6.1 First steps with the IDE

Starting the IDE

The IDE is started by entering the command:

fp

at the command line. It can also be started from a graphical user interface such as WINDOWS.

Remark: Under WINDOWS, it is possible to switch between windowed mode and full screen mode by pressing ALT-ENTER).

IDE Command line options

When starting the IDE, command line options can be passed:

 fp [-option] [-option] ... <file name> ...

Option is one of the following switches (the option letters are case insensitive):

-N: (DOS only) Do not use long file names. WINDOWS 95 and later versions of WINDOWS provide an interface to DOS applications to access long file names. The IDE uses this interface by default to access files. Under certain circumstances, this can lead to problems. This switch tells the IDE not to use the long filenames.
-Cfilename: This option, followed by a filename, tells the IDE to read its options from filename. There should be no whitespace between the file name and the -C.
-F: use alternative graphic characters. This can be used to run the IDE on LINUX in an X-term or through a telnet session.
-R: After starting the IDE, it changes automatically to the directory which was active when the IDE exited the last time.
-S: Disable the mouse. When this option is used, then the mouse is disabled, even if a mouse is present.
-Tttyname: (linux/unix only) Sends program output to tty ttyname. This is useful so one doesn’t have to switch between program output and ide all the time.

The files given at the command line are loaded into edit windows automatically.

Remark: Under DOS/Win32, the first character of a command-line option can be a / character instead of a - character. So /S is equivalent to -S.

The IDE screen

After start up, the screen of the IDE can look like figure (6.1).

Figure 6.1:

The IDE screen immediately after startup

At top of the screen the menu bar is visible, at the bottom the status bar. The empty space between them is called the desktop.

The status bar shows the keyboard shortcuts for frequently used commands, and allows quick access to these commands by clicking them with the mouse. At the right edge of the status bar, the current amount of unused memory is displayed. This is only an indication, since the IDE tries to allocate more memory from the operating system if it runs out of memory.

The menu provides access to all of the IDE’s functionality, and at the right edge of the menu, a clock is displayed.

The IDE can be left by selecting ”File--Exit” in the menu ¹ or by pressing ALT-X.

Remark: If a file fp.ans is found in the current directory, then it is loaded and used to paint the background. This file should contain ANSI drawing commands to draw on a screen.

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