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Text File | 1993-04-21 | 16KB | 354 lines

HANDYMAN - HOME DRAFTING SYSTEM Copyright 1993 by Dan Hunting 1126 W. Willetta St. Phoenix, AZ 85007 (602)495-1493 CIS# 73750,137 Table of Contents: Introduction ............................... 1 Registration.................................1 System Requirements ........................ 2 Quick Start! .............................. 2 Help screens & Command summary ............. 3 Using the mouse ............................ 4 Starting a drawing ......................... 5 Loading a drawing .......................... 5 Saving a drawing ........................... 5 Printing ................................... 6 Configuring HANDYMAN ....................... 6 Technical Stuff..............................7 INTRODUCTION: HANDYMAN is a drafting program designed to produce scale drawings for use in construction and carpentry projects. Precise images may be drawn on the screen using either the cursor keys or the mouse, saved to disk, modified and printed out on either a nine or 24-pin printer. Unlike some other programs, HANDYMAN lets you draw and measure in repeatable, useful units. A program that tells you to cut a two-by- four 6.2 feet long isn't of much use when you pull out your tape measure marked in inches and feet! HANDYMAN uses standard units of feet, inches and eighths of inches, so you can more accurately draw your project. Whether on the screen or printed on paper, the drawings remain true-to- scale and free from distortion. A square drawn as one (scale) foot on each side is shown as perfectly square and in perfect scale both on the screen and in your printed plans. REGISTRATION: HANDYMAN is not a free program. You are welcome to try it out and experiment with it, but if you are using it on any sort of regular basis, print out the file REGISTER.FRM and send it in along with the very modest $15.00 registration fee. You'll reciecve the lastest registered version of HANDYMAN in return and a printed copy of this manual. If you check the appropriate box on the form, I'll send you a copy of the source code, which should be quite interesting to anyone who programs in BASIC, espcially PowerBasic. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: HANDYMAN operates in EGA mode only. Users must have an EGA or VGA monitor and card and at least an 80286 CPU installed. Microsoft- compatible mice of either the two or three button species are supported, but certainly not required. The printer codes have been set to work on my Epson LQ printer. A configuration file can be modified by the user to accommodate printers that don't exactly conform to the Epson standard. QUICK START: Since nobody likes to read .DOC files, here's some bare-bones instructions to get you started... It's a good idea to create a HANDYMAN directory and copy the program and the drawing files to it. Start HANDYMAN by typing HANDYMAN at the DOS prompt in this directory. Your first choice will be between loading a previously saved drawing or starting new one from scratch. Choose <LOAD DRAWING> to start with and we'll see what happens. Load the STUDIO file for now. You'll now see the floor plan for a small building, shown in green on your screen. At the bottom left corner of the screen, you'll see <25'>, which indicates that the width of the screen is equal to 25 scale feet. Next is the title of the drawing, and finally a note that the F1 key shows the help screen. Now we can start playing around: move the arrow around the screen using the numeric keypad. Notice that as you move around, the Line Length indicator changes to show the scale distance between the red cursor arrow (which is the one you're moving) and the blue arrow. Also notice that the amount that the arrow moves with each key-press changes depending on the state of the `NumLock' key. If NumLock is ON then the arrow moves one inch at a time, but with NumLock OFF it moves one FOOT for each keypress. On a keyboard with separate cursor control keys, just leave NumLock ON, and you can then use the number pad for the little moves and the cursor keys for the big moves. Also note that you can move diagonally using `Home', `End', `PgUp' and `PgDn'. By observing the Line Length display, you can not only draw with precision, you can also go back and take measurements off of something you've already drawn. Mouse users will find this `Electronic ruler' especially easy to use. HELP SCREENS: Help is available anytime during drawing by pressing <F1>. The help screen is pretty self-explanatory: it shows you what keys are for loading and saving pictures, printing, and the various drawing tools. Here's a summary of the various commands for HANDYMAN: F1 Displays the Help screen. F2 Saves the drawing under the currently active name, which is displayed at the bottom of the screen. F3 Saves the drawing under a different name. Useful for modifying a previously saved image. F4 Loads a drawing, overwriting the current one in the process. If the current drawing hasn't been saved, you'll have to confirm this operation before proceeding. F5 "Revert to Saved" - Restores the last drawing you loaded from disk. F10 Print the current screen. If you have specified a 24-pin printer in the Set Up section, you'll be asked if you'd like Draft of Presentation quality. Q Quits back to the opening menu. If the current drawing hasn't been saved, you'll be warned before you can continue. L Draws a straight line from the start (blue) cursor to the end (red) cursor, then places the start cursor at the current position of the end cursor. Alt-L As above, but draws a dotted line. E As above, but draws a black line, that is it erases a part of the image. Alt-E Erases a rectangular area of the screen, with the two cursors as opposite corners of the rectangle. B Draws a box with the cursors at the opposite corners of the rectangle. Alt-B As above, but draws a box with dotted lines. Alt-# Where # is from 0-9, fills an area of the screen with one of 10 paint patterns. Make sure that the area to fill is COMPLETELY enclosed, or the paint with 'leak' out onto the rest of the drawing. Hit the Backspace key to undo your mistake if this happens. BackSpace Cycles through the last 5 changes you've made to the drawing, allowing you to go back and un-do mistakes. M Moves the start cursor to the current position of the end cursor without drawing anything. * The asterisk moves the start cursor back to where it was before it last moved. This is useful when you want to erase the line you just drew, or if you want to draw several lines radiating from the same point. C Moves the end cursor back to the center of the screen. Good for quickly moving across the screen, or finding the cursor if it gets `lost'. T For adding text, such as labels to your drawing. The text is typed at the bottom of the screen, but is pasted into your drawing with the upper left corner of the line of text at the end (red) cursor. G Returns the red cursor to the "grid" it started on. See the section on using the mouse for details. USING THE MOUSE: A mouse is not required for HANDYMAN, but it can be helpful. Both two and three-button mice are supported. Left Button: Clicking and dragging with the left button allows you move the red cursor about the screen at will. You are not limited to the one inch grid the keyboard imposes on the screen. Left Button Double-Click: Clicking twice with the left button draws a straight line between the red and blue cursors. If the SHIFT button is held down during this operation, the line is drawn parallel to either the top or the sides of the drawing. It's easier to use than to describe, so just try it: it's a useful feature. Right Button: Clicking and dragging with the right button moves BOTH cursors simultaneously around the screen. Useful if you want to start drawing in an entirely different area than where you are. Right Button Double-Click & Drag: Double clicking on the right button starts drawing at the current cursor location. You keep drawing as long as you hold down the button, allowing you to make any freehand shapes you'd like. STARTING A DRAWING: So, now you want to make a drawing of your own: before you do, you should have an idea of the size of the project you will be drafting. If you're planning a new bookcase, it might be 48 inches wide; if it's a room addition, it might be 20 feet wide. HANDYMAN needs to know this so it can set the scale of the drawing accordingly. Now go to the opening menu and choose <New Drawing>. You'll be asked for the width of the drawing: it's a good idea to enter a number that's a little bigger than the width of the project itself, to give you a little room to work around the edges. In the example of the bookcase, 52 might be a good number to choose. HANDYMAN rounds off the number, so 92.3 will change to 92. Also, the number can't be larger than 999. Next you'll be asked whether the measurement is in feet or inches. This affects how the cursor is moved with each key-press. The following chart shows how much the cursor moves with each key-press when drawing in inches and in feet: NumLock NumLock ON OFF ╓──────────────────────╥───────────────╥───────────────╖ ║ Drawing in Inches ║ 1/8 inch ║ 1 inch ║ ╟──────────────────────╫───────────────╫───────────────╢ ║ Drawing in Feet ║ 1 inch ║ 1 foot ║ ╙──────────────────────╨───────────────╨───────────────╜ After this, the size of the screen will be calculated and displayed, and if it isn't right you can hit <Esc> and start over again. Otherwise, you're all set to go! LOADING A DRAWING: To Load a previously saved HANDYMAN drawing from the Main Menu, either move the highlight bar to `Load Drawing' and then press <Enter> or press `L' to bring up a listing of all drawings in the default directory. Select a drawing by double-clicking on its name with the mouse or by typing in the name. Drawings may also be deleted by following the filename with `/D'. To load a drawing from the drawing screen, press <F4>. If the current drawing has not been saved, you will be asked if you want to continue. Answering `Y' allows you to load a new drawing, but overwrites the old one. Drawings may also be deleted from the drawing screen. SAVING A DRAWING: There are two ways to save a HANDYMAN drawing. Pressing <F2> saves the drawing under the current name (visible at bottom of the screen) and places it in the default directory. Pressing <F3> saves the drawing under a different name. If no path is specified, it will be saved to the current directory. PRINTING A DRAWING: Pressing <F10> prints the screen in landscape mode (lengthwise) on an 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper. If you have specified a 24-pin printer at the `Set Up' menu, you will be asked if you want Draft or Presentation quality printing. At the bottom of the page will be printed information telling the scale of the drawing. It will something like `1 inch = 15.30 inches'. This is so that you can take measurements off your drawing and apply them to the "real world". This feature is quite accurate, and I've found it very useful. If you get distorted results when printing, your printer control codes may need to be changed. See the `Configuring Handyman' section for more details. CONFIGURING HANDYMAN: By choosing `Set Up' from the main menu, the user can change printing parameters to suit a particular system. HANDYMAN is hard- coded with printer codes set for EPSON printers, but you can set your own codes which will be read at start up from a HANDYMAN.CFG file. The default printer codes are set for an EPSON LQ printer and should work on compatibles as well. By loading the file `TEST' and printing it out, you can see how well they suit your printer. The two squares in this drawing should measure just a little over one and two inches per side. The important thing is that they be truly square and not distorted. PRINTER SPACING CONTROL: The default control codes for line spacing are 27,51,23. This specifies a line spacing of 23/180th-inch. If your drawings are distorted, you may change this code by entering the DECIMAL control codes that should be listed in your printer manual. If the drawing is too "tall", try 27,51,25 for example. Other brands of printers may even use different codes altogether, in which case you'll have to experiment a little. GRAPHICS MODE CODES: HANDYMAN must give instructions to the printer to set it to the proper graphics mode, and tell it how many columns wide the picture is. The default for 9-pin printers is 27,42,6,188,2. This sets the printer to "CRT II" mode (90 dots/inch) and 700 columns wide. The default for 24-pin printers is 27,42,39,120,5. This sets the printer to "Triple Density" mode (180 dots/inch) and 1400 columns wide. These settings should be changed with caution, as improper values will result in garbage being printed out; a good way to waste a lot of paper. Just make sure you've read your printer manual carefully, and enter only the DECIMAL codes, and you'll do fine. Finally, you will be asked what to do with changes you've made. `Temporary' keeps the settings in memory for this session only, which is good for experimenting. `Permanent' writes them to the file HANDYMAN.CFG, so they will be active whenever you start the program, and `Change it' takes you back to the top of the Set Up routine. TECHNICAL STUFF: HANDYMAN is written in PowerBasic 3.0 and makes heavy use of PB3's inline assembly capabilities for the mouse routines, 24-pin printer routine and the file compression/decompression system. The files are stored with a modified form of Run Length compression that I dreamed up myself. It is very fast and results in a nice level of compression for the drawings. HANDYMAN was orignally written in GW-Basic to aid in the renovation of my home office. The GW-Basic version had nearly all of the functionallity of the current version, including mouse support. Converting to PowerBasic speeded things up remarkably (especially with the ASM routines handling hi-resolution printing: it used to take 10 minutes to print out a drawing). File compression, the UnDo function and mouseable menus were also added with the PB version. A special thanks to Bob Zale and the tech support staff at Spectra Publishing. They helped me out of several jams on this project. Their fine compiler is only exceeded by their excellent customer support.