Many Questions

[Steam Ranger]

1. When I open diskfont.library, it returns a 0 outside of workbench.
2. Where do I need to put fonts for diskfont to find them? (Somewhere under SYS:?)
3. If I make a bootable floppy disk, that will boot and there'll be no background OS running, right?

Thanks in advance

[thomas]

Originally Posted by Steam Ranger

When I open diskfont.library, it returns a 0 outside of workbench.

No, if the library can be found on disk, it will open, no matter if Workbench is running or not.

Where do I need to put fonts for diskfont to find them? (Somewhere under SYS:?)

Fonts:, wherever that points to. Normally Sys:fonts, but you can assign it elsewhere. And if you insert a disk called Fonts, it will take precedence.

If I make a bootable floppy disk, that will boot and there'll be no background OS running, right?

No, wrong. When the initial CLI is opened, all the OS is active, except the Worbench desktop, but that's not needed to run your program.

Only if you write your own bootblock, then you have the option to interrupt OS initialisation at an early stage. But still you can use graphics, intuition and other parts which do not need DOS.

[Steam Ranger]

Originally Posted by thomas

No, if the library can be found on disk, it will open, no matter if Workbench is running or not.

So what your saying is that it's on disk rather than in ROM?

Originally Posted by thomas

Fonts:, wherever that points to. Normally Sys:fonts, but you can assign it elsewhere. And if you insert a disk called Fonts, it will take precedence.

Ok.

Originally Posted by thomas

No, wrong. When the initial CLI is opened, all the OS is active, except the Worbench desktop, but that's not needed to run your program.

Only if you write your own bootblock, then you have the option to interrupt OS initialisation at an early stage. But still you can use graphics, intuition and other parts which do not need DOS.

The main thing is, if I use my own copper list to change screen colours, will it interfere with anything?

Speaking of that, is there any better way to change screen colours than copper lists?

[Steam Ranger]

PS: I'm using SetRGB4() as is suggested in the intuition manual, but for some reason it's changing the colour of the screen of the app that opened it. Examples: If I open it from a shell, the workbench colours change to what my screen's should, but my screen's colours don't change. If I open it from DOpus, it's colours change but my screen's colours don't.

I'm totally perplexed as to why this is happening, please help...

[thomas]

Originally Posted by Steam Ranger

So what your saying is that it's on disk rather than in ROM?

Yes. OpenFont() is a function of graphics.library which is in ROM, but it can only open fonts which are already in memory. OpenDiskFont() belongs to diskfont.library. It can load fonts from disk. Loading from disk requires DOS to be active. It does not make sense to put this library in ROM which already has very limited space.

Originally Posted by Steam Ranger

PS: I'm using SetRGB4() as is suggested in the intuition manual, but for some reason it's changing the colour of the screen of the app that opened it.

SetRGB4 changes the colours of the ViewPort you give to it. If you want to change your screen's colours you have to supply your screen's ViewPort.

myscreen = OpenScreen (&newscreen);
SetRGB4 (&myscreen->ViewPort,0,15,8,0);

[Steam Ranger]

Originally Posted by thomas

myscreen = OpenScreen (&newscreen);
SetRGB4 (&myscreen->ViewPort,0,15,8,0);

That's exactly what I'm doing. Here's my code:

	lea.l	NewProgramScreen,A0	; Load the screen's specifications into A)
	CallIntuition	OpenScreen	; Attempt to open the screen
	tst.l	D0			; Was the screen opened?
	beq	IntuitionFailiure	; If not, start exiting the program
	move.l	D0,ProgramScreen	; Otherwise, store the screen
	move.l	D0,A2

	UseGraphics
	move.l	sc_ViewPort(A2),A0
	moveq	#0,D0
	moveq	#$0,D1
	moveq	#$0,D2
	moveq	#$0,D3
	Call	SetRGB4
	move.l	sc_ViewPort(A2),A0
	moveq	#1,D0
	moveq	#$C,D1
	moveq	#$8,D2
	moveq	#$0,D3
	Call	SetRGB4

I've attached pictures.





Before my program runs:







After my program runs and opens a screen:

[thomas]

move.l	sc_ViewPort(A2),A0

This should be

lea	sc_ViewPort(A2),A0

The viewport is embedded in the screen structure, it is not a pointer to another memory area. Apparently viewports are linked in a pointered list. By reading the pointer from the beginning of your viewport you got the address of another viewport by chance.

[Steam Ranger]

I'm continuing to run into issues with diskfont.

This is how I'm opening and closing fonts:

	lea.l	FontTextAttribute,A0	; Load the font's specifications into A0
	CallDiskFont	OpenDiskFont	; Attempt to open the font
	tst.l	D0
	beq	FontFailiure
	move.l	D0,Font

	move.l	Font,A1			; Load the font into A1
	CallDiskFont	CloseFont	; Close the font

However, error 80000005 is generated when CloseFont is run, what's causing this? I'm using diskfont, I'm loading the correct font into the correct register, all that stuff.

[thomas]

CloseFont is in graphics.library, not in diskfont.library.

diskfont is really only to load fonts from disk, everything else is done by graphics.

[Steam Ranger]

I keep making the mistake of using the wrong library. Thanks. I'm going to add that to my list of things to check for.

[Steam Ranger]

I'm trying to open a screen in WB 1.3, here are the details:

NewProgramScreen
	dc.w	0,0				; XPos, YPos
NewScreenWidth
	dc.w	320				; Width
NewScreenHeight
	dc.w	200				; Height
	dc.w	2				; Colour Depth
	dc.b	2,1				; Detail Pen, Block Pen
	dc.w	0				; View Mode
	dc.w	CUSTOM_SCREEN			; Screen Type
	Pointer	FontTextAttribute		; Font
	Pointer	ProgramScreenTitle		; Pointer to title string
	Pointer					; Gadgets
	Pointer					; Bitmap

FontTextAttribute
	Pointer	FontName			; Name
	dc.w	11				; Height
	dc.b	FS_NORMAL			; Style
	dc.b	0				; Flags

ProgramScreenTitle	String	"abcdef ABCDEF"

I'm making sure that the font is opened, that works without any errors. But when this is run:

	lea.l	NewProgramScreen,A0	; Load the screen's specifications into A)
	CallIntuition	OpenScreen	; Attempt to open the screen

It gives error 00000025, which is some random CPU error. I'm assuming that I'm doing something wrong with the libraries, but I can't figure out what. The new screen is using features that are available in that version of kickstart, I'm opening intuition. No idea what's wrong.

Thanks for all the help so far by the way.

[thomas]

Is it really necessary to do this in assembler? It is so difficult to read. And to write obviously. A higher level language would have told you about most of the mistakes you did. And it lets you call the functions by name only. The correct library base is used implicitly.

The code you quoted is ok. You have to quote the entire program to reproduce the error and to find the mistake.

[a/b]

Assuming that String is 'DC.B' and Pointer is 'DC.L \1 or 0', it looks OK. How does CallIntuition look like, is the pointer valid?
If possible, go through the code with debugger and skip over system calls... Also, alignment OK?

[phx]

Guru #00000025 would be a

trap #5

instruction. Is it reproducible? Then try to use it as a breakpoint in the UAE debugger (

fi 4e45

).

When the crash happens at OpenScreen it is most likely that you are jumping at some random address. Wrong base pointer in A6? As a/b said: get accustomed to using a debugger and have a closer look at that call.

[Steam Ranger]

Ah, I was using custom_screen rather than customscreen.

[Steam Ranger]

For some reason CloseFont isn't freeing any memory. Is this normal?

[jotd]

if the font is already open by some other application, probably. Those are shared resources.

[Thomas Richter]

Fonts work pretty much like libraries. They aren't removed from memory automatically - only if the system runs low on memory.