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<!doctype html>
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<head>
<!--
This Amos Professional Manual is written by asymetrix for the Amiga community and should stay completely FREE FOREVER.
Created 2008. :)
It was created from the original AMOS Professional Manual by Europress Software Ltd.
It has been updated by Fredrik Rambris.
-->
<title>Getting Started - AMOS Professional Manual</title>
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<section>
<h1>Getting Started</h1>
</section>
<section>
<P>AMOS Professional is a truly comprehensive programming package, allowing experts to
release their full potential. It has also been designed to provide beginners with rapid access to
expert techniques. However, this section is for absolute beginners only!</P>
<P>If you have upgraded from Easy AMOS or its big brother AMOS, don't be too proud to skip
through this Chapter before moving on to Chapter 4.1, where the AMOS Professional Editor
is explained.</P>
<P><b>Warning:</b> if you have not yet installed your AMOS Professional System disc, please do
so now by referring to <a href="02-01-installing-amos-professional.html">Chapter 2.1.</a></P>
</section>
<section id="01-absolute-beginners">
<h2>Absolute Beginners</h2>
<P>A computer program is simply a collection of instructions telling a computer to perform
a list of tasks. Amiga programs are stored on magnetic discs, and because disc programs are stored
magnetically, you must keep them clear of all magnetic objects. Placing a telephone on top
of a hard disc drive can be a risk, and leaving floppy discs on top of your television set or
loudspeaker system is asking for trouble. Always make back-up discs of your programs, and
store them in a safe place out of direct sunlight.</P>
<P>Computer programs that are stored on magnetic discs have to be "loaded" into your
computer's memory. If you are using floppy discs, here is the procedure for loading AMOS
Professional:</P>
<UL>
<LI>To explore all of the system's features, a colour television or monitor should be
connected to
your Amiga via the appropriate cable. Additionally, a stereo audio system should be
connected to the computer's left and right audio sockets. Make sure that your mouse is
also connected to the appropriate socket.
</LI>
<LI>Remove any disc that may be in your Amiga's internal floppy disc drive, switch off
the machine, and wait at least ten seconds.
</LI>
<LI>Place your AMOSPro_System disc in the Amiga's internal floppy disc drive and switch
on the computer.
</LI>
<LI>AMOS Professional will load into the machine's memory automatically.</LI>
<LI>Remember to make back-up copies of your original AMOS Professional discs, and keep
the originals in a safe place.
</LI>
</UL>
<P>Hard disc users who want to load AMOS Professional from the Workbench once it has been
installed should double-click on the AMOS Professional System disc icon, and then click on
the relevant icon to run the program. If you are running the system from CLI, simply type in:</p>
<code class="prefix cli">AMOSPro</code>
<P>
AMOS Professional has been designed to be the friendliest system available to the Amiga
programmer. As soon as it has loaded into your computer, you will be greeted by name
before getting down to business! This welcome panel will disappear automatically after a few
seconds, or it can be cleared by pressing any key on your keyboard, or by clicking a mouse
button.</P>
</section>
<section id="02-the-edit-screen">
<h2>The Edit Screen</h2>
<P>To create and edit computer programs with AMOS Professional, you are given a working
area called the Edit Screen. If AMOS Professional has been loaded successfully, the Edit Screen
will be displayed now.</P>
<P>There is a complete guided tour of the AMOS Professional Editor in the next Chapter,
but you will want to see some immediate action. So instead of explaining what everything does,
here is a rapid introduction to getting started.</P>
<P>Move the mouse around now, and observe how the mouse pointer follows your movements
around the Edit Screen. At the top of the Edit Screen there is a row of control "buttons"
that are used to call up various features of the AMOS Professional system.
These little panels are triggered by dragging the mouse pointer over one of them,
and clicking with the left mouse button.
You can do no harm by experimenting with any of the Edit Screen features, but
please resist the temptation to do this, and follow this brief introduction.</P>
<P>Identify the control button at the top-centre of the screen, displaying the letter [H].
Move the mouse pointer over it and click the left mouse button. This is the <kbd>Help</kbd> icon, and it
calls up the AMOS Professional instant Help service. Now look at the new display on the
screen, and identify the small button to the immediate left of the title "AMOS Professional Help
Window", and click on it to return to the original Edit Screen display.</P>
<P>Now press the <b>right</b> mouse button and keep it held down.</P>
<P>When editing, the right mouse button calls up a line of "menu" titles at the top of the
Edit Screen. Run the mouse pointer along this line of titles now, and notice how as soon as the
pointer touches one of them, a selection of further titles is revealed. Each of these
items refers to a different feature of the AMOS Professional system.</P>
<P>With the right mouse button still held down, move the mouse pointer to the right-hand
side of the line of main menu headings, and touch the <kbd>Help</kbd> title.
Keeping the right mouse button held down, move the mouse pointer to the [Help Menu] option,
so that it is highlighted in reverse video.
As soon as you release the right mouse button, this feature is called up on
screen.</P>
<P>Please clear the Help Main Menu from the screen by pressing the small button as before.</P>
<P>Now look at your keyboard, and identify the large <kbd>Help</kbd> key. Press this key now, and
the AMOS Professional Help Main Menu is called up once more. Before proceeding, please clear
it away again, as described above.</P>
<p>
You are already using AMOS Professional like an expert, and have just used the three
alternative methods of calling up one of the most useful AMOS Professional features, as
follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Clicking on a control button, or "dialogue" box, or "icon", using the mouse. You will
soon learn how to design your own control buttons and dialogue boxes.
</li>
<li>Calling up a Menu and selecting one of the items on offer, using the mouse. You will
also learn how to exploit your own menu designs.
</li>
<li>Pressing one or more keys on the keyboard directly.</li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="03-typing-in-the-edit-window">
<h2>Typing in the Edit Window</h2>
<p>If you have been experimenting, and cannot clear the Edit Screen to its original empty
state, leave your machine switched on, with the AMOSPro_System disc in the internal floppy disc
drive, and press the <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>Amiga</kbd>+<kbd>Amiga</kbd> keys together. This will re-boot AMOS
Professional, allowing you to clear your electronic slate.</p>
<p>Look at the empty Edit Screen, and identify the small flashing block in the top
left-hand corner of the large area below the row of control buttons.
This is the "program cursor" and it
marks the current position where anything you type in will appear on screen. This top left-hand
position marks the "home" starting point of the Edit Window, which is where the list of
instructions that make up your computer programs begin to appear.</p>
<p>Press the <kbd>A</kbd> key on your keyboard, and a lower-case "a" will appear in the Edit Window,
shunting the program cursor one character to the right. Now hold down one of the <kbd>Shift</kbd>
keys and press [A] again. There should now be a capital "A" next to the little "a" on screen.
The <kbd>Shift</kbd> key is used to type in upper-case letters as well as any of the symbols that
are marked above the numbers and punctuation marks on your keyboard keys. So to type in a
"$" symbol, you would press <kbd>Shift</kbd>+<kbd>4</kbd> together. Type in a "$" now.</p>
<p>Now locate the extra-large key with a turn-left arrow on it, to the right-hand side of
the main
block of keys. This is the <kbd>Return</kbd> key, and it is used to start a new line when writing
programs.
Please press this key once, so that the program cursor is waiting at the beginning of a
new line.</p>
<p>Just above the large <kbd>Return</kbd> key, there is a small key marked by a left-arrow. This is
the <kbd>Delete</kbd> key, and it is used to rub out characters already typed in the Edit Window.
Please press it as many times as necessary to get rid of any characters that you have
typed, until the cursor is back "home" in the top-left corner of the Edit Window.</p>
<p>The mouse pointer can also be used to position the program cursor in program lists, as
well as to mark out special blocks of the program, and this will become obvious in the next
Chapter.</p>
</section>
<section id="04-your-first-programs">
<h2>Your first programs</h2>
<p>Type in the following program so that it appears in the Edit Window, and then press the
<kbd>Return</kbd> key:</p>
<code class="prefix edit">Print 2+2</code>
<P>
That juvenile program will wait in the Edit Window, until you tell AMOS Professional to
"run" it. To run a program, call up the list of Menu headings by holding down the right mouse
button, move the mouse pointer to the [Project] title, highlight the [Run] option and release the
right mouse button.</P>
<P>Alternatively, use a simple keyboard short-cut for running a program, which is to press
the <kbd>F1</kbd> key. Either way, the Edit Screen will be flicked out of view, and the result of the
program will be displayed on screen. In this case, the result of two plus two will be
printed on screen as "4".</P>
<P>There are several ways to return to the Edit Screen when a program is running. There
are special commands that can be included in the program for an automatic return, which will be
explained in future Chapters, or you can break into a program by pressing the <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>C</kbd> keys
together, and then press the <kbd>Return</kbd> key.</P>
<P>If an audio system is connected to your Amiga, add the following lines to your program,
so that it now looks like this:</P>
<code class="prefix edit">Print 2+2
Wait 100
Boom
Wait 200
Print "Good-bye"
Wait 50
Edit
</code>
<P>Now press <kbd>F1</kbd> to run that program. You should already be aware that using AMOS
Professional is a very friendly method of communicating with your Amiga.</P>
</section>
<section id="05-direct-mode">
<h2>Direct Mode</h2>
<P>So far, you have been programming your Amiga in the AMOS Professional Edit Mode, but
when you are working on a program professionally you will often want to conduct an instant
experiment, or call up an AMOS Professional feature without interfering with your current
task.
There is a very powerful Direct Mode provided for this purpose, which works completely
independently from the Edit Mode. To jump to Direct Mode now, use the mouse to click on
the [Arrow] button in the top left-hand corner of the Edit Screen, or alternatively press the
<kbd>Esc</kbd> key at the top left-hand corner of your keyboard.</P>
<P>The Direct Mode screen is flicked into view over the Default Screen, and it can be
repositioned to reveal the contents of the Default Screen behind it, by clicking on the [DIRECT] panel
in the line of control buttons with the left mouse button, and dragging the Direct Mode screen up
and down. To get back to the Edit Screen, press the <kbd>Esc</kbd> key again, or click on the [Arrow]
button at the top left of the Direct mode "window".</P>
<P>There is a highlighted prompt in the Direct Mode window, waiting for your instructions
to be typed in and displayed next to it. After they have been typed in, these instructions will
be obeyed as soon as the <kbd>Return</kbd> key is pressed, without interfering with the program that is
currently being worked on in the Editor. Type the following line in Direct Mode now, and
then press the <kbd>Return</kbd> key.</P>
<code class="prefix direct">Print "This is Direct Mode"</code>
<P>Direct Mode offers a simple way of gaining access to a disc, to examine its contents,
or load some images. It also allows you to check the results of instant tests of text,
graphics and sound commands, before including them in your programs. Try out the following lines from Direct
Mode now, and remember to press <kbd>Return</kbd> after typing in each line. The first line
instructs AMOS Professional to report how many little dots known as "pixels" make up the height of
the current screen. The middle line calls for a report of how much free chip memory is
available. The third line triggers a print-out of the contents of the current disc, known as a
"directory".</P>
<code class="prefix direct">Print Screen Height</code>
<br>
<code class="prefix direct">Print Chip Free</code>
<br>
<code class="prefix direct">Dir</code>
<P>There is a full guided tour around all of the Direct Mode operations in the next Chapter.</P>
<P>To end this beginner's introduction, take a look at some ready-made programs that have been
created by other programmers using AMOS Professional. If you have been experimenting, and
are not quite sure of everything that is displayed on screen at the moment, leave your
AMOSPro_System disc in place, and press <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>Amiga</kbd> + <kbd>Amiga</kbd> to make sure that you
start from scratch again.</P>
<P>After being greeted by your name, and revealing the Edit Screen, remove your
AMOSPro_System disc and insert the disc labelled AMOSPro_Productivity1.</P>
</section>
<section id="06-loading-a-program">
<h2>Loading a program</h2>
<P>As usual with AMOS Professional, you have a choice of how to select the loading operation.
You can call up the Main Menu titles with the right mouse button, and select the [Load]
option from the [Project] menu in the usual way. Alternatively, there is a keyboard short-cut by
pressing <kbd>Amiga</kbd> + <kbd>L</kbd>. Either operation will call up a special interactive panel called a
"File Selector". A file is simply a self-contained chunk of computer data, with its own name,
held on a magnetic disc.</P>
<P>With the File Selector in the middle of your screen, use the mouse pointer to highlight
one of the programs on offer, and click on the <kbd>Return</kbd> icon. If you are interested in an
arcade game, you can select and highlight the line that reads Zybex/Zybex.AMOS, or if you
prefer a practical program then Fileo'fax.AMOS is worth examining.</P>
<P>Certain programs need more memory than others, and if there is not enough memory
available when you want to load a particular program, you will be presented with a "dialogue box" on
the screen, asking if you want to expand the size of the relevant memory. When dialogue boxes
are presented by AMOS Professional, you normally select your response using the mouse pointer
and clicking on the left mouse button.</P>
</section>
<footer>
<a href="02-01-installing-amos-professional.html" rel="prev">Installing AMOS Professional</a>
<a href="./">Contents</a>
<a href="14-appendix-g-command-index.html">Index</a>
<a href="04-01-the-editor.html" rel="next">The Editor</a>
</footer>
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