MiniPaint is a great 320 and 640 mode paint program for the IIGS written by teenage graphics phenom Matt Reimer. MiniPaint offers features such as scroll bars, movable windows, tremendous flexibility and speed. The name MiniPaint comes from the program╒s size, not from its feature list! At less than 85k, MiniPaint gets up and running in a hurry.
Trivia: Developers will be amazed to learn that Matt wrote MiniPaint under APW with only one 3.5-inch drive; talk about getting the maximum potential out of your hardware!
MiniPaint is a precursor to the Beagle Bros. program Platinum Paint¬. You will notice some of the menu items greyed out in this version (examples: Rotate, Free Rotate, Edit Pattern, Edit Palette, Import, Hide Tools and Stack Up). If you are a serious artist and feel constrained by these limitations, call us at 1-800-831-2694 to order the latest version of Platinum Paint.
To access a MiniPaint menu, position the cursor on the menu title at the top of the screen and press the mouse button. The menu will appear, and you can then select the desired option. Here╒s a summary of SOME of the menu choices:
File Menu
New
Keyboard command: command-n
Use New to start all over. New closes the current picture if there is
one, and opens a new window with the default patterns and colors, pen
and text modes, font, style and size. The status of the info bar, scroll bars, coordinates, and crosshairs remain the same. If a spare page is being used, it is erased. If a picture is open when New is selected, MiniPaint asks if you would like to save it before opening the new window.
Open
Keyboard command: command-o
Note: Hold down the option key while selecting Open to load the picture without closing the current window. MiniPaint will open the new picture on top of the current picture.
Close
Use Close when you╒re done with the picture you╒re working on. If the picture has been changed since it was opened, MiniPaint asks if you would like to save it first.
Save
Keyboard command: command-s
Use Save to save the picture using the same name that it was opened with. If it wasn╒t loaded from a disk, this option is unavailable.
Save As...
Use Save As... to save the picture under a different name.
Revert
Use Revert to restore the picture to the last version you saved. If the picture wasn╒t loaded from disk, this option is unavailable.
Choose Printer...
Use Choose Printer... to tell MiniPaint what printer setup you have.
Page Setup...
Use Page Setup to tell MiniPaint how you would like your picture printed.
Print
Keyboard command: command-p
Use Print to print your picture (what else?). If a marquee selection is active, only the area inside the box will be printed.
Press command-. to abort the printing process. Remember that MiniPaint will wait all day if your printer is on, but not online.
Quit
Keyboard command: command-q
Use Quit when you╒re all done with MiniPaint.
Edit Menu
Undo
Keyboard command: command-z
Use this to undo the last change you made to your picture. Some changes can╒t be undone. It╒s smart to save copies of pictures before making drastic changes.
Copy
Keyboard command: command-c
Use this to copy the marquee selection to the clipboard. If the whole picture is selected, the whole picture is copied to the clipboard.
Cut
Keyboard command: command-x
Use this to move the marquee selection to the clipboard, erasing it from the picture. If the whole picture is selected, the whole picture is moved to the clipboard.
Paste
Keyboard command: command-v
Use this to paste the clipboard contents into your picture. If there is a marquee selection, the image is resized to the dimensions of the marquee box. If the original image was bigger than the box, the image is shrunk. If the original image was smaller than the box, the image is expanded.
Clear
Keyboard: {delete} or {clear}
Use Clear to clear the marquee selection. If the whole picture is selected,
the whole picture is cleared.
Invert
Keyboard command: n
Use Invert to exchange the colors in the marquee selection for their palette complement. For instance, color 1 becomes color 16, colors 2 becomes color 15, color 3 becomes color 14, etc. Black becomes white and white becomes black. Invert again to restore the original colors.
Flip Horiz
Keyboard command: x
Use this to flip the marquee selection horizontally. The pixels on the left are exchanged with the pixels on the right. Flip Horiz has the effect of turning the selection backwards.
Flip Vert
Keyboard command: y
Use this to flip the marquee selection vertically. The pixels on the bottom are exchanged with the pixels on the top. Flip Vert has the effect of turning the selection upside-down.
Replace Color
Keyboard: >
Use this to replace any color within the marquee selection with any other color on the current palette.
When Replace Color is selected, the cursor changes to the color cursor. Click on the color you want to change. Then click on the color you want to replace it with. You may click on the palette or inside of the selection.
Yum menu
Grid
Use Grid to snap objects to a 9 x 9 pixel grid. If grid is on and you try to draw a box on the screen, it will force, or snap, the box to the closest vertical and horizontal grid line. Grid affects boxes, rounded boxes, ovals, polygons, and text.
FatBits
Keyboard command: command-f
Use FatBits to zoom in on an area of the picture for fine detail work. FatBits can also be selected by double-clicking the pencil icon. FatBits only works with the hand and pencil tools. Clicking on another tool turns FatBits off. To zoom in on a particular part of the picture, hold down the Apple key and click with the pencil on the area you would like to see. Note: While using the pencil, hold down the option key to activate the hand tool and move the picture. In 320 mode, FatBits expands each pixel to a 6 x 5 pixel block. In 640 mode with dither lock on, each pixel is expanded to a 16 x 5 pixel block, showing every two pixels as one dithered color. In 640 mode with dither lock off, each pixel is expanded to a 8 x 5 pixel block, displayed in its true color.
Dither Lock
Keyboard command: command-d
This only effects 640 mode, although it can be selected in 320 mode (it just doesn╒t do anything). Use dither lock when you want to draw using dithered colors. Dither Lock makes MiniPaint draw two pixels wide. When Dither Lock is turned on and the paint window has an info bar, a padlock icon is shown.
Effects with Dither Lock on:
Lasso: makes the lasso move the image two pixels at a time,
maintaining the proper coloring. Otherwise dithered images would
change colors every other pixel movement.
Bucket: see section on Dithered colors
Lines, hollow and solid shapes: makes lines at least two pixels wide,
aligning the endpoints only on even pixels.
Marquee: aligns the marquee to even pixels, and moves the image two
pixels at a time.
Pencil: makes the pencil two pixels wide, drawing only on even-paired
pixels.
Eraser: aligns the eraser to even pixels.
Dither Lock also causes FatBits to display every two pixel-pairs as
one dithered pixel.
Pen Mode
Keyboard command: command-.
Use pen mode to change the way the pen draws.
Text Mode
Keyboard command: command-a
Use text mode to change the way text is drawn.
Shadow
Keyboard command: command-@
Use this to adjust how far away the shadow is drawn from the shape. The horizontal scroll bar c
