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This article also appeared in the 07/2001 issue of GO64! Magazine (German only edition).
After this two part set of articles was completed and submitted for publication Arndt Dettke (of GoDot fame) offered his assistance with proof-reading of my GeoDOS documentation translations. It is only through Arndt's assistance that the English translation of the GeoDOS documentation turned out as good as it is.

GeoSpecific - Indispensable - Part 2
by Bruce Thomas

Last time we took a quick tour of GeoDOS. I hope that some of you who had not previously used the program have spent some time with it and learned more about it than I covered. One challenge that our English readers may have had is that the complete documentation has only been available in German until recently. A little later on I will explain how I used GeoDOS to help me translate the documentation into English.

Hidden Treasure

Ever since the first computer program was written, I am sure, programmers have hidden messages and secret items in their programs as a way of personalizing them and providing something extra for those users cunning enough to discover them. For that reason these little treasures have become known as Easter Eggs (have you found the Eiffel Tower or the St. Louis Peace Arch in Sky Travel?).

When I started using GeoDOS I was impressed with the power available from the four main icons. As I worked my way through the documentation I discovered that Markus had hidden a treasure for us in GeoDOS also. You can see it in the screen shot labeled Figure #1 - The Special Menu.

Although it is mentioned in the Documentation, so not technically an Easter Egg, it has been hidden from English Speaking users. To get to the Special menu simply right-click with your mouse on the screen somewhere or press the Return button.

The Special Menu gives us options to Exit GeoDOS (also on the Toolbar or with the middle Mouse Button if you use a SmartMouse), call Basic or run a Basic Program, open or print GeoWrite files and also to act as a Desktop Replacement. The latter behaviour is made possible by the Quickstart menu. Here we can open any program or Desk Accessory and open or print any document. We can also call up the online help for GeoDOS by using the "Question Mark" Icon in the Special Menu or by pressing the "F1" key from anywhere in the system.

Features Galore!

If you have a need to change the way files are copied you will want to choose the Change Options Icon in the Copy Menu. In here you can set the font that GeoWrite documents will be created with, you can select a different printer driver to print files with and whether to use ASCII or PETSCII for Commodore file format. There is an option to set the time on files that are created (the timestamp of the source file or the GEOS System clock). You can also set up the system to automatically overwrite files with the same name, to ignore copying the source or to prompt for an action.

Do you want spaces in your filenames or should spaces be removed? Should the linefeeds in a DOS file be ignored? What Commodore format should be used for files (SEQ, PRG, and USR)? What format of GeoWrite do you want files created as (2.0 or 2.1)? What should the first page be numbered and how many lines should go on a page?

When you convert GeoWrite documents do you want to change the fonts, the layout, both, neither (can anyone else here see their use of WrongIsWrite going out the window)? What margins do you want your pages to have and where should the Tabs be set (so long Toolkit)? If you choose multiple files do you want them concatenated into one file? Should each file start on a new page? The options are seemingly endless but they allow the user to do whatever they want to when it comes to file conversions.

New Features and Shortcuts

As I said in Part 1, some programs come along with neat new features. 'Bubbles' (Figure #2) are one such neat feature in GeoDOS. Since the Icons in the various Menus are rather small there is no room to place text under them to state the function they provide. If you move your mouse pointer over the icon, a small bubble pops up that lists the name of the icon. Really cool! Turn these on or off in the Tools Menu.

I also mentioned the Update Toolbox item in the Tools menu. If you recall, the Toolbox lives along the left edge of the screen (see Figure #1) and, by default, contains a single icon to Exit GeoDOS. If there are functions that you will use regularly you can add their Icon to the Toolbox. To do this, move your pointer over the Icon you want to add to the ToolBox and hold the button down for a few seconds. The Icon will attach to your pointer just like files on the Desktop do. Release your mouse button and move the pointer onto the grey toolbox area. You can position the icon wherever you want and then just press your button again to place it there. The Toolbox will be updated when you exit GeoDOS so that the icon is there the next time you load GeoDOS or you can use the 'Update Toolbox' Icon in the Tools Menu.

Up until now I haven't mentioned the Status Bar across the bottom (Figure #1). This lists all of the hardware on your system including the printer and input drivers currently in use, the date and time and each disk drive that is active. By clicking on any of these items you can change them. This provides an easy method to reconfigure your system and also a quick way to change the system time. Clicking on one of the drive icons places an exclamation mark beside the icon that indicates which drive will have System Commands performed on it. In order to make this feature safer (too easy to format the wrong drive) the system ignores this unless you also select the 'Drive Selection' Icon in the Tools menu.

The System was programmed to be very intelligent. The CMDPART Icon (Figure #3) will only show up if the drive is a Native Formatted CMD Device (other Icons act similarly so 'What You See is What You Can Do' with GeoDOS). Also check out the new Drop Box method for selecting Drives and Partitions (Figure #4).

Online Documentation

The documentation for GeoDOS has always existed in German format only. This hampered English speaking users from getting the full benefit of this amazing program.

All of the documentation files are just GeoWrite files that contain special Script Language formatting developed by Markus Kanet for the Help System. My original plan was to translate these files into HTML pages and post them on the Internet or allow people to download them and read them with The Wave. Once I checked out what GeoHelpView is capable of, however, I decided to leave the English Documentation in GeoWrite format and present the Help System in its original format.

The Help System Script Language is very similar to HTML in that it uses special tags to identify locations to jump to in the same, or different, document. Graphics can be embedded in the text. The text and graphics can be colored. There was even a Help System file for the Help System that tells how to create the specially formatted Help Files.

Practical Use

Even though I have some German relations on my in-laws side I don't speak or read the language. So how did I translate the files?

When I started to really work with GeoDOS and wanted to read the documentation I put the program to work to help with my Translation Project. I formatted a PC 1.44 MB disk in my FD-2000 using the PC-DOS Menu. I then used the Copy Menu to copy all of the Help System GeoWrite Files to the PC Disk as text. Of course, I first set the Options to have GeoDOS create files in the '8+3' format, remove spaces from the names and insert linefeeds and use the proper translation table.

Once I had the files all onto my disk I used my PC to assist with the translations.

The Internet is a fabulous resource and there are sites that will do translations. One that I knew of was http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr. This site let me insert portions of the Help Files into a box, press the Translate button and simply copy out the English Translation.

Some words did not translate well and the grammar did not always sound right. To correct these shortcomings I opened up my dear old Readers Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary and flipped to the 'German to English' translation section near the back. Needless to say this was a painful process.

Then one day I came across another site at http://www.freetranslation.com/ that not only let me do the translation but also let me substitute in the German Umlaut characters and thereby get better translations of the text. Between the two web sites and my dictionary I was able to translate the Help System Files into English. Once I translated the Help System instructions and understood the Scripting Language it was a simple process to create the English Help System.

I did run into troubles when it came to replacing the embedded graphics. I found that GeoWrite 64 would crash whenever I tried to remove one of the German graphics. I had to load the files into GeoWrite 128 and then I was able to remove the graphics just fine.

Randy Harris, President of the SWRAP club, was kind enough to volunteer and gave the first public viewing of the GeoDOS English Translation at the May 26, 2001 EXPO in Louisville Kentucky. By the time you read this, I should have all of the translations done and they should be available for download on the SWRAP web site (http://members.aol.com/rgharris/swrap.html) along with the complete GeoDOS V2.95 package. I will also post the files on the site I maintain for our defunct local user group CUE (Commodore Users of Edmonton - http://www.edmc.net/cue).

Of course, even using all of the web resources was not enough to give me a proper translation. When word got out after the EXPO that I was working on this project Arndt Dettke, of GoDot fame, contacted me. Arndt offered to proofread my translations and has provided immeasurable assistance to ensure that the translation is accurate and follows the original texts.

I hope that I have managed to convey some of my excitement about this marvellous GEOS program and that you will give it a try soon. Once you start using it you will wonder how you managed without it. Screen shots were taken using GeoWizDump launched with GeoWizard running under GEOS 64 V2.0 (that is why only 3 drives show up).

GeoDOS works equally well under Wheels and all four drives are active then. It is also possible to access 1581 and Native-Mode partitions on your CMD drives. Which type of partition you see in the selection boxes is determined by the type of partition that is currently open on the drive when you start GeoDOS.

Until next time, enGEOy your Commodore.