








                                XDEV V2.5
                                ~~~~~~~~~
                             Cross Developer
                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                               User Manual
                               ~~~~~~~~~~~































Copyright JP Robertson 1994

Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~
XDEV IS:
             A Shareware program, freely available for evaluation and
             re-distribution.

             A Customisable DOS Shell.

             Designed principally for use with compilers and assemblers
             which lack an environment of their own.


XDEV IS NOT:
             An editor, assembler, or compiler

             The best available DOS shell for general purposes

             to be re-sold


Installation
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following files should be present on your distribution disc.

             XDEV.EXE        The main program
             WXDEV.EXE       A Windows 3.x calling program for XDEV
             RELNOTES.TXT    Version history and current release notes
             REGISTER.TXT    A registration form template
             XDEV.TXT        This file - user manual for XDEV

To install XDEV, copy these files (or at least the .EXE files) to a
suitable directory on your hard disc (ie one which is in your PATH
statement)

Running XDEV.EXE will create or update a file called XDEV.CFG in the
current directory.

Running WXDEV.EXE from Windows 3.x will create or update a file called
WXDEV.INI in the Windows directory.


Running XDEV
~~~~~~~~~~~~
To run XDEV type 'XDEV' at the DOS command prompt
Or, if you have a monochrome screen, type 'XDEV /M'

The screen should be filled with a default workspace and a copyright
notice.  Press a key to remove the copyright notice.

The information remaining on screen is your 'workspace'.

This information will be saved to a file called XDEV.CFG in the current
directory, so that the next time you run XDEV from the same directory
the workspace will be restored.

Elements of the XDEV workspace
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Menu Bar      The top line of the screen is the 'menu bar'.
              There are ten user definable utilities and an
              'Options' sub-menu.

              Menu items are selected by using the left and right
              arrow keys to highlight an item and the carriage return
              key to select, or by a shortcut 'accelerator' key.

Options       The 'Options' sub-menu allows the user to configure
              various parts of the workspace, and also contains an
              option to shell out to DOS and the 'Quit' option.


File List     The window on the left of the screen is the 'file list'.
              This window contains a list of strings, typically these
              would be filenames.

              Filenames are selected by using the Up, Down, PgUp, PdDn,
              Home and End cursor keys to move the highlight bar up and
              down the list highlight.

              Filenames are added to the list using the 'Ins' key or via
              the 'Options' sub-menu.  Filenames are deleted from the
              list using the 'Del' key.

Project       The Project window contains a single string identifying
              the current project.

              The project name is edited via the 'Options' sub-menu

Pathnames     The pathnames window contains 10 lines, one for each of
              the 10 items in the menu bar.  In each line the menu item
              (or 'utility') is shown on the left and the corresponding
              DOS command(or 'path') on the right.

              Paths may contain variables such as %F (meaning the
              current file) and %W (meaning wait for a keypress)

              Paths and utilities may be edited via the 'options'
              sub-menu

Status        Two lines at the bottom of the screen show the program
              name and version, the date, time, and current directory.

Customising the workspace
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To create a useful workspace you will want to place some filenames in
the file list, and rename and define some of the utilities and paths.
You may also want to choose a different combination of screen colours.
Each of these actions are possible via the 'Options' sub-menu, and each
uses a very simple 'black box editor' described below.

The customised workspace may look something like the example below:


 Edit   Asm    Link   Build  eProm  Moni   Xload  Find   Run    pRint Options

  Files ͻ
  MC68MON.ASM                 
  VARS.ASM                    
  \68\ASCII.ASM                 Project ͻ
  \68\MACROS.ASM                MC68MON                   
  EQUATES.ASM                  ͼ
  INTERRUP.ASM                  Pathnames ͻ
  ===========================   Edit   : EC %F                          
  MC68MON.MAP                   Asm    : X68K -q %F -ld %W              
  MC68MON.LST                   Link   : LINK4 %P %W                    
  ===========================   Build  : BUILD.BAT %P                   
  TODO.TXT                      eProm  : \EPROM\EPPGM8                  
  ===========================   Moni   : \PROCOMM\PROCOMM               
  ..\CLEAN.BAT                  Xload  : LD %P.TSK /64K %B %W           
                                Find   : \PCTOOLS\FF                    
                                Run    : %F                             
                                pRint  : PRINT %F                       
 ͼ ͼ
                              XDEV  Version 2.5
          Date 01/05/94     Time 16:23:51     Directory D:\TS\XDEV\25



Black box editing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When editing areas of the workspace XDEV creates a 'black box' over the
area in which editing is allowed, and displays a cursor.

This is a very simple text editor.  The following keys are active in
this mode:

Cursor arrow keys
Home and End
Ins (Toggles between insert and overwrite mode)
Del and Backspace
Printable characters
Carriage return

To exit black box editing mode press carriage return on the last line of the
black box

Shelling out to DOS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To exit temporarily from XDEV to DOS (actually to load a second copy
of the DOS command interpreter) Select 'Options' from the main menu,
then 'DOS' from the sub-menu.

The DOS command prompt will be preceded by the characters XDEV- as a
reminder that this is a temporary DOS copy.

Type 'EXIT' at the command prompt to return to XDEV.


Accelerators
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shortcut 'accelerator' keys may be used to give quick access to menu bar
items eg 'E' for Edit, 'P' for eProm, etc.

These accelerators are shown as highlighted characters in the menu bar
and in the pathnames window.

Use the Alt-A key combination to specify accelerator keys while editing
the utility names in the pathnames window.


Pathname variables
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To build a more useful set of DOS commands it is useful to be able to
include variables in a pathname. For example, referring to the sample
screen above, selecting the first file in the list and pressing 'A'
would execute the command line "X68K -q MC68MON.ASM -ld"
XDEV would then display a "press any key" message allowing the DOS output
of the assembler to be read from the screen before returning to the XDEV
workspace.

The full list of pathname variables is:

%F            replaced by the current name from the file list
%P            replaced by the project name
%W            causes XDEV to wait for a keypress after execution
%B            causes XDEV to beep the speaker after execution
%%            replaced by the '%' symbol

XDEV command line options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following command line options are supported by XDEV

/?            display help on command line options
/H            display help on command line options

/M            use a monochrome output - useful with LCD and mono screens

/Dir@<drive|path>
              change to the specified directory before loading the XDEV
              workspace

/File@<n>     select the nth file after loading the XDEV workspace

/Boot@<accelerator>
              execute the utility identified by the accelerator key
              character after loading the XDEV workspace


Running XDEV from Windows 3.x
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To call XDEV from Windows you need to call it with the /Dir command line
option, this specifies a drive and directory for the XDEV workspace.

WXDEV is a simple dialog to enable you to select a drive and directory from
which to load the XDEV workspace.

Make sure that WXDEV.EXE is in the same directory as XDEV.EXE

