Survopoint display mode:
To enliven the display in the main window of Survo, variable text
may be shown on selected "Survopoint" lines.
The contents of Survopoint lines are varying either systematically
or randomly according to information given in the current edit field,
typically outside the current window.
Example:
11 *
12 ~ (The contents of this line will be alternating) ~a
13 *
14 a 20 3 S
15 * This is the first alternative.
16 * Here is the second alternative.
17 * The third alternative is here.
Please load this text into the edit field and remove leading characters
so that control characters are those shown above.
If you then press keys F1 and A, the text on line having '~' in its
control column will be changing systematically between the three
alternatives. The key combination F1 a interrupts this display mode.
In the previous example, the only Survopoint line was
12 ~ (The contents of this line will be alternating) ~a
The marking ~a at the end of the line tells that the rule how this
line alternates is given on a line having 'a' in its control column.
The 'a' line was
14 a 20 3 S
and there 20 gives the time interval between changes, 3 is the number
of alternatives, and 'S' indicates that the line is changed
systematically.
Actually in the Survopoint display mode no line is moved in the edit
field. Since the line to be displayed is always referred to by a pointer
variable, merely pointers are updated and so this mode consumes very
little computer power.
In one edit field, 26 alternating lines may exist simultaneously.
Each of them is indicated (by default) by a '~' in the control column
and a marking ~x at the end of the line where x is one of the lowercase
characters from 'a' to 'z'.
Various options for the rule of alternating are
Systematic:
<time> <# of alternatives> S
Uniformly random:
<time> <# of alternatives> U
Random by given probabilities:
<time> <# of alternatives> p1 p2 p3 ...
where p1+p2+p3+...=1
The <time> parameter is an integer telling that the change takes place
just once in <time> consecutive refreshments of the Survo main window.
The refresh rate (in this display mode only) is given by the system
parameter Survopoint_disp in SURVO.APU and it is 50 ms by default.
The default control character '~' for Survopoint lines can be changed
by the system parameter Survopoint.
A mishmash collection of several simultaneus Survopoint lines is found
by activating
LOAD <Survo>\U\D\SPOINT
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