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17 Bit Software 6: Level 6
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17 Bit - Level 6 (1998)(Epic Marketing)[!].iso
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History.doc
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1994-01-13
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TheDesigner - History.doc (C)1993-94 P.D.Turner.
The following is the history of "The Designer". It details all revisions and
releases of the program.
V1.0
----
The original, written at hardware level. Major design faults rendered the
program almost unusable.
V1.1
----
Attempted to improve original design. Still written at hardware level.
This time, problems with the file system corrupts disks. The Program
however is much better!
V1.2
----
Added a lot to the design to make the program system friendly. The program
works to spec. But... Map redraws are very slow. The program is driven with
gadgets only, and this made the program very difficult to use.
V2.0
----
Scrapped original design completely. Re-wrote whole design to be much more
user-friendly. One major target was to make the program look and feel much
more professional, which I did!
Some of the added features for Version 2:
* On-screen editing, rather than "Remote-control" editing with gadgets!
* Ability to select tiles by pointing and clicking.
* File requester.
* Block commands. (A bit rough at this stage!)
* Allowed greater choice of tile size.
* Ability to save tiles out as IFF or RAW data.
* Ability to save maps as RAW data.
* Added "Fast-mover" gadget. Allows instant placing of editing window.
V2.01
-----
No more design changes now, just updates!
Changed a few areas of the program to acheive the following...
* Added "Busy" pointer and "Busy" state. In V2.0 while the program was
busy doing something, the computer was still collecting inputs from
the user.
* Improved menu handling code.
* Improved calculations used for the "Fast-mover" gadget.
* IFF routines changed to handle colour maps of different sizes.
* Fixed a bug in the File requester - If the current dir was changed, the
directory was read, but you couldn't load or save anything.
* Removed "Next Tile" and "Provious Tile" from the menus and implemented
them as keyboard only commands.
* Made various functions refresh the display properly when new data is
loaded.
V2.10
-----
Made the following changes to the program...
* Re-wrote file requester. File list now sorted. User able to operate
gadgets while the directory is being read.
* Added a palette requester.
* When changing tile size, check with user first. If tile size is changed
the whole map is checked, if any tiles values are found to be too high
they are changed.
* Re-wrote block selection code. Now uses an "elastic-box", rather than
the dodgy "click on two corners" approach!
* Added an option to allow user to paint with tile, rather than needing to
place each tile individually.
* Re-wrote code that handles mouse movements to be faster.
* Re-wrote map draw routine to be faster.
* Added ability to increase and decrease map in any direction.
* Added a filled box command.
* Added a tidy custom requester to replace the OS AutoRequest();
* Re-wrote failure routines to give more detail about what went wrong,
rather than just saying - "Failed!"
* Added argument handling and WBench startup.
* Added option to create an icon for maps.
* Added user control of WBench screen.
* Removed "Include Tiles?" requester when saving, and replaced it with an
option on the prefs menu.
* Made program recognise PAL and NTSC televisions and adjust screen size
accordingly. This is much better than distributing two versions.
Plus I found and fixed the following bugs!...
* When selecting a block, the menus remained active. If the user selected
a menu option everything went wrong! Fixed!
* When the map was smaller than the screen, the "Fast-mover" gadget failed
to set the x co-ordinate properly. Fixed!
* If the mouse was in the editing window and all data was cleared using
the keyboard short-cut, and then you move the mouse... CRASH!!!
Fixed!
* Various commands used dbra loops. When using very large maps or blocks
the commands failed because dbra operates on WORDs only. Fixed!
* When clearing data not all the default values were restored. Fixed!
* If you changed the size of a large map to smaller than one screen, the
display was not re-drawn correctly. Fixed!
V2.11
-----
Just a few of bug fixes and enhancements...
Bugs...
* When loading an IFF with a mask (DPaint stencil etc), the loader was
supposed to discard the mask plane. Instead it included it as part of
the image. Fixed!
* The palette requester used the default font. This was fine if you boot
in 80 column mode. In 60 column mode the gadget text was all over the
place! Fixed!
Enhancements...
* Changed file requester so it ignored the icon ".info" files, as this
looked very untidy.
* Included this file on the public disk.
* Added 2nd example file. Made sure that all other example maps had their
tiles saved as part of the map.
* Had instruction manual re-written.
V2.12
-----
Re-wrote code which handled keyboard short-cuts because it relied on RAW key
codes. RAW key codes relate to position rather than what is printed on top
of the keys.
This meant that in certain countries the keyboard short-cuts were different.
This has now been fixed so that all counties use the same keys. Don't forget
that for this to work you will have to install the keymap for your country in
the startup-sequence.
I have also extended the short-cuts to include functions added after the
original V2.0 update.
Note: I have tried as far as possible to keep the short cuts the same, there
is only one change this is the "Get Tiles Block" which has changed from "P"
to "B". Note also that the case of the keys is now important, this enabled
me to put more than one function on one key.
In a future release I may decide to change more short-cuts to make them more
"Obvious". This will also happen if I add a significant number of new
functions.