User Guide small corrections

User Guide small corrections

This page provides a place to log suggestions for the subediting of, and other small corrections to, a future edition of the RISC OS 5 User Guide. It may also be used to log reminders of changes in the OS or its apps that require updates in a new User Guide.

Entries made here before publication of User Guide issues 1 and 2 remain retrievable by opening previous revisions of the page. Please use that facility to check if a suggestion you have now was turned down or commented upon by an Editor of a previous issue.

The current RISC OS 5 User Guide is issue 2 (October 2020) and describes OS 5.28. It is available as a paperback book from ROOL here.

We are very grateful to all contributors to this page for making the current issue as complete and error free as it is. Thank you, everyone!

Small corrections

Please preface your entry with “Chapter Title/Page Number” with a little context either side to help locating:

User Guide, issue 2, October 2020

Latest draft

From time to time the draft is updated with the latest edits incorporated, though please note that index cross references between chapters may be stale in drafts due to the way the chapters are stored. 57 of 57 (100%) chapters complete.

Congratulations! All chapters are now believed to be up to date with respect to RISC OS 5.30 features and details, though there could still be some lingering mistakes so keep combing the text and add anything you find to the list of pending edits below.

Pending edits

Accessing the command line/504
The last bullet point currently says:
‘The command is passed for execution. Commands offered to the command line interface are looked up in the OS table, passed to any other modules, the filing system manager, and finally *Run as a file of the name given, in an attempt to execute the command.’

This omits the information on context overriding. Preceding a command by ‘adfs’ will (for the duration of the command only) make adfs the current filing system. Preceding a command by ‘ArmSort:’ will offer the command only to the specified module. The first operation ‘looked up in the OS table’ is therefore not strictly accurate. Detail in the PRM (see PRM 1-924) is fine but this is more a principle.

Setting up networking/167
Below each of the three icons is a dot/light that is green if that type of network is defined/active, and grey otherwise.

Index/571
configuration needs sub-entry ’networking 167’ or ‘network 167’.
Index/584
network needs sub-entry ‘configuration 167’.
(p81 does point to p167 and Index has p167 for hardware/configuration and configuration/hardware which should stay). Ed: the new entries will appear when the index is next regenerated

The desktop/46
Ctrl-Alt-Select-click on the Iconise icon similarly iconises all currently open windows either to Pinboard or to Icon bar according to Configuration Pinboard ‘Iconise to’ setting. See also this page.

Draw/316
In the section “Selecting and deselecting objects”, add the text:
If you have more than one Draw window open, only one of them can be in Select mode at a time. Choosing the Select tool in a second window will cause the first window to switch to another tool. See “Working with multiple Draw files” on page 348 for details.

Draw/317
After “Anything pasted from the clipboard replaces the current selection” add the text:
If no object is currently selected, the pasted object will appear at the current pointer position.

Draw/348
In “Working with multiple Draw files” the method of copying an object is incorrect. Amend the text as follows:
Select the object you want to copy and press Ctrl-C. Now move the pointer to the destination Draw window and press Ctrl-V: the object will be pasted at the current pointer position.

The next paragraph also needs a slight amendment:
So, if you select an object in one window and click on the Select tool in another window, the first window is no longer in Select mode and the selection is nullified. This does not affect the clipboard contents in any way. Additionally clicking on the Draw icon to create a new diagram nullifies any current selection.

Changing the computer’s configuration/96
The method of permanently unlocking the computer is incorrect. Instead of using the “Change Password” screen, you should visit the “Unlock” screen twice in succession: the first visit unlocks temporarily, the second visit unlocks permanently.

Using the keyboard/14
Label the (currently blank) Left flag, Right flag and Menu keys in the diagram that correspond to the Macro keys defined in Changing the…configuration/94,95. Then p95 could cross-refer to p14. Ed: The keyboard diagram on p11 annotates the flag/menu keys, and these are cross referred to from p94 already (the diagram on p14 shows deadkeys)

Does the Style Guide need to mention the preferred use of those keys? Ed: Their use is in Auxiliary Keys, p74, of the issue 3 Style Guide

Edit/265
The third item in the table (“Reformat all lines of a paragraph to a given length”) states “Place the cursor anywhere in the paragraph”. It should instead state “Place the cursor in the first line to be reformatted”. Ed: Code fixed to match text

SparkFS/487
Refers to ‘commercial version’ but the read/write version is now Open Source.

Introduction/83
It would be useful to include ‘CMOS RAM on the Raspberry Pi’ and this could be expanded to cover CMOS widgets on the Pi and other machines. Ed: The User Guide doesn’t cover platform specifics such as Pi or CMOS widgets, those are for the respective Welcome Guide

Index/569
Break key see Keyboard
Index/581
Keyboard / Break / 13, removing tasks 77
Index/581 and elsewhere: coverage of the Alt key
p581 Keyboard Alt key entry points only to p13 when there are several different uses)
Use of Alt consistent with Style Guide p71:
pp11,13 Alt key(s) (positions)
pp14,141,406,568,545 Alt key (top bit set characters)
p407 Alt-Space (no-break space)
Other uses of Alt:
pp xxi,77 Alt-Break (interrupt task)
p46 Ctrl-Alt-Select (iconise windows)
p53 Alt key (filer object rename)
p491 Alt-dclick (!SparkFS)
p544 Alt-Ctrl-Fn (alphabet switching) Ed: Alt key index entries revised

Edit/265 and Edit/267
Both pages mention a “cursor” (page 265 in the “Reformat all lines in a paragraph” item, page 267 in “Laying out tables with irregular columns”). For consistency with the rest of the chapter, these should mention the caret, not the cursor.

Maestro/413 and Maestro/414
Both Maestro main windows need updating, both above and below ties are now available in the lower toolbar.

Maestro/415.
Add “Beams are automatically added when appropriate.” to "Adding dots, accidental, bars and ties, first paragraph.

Maestro/419
The section “Maestro’s use of memory” can go, it is superceded by version 2.16, if not previously long gone.

Draw/309 Wrong page link in “Undoing and Redoing operations”, bottom right of table, “see page 351”. The choices dialogue is actually page 348 but it would be better to direct to the start of the Choices section, page 347, to enable the user to find the dialogue box.

On page 309 change “see page 351” to “see Draw preferences, page 347.”