The Best of the Best/_.img/02145/dtp.doc

Text File | 1992-07-16 | 73KB | 1,791 lines

Desktop Paint
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If you like this program, please:

Send us $40.00, the normal user fee for this software.

Registered users of this software are entitled to phone support,
notification of upgrades and good karma. When you register
Desktop Paint we'll send you a copy of the latest version.
We'll also send you a copy of the Desktop Paint toolkit disk,
which will provide you with more fonts, tools to help you convert
still more fonts and several other ancilary programs to enhance
Desktop Paint. Please tell us the version number of your copy
of Desktop Paint when you register. Our address can be found
at the end of this file.

Complete details of registration can be found later in this
document in the section on registration.

NOTE: German users of Desktop Paint should contact our German
distributor, PD-SERVICE-LAGE, Postfach 1743, D-4937 Lage, West
Germany.

NOTE: British users of Desktop Paint should contact our UK
distributor, The Public Domain & Shareware Library Ltd.,
Winscombe House, Beacon Road, Crowborough, Sussex, TN6 1UL,
England, telephone [phone], FAX [phone], BBS 0892 661149.

NOTE: Australian users of Desktop Paint should contact our
Australian distributor, Budgetware, P.O. Box 496 Newtown NSW
2042. Phone [phone] FAX [phone].

NOTE: French users of Desktop Paint should contact our French
distributor, DP Tool Club, 102 rue des fusilles, 59650 Villeneuve
d'Ascq, France, telephone [phone], fax [phone].

NOTE: We now have a bulletin board system. See the section on
contacting Alchemy Mindworks for more information.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Introduction

Running Desktop Paint

A word about mice

A word about memory and Desktop Paint

The Menus
   Desk Menu
   File Menu
   Edit Menu
   Gadgets Menu
   Text Menu
   Font Menu

The Toolbox

Configuring Desktop Paint

Command Line Switches

Fonts

Managing Resources
   Using RMOVER
   Common Resource Types

BGI Problems

DesqView, QEMM and other environments

Contacting Alchemy Mindworks Inc.

Registration
   Paying by credit card

Source code availability and books

Bundling Desktop Paint

Shareware distributors

Other Alchemy Mindworks shareware

Revision History

Legal Dogma


INTRODUCTION
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Desktop Paint is a bitmapped paint program designed especially
for use by people who run desktop publishing software such as
Ventura Publisher, PageMaker, Publish It and so on. It will prove
equally useful to users of high end word processors, such as
WordPerfect.

Desktop Paint will allow you to quickly create and modify
bitmapped graphics, either for use as stand alone pictures or for
inclusion in other documents. It features a wide variety of file
formats, a powerful selection of drawing tools, an easy to
operate user interface and lots of room for customization.

Desktop Paint supports the following image file formats:

- MacPaint MAC (and PSF MAC files)
- Ventura IMG
- PC Paintbrush PCX
- TIFF
- WordPerfect WPG

Note that Desktop Paint will only create and work with monochrome
files. Note also that it will only work with WPG files which
contain bitmapped images. Desktop Paint is a paint program,
rather than a drawing program. It does not support GEM, Corel
Draw, Designer, DXF or EPS files.

Unlike many other paint programs, Desktop Paint features complete
XMS and EMS support. It will handle enormous images... pictures
which unpack into several megabytes... if you have sufficient
extended or expanded memory in your system.

Desktop Paint requires a Microsoft compatible mouse and driver
and one of the following display adapters:

- Hercules
- EGA
- VGA

You can run Desktop Paint on any PC, even really old 8088 based
systems. It will prove a bit slow on very low end systems. If you
are running it on a slower machine it will be a bit snappier if
you use a Hercules compatible monochrome graphics card rather
than an EGA or VGA card. Most EGA and VGA compatible cards have
Hercules emulation modes.

You can run Desktop Paint in as little as 384 kilobytes of
memory, although this will severely restrict the size of the
pictures it will manage. A full 640 kilobytes is preferable, and
two megabytes of XMS or EMS is desirable if you plan to work with
large pictures.

If you wish to use Desktop Paint with graphics files in formats
other than those it currently supports, we recommend that you get
a copy of Graphic Workshop, which will convert among virtually
all of the popular image file formats. See the end of this file
for more information about Graphic Workshop.


RUNNING DESKTOP PAINT
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You should place the following files in the directory you plan to
keep Desktop Paint in.

- DTP.EXE       The program
- DTP.RES       Fonts and other resources
- GALLERY.RES   Picture fragments
- DTPINSTL.EXE  The installer
- RMOVER.EXE    Resource mover
- EXAMPLE1.PCX  A picture file

We will discuss how to permanently configure Desktop Paint
shortly using the DTPINSTL program, but for now it will run well
enough right out of the box... or out of the ZIP.

Type DTP. When the program has loaded you'll see a grey screen
with a menu bar at the top. Click on one of the menu items to
pull down a menu. Drag the mouse pointer to the menu item you
wish to select and release it. The function you've chosen will
pop up. Chances are you already know how to work a menu bar.

Desktop Paint assumes that your mouse has two buttons. In most
cases, you'll be using the left one to click on things. On a two
button mouse, drawing with the left button will produce black
lines and drawing with the right button will produce white lines.
If you have a three button mouse you might have to experiment a
bit to see which button draws white lines.

To open a file, you must first tell Desktop Paint which of its
file types you want to deal with. It comes set up to default to
PCX files... we'll see how to change this later.

Select the File Type item from the File menu and set the file
type you wish to use. Next, select the Open item and select the
file you want to Open. If you want to start from scratch, select
the New item instead. The New function comes set up to default to
creating 640 by 480 pixel files. You can type in different values
if you like, and these default values can be changed with the
installer program.

A work area will open on your screen. If the picture you want to
work on is too big to fit on the screen all at once, scroll bars
will appear to allow you to move the work area over your picture.

If you wish to open a different picture, you must first select
Close from the file menu to close your current picture and then
select New or Open.

You can return to DOS at any time by selecting Quit from the File
menu.

You can run Desktop Paint and load a file into it with one
command from the DOS prompt. For example, if you wanted to edit a
file called PICTURE.IMG, you could do this

C>DTP PICTURE.IMG

This would run Desktop Paint and load the picture as if it had
been loaded with the Open command from the File menu.

Desktop Paint's dialog boxes will respond to the keyboard. If you
hit the Enter key when a dialog box is visible, the box will
respond as if you had clicked in the "Ok" box. If you hit Esc it
will respond as if you had clicked in the "Cancel" box, assuming
there is one.


A WORD ABOUT MICE
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Desktop Paint is driven by the driver of a Microsoft or
Microsoft-compatible mouse. The driver itself is what makes the
arrow cursor appear.

Most Microsoft-compatible mice, such as the Logitech mice, have
complete implementations of the driver and will not prove to be a
problem with Desktop Paint. Some very economical mice do not
implement the graphic cursor. In these cases, Desktop Paint will
appear to function but the cursor will not be visible.

If this happens to you, you will probably find that getting a
copy of the real Microsoft MOUSE.COM mouse driver and replacing
the one for your mouse with it will solve the problem, and will
make anything else you use your mouse with work a bit better as
well. There are a very few clone mice which are sufficiently
peculiar as to be unrecognizable by the Microsoft mouse driver.
These mice will not work with Desktop Paint.

You can usually find the latest version of the Microsoft mouse
driver on bulletin boards.


A WORD ABOUT MEMORY AND DESKTOP PAINT
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Desktop Paint is forever calling for and releasing blocks of
memory. Each time it opens a window, displays a picture or an
icon, responds to a mouse click and so on, it calls for at least
a bit of memory.

If you hear a beep when you ask Desktop Paint to do something,
this usually indicates that it could not find enough memory to do
what you asked it. This may be because you're running it in
restricted memory, or because most of your memory is occupied by
a picture.

If possible, you should not run Desktop Paint from a shell
program, or shelled out of another application, as this will
reduce the amount of memory it has available for its own use.

In very cramped memory situations, you can free up a bit of
memory by unselecting an area of your drawing if one is currently
selected. Selecting things will be dealt with later in the
discussion of the Selector tool.

Note that if you attempt to quit Desktop Paint and there isn't
enough memory to open the window that asks "Do you want to
quit?", Desktop Paint will assume that you do and return you
immediately to DOS. As such, you can't actually get trapped in
it.


THE MENUS
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The easiest way to go through the functions of Desktop Paint is
to look at its menus and toolbox. Here's a quick overview of the
menus, starting from the left edge of the screen.

Note that many of the menu items have keyboard equivalents. This
is indicated by a diamond and a letter, the diamond representing
the Alt key. For example, if you wish to select the Open
function, you may do so by either selecting it from the file menu
or by holding down the Alt key and hitting O.

Some menu items may be printed in grey type, rather than in
black. These are disabled. Items are disabled because it's
inappropriate to use them at the moment. For example, you would
not be able to select the Print item until there was a picture in
Desktop Paint to print.


DESK MENU
────────────────

Clipboard
---------------
This function lets you see the most recent fragment cut or copied
from a picture or copied from the Gallery. The Clipboard is a
holding area for bits of images. In the Clipboard window, the
current contents of the Clipboard will be displayed padded out
with black if they're too small to fill the window or cropped if
they're too big. This is only how the image is displayed in the
window, and will not affect it when it's pasted into your
picture.

You can import and export small image files into and out of the
Clipboard in the current file format, as set by the File Type
item of the File menu. The dimensions of imported files must be
fairly modest... certainly no larger than those of your current
drawing area. The Clipboard will complain if attempt to import a
picture which it considers to be too large.

You can change the file type to import pictures in a file type
other than that of the picture you're working on. For example, to
import a small PCX file into the Clipboard while you're working
on a larger TIFF file, load the TIFF file, select File Type from
the File menu and select PCX. Select Clipboard from the Desk menu
and click on Import. Select the PCX file you wish to import. Once
you've closed the Clipboard window, you can use the Paste item of
the Edit menu to paste the imported picture into your drawing.
We'll discuss cutting and pasting in greater detail in the Edit
menu section.

Note that because all MacPaint files are of fixed dimensions
which are too large to fit on the Clipboard, you can't import
MacPaint pictures into the Clipboard window.


Gallery
-------------
The Gallery is a place to store image fragments which you might
want to paste into a picture some time in the future. The Gallery
is permanent... you can build up little image file fragments from
day a to day and access them whenever you want them.

The Gallery is stored in a file called GALLERY.RES. One will be
created if it can't be found. Desktop Paint comes with a version
of GALLERY.RES with several image fragments in it. You can delete
this if you want to start fresh.

Picture fragments get to the Gallery through the Clipboard.
Assuming you have previously cut, copied or imported something to
the Clipboard, open the Gallery window and select Copy. The
contents of the Clipboard will be added to the Gallery.

When you have several images in the Gallery, you can step through
them with the Previous and Next buttons.

The Clear button will delete the currently visible image from the
Gallery.

The Paste button will copy the currently visible image into the
Clipboard, such that you can subsequently export it to a small
image file or paste it into your drawing.

Note that unlike image files, the pictures in the Gallery are
stored uncompressed. A Gallery with several dozen images in it is
undesirable because it takes a long time to step through them
and because GALLERY.RES will take up a lot of disk space. As a
rule, you should keep image fragments you use fairly frequently
in the Gallery and others in image files on your disk which you
can import into the Clipboard when they're needed.


About
-----------
The About box will tell you what version of Desktop Paint you're
using, as well as how much memory you have free at the moment.
Note that is only conventional DOS memory... it does not include
any XMS or EMS you may have on hand.


FILE MENU
────────────────

New
---------
The New function allows you to create a blank drawing of any
size... at least, of any size you have memory for. The smallest
dimension a drawing can have is thirty-two pixels on a size. The
largest is 32,767 pixels. Note that a drawing 32,767 pixels
square would require 131,068 megabytes of XMS or EMS to contain
it. You cannot create a new drawing which occupies more memory
than you have.


Open
----------
The Open function will load a drawing from your disk into Desktop
Paint. You must have the file type set appropriately before you
select Open. The same minimum and maximum file sizes apply to
Open as they do to New. You can't open a file if there's one
currently visible in Desktop Paint... you must close your
existing file first.


Close
-----------
The Close function disposes of an existing drawing and prepares
Desktop Paint to have a different drawing opened or created.


Save
----------
The Save function will save your current drawing back to the disk
under the current file name. If you have started your drawing
from scratch with New, you must first select Save As to assign it
a file name.


Save As
-------------
The Save As function allows you to save your drawing under a new
file name. The file type will be the current file type, as set by
the File Type function.


Print
-----------
The Print function will print your current drawing to a laser or
dot matrix printer. Desktop Paint supports PostScript and
LaserJet compatible laser printers in four resolutions. Note that
even though your printer may have three hundred dot per inch
resolution, you can still print to it at a lower resolution.
Selecting, for example, one hundred dot per inch resolution will
cause the picture to be printed larger.

Desktop Paint prints to a dot matrix printer through a special
driver resource called a PDRV, which lives in DTP.RES. There is a
PDRV installed in the distribution version of Desktop Paint for
an Epson FX-80, which is emulated by most dot matrix printers.
This option will be visible as the ninth printer in the print
box list.

If you don't need dot matrix support you can remove the PDRV from
DTP.RES to save a bit of disk space, memory and to shorten the
time it takes Desktop Paint to boot up. Managing resources is
discussed later in this file.

If there is no PDRV available, the ninth printer will be
unavailable. This will also happen if you have failed to place
DTP.RES where Desktop Paint can find it.

You can select the number of copies to be printed. The number can
range from 1 through 99. Note that this value only affects output
to laser printers. Printing to an external printer driver will
only print one copy at a time no matter how the Copies value is
set.


Get Info
--------------
This will allow you to look at any image file of the currently
selected file type and see how big it is, how much memory it will
require to edit, how many colours it has for file formats which
support colour and so on.

You can use this function to compare the amount of memory a
picture will need to load into Desktop Paint with the amount of
free memory you actually have available, as displayed in the
About box. As a rule, with no TSR programs installed, Desktop
Paint running on a machine with 640 kilobytes will have about
three hundred and fifty kilobytes free.


File Type
---------------
The File Type function will allow you select the file format for
use in subsequent file operations. The current choices are
MacPaint, Ventura/GEM IMG, PCX, TIFF and WordPerfect Graphics.
Note that you can load a file from one format, change the file
type and then save it in another. The current file type setting
affects Save, Save As, Open, Get Info and the import and export
functions of the Clipboard.


Quit
----------
The Quit function returns you to DOS.


EDIT MENU
────────────────


Copy
----------
The Copy function is only active when an area of your drawing has
been selected using the Select tool... the scissors. When
selected, the Copy function will copy the contents of the
selected area into the Clipboard.


Cut
---------
The Cut function behaves like Copy except that it will fill the
selected area with white and unselect it.


Paste
-----------
The Paste tool is only active if there's something in the
Clipboard. It will paste the current contents of the Clipboard
into the upper left corner of the drawing window. It will be
selected, and you can move it to where you want it to be. If you
hold down the control key while pasting, the pasted fragment will
be transparent.


Clear
-----------
The Clear function behaves like the Cut function except that it
does not copy the selected area to the Clipboard. It just fills
it with white and unselects it.


Invert
------------
The Invert function is only active when an area of your drawing
has been selected. It inverts all the pixels in the selected area
black for white.


Flip Horizontal
---------------------
The Flip Horizontal function is only active when an area of your
drawing has been selected. It flips the selected area right to
left.


Flip Vertical
-------------------
The Flip Vertical function is only active when an area of your
drawing has been selected. It flips the selected area top to
bottom.


Rotate (90, 180 and 270)
------------------------------
These three functions are only active when an area of your
drawing has been selected. They rotate the selected area by the
specified amounts.


Scaling
-------------
The Scaling function is only active when an area of your
drawing has been selected. It scales the selected portion of your
drawing to your choice of sizes... a dialog box will pop up
asking for a scaling factor. The scale factor can range from .1
(ten percent of your original) to 10 (one thousand percent of
your original) assuming that the scaled fragment will actually
fit in the drawing window. You can specify different horizontal
and vertical scaling factors by selecting the "Anamorphic" box.
If this box is not selected, clicking in the most recently
changed value will copy it to the other value.


Trace Edges
-----------------
The Trace Edges function is only active when an area of your
drawing has been selected. It will modify the selected area so
that the original image is replaced by one having lines around
all the formerly black parts of the picture. Multiple tracings
can look extremely slick.


Fatten
------------
The Fatten function is only active when an area of your drawing
has been selected. It will modify the selected area so that all
the lines of the original image are fattened up.


Smudge
------------
The Smudge function is only active when an area of your drawing
has been selected. It will make the details of the selected area
fuzzy. You can select Smudge multiple times to increase the
amount of smudging.


GADGETS MENU
───────────────────


Gradient
--------------
The Gradient function allows you set the characteristics of the
gradients which are drawn by the Gradient tool, to be described
shortly. Specifically, you can set the direction in which the
gradient will progress and the minimum and maximum values for the
extremes of the gradient. The range for the gradient values is
zero through 255.


Set Line
--------------
The Set Line function selects the current drawing line width. The
current choice for line width are thin, one pixel, and thick,
three pixels. You can also select no thickness, which is useful
if you want to draw a filled rectangle or gradient with no line
around it. Note that there are some limitations to the way lines
are drawn around ellipses in this version of Desktop Paint, as
described in the section on BGI Problems.


Set Fill
--------------
The Set Fill function lets you select the fill pattern for all
filled drawing including the paint roller fill tool.

There are thirty-eight standard fill patterns in the Set Fill
box. You can select one to be current by clicking in it. Note
that a white fill is not the same as no fill. A rectangle which
is filled with white will obscure any black pixels below it,
while a rectangle with no fill will not.

You can edit the currently selected fill pattern by clicking on
the Edit button. This will open a window for editing the pattern.

The Paste function in the pattern edit window will copy an eight
by eight pixel rectangle from the Clipboard into the pattern
you're editing... assuming there's an image at least this big in
the Clipboard. This allows you to capture patterns from any
drawing.

You can save pattern sets to disk and load them through the Set
Fill box. You can also set up Desktop Paint to use a default
pattern set which you've created, rather than the one it comes
with. See the section on modifying DTP.RES for more about this.


Grid
----------
The Grid function allows you to turn the magnetic grid on and
off, and to set its spacing. When the grid is switched on, the
mouse will snap to the nearest grid point when you draw things,
allowing you to accurately position lines, rectangles, ellipses
and so on.


TEXT MENU
────────────────

Font Size
---------------
The Font Size function selects the size in which the current font
will be drawn. It will also tell you what the current font is,
just in case you forget. When Desktop Paint first boots, the
current font is the first one in the Font menu and the current
size is the smallest size that font is available in.


Left, Centre and Right
----------------------------
These functions set the direction that text will be drawn.

As an aside, American users can modify this menu to read "Center"
rather than "Centre" by including the file AMERTEXT.RES in the
DTP.RES file. See the section on modifying DTP.RES for more
information.


FONT MENU
────────────────
The Font menu will only appear if DTP.RES is present and if there
are some fonts in it. Desktop Paint comes with three fonts
initially, these being Swiss, Dutch and Courier. Swiss
corresponds to ITC Helvetica and Dutch corresponds to Times
Roman. Courier looks like typewriter type. Various sizes of Swiss
and Dutch are available.

Selecting a font from the Font menu will make it the current text
font when you next use the text tool. A check mark will appear
next to the name of the current font in the font menu.

If you register Desktop Paint, you'll receive the Desktop Paint
font toolkit, which will provide you with a wider range of fonts,
as well as tools to convert fonts from other formats for use with
Desktop Paint.


THE TOOLBOX
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The toolbox will appear at the left side of your screen when you
have opened or created a drawing file. The currently active tool
will be inverted. You can select a new tool by clicking on it.


Selector (the scissors)
-----------------------------
The Selector tool allows you to select areas of your drawing.
Selected areas can be transformed using the tools in the Edit
menu.

You can move a selected area by placing the mouse cursor in it,
holding down the left button and dragging it to its new location.

If you hold down the left shift key while you select an area, the
original image below the selected area will be left behind, and a
copy made to appear in the selected box. If you do not, the image
below the selected area will be filled with white.

You can cause a selected area to become a permanent part of your
drawing by clicking outside it. The selection box will go away.
This is called "deselecting".

Normally, selected areas are opaque, that is, white areas will
obscure and black areas beneath them. If you hold down the
control key while you drag, transform or deselect a selected
area, the selected image will become transparent. Any black
pixels below it will remain visible.

If you paste an image fragment into your drawing, it will appear
in the upper left corner of your drawing window and behave as if
it had been selected with the left shift key held down.


Airbrush (ozone friendly spray paint)
-------------------------------------------
The Airbrush tool will allow you to spray random areas of black
pixels in your drawing window. The longer you leave the mouse in
one place and held down, the blacker the area will become.


Text (the big T tool)
---------------------------
The Text tool will allow you to draw text in your picture using
the currently selected font, font size and direction. The text
will emanate from wherever you click in the drawing window. A
vertical text cursor will indicate where the next character will
appear.

If you hit Enter when you are typing text, the cursor will move
down a line.

You cannot draw text if part of the text would appear outside the
drawing window.

Text is always drawn black... at least, it is in this version of
the software.


Line
----------
The Line tool allows you to draw lines. The thickness and the
colour of the lines is set by the Set Line function in the
Gadgets menu. As there is no sense in drawing a line with no
thickness, the line thickness will default to a thin line if you
have it set to no thickness.

You can constrain lines to be perfectly horizontal, vertical or
diagonal by holding down the left shift, right shift or alt key
respectively.


Eraser (the pencil end)
-----------------------------
The Eraser tool allows you to erase areas of your drawing. If you
erase with the left button of your mouse the eraser will be
small. If you erase with the right button it will be large. The
eraser always erases to white.


Rectangle and filled Rectangle
------------------------------------
The Rectangle tool draws rectangles... seems pretty obvious,
doesn't it... Rectangles will be drawn in the current line
drawing colour and thickness and will be filled with the current
fill pattern if you've selected the filled rectangle tool.

You can constrain rectangles to be perfect squares by holding
down the Alt key.


Fill (paint roller)
-------------------------
The Fill tool performs a "flood" or "bucket" fill using the
currently selected fill pattern. It works whether you have the
fill function for rectangles and ellipses turned on or off.
Having selected the fill tool, click in a solid black or white
area of your drawing. It will be filled with the current pattern.

The fill tool likes to fill closed areas. If the area you attempt
to fill has a hole in its periphery, the paint will leak out and
fill the area outside it, too. The Undo tool is very useful when
you're using the Fill tool.

If you attempt to fill an extremely complex area, it's just
possible that Desktop Paint will run out of fill memory. It will
say so with a complaint box. In this case, simply click in the
unfilled area to continue filling.


Ellipse and Filled Ellipse
The ellipse tool draws ellipses. In fact, due to a limitation in
the BGI driver, as detailed later in this file, you'll see a
rectangle as you draw the ellipse and an ellipse only after you
release the mouse button. Ellipses will be drawn in the current
line drawing colour and thickness and will be filled with the
current fill pattern if you've selected the filled ellipse tool.
However, due to a BGI limitation, you can't draw filled ellipses
with no line around them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can constrain ellipses to be perfect circles by holding
down the Alt key.


Undo
----------
The Undo tool will undo the last thing you did and then select
whatever tool you were using before you selected undo. Changes to
your drawing cease to be undo-able after you save the drawing,
scroll the drawing or draw something else.


Brush (the paintbrush)
----------------------------
The Brush tool allows you to draw freeform lines in the currently
selected line colour.


Zoom (the magnifying glass)
---------------------------------
The Zoom tool allows you to zoom in on a section of your drawing
and make pixel by pixel changes to it. When the zoom window is
open, clicking in the enlarged area will set pixels to black and
white... the left mouse button sets them to black and the right
one to white. If you select Ok, the modified area will be pasted
into your picture.

You can Undo zoomed changes if you don't like them after you've
closed the Zoom box.


Gradient
--------------
The Gradient tool draws rectangles which will be filled with a
graduated grey tone, the details of which are defined in the Set
Gradient function of the Gadgets menu. The area will be
surrounded by a line as defined in the Set Line function of the
Gadgets menu. You can have a no thickness line if you like. If
you hold down the control key while you draw a gradient, it will
be transparent.

Gradients are useful for giving areas a three dimensional
appearance.


CONFIGURING DESKTOP PAINT
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
You should find that Desktop Paint will run without any need to
configure it. However, you can fine tune it for your needs with
the DTPINSTL.EXE program once you've had an initial play with it.

The DTPINSTL program must reside in the same subdirectory as
DTP.EXE. To run it type

DTPINSTL

A screen like this one will appear.

   Desktop Paint installer version 2.5                     RUN TIME DEFAULTS

            Default file type: PC Paintbrush
      MacPaint file extension: MAC
       GEM/IMG file extension: IMG
           PCX file extension: PCX
          TIFF file extension: TIF
           WPG file extension: WPG
       Pattern file extension: PTN
                 Extra memory: EMS
 XMS/EMS overhead (kilobytes): 64
              Default printer: PostScript 100 DPI
             MacBinary header: ON
            Default New width: 640
            Default New depth: 480
                    Drive map: ABCDEFGH
              Path to DTP.RES:
            Registration name: [ Unregistered ]
          Registration number: 00000

You can change the values in any field by cursoring down to it
and hitting Enter.

Here's a quick overview of what the fields in the installer do.


Default file type
-----------------------
This line sets the default file type which Desktop Paint will
initially use to open and save files with.


File extensions
---------------------
These lines allow you to change the file extensions with which
Desktop Paint will look for each of its image file types.


Pattern file extension
----------------------------
This line will allow you to change the extension under which
Desktop Paint saves and loads fill pattern blocks.


Extra memory
------------------
Set this line to tell Desktop Paint whether you have EMS or XMS
memory available. Make sure you set this to EMS or XMS if you
have extra and want to work with large pictures. Make sure you
choose the appropriate type of extra memory for your system or
Desktop Paint may crash. If you're running Desktop Paint under
Windows 3, use XMS.


XMS/EMS overhead (kilobytes)
----------------------------------
This line tells Desktop Paint how much free DOS memory to leave
if it has EMS available. If this value is set to 64... sixty-four
kilobytes... any picture which would leave less than 64 kilobytes
of free DOS memory were it to be loaded would instead be loaded
into EMS. If EMS is not enabled, this value is ignored.

Increase this number if you start running into memory problems in
Desktop Paint when you're editing large files and you have XMS or
EMS.


Default printer
---------------------
This line sets the default printer. Do not set it to "Dot matrix"
unless you will have a PDRV resource loaded into DTP.RES, as
described below.


MacBinary header
----------------------
This line allows you to decide whether or not to have MacBinary
headers written to MacPaint files which Desktop Paint creates.
Some programs, such as PFS:First Publisher, require MacPaint
files without headers. Note that both kinds of MacPaint files
will be read by Desktop Paint regardless of this setting.


Default New width
-----------------------
This line sets the default width value which appears in the New
box in Desktop Paint.


Default New depth
-----------------------
This line sets the default depth value which appears in the New
box in Desktop Paint.


Drive map
---------------
This is a string which should contain all the letters of the
legal hard and floppy drives on your system. It should have no
spaces or extraneous characters. This string is not checked for
validity.


Path to DTP.RES
---------------------
This should be the complete DOS path to the directory where
DTP.RES will be located on your system. It should include the
drive letter and a trailing backslash. For example,

C:\PAINT\

This string is not checked for validity. If you get it wrong,
DTP.RES will not be loaded when Desktop Paint is run.

With this string set correctly, you can run Desktop Paint from
anywhere on your hard drive and still have it find its resource
file.


Registration name and number
----------------------------------
When you register Desktop Paint, we'll send you back a number.
Enter your name in the registration name field exactly as it was
when you registered Desktop Paint and your registration number in
the next field. Upper and lower case matter. This will disable
the beg notice at the end of Desktop Paint. If your name contains
characters with accents or other non-English characters, please
read ACCENT.DOC for instructions for entering them into the
Registration name field.


COMMAND LINE SWITCHES
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
You can use command line switches when you run Desktop Paint to
temporarily adjust the settings which DTPINSTL configures. Each
command line switch is of the form /XXX, a slash and three
letters. Multiple switches should be separated by spaces.

These are the current command line switches.

/DOS - disable EMS and XMS
/EMS - enable EMS
/XMS - enable XMS
/MAC - default to MacPaint files
/IMG - default to IMG files
/PCX - default to PCX files
/TIF - default to TIFF files
/WPG - default to WPG files
/MCH - enable MacBinary header
/MCN - disable MacBinary header


FONTS
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Assuming that you have fonts installed in DTP.RES, the Font menu
will appear in Desktop Paint and you'll be able to type text into
your pictures. Desktop Paint comes with a basic selection of
fonts, and you can add more to it.

Fonts are large, and a whole family of fonts can easily cause
DTP.RES to swell by a few hundred kilobytes.

There is no commercial source of proportional bitmapped fonts for
PC applications per se. Instead, Desktop Paint allows you to
utilize fonts from other sources. Specifically, you can convert
bitmapped fonts from GEM applications such as Ventura Publisher,
from Microsoft Windows 3 FNT files and from Macintosh FONT and
NFNT resource files. Once converted, these fonts can be added to
Desktop Paint.

If you downloaded Desktop Paint from a bulletin board, you'll
probably be able to find a wealth of suitable fonts there too.

There are three separate programs to do these conversions,
GEM2FONT, MAC2FONT and WIN2FONT respectively. There is also a
program called SEEFONT which will allow you to look at samples of
the fonts you've converted to see what they're like.

The basic Desktop Paint package does not include these tools...
it's arguably big enough as it stands. Registered users will be
sent a disk with these programs on it as well as an assortment of
additional fonts ready to add to DTP.RES.

The font toolkit also includes the source code and instructions
to write your own assembly language dot matrix printer driver
PDRV resource, should you feel like doing so.


MANAGING RESOURCES
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The DTP.RES file is a list of resources. Resources are unrelated
bits of data and code which Desktop Paint might need. These could
have been kept as separate files, but keeping them all in DTP.RES
makes them easier to manage, requires less space on your hard
drive and allows Desktop Paint to get at them more rapidly.

Desktop Paint looks at DTP.RES when it first boots up... assuming
that it's there at all. If Desktop Paint can't find DTP.RES, it
simply doesn't use any of the things it expects to find as
resources, such as fonts.

All of the resources which might be in DTP.RES are optional. If
you don't want to deal with resources or you like Desktop Paint
as it is, just skip this section.

These are the resource types which Desktop Paint will recognize
in DTP.RES.

        BTMP - bitmapped "sign on" message
        FONT - screen fonts
        MENU - alternate menus
        PTRN - alternate default pattern block
        PDRV - dot matrix printer driver

Some or all of these may be present in DTP.RES, depending on how
you want to configure Desktop Paint.


USING RMOVER
───────────────────
In order to work with resources you'll need RMOVER.EXE, which is
included with the package. RMOVER allows you to add resource
files together, to extract resources from a file, to delete
resources from a file and to list all the resources in a file.


Listing resources
-----------------------
Let's begin with the simplest function of RMOVER, listing the
resources in a resource file. DTP.RES is a resource file. To see
what was in it, you would do this.

RMOVER DTP /L

You would see something like the following list for the DTP.RES
file which comes with the distribution version of Desktop Paint.

Resource mover version 1.3 - copyright (c) 1991 Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Description: Extracted resource
33 resource(s)
_____________________
Rsrc 0000 - type:BTMP - number 000000012 - 08004 bytes
Rsrc 0001 - type:PDRV - number 000000000 - 00348 bytes
Rsrc 0002 - type:FONT - number 000000000 - 02471 bytes Swiss 8pt #2
Rsrc 0003 - type:FONT - number 000000001 - 02971 bytes Swiss 9pt #2
Rsrc 0004 - type:FONT - number 000000002 - 03535 bytes Swiss 10pt #2
Rsrc 0005 - type:FONT - number 000000003 - 04045 bytes Swiss 11pt #2
Rsrc 0006 - type:FONT - number 000000004 - 04559 bytes Swiss 12pt #2
Rsrc 0007 - type:FONT - number 000000005 - 05897 bytes Swiss 14pt #2
Rsrc 0008 - type:FONT - number 000000006 - 07391 bytes Swiss 16pt #2
Rsrc 0009 - type:FONT - number 000000007 - 09077 bytes Swiss 18pt #2
Rsrc 0010 - type:FONT - number 000000008 - 11135 bytes Swiss 20pt #2
Rsrc 0011 - type:FONT - number 000000009 - 13599 bytes Swiss 22pt #2
Rsrc 0012 - type:FONT - number 000000010 - 15575 bytes Swiss 24pt #2
Rsrc 0013 - type:FONT - number 000000011 - 20891 bytes Swiss 28pt #2
Rsrc 0014 - type:FONT - number 000000012 - 30731 bytes Swiss 36pt #2
Rsrc 0015 - type:FONT - number 000000013 - 01875 bytes Dutch 6pt #14
Rsrc 0016 - type:FONT - number 000000014 - 02519 bytes Dutch 8pt #14
Rsrc 0017 - type:FONT - number 000000015 - 03215 bytes Dutch 9pt #14
Rsrc 0018 - type:FONT - number 000000016 - 03425 bytes Dutch 10pt #14
Rsrc 0019 - type:FONT - number 000000017 - 04113 bytes Dutch 11pt #14
Rsrc 0020 - type:FONT - number 000000018 - 04631 bytes Dutch 12pt #14
Rsrc 0021 - type:FONT - number 000000019 - 06023 bytes Dutch 14pt #14
Rsrc 0022 - type:FONT - number 000000020 - 07815 bytes Dutch 16pt #14
Rsrc 0023 - type:FONT - number 000000021 - 09293 bytes Dutch 18pt #14
Rsrc 0024 - type:FONT - number 000000022 - 11665 bytes Dutch 20pt #14
Rsrc 0025 - type:FONT - number 000000023 - 13939 bytes Dutch 22pt #14
Rsrc 0026 - type:FONT - number 000000024 - 16355 bytes Dutch 24pt #14
Rsrc 0027 - type:FONT - number 000000025 - 21885 bytes Dutch 28pt #14
Rsrc 0028 - type:FONT - number 000000026 - 30735 bytes Dutch 36pt #14
Rsrc 0029 - type:FONT - number 000000027 - 01875 bytes Swiss 6pt #2
Rsrc 0030 - type:FONT - number 000000028 - 03839 bytes Courier 12pt #102
Rsrc 0031 - type:FONT - number 000000029 - 09049 bytes Courier 20pt #102
Rsrc 0032 - type:FONT - number 000000030 - 12425 bytes Courier 24pt #102


Deleting resources
------------------------
This is how you would delete a resource from DTP.RES with RMOVER.
Let's delete the PDRV resource. This has resource number zero.

RMOVER DTP /D /TPDRV /N0

The /D switch tells RMOVER to delete a resource, /T switch tells
it the type of the resource to delete and the /N switch tells it
the number of the resource to delete.

Do not delete the REGN or EXIT resources.


Extracting resources
--------------------------
This is how you would extract a resource from DTP.RES, that is,
to copy it from DTP.RES to a separate resource file of its own.
Extracted resources live in resource files having one resource.
You could later add such a resource to another resource file. In
this example, we'll extract the PDRV resource. Note that this
will not delete it from DTP.RES.

RMOVER DTP /E /TPDRV /N0 /FEPSNFX80.RES

The /T and /N switches work as before. The /E switch tells RMOVER
to extract a resource. The /F switch tells it the name of the
file to put the extracted resource in. This file...
EPSNFX80.RES... will be deleted if it exists and a new one
created.


Adding resources
----------------------
This is how you would add a resource to DTP.RES. In this example
we'll add TEXTURE.PTN to DTP.RES. This is an alternate set of
pattern blocks which comes with the Desktop Paint package.

RMOVER DTP /A /FTEXTURE.PTN

The /A switch tells RMOVER to add a resource. Note that all the
resources in the file indicated by the /F switch will be added to
DTP.RES.

NOTE: RMOVER can quite easily delete resources you might want to
keep if you give it erroneous instructions. Keep a backup copy of
your resource files while you're working with it.


COMMON RESOURCE TYPES
────────────────────────────
Here's what each of these resources does and how to work with
them.

Make sure as you work with DTP.RES that you keep a copy of the
original DTP.RES file which comes with Desktop Paint so you can
start over if you find you've deleted something you might want.


The BTMP Resource
-----------------------
Including a BTMP resource in DTP.RES is purely cosmetic. It will
give you something to look at while the rest of the DTP.RES file
is being read.

A BTMP is simply a monochrome bitmapped picture fragment. There's
one in the default DTP.RES file which comes with Desktop Paint.
You can change this to one which you create if you like.

The resources in DTP.RES are read in the order they appear in the
file. If a BTMP resource is located as the file is initially
read, Desktop Paint will display it in the middle of the screen
and leave it there while it's reading the rest of the file. For
the best effect, the BTMP resource should be the first one in
DTP.RES.

You might well be wondering how to create a BTMP resource. It's
quite easy. When image fragments are saved to the Gallery in
Desktop Paint, they're stored as BTMP resources. To make a BTMP
resource for your DTP.RES file, generate the picture you want in
Desktop Paint, select it, copy it to the Clipboard, paste the
Clipboard into the Gallery, quit Desktop Paint and extract the
last BTMP resource from the Gallery to a separate file.

A less complex way... especially if you have a rather full
GALLERY.RES file... is to rename GALLERY.RES to something else
and follow the above procedure. Desktop Paint will create a new
GALLERY.RES with only one BTMP resource in it. Rename this
GALLERY.RES to something else and your original Gallery file back
to GALLERY.RES.

When you add resources to a resource file, they're always added
to the end of the file. You'll want to have your new BTMP at the
beginning of the file. To make this happen, begin by deleting the
existing BTMP resource from DTP.RES. Then, add all of DTP.RES to
the file with your new BTMP resource in it. Finally, delete
your old DTP.RES and rename your new file to DTP.RES.

Clear as mud, this. It might take a few tries to get it right.

The BTMP resource you use for a sign-on message should have a
horizontal dimension which is an even multiple of eight. You can
handle this easily by using the New function in Desktop Paint to
create a picture the size you want your sign on image to be...
320 by 200 pixels is a good size... and then selecting the whole
drawing when it's completed.

If you want to make Desktop Paint boot as quickly as possible...
especially on a fairly slow system... you can delete the BTMP
resource from DTP.RES entirely.


The FONT Resources
------------------------
Each font which will be available in Desktop Paint must have a
separate resource. Thus, if you have Dutch in seven sizes, there
will be seven FONT resources for Dutch. A complete discussion of
fonts is available in FONTS.DOC, which comes with the font
toolkit discussed above.

Note that Desktop Paint can function without any fonts in DTP.RES
at all. If you have no need of the text capabilities in Desktop
Paint and you want it to boot up more rapidly, remove all the
fonts from DTP.RES.


The MENU Resources
------------------------
You can add MENU resources to DTP.RES to change the names of the
menu items in Desktop Paint. The AMERTEXT.RES file included with
Desktop Paint is an example of such a menu. It replaces the Text
menu in Desktop Paint with one in which the spelling of "Centre"
is American, that is, "Center". Add AMERTEXT.RES to DTP.RES if
you want to make this change.

The Desktop Paint package does not come with a resource file
editor, which is what you would need to create further custom
menus. Registered users of the software can contact us for more
information about modifying resources like this if they wish.


The PTRN Resource
-----------------------
If you don't like the default set of fill patterns which comes
with Desktop Paint, you can replace them with one of your own
devising by including a PTRN resource in DTP.RES.

To create a PTRN resource, use the edit function of the Fill box
in Desktop Paint to create the pattern set you want and save it.
The file you save it to will be a PTRN resource. Add it to
DTP.RES.

Desktop Paint defaults to using dithered grey level fill
patterns. However, it comes with a set of more interesting fill
patterns in TEXTURE.PTN. You can load these in when you want to
use them, or you can make them the default pattern set by adding
TEXTURE.PTN to DTP.RES, as discussed previously.


The PDRV Resource
-----------------------
If you want to be able to print to a dot matrix printer you'll
need a PRDV resource in your DTP.RES file. There's one in the
default DTP.RES to support the Epson FX-80, which is emulated by
most other dot matrix printers. If you want to drive a printer
which does not emulate the Epson FX-80, or you wish to use a
higher resolution mode of a more sophisticated printer, you must
create a new PDRV resource for your printer, delete the existing
PRDV resource from DTP.RES and put your PRVR in its place.

A discussion of printer drivers and the creation thereof can be
found in the Desktop Paint font toolkit, described earlier.


BGI PROBLEMS
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Desktop Paint currently uses the Borland BGI graphics drivers to
do much of the work of managing its user interface and drawing
pictures. This has resulted in a few problems which are inherent
in the BGI drivers, and hence beyond us to do anything about.
They are:

- You can't draw filled ellipses with a zero line width,
  as you can filled rectangles.
- Certain patterns which are mostly white will not fill
  white areas completely with the paint roller tool.
- There are only two available line widths.
- Ellipses are drawn as rectangles as you're drawing them,
  and only appear as ellipses when you're done.

We're looking at either re-writing the BGI drivers a bit or using
a different graphics package altogether to overcome these bugs
for the next major release of Desktop Paint.


DESQVIEW, QEMM AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTS
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
Desktop Paint has not been written to run under DesqView, and in
most cases will not do so reliably. In practical terms, software
must be specifically written to be DesqView-aware if it is to
work under DesqView, and in the case of Desktop Paint the speed
and memory penalties involved in doing so were prohibitive.

One of the frequent problems which Desktop Paint runs up
against is QEMM, the Quarterdeck memory manager. Its extended
memory interface does not appear to be fully compatible with that
of HIMEM.SYS, the standard XMS memory manager which Desktop Paint
was written to look for. If you set up Desktop Paint to use
extended memory and you have QEMM installed to manage your
extended memory, you may encounter problems with large files.

Because of the way Desktop Paint uses memory, we don't recommend
running it under multi-tasking or task switching environments,
with the exception of Windows 3. Things like DesqView, Double
DOS, GeoWorks and such may cause it to misbehave.


CONTACTING ALCHEMY MINDWORKS INC.
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
We hope you'll contact us to register Desktop Paint... see the
section about registering Desktop Paint elsewhere in this
document.

You can contact us by mail by writing to us at:

Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
P.O. Box 500
Beeton, Ontario
L0G 1A0
Canada

We will attempt to answer questions from unregistered users who
write to us to the extent that their answers are needed for you
to fully determine whether Desktop Paint will suit your
requirements.

We can also be reached through the Alchemy Mindworks bulletin
board. It's available twenty-four hours a day at [phone].
As of this writing, the protocol was 300, 1200 or 2400 baud, or
9600 baud v.32bis, eight data bits, no parity and one stop bit.

The bulletin board always has the most recent versions of all our
shareware on it, plus bug fixes, drivers and other relevant
information. It only exists to support Alchemy Mindworks'
shareware... it does not have a general file area.

If you encounter problems with a file, you're welcome to upload
the errant file to our bulletin board. Actually, you can upload
any picture files you like to the board... we enjoy getting
pictures.

If you have a question about Desktop Paint, feel free to leave it
on the bulletin board. We try to answer all questions within
twenty-four hours. Note that you must call back to retrieve your
answer... please don't ask us to phone you or to leave the answer
on another bulletin board.

Registered users of Desktop Paint will receive our voice number
for immediate technical support. The voice number is only
available for use from 10:00am to 5:00pm EST. If you call and get
our answering machine... it does happen... please leave us a
message or call back later. We are only able to return long
distance calls if we can call you collect. In this regard, please
note that as of this writing Canada has a very peculiar
electronic voice mail collect call system... if the phone
company's computer starts talking when you pick up the phone,
it's probably us returning your call.

We ask that in contacting us you appreciate that we are a small
company with limited resources. If you have not registered
Graphic Workshop we will not tell you to go to hell, but please
don't ask us for half an hour of free technical support.


REGISTRATION
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
If you like this program and find it useful, you are requested to
support it by sending us $40.00. This will entitle you to
telephone support, notification of updates, a free copy of the
latest version of Desktop Paint and a copy of the font toolkit
disk, which will provide you with additional fonts, and a
selection of tools to convert fonts from Macintosh, Windows and
GEM fonts for use in Desktop Paint. It will also avail you of a
registration number to shut off the closing beg notice and
counter. More to the point, though, it'll make you feel good.
We've not infested the program with excessive beg notices,
crippled it or had it verbally insult you after ten days. We
trust you to support Desktop Paint if you like it.

If you want to see additional features in Desktop Paint register
your software. If we had an Arcturian mega-dollar for everyone
who has said they'd most certainly register their copy if we'd
add just one more thing to it, we could buy ourselves a universe
and retire.

Oh yes, should you fail to support this program and continue to
use it, a leather winged demon of the night will tear itself,
shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the nether
world, hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for blood on
its slavering fangs and search the very threads of time for the
throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to know
that.

Our address is:

Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
P.O. Box 500
Beeton, Ontario
L0G 1A0
Canada

If you have previously registered Desktop Paint, you can update
your copy for $20.

If you have a FAX number, please include it in your registration.
We're hoping to be able to handle notification of future updates
of Desktop Paint by FAX where we can. This is both considerably
faster and a lot cheaper than mail.

You can FAX your order to us at [phone]. You'll find an
order form in this ZIP to make this easier.


CANADIAN USERS
─────────────────────
The registration fee for Desktop Paint is $40.00 (CDN) plus seven
percent GST, or $42.80. If you live in Ontario, please add eight
percent PST to this, for a total of $45.80. We sincerely regret
collecting this tax on behalf of several levels of government
which will only squander it. If you sincerely regret having to
pay it, we urge you to express your regret by voting in the next
federal and provincial elections.


AMERICAN USERS
─────────────────────
The registration fee for Desktop Paint is $40.00 (US). The
exchange on US funds pretty well covers the extra postage to the
States.


OTHER USERS
──────────────────
The registration fee for Desktop Paint is $40.00 (US). If you pay
us by cheque, please make sure that it's a cheque drawn on an
international bank, and that it will be negotiable in Canada. If
there's no bank clearance number along the bottom of the cheque,
it will not clear. Please don't send us Eurocheques... they are
not accepted outside Europe.


PAYING BY CREDIT CARD
────────────────────────────
We can accept payment by Visa only. We need your Visa card number
and expiry date and the name which appears on your card. We also
need written authorization to debit your Visa account for the
specific amount you're sending us.

We cannot accept MasterCard, American Express or other credit
cards.


SOURCE CODE AVAILABILITY AND BOOKS
▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀
It isn't.

After considerable meditation and several bad experiences, we
have decided not to release the source code for Desktop Paint. We
do license parts of it for specific applications... if you want
more information about using some of the functions of Desktop
Paint in your software, please contact us.

If you're interested in writing programs which use graphics,
you'll find everything you need to know in "Bitmapped Graphics",
by Steven William Rimmer. It's published by TAB Books, (TAB book
3558). It features code to pack and unpack MacPaint, IMG, PCX,
GIF and TIFF files, as well as chapters on screen drivers,
dithering and printing.

An additional book on this subject, "Supercharged Bitmapped
Graphics", (TAB Book 4102), will be available in mid-1992. It
discusses the GIF 89a, WordPerfect, BMP, IFF/LBM, TGA, MSP, 24-
bit PCX and colour TIFF file formats, as well as such subjects as
colour dithering and colour printing.

If you'd like to write applications which use menus, icons,
windows and all the other paraphernalia of a graphical user
interface, you might find the book "PC Graphical User Interfaces"
handy. It's published by TAB Books (TAB Book 3875). It includes
the C source for a complete graphical user interface library,
related code to manage fonts and bitmaps and a tiny paint
program.

A complete discussion of graphic file formats for use in word
processing documents and desktop publishing chapters can be found
in The Graphic File Toolkit, by Steve Rimmer, published by
Addison-Wesley, available in mid-1992. This is an invaluable
reference for anyone who wants to use graphic files but does not
want to become a programmer in the process.

If your local bookstore doesn't have these books, they can be
mail or phone ordered from Christies of Cookstown, P.O. Box 392,
Cookstown, Ontario L0L 1L0, Canada. Their phone number is (705)
458-1562. It has a FAX machine on it after hours. As of this
writing, they're open seven days a week.


BUNDLING DESKTOP PAINT
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If you'd like to include Desktop Paint with your product, please
get in touch with us. We have several ways to help you do this so
your users get the most out of Desktop Paint and we don't have to
set our leather winged demon of the night on 'em.


SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTORS
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We receive numerous requests for copies of Desktop Paint from
shareware distributors and we don't have the facilities to send
out disks in response to all of them.

We can provide you with a disk containing copies of our larger
shareware applications for $10.00 (US). Alternately, you can
download the current versions of our applications from
CompuServe in the GRAPHSUPPORT forum or from our bulletin board
at [phone]. You can also order them from one of the larger
distributors we use, such as Public Brand Software, 3750 Kentucky
Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46241. They always have the current
versions of our programs.

If you obtain current copies of our shareware, you have our
permission to distribute it under the following terms.

- That nothing be added to, deleted from or changed in the
  archive files which contain our packages. This includes adding
  ZIP file comments to them.

- That our shareware is not included in or bundled with other
  hardware or software without our written permission.

- That no printed documentation regarding our shareware is
  included with the package without our written permission.

- That hard copy explaining that our packages are shareware is
  included with the disks.

You do have our permission to copy the ZIP files from our quad
density disk to multiple lower density disks for distribution.


OTHER ALCHEMY MINDWORKS SHAREWARE
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The following are the other shareware packages we have available
as of this writing. Our newsletter, available for the asking,
will list all the current ones.


GRAPHIC WORKSHOP
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This is the last word in image programs. It converts, prints,
views, dithers, transforms, flips, rotates, scales, crops, colour
adjusts, scans, quantizes and wreaks special effects on MacPaint,
GEM/Ventura IMG, PCX, GIF, TIFF, WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM, BMP, Halo
CUT, Targa and EPS files. It drives CGA, Hercules, EGA, VGA and
pretty well all super VGA cards. It will drive PostScript and
LaserJet Plus laser printers, colour PostScript printers, colour
inkjets and most dot matrix printers. It features batch
processing, extended and expanded memory support, an intuitive
user interface and easy to follow menus. It allows you to convert
colour image files into superb black and white clip art for
desktop publishing, among other things.


GRAPHIC WORKSHOP FOR WINDOWS
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Offering the same functionality as Graphic Workshop for DOS, the
Windows implementation of this package offers a traditional
Windows interface, multitasking and lots of things to click on.
It converts, prints, views, dithers, transforms, flips, rotates,
scales, crops, colour adjusts, scans, quantizes and wreaks
special effects on MacPaint, GEM/Ventura IMG, PCX, GIF, TIFF,
WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM, BMP, Halo CUT, Targa and EXE picture files.
Graphic Workshop for Windows will display and print on any card
and printer respectively that can be driven by Windows. It
features batch processing, an intuitive user interface and easy
to follow menus. It allows you to convert colour image files into
superb black and white clip art for desktop publishing, among
other things. Registered users of Graphic Workshiop for Windows
will also receive a copy of GWS Camera, our fast, friendly
Windows screen capture.


DESKTOP PAINT 256
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Desktop Paint 256 is a powerful super-VGA paint program. Desktop
Paint 256 will let you create and edit pictures stored as PCX,
GIF, TIFF and IFF/LBM files. It features a rich selection of
drawing and image manipulation tools, XMS and EMS support to work
on large images and a user friendly interface. Looking very much
like monochrome Desktop Paint in colour, it's a powerful
application which will be equally useful for picture collectors,
artists and desktop publishing users... it makes a quick and easy
to use editor for grey scale TIFF files, too. It supports
Paradise (and compatibles), Headland Video 7, Tseng Labs 4000
series cards, Trident cards which use 8900 series chips and ATI
VGA Wonder cards. Note that you must have one of these super-VGA
cards to use Desktop Paint 256... it does not run in the standard
320 by 200 pixel "standard" VGA mode. Desktop Paint 256 requires
a Microsoft-compatible mouse.


IMAGE GALLERY
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Image Gallery is a visual database to help you keep track of a
large number of image files quickly and effectively. It will
create database files... galleries... of any combination of
bitmapped image files, displaying them as small ``thumbnail''
images. You can search a gallery visually or by key words.
Each entry in a gallery supports key word and comment fields, as
well as the dimensions, location and other specifics of each
image. You can also print all or part of a gallery, producing
hard copy catalogs of your images when you need them. Image
Gallery requires no extended or expanded memory. It will run with
any VGA card. It uses a Microsoft compatible mouse and will drive
any PostScript or LaserJet Plus compatible laser printer. It will
read all the image file types that Graphic Workshop supports.


GRAFCAT RELEASE THREE
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GrafCat prints a visual catalog of your image files, with
fifteen or sixteen pictures to a page, depending on the image
orientation you choose. It supports all the file types that
Graphic Workshop handles, and will drive any PostScript or
LaserJet Plus compatible laser printer, including LaserJet II and
LaserJet III series printers. This is a complete re-write of
GrafCat... it now supports a file finder screen like the one in
Graphic Workshop and numerous print options.


GIFINFO
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GifInfo creates catalog files from your GIF collection, allowing
you to store fifty or more miniature full colour representations
of GIF files on a single quad floppy.


STORYTELLER
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Storyteller is a hypertext program with a mouse driven graphical
user interface which will allow you to create reports, manuals
and interactive fiction, among other things, which has a tree
structure. Each page of a Storyteller document can lead to
related sub-pages, which can in turn have their own sub-sub
pages, and so on. It looks slick and is exceedingly user
friendly. Storyteller requires a Microsoft-compatible mouse.

If you can't obtain them from the usual sources of shareware,
they're available from us for $40.00 each preregisterd. They're
also all available for downloading from our bulletin board at
[phone].


REVISION HISTORY
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Version 2.5 - Dispensed with the selection box size limitation
for EGA and VGA cards, and sped up several aspects of the screen
handling code in the process.

Version 2.4 - Internal release.

Version 2.3 - Fixed several minor bugs, including one in the
Paste function which would leave black lines around some pasted
images.

Version 2.2 - Added extended memory support, fixed an
inconsistency in the select box.

Version 2.1 - Fixed a bug in the clipboard display which caused
the program to crash in some circumstances. Added double-clicking
to the file selector.

Version 2.0 - Added drawing support for two-button mice, added
filled ellipse and rectangle tools, tightened up the zoom mode,
added smudging.

Version 1.9 - Improved the select / unselect function.

Version 1.8 - Fixed a bug in the selector box.

Version 1.7 - Fixed a minor memory allocation bug in the Select
Fill dialog box.

Version 1.6 - Added a check mark to the Text menu, fixed several
memory allocation problems and changed the memory management a
bit to reduce potential heap fragmentation.

Version 1.5 - Fixed a bug which caused the text cursor to remain
on the screen after scrolling.

Version 1.4 - Added a copy count to the Print box, sped up the
menus a bit, added check marks to the font menu to indicate the
current font. Added the Fatten command to the Edit menu.

Version 1.3 - Installed a fix which cures a problem with some
revisions of Everex VGA cards. In former versions they appeared
to draw the screen in odd colours now and again.

Version 1.2 - Cleaned up a few inconistencies in the menus, fixed
a problem with the undo function used after two consecutive
Pastes (it undid both of them) and allowed for foreign language
characters in the registration field.

Version 1.1 - Added Trace Edges function, fixed a bug which
caused some Hercules compatible cards to misbehave after running
Desktop Paint.

Version 1.0 - Desktop Paint wanders out into the infinite cosmos
seeking destiny.


LEGAL DOGMA
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The author assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss
caused by the use of these programs, however it comes down. If
you can think of a way a picture program can cause you damage
or loss you've a sneakier mind than mine.

All the trademarks used herein are registered to whoever it is
that owns them. This notification is given in lieu of any
specific list of trademarks and their owners, which would not be
as inclusive and would probably take a lot longer to type.

Desktop Paint is a trademark of Alchemy Mindworks Inc.

That's it...