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- Sysop of the Amiga Tele-Trader
- 1200/2400/9600/19200 Hst USR
- 65 Megs
- over 250 one line Documents
- The Latest Warez.
- 406-782-3161
-
- Ok well it is about time someone make a file on how to make Ansi. There have
- been a few made in the past but most were quite lacking! Well the first thing
- you will need is a text editor that allows you to put escape into a file.
- A good one is MicroEmacs on the extras disk. It has a function called
- Quote-char that allows you to put Ascii code 27 in your text file (the Escape
- Key). To put an escape character in your file on MicroEmacs type Ctrl-Q then
- hit the escape key. It will type a "^[" on the screen this is how the escape
- code is symbolized by this text editor. Now all you need are a few codes and
- your imagination and you are off. There is one thing you must know. If you
- plan to use your ansi on a BBS there are two types of Ansi (Vt-100 & Vt-102)
- supporting term programs. There are the 8 color ones (Online! for example)
- which allow 8 colors on the screen and usually have a black background color
- and then there are the 4 color term programs (Like Diga!) that only allow
- 4 colors on the screen and usually have a blue background. If you use 8 colors
- in your Ansi graphics and someone calls you with a 4 color term program they
- will not see the last four colors or the last four will be displayed as white
- which is how some terms handle the extra colors. Either way they will probably
- not be able to understand your graphics so it is a good idea to make two sets
- of menus and/or other files that are printed on the bbs one for 8 color users
- and one for 4 color users.
-
- First of all there are the 8 foreground color codes:
-
- 30.......Black (invisible) _
- 31.......Red \
- 32.......Green |----- Use onle 30-33 for 4 color terms
- 33.......Yellow _/
- 34.......Blue
- 35.......Magenta
- 36.......Cyan
- 37.......White
-
- Then there are the 8 Background color codes:
-
- 40.......Black (no background color) _
- 41.......Red \
- 42.......Green |---Use only 40-43 for 4 color terms
- 43.......Yellow _/
- 44.......Blue
- 45.......Magenta
- 46.......Cyan
- 47.......White
-
- Ok so lets say you want to print the word welcome in blue letters with a yellow
- background. You would type (for microemacs) a CTRL-Q the the ESC key. This would
- give you the ^[. Then type [43;34m. This would show up as a ^[[43;34m on the
- screen. For any color changes you must put the "m" (make sure its lowercase!)
- at the end this tells the term program its the end of the Ansi sequence. You
- do not always have to specify the background/forground colors. If you wanted
- to change the text to Black but leave the background yellow just type
- ^[[30m because once you set a background or foreground it stays that way until
- you set it different. So one last time if you wanted to print the word AMIGA
- with each letter a different color with a black back ground it would look like
- this (on MicroEmacs):
-
- ^[[31mA^[[32mM^[[33mI^[[34mG^[[35mA
-
- this would give you:
-
- AMIGA
-
- Ok now onto the much more fun stuff Cursor Movement. There are 2 ways to move
- the cursor.
-
- 1. To specify a Row and Column for the cursor.
- 2. To tell the cursor to move in relationship to its current location.
-
- Either way is quite easy and they each have their own benefits.
-
- Ok to place the cursor at Row 3 column 50 the sequence would look like this.
-
- ^[[3;50H (make sure you put an H at the end of this sequence just like the
- m for color.)
-
- It is quite easy to do cursor movements this way but the file can become
- quite LONG!
-
- The second way is to make cursor movements relative to the currsors last
- location. Such as moving it up 10 over 5 or something.
-
- This is done with 4 different ansi codes :
-
- ^[[nA Up ___
- ^[[nB Down \
- ^[[nC Right |--------- Where the n is the number of space you want to move
- ^[[nD Left ___/
-
- So a ^[[30D^[[10A would move the cursor right 30 and up 10.
-
- The final phase! Viewing your new creation.
-
- There are a few ways you can view your new creation. If you are setting it up
- for use on a bbs just logon locally and type the file from the BBS it will
- show it to you in Ansi mode. If you created a 4 color picture just open a CLI
- make it full screen size if you have cursor movement so it looks right and type
- it, it will show it to you in ANSI. This is also a good way to see what an 8
- color picture looks like to a 4 color term user because workbench is only 4
- colors. There are just about no other ways to view an 8 color ansi file unless
- you were to set up 8 color workbench with the PD program to make an 8 color
- workbench.
-
- Oh ya there are also a few other ansi codes that may help you a little:
-
- ^[[0m...... Normal text (resets color type style and everything else)
- ^[[1m...... Bold text
- ^[[4m...... Underline (good for making unbroken straitlines)
- ^[[5m...... Italics (will cause text to Blink on an IBM)
- ^[[7m...... Italics (will make italics on amiga and IBM)
- ...... Truns cursor off completely it does what you tell it to but
- all actions are invisible.
-
- The above codes can be put together in a color code sequence like:
-
- ^[[34;41;7m would make it blue on red with italics turned on. Remember you
- have to shut off the italics or ieverything after that will be printed in
- italics and to turn it off you must send a ^[[0m then the colors are returned
- to noramal also you must reset them back to what you were using before if you
- want to stay with that color!
-
- Ok well now you are all ready to create your masterpiece! Also to view Ansi
- remember you must be set at VT-100 or VT-102 and at 8N1.
-
-
- Special note to BBS-PC! users. If you make a text file with the above codes
- it will work fine but if you want ansi in the Menu instead of putting the
- CTRL-Q esc key in the title ="" lines just put a \27 it works the same.
-
- So make a picture today and upload it to the special Ansi Graphics contest of
- the amiga tele-trader! Your picture may be the best and be displayed on the log
- off screen and you recieve 5 Upload credits!
-
- New Contest EVERY MONTH!
-