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PANEL.DOC
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1992-05-22
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***************** TOUR OF THE CONTROL PANEL *****************
THIS MANUAL WILL NOW TAKE YOU ON A TOUR OF THE OPTIONS ON THE
CONTROL PANEL, INCLUDING GENERAL NOTES ABOUT THE MULTIMEDIA
WORKSHOP AS THEY RELATE TO THE DISCUSSION.
STOP
In the upper left corner is a stop sign. This is how you quit
The Multimedia Workshop. You do not need to save your
picture file to disk first, because it is automatically saved
every time a new element is added to a picture.
SEE
SEE blanks the screen and then redraws the current picture
from scratch, giving you true WYSIWYG (What You See is What
You Get) including any sound effects, delays or animation you
have incorporated. This is necessary after some operations
because they temporarily destroy the picture. For instance,
when placing text on a non-black background, the area under
the text will turn to black. To see the picture the way it
will actually appear to the end user, select SEE. This option
also gives you the chance to study your picture without
actually selecting a drawing operation. The picture remains
on the screen until [Enter] or the left mouse button is
pressed.
SEE will ignore sound effects, delays and Wait For User
when BLOW OFF DELAYS is selected (from DOOR on control
panel).
If FASTMODE is turned on (from the DOOR option),
sometimes it leaves the control panel on the screen when you
want the picture. Select SEE to renew the picture.
ERASE
ERASE is represented by a blank rectangle. To erase a section
of the picture, select this option, then place the dotted
rectangle around the area you want to erase. To move the
rectangle use the arrow keys or the mouse. To change the
size or shape of the rectangle, move the mouse while the
right mouse button is held down, or click the spacebar to
toggle SIZE MODE and then use the arrow or number keys. Press
the spacebar again when you wish to return to MOVE MODE.
Once the dotted rectangle surrounds the area to be
erased, press [Enter] or click the left mouse button, and the
area will disappear, leaving background color, usually black.
COPY
Just like ERASE, you start by placing a dotted rectangle
around an area on the screen. Then when you press [Enter] or
click the left mouse button, a copy of the area is movable by
the mouse or arrow/number keys until you press [Enter] or
click the left button again. The entire area will be copied
including any background within the original dotted
rectangle.
MOVE
MOVE is just like COPY, but the original area is deleted,
leaving background color, generally black. You can, of
course, then fill in the deleted area with some other color
or object.
BUILD
Here we have a very special option, with which you can make a
presentation, like a slide show, out of several pictures.
To use BUILD, first create a series of pictures files, and
decide on an order in which you want them presented. Then
select BUILD.
BUILD makes a file on the disk called MSHOW.CFG which
contains a sort of table of contents used internally by the
MSHOW.EXE program. MSHOW.EXE is the presentation program
which you distribute along with your finished pictures to
display them. So, MSHOW.CFG is the file MSHOW.EXE uses to
know what to display.
When selected, this option looks for a MSHOW.CFG file on the
disk (in the same sub-directory as The Multimedia Workshop).
If found, it displays the contents of MSHOW.CFG, but if there
is no MSHOW.CFG file it displays an empty list. You can edit
the list, or delete MSHOW.CFG (from DOS) and create a new
one.
(Note: As supplied with The Multimedia Workshop, MSHOW.CFG is
already set up for the demo, but when you create your own
presentation this version of MSHOW.CFG will be overwritten.)
This list is simply the filenames of the picture files
in the order they will be presented. For instance, let's say
you have created a three-picture show about adjusting a
camera. The first picture, called METER.1 shows reading the
light meter. The second picture, called CAMERA.1 shows
changing the shutter speed, and the third, which shows
turning the f-setting, is called CAMERA.2. In the BUILD list,
you would type:
1 : METER.1
2 : CAMERA.1
3 : CAMERA.2
Do not use drive and path designations. Remember, you don't
know which disk drive or sub-directory an end user may copy
your presentation into, so The Multimedia Workshop is
carefully designed to avoid drive and path designation and
simply use the 'current' drive and path. So obviously,
MSHOW.EXE, MSHOW.CFG and your picture files must all be on
the same disk or in the same sub-directory to work. This
matters when you create a presentation, but when it is
distributed, all your files naturally will be on the same
disk(s) and will run just fine from disk(s) or from any
sub-directory they are copied into.
The list scrolls automatically and has room for 180
pictures, but if your presentation is to be distributed on a
single floppy disk, the most pictures that a floppy will hold
is 108 (approximately, depending on whether you have start up
batch files, etc). If you have a larger presentation, you'll
have to do some batch file stuff, or provide it on more than
one floppy.
When done, press the [Esc] key and the new MSHOW.CFG file is
written to the disk.
Next, you will be asked whether you want to preview the
presentation. Answer [Y] to test it. What you see is exactly
the same as the end user will see.
If the presentation stops, and states that a picture file
is missing, it is probably misspelled. Select BUILD and edit
your list.
FREEHAND DRAWING
In the second row of the control panel, in the left corner
is a squiggle representing freehand drawing.
If using a mouse, hold the left mouse button to draw and
release it to move the cursor to another location. Click the
right mouse button when done. You have an option to "Accept"
or reject your freehand drawing. If you click the left
button, your freehand drawing will be saved to disk. If you
click the right button, it will be discarded, and the picture
will be redrawn without it.
If using the keyboard, click the spacebar to start drawing.
The cursor will leave a trail wherever you move it until you
click the spacebar again. Press [Esc] when done. At this
point, you can "Accept" or reject your freehand drawing. If
you answer [N] the freehand drawing will not be written to
disk, and the picture will be repaired without it.
If you do a considerable amount of freehand drawing, the
computer's memory fills up and you will be momentarily
interrupted as it is written to the disk.
Freehand drawing is expensive in disk space, and should
therefore be kept to a minimum in large presentations.
Freehand drawing is difficult to do with a mouse. Slower, but
more accurate keyboard control might be a good idea. You can
also accomplish the same results more slowly, but with
greater accuracy by using the mouse with the LINE drawing
option.
LINE
Use this option to draw straight lines.
If using a mouse, click the left button to start a line, then
click the left mouse button again to 'set' the line, or click
the right button to cancel the line. When done with LINE,
click the right mouse button again.
If using the keyboard, use the [Enter] key to simulate the
left mouse button and the [Esc] key to simulate the right
mouse button.
When using the mouse or the keyboard, it might be desirable
to float a partially completed line to a new location. You
can toggle FLOAT mode by clicking the spacebar. Then click
the spacebar again to return to STANDARD mode.
This can lead to confusion. If a line misbehaves, try
clicking the spacebar to toggle to STANDARD mode.
When a diagonal line becomes quite large, it may turn into a
dotted line until set. This has no effect on the finished
product. It is a feature designed to speed up the line
drawing mode on slower computers.
Normally the coordinate display in the lower left corner
reflects the starting point of the line, but when size mode
is toggled with the right mouse button or the spacebar, the
coordinate display shows the dimensions of the line.
RECTANGLE
Using the mouse, hold down the right mouse button to change
the size or shape of a rectangle, then click the left button
when done. SIZE mode can also be toggled with the spacebar.
Using the keyboard, click the spacebar to toggle SIZE mode to
change the size or shape of a rectangle, then click it again
to return to MOVE mode. Click [Enter] when done.
When size mode is toggled (with the spacebar or the right
mouse button) the coordinate display in the lower left corner
will reflect the dimensions of the rectangle. When not in
size mode, the coordinates indicate the upper left corner
unless you have inverted the rectangle.
CIRCLE
Circles are drawn in the same manner as rectangles, but you
can't change the shape of a circle, only it's size. Size is
affected by vertical movements of the mouse, or the up and
down keys, but not affected by horizontal movement. You can
use the spacebar to toggle between SIZE and MOVE mode.
In some graphics modes, circles are limited in maximum size.
ELLIPSE
Ellipses are drawn in the same manner as rectangles.
In some cases, ellipses can be made more 'round' than
circles, such as in a presentation made to display on a
laptop computer with a compressed CGA screen, or when drawing
in a graphics mode not designed for the computer it will
eventually be displayed on.
The ELLIPSE option can also be used to draw arcs. This
modification is easily made on the fly with the ELLIPSE TYPE
option within the DOOR option on the control panel.
Ellipses also have a size limit which cannot be exceeded in
some graphics modes.
FILL
An area can be filled with the current pattern and color, if
the area is entirely bounded by the current color. In other
words, if you have selected the polka-dot pattern from the
pattern choices near the middle of the third row of the
control panel, you can fill a red circle with red polka-dots.
The boundary must be complete, even one pixel missing from a
boundary will cause the pattern to leak out and fill the
screen.
FILL asks whether you want to "Accept" a fill before it is
written to disk. If you answer [N] then the picture will be
repaired to it's former state.
FILL works a bit differently in VGA-lo 256-color video mode.
In this mode, FILL will only fill an area if it's existing
color is black. And in 256-color, it doesn't matter what the
border color is, it doesn't have to be the same color as the
current drawing color. Filling in 256-color mode must be done
from near the top of rectangular areas, and sometimes must be
selected several times to fill an entire irregular shaped
area.
If creating a presentation in Universal Mode, use fills
sparingly, or check your work on several computers with
different graphics displays. They don't all handle fills in
the exact same way because of the varying number of colors
allowed by the graphics modes.
UNDO
Use this option to get rid of mistakes. Each time it is
selected it deletes the last line from the picture file on
disk and redraws the picture. You can use UNDO as often
as you like eliminating a step at a time from your picture.
Because of the nature of ASCII-VECTOR-GRAPHICS, you may need
to select UNDO several times in a row to get rid of a
mistake, since some commands in the picture file are
invisible or require several lines. After selecting UNDO,
select SEE if you want to see what was deleted.
TEXT
When selected, TEXT offers two options:
REGULAR TEXT
This is a simple word processing sub-program built into The
Multimedia Workshop. When selected, a dotted rectangle will
appear on the screen. Use the spacebar to toggle SIZE mode,
or while pressing the right mouse button, change the size and
shape of this rectangle to form a border around the area in
which you want to type text.
When satisfied with it's size and location, click the left
mouse button or press [Enter] to start typing text. You can
type normally, and text will automatically wrap (carriage
return) when you reach the right side of the text area you
have selected. You can use [Bksp] key to delete text. When
done, press [Enter] or click the left mouse button.
Text will use the currently selected typeface, font
dimensions, and color.
If you prefer right justification, use the DOOR option to set
Right Justification to ON. (Right justification is
approximate in all but the BITMAP typeface.)
There are no other controls within the REGULAR TEXT option.
For fancier word processing (you know, spelling checks,
overtype mode, block moves, paragraph reformat, and all those
other fancy things word processors do), you can prepare your
text first, then use the IMPORT TEXT option, or you can edit
text directly in the picture file with any program that works
in normal ASCII mode. More about that later.
Making columns in The Multimedia Workshop is easy. For two
columns, first make a dotted rectangle only on the left half
of your picture, fill it with text, then make another
rectangle on the right side and fill it with more text.
TITLE
It seems like 90% of the time that you enter text into a
picture, you wish you could automatically center the text as
a title. The Multimedia Workshop has a provision for just
that! To place a title on the picture, select the font and
color you desire then select TITLE from the control panel.
Move the arrow on the screen until it is at the location
around which you want to center your text. Click [Enter] or
the left mouse button. Then type your line of text. When you
click [Enter] or the mouse button again, the title will be
completed and written to disk.
Note: If you want to center the title in the picture, you can
use the coordinate display. The horizontal middle of most
screens is 320 pixels. In Hercules mode it is 360 and in
CGA-LO and VGA-LO it is 160.
PATTERN
Use this option to select a pattern for FILLS. Point to the
desired pattern then click the left mouse button or press
[Enter]. Note: There are only two pattern choices in VGA-LO
mode.
PIXEL EDIT
This is useful for fine tuning your pictures. When selected,
a dotted rectangle appears on the screen. You cannot change
the size of this rectangle. Move it to the area desired and
click [Enter] or the left mouse button.
The selected area will be very enlarged, filling the whole
screen. You can change any of the individual pixels to the
current color by pointing to it and clicking the left mouse
button or by pressing [Enter]. You can toggle ALWAYS CHANGE
option by clicking the spacebar or by holding the left mouse
button down. Then every pixel pointed to will change to the
current color. When done with PIXEL EDITING, press [Esc] or
click the right mouse button.
To change pixels to a different color, select the desired
color and then reselect PIXEL EDIT.
You can add some very artistic effects such as fading colors
and shading by careful use of PIXEL EDITING.
Pixel editing requires lots of disk space and development
time, so its use should be limited in large presentations.
SPRAY PAINT
This is another disk-space intensive operation, but can be
used to create very nice effects of shading and fading. It
works well with the mouse, but tends to be tricky when used
with the keyboard. You can slow it down (or speed it up) and
change the width of the spray pattern from within the DOOR
option.
It is similar to real-life spray painting in the currently
selected color. To paint, hold down the left mouse button, or
click [Enter] or toggle SPRAY mode with the spacebar. To
quit, click the right mouse button or [Esc].
FILE
There are three options within this option.
SWITCH TO ANOTHER FILE
SWITCH TO ANOTHER FILE is the most common, used when you want
to work on another picture file. If you choose to resume on
a previously started picture in a graphics mode different
than current one, the computer will try to switch
automatically. If you switch to a picture in a graphics mode
not directly supported by your computer, it will attempt a
translation.
ADD ANOTHER PICTURE
This is very important to clip-art or librarying, in which
you can gather a collection of pre-made pictures, then
integrate them into your current picture, thereby saving lots
of work.
Generally the best way to add clip art is to start with an
empty or nearly empty picture, then ADD ANOTHER PICTURE, then
select MOVE to move your clip-art picture to where you want
it in the main picture.
For instance, if you are doing a tutorial about cattle, you
might start by creating three or four different pictures of
cattle. Then for your main pictures, you start by ADDING one
or two of your cow pictures, moving them around a little
bit, then drawing some trees and milking machines, or
whatever, into the picture...and voila, you're done!
Unique to The Multimedia Workshop are clip-sounds, which work
exactly the same as clip art!
Because of the unique clean and compact nature of
ASCII-VECTOR-GRAPHICS, clip-art from other programs will not
work with The Multimedia Workshop.
Clip art generated by The Multimedia Workshop in one video
mode may or may not work if ADDed into a picture created in
another video mode. For instance, if you have created a
picture in 256-color VGA-LO, and try to ADD it to a picture
in 16-color UNIVERSAL MODE, your guess is as good as mine as
to what will happen to your presentation!
TEMPORARILY LAYER A PICTURE
This is useful when you are creating precise pictures or
animations, where to avoid jerky movement, the objects must
move in a carefully controlled path. You can make a special
picture file which contains a template, or lines, which help
in aligning the elements of the main picture. The layered-on
picture will not show in the finished product. Selecting SEE
will eliminate the layered-on image.
REPORT ON .PCX FILE
.PCX files (the most common type of bitmapped picture files)
are not all the same. As you might imagine, you cannot use a
256-color VGA .PCX file in a 2-color CGA presentation. If
you have a .PCX file and want to know what video mode is
required to display it, select this menu option to find out.
HOOK A .PCX FILE
This is the way to bring clip-art or pre-created pictures
into your presentations. Type the name of a .PCX file that
you want to 'hook' into your picture. If the file you have
typed is not on the disk or misspelled, nothing happens. If
the .PCX file is designed for another video mode, you'll be
shown a message suggesting the proper video mode to use. If
everything is correct, the picture appears on your screen. Of
course, you can then draw on it, change it, anything you
wish.
If you try to hook a .PCX file, but get a message that it was
created for a different video mode, the best bet is to make
a picture file in the correct video mode, then add the .PCX
file to it. But if you can't or don't want to switch to a
different video mode, I invite you to experiment. You are
offered the option of trying to use your mis-matched .PCX
file anyway. Sometimes it will work, sometimes not. When it
doesn't the computer may crash. Simply reboot, use a back-up
copy of your picture file, and try something else.
Many .PCX clip-art files are not full screen size. Most will
work just fine with The Multimedia Workshop. Some are
oversize and they, too will work, but you may get only the
upper left corner of the picture. Some .PCX files are just
too different and will not work!
Many .PCX files contain new color information and modify the
standard colors of The Multimedia Workshop. We have made
allowances so that your .PCX files will look right in the
finished product. But because you still need to see the
control panel and other program functions, once a .PCX file
messes with the colors, we switch back and forth between
standard colors and the .PCX's chosen colors. So when you
see crazy color changes, pay no attention, this is how it's
done!
You see, in Universal Mode, there are only 16 colors
available, but their order can be switched around. In EGA-HI
mode, there are 16 colors available at any one time, but any
one of these colors can be chosen from a group of 64 total
colors. In 256-color mode, each of the 256 colors can have
from 0 to 63 portions each of (negative) red, green or blue!
So we let the .PCX files have their way.
Still, sometimes, the .PCX steals the mouse pointer color and
changes it too! You can grab it back by selecting FORCE
POINTER TO WHITE in DOOR on the control panel.
There is also an option for changing any of the on-screen
colors in the DOOR option of the control panel.
NOTE: Once the color palette is changed, the little current
color box in the lower right corner of the control panel may
show the wrong colors.
Now suppose you want to use a picture image that is not in
.PCX format. Perhaps you have a .GIF file or a .PCC or .ART
or something else. These can be used too, but what you have
to do is find one of the many TSR programs that come with
many paint programs or available as shareware which capture
a screen image and turn it into a .PCX file. Then you can
use it in The Multimedia Workshop.
ANOTHER NOTE: You cannot create a Universal Mode presentation
with .PCX files and have it work on all graphics cards. If
you create on an EGA or VGA system, a .PCX file in Universal
mode will work on all other EGA and VGA systems, but usually
not on CGA or Hercules. This is because .PCX files are
loaded into graphics memory in different ways in different
graphics modes, or more specifically on different graphics
cards.
LINE THICKNESS
At the very left of the fourth row is a picture of two
horizontal lines, one thin and one thick one. When you point
and click in this box, a menu pops up giving you a choice of
thick or thin solid, dotted or dashed lines for use in
LINE, RECTANGLE, FREEHAND, CIRCLE and ELLIPSE. Dotted and
dashed lines have no effect in CIRCLE and ELLIPSE.
SOUND
There are several choices within this option. Most of these
choices are built-in libraried sounds. When selected, they
will play, then you will be asked whether you want to
"Accept" them. If you choose [N], or click the right mouse
button, the picture file will remain unchanged. If you do
accept the sound effect, it will be incorporated into the
picture.
Some of the sound effects ask for a time specification. They
will run for as many milliseconds as you indicate. 1000
milliseconds = 1 second. There is a limit of 60000
milliseconds (one minute) but if you want a longer sound,
select the same sound many times in a row.
You can leave the music menu by choosing RETURN TO MAIN MENU.
CUSTOM
Use this option on the SOUND menu to create your own sound
effects. All sounds consist of a tone expressed in Hertz, or
cycles per second, and a duration. Silence is 0 Hertz. By
careful design of sounds, you can make some interesting
effects.
MUSIC
This is the most interesting option within the SOUND menu,
where you can actually copy or compose your own songs. To
use, select timing by pointing to a note on the bottom staff,
and click [Enter] or the left mouse button. Then select a
tone by pointing to a note on the upper staff. You can also
incorporate rests by pointing to them on the lower staff and
clicking.
To keep the music lively, there are three types of "Attacks"
available, Regular, Slur and Staccato. Select these by
pointing and clicking.
In the left corner of the music menu is an area which says,
"CLICK HERE FOR MENU." This music sub-menu allows you to
preview, save or dispose of a melody. It is also the way to
return to the control panel. You can also return to the
control panel by pressing [Esc] or the right mouse button.
Be careful not to press [Esc] or the right button before you
intend to!
TIME
This is the key to animation and is also useful for
situations in which you wish to show part of a picture, allow
the user to absorb the information, then show more. Delay
asks for an amount of time in milliseconds. 1000 milliseconds
is one second. The maximum delay is 60000 milliseconds, or
one minute. If you prefer a longer delay than one minute,
select TIME several times in a row.
When you want to use many delays, all of the same length, you
can preset the amount of delay time. select CHANGE PRESET and
type a number of milliseconds. Then, when TIME is selected,
a delay is immediately written into the file, saving you
keystrokes.
NOTE: If you select BLOW OFF DELAYS from within the DOOR
option on the control panel, DELAYs, WAIT FOR USER, and
SOUNDS will be skipped when using The Multimedia Workshop,
but they will still be in effect when using MSHOW.EXE.
This is a tricky bit of business, because if you forget
that BLOW OFF DELAYS is active, you can make pictures which
won't behave as expected when distributed as a finished
product.
ZOOM
This option lets you change the size of an object or area in
your picture. Move and size the dotted rectangle to enclose
an area to zoom. Click [Enter] or the left mouse button.
Then change the size of the dotted rectangle to the new size
you would like the area to become and then click [Enter] or
the left mouse button again.
Zoom takes very little disk space in your picture file, but
runs slow, especially on older XT-class machines. Therefore,
for best performance, keep the zoomed area as small as
possible.
IMPORT TEXT
Even though there is a simple word processor built into The
Multimedia Workshop, you might have already composed text in
a different program, or might prefer to use a full-blown word
processor to make text, then import it into your picture.
There are two modes available from within IMPORT TEXT:
FLOWED IMPORT:
This is an interesting automated feature. You will be asked
to name an ASCII file containing the text you want to
incorporate into your picture(s). Then you must indicate
the upper left corner of the area the text will be allowed to
fill by moving the cursor arrow and pressing [Enter] or
clicking the left mouse button. The program then reads the
text file, and places as much of the text as will fit in the
picture, starting at the area you have indicated. No text
will occur left of the area you indicated. Text will stop
before anything drawn to the right, and continue down to the
next line. It is right justified to flow around obstacles!
Text will stop at the bottom of the screen, or when an
obstacle is encountered at the bottom of the area.
If there is more text than will fit in the area, the rest
is saved in a temporary disk file. When you next select
FLOWED IMPORT, indicating another area in the same picture,
or in another picture, the text continues to flow from where
you left off.
Until you use up all the text in the text file, you will
not be asked to name any other text files, it
automatically knows when you haven't used it all up.
You can take advantage of FLOWED IMPORT's intelligence by
drawing temporary lines (or use LAYER from within the FILE
option) to restrict the area in which you will allow text.
FLOWED IMPORT mode uses the currently selected typeface,
font size and color. These settings can optionally be changed
from one flow to the next even with the same ASCII file.
Pure standard ASCII text is required. Almost all word
processing programs do this, although with some you may have
to take a careful look at your owner's to figure out how it's
done. There should be no border or blank spaces to the left
of the text in the ASCII file, except paragraph indentations.
Paragraph indentations are respected, but completely
blank lines are skipped.
Formatting text into columns is easy. For two columns,
you can place a vertical line in the middle of your picture.
Flow text into the left side, and then flow more into the
right side.
BLOCK IMPORT:
This option will transfer text from an ASCII file verbatim,
except it will use the currently selected typeface and font
size.
You must first prepare your text. It must be in standard
ASCII format. Almost all word processors can make ASCII
files (plain text) but many use non-ASCII formats to
include coding for fonts, special right justification and
other special things. Each word processor handles ASCII
differently, so you'll have to read your word processing
program's documentation to use ASCII format. There is a good
shareware word processor that uses normal ASCII as it's own
standard format. It is called Galaxy-Lite.
If your text file contains more text than would fit in a
single picture, you must break it up into several smaller
disk files, each containing the text for one picture. Each
of these files must have the text formatted into a block
which will fit on the screen. You can't have lines of text
75 columns wide, to fit in a space half as wide as a whole
picture, for example. Each block must contain no more than
the number of lines a picture can contain. How many columns
and lines are allowable? There is no easy answer, because
different graphic modes and different fonts require different
amounts of text space. Generally, using the smallest BITMAP
font, the graphics modes with 640 pixels horizontally -
CGA-HIGH, EGA, Hercules and VGA, can handle lines of text up
to 76 characters wide. In the case of 200 vertical pixels,
such as CGA-HI, and UNIVERSAL MODE, you can fit as many as 18
lines of text when using the smallest font.
To get your text block sizes to fit really well, you'll have
to experiment a bit.
To use IMPORT TEXT, you will be asked to name a file. This
is the file containing ASCII text to import. Then a dotted
rectangle will appear on your picture representing the
amount of area your text will require. Move the rectangle to
the proper location, then click [Enter] or the left mouse
button. If IMPORT TEXT overwrites the background of a
picture, simply select SEE to see the finished product.
WAIT FOR USER
Here's a useful option which can also cause a lot of trouble!
When selected, WAIT FOR USER freezes all action until the end
user presses any key. It is most often used to present an
idea within a picture and then present more information after
the user has had a moment to absorb the first bit.
For instance, you can present an idea, add a WAIT FOR
USER, ERASE a portion or all of the screen, then write more
information.
You must put a notice into your picture to "Press any key to
continue" or the end user may think the computer has broken.
This can also fool you, because if you forget you have
installed a WAIT FOR USER into a picture, you might think
your own computer has broken anytime you select SEE or PIXEL
EDIT or any operation which redraws the screen.
Also note that if FASTMODE or BLOW OFF DELAYS are turned on,
WAIT FOR USER is rendered inactive while you are creating
your pictures, but will be QUITE (!) effective in the
finished product.
DOOR
This is the DOOR through which you go to control the settings
of The Multimedia Workshop. Some of these are quite
important to everyday operation of the program, but they are
very easy to adjust. The options within the DOOR option are:
ELLIPSE TYPE
STATUS REPORT
SPRAYS
SET DELAYS
JUSTIFY TEXT
COORDINATE DISPLAY
BOTTOM HELP BAR
TURN SOUND ON/OFF
TURN FASTMODE ON/OFF
TURN BLOW OFF DELAYS ON/OFF
CHANGE PALETTE COLORS
FORCE POINTER TO WHITE
SAVE SETTINGS TO DISK
RETURN TO CONTROL PANEL
ELLIPSE TYPE
In addition to full 360 degree ellipses, you can draw the
top, bottom, left or right halves of an ellipse. You can
also choose custom ellipse parameters. Simply point to the
portion of an ellipse you want and click [Enter] or the left
mouse button. If you choose CUSTOM, you will be taken to a
sub-menu with additional instructions.
STATUS REPORT
Selecting this option will display a report of all the
current settings of The Multimedia Workshop.
SPRAYS
Use this to control how the SPRAY PAINT option works. You
can control the density (speed) of paint flow, and you can
control the width of the pattern. If you are drawing from
the keyboard, the SPRAY PAINT option tends to run too fast.
Readjust to suit your tastes with this option.
SET DELAYS
In it's default state, every time you select TIME from the
control panel, you are asked to type a number in
milliseconds. You can predetermine the number with this
option, saving yourself keystrokes if you are using the TIME
option frequently. Once you have pre-selected an amount of
time, then when TIME is chosen from the control panel, the
delay is immediately written to the picture file. To restore
the question about milliseconds, select DOOR again, then
select SET DELAYS and answer [N].
JUSTIFY TEXT
Set JUSTIFY TEXT to on and you'll have an aligned right hand
edge in your text blocks. With JUSTIFY TEXT off, you'll have
standard ragged right-hand edges. In all but the BITMAP font,
right justification is approximate within a couple of pixels
width.
COORDINATE DISPLAY
The COORDINATE DISPLAY is the little box in the lower left
corner containing two numbers. The first is the horizontal
position of the current drawing object in pixels. O is the
left edge of the screen, and most graphics modes end at 639
on the right edge. The second number is the vertical, with 0
marking the top and the largest number being the bottom of
the screen. In CGA and UNIVERSAL modes, the bottom is 199,
in Hercules it is 347, in EGA-HI it's 349 and in VGA it is
479.
You can turn this display off, and thereby gain drawing
access to the lower left corner of the screen.
The coordinate display offers more information than you might
at first realize. While sizing a dotted rectangle to place
text on a picture, the display changes to show the
approximate dimensions of the rectangle in characters and
lines in the currently selected font.
In many other drawing options, when sizing the rectangle, the
coordinate display changes to tell you the dimensions of the
rectangle in pixels.
BOTTOM HELP BAR
In most graphic modes (not CGA-LO 4-color) a rectangle
containing a single line of help information is often at the
Bottom of the screen. This can be turned off if you don't
require the help, and therefore you can gain drawing access
to the whole screen. However, if you are going to use
MSHOW.EXE to display your pictures, the MSHOW menu covers the
same area and shouldn't be drawn because it will be hidden.
TURN SOUND ON / OFF
There are two versions of sound effects. There are the ones
you can add to a picture and there are another set that are
built into the program to help you identify when you have
completed steps, taken correct or incorrect actions, etc.
These program sounds may not always be desirable and can be
turned off by merely selecting this item on the DOOR menu.
Just select this item to turn the program sounds back on.
TURN FASTMODE ON / OFF
This feature speeds up the creation of large picture files
and those involving sound effects or animation. When turned
on, this feature causes the picture to be saved in memory in
a bitmap format when the control panel is put on the screen,
and redrawn from memory rather from the disk when an item is
selected. This means instant access to your picture, rather
than having to wait every time you use the control panel.
In some situations FASTMODE will occasionally malfunction,
leaving the control panel on the screen when you should be
looking at your drawing. To remedy the situation, select
SEE, then resume your work, or turn FASTMODE off. Fastmode
is most effective with large picture files, or those with
lots of sounds or animation.
TURN "BLOW OFF DELAYS" ON / OFF
This feature is similar to FASTMODE, but rather than using
any fancy internal bitmapping, it simply ignores SOUND
effects, DELAYs and WAIT FOR USER when regenerating the
picture. Selecting SEE and other menu choices does not
display true WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) because
these features are disabled, however BLOW OFF DELAYS has no
effect on the finished product as displayed by MSHOW.EXE.
BLOW OFF DELAYS works in all graphics modes.
If you use WAIT FOR USER, it is very important to remember
that it is installed in your presentations if you are using
BLOW OFF DELAYS. Otherwise, you may forget to put notices in
your pictures to the end users to "press any key to
continue."
CHANGE PALETTE COLORS
This function is only available for Universal Mode,
EGA-HI, VGA-HI and VGA-LO video modes. You see: In Universal
mode, the computer allows up to 16 colors on the screen at
one time, but they may be switched around so that what was
white can be yellow, etc. In EGA-HI and VGA-HI, there can be
only 16 colors on the screen at one time, but these 16 can be
chosen from a group of 64 different colors. In VGA-LO,
each of the 256 colors can be composed of 0 to 63 parts of
red, blue and green.
When this feature is selected your current picture returns
to the screen. Point to any area of your picture containing
the color you want to change. In the 16-color modes, roll
the mouse up or down or use the up and down arrow keys to
change the color amongst it's 16 or 64 possibilities. Press
[Enter] or click the left mouse button when you come to a
color you like. In 256-color mode, you can also click [R],
[G] or [B] on your keyboard to add or subtract varying
amounts of negative Red, Green or Blue.
Sometimes this color selection is important after hooking a
.PCX file, since they often change the color palette, and you
might want to change some of it back.
Color palette changes are immediately written to your picture
file on disk.
NOTE: Once palette colors are changed, the little current
color box in the lower right corner of the control panel may
show the wrong color!
FORCE POINTER TO WHITE
When a .PCX file changes the color used for the mouse pointer
and some menu items, you may have trouble seeing what you are
doing. You can change the pointer back to white with this
option, but it may change the way your .PCX file looks.
The color change is immediately written to your picture file
on disk.
SAVE SETTINGS TO DISK
It would be inconvenient to have to redo all these settings
every time you start the program, so you can save your
currently selected settings to a special disk file. The disk
file is called MW.SET. Then, every time The Multimedia
Workshop starts, it reads that file and remembers your
choices. However you have ELLIPSE TYPE, FONTS, SPRAYS, TIME
DELAYS, TEXT JUSTIFICATION, BOTTOM HELP BAR AND COORDINATE
DISPLAY STATUS, SOUND EFFECTS, BLOW OFF DELAYS, and FASTMODE,
when you save these settings to disk, is how The Multimedia
Workshop will remember them next time you start it up.
Additionally, it also remembers the current GRID status if
you are using a GRID. If you wish to restore all defaults to
The Multimedia Workshop, you can simply delete MW.SET from
your disk.
RETURN TO CONTROL PANEL
Obviously, returns you to the control panel (main program
menu). Settings are saved in memory but not saved to disk. If
you want to maintain your settings for the next time you use
The Multimedia Workshop, select SAVE SETTINGS TO DISK, before
returning to the control panel.
GRID
The GRID is a series of evenly spaced white dots which are
not part of the finished picture, but which help in aligning
parts of a picture. To turn the GRID on, select this option,
then you will be asked for a distance between dots. 10 is a
typical number. To get rid of the GRID, return to this
option and when asked, "TURN GRID ON?," answer negatively
with [N] or a click of the right mouse button.
The grid is overwritten and easily messed up as you work on a
picture, so select SEE to restore the grid as often as
necessary.
NOTE
Select NOTE to put a 'secret' note in your picture file that
exists on the disk, but will not show in the picture. This
is very useful in a case where you might want to do some
ASCII editing to your file.
For instance, Lets say you have drawn a carefully made face
in your picture, now you want to start drawing a hand. But,
you are not sure your first attempt at a hand will come out
good, and may have to erase it and do it again. A clean way
to do this is as follows:
1. When ready to start the hand, select NOTE from the control
panel and type: HAND STARTS HERE.
2. Draw the hand.
3. If you are not satisfied with your first attempt at a
hand, use a word processing program (in ASCII mode) or text
editor to edit the picture file. Find the place where it
says, "HAND STARTS HERE" and delete everything below that
note.
4. Try drawing the hand again.
FONT
You have a choice of typefaces and font sizes used in TEXT,
IMPORT TEXT, and TITLE. Simply point to the one you want and
click [Enter] or the left mouse button. Then you can use
the arrow keys or the move mouse to control the size and
shape. Press [Enter] or click the left mouse button when
done.
Only the first two typefaces are built into MSHOW.EXE, and
MW.EXE, the others are stored on disk as separate .CHR files.
If you use any typefaces except BITMAP or TRIP, you must make
sure a copy of the corresponding .CHR file(s) are copied onto
the disk along with your picture files.
PAPER
Select this option to print a screen to paper. You will be
asked to verify that your printer is ready. If you answer
yes, the picture will be printed in a nearly correct aspect
ratio. In some video modes, the printed picture ends up
larger than in others. In VGA-HI, on a regular size printer,
some of the right-hand edge of the screen will not be printed
to paper. On a wide printer, you should get the whole
picture.
NOTE: The PAPER option may not work properly with all
printers. No matter what type of printer you have, sound
effects will not be printed.
When a picture is printed, all colors which are not black are
printed. In other words, a paper copy will not reflect
differences in color except between black and anything else.
Actually, as is typical when printing color graphics onto
paper, all non-black colors become black, and black is white.
Try it, you'll see what I mean.
In order to accommodate the widest variety of printers and
video modes, the size of the resulting paper copy may vary
from one video mode to another. If you want something larger
or smaller, if your computer supports them, experiment with
different video modes.
If you are not getting proper results with PAPER, a good
alternative is to use GRAPHICS.COM which comes with MS-DOS.
To use it, type GRAPHICS at your DOS prompt before you start
MW.EXE or MSHOW.EXE. Then press [Shift] + [Print Screen]
when you want a paper copy.
COLORS
The last item on the control panel is COLORS. Depending on
which graphics mode you are using this will have different
appearances. Generally, point to the color you want and
click [Enter] or the left mouse button. This will become the
current color for FREEHAND DRAWING, LINES, RECTANGLES,
CIRCLES, ELLIPSES, FILLS, PIXEL EDITING, TEXT, IMPORT TEXT,
AND TITLES.
In HERCULES, there are only two choices, black or white.
In CGA-HI, you have a submenu which allows you to also change
the background color*. This has little or no effect on
monochrome displays, but has an interesting effect on color
displays. As you know, you can only have two colors on the
screen at a time in CGA-HI mode, but you can control which
color the background is. This information is written to the
picture file, and so the background color will change in the
finished product as well as during development.
Note: On some CGA systems, this affects the foreground
color, not the background, but in most cases, it looks good
either way!
In CGA-LO, you may have up to 4 colors on the screen at one
time, which is still quite limiting. In order to make up for
this, perhaps, CGA allows you to change the background color,
so you can sort of simulate the effect of more colors. This
menu has four on-screen color rectangles, surrounding a
center rectangle which gives you a menu of background colors
from which to choose.
In the 16-color modes, simply point and click for the color
of your choice.
In the 256-color (VGA-LO) mode, simply point and click.
Remember, in the EGA and VGA modes, you can choose your
on-screen colors from a much larger selection. Select CHANGE
COLOR PALETTE from the DOOR option on the control panel.
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end of chapter
