Screenswitch

Introduction
------------

Ever used a Macintosh with multiple monitors? If you have then you'll know 
that by moving the mouse to the right hand side of the current screen will
make the pointer appear on the next monitor, and by positioning to the far 
left will return the pointer to the first screen. Well, the Amiga supports 
multiple screens and normally you would swap screens by clicking on the
screens depth gadget in the far top righthand corner. Some of you may use 
the middle mouse button, or perhaps even a hotkey(s), but now it is even 
easier.

Installation
------------

Even my mum could do it. Drag the executable and the icon into the WBStartup
drawer, and that's it. If you want to utilise the plug system found in the
later

versions, you will need to copy or create a drawer in which to store them. You
could alternatively keep them in the same directory as ScreenSwitch itself. See
the configuration section for more details.

Configuration
-------------

You don't really need to configure it, but there are some simple alterations 
you can make, and these are set by tooltypes, and are as follows:

DELAY

This sets the delay between the pointer reaching a vertical border and the 
actual screen change taking place. If the pointer is moved away from that
border within the time specified, the action is cancelled. The default is 
25 ticks (about 1/2 a second). Do be warned about setting this too low, it
will make actually stopping on a screen very difficult :)

SENSITIVITY

This tooltype controls how wide the vertical borders are to be. The narrower 
they are, the closer to the edge of the screen you have to be with the mouse
pointer. The default for this one is 3, which means anywhere inside a strip 
of 3 pixels from the edge. A setting of 1 means you have to be as far over 
as possible for the detection to take place.

CX_PRIORITY

This is a standard Amiga tooltype for all commodities, and controls the
priority that the commdity runs at. The default is zero, and should be
left at that setting.

PLUGIN (New V51.2)

This tooltype will let you specify a plugin to use. The path to this must 
be a relative path to the ScreenSwitch base location. Specifying 
plugins/example.plugin, will look in the ScreenSwitch directory for a 
plugins drawer. You can keep plugins in the same directory as 
ScreenSwitch if you so choose, and in which case you would simply 
supply the plugin name in this tooltype. ScrenSwitch will then look in its
home directory for it.

VERTICAL (New in 51.6)

This tooltype, when set, will tell ScreenSwitch to activate on top and bottom
borders, as opposed to left and right. Simply adding Vertical to the icons 
tooltypes is enough, there are no parameters needed.

Running
-------

Again, it is plain and simple, double click the icon and away it goes. The 
purpose of this program is to create a seamless way of interacting with
multiple screens, so by placing the mousepointer over the left or right 
extremes of the current screen will result in that screen becoming the most 
backward on the layered heap of screens. This is the default action and will 
most probably be altered via the plugin system. The Plugin system effectively 
makes ScreenSwitch 'open ended' in as much as functionality can be 
modified in any way the plugin sees fit. Check the documentation for your
chosen plugin for more information.
There isn't much more to say apart from the fact that this program supports 
the Commodity event of 'KILL', so you can shut it off with Exchange. Also, as 
in all standard Commodities, you can't run it twice, and you will be informed
 if you try to do so. You can also Activate and Deactivate the monitoring of 
the mouse position by using the relevant tab in Exchange, which will also 
suspend/resume operation of any plugins in force.

Credits
-------

That'll be me I suppose, and my email address is above, unless you want to 
flame me for this creation. In which case all mails to >NIL: please :)
Various credits are due to enhancement and bug reporting, and these are
outlined in the revision history at the end of this document.

Plugin credits should be found in their specific documentation, and any
problems with those to the relevant author.

Simon Archer

(bml()blueyonder.co.uk)

ReleaseNotes
--------------

V 51 
	Internal release. Just ported to OS4 from the original Blitz Basic code

V51.1 (02.11.2004)
	Cleaned up the code, and uploaded it to OS4Depot.

V51.2 (05.11.2004)

	After much joking and creating extremely stupid ways to improve the 
	program, this version now offers a plugin system. The API is described
	in the relevant docs in the SDK directory. Also complete with a working
	example to build upon. My thanks (if that is the right word) goes to 
	all the silly sods that made me waste time with this, you know who you are :)
	I'm now leaving it up to the masses to see what they create for this. What
	started out as a very useful little program, has now escalated into a bloated
	program capable of far more than it was ever intended for. Maybe I should
	port it to MS Windows ? :) 

V51.3 (06.11.2004)

	An enhancement has been implemented which was requested by Nicolas
	Mendosa and Dave Fisher, where they outlined the fact that leaving the mouse
	pointer in the 'hot zone' would constantly keep switching screens. This has 
	been addressed now and will look for mouse movement between the screen 
	swaps. So pushing the pointer to the edge will switch the first screen, but it
will 
	NOT switch again until the mouse has been moved. In the interests of user 
	safety, and potential epileptic fits, we appologise for this unfortunate
clubbing 
	effect! (I just no-one asks for it back :) 

V51.4 (08.11.2004)

	Updated the SDK a little. Changed the available information in the plugin
startup
	message now to include the tooltype values for DELAY and SENSITIVITY, plus
	also you get the mouse X and Y values at the time the plugin was called.
	Fixed the fact the include file was in the wrong drawer.
	Fixed a calculation error which was affected by a SENSITIVITY value of 1. 

V51.5 (09.11.2004)

	Implemented another safety check in the plugin source in the SDK. The plugin
	is now launched with the plugin parameter to bump the arg count to 2. This
	tries to get around the user starting plugins from the CLI or Workbench.
	Previously, plugins would wait for their startup message, and by running them 
	as stand-alone programs would mean they wait forever. The plugin now will 
	only execute its code if the argc value is 2, if not it will quit silently,
returning
	a dos value of 20. Suggested by Nicolas Mendoza.

V51.6 (10.11.2004)

	Thanks to Tony Asknes, an enhancement has been implemented that allows you
	to have activation from top and bottom, rather than left and right. The top
border
	has the same functionality as the left border for those plugins that use
screen

	position, and the bottom border is the same as the right edge. You can set
this

	functionality with the Vertical tooltype.