PST: MAC Help

WORD Default Settings

When you start to examine actual code, there are several more simple things that are worth setting up. Your copy of Word may already be set up, but if not, you may wish to make the following changes.

• Your life may be easier if you are using a fixed width type face. This can't be set in the Word file itself, because files that are loaded into Soar have to be plain text, and that precludes inserting Word formatting commands such as font types. The way to get each file to open with a fixed width font is to set it as the default for Word. To do this, pull down the "Font" menu, and select the "Default Font..." item. Click on the scrolling menu there, and select a fixed width font such as "Courier". You may also wish to select a larger or smaller sized font.

• Typically "Smart Quotes" will be turned off, which is not what you want. Smart quotes has Word modify single and double quotes so that they look nice, but these new characters won't load into Soar right. You can toggle it (or check it) with the command under the menu Tools: Preferences: General.

Saving code in Word

As you modify code, you will want to save their files. If you make new files, you must save them using the "Save as..." command under the "File" menu, and save them not as 'normal', but as 'text-only', for this strips Word control characters out of the file.

Adjusting memory size

If you are running on a Macintosh with a small amount of memory, you may need to adjust how much memory your editor and Soar start up with. You can tell how much memory your Mac has by going to the Finder and looking on the Apple menu (far top left) under the item "About this Macintosh...".

If your machine has 4 MB, reduce the amount of memory used by Soar and by your editor as follows. First make sure that neither of the applications is running (Quit from them if they are). Then select the icon for Soar and choose Get Info from the File menu (Command-I). In the bottom right-hand corner of the Info window, where it has Current size for the Memory, set it to 1500. Then close the Info window. Similarly, find your editor, select it, and set its memory size to 750.

These sizes should allow both applications to run at the same time under System 7. If not, try adjusting the sizes slightly. It seems to help if you start Soar before starting your editor. Also, make sure that you Quit from any other space-consuming utilities, etc.

Memory problems

The current version of Soar for the Macintosh (6.1.0) has a limited size output buffer. If it runs too long, the this buffer can overflow, crashing Soar or your Mac. So you should restart MacSoar at this point (for practice), and after about every 20 minutes of work.

Editing and using Soar in different windows

It is worthwhile using two windows when messing around with Soar on the Mac. One with Soar up and running, and the other with the productions in your favourite editor (e.g., Emacs or Microsoft Word) in order to manipulate them.

There are several simple things that are worth setting up before running Soar, but at this point the only thing worth adjusting is the location of the editor window so that you can switch back and forth between it and the Soar interpreter window.

There are three main ways to do this:

1. Put the windows adjacent to each other vertically or horizontally, and switch back and forth by clicking on them.

2. Alternately select the editor and MacSoar from the pull down menu.

3. Make the windows both large with a small bit not overlapping so that you can click on an edge to bring each one forward.

Using a Macintosh to run Emacs on a Unix machine

In NCSA/BYU Telnet, these characters are by default used for flow control, which will cause you grief if you don't change them. To remove them, go to the menu Session and choose Setup keys.... There, remove the suspend and resume output key bindings.

You can save these settings by going into File: and choosing Save Set....