DrawScript Problem

I have written as simple a program as I can to illustrate a problem I am having with DrawScript.

The intention is that the program draws 3 rectangles, then doubles all the co-ordinates of the corners of the rectangles and then draws the new double-sized rectangles in a new (second) Draw window. It is also intended that it prints out both the original rectangle data and then the new ‘double-size’ data.

Running it from a task window, it correctly produces the two Draw windows and prints out the new ‘double-size’ data, but not the original data. The same is true if it is run by double-clicking on the program icon.

The Drawscript program and the data file for its input can be found “here” http://www.eudoxus.me.uk/web_references.html .
The program should have type &b9b and the data file type &ffd.

The data is for 3 rectangles and the text version of the data is as follows.

DATA 3
DATA 1, 5, 10, 20, 10
DATA 2, 30, 10, 10, 30
DATA 3, 10, 25, 25, 20

The first number in each row after the first is the rectangle number (not used). The rest of each row consists of the co-ordinates of the bottom left corner followed by the length and height of the rectangle.

The program expects to find the data in the root (or current?) directory and outputs a data file to the same directory.

Can anyone throw some light on why the original data is not printed out as text?

Can anyone throw some light on why the original data is not printed out as text?

You read in the original data, print them to the screen, double them, print them out to a file, read them back from a file and then print them to the screen. Printing to the screen in a multi-tasking environment is problematic. In single tasking it opens a window for such output. In multi tasking it just writes it onto the desktop and it may disappear under a window. Running in a task window can affect what appears on the screen in unpredictable ways – some things work, some don’t. Graphics mode and text mode (VDU 5 etc.) also work differently. I never use taskwindows (except for ps2pdf, which terminates with OS_Exit, so you have to).

You may find ‘NewDrawing’ erases the original data.

Thanks for that, Chris. I will probably alter my programs to write text output to a file which can be looked at after the program has run, thus avoiding printing it to the screen. I have been getting a lot of memory insufficient errors.

I will be away from computers for a week and will not be using my mobile phone much. But I will be keen to see any other replies on return.

Chris is right. Plus, in my tests, a BASIC PRINT command in a DrawScript program produces no output to the desktop unless the DrawScript PROCNewDrawing has been executed, after which PRINT works but has to have its non-desktop window (default text viewport) closed before the Draw file plots are displayed.

This is presumably a side-effect of the compromise between being able to run a DrawScript program in the desktop (or in a Task window) for immediate Draw file display versus the restrictions on running BASIC in an environment (the Desktop) for which it is not, at its simplest level, designed.

Chris, I deleted the NewDrawing command from the test rectangles program, but it still did not print out the original data. Worse, it didn’t print out the double-size data either, just the two sets of 3 rectangles (the before and after) in one Draw window.

Can anyone throw some light on why the original data is not printed out as text?

Yes. See the “Scripts Running” page from the help.

“When a drawscript file icon is double-clicked in a Filer display its instructions are obeyed and any drawings constructed are delivered to a !Draw window(s). In this mode All VDU output statements in the script (e.g. PRINT, DRAW, CIRCLE etc) are disabled.”

That is nice and clear one would think, the actual problem then becomes why is the final data printed out.

See the use of the Alt key in the above “Scripts Running” page.

“If the Alt key is held down while double-clicking the script icon, all VDU output will be delivered to a text file in an editor window. This can be useful where a record of text output from PRINT statements is required in addition to drawfile output.”

This does capture the first data set, but not the last!

A pragmatic work around. Print the second batch of data before the NewDrawing command and Alt-double click the file.

TD=OPENIN "RectanglesData"
INPUT#TD,N

DIM TN(N): DIM A(N): DIM B(N): DIM W(N): DIM H(N)

PRINT N

FOR I=1 TO N
  INPUT#TD,TN(I),A(I),B(I),W(I),H(I)
  PRINT TN(I)", ";A(I);", ";B(I);", ";W(I);", ";H(I)
NEXT I

CLOSE#TD


ÚFrameSize(2,1.5,24,18)
ÚAxesStyle("MathsAxes")
ÚAxesScalesStyle("MathsScales")
ÚAxes`(0,120,0,90)
ÚAxesScales(24,5,18,5)

ÚWidth(0.25)
FOR I=1 TO N
  ÚRectangle(A(I),B(I),W(I),H(I))
NEXT I

REM ÚNewDrawing

PROCdoublesize

END

DEF FNMathsAxes(axis)
CASE axis OF
   WHEN x_axis,y_axis
   ÚWidth(0.5)
   ÚTriangularEndCaps(6,15)
   =TRUE
ENDCASE

DEF FNMathsScales(axis,scale)
LOCAL result

CASE scale OF
  WHEN major
   CASE axis OF
   WHEN x_axis,y_axis
   ÚWidth(0.25)
    pipslength=10
    pips=centre
    result=TRUE
   ENDCASE
  WHEN minor
   CASE axis OF
   WHEN x_axis,y_axis
   ÚWidth(0.25)
    pipslength=8
    pips=centre
    result=FALSE
   ENDCASE
ENDCASE
=result

DEF PROCdoublesize

FOR I=1 TO N
  A(I) = 2*A(I): B(I) = 2*B(I): W(I) = 2*W(I): H(I) = 2*H(I)
NEXT I

TD = OPENOUT "RectanglesOut"
PRINT#TD,N
PRINT'N
FOR I=1 TO N
  PRINT#TD,TN(I),A(I),B(I),W(I),H(I)
  PRINT TN(I)", ";A(I);", ";B(I);", ";W(I);", ";H(I)
NEXT I

CLOSE#TD
ÚNewDrawing
ÚFrameSize(2,1.5,24,18)
ÚAxesStyle("MathsAxes")
ÚAxesScalesStyle("MathsScales")
ÚAxes`(0,120,0,90)
ÚAxesScales(24,5,18,5)

ÚWidth(0.25): ÚColour(&00000000)
FOR I=1 TO N
  ÚRectangle(A(I),B(I),W(I),H(I))
NEXT I

TD=OPENIN "RectanglesOut"
INPUT#TD,N


REM PRINT N
REM FOR I=1 TO N
REM   INPUT#TD,TN(I),A(I),B(I),W(I),H(I)
REM   PRINT TN(I)", ";A(I);", ";B(I);", ";W(I);", ";H(I)
REM NEXT I

CLOSE#TD

ENDPROC

Thanks very much for finding this out. I should have RTFM, as they say.
On the Running Scripts page of the manual there is also the option of holding down the Ctrl key while double-clicking on the program icon which “enters the preview mode where any drawings can be viewed on screen as they are constructed. VDU output statements (e.g. PRINT, DRAW etc) are enabled. For an example of a program which has output to the VDU screen (when double-clicked while holding down Ctrl) see spirograph which in preview mode shows the spirograph’s rotating disc.” Although it worked for this example, it doesn’t work properly for my program or your modified veraion of it. It shows only a few lines of the rectangles and the data is printed out to the same window. The window doesn’t seem to be a Draw window, but one created by DrawScript.
I don’t find the two guides, html and StrongHelp, easy to search. Doing a search with terms “preview” or “running” or “scripts” in the StrongHelp version doesn’t produce anything and for the html version one would have to search page by page, as the Index is only for commands.

Anyway, I think it will be more staightforward to omit the BASIC command PRINT and instead print to file which can be looked at after the program has finished running. Also, it seems that the only way to input data to a program is from a data file, unlike BASIC where you can also input data from the keyboard.

Doing a search with terms “preview” or “running” or “scripts” in the StrongHelp version doesn’t produce anything

Searching in StrongHelp is one of the reasons why I like SH: it is very fast to find things. It does not find those words because they are not in the v2.11 SH manual!

for the html version one would have to search page by page

That is quite easy using TextSeek – gives results in a Throwback window, so a click gets it into your editor, then run it to get the page in your browser.