|AÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ»ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ» |Aº |6Special Program |AºÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ ^1 PC Strokes |AÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͺ |6Special Program |Aº |AÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ ^Cby ^CGeorge Leritte PC Strokes is a paint program that will let you design and paint screens in medium resolution four color mode on CGA, EGA, and VGA monitors. Let your mouse, joystick, or keyboard be your paintbrush and your imagination be your guide as you use PC Strokes to produce that next great masterpiece. You won't have any messy paints to deal with or paintbrushes to clean. Better yet, you don't even have to wait for the paint to dry! ^1TERMINOLOGY^0 ^1Button1^0 - The LEFT button on the mouse or joystick and the CAPSLOCK key in keyboard mode. ^1Button2^0 - The RIGHT button on the mouse or joystick and the CTRL key in keyboard mode. ^1Press^0 - To hold the appropriate mouse or joystick button down. In keyboard mode strike the CAPSLOCK or the CTRL key once. ^1Click^0 - Pressing and releasing a mouse button or joystick button. In keyboard mode this is accomplished by striking the CAPSLOCK or CTRL keys, depending on specified button. ^1Drag^0 - Moving the mouse, joystick, or holding down one of the cursor keys. Unless otherwise stated, always use Button1 for a Click or Drag. ^1MENUS^0 The menu can be accessed by pressing one of the first five function keys. This will place the pointer on the corresponding menu item. If the menu is not displayed, it will be placed at the top of the screen with the pointer on the menu item. Click and Drag on the main menu to open up the submenu and position the pointer on the appropriate function. Release the button to select the function and close the window. The following is a list of the menus and submenus of PC Strokes. F1-Disk F2-Grab F3-Region F4-Draw F5-Miscel New a-n Background F9 Mirror a-m Line l Text t Load F7 Grab g Invert a-i Polygon p Zoom 3 z Save F8 Cut a-c Upside Down a-u Box b Zoom 4 x Save as Paste a-v Change Colors , Filled Box f Menu Bot/Off/Top Load Cut Copy a-d Swap Colors . Rounded Box r Menu Off/Top/Bot Save Cut Clear a-s Circle c Palette c-p Load Font Ellipse e Backgnd c-b Default Font Paintbrush o Undo u Save Config Area Fill a Quit c-q Spray Can s Centerdraw is on/off c-a The keyboard shortcuts are listed next to each command. The a- next to a letter means to hold the ALT key down and press that key. The c- next to a letter means hold down the CTRL key and press that key. In order to draw at the top of the screen there is a special key, F10 which will cycle the menu between the top of the screen, the bottom of the screen, and off the screen. If a menu selection is shadowed, then that operation is not allowed. Normally, you just move the pointer with the mouse or joystick. If you use the keyboard, the cursor keys move the pointer. In any drawing mode, the top row numeric keys 1, 2, 3 and 4 select the current drawing color. When you change the drawing color the pointer changes to match that color. In keyboard and joystick mode, the top row numeric keys 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0 set the keyboard cursor keys stepping distance to 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32 pixels, respectively. The + key increases the sensitivity of the mouse, joystick, or cursor keys while the - key decreases it. NOTE: Keyboard users will need to make sure that anytime they leave the directory, paintbrush, or color selection windows the CAPSLOCK key is off. The right side of the menu will display an UP arrow any time the CAPSLOCK is toggled on. ^1Disk^0 Most of the selections in the ^1Disk^0 menu use the directory window. The directory window consists of pathname, directory mask, selected file, and file window areas. By Clicking on the appropriate area, you can change the pathname, alter the directory search mask, or enter a filename. The file window lists the filenames that match the search mask. Above this window is the total number of those files. A scroll line and two arrows are to the right of the window. If there are more files than will fit in the files window, you can Click on the arrows to scroll the listing up or down a line at a time. The scroll line indicates the approximate position within your directory list of the files window information. To jump to a different location in this list, position the pointer anywhere within the scroll lines rectangular region and Click Button1. ^1New^0 clears the screen of with the current background color. To ^1Load^0 a file, Click on a filename in the files window and it will appear below the window as the selected file. Click in the load box. The window will disappear and the file will be loaded and displayed on screen. Click in the cancel box or outside the entire window and the window will disappear. PC Strokes can load any file as a screen file, but do not be surprised if it looks like garbage. ^1Save^0 works exactly the same, except the filename you loaded is presented in the file section. If you haven't loaded a file then the file section is empty. ^1Save as^0 works the same as ^1Save^0, except it assumes you want to change the filename. When you save a file, PC Strokes will save the background and palette information in the file. When you load it back into the program, the palette information will be restored. With PC Strokes, you can save portions of the screen to disk in 'cut files' with ^1Save Cut^0. You must first Grab a region of the screen and Cut or Copy it to the paste area. Then this menu item will be enabled. All of this will be explained in much greater detail later. ^1Load Cut^0 will load a cut region from disk. You can call it back to the screen with the ^1Paste^0 command from the ^1Grab^0 menu. Cut files are expected to have a file extension of ^1.CBS^0. ^1Load Font^0 also works the same except it loads the selected font into the font data area. You will not be able to use any font data files from other programs such as Print Shop. Fonts are of two types: proportional and non- proportional. The default PC Strokes font is proportional. In a proportional font data file, there is room for 2 fonts, each containing 128 characters. ALT-f will let you change between them for use in the text mode, but not while in text mode. Non-proportional fonts do not have this feature and this function does nothing if you are using a non-proportional font. Font files are identified by an ^1.FBS^0 extension. ^1Default Font^0 restores PC Strokes' default font for use in the text mode. ^1Save Config^0 allows you to save the current file, cut, and font masks and paths to disk. ^1Quit^0 exits the program and you will be asked to press Y to verify. ^1Grab^0 The ^1Grab^0 selection allows you to grab an area of the screen. You grab a region of the screen by Pressing Button1 and Dragging the pointer, releasing the button when the region you want to define is outlined on the screen. If you wish the outline box to shrink to the smallest non-background points in the box, Press the ALT key before you Press Button1 to Drag the pointer (Note keyboard users, release the ALT key after you Press the CAPSLOCK key.) Press Button1 inside the outline and Drag the pointer to move the region you have outlined. If you want to leave the original image on screen untouched, hold the ALT key down when you press Button1 for the initial move. (Note for keyboard users: Release the ALT key after Pressing Button1.) Releasing Button1 allows you to move the pointer around the screen without dropping the currently grabbed image. Once you have located the position to leave the image, release Button1. To drop the image Click Button1 (Note keyboard users: You will need to Click Button1 a second time to leave the image.) The region will stay outlined until you grab another region or choose a drawing function. PC Strokes can treat any of the four colors as the background. When you grab a region of the screen and move it to another area, the background color of the grabbed region behaves like a window and lets whatever is behind it show through. You can change the background color with the ^1Background^0 menu option. Simply move the pointer to the box of the color you want to use as the background, and Click Button1. The color will then appear in the far left box. Then Click in the OK box or Click in the main area of the screen to close the selection area. ^1Cut^0 and ^1Copy^0 will copy a grabbed region to a paste area so you can recall it later or save it to disk. ^1Cut^0 will clear the grabbed region while ^1Copy^0 doesn't. ^1Clear^0 just clears the grabbed region and doesn't affect the paste area. If you have just grabbed the region ^1Cut^0 or ^1Clear^0 will clear the screen inside the outline. ^1Paste^0 recalls a previously cut region to the screen. ^1Region^0 The ^1Region^0 menu is only used after you have grabbed a region. All of these selections leave the screen untouched behind the edit outline. The ^1Mirror^0 selection will create a mirror image of the region. The ^1Upside Down^0 selection will turn the region upside down. The ^1Invert^0 selection will do both at once. The ^1Color Change^0 selection pops up a selection window similar to the ^1Grab-^0 ^1Background^0 window where you select which color will be changed to another color. The ^1Swap Colors^0 selection pops up a selection window where you select which two colors to exchange. Note: if one of the colors in the last two menu selections is the background color, the screen may not seem to change after you select. To see it, just move the region. ^1Draw^0 The ^1Draw^0 menu offers you a selection of ten drawing tools. All of them, except Paintbrush, can be called from the keyboard by striking the first letter of the selection. PaintBrush uses "O". ^1Box^0 and ^1Filled Box^0 draw rectangles on the screen. If you Press the ALT key before you Press Button1, then you draw squares. ^1Rounded Box^0 creates a box with fixed size rounded corners. Holding the ALT key down changes the fixed rounding to proportional rounding. ^1Line^0, ^1Box^0, ^1Filled Box^0, ^1Rounded Box^0, ^1Circle^0, and ^1Ellipse^0 all work the same. You Press Button1 and Drag the figure, releasing the button when it's the size you want. ^1Polygon^0 will draw connected lines for you. Press Button1 to create an initial point. Release the button (Note keyboard users: You will need to Click Button1 a second time) and a line follows the pointer. When you want to draw another line, Click and the line is completed, and another line follows the pointer (Note keyboard users Click Button1 a second time.) This process continues until you Press a non-cursor key or Button2. The ^1Centerdraw^0 selection tells you the method that ^1Box^0, ^1Filled Box^0, ^1Rounded Box^0, ^1Circle^0, and ^1Ellipse^0 use to draw their respective figures. If centerdraw is on, the point where Button1 is Pressed is the center of the figure. If centerdraw is off then the point where Button1 is Pressed is the upper left hand corner of a rectangle containing the figure. When centerdraw is on and one of these drawing commands is selectecd, the menu will disappear if it is on while you are drawing. It will reappear when you release the button. ^1Paintbrush^0 calls up a brush style selection window which allows you to Click on the type of brush to use or create a new one. The current brush is outlined and expanded in an edit box. If you wish, you can edit any of the brushes. After you have selected a brush, Click in the OK box and the window closes. If you have edited any of the brushes you can save the edited brushes to disk by Clicking in the save box. If you do not wish to change the brush, Click in the cancel box, or outside the window. ^1Area Fill^0 works by filling an area of the screen to a defined boundary color with a selected pattern. ^1Area Fill^0 calls up a selection window where you can select the pattern, the colors for filling, and the boundary color. When finished, click on the OK box or outside the window. Afterwards, the spot on screen where you Click Button1 will be painted or filled. ^1Spray Can^0 pops up a selection window where you change the spray size and the Pressure of the spray. Click on one of the three circles to change the size or on the + or - to increase or lower the density from 10% to 100%. Note: to make it easier to repeat these commands, if the last draw command was one of these three, then the space bar will recall up the last one called. ^1Miscel^0 The ^1Miscel^0 menu offers you some miscellaneous functions. ^1Text^0 allows you to put text anywhere on the screen in the font you have chosen. Once you have chosen ^1Text^0, move the special pointer to where you want to put the text and Click Button1. You will see a vertical cursor that indicates your position on the screen. Press any normal key and it will be printed and the cursor moves. If you make a mistake, then the backspace key erases the last character. The color of the text is the current drawing color, with a background of the current program background color. To exit ^1Text^0 mode, press a function key or Button2. You will not be able to change the pointer sensitivity or the printing color while in ^1Text^0 mode. ^1Zoom 3^0 creates a window where the screen pixels of an area surrounding the pointer are magnified by 3 and displayed in an area away from the pointer. It can be called up by pressing the z key. The pointer moves into the area and you can edit the enlarged pixels by Clicking Button1. The color selection keys are still active and you will see the pointer change color to indicate this. If you Press Button2, (the CTRL key for keyboard users) you will see the area in the zoom window outlined on the screen. If you move the pointer, the area under the zoom will move with the pointer. Releasing Button2 puts you back in normal zoom edit mode. (Keyboard users will not be able to move the outline directly up or down, but can move in any of the other directions.) ^1Zoom 4^0 mode is similar to ^1Zoom 3^0, except that the magnification is times 4 and it is called up by pressing the x key. You can also switch between ^1Zoom 3^0 and ^1Zoom 4^0 modes by pressing the key of the other mode. You exit either mode by pressing the key corresponding to the mode you are currently in or by Clicking outside the zoom window. The menu selection keys allow you to move the menu from the top to the bottom or off the screen entirely by selecting the appropriate option. The F10 key has been reserved to cycle the menu from the top of the screen to the bottom to off. On CGA systems, the ^1Palette^0 selection cycles the screen palette between the six CGA palettes. The ^1Background^0 selection cycles the screen background between the 16 available CGA backgrounds. On EGA systems, ^1Palette^0 and ^1Background^0 bring up a selection window where you can indivually set the colors of each of the 4 screen colors. ^1Undo^0 will undo the action of any of the last drawing or region commands. It can be called by pressing U. Every attempt was made to enable PC Strokes to run on a 256K system. If you restrict the size of the grabbed regions to no more than one quarter of a screen, you should have no trouble. If the directory where PC Strokes is placed is in your path, you can run the program from anywhere on your hard disk. There is little room left on ^1Big Blue Disk^0. Please do not attempt to save any images until after you have copied Brushstrokes to another disk. To run this program outside ^1Big Blue Disk^0, type: ^1BS^0. DISK FILES THIS PROGRAM USES: ^FBS.EXE ^FBS.DAT ^FBRUSHPAT.DAT ^FBS.CFG FONT AND SCREEN DISK FILES: ^FCOMPUTER.FBS ^FIBMDOUBL.FBS ^FEASYREAD.FBS ^FSLIM.FBS