This version of RevPG differs from previous versions in several ways. From a system design point of view, changes have been made to the RevPG startup procedures, display management, and operating system dependencies.
Previous versions of RevPG depended on the operating system (Unix) to execute several shell scripts to start Arc/Info and then run the RevPG application. These routines were cumbersome and not portable to the Windows_NT operating system. At RevPG version 5.3 the startup of RevPG is accomplished through an Arc Macro Language (AML) program executing after Arc/Info has started. RevPG relies on either the operating system to start Arc/Info from a desktop shortcut or menu, or the operator to start Arc/Info and then run the RevPG, start AML (rpg_start.aml).
The most desirable way to start RevPG is to build a shortcut on your desktop to start Arc/Info and run the rpg_start.aml immediately. If you have an existing shortcut to start Arc/Info, copy this shortcut to your desktop and rename it RevPG, and skip the next 4 steps.
Steps to build a desktop shortcut:
1. Right click on your desktop, select New, then Shortcut.
2. You should have the Create Shortcut menu displayed. Select Browse ...
3. Browse to where Arc/Info 7.2.1 executable is located. If you don't know, you will have to ask your Arc system administrator where Arc is installed. Under your arc installation arcexe72\bin directory, select the arc.exe file for your shortcut. Select Next.
4. Type in a name for your new shortcut, RevPG. Select Finish.
You should now have a shortcut named RevPG on your desktop. You may adjust the layout of your Arc window by right clicking on the shortcut select properties and modifing the layout options to get the desired window size.
You need to edit the shortcut so it knows how to start up RevPG. Currently, your shortcut will start Arc/Info only. To edit your shortcut to start RevPG:
1. Single right click on the RevPG shortcut, select Properties.
2. Select the Shortcut option.
3. In the Target input line it should currently have something similar to
\\Server1\arcexe72\bin\arc.exe. We need to extend this line to include the RevPG
start up program. You will need to know the paths to the rpg_start.aml and the
RevPG software. The paths \\Server1\arcexe72 and \\Server1\revpg will be different
for each site. These are used as examples for these notes. You should substitute
your site paths to Arc/Info and RevPG for \\Server1\arcexe72 and \\Server1\revpg.
The c:\revpgwork is your personal revpg working directory and may be set to any directory
you want. The revpg working directory must exist before you start RevPG.
Edit the target of your shortcut to:
\\Server1\arcexe72\bin\arc.exe ; &r \\Server1\revpg\rpg_start # c:\revpgwork
Note: There are spaces before and after the ; and the #.
4. Once your target is edited, click Apply and try it out. If you encounter problems, make sure you have a space before and after the ; and # characters, and after the &r. If there are no problems you should get the RevPG select project and quad menu to begin work.
The second way to start RevPG is to first start up Arc/Info. From the ARC command line you may run the rpg_start.aml. The rpg_start.aml does not have to reside in the revpg directory. The aml has two optional arguments to set; where the revpg system exists, and the users revpg working directory. You should create a RevPG working directory before starting RevPG. This is a directory created by the user and can be named whatever you want as long as you have no spaces or special characters.
Usage: &r rpg_start {path to revpg} {path to working directory}
If RevPG is installed in c:\revpg then the first argument is c:\revpg. If the user has created a RevPG working directory, c:\revpgwork, the second argument is c:\revpgwork. If no argument is entered for the user work directory, a browse menu will allow the user to select an existing directory. The project, quad, and revpg directories cover, image, dlg, graphic, system, and panel will be created under the selected working directory.
If the rpg_start.aml is in the revpg directory use the following syntax:
Arc: &r c:\revpg\rpg_start # c:\revpgwork
If the rpg_start.aml has been moved to another directory for whatever reason use the following syntax:
Arc: &r c:\myamls\rpg_start c:\revpg c:\revpgwork
You also may want to adjust the layout and characteristics of your RevPG dialog window. Adjust the layout by right clicking on the RevPG shortcut, select Properties, then select Layout. You will want to adjust the screen buffer size to enable you to scroll up through the dialog window to view previous RevPG messages. A good starting point is:
Despite our best efforts, RevPG relies on calls to the operating system to perform isolated tasks. At version 5.3 RevPG is designed to be an inclusive system for Windows_NT, meaning that everything RevPG needs to run is included with the application. However, in the hundreds of thousand lines of code, something may have been missed in the effort to port this system to include the Windows_NT platform. RevPG attempts to manage the calls back to the operating system by using two AMLs; system_call.aml and program_call.aml. Each of these AMLs searches the RevPG system directory structure for the executable. If the program or system command is not found, the system search path is used to find the executable.
Known system commands used by RevPG include:
|
|