README for Fortunate v1.0, a NeXTSTEP front-end to BSD fortune.

Fortunate is a little program that displays a quotation (obtained from the command-line fortune program) in a NeXTSTEP window.

This program and its source code are released into the Public Domain, except for the MiscAppDefaults code which falls under the MiscKit license as below. If there are bugfixes or new features you would like to see or add, I would prefer that they be submitted to me instead of released separately, but I won't enforce this. Feel free to email me with questions, bug reports or ideas.

The window fortunes display in is auto-sized, with a maximum width of the screen itself.  To make the fortune go away, either choose "Quit" from the menu, or click anywhere in text of the fortune.  You can chose "Another Fortune..." from the menu to replace the defective fortune with a more amusing one. There is also a menu option "Copy Fortune" which copies the text of the current fortune into the pasteboard.

To use this, you must build and install BSD fortune. The porting job has already been done, and you can find a source/binary distribution on the archives. At the time I write this file, I got bsd-fortune as a quad-fat binary/source distribution from ftp.informatik.uni-muenchen.de in /pub/comp/platforms/next/Games/programs or one of its mirrors.

To get this program to launch at run-time, you need to add it to your Workspace LaunchPaths default; for instance, "dwrite Workspace LaunchPaths /Users/chris/Apps/Fortunate". If you already have programs in your launch path (check using dread), you can add Fortunate by appending a semi-colon and then the path to Fortunate to the existing default.

There are three app defaults that control the behaviour of the program, registered under the app name "Fortunate":

FortuneLocation is the location of the BSD fortune program, usually /usr/games/fortune
FontName is the name of the font to use for fortunes, Courier-Oblique by default
FontSize is the size of the font to use, 14 by default

These are created by the program when it runs, if they do not exist, and given the defaults as above. Use the dwrite command to change them, or one of the neat Preferences modules like DefaultsSystem. I don't intend to write a preferences panel for such a trivial program...

This program uses Steve Hayman's MiscAppDefaults category, which I pilfered from the excellent MiscKit 1.7.0 distribution. That code falls under the MiscKit license, found in the file MiscKitLicense.rtf. I have included the source to the category in this package for people without the MiscKit; it is unmodified from the 1.7.0 distribution.

____________________________________
Chris Saldanha, computerActive, Inc
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Work: chris@computerActive.on.ca
http://www.computerActive.on.ca
Home: csaldanh@mae.carleton.ca
http://www.mae.carleton.ca/~csaldanh
(NeXTMail and MIME welcome!)