               FORMAT of the POLYLIST file 
          4 January 1994, last update: 21 Nov 1997

The 'Polylist' file can be made using !Edit if you want to list your
seletions in your own order, alternatively, program 'MakePlist' makes one
for you.  Running instructions are given below.

Format of Polylist

The first line must be:

:polylist <name>

where <name> is any text up to 24 characters long to be the title of the
selections window.

There follow 2 types of lines in a PolyList file, depending on whether the
first character on the line is a space or not. 

When it is a space, the rest of the line is just a title for the polyhedron
selection window,
   e.g. Platonic Solids   or   Prisms or  Deltahedra

A special title signifies the end of file:

 END

Other lines contain 3 or 4 parts:

Datname Name+Alias|type

 Datname is of the form  n.Lijk     
   examples:  1.P001  2.J062  3.MyNewOne

  where n is the number of the Dat directory where this file is stored
          normally one of 0 to 9, but any letter is also allowed. 
          This must be in the 1st column of the line.
        . separates the directory number from the filename
          it must be in the 2nd column of the line
     Lijk is any filename
          The !PolyDraw.Datn files use a 4 character filename, 
          case insensitive, where L is a letter, one of those listed above
          and defined in :type, ijk is an integer, with leading zeros
           
  Name is a lowercase alphabetic character string read from the datafile
       line :name it may contain spaces 

    +  is only present when the polyhedron has an alternate name,
       the + separates the name from the alternate        

  Alias is the alternate name read from the datafile line :alias
        it contains only lower case alphabetic characters. 
        It is displayed in the selection window beneath the icon 
        holding the name, and is searched during selections on name

    |  is the separator between the name (+alias if any) and the type

  type is the information copied from the :type line of the polyhedron data
       (see Docs.FormData)


     Limits on the size of a PolyList in version 3.xx

 1)  The Polylist must have less than 250 lines + aliases (i.e. the number
     of lines displayed in the Polylist window must be less than 250).

 2)  The length of the Polylist file + no. entries + no. aliases must be 
     less than 13,000.

RUNNING INSTRUCTIONS for MakePlist

The executable version of MakePlist is stored in the !PolyDraw directory.

Open the directory by pressing SHIFT and double-clicking SELECT over the
!PolyDraw filer icon, then double click on MakePlist. This opens a window
and asks you to enter the character defining the data directory ('dat'+ the
character) to be used. Only one character is read. One polylist is made for
this one directory. If you want to make several, you can edit them togther
later using the text editor, remember to delete the extra first lines, there
should only be one line beginning :polylist. 

You are prompted for the name of the output file which will be stored in the 
Polylists directory. MakePlist then looks at all files in the data directory
looking for the lines beginning :name, :alias, :type and :end; it assumes
that :name is always present, and only writes out a line if :type is
present, otherwise a Bell sounds and a warning message allows you to carry
on or stop and delete the output file.

The first line contains the name MakePlist and the date of creation, you may
want to edit this afterwards to something more meaningful to you since this
text is shown in the title of the !PolyDraw Selections window.

Note: the maximum length of lines which can be written out by MakePlist is 
210 characters, 10 for the filename and 200 for the name, alias, and type.


 
