Amiga MA Magazine 1998 #6

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DRAWSTUDIO TUTORIALS Terminology Used ---------------- This manual uses a standard terms for describing the action of the program and its user interface. Because the program has a standard "look and feel" which is shared by other Amiga programs, new users of DrawStudio should have little difficulty navigating around the program. A few simple terms are explained below to give you an idea: - "Clicking". To "click" on an object or a button in a window, depress the left mouse button and release without moving the mouse. Clicking is the most common mouse operation in the program (after movement!). "Shift-clicking". Clicking the mouse as above, only holding down either of the "shift" keys whilst doing it. Shift clicking is used for selecting multiple objects. Similarly, Control- and Alt-clicking sometimes modify the operation of clicking. - "Dragging". To drag with the mouse, click down with the left mouse button and move the mouse. Once you are happy with the drag, release the mouse button. Objects are moved on the page by dragging them, and Shift-, Ctrl- and Alt- dragging may sometimes be performed to modify the drag operation. Tutorials --------- Following are a few simple tutorials which will give you an idea of the capabilities of the program. Starting the Program -------------------- To start DrawStudio, simply double-click on the program's icon on Workbench. After the opening splash window has opened, you will be presented with a new project - ready for work. -------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT: If DrawStudio opens up with a screenmode you would like to change, choose Project/Display and click on the "Choose..." button (Screenmode section) to select a screenmode of your choice. To save the settings for later use, choose Settings/Save Settings. ----------------------------------------------- The main window is the project window, and currently shows a blank page of paper. This window can be resized using the sizing gadget on the bottom right of the Project window. Down the left of the window is a toolbar; The top buttons in the toolbar select the drawing tools (lines, circles, curves, text, etc...) and the bottom buttons allow you to change the attributes of objects (colour, line thickness, line ends, etc...). At the bottom of the project window are two pop-ups for the current page and layer (see later) and a horizontal scroll bar for moving the page left and right. To the right of the project window is a vertical scroll bar. This allows you to move the portion of the page which is currently being displayed up and down. The default screenmode is 16 colours and HiRes Interlaced screen. This screenmode is available to all Amigas (AGA and non-AGA), however you may change the screenmode by selecting the "Project/Display..." menu item to open the display requester as outlined above. The display requester also allows you to change the display type of the page buffer. The page buffer is the area of memory that DrawStudio uses when drawing objects before they are displayed on the screen. Although all colours are kept in 24 bit accuracy internally, the page buffer can store either 1 bit, 8 bits or 24 bits of colour information. Using more bits will allow DrawStudio to display objects better on the screen, but will require more memory to store the page buffer. The 1-bit page buffer gives very fast redraws, but only in black and white; this page buffer requires the minimum amount of memory. 8-bit greyscale buffers display all the effects available in DrawStudio, only without any colour. 8-bit colour buffers will display in colour, but do not show the transparency information that will be shown in 8 bit greyscale. 24 bit buffers are the highest quality, showing all the effects available in full colour; they also require the largest amount of memory. Choosing the page buffer type for your use depends on what you are designing and how you wish to output the final illustration. If you are using DrawStudio to produce diagrams for a technical report for example, using a 1 bit page buffer would provide all the quality required with a very fast screen redraw. If you are producing a drawing which will be printed out on a black and white printer, using the 8 bit greyscale page buffer will suffice. If you have a fast Amiga with lots of memory, using a 24 bit page buffer for all instances would be acceptable. You can of course change the page buffer type at any time during a design as needs require. How to Draw Simple Shapes ------------------------- To draw simple lines, rectangles, circles etc... on the page, simply click on the appropriate tool on the toolbar and drag the new shape out on the page. Notice how that when you have drawn an object, it is surrounded by eight small rectangular points; these are called the "bounding box points". These points show the extremities of the object and are only displayed when the object is "selected". Many of the operations available in DrawStudio will only be applied to the currently selected objects. When the pointer tool is active, you may click on the bounding box points to drag them and re-size the object. Changing the Appearance of Objects ---------------------------------- By default, all new objects drawn on the page will be drawn in the default style - black pen and no fill. The things which determine how an object is drawn are called the object's "attributes"; the object's colour, pen thickness, pen style and line ends are all attributes the object may have. To change the attributes of an object you can either use the Attributes requester ("Object/ Attributes..." menu) or the pop-ups which are in the lower half of the toolbar towards the left of the project window (these popups are the four lowest rows of tools you can see in the whole toolbar). Try drawing a circle on the page and, while the object is still selected, open the Pen (Line Colour) pop-up (this is located in the row fourth from bottom on the left). Click on any of the colours on the palette. The object's pen will change colour and the pop-up will close. If the object has not redrawn in colour, make sure that you are using either a 8 bit or 24 colour page buffer. Try changing the Page Buffer to see how it effects the way the colour fills are displayed on screen. Similarly open the Fill pop-up (next to the Pen pop- up) and change the colour of the circle's fill. Notice that objects can have no fill (None)- i.e. are transparent. To change the circle's Pen (Lines) dash style, open up the pen (Line) dash pop-up. You can also change the pen's thickness using the Pen thickness pop-up. The bottom two pop-ups change the styles at the start and end of lines. Making sure that there are no objects selected on page (click on an empty area of the page), draw a simple line. It will be drawn as a single, thin line. To add an arrowhead to the line, make sure the line is still selected and open the Line start pop-up. The line will now be drawn with arrowheads and the pop-up will close. But what happens if you want to draw lots of lines with arrowheads? It would be a really annoying to have to keep on selecting the pop-ups. DrawStudio helps you in two ways. The first method is to make all lines that are drawn, be drawn with arrowheads. To change the default line style (this also works for the colours and fills of objects), make sure that no objects on the page are selected then open the pop-up to change the arrowhead style. Now all lines will be drawn with the arrowhead that you've selected. Another method allows you to "inherit" the attributes from any other object on the current page. To create an object using the attributes from an existing objects, make sure that the original object is the only object selected on the page and then create the new object; it will be created with the attributes inherited from the original object. Complex Object Attributes ------------------------- The previous section showed how the colours and line styles of objects can be changed using the pop-ups in the toolbar. For applying more complex attributes (e.g. gradient fills), this must be done from the Attributes requester (Object/Attributes). Select any object you have on the current page and open the attributes requester ("Object/ Attributes..." menu). Here you can select the fill type of both the pen and the object fill independently. Try giving the circle you created above, a brick pattern for the pen and a gradient fill for its centre. IMPORTANT: Please Note that patterns can be edited. You can choose the colour of the foreground and background colours as well as use transparent colours. Drawing Aids ------------ Creating illustrations with a drawing package is a different process than using a paint package. DrawStudio has a wide range of layout tools which will aid you to create both accurate drawings and realistic illustrations. The simplest tool which is present in most drawing packages is "Snapping to a grid". This is activated by either toggling the "Layout/Snap to grid" menu item or from the Snapping requester. You can snap to the horizontal and vertical grids independently and you may adjust the size of the horizontal and vertical grids independently. Using "snap to grid" is useful when creating technical diagrams or flow charts. DrawStudio also allows you to snap to objects - snapping to object ends, points, lines and curves is supported. This is very useful when creating artistic illustrations, as these types of illustrations do not fit well to a regular grid. To try snapping to an object, open the snapping requester and select all the snapping to object buttons. Now draw a Bezier object which contains both lines and curves. Now create a simple line object and as you are dragging the end of the line near the Bezier object, notice how the line end snaps to the Bezier object. The mouse pointer will change to show whether the line is snapping to a line, curve, point or end of the curve. When you release the mouse button, the line will be created which snaps EXACTLY to the location on the Bezier curve. Another tool which can prove very useful is the align tool; this is available through the Align requester ("Object/ Align..." menu). This allows you to align object to each other or to the page as a whole; objects may be left, right or centre justified with respect to themselves or the page. The align requester can also be used to distribute (i.e. spread out) objects on the page. For example, to centre an object on the page, select any object on the page and open the align requester and play with the different settings to see how powerful this function is. There is a Preview to make things more intuitive for you. Pages, Layers and Objects ------------------------- So far, we have only considered adding objects onto a single page. DrawStudio supports multiple pages (much the same way as a DTP program or a word processor), allowing documents to be created which will be printed out to several pages. To change the current page or to add or delete pages you can either click the page pop-up at the bottom of the project window or select the "Layout/ Pages..." menu item. Each page can also contain a number of "layers". A layer is like a layer of glass that is laid on the page, onto which you can draw objects. Each layer is transparent, showing through the layers below it; layers can be added and deleted from either the layer pop-up at the bottom of the project window or by selecting the "Layout/Layers..." menu item. Layers allows you to create illustrations by drawing the layers one at a time. For example you may want to draw the background of an illustration first, followed by the foreground objects. This has the advantage that once a layer is finished it can be made un-editable (so that you won't accidentally change it) or displayed greyed out to make foreground layers clearer to see. Layers can also be made entirely invisible if required. By default, all pages are created containing one layer called "Layer 1". To create another layer, open the layers requester ("Layout/Layers..." menu) and click the "New" button; a new layer called "Layer 2" will be created. Click "OK" to close the requester. Now when you create new objects they will be added to Layer 2 and you will not be able to edit any objects that are on Layer 1 (go on, just try moving one!). Once you have objects on both layers you can try changing the displaying of the layers in the layers requester (try making a layer "greyscale" and then "invisible"). The order of the layers can also be changed by dragging their names in the list; layers at the top of the list are drawn above layers lower in list. Text ---- Text can be added to the page using the text tool. Try selecting the text tool and clicking on the page. A cursor is shown and you may enter text by typing directly onto the page - pressing the "Enter" key will move the cursor to a newline. The text may be justified to either left, right or central justification using the "Text/ Alignment" menu. To change the font style, open the font requester ("Text/ Font..." menu) and choose a new font. To edit the text later, just double click on it with the text tool. Effects ------- DrawStudio will allows you to warp and bend most objects to provide a range of special effects. This is all performed through the warp requester ("Effects/ Warp..." menu). Create some text and make sure it is selected. Open the warp requester. Try clicking through the range of effects available, adjusting the slider to enhance or reduce the scale of the effect. When you have found an effect you wish to try, click "Warp" to apply the effect. Custom warps can be created by clicking on the "Use envelope button". This draws a bounding box "envelope" with points that can be stretched and moved to create stretched envelope. This is very much like stretching a rectangular piece of rubber -once you click off the object, it will be stretched like the envelope. Finally... ---------- I hope this has given you a rough idea of the some of the capabilities of the program and some of the tools available for creating illustrations. The most effective way to find out about the program is to purchase the full version which will come with a comprehensive manual. To order DrawStudio, See the "Order Information" file.