HOME END jump to the top bottom of the file list in a front end or to the top bottom of the file you are viewing PGUP PGDN move the cursor up down the file list one page at a time in a front end or scroll quickly up down if you are viewing a file UP DOWN move the cursor up down the file list one file at a time in a front end or scroll up down if you are viewing a file LEFT RIGHT in the old front end move the cursor between columns In the new front end RIGHT is the same as ENTER in the front end and LEFT is the same as ESC from the file viewing screen Error messages always get displayed so you can try to fix and problems you have with FV Most potential problems are with Midas If you have EMS but none of it is free you won t be able to play any songs because Midas doesn t bother trying to load them into conventional memory if EMS is detected ( I could change that I guess but it d be too much hassle When FV is loading a file to view it will show the percentage loaded so far You can press ESC to stop loading and view the amount currently in memory Greetz Anyway I ve already written too much for anyone to be bothered reading so here come the greetz Personal shouts go to SpoonMan fORCE FTS Huge bummer about the board Speak to ya soon Anubis fORCE Stop hassling me about VGA code!! I aint got no time! ) Oh and thanks for the new title screen Da Schemer Go on sell your O s & X s to Micro$oft and make a fortune Pulse PoP Impulse Tracker rules! Pity you re in PoP ) Griffin FTS Get ya board running - we need a HQ Perhaps I ll get that demo working one day too Pheon FTS Get that XM player working and the diskmag and that 3D engine and don t forget to study ) NetSlider FTS Are you still in FTS ) Manladas Zarich PoP No I m not joining PoP! and when s What ! going to be released! ChowderHead PoP MOOSES RULE! Taint PoP WHAT ! MikMak HaRDCoDE 95 MikMod sucks! Playing 5 channels of music on my P90 breaks up! 2 03 runs better than 2 04 Petteri Kangaslampi Thanks for writing Midas! Try to support XM s and Jarno Paananen Group greetings go to all fORCE FTS and PoP members Disclaimer This program is guaranteed only to take up space on your computer Any extra functionality should be considered an extra bonus Legal Stuff This program cannot be altered in any way without the written permission of Darren Hazelton No fees may be charged for fORCE ViEW except the nominal cost of distribution unless other written arrangements have been made with me You may copy fORCE ViEW as many times as you want and distribute it as much as you want By using fORCE ViEW you are agreeing to these terms and conditions Comments If you find any bugs or have any comments or suggestions send them to redhaze@student adelaide edu au or Red Haze in BloodNET History Improvements since fORCE ViEW v1 4 () = Version it changed in (1 5) Loads SAUCE file descriptions (1 5) A new front end which displays the Title and Author in the SAUCE Old front end retained which doesn t load SAUCE - quicker loading (1 5) Stops loading the file at the first EOF character (1 5) No more inbuilt song (1 5) MOD S3M MTM playing thanks to Midas (changed from MikMod) Midas also supports more sound cards is smaller and runs faster than MikMod Unfortunately no XM support yet Midas is 386+ only too Darn ) (1 5) Songs play from command line file specifications (1 5) Adds the directory to network drives (Netware doesn t display a or directory) (1 6) Filenames on command line without extension now have * appended (used to be ANS ) (1 6) Fixed up flickering and most jerkiness while scrolling! Scrolling is now the same speed on all computers even while music is playing Improvements since fORCE ViEW v1 2 () = Version it changed in (1 3) Bugfix for fast computers where the image got stuck at the bottom (1 3) Improved file selection keyboard routines sorted file list and added option to jump straight to the root directory (1 4) S3M Playing! There is now a kewl song by oZoNE fORCE which plays if you have a SB GUS compatible sound card and you can also play any other S3M files you want if you have enough memory free FV uses MikMod by MikMad HaRDCoDE 95 (1 3) Changed (hopefully improved) the scrolling acceleration parameters (1 4) Probably some minor bugs which have been ironed out Known Problems (Bugs You gotta be kidding ) - Does not run under Windows 3 x at all (Midas crashes) Use an older version if you need to run it under Windows - The entire file will not load if there is not enough conventional memory I may use EMS in later versions Coming Soon (in future versions) - VGA SVGA support Maybe GIF RIP JPG etc loading also - who knows - Controls on music volume - maybe even nice VU meters - Tag files while in a front end - Jump around file list in front end like Cubic Player does Final Comments The file viewer has a hidden two-key combo for you to try Maybe it does something nice maybe it deletes your HDD That s for me to know and you to find out No more hints ) Registration is not actually necessary to view other groups art in case you hadn t worked that out by now ) Have fun looking at Force Pack #5 and I ll cya l8r