MoC         Master of Ceremonies            Technical Reference Manual
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FORMAT OF MoC FILES

This is the native format used by MoC. The default extension is "MOC"
though this can be changed (see "Configuration" below).

The file is an OPL database file and can be opened from an OPL
program using a command of the form:

     OPEN filename$,log,h%,m%,t1$,t2$

The records are in random order and must be ordered by sorting on the
numerical value of the h% field (the values of which are NOT
contiguous).

The fields are defined as follows:

h% - Hash value that determines the order of the records. Negative
     values are reserved and should be ignored. Positive values will
     be unique and a record with a greater hash value comes after one
     with a lesser value.

m% - Number of minutes duration of item. Zero indicates a heading.

t1$- First and second lines of text. Zero to forty characters. All
t2$  characters are allowed, except TAB.

There will never be more than 98 records with positive hash values in
any one file.
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FORMAT OF WRD FILES

WRD files produced by MoC are suitable for processing in the Word
application and printing out. They are, in fact, plain text files
using TAB characters for layout. 
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FORMAT OF TAB FILES

TAB files are the preferred format for exchanging items between MoC
files and are also useful for exchanging data with spreadsheets and
other programs.

Each item is a record (line) in the file and there are three fields
in each record separated by TAB characters.

The first field is the minutes represented as 1-4 numeric characters.
A heading has a zero character in this field.

The second and third fields are the two lines of text. They must be
less than 40 characters long and the second field must have at least
one character.

The third field may be missing altogether and there may be additional
fields after the third. Additional fields are ignored on input.
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FORMAT OF CSV FILES

CSV stands for "Comma separated variable" and is a common format for
interchange between databases, spreadsheets and word processors. It is
similar to the TAB format, except that the fields are separated by
commas rather than TABs. So that the text fields may contain commas,
they are also enclosed in quote marks. Any spaces in the file are
ignored, unless they are between the quote marks in the text fields.
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CONFIGURATION

You can change a number of aspects of the way MoC works.

The first step is to copy some additional files from the distribution
archive to your Series3. The file "MOC.OPL" and at least one of the
files "*.PIC" (or your own icon file) must be copied to the "\OPL"
directory of the Internal, "A" or "B" disk.

Before making any changes, remove the MoC application (PSION-Y at the
System screen).

Next, bring up the "Moc" file in the "Program" application. The
configuration instructions that follow refer to line numbers
identified as comments in the right margin of this file.

To change the application icon:
  Edit the path and file name of the icon at line 4.

To change the directory for application data files:
  Edit the path at lines 2 and first parameter at line 8

To change the file name extension for schedule files:
  Edit the extension at lines 3 and second parameter at line 8
  (must be exactly 3 characters).

To change the location or name of the dynamic link libraries:
  Edit the paths at lines 5 and/or 6.

To stop the S3 from switching off while MoC is running:
  Add a REM command at the start of line 7.

After making the changes, translate the code using PSION-T and exit
from the Program application. Re-install MoC using PSION-I from the
System screen.
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IMPLEMENTATION NOTES

I encourage other Series3 programmers to use this simple main routine
and Dynamic Link Library (DLL) approach to applications and to publish
the source code for the main routine. There are only a limited number
of TLAs (three letter abbreviations) and sooner or later two
applications are going to want the same directory and file extension.
It is thus important to allow users to change this.

I extended the DLL concept by separating the code into an application
specific library and a generic application framework library. The
framework library hides all the complexity of handling system
messages and hot keys and adds machine code for asynchronous timers
and lazy screen update. This DLL can be shared among multiple
applications saving disk space. "FRAMELIB.OPO" is fully documented
with source code in my distribution file "S3FRAM.ZIP" on CompuServe
and CIX and other programmers are encouraged to make use of it.
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HISTORY

This is the first release version of MoC. A beta version has been
available on CompuServe and CIX since last November. This release
contains extensive changes, new facilities and bug fixes. I would like
to thank those who made valuable comments on the beta version and hope
they recognise their contribution in the finished product.
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