                                                    Berlin, 7.4.92
          Laurenz Prner
          Rathenower Strae 24
          D - 1000 Berlin 21
          030 394 68 96

          Foreign countries:
          ++49 30 394 68 96




                                /----------\
                                AES-Lupe 2.4
                                ------------
                      Ein Programm von Laurenz Prner
                      --------------------------------
                     /           \        /           \
                                Cynics 1992
                              ---------------
                             /               \
               /-------------------------------------------\
               |  "We're supporting Cyberpunk Actionware"  |
               \-------------------------------------------/

          "Sowas kann man gar nicht programmieren."
                                         Arnd Rosemeier, Mrz 1991


[translated from German to English with Google Translator]



 ...and another magnifying glass
----------------------
The AES Magnifying Glass is the further development of the VDI Magnifying 
Glass presented in ST magazine. The VDI Magnifying Glass already had 
significant advantages over all other magnifying glass programs: clean GEM
output, flicker-free scrolling, and high processing speed are just some of
its features. Like the VDI Magnifying Glass, the AES Magnifying Glass works
at all resolution levels and displays its data and dialog boxes correctly,
even in the distorted ST color resolutions (ST Low and ST Mid).

In contrast to the AES Magnifying Glass, however, the VDI Magnifying Glass
was severely limited in its application:

It could only be activated in the GEM menu bar and would then freeze the
image. Furthermore, it had a fixed size that could only be changed by the
programmer or by a patch program.

The AES Magnifying Glass clears this up.



How does the magnifying glass work?
------------------------
The magnifying glass outputs exclusively in a GEM window, whose position and
size can be freely selected. The area around the mouse pointer is always
magnified. Other programs are not paused during this process. The size of the
zoomed-in area depends on the size of the window.

Magnification occurs with every movement and every mouse click. Since the
wind_update() function is also used correctly, enlarging a modal dialog box,
etc., is not possible.

The program requires four buffers of different sizes to enlarge, which are
redefined each time the window is enlarged or reduced. Therefore, when
enlarging the window, the system may not have enough memory for the buffers.
In this case, the window simply remains white until you reduce it to a
suitable size.

Feedback effects are only partially counteracted; firstly, because this is
quite difficult to accomplish with a computer, and secondly, because then
the fun screen shows for bored programmers would be lost.



Operation
---------------
The magnifying glass can be started both as a program and as an accessory,
although the latter is obviously much more useful.

After launching, a window opens, and the magnifying glass begins working
immediately.

The magnifying glass can be controlled in several ways:

First, the <Alternate> key is assigned a special meaning. While this key is
held down, any magnification is stopped. This is extremely practical for
multiple magnifications: The output is paused, you move the mouse into the
magnification window, release the <Alternate> key, and you get an enlargement
of the magnification.

All other settings are controlled via a separate menu, which you can access
by clicking in the magnifying window if the magnifying window is the topmost
one. If this is not the case, the window will be topped after the mouse click.
If you want to prevent this, hold down the right mouse button while clicking
the selection menu will appear even if the magnifying window is not thetopmost
one. This is very useful if, for example, you want to zoom in on a smaller
window that is in front of a larger magnifying window.



The Menu
----------
The menu is movable. If you click the dog-ear in the top right corner, the
mouse pointer turns into a flat hand. You can now move the dialog box while
holding down the mouse button.

On very small screens, this effect unfortunately doesn't achieve its intended
purpose: Unfortunately, due to the size of the dialog box, it's not possible
to look "behind" the dialog box. Therefore, the dialog box can also be moved
as a ghost frame: If you click the dog-ear with both mouse buttons
simultaneously, the box disappears, leaving an empty, also movable ghost frame.
The dialog box reappears as soon as you release both mouse buttons. The same
effect can also be achieved on systems with only one mouse button: Hold down
one of the two <Shift> keys while clicking the dog-ear.

In the selection menu, you can choose three freely combinable presets.
A checked box means "this feature is enabled."

Continuous zoom:

Zooming in occurs not only with mouse movements or clicks, but continuously.
This avoids data inconsistency between the zoom cache and the screen in some
cases. Since this feature consumes processing time, it is disabled by default.
It is recommended

but wherever little mouse work is done and a lot of keyboard work is done,
for example, for word processing, spreadsheets, etc.

Magnify mouse pointer:

The mouse pointer is normally turned off during each blit operation, which
prevents some of the feedback effects. However, it can remain turned on during
one of the blits, resulting in all sorts of varied effects. This feature was
introduced for the annoyed programmer of the AI research named after him.

Round window:

Normally, the magnification window is always exactly where you placed it.
However, since the TOS routine vro_cpyfm() can be noticeably accelerated,
especially on the "old" STs, if each bit block begins horizontally on word
boundaries, the window position can be rounded exactly to 16 bits.

This setting is especially recommended for slower devices.

Below, the magnification factor can be set separately in the horizontal and
vertical directions. A blackened, round button indicates your selection.



Window Errors!
----------------

Since version 2.2, AES-Lupe has supported the AV protocol for communication
with main programs. The pros and cons of this protocol have been much
discussed; I personally consider it useless from the perspective of a
multitasking operating system for Atari computers.

Nevertheless, it has been implemented, to the delight of many beta testers
and already there are problems.

Some AV programs have the habit of closing their accessory windows on their
own. Older versions of "Interface" in particular behave this way.

Closing other people's windows can lead to severe system crashes. Therefore,
the Magnifier has been expanded to include a plausibility check that attempts
to detect errors of this kind. In the event of an error, a warning box should
alert you to this fact. Please contact us immediately upon receiving such a
warning box.



Known Issues:
--------------------

Problem:
After clicking in the menu bar, the magnifying glass window appears, but it
remains white and nothing is enlarged.

Workaround:
The magnifying glass cannot request its memory. This may be because you have
insufficient memory (520s fill up quite quickly). In this case, you should get
a memory expansion.

Or you are using a main program that blocks all memory (example: 1ST Word or
Cypress). In this case, you should get the program Mxalloc/2, which limits
access to the coveted RAM by memory hogs and is included as a "bonus" with
the magnifying glass disk.

Problem:
Starting at a certain window size, only jumbled stuff appears in the magnifying
glass window.

Remedy:
You are using a faulty operating system. Get a TOS update as soon as possible.
The bug is fixed in TOS 2.06. You can get TOS 2.06 for every ST from the

  Artifex Computer GmbH
  Anton-Burger-Weg 147
  6000 Frankfurt / Main 70
  Tel.: 069 646 885 18 (Ausland: ++49 69 646 885 18)
  Fax:  069 646 886 18 (Ausland: ++49 69 646 886 18)

The new versions of NVDI also fix the bug.


 Laurenz Prner

