This program and documentation are released to the public domain by the author. Permission is granted to copy, modify and distribute free of charge. This product
@is not
for sale.
If you have comments, constructive criticism, questions (or answers) please leave E-mail for TerryM10 on Quantum Link, or write to me at:
Terry R. Mullett
2114 SW 71st Terrace
Topeka, KS 66619
Source code for the
Commodore 64 Macro Assembler Development System
available on request.
@overview
A number of fixes and new features make
@iconEdit v2.0
superior to its predecessor. Several tools have been relocated for more convenient operation. The scroll buttons have been moved away from the edge of the icon subwindow to avoid pressing them accidentally. Several macro-editing options formerly found on the
@edit
submenu are now available full-time as controls on the edit window. The icon being worked is now grey for less smearing on television and better compatibility with most color schemes, and the border of the icon subwindow is now a broken line rather than solid for less confusion as to where the icon image actually begins.
The process of drawing in the icon subwindow has also been refined. You may still toggle a point by clicking on it, but now you can hold down the button and draw or erase lines (after the same manner as the pencil tool in
GEOPAINT
The most substantial addition to the program is the
@scrap
option on the
@edit
submenu. This allows you to draw an icon with
GEOPAINT
, copy it to a photo scrap, and transfer it via this program to the info sector of a file.
Throughout this document, the name of an onscreen controls or menu options will appear in boldface, often used as a verb. In other words, I will say '
an operation' instead of saying 'click the
button'.
Being the owner of only one disk drive, I did not write this program to support two. I apologize if this is an inconvenience. If anyone would like to add that capability, feel free to do so, and please let me see the necessary code fragments.
tton'.
Being the owner of only one disk drive, I did not write this program to support tw(
@operating instructions
The first step in the icon editing process is normally to select a file. The file may either be on the same disk that you loaded
@iconEdit
from, or a new one. This option is found in the menu bar. You must then provide two pieces of information. First, do you want to select a file on the
@same disk
or on a
@new disk
? Secondly, you must provide the GEOS filetype of the file you are selecting. (The program will only work on GEOS filetypes, because CBM files do not have an info sector.)
After you have made these choices you will be prompted to swap disks (if applicable) and you will be presented with a list of files of the chosen type on the current disk. At this point, you may either
@ open
a file,
@ cancel
the selection operation, or indicate that you want to swap the
@ disk
, by clicking the appropriate button.
When you have found the file you wish to select, click on its name in the list and then on the
@open
button. The icon for this file is now copied to the icon edit subwindow. The filename and disk name are remembered for future reference.
@the icon subwindow
The icon subwindow in the lower right corner of the edit window is you workspace. The simplest operation you can do is to take the pointer into the subwindow and directly draw or erase. Clicking on a point will toggle its state. By holding the button down you may draw or erase a line. The behavior of the drawing tool is very much like the pencil in
GEOPAINT
. If you start on a point that was on, you will be erasing, while starting on a point that was blank will cause the pointer to draw. In either case, releasing the button or going outside the subwindow will cancel the operation.
To the left of the subwindow are the scroll buttons. You may scroll the image in any one of four directions. By default the image will "wrap around" as it scrolls. A control on the lower left corner of the edit window allows you to turn the
@wrap
on and off.
@Cancel and Use
The
control will write whatever is in the icon subwindow back to the disk, replacing the old icon for the selected file. Unlike the earlier version of this program, this version checks to make sure the disk in the drive is the same disk the file was selected from, and will not let you proceed with
until you have the proper disk installed.
To prevent yourself from accidentally writing an experimental doodle to the disk, you may want to
@Cancel
your file selection. This disables
, but lets you continue to work on the icon you have chosen.
can then only be re-enabled by selecting a file again.
y writing an experimenta(
copy and paste
Essential to experimenting with an icon design is a means of saving a good image and restoring it after you have messed it up. Use
@copy
, from the
@edit
submenu, to store the current contents of the icon subwindow in a buffer.
@Paste
is the reciprocal function; it will overwrite the subwindow contents with the buffer contents. Use these tools along with
@Cancel
and
One note of caution: there is only room in the buffer for one icon image, which will be the last one copied. If you want to keep what you have in the buffer, do not call
@copy
again.
@macro editing features
Several controls located along the left side of the edit window allow for larger scale modification of the icon image. You may
@ clear
the image, which will blank it but not turn it off or deselect the file. That is to say, you may
@reverse
the cleared image (make a solid box) just as you can any other image. You may also make a
@mirror
image of the icon, in either the horizontal (
) or vertical (
) direction. All of these except
@clear
may be undone by clicking the control again. The only to recover from
@clear
is to use
@paste
(assuming you have already used
@copy
@scrap
The
@scrap
option in the
@edit
submenu is among the more powerful features of the editor. When you choose this function, the disk will be searched for a
Photo Scrap
file, which can be created with
GEOPAINT
Photo Manager .
If no scrap file is present, the user will be allerted of this, and then returned to the main loop of the editor. However, if one is found, then it is displayed in a dialog box almost as large as the screen. The box is set up to accommodate photo scraps the size of the
GEOPAINT
edit window or smaller. In the upper corner of the photo scrap you will see an icon-size frame the same color as the mouse. You may move this box to any part of the scrap image by moving the mouse to the upper-left corner of the area and clicking. Alternately, you can hold the button down and drag the frame to any part of the image. You are restricted to placing the box within the area actually occupied by the scrap image, so clicking along the bottom or right edge of the scrap will produce no result.
After selecting a part of the scrap, click
to copy it to the icon subwindow. To abort the whole operation, just
@Cancel
Keep in mind that there is normally only one
Photo Scrap
image on a disk. You may want to keep a copy of
Photo Manager
on the disk with your editor to organize scraps with potential icon material.
whole operation, jus(
@the future
The likelihood of future updates to this editor depend largely on user response. Let me know if there is something you would like to see included, and if it can be done with the resources available to me, it may become a part of a new version. Some things I have considered myself are:
1) Icon albums
2) a
@geos
menu for desk accessory access
3) macro-editing functions for sections of the icon subwindow
And, of course, I encourage any of the great minds out there to improve on my efforts.
(.txt)