Subject: From: Date:

Re: [ECS] Newbie questions Bill Walters Thu, 26 Aug 1999 08:57:12 -0500

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Jay,

Welcome to ECS!

I'll try to answer some of your questions and maybe things will make a
little more sense to you.

>
> 1)  The list of items configured in even the lite.cfg file is a little on
> the overwhelming side.  After playing around for a while it struck me that
> a naming convention for the different categories of items would help to
> keep them segregated in the list and might make things a bit easier to
> follow.  I started naming all my display/log items "Msg...", my timer
items
> "Tmr...", etc.  This seems to make it easier to find things in the list.
> Is there a generally recognized convention along these lines or does
> everyone just go their own way?

Yep, there are a lot of items already "pre-defined" within ECS.  Most of us
start working with the LITE configuration file, adding and snipping to make
it the way we want it.

As far as "Naming Conventions", you've already stumbled upon it.  Messages
spoken are usually "Msg_xxxxxxxxxx" and timers are "Tmr_xxxxxx" but not
always, and even with those, they are not applied consistantly (at least not
in MY configuration file).  At this point, it would be suicide to go back
and "re-work" it!

>
> 2)  Is there a repository for common events/macros?  Maybe there really
> won't be that many common things once I get further into this, but at this
> point several of the things I've wanted to do seem like they would be
> fairly common.  Stuff like fade a light to black over a specified time
> period, brighten a light to full on over a specified time period, flash a
> light for X minutes with a flash period of Y, etc.  Of course, with all
the
> tricks in the ECS bag it's entirely possible there are built in commands
to
> do all these things and I've just overlooked them.  Any enlightenment
would
> be appreciated.

Yes there is a repository, although most of the "stuff" there is ages old.
The ECS repository is ftp.gallops.com.  ALL of the event code there is for
ECS (DOS) and may require some minor changes to function within the current
ECS 4 series of software.  By all means, DO download the text archives from
this message list.  It goes back through 1995 (I think) and is very
interesting reading.  If nothing else, I seem to pick up ideas of how to do
things from browsing the text files.


>
> 3)  The web site mentions that "ECS comes with a thoroughly written user's
> manual ..."  Is this referring to the HTML file or is a printed manual
> included with registration?  Nothing wrong with the HTML, it's just that
> for something this complex I like to have printed documentation.  (I still
> don't have a HTML reader in my porcelain library.)  I know I could print
> out the HTML file, but it would take about two weeks with my ink jet and
> would consume about $50 worth of ink.
>

Yep, that's the HTML manual.  Originally, with ECS (DOS) the manual was a
text file.  We read it with WP programs.  There was also a printable version
with imbedded printer codes and some of us ambitious types printed that out.
It's QUITE thick and VERY comprehensive.  Unfortunately (for me) while it is
very through, it was written for programmers and doesn't include examples.
I've worked (very little, actually) on a "primer" project; maybe it's time
to get back onto that somehow....

Easiest way to "understand" ECS is to just dive in there!  Write something!
Test it all by itself  (take your ecsl.cfg file, strip all of the events out
of it that don't do what you want them to do and keep all the item
definitions you want....  be sure to keep a copy of the original ecsl.cfg).
Also, ask questions here; we all do (ok, well, so Mark doesn't, except to
ask how we want a particular function/feature to work!)

Bill Walters

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