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Connections 1.0 --------------------------------- Interactive Multimedia Networking Copyright 1992, David Becker Compuserve 73030,3562 GEnie D.Becker8 Preface ------- Linking text, graphics, animation and sound within interactive multimedia presentations is not a new idea. Hypercard on the Macintosh has been doing it for years. Many commercial programs exist for the PC as well. I wanted to create a simple tool that would allow any user, adult or child, to quickly and easily create families of information. These families could be released in the public domain and shared by all ST users. They would be interactive, informative, educational, instructive, entertaining and fun to use. I'd like to port Connections over to the Falcon. This would truly bring simple, photo-realistic, CD quality multimedia creation into the home. Exciting possibilities lie in the future but lets look at what I've accomplished to date. I hope, with feedback from the Atari community (that means you) we can mold Connections into an exciting, full featured multimedia platform for the Atari computer. Users must be able to share, run and enjoy each others creations without cost, therefore Connections is freeware. You may distribute it, copy it, share it, sell it through the user group or upload it to your local BBS. Please make sure the files and documentation remain intact and unchanged. Connections version 1.0 requires a monochrome monitor. You should have at least one megabyte of memory and a hard drive. What does it do? ---------------- Connections links the following multimedia family members into your own custom interactive presentation with graphics, text files, sounds and animation: * Digitized sounds (Replay format using the extension .SPL) * Degas full size parent screens (using the .PI3 extension) * Smaller graphic picture blocks (using the extension .DAT) * Multiple block animation files (with the extension .ANI) * Standard ASCII text files (up to 80 columns with the extension .TXT) * External applications (run other programs .PRG from within a family) Multimedia children are accessed from a parent screen. This is always a full size Degas .PI3 picture with icons, arrows, buttons or any prompts you desire painted on the screen. With the Connections creation program, you will choose point and click buttons on the parent screen that users can activate with the mouse and in turn call forth multimedia children. Parent screens can also call upon other parent screens, each with their own set of children. Thus we have an infinite array of multimedia information screens, sounds, animations and text files, branching out just like a family tree, limited only by your imagination and disk space! Lets imagine a theoretical Connections family just for the fun of it. A class of school children may wish to introduce themselves to other ST users through a Connections family. They would start with a parent screen containing a title and a class picture. Each one of the individual students within this screen can be defined as a point and click button. When a user clicks over top of any student, the connection is made to another parent screen about that specific student. This second parent screen can have icons painted on it that when clicked upon will reproduce the students voice, an animation of the student in gym class or perhaps some smaller pictures of the students pets and hobbies. You could attach a text file describing this students home life or other interests. Finally you would define an icon that would return the user to the very first parent screen, so that another student could be chosen. Let your imagination run wild! There are more possible uses for this type of interactive multimedia network then there are minutes in a day! And if you think creating your own families is going to be tough ... think again. Preparation ----------- The Connections program won't draw your parent screens or graphic children for you. You will have to create these screens with your favorite paint program. I've included a utility program on this disk that can grab blocks from your own .PI3 pictures and save them as graphic children or animations. You can also add text to these graphic children in a variety of type sizes. Read the documentation file included with this utility. Digitized sound files can be created with the Replay cartridge (or compatible hardware) or found on Compuserve and GEnie. There are many PD utilities that will convert different format sound files to .SPL as well. You may wish to borrow Degas pictures available online and add your own text and icons to them. Watch out for copyright material. There are some excellent PD conversion programs available that will change almost any graphic file into .PI3 format. I usually map my Creations family on paper using a flowchart before I start drawing and collecting multimedia pieces. Creating the different graphic screens is a lot of fun and after having compiled all the sounds, animations, graphics and text files into a folder, the networking of this information is easy. Let's run the Connections program and we'll give it a try. You can experiment with the family in the folder named PRACTICE available on this disk. -----------------------------------CREATION------------------------------------ Networking a Creations Family ----------------------------- When you first run CONNECT.PRG you will be presented with the main dialog box and asked if you wish to CREATE or RUN a family. Click on CREATE and you will be asked to load the first parent screen. The first screen within a Connections family MUST be named START.PI3 Double-click on START.PI3 within the PRACTICE folder and it will be displayed. This is a family created by our pet dog, Sasha. It didn't take her long to learn Connections, and she can't type! You are now ready to create point and click buttons and link these buttons to multimedia children or to other parent screens. We define a point and click button by depressing the left mouse and dragging down and to the right. A rubber-band box will be displayed as you go. Let up the mouse button and the defined region will become inverted and a dialog box will be displayed asking you to choose a type of multimedia child. Let's do it! Drag out an area over top of the SASHA'S PAL HUGO icon at the bottom of the screen and when the dialog appears, choose GRAPHIC CHILD. When the fileselector comes up, double-click on the graphic child file named HUGO.DAT and it will load and display. You can move this graphic around the screen with the mouse until you are happy with its position. Click the left mouse button to confirm or click the right mouse button to cancel and try again. That's all there is to it! I'll now explain each multimedia child's creation in detail: Sound Child =========== Define a point and click button and then choose SOUND CHILD from the menu dialog. After loading the sample called BARK.SPL from disk you will be presented with another dialog box. Here you can listen to your sample, slow it down, speed it up, choose another sound if you goofed, decide how many times the sample will be looped (repeated) and finally when the sample and speed are correct confirm the connection. Animation Child =============== Animations are just a sequence of graphic blocks that when cycled, create the illusion of motion. They can be video snapshots, line drawings, cartoons, etc. but all use the same format as graphic children. You can cut out and create sequential blocks from Degas .PI3 pictures using the Connections utility included on this disk. All animation blocks must use the extension .ANI Name the sequential blocks using descriptive text and numbers, for example: DOG_1.ANI DOG_2.ANI DOG_3.ANI DOG_4.ANI DOG_5.ANI DOG_6.ANI After defining a point and click button and choosing ANIMATION CHILD from the dialog, you must select each of the .ANI files from the fileselector, one at a time, in the exact order they are to be cycled through. Click CANCEL from the fileselector when done and you will next be able to place "frame one" of your animation on the screen using the mouse button. After it is placed down, the animation will immediately begin to cycle. You can use the up and down arrows to speed up and slow down the animation. When you are happy with the speed, click the left mouse again to confirm. To cancel and try all over again you can click the right mouse button. Text Child ========== Define a point and click button and select TEXT CHILD from the dialog. Text files must be ASCII and can be any length. The width cannot exceed 80 columns. Choose the text file named BREEDS.TXT from the fileselector. Your chosen text file will now be displayed inside its own window. Text files centre themselves automatically. You can use the up and down arrows to scroll one line at a time. Use the SHIFT-ARROWS to scroll one page at a time. You can also hit B to jump to the bottom of your text file or T for the top. The mouse buttons will also scroll the text up and down if the mouse pointer lies within the text window. If the mouse pointer is any place else, a left mouse click will confirm your connection and a right click will cancel it. Graphic Child ============= We've already experimented with one graphic child. They can be any size from tiny to full screen. After defining a point and click button just position the graphic on the parent screen with the mouse, click the left button and Connections will remember its location and add it to the script. Use the right mouse button to cancel and choose again. Other Parent Screens ==================== You can define a point and click button to take you to another parent screen. This first family only has one parent screen but no doubt you'll be creating larger families in the future. The new parent screen will be loaded and then displayed until you click the left mouse button to confirm or the right button to cancel. You can add multimedia children to the new parent screen later on. Executable Child ================ Here is a useful yet dangerous option, one you would probably not use if you planned on sharing Connections families with other users. By choosing EXECUTABLE CHILD after defining a button, you can run external programs, .PRG .APP .TOS from the parent screen. Not all programs run correctly. Size, available memory, TOS versions and many other factors come into play here. Experiment, and don't forget others may not have the same program or the same system requirements! I have not included any executable children with the practice family. You can connect a program to a point and click button but it will not be executed until you actually run the family. ____________________ So far, so good. Take some time to play around, get the feel of things. When you are confident that this first parent screen has all the icons assigned and connected to all the correct children then click the right mouse button. You will now be presented with a new dialog box. The most important button here is the SAVE button so we'll talk about it first: Saving the Completed Script --------------------------- When you choose SAVE from this dialog, Connections saves a complete script outlining every choice you've made relative to this parent screen. That includes filenames and all other important information. The script uses the same filename as your parent screen but adds the extension .SPT to the end. .SPT scripts can be appended or replaced if you choose to load this parent screen again at a later date. Connections saves a second type of script with every multimedia child. These tiny scripts use the extension .SCR and they contain position data, speeds and other relevant information. Don't use a filename more than once within a Connections family, even if it has a different extension. A sound sample named FRED.SPL will use a script named FRED.SCR, but a graphic child named FRED.DAT will also need a script called FRED.SCR! Connections always uses the first eight letters of the multimedia childs filename to create a script. Changing a Connection -------------------- If you wish to change a previous point and click area and its connection then choose the CHANGE button. You will see all the point and click buttons turn inverse and a little sign appear over the top of each one showing what it is connected to. Just click the left mouse on top of the point and click area you wish to change or press the right button to cancel. A dialog will appear showing the connection and asking if you wish to: Erase this connection Retain this connection Assign a new position Cancel If point and click areas overlap, you will be asked about each connection in turn. Choosing "erase this connection" will delete the connection (but not the actual multimedia child). Choose "retain this connection" to continue unchanged to the next stacked connection. Choose "assign a new position" if you wish to define a new point and click area for this connection. Click "cancel" to quit making changes. Viewing Point and Click Buttons ------------------------------- You can view all the buttons you have created by clicking on BUTTONS. Just like the change option, all the defined areas will appear inverse with little signs showing their connections. Press the right mouse to exit this option. The Family Tree --------------- By clicking on this button you can view a flowchart of every parent screen within your family with every multimedia child that is attached. You can even choose to view individual types of multimedia children by clicking the left mouse button or pressing any key. Click the right mouse to exit. Load the Next Parent Screen --------------------------- Right after saving the script for your parent screen you will be asked if you wish to load the next parent screen. If you were creating a large family you could continue loading and saving all your parent screens until the family was complete. Remember to keep everything in the same folder. You can also discard the current parent screen and load another screen by clicking LOAD within the dialog box. Multiple Overlapping Connections -------------------------------- Connections allows you to assign more than one multimedia child to a given area. If you drag out a defined area over top of an existing area you will first be warned of this with a dialog box. You can then choose to place this new connection first or last. When running your family, you must manually exit a text child or an animation child before other stacked children can be displayed. If, for example, you connect a text file to a given area and on top of that place a sound sample, the user will first have to exit the text display window before the sound sample will play. On the other hand, if the sound sample were first, it would begin playing and then display the text window. Most sound samples will play in the background while other children are being displayed or even while other mouse choices are made! Graphic children also require a mouse click to exit but not until all other stacked connections are displayed. For example, you could connect a graphic child to a given area and then place a text child on top. The graphic child would first be displayed and then immediately the text window would open over top of it. After exiting the text window you could still view the graphic child until you clicked the mouse. Now, if the graphic child were second in the connection it would not be displayed until after the text window was exited. With this in mind, you could stack multiple graphic children. All could be displayed in different corners of the screen or overlap. After all were displayed, only one keypress would be needed to exit. How about a long sound sample at the beginning. The sample would play while the graphic children were popping up all over the screen! Confused? Experiment with all the different multimedia children. Figure out what works best for you. ----------------------------------EXECUTION------------------------------------ Running Connections Families ---------------------------- Now we've completed our first Connections family, FUN WITH SASHA. Let's try it out! Any user having a copy of the Connections program can not only create, but also run anyone elses family. Simply choose RUN from the first dialog and then double-click on START.PI3 within the correct folder. The parent screen will be displayed and you're off to the races! Users can click on any button and be presented with the multimedia child you have associated with it. Point and click to you hearts content. This is fun! What a neat way of displaying information. Users also have access to the right mouse button dialog. They can view the family tree, display all the buttons (without the little signs) and even return to the previous parent screen or to the starting parent screen. Printing Graphic Images ----------------------- If you call the right mouse button dialog or press P on the keyboard you can choose PRINT and send a hard copy of the current screen to your printer. This screen dump is Epson 9 pin compatible but there are many PD AUTO programs online that configure screen dumps for other makes and models. You can press P within text windows to print ASCII files, within running animations to print one of the cells, while graphic children are displayed or within any parent screen. Auto Running Families --------------------- You can use INSTALL APPLICATION from the Atari desktop so that the Connections program will auto-run when you click on any START.PI3 file. TOS 2.05 and 2.06 users should highlight CONNECT.PRG from the desktop and then click on "install application" from the menu "options". The dialog should then be set to: Application name: CONNECT.PRG Arguments: ___________ Document type: PI3 Install as: F__ Boot status: Normal Application type: GEM Default dir: Application Parameter: Full Path Click on INSTALL and then save your desktop to make the changes permanent. Users of the newdesk TOS 2.06 can also "drop" START.PI3 right on top of the Connections program icon and have it auto-run. The last method of auto-running a family is to place CONNECT.PRG and CONNECT.RSC within the folder that contains START.PI3 and your family. If Connections finds START.PI3 within the same folder/directory as itself, it will immediately run that family. In Closing ---------- I hope you enjoy Connections. Don't hesitate contacting me on GEnie (D.Becker8) or Compuserve (73030,3562). If you have no way of sharing your Connections families with other Atari users then send me a disk in the mail and I'll upload your creation for everyone. David Becker 211-7291 Moffatt Road Richmond, British Columbia Canada, V6Y 1X9