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Marathon TERM Editor 1.2b3 Read Me
 Copyright 1995, Alexander Tribe.
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Read Me version 1.2.3

This Read Me
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This is a very rough read me which I drafted up very quickly. It is probably full of mistakes and things are not explained in the best way possible. You should be able to work out how to use Marathon TERM Editor just by experimenting with the program. I will write proper docs for a later version.

Overview
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Marathon TERM Editor 1.2b3 is a complete editor for the 'term' resources in Marathon. It allows you to write terms and then, with the click of a button, install them in a custom built Marathon application.

HyperCard
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Yes, I know it's slow and I know it's huge. I wrote it in HyperCard because I don't have the time to bother writing it in something else. Version 1.2b1 was created in 2 days and the update to 1.2b2 was released 9 days later (school days, I might add). I'll leave the C or Pascal version to someone with a lot of time to spare.

Version 1.2b3?
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This is the first version. It is called 1.2b3 rather than 1.0b3 because it only works on Marathon version 1.2.

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Creating term's
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Ok, enough of all that other stuff, how do you use it? Well, when you open the Marathon TERM Editor you are presented with a screen. This is the main screen where everything happens.

The Sequence
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The text field on the left hand side of the screen (with the add and remove buttons below it) shows you the sequence of commands in the terminal. There are 7 different commands that the terminals understand, they are:

#logon -	Required by all terminals. This is the name of the terminal and is displayed on the logon and logoff screens. Something along the lines of "Public Access Terminal 8-f<29.43.95.93>".

#information - The text is always displayed when you read the terminal.

#unfinished - Only displayed if any of the mission objectives have not been completed.

#success - Only displayed if all mission objectives have been successfully completed.

#failure - Only displayed if one or more mission objectives has not been completed satisfactorily.

#checkpoint n - Displays a map of the surrounding area, the n is the number of the goal in Pfhorte, you'll see a bit later.

# briefing n - Only displayed if all mission objectives are either complete or failed. The n is a number, you are transported to that level after reading the terminal.

Click the Add button to add a command to the sequence. The remove button removes the selected command from the sequence. The item which is selected in the Sequence text field is the one you are currently editing, its name is shown above the large text field.

You can reorder the sequence by dragging one line on top of another. The one you drag will go wherever you release the mouse, pushing the other lines down.

The Main Field
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The large text field is where you write the messages which will be displayed by the terminal. The sequence shows the commands, the selected one is the one you are editing. i.e. if #logon is selected in the sequence and #logon appears above the main text field then whatever you enter will be displayed as the logon message.

Showing Maps in Your Terminals
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To show a map in your terminal message you must use Pfhorte to add a goal. Give the goal an ID, 0 for example. In Marathon TERM Editor add a command of type checkpoint n. Give it the same ID as the goal, 0 in the case of our example. The map will be shown centred on the goal, a red circle will be drawn around the location where the goal is.

Mission Objectives
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When using the success, failure and unfinished commands you need to set the mission objectives in Pfhorte. For example, say you have to repair something. You check the box called 'repair' in Pfhorte and set the 'repair' flag on all the switches that have to be repaired.

Styled Text
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You can make the text in your terminals one of four styles. Plain, bold, italic or underline are possible. All text is plain by default, I have not included an easy way to do styles in this version. If you want bold you put $B at the start of the bold and $b at the end. e.g. "Welcome to the $BMarathon$b." will look like "Welcome to the Marathon." For italic you use $I and $i and for underline you user $U and $u. As far as I know these are case sensitive so you should use the upper case to start and the lower case to finish. You can use a combination of these. e.g. "Welcome to the $I$B$UMarathon$i$b$u." will look like "Welcome to the Marathon.".

Level and Terminal Popups
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These allow you to edit the terminals for different levels, you may have up to 100 levels with up to 10 terminals each. If you choose a different level or terminal then you are editing the data for that particular level and terminal. The sequence text field will change to show you the sequence for each terminal.

Make Customised Marathon
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This allows you to customise the Marathon application. When you click it you are presented with a dialog. 

The file names are the default file names. i.e. if you change the map file name to MyMap, Marathon will look for a map called MyMap as it's default instead of one called Map. This means if you create your own shapes/music/map/etc file you can make it the default one so users don't have to keep renaming things. 

The check box called "Copy Marathon" means just that. If it is checked then Marathon TERM Editor will work on a copy of Marathon instead of the original. If it is unchecked then it will modify whichever Marathon application you select.

The three radio buttons are pretty much self explanatory. If you check "Delete existing TERM's" then all terms will be erased before yours are written into Marathon. If you select "Leave existing TERM's" then any term's already in Marathon will be left and any of yours with the same ID will be written over. Finally, if you check "No TERM's" then no terminal resources will be installed.


The Other Buttons
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The other buttons such as New, Open, Save, etc. behave just like any normal Macintosh application. 

ResCompare
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I suggest that you obtain ResCompare by Michael Hecht. It will allow you to create a patch to update Marathon to your modified version. This allows you to distribute the patch over electronic systems such as the Internet. It takes a lot less space than Marathon and it is legal to distribute such patches (as far as I know). Other people can download your patch, apply it and then play Marathon with your levels/music/etc.

Copyright and Disclaimer
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Marathon TERM Editor 1.2b3 is  Copyright 1995 by Alexander Tribe. This means that you may NOT modify it in any way, copy any part of it for your own use, claim you wrote it, etc. I wrote this software out of my own kindness and I am allowing you to use it free of charge, so please respect my copyright. You may distribute as many copies as you like perfectly legally provided this document is included in an unaltered form.

I provide this software as is. You use it at your own risk and if it doesn't work the way you want it to, tough.

Bug Reports
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Bug reports are welcome, in fact I'd like it if you tell me about any bugs or suggestions you might have. Please don't modify the software yourself, leave it to me.

Marathon TERM Editor 1.2b3  1995 Alexander Tribe.

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Version History
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1.2b1 - First Public Release

1.2b2 - Bug Fix Release
 Installing TERM's now works!
 Cache is now one file instead of a folder with lots of little files inside it.
 Instead of only being able to open TERM Editor files, you can now open anything with valid 'term' resources in it.
 Save files are saved as 'term' resources instead of a text file.
 Sequence field can be reordered.
 Mouse is now a pointer instead of hand.
 'Add' button is now default.
 'Are you sure?' dialogue when removing a command from the sequence.
 It's smaller by 8k!
 Saved terminals now have the correct icon.
 Asks if you want to save changes.
 'Install' button removed. 'Make Customised Marathon' does all the same and more.

1.2b3 - Bug Fix Release
 I rewrote almost the entire program. The code is now faster and much less prone to fatal errors.
 Added a proper error handling routine. You now get a message explaining any errors and it only quits if it absolutely has to.
 Fixed a bug in the sequence field which caused two commands with the same name to appear if the user made certain selections.
 Using the 'Level' and 'Terminal' popups no longer causes a fatal error.
 Fixed a bug which prevented the Sequence field from scrolling.
 The 'Cancel' button in the 'Make Customised Marathon Application' dialog now works.