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1 | wxPoem 1.0 |
2 | ---------- | |
3 | ||
4 | by Julian Smart | |
5 | --------------- | |
6 | ||
7 | Fancy a little intellectual stimulation after long hours spent staring | |
8 | at spreadsheets or reports? Does your brain long for something a little | |
9 | more fulfilling than Tetris or fiddling with the WIN.INI file? Then you | |
10 | could go out and buy a poetry book... or alternatively, if you just | |
11 | can't drag yourself away from the screen, click on the wxPoem icon. | |
12 | ||
13 | wxPoem is a simple Windows application which picks poems from a file at | |
14 | random, or finds poems according to a string criterion, and formats them | |
15 | nicely in a window. A displayed poem can be copied to the Windows clipboard | |
16 | ready for inclusion in that more imaginative report... | |
17 | ||
18 | It's small, it's free and it's totally harmless, so far as I know. | |
19 | No responsibility accepted, though, for any problems it might cause with | |
20 | your setup. | |
21 | ||
22 | wxPoem was converted to use the wxWindows toolkit, from the original | |
23 | WinPoem which received a favourable review from Windows Shareware 500. | |
24 | ||
25 | Since it now uses wxWindows, wxPoem may be compiled on a variety | |
26 | of platforms such as X (XView or Motif), Windows and NT. | |
27 | ||
28 | Files | |
29 | ----- | |
30 | ||
31 | The main data file is winpoem.dat, and an index file winpoem.idx is | |
32 | supplied or can be (re)built by deleting winpoem.idx and rerunning | |
33 | wxPoem. Source code is also provided in source.zip, but wxWindows is | |
34 | required to build it. The original WinPoem is much leaner (40K | |
35 | instead of 400K!) and can be compiled under Windows without wxWindows. | |
36 | ||
37 | Installation | |
38 | ------------ | |
39 | ||
40 | Windows | |
41 | ======= | |
42 | ||
43 | Copy ctl3dv2.dll to windows\system, and delete the original | |
44 | ctl3dv2.dll or wxPoem will not run. | |
45 | ||
46 | wxPoem can be put in the Startup folder in the Program Manager, so that | |
47 | a random poem will pop up every time Windows is run. | |
48 | ||
49 | UNIX | |
50 | ==== | |
51 | ||
52 | wxPoem comes in Open Look and Motif versions for the Sun, and a | |
53 | Linux Open Look version. For other platforms, you will need to | |
54 | recompile the source. | |
55 | ||
56 | ||
57 | Use | |
58 | --- | |
59 | ||
60 | Simply run the program, and a random poem will be displayed. | |
61 | You can optionally give a filename on the command line, without a suffix | |
62 | (e.g. winpoem). | |
63 | ||
64 | The simplest way of operating wxPoem is to keep pressing the space bar | |
65 | for new poems (or pages for multi-page poems). | |
66 | ||
67 | Clicking the right mouse button (or selecting the wxPoem Options menu | |
68 | item from the system menu) gives a choice of the following facilities: | |
69 | Next poem/page (Page down) Display next poem (or next page) | |
70 | Previous page (Page up) Display previous page (multi-line poems only) | |
71 | Search (S) Allows user to enter a search string | |
72 | Next match (N) Gives next search match | |
73 | Copy to clipboard Allows poems to be pasted into other applications | |
74 | Bigger text Increases text size | |
75 | Smaller text Decreases text size | |
76 | About wxPoem About wxPoem | |
77 | Exit (Esc) Quit wxPoem | |
78 | ||
79 | When wxPoem is closed, the font, text height and window position are | |
80 | remembered (stored in WIN.INI) for next time. Under X, the values | |
81 | are not written (since they are stored in .Xdefaults), so you may | |
82 | want to edit the following resources by hand: | |
83 | ||
84 | wxPoem.X ; X position | |
85 | wxPoem.Y ; Y position | |
86 | wxPoem.FontSize ; Font size in points (default 12) | |
87 | ||
88 | The data file | |
89 | ------------- | |
90 | ||
91 | The winpoem.dat file contains poems separated by a #, with optional | |
92 | @ codes denoting title (@T) author (@A) and page break (@P). Any | |
93 | unrecognized codes will cause the rest of the line to be ignored, so | |
94 | the user can add lines (e.g. @S for subject) which will be searched on but | |
95 | not displayed. | |
96 | ||
97 | The data file contains a mixture of 20th century and earlier poetry, | |
98 | subject to copyright constraints. Apologies if any copyrights have | |
99 | inadvertently been infringed, though I have tried to avoid it. | |
100 | ||
101 | Implementation | |
102 | -------------- | |
103 | ||
104 | The original WinPoem program was my `Windows learning application', i.e. | |
105 | a vehicle for getting stuck into Windows programming, whilst (possibly) | |
106 | affording others a modicum of amusement. Therefore the code is pretty | |
107 | ugly. So don't look if you're squeamish! | |
108 | ||
109 | License | |
110 | ------- | |
111 | ||
112 | Copyright Julian Smart, released into the public domain, October 1994. | |
113 | ||
114 | Julian Smart | |
115 | Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute | |
116 | University of Edinburgh | |
117 | 80 South Bridge | |
118 | Einburgh | |
119 | EH1 1HN | |
120 | ||
121 | J.Smart@ed.ac.uk |