Frozen Fish 1: Amiga/FrozenFish-Apr94.iso/bbs/alib/d5xx/d581/prism.lha/Prism/Prism1.1.doc

Text File | 1992-01-04 | 11KB | 233 lines

                   Prism 1.10 - The Amiga ANSI Animator
                             By: Colin Vernon

INTRODUCTION

   Welcome to Prism!  Prism is an ANSI graphics animators for the Amiga.
No, Prism does not make high resolution pictures, it makes those neat
animated screens that you see over the modem.  The reason why I call it
an ANSI animator instead of an ANSI editor is because this program was
designed to make animated screens and not simple colour title screens.
   I hope that you find this program as handy as I do!  Now, on with the
docs.

RUNNING PRISM

   Unfortunately, the only way you can run Prism is through the CLI.  I
have tried to create an icon for it but the program crashes either when you
enter it or when you exit it.  There is now only one way to run Prism and
that is:

1> Prism

   That's it!  The number of bitplanes that you want to work with is now
internally defined so you won't have to exit and re-enter the program to
change the number of bitplanes you want to work with.
   Prism, once running, semi-detaches itself from the CLI.  What I mean is
that you can execute commands from the CLI that is running Prism but you
cannot close that CLI until Prism is deactivated.  This problem probably
has something to do with the way the program tries to access the
console.device and InputEvent structure.

THE DISPLAY

   When you activate Prism for a session, you notice two major things: the
title bar and the gadget window.
   The title bar has the program name and my name in it.  This is a screen
title bar so you can pull down the entire screen by clicking and
holding onto it with the mouse pointer.  In the top right hand corner,
there are some front and back gadgets.  These gadgets are also attached
to the screen so that you can click the screen to the back or bring the
screen to the front easily.
   The gadget box has 17 gadgets and a number of indicators.  The gadgets
numbered from 0 to 15 are the colour gadgets.  If you want to switch
the colour that you are working with, just click the desired colour.
The Fore/Back gadget is used to get at the background colours.  If you
want to change the foreground colour, just click on the colour.  If you
want to change the background colour, however, you must click on the
Fore/Back gadget first then select the colour you want to change the
background colour to.  The only valid background colours are from 0 to
7.  The valid foreground colours are any one of the colour gadgets.
   The colour gadgets are shown according to the colour number you'll get
in the ANSI file.  So, gadget #1 is red, gadget #7 is white, et cetera.
If the ANSI colour palette that you are working with is different than
the one provided in Prism, the colours that you want will be easy to
find as long as you know what number values correspond to your program
that you want to display the ANSI on.  For example, the #1 gadget will
output an <ESC>[31m for a foreground colour and <ESC>[41m for a
background colour.

The indicators are as follows:

Pos:  This indicates where you are editing in your animation.  One
      of the more powerful functions of this program is the ability
      to edit an ANSI file IN THE MIDDLE of your animation (a
      feature even TheDraw lacks!)  How you edit a file this way
      will be covered later on in the documentation.

Len:  This is the length of you ANSI file in visible characters
      (characters that are actually seen when viewing the ANSI
      file).  The Pos: indicator will never exceed Len: and Pos:
      will never be less that 0.  Len: is NOT the actual length of
      your ANSI file when saved to disk.

ForeC: This is your current foreground colour.  The text in this box
       should correspond with the foreground and background colours
       that you have selected.

BackC: This is your current background colour.

C:    This is the position of your cursor in column/row form.  The
      cursor is that superimposed underscore and "overscore"
      character.  The colour of the cursor should vary according to
      the colours that you have set in Preferences.

P:    This is the position of your mouse pointer in column/row
      form.  This feature is handy if you want to see where a
      particular character is without moving the cursor around.

Set:  Your current graphics set is displayed here.  Prism presently
      has 12 different "sets" of IBM graphic characters.  If you
      want to see the next set, press F9.  For the prior set, press
      F10.  Prism will wrap around once you go beyond the 12th set
      and before the 1st set.

THE KEYS

   Obviously, you press the character keys on the keyboard to create your
ANSI file.  If you are using a customized keymap (like your own created
with a keymap editor of some sort or programs such as Mach II) some of
the keys may not work or may not work as expected.
   Remember the Pos: indicator?  This is the reason why it exists.  The
left cursor key (indicated with a <- in this doc from now on) and the
right cursor key (same with ->) have a special purpose when used in
conjunction with the CTRL key.  If you type some text and hold CTRL and
press the <- key, you will notice that your characters will start to
disappear.  The characters are NOT being deleted but being replaced by
the character that was in that position before.  If there wasn't
anything in that place, a space will appear in that position.  Holding
CTRL and pressing the <- key will bring you backwards through you ANSI
file while holding CTRL and pressing -> will bring you forward through
your ANSI file.  This feature gives you the ability to edit character
in the middle of your file instead of starting over from scratch.
   The backspace key will delete the current character Pos: is at.  What
this means if you just used the CTRL <- or CTRL -> combination, it will
be the character right underneath the cursor.  Otherwise, the character
that will be deleted will be the last one typed.
   The TAB key will move the cursor to the next tab place which is pre-set
to every 8 spaces.  If the cursor is beyond the last tab space, the
cursor will appear on the line below in the first column.  The RETURN
key will move the cursor to the first column in the next row, if there
is a next row.  The cursor keys will move the cursor around the 80
column by 24 row editing screen.  The cursor will NOT wrap around the
edges.
   Finally, the HELP key controls the gadget box.  The HELP key will put
the gadget box in front of the edit window if the gadget box is not
visible and vice versa.

THE MENU

The Project Menu:

About:     Displays information about distribution of the
           program.

Playback:  Displays what you have typed in in the order that
           you typed the characters in from beginning to end.
           Hold down the mouse button if you wish to speed up
           the rate of display to maximum speed.

Clear:     Erases the current ANSI file in memory.  This
           command will ask you if you really want to do this
           and if you want to save the file before you clear
           it if you had made any changes to your file.

Load:      Loads an ANSI file.  Choosing this option will
           bring up a file requester where you can: select the
           drawer gadget and type in a path name, select the
           file gadget and type in a file name (and the
           program will try to load the file as soon as you press
           RETURN), select a filename when it appears in one
           of the slots in the middle of the requester, move
           the slider gadget to see different parts of the
           filename list, select PARENT to go to the parent
           directory, select OK to load the specified file or
           select CANCEL to cancel the load.
               Selecting the OK gadget will make the computer
           clear the ANSI file in memory so make sure you save
           your file in memory before executing this command.

Save:      Saves the ANSI file in memory.  This command will
           bring up the same requester as the Load command but
           the file will be recorded on disk or in memory.
           This save feature will make sure that no output
           line is longer than 255 characters.

Append:    This is a submenu containing two items.

    Load - This command is the same as the previous
           load command except that the ANSI file in
           memory is not cleared and the loading
           file will be attached to the end.

    Save - This command is the same as the previous
           save command except that this file will
           attach itself to the end of the filename
           specified.  If the filename does not
           exist on the storage device, it acts just
           like a regular save.

Quit:      End you session with Prism.  The program will
           ask you if you are sure that you want to
           execute this command.  If you have not saved
           your ANSI file with all the changes you have
           made, the program will ask you if you want to
           save the file with all its new changes.

The Setup Menu:

Colors:    This was the only command that I got around to in this
           menu.  There are three subitems which are...

    4 Colors - Reduces the display to 2 bitplanes or 4 colors.
               This will make Prism go a bit faster and use
               less memory but you will not be able to see all
               of the colors ANSI can give you.  Some characters
               may als appear invisible.

    8 Colors - Same as above except display has 3 bitplanes or
               8 colors.

    16 Colors - This is the default option when Prism boots up.
                The display is made up of 4 bitplanes so you'll
                be able to see all 16 colors available.  The
                problem with this mode is that most programs
                that involve ANSI do not understand this code.
                if you see italic letters in your ANSI displays
                or background colors shit themselves off for
                some reason, this is it: you must use 4 or 8
                color mode.

DONORS OF PRISM

The following in a list of all the people who have given me a donation
towards Prism: Rodney Marks, Giampaolo Fabiani (I'll still looking for
you!), Nicholas Brenckle, Neall Verheyde, Daniel Stephens, Lawrence
Evans, Detlef Trimborn, Tom Galloway, Kai Seidel, Darren Nye, Kevin
Nugent, Brendan Pratt, David Streeter, Rinaldo Petterino, and Mark
Daniel.  Thanks a lot for supporting Prism and the Shareware concept.

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

   I am leaving the future of Prism up to the C programmers of the Amiga
community.  I am going to the University of Waterloo (where they
haven't even heard of the word "Amiga") so I am selling my 2000 and
getting an MS-DOS machine for those 5 years.  When I get out, I might
get an Amiga 3000 (or 4000 if they are out by that time) so that I can
continue programming on them if I detest MS-DOS or just miss my Amiga.
   If I receive any more donations for Prism, they shall be destroyed if
it is by cheque and mailed back without the disk if it is a money order
or just money.  I think that I have enough to go to UW, I hope :-)

                                            -- Colin Vernon (6/19/90)