User Guide small corrections (Rev #90, changes)

User Guide small corrections

This page is for contributors to log small subediting errors (e.g. spelling and punctuation) that they have spotted in the current draft User Guide.

Please report potential corrections under the date of the User Guide version you are reading, giving PPP/ppp where
PPP is the sequential page number of the PDF, and
ppp is the ‘printed’ page number in the document,
adding some immediate context (rather than a line number).

Page cross references are only periodically regenerated, so it is not necessary to point out apparently out-of-order page numbers.

Reviewing needs to be complete by 19-Mar-2018 in order to not delay the OS release schedule.

User Guide draft 29-Jan-2017

One single opening quote and many single closing quotes or apostrophes are showing as ë and í respectively (but only in paragraph headings) on pages:
41/19, 200/168, 231/199, 322/290, 397/365, 402/370 (automatically repeated in some page-top headings).

Chapter 12 ‘Managing the desktop’ appears at 99/107 which is between chapter 9 (71/49) and chapter 10 (109/77).

User Guide draft 08-May-2017

Chapter 16 (179/161) appears before chapter 15 (203/155) and shares some of the same printed page numbers (for example, both chapters have a page 161). There is a reference to page 161 on the first page of chapter 15 (203/155); make sure that this points to the first page of chapter 16.

User Guide draft 20-May-2017

500/466: The first sentence states that HForm is in the Utilities directory; it’s actually in Utilities.Caution.

User Guide draft 26-Jun-2017

275/251: The list of fonts includes “Sydney”; it’s actually “Sidney”. Note that the rendered example is also wrong.

User Guide draft 10-Sep-2017

60/36 and 141/117 both refer to “harddisc” whereas all other references say “hard disc”.

User Guide draft 23-Nov-2017

45/21: The photos in the Draw example have gone “blocky”.

152/132: This chapter hasn’t yet been formally updated, but this page is missing two instances of “with” in the phrase “it is compatible with RISC OS”.

180/160: This page suggests running the Utilities.Access.!Access+ application, however this is not part of the standard HardDisc4 distribution. Do we need a note on how to get this app (or are the instructions out of date?) – apologies if this is not actually a “small correction” :)

203/183: The third paragraph of “Selecting OmniClient’s protocols” should say “to enable the LAN Manager change its selection line to say”.

261/241: The Apps icon is cropped and is only showing the top-left corner.

User Guide draft 02-Dec-17

37/13: “Using the keyboard”, “Moving around a document”, “End”, should be “moves the caret to the end of the document”, not “to the start”.

User Guide draft 30-Dec-17

There are a few references to the Welcome Guide; does this still exist (or is it intended to)? The references are on pages 19/xix, 86/64, 108/88 and 145/127. Ed: Yes, hardware manufacturers should provide a Welcome Guide, or similarly titled booklet, describing the equipment (not the OS)

37/13 refers to “writable menu boxes” – this should be “writable menu options” so that the terminology is consistent with that formally introduced on page 52/30.

40/18: Change “pinboard” to “Pinboard” as it appears to be a proper name. This also appears on 65/43 (second paragraph of step 2) and 126/106. Ed: Style Guide refers to “the pinboard” except where referring to the task name

105/83 also refers to “menu box” instead of “menu option”. Finally, the Index on 595/579’s very last entry also has “boxes”.

113/93 says “USB port” but this should be “USB socket” for consistency with other mentions.

User Guide draft 06-Jan-18

24/xxiv – States ‘Your supplier should have the following products available’. Perhaps this should explicitly refer to ROOL e.g. “RISC OS Open Limited also supplies the following documentation:” Ed: See Tech Pubs Style Guide, we use generic term “supplier”

453/437 “Points are awarded for each complete horizontal line” is incorrect and should read, “One point is awarded for each block put into place”

453/437 “The colours of the blocks correspond to their arrangement, so with practice you
will become familiar with the colours and how that shape might be useful to your
game.” That statement is spurious. The colour of the blocks gives you no more useful information than their shape does. It should be deleted. Ed: The hint is explaining that colours equate to shapes, which they do

454/438 “Pressing the Space bar causes the currently falling block to immediately drop into
place which may not seem useful, but the time saved gives you a little extra time to
think about the next block that you must place.” should simply read “Pressing the Space bar causes the currently falling block to immediately drop into
place.” as what follows is spurious advice. No extra time is gained by dropping blocks into place early by pressing the Space bar.

40/18 I’m continuing to review the benign areas of the user guide and I’m not finding many problems. But to demonstrate I am actually reading the chapters and not just putting my name against them I’ll make a pedantic observation here: where in the “Iconise icon” section it says “stuck on the pinboard”, that should really be “stuck to the pinboard”.

30/6 “In a foreign restaurant, if you can’t actually speak the language, you
can point at the menu with your finger to tell the waiter which dish you want
(assuming that you know what the menu means!). On the computer,” The age of the original text means some anachronisms will inevitably persist but this cringe-worthy material can safely be deleted without confusing anyone. The text that follows can complete the paragraph instead: “Move the
mouse to point at your choice from the menu.”

107/87 In the paragraph starting “To open the Configuration window” add “or double click on the !Boot appplication”. Ed: Double clicking Boot is deprecated due to being non discoverable

108/88 Add to the first paragraph something like, “On some machines without a physical CMOS RAM device the settings are stored as a file external to the RISC OS environment.” Ed: The text is vague about where CMOS is stored, so CMOS stored outside of RISC OS should be transparent in use

111/91 The “Warning” is perhaps misplaced here, or even redundant. It refers to CMOS preservation which will not help if a defective component has been added to !Boot.

113/93 In the first paragraph change the last sentence, “One such example is a drive connected to a USB socket.”, to include internal ADFS hard drives. Ed: ADFS isn’t SCSI

138/118 The System application, second paragraph change “When you buy” to “When you add”

161/143 Types of filing systems, fourth item, NFS and LanManFS, NFS?? Isn’t that Sunfish & Moonfish these days? Ed: see Acorn NFS provided

User Guide draft 28-Jan-18

20/xx Mouse techniques uses terms ‘Adjust’ and ‘Menu’ before they have been explained as Right and Middle buttons on 32/8.

30/6 Task Manager. Perhaps should add: This icon is always at the very right of the iconbar, but may look very different depending which computer type is being used.

203/187 OmniClient. Should ‘click Adjust on (not Select) the OmniClient icon’ be ‘click Adjust (not Select) on the OmniClient icon’ ?

202/186 alternates between *Omnimount and *OmniMount (ie. capital M). According to *Help, the latter is correct.

205/189 says “Task manager” instead of “Task Manager”.

208/190 states that the Mounts file is in Choices under “OmniClient.Mounts” when it’s actually just “Omni.Mounts”.

User Guide draft 03-Feb-18

71/50 Close icon uses ‘iconise’ in notes. Iconise icon used ‘minimise’. Should be consistent. Also noticed that Shift-Select-click iconises to the pointer, but iconise icon uses pinboard placement options.

75/55 Select a group of icons. In Notes there is a mouse with Adjust highlit. There should also be one with Select highlit, and the Notes should say something like ‘You can also Select drag a box round a group of icons to select them, or Adjust drag to add them to a selection.’

73/53 Full Info. Could add to the list at the bottom: If an application directory contains a !RunImage file, the time and date shown for the application directory is that of the !RunImage file.

80/60 Access permissions. Although there is explanation that R&r mean read, and W&w mean write, I can find no explanation that W&R are Owner, and w&r are Public. Perhaps the Detailed Access Permissions list on the previous page should replace the bullets by LWRwr?

86/66 Are 1024×768 still regarded as ‘high resolution’ and 800×600 ‘normal’? Perhaps another image at 1920×1080 should be added? May also affect the Resoluition menu on the next page. Ed: 1920×1080 would be far too detailed to see on the page, the example cited is illustrative

88/68 Perhaps ‘the amount of video memory it contains’ should be changed to ‘it can use’ to move away from implying that it is a separate hardware thing … which is now rarely the case.

92/72 Select group. See 75/55 comment – same text applies for pinboard as well.

272/256 Font cache: re 4MB machine with 256kB cache. Should this reflect more modern machines? eg 512MB machine could use 4MB cache?

171/155 Types of network
“A local area network (LAN) joins computers in the same building”
“A wide area network (WAN) joins multiple local area networks”

171/155 Topology
No errors, but seems outdated. hub could be merged with switch. (telephone) modems are also practically non-existent today. Instead we have (Wifi) routers, cable and dsl modems, etc.
I think the hub/switch distinction is good. Perhaps just extend the sentence ending ‘..as the gateway too, and is often called a router.’ Ed: No change made. We avoid ‘router’ as that is used later

172/156 Protocols
optional: some info that Econet and Access is RISC OS only and that you have to use TCP/IP if you want to connect to Mac, Windows, Linux, your NAS, Router, etc. Ed: See OmniClient at the end of that chapter

173/157 Sharing your hard disc
“1 Switch on your computer” → is that really necessary?

174/158 Sharing a CD-ROM
“Type in the new name in the Share as box and click on OK to start sharing it.” → On the picture there is a Share button, not an OK button.

30/6 New battery manager icon submitted via email to replace A4 version.

User Guide draft 10-Feb-18

103/82 Controlling tasks. In ‘… two ways to access to the command line …’ perhaps the second ‘to’ should be removed?

103/83 Choice of screen display – surely the example resolutions should be increased rather than leaving in the 1980’s? Ed: The example cited is illustrative

106/88 ‘When the CMOS RAM reset…’ should be ‘When the CMOS RAM is reset…’

114/96 ‘If this is not selection then…’ should be ‘If this is not selected then…’

116/98 The values need modernising – 256kB is no longer large, and 64k/megabyte gives 32MB for a 512MB machine – which seems high! Should agree with page 272/256

144/128 Naming Discs. ‘… displays; because …’ might better as ‘… displays; but because …’

163/147 Transfer of text files. ‘Most other characters displayed using the Alt key modifier may be display as a different characters when opened.’ => … displayed as different …’ ?

171/155 ‘maybe it is part of your school or office network’ These days, I suggest a home network is more common, and should be added to the list? Especially because many home users do not realise their computers can use it to communicate with each other rather than just ‘the internet’!

172/156 Addressing. Add after station number ‘, and on Ethernet networks it is called the IP address.’

196/180 Is it wise to include a list of alternative Resolver modules … when none seem to be available and even if they could be found it seems unlikely that they would run with 5.24?

207/191 Mount Flag O. Wording is very confusing. The default, without any flags set, is to automatically open when mounted. It reads as if O is the default, with no obvious way to automatically open!

231/215 ‘… you can press Print on the keyboard.’ Should common variations be included eg PrintScreen, PrtScrn & PrtSc ? I have not seen Print for decades! Ed: See chapter 3

233/217 Text printing. ‘uses the standard font built into the printer’ I thought many modern printers do not have a ‘text’ print ability, and all printing to them now has to be graphical?
Is a font cache of 128k still large?

69/49 ‘The following table repeats those techniques and expands
on your skills with other more advanced ways to manipulate windows.’ ‘expands on your skills’ doesn’t seem right. The table expands on the aforementioned ‘techniques’ so it could be ‘expands on them’ or ‘builds on them’ etc. Or, if the reader’s skills are important, it could say ‘and enables you to expand your skills’. Also, there should be a comma between ‘other’ and ‘more advanced’.

86/66. Another picky point but you can’t really call 1024×768 ‘high resolution’ anymore. Ed: Duplicate

202/186 ‘If the mount requires a password a Mount dialogue box is displayed
for you to fill in.’ A comma between ‘a password’ and ‘a Mount’ seems reasonable.

207/191 ‘The third column in the mounts file set the flags field’ Shouldn’t that be ‘sets’?

211/195 ‘RISC OS
supports most types of popular dot matrix, inkjet, and laser printers from
manufacturers compatible with Canon, Epson, Apple and Hewlett Packard
printers’ That sentence doesn’t sound right. RISC OS supports X printers from manufacturers compatible with Y printers? The sense could be corrected but ‘RISC OS supports most types of dot matrix, inkjet, and laser printers’ would probably do; the next section goes into more detail.

212/196 ‘dot-matrix’ should be ‘dot matrix’. It’s not a big deal but I notice there’s use of both these variations throughout the user guide. I only mention it in this instance.

218/202 There’s some antiquated kit mentioned in this chapter. Is anyone really still printing on an Acorn JP150? If so, fair enough. If not, remove such references or provide more up-to-date examples. Ed: List was updated for this Guide

227/211 ‘fine tune’ should really be ‘fine-tune’.

271/255 Sub-pixel anti-aliasing. ‘However it is heavy on computing power […] and may result in unacceptably slow screen
updates.’ Is this still true on modern hardware?

272/256 Changing the minimum size of the font cache. ‘A computer with 4MB of memory can benefit from a cache of 256kB’ Remove or replace with modern example.
Also make size examples consistent with other references.

The Draw chapter appears to be typo free but would need reviewing by someone else to verify the technical detail.

419/405 The last sentence of “Starting Chars” isn’t technically a complete sentence. Trimming it down a bit, we get “For example, in any application that uses text, such as a word processor.” Perhaps change it to “For example, you can insert characters into an Edit window [etc]”.

421/407 “Using an outline desktop font” doesn’t make it clear that it’s only talking about menus until you get right to the end. Maybe change to “If you are using one of the outline fonts as your desktop font and you are inserting characters into menus, you should make sure that the Chars display also uses the same outline font.” However, this is getting a bit wordy and I wonder whether it can be trimmed down further; does anyone not use outline fonts these days?

421/407, 422/408 and 423/409 each have a single reference to “Latin 1” whereas all other parts of the book say “Latin1”.

423/409 Swap “Choices” and “Help” descriptions to match their order in the menu. Also, should the ellipses be present? I found a couple of other chapters where they’re not.

306/290 refers to the “Print button” on the keyboard instead of the “Print key”.

480/466 The last paragraph of the “Converting a font” section says “You should now try to display the font using !Chars (see page 405) if the font displays correctly the conversion was successful.” This should be two separate sentences.

322/306 Is there a full stop missing after ‘…in Enter mode’ at the end of the first bullet point line? Ed: See Tech Pubs Style Guide page 14

53/33 “What are Applications?”, first paragraph. “Application names always start with an exclamation mark (!) – for example, !Draw.” is wrong, and contradicted by application names elsewhere in the guide. Should it not be something like “In a directory, application names always…”?

323/307 Why do the examples on this page show lines with a thin white line down their middles? This is not what the user will see, so surely is misleading? Ed: To distinguish butt from square when printed

337/321 This section of Draw references the use of Edit … but the Edit section comes next! Would it be better to swap the Edit & Draw sections round? Edit is also simpler to grasp than Draw, and likely to be used more often.

339/323 ‘\P24 …. In this example, this just affects the space after the title.’ What title?

376/360 It would be clearer if items 2-6 were in the order of the dialogue box.

405/389 It is not clear which types ‘can be modified by paint’. If it is all of them in the table, surely that should be first and clearly specified?

408/394 ‘3. Cick on save to save to define the alarm.’ should be reworded.

483/469 The second paragraph should have a semicolon, not a comma. In other words, “The native disc format in RISC OS is handled by the FileCore module; such discs are said to be FileCore formatted […]”

483/469 The first “warning” paragraph suggests backing up to floppy discs. This could perhaps be changed to “another disc” to tone down the dated reference.

490/476 The first paragraph of “Picture formats” should have a semicolon, not a comma. In other words, “ChangeFSI can convert many types of images to a sprite or JPEG file; see page 482 for a full list.”

490/476 The first bullet point has a full stop after TGA instead of a comma.

490/476 Under the fourth bullet point, “Compuserve” should be “CompuServe”. Pages 497/483 and 554/540 have the same issue.

494/480 The “Smoothing” section states that a value of 1 is the default. The default is now 4, but I’m not sure whether that needs to be mentioned (the previous “Pre-sharpening” section doesn’t list its default).

504/490 In the second-to-last paragraph, “exceed” should be “exceeded”. In the following paragraph it might be best to split it into two sentences at the comma, i.e. change to “…recognised by SparkFS. Unticking a module…”

505/491 In the first sentence of the final paragraph, delete either “now” or “any more”; it doesn’t need both. The second sentence could use some improved punctuation, such as “To get the SparkFS icon back, double-click on the !SparkFS icon with the Alt key held down; this will temporarily ignore the auto quit option.”

180/164 Printing over an Access network
“Choose Save choices to remember this printer set up in future.”→ not clear if I have to do this for the computer connected to the printer or the other computer (or both).

181/165 Logging on
“Before you can use a file server, you need to log on to it using the Net Logon dialogue box.”→ What or where is the Net Logon dialogue box? I figured that out, but found it confusing on the first read. Maybe just omit the “using the Net Logon dialogue box”?

486/472 Step 2 says that you can add multiple errors by typing them, separated by Enter. However, pressing Enter returns you to the previous menu where you need to select “C” again. Is there supposed to be something like a comma to act as a separator?

User Guide draft 25-Feb-2018

30/6 The Battery Manager icon has a black “fill”; I don’t believe that this should be there. Ed: Supplied image didn’t follow transparency guidelines

450/436 Part 4 has a list of the applications it contains at the beginning – it would help if Part 5 and 6 also started with a list at of the applications they contain. Ed: Unclear what this means – Part 4 is about printing, but even Part 5 doesn’t have such a list (Alarm isn’t mentioned for example)

324/308 It would be useful to point out that Triangle (and indeed Round and Square) ends extend the length of a plain original line. This always catches me out when adding arrows to the ends of dimension lines.

231/215 ‘You also can stop a print job’ should be ‘You can also stop a print job’

232/216 ‘You can, for instance set up different print resolutions and
quality’. There should be a comma after ‘instance’.

232/216 ‘dragging their icons to the printer icon’ should be ‘dragging their icons onto the printer icon’

233/217 ‘Flush printer removes all files currently on the queue’ should be ‘Flush printer removes all files currently in the queue’

512/498 ‘This produces a box into which you can type…’ Shouldn’t that be ‘dialogue box’ or even ‘writable icon’?

513/499 ‘is equivalent to double-clicking on the application’ is missing a full stop at the end.

519/505 ‘< <filename’ and ‘>> <filename’ are missing a ‘>’ at the end.

522/508 ‘explained in greater detail later in this chapter’ – it’s an appendix, not a chapter.

531/517 ‘It is recommended that you don’t use *Copy and related filer commands in
TaskObey files – use Filer_Action instead.’ – should that be *Filer_Action? Regardless, there’s no other info on Filer_Action in the User Guide. There should be a reference to the PRM, or another appropriate source of further info.

User Guide draft 27-Feb-2018

124/106 Screen Setup. Should there be some mention of EDID ? Sample resolutions very 20’th century.

235/213 ‘This chapter gives you an overview of the functions of PrintEdit. This chapter
should give’. The second ‘This chapter’ is repetitious.

245/223 ‘To finish using the application, chose Quit’ – ‘chose’ should be ‘choose’

475/455 ‘you need to have your source font comprising the
Type 1 file and an AFM file on a RISC OS format disc’ – That was presumably written when the AFM file would have been on a floppy. ‘on a RISC OS format disc’ can probably be deleted.

475/455 ‘should be given the file type PoScript (&FF4)’ – The PoScript file type is listed as &FF5 here If the Wiki is correct then this mislabeling needs correcting in several places.

476/456 ‘As specified in type 1 file’ – To be consistent with other references, this should be ‘As specified in the Type 1 file’

477/457 ‘It may be simpler to use a Macintosh multiformat floppy drive to
copy the files to an MS-DOS format floppy disc. This disc can then be read directly
by your RISC OS computer’ – Is all this floppy-based advice relevant still?

User Guide draft 01-Mar-2018

38/14 Keyboard map. It is not clear that the non-breaking space line indicates it is referring to Alt-Space. (although I find that Shift-Alt-Space also gives NBSP!). Perhaps colour could be used to help identify the 4 possible key characters?
I also wonder if the Alt key-numeric keypad combinations section which is currently in Chars would be better here? Ed: Colour is hard to distinguish in print (compare ‘triangle’ with ‘red’)

38/14 Graphic of keyboard has five lowercase special characters not shown: Alt-Q œ, Alt-A æ, Alt-O ø, Alt-P þ, Alt-D ð. (Note that œ has been typed here in Windows with Alt-0156, whereas RISC OS Latin-1 has this digraph at 155 &9B. The other four use the same number in both systems).

277/261 states that JPEGs can be found in Documents.Pictures, however this directory is not in the HD4 image or UserGuideTutorials Zip file. Are there some demo files intended or does this need to be changed? For that matter, are the files from Tutorials intended to be rolled into the main HD4 image before release? Ed: Yes, once reviewed the tutorial material will be added to HD4

551/537 I’m a bit confused. The paragraph beginning “Some types have a textual equivalent” states that the dagger symbol indicates equivalents that are set up at system startup. It then states that others are set by apps, and gives the example of TIFF set up by ChangeFSI. But then on the next page TIFF has a dagger next to it! Is this just an incorrect dagger or is there something I’m not understanding?

584/750 File type is unrecognised: “An unrecognised file type is usually displayed as an empty white icon” – it’s not empty in OS 5; it has a green question mark on it. Also change “!Edit” to “Edit” for consistency.

397/377 ‘The top row of pixels is moved right. The rows in between are moved proportionally’ – In between what? Should that not be ‘The rows below’?

533/513 ‘12:12:32 pm. 23/1/90’ – Use a more recent date as an example.

533/513 ‘it will incorporate any changes
you have made to certain user preferences in a line beginning’ Should be ‘into a line’ or maybe better to swap ‘incorporate’ for ‘include’

534/514 ditto
537/614 ditto
539/519 ditto

542/522 Basic V & Basic VI headings. They should be written BASIC V & BASIC VI. Under the BASIC VI section, should there be some reference to the new BASICVFP module? Ed: BASICVFP isn’t on all RISC OS 5 platforms, and should be transparent in use from the User Guide point of view (see BASIC64)

User Guide draft 03-Mar-2018

153/130 I saw this CVS entry: ‘Add missing ellipsis in CDFSFiler-2_51’. The same sort of thing should probably be done with the “Free” menu item as documented on page 153/130, as it leads to a persistent dbox.

38/14 Calling a soft hyphen a shy (­ I know) is a tad techie. The only other mention of a soft hyphen is for Draw’s Text area (342/325, 343/326) which is also niche. I suggest just leaving it as ‘soft hyphen’ preferably with a short definition somewhere.

38/14 Pointing to the (un-named) space bar as ‘non-breaking space’ needs clarification that it’s Alt-Space which gives &A0 and that it differs from the regular &20. And Unicode U+00A0 is actually called NO-BREAK SPACE. Perhaps also mention the different spaces in 423/409 Inserting Spaces?

397/375 – Typo in correction: ‘The rows in
below are moved
proportionally’ should be ‘The rows below are moved
proportionally’

561/539 “They are shown in the character tables by a light grey square.” Perhaps “in the following character tables” would be better, to avoid an initial thought of ‘what character tables’.

152/130 Item 2 at the top of the page is missing a full stop.

145/123 At the top of the page it says to turn to page 123 for instructions, but we’re already on page 123, so perhaps should say “see below for instructions”, though I appreciate this may depend on whether any other changes forces it back a page or not.

557/535 Full stop missing from end of “solid state discs (SSD)”. Should “memory cards of various form factors” include a mention of USB flash drives as they are explicitly mentioned in chapter 12. Chapter 12 mention that you might have a list of defects, so should the last line of the paragraph after the first Disc error 13, read, “You might also have disc defects reported if you are verifying your disc.”?

558/536 Under the Use section, the last paragraph deals with a defect in an allocated part of the disc. I think it would be helpful to use the example files that are mentioned at the top of the page, and since the user is advised to try and copy the file containing the defect at the top of the page that the paragraph should read:
If the defect is in an allocated part of the disc, *Defect tells you what object contains the defect, and the offset of the defect within the object ($.myfile1). You should try to copy the object to another part of the disc (into another directory) but this may fail; in which case you may be able to recover information held within the object using suitable software. You must delete the object from the defective disc before you can make that part of the disc inaccessible. *Defect may also tell you that some other objects must be moved ($.myfile2): you should copy these to another disc, and then delete them from the defective disc. Once you have removed all the objects that the *Defect command listed, there is no longer anything allocated to the defective part of the disc; so you can repeat the *Defect command to make it inaccessible.

558/536 Under the Technical details section it speaks of “objects”, shouldn’t it speak of “files” as in item 3 above it?

StarComms draft 180302

The Raspberry Pi specific VCGenCmd is not present. The introduction at the top of the file does say “every * Command”.

*VCGenCmd (requires BCMVideo, Raspberry Pi)
-———
*VCGenCmd sends a text-based command to the VideoCore OS

*VCGenCmd

*VCGenCmd get_config int
*VCGenCmd get_config str
*VCGenCmd get_config arm_freq