CD ROM Paradise Collection 4/CD ROM Paradise Collection 4 1995 Nov.iso/graphics/grafx410.zip/GRAFFIX.DOC

Text File | 1994-12-11 | 18KB | 408 lines

FOR LOGO-FREE SCREEN CAPTURES, BECOME A REGISTERED USER


        ▄▄▄▄▄  ▄▄▄▄▄  ▄▄▄▄▄  ▄▄▄▄▄  ▄▄▄▄▄  ▄  ▄       ▄
        █   ▀  █   █  █   █  █      █      █   ▀▄   ▄▀
        █      █▄▄▄█  █▄▄▄█  █▄▄▄   █▄▄▄   █     ▀▄▀
        █  ▀█  █▀▄    █   █  █      █      █    ▄▀ ▀▄
        █▄▄▄█  █  ▀▄  █   █  █      █      █  ▄▀     ▀▄ (TM)
        FOR WINDOWS AND DOS  ▀ v4.1 ▀ SHAREWARE EDITION

      Copyright 1994 ANDROMEDA SOFTWARE.  All rights reserved.

This is the Shareware Edition of GRAFFIX, a screen-capture system
that includes two executable program files: DGFX.EXE for DOS, and
WGFX.EXE for Windows.  The DOS program can capture full-screen
text or graphics from DOS applications running in DOS or under
Windows, while the Windows program can capture graphics from
Windows applications or text from character-mode DOS applications
running full-screen under Windows.

DGFX.EXE and WGFX.EXE can run simultaneously on the same computer
and be activated independently of each other.  For simplicity,
the explanations that follow focus first on the Windows version
of GRAFFIX, then on the DOS version.


GRAFFIX for Windows

GRAFFIX is a clipboard viewer that can save all or part of the
image on the clipboard to a graphics file in BMP, GIF, or PCX
format.  In Windows, the entire screen can be captured to the
clipboard at any time by pressing the PrtSc key (Shift-PrtSc on
84-key keyboards), or just the currently active window by press-
ing Alt-PrtSc.  GRAFFIX does not need to be running in order to
do this.  GRAFFIX can then be opened to save the entire clip-
board, or the image can be cropped by using the mouse to frame
a rectangle of any size within the window before saving to disk.

To save, choose the desired format from the File menu.  A dialog
box will list the files of the selected format in the current
directory.  You may select one of the files listed or type a new
file name in the edit box.  You may also switch to another direc-
tory or disk drive.

GRAFFIX for Windows will also display text captured to the clip-
board.  Text can be saved to an ASCII file or to a monochrome
graphics file in BMP, GIF, or PCX format.  Two character sets are
available, OEM and ANSI.  Text can be captured to the clipboard
by pressing PrtSc while a DOS character-mode application is run-
ning full-screen under Windows.

When minimized to an icon or hidden by another window, GRAFFIX
is still active in "popup" mode, which means it will pop up onto
the screen or become visible whenever an image is placed on the
clipboard.  You can then save the entire image or any rectangular
portion.  To return to the application that was interrupted,
simply click on that application's window or minimize GRAFFIX
back to an icon.  You can turn popup mode off by clicking on
"Popup" in the Options menu, which will remove the checkmark
next to this menu item.

In popup mode, GRAFFIX will pop up when you press the PrtSc key
OR when another application places a bitmap on the clipboard
that is compatible with GRAFFIX.  The compatible formats are
DDB (Device-Dependent Bitmap) and DIB (Device-Independent Bitmap),
two commonly-used bitmap formats.  If you attempt to save a clip-
board bitmap whose format is not one of these two, GRAFFIX will
respond with a dialog box that says "No bitmap exists on the
clipboard."

GRAFFIX will not pop up immediately when text is captured to
the clipboard from a DOS application running full screen in
character mode.  In this case, GRAFFIX will pop up after the
DOS program is terminated or minimized to an icon by pressing
Ctrl-Esc to activate Task Switcher.  If the GRAFFIX window
becomes hidden by another window, it can be brought back to
the foreground by double-clicking its icon in Program Manager.


Cropping the Clipboard Image

The GRAFFIX display window can scroll the clipboard image hori-
zontally and vertically by means of the scroll bars.  To mark a
rectangular area for cropping, move the cursor to one of the top
corners of the desired rectangle, depress the left mouse button,
move the cursor to the diagonally opposite corner and release the
button.  Repeat this process to erase the rectangle and draw a
new one.  The width and height of the rectangle in pixel units
will be displayed in the title bar, as will the x,y coordinates
of the upper-left (UL) and lower-right (LR) corners of the rec-
tangle.  The origin of these coordinates is the upper-left corner
of the clipboard image.

To save the cropped image, select the desired format from the
File menu.  To erase the rectangle, press Esc or position the
cursor anywhere on the image and click and release the left mouse
button.


File Menu Item: Save as BMP

Select this menu item to save the contents of the clipboard to an
uncompressed Windows Bitmap File with the filename extension BMP.
Monochrome, 16-color, 256-color, and 24-bit TrueColor modes are
supported.


File Menu Item: Save as GIF

Select this menu item to save the contents of the clipboard to a
CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format file with the filename ex-
tension GIF.  This format utilizes LZW compression, and supports
monochrome, 16, and 256-color modes.  GIF does not support 24-bit
color modes.


File Menu Item: Save as PCX

Select this menu item to save the contents of the clipboard to
a PC Paintbrush file with the filename extension PCX.  Mono-
chrome, 16-color, 256-color, and 24-bit TrueColor modes are
supported.


File Menu Item: Save as TXT

Select this menu item to save clipboard text to an ASCII text
file.  Two character sets are available.  The OEM character set
is the DOS-compatible IBM extended ASCII character set.  The ANSI
character set is the one used by Windows.  If you save text to a
file that already exists, the text will be appended to the file.


File Menu Item: Open BMP

Select this item from the File menu to open a BMP file and place
it on the clipboard.  The image can now be saved in any of the
three available formats, or cropped and then saved.


Main Menu Item: Display

This pull-down menu allows you to select which of the available
clipboard formats to display.  Normally, Windows will clear the
clipboard when the PrtSc key is pressed.  However, applications
can place a bitmap or text on the clipboard without first clear-
ing it, so that text and graphics can coexist.  This is the case
when you select Open BMP.  By default, GRAFFIX will display the
format most recently added to the clipboard.


Main Menu Item: Options
Three options are available:

Clear clipboard.
  Select this menu item to empty the clipboard.

Popup mode.
  This is the default mode of GRAFFIX.  When minimized to an
  icon or hidden by another window, GRAFFIX will pop up onto
  the screen whenever the clipboard receives a new bitmap image
  or text.  Select this menu item to turn popup mode off or back
  on again.  To return to the application that was interrupted,
  click on that application's window or minimize GRAFFIX back to
  an icon.

Enter coordinates.
  Select this menu item to draw a rectangle by entering its
  coordinates from the keyboard, instead of using the mouse.
  The values that appear in the dialog box are those of the
  current rectangle, if one has been drawn with the mouse.  If
  no rectangle has been drawn, the values default to a rectangle
  that contains the entire client area of the GRAFFIX window.
  Coordinates may be entered that exceed the boundaries of this
  client area, and may include the entire image on the clipboard,
  up to a full screen.

  The origin of the rectangle coordinates is the upper-left
  corner of the clipboard image.  To erase the rectangle, press
  Esc or click and release the left mouse button.


Help Menu

Online Help is available to explain the features of GRAFFIX.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

GRAFFIX for DOS is a memory-resident utility that captures gra-
phics and text-mode screens directly to disk files.  It can be
activated from within a running DOS application, such as a video
game, by pressing the "hot key" combination Ctrl-Alt-Space.

Graphics screens can be saved to either GIF or PCX files, and
text screens to either ASCII or ATF files.  The ATF format pre-
serves text color attributes.  GRAFFIX supports all EGA, VGA, and
SVGA gray-scale and color graphics modes, including 16 and 256-
color, 24-bit color (VESA modes), monochrome EGA and VGA modes,
and text modes up to 132 columns by 60 rows.  To minimize memory
requirements of this TSR, the old CGA and Hercules graphics modes
are not supported.  SVGA modes are supported for adapters whose
BIOS is VESA-compliant, which includes most SVGA adapters.


USING GRAFFIX for DOS

Super-VGA modes are supported for video cards that have the
VESA BIOS extension.  GRAFFIX looks for this extension when you
make it resident, and prints a message on the screen indicating
whether or not the VESA BIOS extension was found.  Some SVGA
cards, such as the Video Seven WIN.VGA, require that you run
a utility program that installs the VESA BIOS extension in RAM
before an application can make calls to the BIOS extension.

In the case of the Video Seven card, this utility is named
V7VESA.COM.  Putting V7VESA on a separate line in your AUTO-
EXEC.BAT file will automatically load this driver every time
you turn on your computer.

In the absence of the VESA BIOS extension on SVGA cards, GRAFFIX
supports the standard VGA modes, but will terminate and return to
the application when it encounters a mode it does not recognize.

When GRAFFIX is activated in graphics mode, a prompt for a file
name appears at the top of the screen.  The cursor is invisible
in graphics modes, but you can enter a file name as you would
in text mode, and backspace to delete characters you may want
to change.  If no file name is entered before you press <CR>,
GRAFFIX defaults to the file name SAVE#XXX.GIF/PCX, where XXX is
the sequential number of the file, and writes the file to the
current drive and directory.  You may enter the file name with
a drive and directory prefix, such as d:\dir\filename, where d
represents any drive letter and dir any directory or subdirectory
name.  The prompt will accept more than one directory in the pre-
fix, such as d:\dir\subdir\filename, for a total of up to 23
characters.

The file name prompt is drawn with palette number 15 against a
background of palette number 0.  Occasionally, there may be in-
sufficient contrast between these two colors for the prompt to
be visible.  In that case, simply press p or g to select PCX or
GIF, then press <CR> to use the default file name.

No file name prompt appears in 24-bit color modes, as some adap-
ter cards do not support text output in these modes.  Instead,
the filename defaults to 24BITxxx.PCX in the current directory,
where xxx represents the number in the sequence of files saved.
The GIF format does not support 24-bit color.

Video games sometimes use "tweaked" graphics modes that are not
supported by the BIOS.  GRAFFIX may be unable to capture these
screens correctly.

The time GRAFFIX takes to capture a graphics screen and save it
to disk depends on the speed of your computer, the file format
chosen, and the graphics mode.  A GIF file takes longer to create
than a PCX file, because the compression algorithm is more com-
plex, resulting in a file that is more compact.  The higher the
resolution of the graphics mode, the longer it will take to cre-
ate the file, because of the greater number of pixels that must
be encoded.

When the screen capture is completed, GRAFFIX will signal you
with a beep.  During a SVGA screen capture, GRAFFIX will generate
a series of ascending tones; each tone indicates that the video
card has switched to a new page of memory.  This is to reassure
you that the program is indeed processing data, and not hung up
in an endless loop.


TEXT MODE SCREENS

Text can be saved to either an ASCII file or to an Attribute Text
File with the extension ATF.  An ATF file contains two bytes for
each charcter: the ASCII code and the color attribute.  Many DOS
applications that run in text mode simulate a graphical interface
by utilizing the extended ASCII character set to draw multi-
colored menus and dialog boxes.  Such a screen can be captured
to an ATF file.

GRAFFIX includes a DOS utility named AttriByte (AB.EXE) that can
display an ATF file in its original colors in a graphical screen
mode, so that the GRAFFIX TSR can capture the screen to a GIF or
a PCX file.  When you run AttriByte from the DOS command line,
you will be prompted for the name of an ATF file to display.
AB.EXE will then switch the screen to the most suitable graphics
mode available on your computer and display the ATF file.  Attri-
Byte uses VESA modes to display 132-column text, so the VESA BIOS
extension should be installed on your computer.

If the maximum resolution of your monitor is 1024x768, AttriByte
will display 132-column text in VESA BIOS mode 104h, which is
only capable of displaying 128 columns.  Hence, the four columns
on the right of the screen will not be displayed.  On 1280x1024
monitors, the full 132 columns will be displayed in VESA mode
106h, which is capable of displaying up to 160 columns of text.

You can override AttriByte's choice of screen mode by running
AB.EXE with the /x command-line switch.  This will cause Attri-
Byte to display the ATF file in whatever screen mode happens
to be in effect.  Therefore, it is necessary to put the screen
into the desired graphics mode before running AB.EXE with the
/x switch, by means of a screen mode utility such as the one
included on the software disk that came with your video card.

When AttriByte displays an ATF file, the image will remain on the
screen while you activate GRAFFIX for DOS by means of the hot key
combination.  After you've saved the screen as either GIF or PCX,
press any key to return to DOS.  If you used the /x switch, the
screen will still be in the mode you selected, and the DOS prompt
will be superimposed on the image that was displayed.  Use the
DOS command CLS to clear the screen, or reset the screen to text
mode 3 by means of your screen mode utility.

When you save a text mode screen to an ASCII file, the text will
be appended to a file if you enter the name of a file that al-
ready exists.  If you do this when you save text to an ATF file,
a new file will be created and the existing file deleted.


RUNNING DGFX.EXE AND WGFX.EXE

Since DGFX.EXE is a TSR, it must be launched from the DOS prompt
BEFORE opening Microsoft Windows.  It cannot be properly in-
stalled in memory from a DOS "shell" activated by clicking a DOS
icon in Windows, nor can it be run from the Windows "Run File"
menu.  However, once DGFX.EXE has been installed as a memory-
resident program, it can be activated from within a DOS program
that was launched from DOS, from Windows, or from a DOS shell in
Windows.  GRAFFIX for DOS is activated by pressing the "hot-key"
combination Ctrl-Alt-Space.  This is the way to save a full-
screen graphic image that is not framed by a window.

WGFX.EXE can be launched from the Program Manager "Run File"
menu or by clicking on its icon, having first installed it in a
program group window.  The Windows documentation explains how to
add a program's icon to a group.  WGFX.HLP and WGFX.EXE should
reside in the same directory.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

GRAFFIX for Windows and DOS, Shareware Edition, Version 4.1
Copyright 1993, 1994 ANDROMEDA SOFTWARE.   All Rights Reserved.

The Professional Edition of GRAFFIX for Windows and DOS does not
display the GRAFFIX logo on saved files.

To register and receive the Professional Edition, send $39 to:

                     ANDROMEDA SOFTWARE
                     125 North Prospect St.
                     Washington NJ 07882

NJ residents please include sales tax.

Steven A. Brown, programmer
INTERNET: [e-mail]
CompuServe [73140,3340].


CREDIT CARD ORDERS

You may e-mail your order with your name, address, VISA or
MasterCard account number, and expiration date.  Please specify
which of the following methods of delivery you prefer:

1.  First-class mail on 3.5" disk.

2.  GRAFFIX.ZIP via binary e-mail on CompuServe.

3.  GRAFFIX.ZIP as attached file via e-mail on America Online.

4.  GRAFFIX.UUE via ASCII e-mail on the Internet (requires
    UUDECODE.EXE utility to convert back to ZIP file).

The total amount charged to your credit card will be $40.00.
Orders may also be placed by telephone to [phone].


SHAREWARE NOTICE

The Shareware Edition of GRAFFIX is freely distributed.  You may
use it over a ten-day period to determine its suitability for
your needs.  To continue using GRAFFIX beyond this evaluation
period, you will be required to purchase the registered Profes-
sional Edition.

Registration fees are the only compensation the programmer re-
ceives for the work and expense of writing this program.  Please
support the shareware concept of quality, "try-before-you-buy"
software.  Registered users are entitled to unlimited technical
support and low-cost upgrades.


DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY

THIS SOFTWARE IS SOLD "AS IS," WITHOUT WARRANTY AS TO PERFORMANCE
OF MERCHANTABILITY OR ANY OTHER WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESSED OR
IMPLIED.  BECAUSE OF THE VARIOUS HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ENVIRON-
MENTS INTO WHICH THIS PROGRAM MAY BE PUT, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED.  GOOD DATA PROCESSING PRO-
CEDURE DICTATES THAT ANY PROGRAM BE THOROUGHLY TESTED WITH NON-
CRITICAL DATA BEFORE RELYING ON IT.  THE USER MUST ASSUME THE
ENTIRE RISK OF USING THE PROGRAM.  ANY LIABILITY OF THE SELLER
WILL BE LIMITED EXCLUSIVELY TO PRODUCT REPLACEMENT OR REFUND OF
PURCHASE PRICE.