The Best of Select: Games 4

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Tile Maker Utility Version 2.02 September 17, 1993 For use with Mah Jongg or Tile Match Nels Anderson 92 Bishop Drive Framingham, MA 01701-6515 U.S.A. USING TILE MAKER The Tile Maker utility allows you to make your own sets of tiles or modify sets made by others. These tiles can be used with my two solitaire games, Mah Jongg and Tile Match. The utility is similar to many paint programs with which you might be familiar, though because of its specialized nature it includes less functions. Tile Maker can be controlled with your mouse or keyboard and requires EGA or VGA graphics. The best thing to do is get Tile Maker running and experiment. You'll find designing good tiles is quite a challenge, but it will allow you to have your own personalized version of the game when you're done. You might want to look at other already completed tile sets to see some of the techniques used. Because the drawing area is so small you often have to trick the eye to get the effect you want. One thing to avoid is changing the sloping sides of the tiles. Generally this will ruin the 3D effect and simply doesn't look good when tiles are stacked up. HOW TILES ARE STORED ON DISK First, some basics about working with tile sets. A Mah Jongg tile set includes 42 different tiles. Eight of them are in the "wild card" suits (normally the flowers and seasons suits) where any tile in the suit matches any other. The other 34 tiles use the standard matching rule where there are four of each tile on the board and the tiles must be matched exactly to be removed. You'll want to keep the game rules in mind when designing your tiles. Tile Match only needs 36 tiles. Tiles 1 through 34 are used plus tiles 35 and 39. All 42 tiles are stored in a single disk file. You'll need to know how the tiles are numbered so that you store your new tiles in the proper place. For reference, the standard tile set ("MAHJONGG.TIL") is numbered as follows: Tiles 1 - 9: suit of dots Tile 10: white dragon Tiles 11 - 19: suit of bamboo Tile 20: green dragon Tiles 21 - 29: suit of characters Tile 30: red dragon Tiles 31 - 34: suit of winds Tiles 35 - 38: suit of seasons Tiles 39 - 42: suit of flowers GETTING STARTED Start up "TILEMAKR.EXE" by typing "tilemakr" on the command line. There are no command line options, but you can include the name of a tile set file on the command line and that tile set will be immediately loaded once Tile Maker starts up. Note the drawing area on the left and the tile set display on the right. If you did not include a tile set name on the command line the tile set displayed will be blank, but as soon as you read in a tile set it will be shown. Along the top of the screen are a series of menus you can select. If you're using a mouse you just need to point to the word you want and click. If using the keyboard you can use the functions keys (each menu is numbered sequentially so Help is F1, Info is F2, etc.). You can also select menus by holding down the Alt key while also hitting the first letter of the menu name; for example, you'd hit Alt-F to open the File menu. DRAWING Normal drawing can be done with the keyboard or mouse. Using the mouse, select the desired color by pointing at the color chart and clicking. Then to draw just point at the drawing area and click on each spot where you want to draw. Because it's common to switch back and forth between two colors, Tile Maker remembers the last color you've selected as well as the current one. Use the right mouse button at any time to toggle back and forth between the current and previous drawing color. If you're drawing with a mouse there are a few basic drawing shapes available in addition to the simple dot. Under the drawing area is a set of push buttons where you can select dots, line, circle, rectangle, filled circle or box. Click on the desired button and you'll see it push in to confirm proper selection. When using the line or rectangles, move the mouse cursor to one end (corner) and hold down the mouse button. Then move to the other end (corner) and release the button. When using the circles you start in the center and pull away until the circle is the desired size. You can pull in any direction since the circle is symmetrical. The seventh drawing tool is a special one. It allows you to outline an area and then change all pixels within that area that are a specific color into a different color. Select this tool and then outline a rectangle just as you would with the rectangle drawing tool. When the area you want is outlined, release the mouse button. You'll be prompted to select the color you want to change; point anywhere you want on the screen and click when pointing to the desired color. Then you'll be prompted for the color you want to change to; again you can point anywhere on the screen and click. Now the selected color will change. The eighth function is fill. Using this function you can fill in an area of any shape with the currently selected color. When you select fill the cursor will change to the word "FILL" with a little target to the upper left. Position the target in the area you want filled and click to fill. Using the keyboard you can fill by moving the keyboard cursor within the area to be filled and hitting the Z key. The ninth function is text entry. Because of the small size of the tiles only one simple font is used. Characters are five pixels high. Several different widths are available and Tile Maker will try to use the widest characters possible given the space available. Depending on whether you have border set on or off (from the Options menu) the letters may go right to the edge of the tile face or a one pixel border will be enforced. To enter text, position the mouse to the upper left corner of where the text should start (if using the keyboard, use the arrow keys to position the keyboard cursor and then hit the L key). You'll then be prompted to enter the text you want. Lower case letters are not available but capital letters and most other characters can be used. If the text you enter is too much to fit in the available space you'll be told how many pixels too wide it is and you can then adjust accordingly. When within the drawing area, the mouse cursor snaps to the center of each pixel when moving around or drawing dots, lines or rectangles. If you prefer that the cursor move smoothly you can turn off the snap function by using Snap Cursor on/off under the Options menu. For most drawing you'll probably find the snap cursor useful as you'll be able to more clearly tell what pixel is being pointed to. Drawing with the keyboard requires typing the letter or number of the desired color, then moving the cursor around with the arrow keys and finally hitting space when you want to draw a dot. If you hold down the space bar a line of dots will be drawn in the direction of the last arrow key used. When drawing the position of the mouse cursor is shown just below the color selection area. If you wish to see the position of the keyboard cursor instead, just move the mouse cursor outside the drawing area and move the keyboard cursor with the arrow keys. MENUS All functions have keyboard shortcuts that are shown in parentheses after the name of the function. You can use these keys to access functions directly without going through the menus. A list of all keyboard shortcuts is at the end of this document. If using a mouse you just point to the function you want and click. If using the keyboard you can select menus using the function keys or the Alt key plus the first letter of the menu name. Within the menus you can select functions by number or by using the arrow keys to move to the function you want and the Enter key to select it. Most of the functions available from the menu are pretty self-explanatory, but let's cover each menu and function in detail. HELP Under the help function is an abbreviated set of instructions for using Tile Maker. To move from one help screen to another click on the Next or Prev (previous) box. To quit help click on the Quit box. You can also use the letters shown in red for next, quit or previous. FILE MENU This is the menu used for all disk access. The first choice allows you to clear any current drawing and start a new tile. You'll be prompted to make sure you mean to do this. Save Tile allows you to save your work into a tile set file. You'll first be prompted for the name of the file that your tile should become part of. If the file you choose is different from the last one you read in, the new file will be read in and displayed on the right side of the screen. Finally, you must choose what position your tile will take. If you're editing an existing tile and just want to put it back in the same position you just need to click on OK. Otherwise you can either enter the new position number from the keyboard or you can point and click on the tile on the right side of the screen you wish to replace. Read Tile Set allows you to read tiles from the disk. The entire tile set is always loaded and displayed on the right side of the screen. If the set does not contain all 42 tiles blanks will be shown at some positions. The Load Tile function is only needed if you don't have a mouse. It allows you to transfer a single tile from the tile set shown on the right side of the screen into the editor. When prompted enter either the number of the tile you want to edit or hit the Esc key to abort. Import .PCX Picture gives you a limited ability to load tile faces from PCX drawings, such as you might create with a full-featured paint program or with a scanner. The PCX pictures must be in 640x350 pixel size and use a 16 color EGA palette. When you select import .PCX picture, the normal file selection box will pop up and you should select the PCX file you want. The picture will load and a square cursor will appear. Use the cursor to surround the portion of the picture you want (the square is exactly the size of a tile face) and click. You'll be switched back to the editing screen with the PCX image now on the tile face. If you're using the keyboard you can use the arrow keys to move the cursor around and the Enter key to select. Hit Esc to abort. When you're done with your tile set, use the add name function. The name you enter will be displayed at the bottom of the screen when playing Mah Jongg or in the Info screen when playing Tile Match. The name for the currently loaded tile set is also shown at the right bottom of the Tile Maker screen. At some point you may wish to rearrange the order of the tiles in the set. You can use the swap two tiles function to swap the positions of any two tiles in the currently displayed set. When prompted, select each of the tiles that you want swapped either by entering the tile number or by using the mouse to point and click. If you change your mind hit the Esc key or select "No" when asked to confirm. EDIT MENU This menu allows you to do special editing functions on the current tile. These functions are described below. The flip functions let you reverse the image left/right or top/bottom. Hitting the same function a second time will flip the image back the way it originally was. The rotate function rotates the image clock-wise around its center. Four consecutive rotates puts the image back the way it originally was. The shift functions move the image in the specified direction by one pixel. This is handy if you, for example, want to center an image. The final function on the edit menu is undo. Using this will restore the tile as it was before the most recent change. The image that will be restored is shown along the left side of the screen directly below the current image. You can also undo by clicking directly on this previous image, or on any other image that is below it. Up to three previous images are kept along the left side of the screen. OPTIONS MENU This menu allows you to select options that affect how other functions work. Each option can be toggled on or off. If an option is currently on a check mark will be shown to the right of the option name. When Tile Maker starts up it is set with snap cursor on. In this mode the mouse cursor jumps to the center of each pixel when in the drawing area, which ensures that you know exactly what pixel you're drawing. If you prefer you can turn this mode off and the cursor will then move smoothly. When entering text using the text tool you have a choice on how close to the edge the text will be entered. Text usually looks best if there is a border around it at the edge of the tile face. However, if you have a long word that you wish to display you might want to disable this border to make the text fit. Try entering text first with the border enabled, but if you only need one or two more pixels to make it fit you can turn the border off and try again. When drawing with the dot tool (freehand drawing) you can have your drawing mirrored left to right, top to bottom, or both. Toggle the appropriate mirror settings on and off to fit your needs. Share Your Creations! If you develop any tile sets you'd like to share please upload them to the support BBS (Xevious: 508-875-3618) or mail them to the author on a diskette. I'd suggest that you include a text file describing your tile set and of course you should include your name in it. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with! KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS All Tile Maker functions can be accessed from the keyboard. Below is the complete list of keys and their function. Key Function ------------ ------------------------------------ F1 or Alt-H Help F2 or Alt-I Info F3 or Alt-F File Menu F4 or Alt-E Edit Menu F5 or Alt-O Options Menu F10 or Alt-Q Quit (exit Tile Maker) X New (clear tile) S Save Tile R Read Tile Set Alt-L Load Tile Into Editor P Import .PCX Picture N Add Name To File Alt-S Swap Two Tiles Q Quit (exit Tile Maker) < Flip left to right > Flip top to bottom @ Rotate clock-wise - Shift Right + Shift Left ^ Shift Up | Shift Down U Undo L Use the letter function (enter text) Z Use the fill function # Snap Cursor on/off T Text Border on/off M Mirroring left/right on/off Alt-M Mirroring top/bottom on/off 0 Drawing color is black 1 Drawing color is blue 2 Drawing color is green 3 Drawing color is cyan 4 Drawing color is red 5 Drawing color is magenta 6 Drawing color is brown 7 Drawing color is light gray 8 Drawing color is dark gray 9 Drawing color is light blue A Drawing color is light green B Drawing color is light cyan C Drawing color is light red D Drawing color is light magenta E Drawing color is yellow F Drawing color is white - - - - - Tile Maker is copyright 1993 by Nels Anderson. All rights reserved.