Media Share 9

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Media Share 9 / MEDIASHARE_09.ISO / ansi / ansi_la1.zip / ANSI-LA.DOC < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1986-08-02 | 26KB | 484 lines

A N S I of L o s A n g e l e s A N S I of L o s A n g e l e s by Eric C. Lambart Version 1.03 Saturday, August 2, 1986 Welcome to ANSI of LA, the latest and greatest in ANSI screen editing software. ANSI of LA [AoLA] has been written in Turbo Pascal to make it fast, and it has been specifically designed for ease of use. ANSI of LA will edit ANSI (Color), ASCII (Plain text), or Dump (An exact copy of video memory) screens. With AoLA, you can easily draw pictures, color advertisements, and color menus or welcome files for your Bulletin Board, limited ONLY by your imagination and the IBM PC's extended-ASCII character set! ANSI of Los Angeles is a new addition to the list of excellent Easyware programs in existance. Easyware is a novel new software- distribution concept, also known as "Shareware" or "Freeware," where program(s) can be freely distributed to friends and other bulletin boards, but still must be paid for. If you try a Easyware program that you have been given, and continue to use it, you MUST pay the author for the program's use. If you enjoy AoLA, and use it (more than just testing it), then please pay me (Eric Ryan-Lambart) $15, and you will get your own registered copy of the latest version of ANSI of Los Angeles. Please send $15, payable to ***Eric Ryan***, and include your name and address so we can send you the latest release of ANSI of LA, with a printed manual. Send Check or Money Order payable to : Eric Lambart Post Office Box 2, Santa Monica, California 90406-0002 -- THANKS!! -- -- THANKS!! -- Table of Contents _________________ Getting Started : 1 Cursor Movement Commands 1 The Status Line 1 Function Key Commands 1 Escape Commands 1 Other Commands 2 Command Details : 3 F1 - Toggle Draw Mode on/off 3 F2 - Set Tabs on Ruler Line 3 F3 - Get Color at Cursor 3 F4 - Put Current Color at Cursor 3 F5 - Toggle Show Color on/off 3 F6 - Flip through Screens 1 to 3 3 F7 - Mark and Cut 4 F8 - Paste Marked Text 4 F9 - Swap Foreground and Background Colors 4 F10 - ASCII Table 4 Esc-B - Set Background Text Color 4 Esc-C - Set Foreground and Background Colors 4 Esc-D - Set Direction of Travel 5 Esc-F - Set Foreground Text Color 5 Esc-H - Show Help Screen 5 Esc-L - Load an Image File 5 Esc-O - Go to Object Library Menu 5 Esc-Q - Quit to DOS 6 Esc-S - Save an Image File 6 Esc-W - Wipe-out (clear) Current Screen 6 Ctl-Q - Quote Next Key Pressed 6 Ctl-\ - Clear Current Line 6 Ctl-_ - Save Screen for Undo 6 Ctl-* - Undo Recent Changes 7 Alt-1..Alt-0 - Select Character Sets 7 1..9, /, -, \ & + - Display Characters in Current Set 7 Tab - Move to Next Tabstop 7 Sft-Tab - Move to Previous Tabstop 7 Ins - Insert a Space at Cursor 7 Del - Delete Character at Cursor 7 Revision History 8 ANSI of Los Angeles Page 1 ANSI of Los Angeles Page 1 ...Getting Started... Cursor Movement Commands : Up-arrow - Move up one character. Down-arrow - Move down one character. Left-arrow - Move left one character. ^Left-arrow - Move left one word. Right-arrow - Move right one char ^Right-arrow - Move right one word. Home - Move to left of line. Control-Home - Move to top line. End - Move to right of line. Control-End - Move to bottom line. The Status Line : Cursor position \ / Color at cursor Current direction\ 1%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%80,24%White on Black%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%Color>Set :123456789/- \Current editing screen Current color/ Current Set / Function Key Commands : F1 - Toggle Draw Mode on/off F2 - Set Tabs on Ruler Line F3 - Get Color at Cursor F4 - Put Current Color at Cursor F5 - Toggle Show Color on/off F6 - Flip through Screens 1 to 3 F7 - Mark and Cut F8 - Paste Marked Text F9 - Swap Foreground and Background Colors F10 - ASCII Table Escape Commands (Press Escape First) : B - Set Background Text Color C - Set Foreground and Background Colors D - Set Direction of Travel F - Set Foreground Text Color H - Show Help Screen L - Load an Image File O - Go to Object Library Menu Q - Quit to DOS S - Save an Image File W - Wipe-out (clear) Current Screen ANSI of Los Angeles Page 2 ANSI of Los Angeles Page 2 Other Commands : Control-Q - Quote Next Key Pressed Control-\ - Clear Current Line Control-_ - Save Screen for Undo Control-* - Undo Recent Changes Alt-1..Alt-0 - Select Character Sets 1..9, /, -, \, + - Display Characters in Current Set Tab - Move to Next Tabstop Shift-Tab - Move to Previous Tabstop Ins - Insert a Space at Cursor Del - Delete Character at Cursor Esc - Enter Command Mode ANSI of Los Angeles Page 3 ANSI of Los Angeles Page 3 Command Details : F1 - Toggle Draw Mode on/off Pressing F1 will toggle Draw mode on/off. If Draw mode is currently active, the word "Draw" will appear on the Status-Line. Draw mode is an EASY way to draw boxes and lines on your screen. Rather than using 1..9,/,-,\, and + key to draw lines and boxes, you can activate draw mode, then just use the keypad cursor-keys to draw lines wherever you move the cursor. Draw mode only works for character sets 2 through 6. (Press Alt-2 through Alt-6 to activate one of those sets. Make sure you use the keyboard numbers, not the keypad!!) F2 - Set Tabs on Ruler Line If you want to line up objects or text in a vertical column, you can use set Tab Stops, and then press the Tab or Shift-Tab keys to move to a set position. When you press the F2 key, a blank ruler line appears on the bottom line of the screen, with every tenth column marked off. To set or reset a Tab Stop, move the cursor to the position on the ruler line, then press the Space Bar to toggle the stop on and off. Press Esc, Up-Arrow, or F2 again to exit the ruler line. F3 - Get Color at Cursor If you press F3, ANSI of LA will change the current text color to the color of whatever text the cursor is on. F4 - Put Current Color at Cursor Pressing F4 will change the color of whatever text the cursor is on to the current text color. F5 - Toggle Show Color on/off The default Show-Color mode is on. Show-Color simply means that ANSI of LA spells out, in English, the color of whatever text the cursor is on. F6 - Flip through Screens 1 to 3 ANSI of LA allows you to edit up to three separate screens in memory, at the same time! To toggle through the screens, simply press F6. The current screen number is displayed at the first character in the status line. ANSI of Los Angeles Page 4 ANSI of Los Angeles Page 4 F7 - Mark and Cut With ANSI of LA, you can copy portions of one screen to other portions of the same screen, or to one of the other 2 editing screens. To Mark and Cut a block of text, position the cursor at the upper-left- hand corner of the block, then press F7. Then move the cursor to the lower-right-hand corner, and press F7 again. To abort a block-cut, press Esc while marking. F8 - Paste Marked Text To Paste a block of text previously marked with F7, position the cursor to the place on the screen where you want the upper-left-hand corner of the block to rest, then press F8. If you press F8 somewhere within the original block on the screen, you may mess up the block, so be careful! F9 - Swap Foreground and Background Colors Rather than pressing Esc-C to set your forground and background colors for inverse (a color with a non-black background), you can just press F9, and the background color will become the foreground, and the foreground color will become the background. You can see what the new combination looks like by looking at where it says "Color" on the status line. F10 - ASCII Table Many of IBM's extended character set are represented in the different AoLA character sets, but some are not. To see the full range of extended-ASCII characters, press F10, and a table of the extended- ASCII characters will be displayed. To enter any of the characters on the table, simply hold down the Alt key while entering the code number on the _Keypad_, then release the Alt key. Escape Commands (Press Escape First) : Esc-B - Set Background Text Color : Press Esc-B to set the Background color. For normal text, set it to black. If you want inverse, try setting it to an actual color. Also, see the F9 command. Esc-C - Set Foreground and Background Colors : Pressing Esc-F will act as if you pressed Esc-F then Esc-B; it just sets the Foreground and Background colors. See those commands. ANSI of Los Angeles Page 5 ANSI of Los Angeles Page 5 Esc-D - Set Direction of Travel : Travel direction is another exclusive AoLA feature. Normally, when you type anything in the editor, the cursor will then move one space to the right. If you want it to move in any other direction, press Esc-D, then press the cursor key corresponding to the direction that you want the cursor to travel. The F4 command is also affected by the Esc-D setting, so you can create stripes of color in any direction. You can also set diagonal directions by using the Home, End, PgUp and PgDn keys. The current direction of travel is indicated by the arrow just before the word "Set" on the status line. If it is a "\", then it is either up-and-left or down-and-right, and if it is "/" then it is either up-and-right or down-and-left. Esc-F - Set Foreground Text Color : Press Esc-F to set the foreground text color. Anything you type in will be in this color with the current background color. Esc-H - Show Help Screen : If you press Esc-H, a short help summary will pop-up, describing most of the ANSI of LA commands. Esc-L - Load an Image File : To load any text screen, press Esc-L. After entering the filename, if the file exists, AoLA will prompt you for the screen type. If it is a color screen, press C. For a non-color screen, press A, and if it's a screen-dump, press D. If you decide not to load a file, enter a non-existant filename or press Esc when AoLA prompts you for the screen type. Esc-O - Go to Object Library Menu : Object libraries are one of ANSI of LA's best exclusive features. An object library is a file full of pictures to be used in color screens. The sample library (Sample.Obl) contains 4 such pictures. If you create any interesting or useful pictures of objects with AoLA, such as a picture of a computer, and want to save it in an OBL (object library), position the cursor at the upper-left-hand-corner of the object and press Esc-O-S, then enter the name for the OBL. If the file already exists, the object will be appended, if it's a new file, it will be created. After entering the filename, move the cursor to the lower-right-hand-corner of the block, then press Enter or F7 to close up the block. To read in an object from an OBL, position the cursor at the place where you want the upper-left-hand-corner of the object to sit, then press Esc-O-L, and enter the OBL name. You can then use PgDn and PgUp to page through the different objects. When you find one you like, press Enter, and the object will be inserted at the position you selected. If you do not see one you like, press Esc to exit OBL mode. ANSI of Los Angeles Page 6 ANSI of Los Angeles Page 6 Esc-Q - Quit to DOS : C'MON! You mean you need an EXPLANATION?? Esc-S - Save an Image File : To save any screen you have created, press Esc-S, then enter the filename. If the file already exists, AoLA will check to make sure you want to overwrite the file, then it will prompt you for the screen type. If it is a color screen, press C. For a non-color screen, press A, and if it's a screen-dump, press D. If you select C, you will be prompted whether you want to start with a clear-screen code, and if you want to "Optimize for BBS messages," which is another exclusive feature; you can limit the width of all lines to 70 columns so you can upload the file into a BBS message base. If you decide not to save the screen, just Esc when AoLA prompts you for the screen type. Esc-W - Wipe-out (clear) Current Screen : This will erase the current screen, after prompting you to insure that you did not press Esc-W accidentally. Other Commands : Control-Q - Quote Next Key Pressed You have probably don't really need this function, but's it here if you want it. You may have noticed that you can't enter such characters as Escape, Backspace, Carriage Return, etc. If for some strange reason, you want to, press Control-Q, and the "Quote" indicator will appear on the status line. Then press whatever key you wish to enter. Control-\ - Clear Current Line If you need to clear the contents of any line, the easiest way to do so is by pressing Control-Backslash (\) twice, which will erase the current line. You must press it twice to avoid accidentally erasing your data. Control-_ - Save Screen for Undo If you are about to make some major changes which could mess up your screen, press Control-Underline (_), which will save the current screen temporarily. If you want to go back to the old screen, press Control-* (See the following command description). ANSI of Los Angeles Page 7 ANSI of Los Angeles Page 7 Control-* - Undo Recent Changes Whenever you load a new screen or toggle screens with F6, the new screen is automatically saved in another area of memory so it can be brought back if anything on the screen is accidentally erased or destroyed, or if you are dissatisfied with a certain recent change made on the screen. You can also save the screen temporarily by pressing Control-_ (See previous command description). To bring back the saved screen, simply press Control-Star (*), and any changes will be lost and replaced by the most recent screen in the hold area. Alt-1..Alt-0 - Select Character Sets AoLA supports ten separate character sets which can be entered using the keypad. See the help screen for the exact sets. Pressing Alt-1, Alt-2, ..., Alt-0 bring up sets 1 through 10, respectively. Sets 2 through 6 support line drawing... see F1. 1..9, /, -, \, + - Display Characters in Current Set To display any character in a set, you can either use the keys on the top of the keyboard, or use the shift key with the numeric keypad. The "Set" indicator on the status line shows the 11 characters in the current set. The first 9 are displayed by keys 1 through 9, respectively. The tenth is entered with the '-' key, and the eleventh can be entered by either the '\' key, the '/' key, or the '+' key. Tab - Move to Next Tabstop Pressing the Tab key will move the cursor to the next preset Tab position. If there are no more tabs to the right of the cursor, it will go to the end of the line. To set tabs, see the F2 command. Shift-Tab - Move to Previous Tabstop The action of the Shifted Tab key is exactly opposite of the Tab key. Pressing Shift-Tab will move the cursor to the previous preset Tab position, or to the beginning of the line if there are no more tabs to the left of the cursor position. To set tabs, see the F2 command. Ins - Insert a Space at Cursor If you press the Ins key, a blank space will be inserted in the current line, at the cursor position. The right-most character in the line will be destroyed when you do this. Del - Delete Character at Cursor Press the Del key, and a character will be deleted from the current line, at the cursor position. ANSI of Los Angeles Page 8 ANSI of Los Angeles Page 8 ANSI of Los Angeles Revision History : Version 1.00 - July 23, 1986 * Original release Version 1.01 - July 26, 1986 * Fixed bug -- Screen did not clear before loading ASCII file, causing it to overlay old screen. * Added "undo" command to undo mistakes * Added resettable tabstops, with Tab and Backtab keys. * Added command (^\) to clear current line Version 1.02 - July 28, 1986 * Fixed bug -- AoLA did not properly sense the presence of a monochrome card, and would not work with one. Now it SHOULD work. * Instead of resetting the screen when you enter AoLA, it just leaves it in its present state and clears the screen. This is for users of Genoa, Paradise, Compaq, and other video cards that emulate a monochrome mode, but are really "color" cards, so if AoLA senses a color card, it will still use whatever the current video mode is, sensed by the fix above. * I realized that Shareware is a trademark of Quicksoft, the makers of the incredible Pc-Write, so, to hopefully avoid any legal trouble, I made up a new (I hope!) term "Easyware," which means essentially the same thing. * Eliminated all "blue" colors from the startup screen, help screen, and ASCII table so that it won't underline and look messy on a monochrome screen. Version 1.03 - August 2, 1986 * Added display of X,Y position on the status line. * Improved optimization feature when saving ANSI screen images. Now, files should be even shorter line-wise. This improved optimization ONLY works if you start with a clear screen. If you do not, it will just optimize as before. * Fixed a bug -- When you pressed Ctrl-Left Arrow, and there was no beginning of a word to the left, it would stop at the second column. Now it stops correctly at the first column. * Fixed a "bug" -- This one was not a definite bug, but after you saved an ANSI screen image, AoLA would leave the color in the file the same as the last color used. Thus, if you TYPEd the file in DOS, or read it on a BBS message, the colors would be messed up. Now, it sets the color to white on black. ANSI of Los Angeles Page 9 ANSI of Los Angeles Page 9 * Fixed a bug -- When I attempted to load an ANSI file I had downloaded from a BBS, AoLA crashed because the lines in the file were LONG - up to 500 characters per line, and the limit for AoLA was 255. Now, rather than reading in a line at a time, AoLA will read ONE CHARACTER AT A TIME, which may seem a bit slower, but will allow you to read lines with unlimited lengths. However, when loading ASCII files, the limit is still 255 characters. * Added a new feature! When you have an ANSI file that is more than 24 lines long, rather than letting it scroll by, AoLA will STOP, and prompt you whether you want to stop there, or continue to the next page. Thus, you can load long files, a screen at a time, then save them separately (i.e. screen 1 : "Screen.001", 2 : "Screen.002", etc. Then, to paste them together again, you can use the DOS COPY command : "copy Screen.001+Screen.002 Screen.Col".