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SCEDIT v1.0 7/25/91 George Christopher Thomas Copyright (c) 1991, George Christopher Thomas ***** disclaimer *** disclaimer *** disclaimer *** disclaimer ****** * * * Some monitors are not capable of dealing with all of the modes * * that the driving display card is capable of. This can result in * * damage to the monitor. SCEDIT does not attempt to prohibit * * any video modes. Do not knowingly select a video mode that your * * monitor can not deal with! * * * ***** disclaimer *** disclaimer *** disclaimer *** disclaimer ****** File Viewing and Screen Editing Utility ----------------------------------------- SCEDIT is a utility for the display and editing of images. Currently it can show images in the GIF (Compuserve), TGA (Targa - TrueVision), BMP (Windows 3), and PCX (PC Paintbrush) formats. You control where to place the image on the screen and what kind of color conversion to use. A true-color (16,24,32 bits/pixel) image will always be displayed using the Uniform Palette capability. Color mapped images (1,4,8 bits/pixel) can be displayed using either a Uniform Palette or the palette encoded with the image. Required Environment ----------------------------------------- SCEDIT can use either the Vesa or Tiga environments. It will try to use Vesa first, then Tiga. If either are found, it aborts. 1. Vesa - tested with several Tseng ET4000 based VGAs. Supports Tseng HiColor 16bit color modes, if available. Since I determine a Tseng board by searching for the Tseng copyright in the VGA bios, it may have some problems with some Tseng based boards. Never tried with an ET3000 based VGA. Does not work with non Vesa modes - only Vesa defined modes, 640x400 and above. Standard VGA mode 0x13 (320x200) and its variations are for the birds. Using Vesa, SCEDIT MUST BE RUN FROM THE VGA SCREEN. It will not work when executed from the Monochrome Adapter screen. 7/15/91 - tested with more boards: Tseng ET4000 based (STB, Boca, Speedstar, Vermont Microsystem's Design Master), Video Seven VRAM II (1MB), ATI VGA Wonder. 2. Tiga - tested with Vermont Microsystem's boards, Hercules Graphics Station, TI 34020 SDB boards. Supports Hercules Graphics Station at 24-bits, and Vermont Microsystem's Cobra Elite at 24-bits (somewhat of a hack to get Tiga to work with 24bit Elite). Will not work correctly on a 4-bit/pixel Tiga board. Notes: 1) On stock Hercules Graphics Station card (with just the 1Mb VRAM), the 16-bit (32,768 color) modes and the 640x480x8x2 double buffered mode (the last mode listed) do not work. This is due to lack of memory for Tiga download primitives. Note that the 512x480x24bit mode is also memory deficient - but more importantly the TI34010 GSP's graphics instructions can't deal with more than 16 bits per pixel. Therefore, the 512x480x24bit mode is done completely on the host. It is conceivable that the 16-bit (32k color) and the 640x480x8x2 modes will work on versions of the Hercules card which have the DRAM populated - this is uncharted territory. So DO NOT SELECT THESE MODES UNDER TIGA!!!! 2) Under Tiga, SCEDIT prints out a bunch of status messages to the DOS screen. If run from the Monochome Adapter screen you will see these messages. If run from the VGA screen, you will not see them. This will be removed in later versions. Support for Hercules Graphics Station at 16-bits/pixel is forthcoming. SCEDIT requires an expanded memory driver. It will try to allocate 2MB, but will take whatever is available. The 800x600x16bit or 512x480x32bit modes will require about 550K to do the largest saveunder. If you use the save/restore screen functions, you will need much more memory. The 550K figure also is with the default fonts. Under Tiga, if you load a huge font (say above 30 pts), you will need much more memory. EMS is used only for saving/restoring under menus ("saveunders"). Lack of EMS will simply mean that menus are not restored. SCEDIT is still quite usable - just use one part of the screen for menus and the rest for images. The biggest hog of EMS (besides the save/restore screen) is the "about" dialog box. If you save a screen, then exit SCEDIT without restoring it, SCEDIT may not restore the EMS memory to the system. It also requires a Microsoft or compatible mouse driver. SCEDIT needs most of the lower 640K of memory to function correctly. I use it with about 470K free (as CHKDSK reports). I have had problems in machines with less memory. SCEDIT will recognize network disks and floppies. I recommend not loading images off of floppies, as it is deathly slow. SCEDIT runs on all 386/486 machines. It should run on 286s, but I have never tried it. Under Tiga, SCEDIT will try to download the RealTime fatbits extension, tigafbit.rlm. This file should either be in the current directory, or in the directory specified in the TIGA environment variable (in the -l<path> spot). Under Tiga, SCEDIT will create a configuration file, SCEDIT.CFG, in the directory where SCEDIT.EXE was executed from. This is to speed up the Tiga initialization. It sometimes does strange things. This is due to an unfathomable bug in SCEDIT. I am trying to nail this one. If you have lot of problems, run scedit with the -n switch: SCEDIT -n This will force a rebuild of the configuration. If SCEDIT really screws up, and your video is all screwed up, you can get back to DOS by clicking on the right mouse button, then hitting any key. This usually works, but may not if SCEDIT is really lost (SCEDIT has been very stable, so this should be a rare, if not totally unknown, event). Philosophy ----------------------------------------- SCEDIT was originally written to address the need for a simple screen editing and file viewing facility. As it evolved, more emphasis has been place on file viewing. As a result, the screen editing functions have atrophied - they are still there, but not nearly as functional as a real "paint" program. I will probably not be enhancing these drawing functions - unless there is a Great Public Outcry! The left mouse button is wired to control "actions", such as the drawing features. The right mouse button is wired to control menus. Because of the disparity between the Vesa and Tiga environments, there are several features which work only in particular environment. These are enumerated in a later section. How to Use - File Viewing Tutorial ----------------------------------------- Type SCEDIT and hit return. A cursor will appear. Click on the right button to pop up a menu. Menu entries with a little right arrow denote submenus - simply move cursor over the arrow to bring up the submenu. At anytime, moving the cursor outside of a menu will close that menu. The exception to this is the Load menu. The load menu will not go away until OK or Cancel is pressed. The load menu is not considered a submenu, and therefore the envoking menu does not have a right arrow next to the "Load" entry. Try clicking on the Load entry. You will see the load menu pop-up. Note the field for the Drive, Directory, and Filename. Note that wild cards are supported for the Filename. If you click on one of these fields the arrow cursor will disappear and a text cursor will appear. You can use the backspace key to delete characters. Hitting the return or a mouse button when finished will update the file box, using the new information. Look at the file box. You will see a list of files, one of which having a highlight bar. Clicking on a highlight bar will: - if the bar is over a file, try to load that file, - if the bar is over a directory, switch to that directory, - if the bar is over a drive, switch to that drive. Clicking on another file with move the highlight bar. Clicking on an already highlighted file name is a short cut for clicking on OK. Beware switching to drive A or B - if your disk is out of the drive, and DOS issues a "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" message, you will NOT SEE THAT MESSAGE because you are on the hi-res screen! You can also use the scroll bars to navigate through the file box. After clicking on a legal file (recognized format), SCEDIT will close the load menu and display a box depicting the image's size. You can position the box anywhere, even clipped, on the screen. Clicking the right button will cancel the image, clicking the left will start displaying it. There are a few other things - you can turn on/off the Uniform Palette, and if your board supports multiple modes you can switch back and forth between them, etc. Just try it. How to Use - Other Features Tutorial ----------------------------------------- Here is an enumeration of the various menus. If an arrow is after a menu entry, that entry has a submenu. If an * is before a menu entry, that entry is merely a toggling switch. The main menu is popped up with the right mouse button. Notes: after loading an image using the uniform palette capability, you must explicitly load the uniform palette (using the palette submenu). main menu: draw -> drawing functions, assigned to left button state -> state changes - colors, rops, clipping, etc mark -> area mark stuff - boxes, polys edit -> fatbits, palette editing load file loading submenu save file saving submenu about a little message quit exit back to DOS draw: - these are assigned to the left mouse button. Once selected they stay attached to left mouse button until another is selected. Subject to current color, fill flag, ROP, clipping (all set from states submenu): line draws vectors. click on left to anchor first point, click on left to anchor and draw each line. click on right to stop. cline same as line, but connects first point with last, when right button is pressed. sketch click on left button, move mouse to draw points, click either button to stop. area move cursor to desired point, click on left button to seed fill from there. Tiga only. circle move cursor to desired center point, click on left button, move mouse to move circle, click on left to accept, right to abort. Tiga only. ellipse move cursor to desired center point, click on left button, move mouse to move circle, click on left to accept, right to abort. Tiga only. rect move cursor to desired point, click on left to start, drag rubber rect to desired point, click on left to accept, right to abort. flood move cursor to desired point, click on left to flood screen point move cursor to desired point, click on left to draw a point. blkmov must have previously marked an area using the mark submenu. click on left button, move box to desired location, click on left to accept, right to abort. copy box from marked area to destination area. zoom must have previously marked an area using the mark submenu. click on left button, stretch box to desired location, click on left to accept, right to abort. Will do a "stretch blit" from marked area to destination area. Tiga only. zoomout must have previously marked an area using the mark submenu. click on left button, stretch box to desired location, click on left to accept, right to abort. Will do a "stretch blit" from marked area to destination area. Variation of zoom. Tiga only. poly don't work. copy poly must have previously marked a poly using the mark submenu. click on left button, position poly's bounding box to desired location, click on left to accept, right to abort. Will copy poly from marked area to destination area. rgb mesh this is a complicated one. basically, you move the cursor to a desired vertex, click on left, select the RGB color you want, click on right to confirm RGB color. Keep moving and selecting new vertices (with RGB colors). Keeps a "running" triangle mesh. Click on right to stop. states: - these are for setting the drawing states - colors, ROPs, clipping, palettes, video modes, fill flag, color conversion: color brings up a 16x16 grid of all 256 colors. the current color has a X over it. If you click on left button inside of the color grid, the color you were over becomes the new drawing color. if you click outside the color grid, the current color remains unchanged. rop -> bring up the rop submenu. these are all the Tiga Rops. Vesa supports only s s NOT d s XOR d at the moment. selecting others under Vesa will result in strange things. Under Tiga, Rops apply to most everything- all of the drawing stuff, including blkmovs, but not RGB mesh. fill -> brings up fill submenu. for setting the fill flag. affects drawing stuff - rects, circle, ellipse, poly (when implemented). palette -> palette selection submenu. modes -> all available video modes. just pick the one you want and away you go. clipping -> clipping submenu. * Uniform Palette if on, all images are loaded into a uniform palette. Not all that great for 24-bit images, but fine for previewing. if off, all images are loading using their "native" palettes. Exception: 16,24,32 bit "true color" images ignore this flag and are always loaded using the uniform palette. * transparency does not draw pixels of color 0. used to "overlay" images with black areas over previous images. Not implemented yet. pick color move cursor to pixel whose color you want to be the current drawing color, then click left button. Not implemented yet. nearest color brings up the palette editing menu. pick the RGB values you want for the current drawing color, will set the current drawing color to the nearest available color in the palette. * verbose if on, gives information about files being viewing, etc. For my debugging purposes, as it either prints to the monochrome adaptor screen, or in Vesa, prints right onto the graphics screen, screwing everything up. I will eventually have this work with nice graphical text boxes. But, stay away for the moment. palette: - for setting current display palette, saving/restoring palettes, and palette cycling. * uniform palette used for uniform color conversion. * cone distribution palette with lots of colors/shades. good for drawing stuff. * grey scale an approximation to a real grey scale. Fun to load an image using the uniform palette capability, then selecting this palette for a cool grey scale image. * acad 16 why? * acad 256 - because we can. * last image's palette loads the palette which the previous image had. has bugs. push push current palette onto a stack pop pop palette from stack and make current. cycle cycles the current palette. Use -,+ to control direction, 0-9 for speed, space bar to pause (until another key press). Use left mouse button to stop at current cycle, right mouse button to stop and restore to original, uncycled, palette. clipping: - for setting the clipping window. respected by file loads and drawing stuff. set to box much like the rectangle draw. allows you to select the position and size of the clipping window. set to full screen resets clipping window edit box allows you to edit size/position of window. described below. mark: - for marking areas of the image for later manipulation. box much like rectangle draw. allows you to select the position and size of the mark box edit box allows you to edit size/position of window. described below. line poly mark an area bounded by line segments sketch poly mark an area bounded by an arbitrary polygon. has some bugs. push box push the image in the box onto a stack pop box pop an image from the stack, allowing you to place box anywhere. push poly similar to push/pop box, but operates on the pop poly polygon mark. Not implemented yet. save screen saves entire screen to EMS. restore screen restore entire screen from EMS. edit: - for editing areas of the image, and for editing the current color's RGB. edit fatbits brings up the fatbits box. Works by capturing what is under the cursor when the left button is pressed. This is blown up in the fatbits box. You can then move the cursor into the fatbits box and draw individual pixels using the current color and rop. click on right button to stop. edit palette brings up the palette box. adjust the current color's RGB using the RGB and HSV sliders (using left button). click on right within the box to select the changed color, outside the box to abort any changes. set fatbits size -> brings up size submenu. You can pick 2,4,8,16,32,64 as the fatbits size. The size of the total fatbits box can't be changed. This changes the size of the blown up pixels within the box. Also applies to the RealTime fatbits. * grid turns off/on the fatbits grid * antialias filter when on, editing fatbits will try to smooth the selected pixel with it's surrounding pixels (averages RGBs, then picks nearest color). Doesn't work all that well. * RealTime fatbits Turns on/off the Tiga realtime fatbits display. This blows up the pixels under the cursor, every vertical retrace, using the Tiga download interrupt extensions. for display only. resize/move realtime lets you resize/move the realtime fatbits box. See the edit box description below. reset realtime fatbits resets the fatbits box to the upper left of the screen. Notes: the realtime fatbits are for Tiga only. It does not save what is under the box (not yet...). It respects the fatbits size, but not the grid or antialias features. load: - self explanatory. Loads TGA, GIF, BMP, PCX, FNT, PAL files, with the following restrictions: GIF - only 87a format, single images. TGA - not known if SCEDIT supports Black&White format. (no test images). PCX - bugs with certain images - when a scanline is run length encoded across scanlines. BMP - uncompressed only, no OS/2 bitmaps. FNT - Tiga only. works Great. PAL - ascii palette list. first line is "PAL", second line is # of colors, rest of lines are Red Green Blue values. RAW - SCEDIT format for a raw bitmap. First word of file is x size, second word is y size, subsequent bytes are image data. no palette info included. save: - self explanatory. Saves GIF, RAW, PAL files. You must have a box marked to save an image. GIF - there is a bug in SCEDIT. After saving the first GIF file, subsequent saves are screwed up. I am working on this. PAL - same as above. RAW - same as above. Notes: bug when trying to over-write an existing file. edit box - all things that have an "edit box" entry use the same routine. When you pick edit box, the box will be displayed with 9 "handles". There is one at each corner, one at each edge midpoint, and one in the center. Move the cursor to the handle you wish to grab, and hold the left button down while you drag. Repeat until box is the size and position that you want. The center handle moves the box, the other handles resize the box. Then click on the right button to indicate you are done. Notes: Most of this stuff works in 16/24 bit modes. The exceptions are the fatbits, palette editing, and palette menu functions. Configuration File ----------------------------------------- In Tiga, SCEDIT creates a configuration file which lists all of the Tiga modes. The first time this may take a moment or two. Subsequent executions of SCEDIT use this file to get the default font, default palette, and the available modes. The file is SCEDIT.CFG and will be in the same directory as SCEDIT.EXE (SCEDIT looks at the execution string at the end of it's PSP to determine this -- DOS 5.0 should work...I have used it with DOS 3.3 and DOS 4.01). There is an example configuration file: SCEDIT v1.0 device TIGA font none palette none reserved *** this line is RESERVED! *** current mode 0 number of modes 5 mode 1024 768 8 8192 8 1 mode 1024 384 8 8192 8 1 mode 800 600 8 8192 8 1 mode 640 480 8 8192 8 1 mode 512 480 32 16384 8 1 SCEDIT's parser is really stupid -- everything must be in the exact place. If you want to add a default Tiga font, replace the font line with: font <drive:path\fontfile.fnt> with exactly 1 space between the font and drive/path. This font will be loaded when SCEDIT starts up and after each mode switch. The Tiga font austin20.fnt is a cool font. The same goes for the palette line. The palette file is a standard SCEDIT .PAL file. If you switch Tiga boards (which have different modes, etc), you will want to either delete the old config file, or use the -n flag: SCEDIT -n which will force a configuration rebuild. In VESA, SCEDIT will ignore the configuration file. It will not check for one, read one, or write one out. This makes it relatively easy to switch back and forth between Vesa and Tiga. Limitations and Known Bugs ----------------------------------------- The input fields in the Load menu will overflow if too many characters are entered. There are some cursor bugs under Vesa. The fatbits, when used with a size of 2 or 4, will sometimes screw up. The connected line, cline, does not work correctly. The next to last line segment is not drawn. Future Support ----------------------------------------- The input field overflow problem in the Load menu will be fixed. Cursor bugs will be fixed. The following file formats will have the following enhancements: GIF - 89 format, multiple images, etc. FLI - small format, Autodesk Animator. FLC - large format, Autodesk Animator Professional. TGA - Black&White, if I can find a test image... BMP - compressed format. No plans for OS/Who? format. PCX - fix stupid bug FNT - for Vesa. I have this code ready to roll. I hear the distant baying of TIF supporters. It would be a tremendous task to write a TIF decoder which could handle all the TIF formats, but I am considering adding support for the commonest formats. The main obstacle is the lack of a copy of the TIF spec. Better Tseng detection. Flesh out the drawing functions for Vesa (circles, etc). Some of the functions in SCEDIT will probably be removed or drastically altered. I am not happy with the save screen, restore screen, push box, pop box, push poly, pop poly features. I might axe them. I might rewrite to eliminate the stack metaphor, perhaps moving away from expanded memory, perhaps using the hard drive for storage. Who knows - certainly not me! I think the drawing functions are quite primitive and are really useless for anything other than hacking around, but after all SCEDIT is not a paint program. Eliminate the need for expanded memory, at least under Vesa. On 1Mb VGAs there is a fair amount of non-displayed memory to use instead of using expanded memory. Cool Things ----------------------------------------- As always, I am on the hunt for the following devices - these should work with v1.0 SCEDIT: * 1280x1024x256color Vesa VGA (packed pixel), * 1024x768 16bit HiColor Vesa VGA (Yeah!), * 1024x768 16bit or 24bit Tiga (Yeah! Preferrably a 34020!), will not work with v1.0, but I am curious: * any Vesa VGAs with non-chain 4 modes. Non-chain 4 is why SCEDIT is so fast on Tseng ET4000 based boards. Although the Vesa spec allows for "non-chain 4" video modes, SCEDIT currently ignores any non-chain 4 VESA mode. It selectively uses non-chain 4, for rectangles only. In my experience, non- chain 4 mode, in high resolution modes (>64K), works only on a Tseng ET4000. Video Seven and ATI both fail (others may too - I have tested just these). This is understandable, as non-chain 4 seems to be directly descended from the old EGA 16 color planar architecture, with its 64K memory limitation. Non-chain 4 lets you write 4 8-bit pixels at once. The Great Clone Maker, whose name begins with a 'c' and ends with a 'q', from the Lone Star state, has advertized their new accelerated VGA (goes up to 640x480x 256 colors - boy they're really out on a limb this time... yah...) as having both packed pixel and "multiple plane" modes. I suspect that the multiple plane modes are really nothing more than non-chain 4 in disguise, but who knows. I digress. Anyhow, Bravo Tseng! Disclaimer -------------------------------------- SCEDIT is freeware. You are granted the right to use SCEDIT for as long as you like, provided it is not used for commercial purposes or for any profit. SCEDIT may be freely copied and distributed but may not be sold. You may not reverse-engineer, disassemble, modify, alter, rename, contaminate with a virus, or otherwise muck with SCEDIT. Just use it. SCEDIT is distributed without warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall I, George Christopher Thomas, be liable for any errors contained herein or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of the SCEDIT product or documentation. Nasty copyright stuff: 'GIF' and 'Graphics Interchange Format' are trademarks of CompuServe Incorporated, an H&R Block company. Epilogue -------------------------------------- Trademarks are property of their respective companies. This document is by no means intended as a brand or product endorsement. Many thanks to Tom Haviland for his exhaustive testing of SCEDIT with the Hercules Graphics Station card. I am not charging for this utility. Feel free to distribute it, provided it is distributed intact, as SCEDIT10.ZIP: scedit.exe scedit.doc tigafbit.rlm If you do upload SCEDIT10.ZIP somewhere, this is what the description should say: "file viewing utility, Tiga & Vesa VGA". Note that the distribution name is SCEDITxx.ZIP, where xx is the version number (i.e., 10 for version 1.0, 11 for version 1.1, etc...) If you really like the program, you might consider sending me a few bucks to support further development and bug fixes. Donators will, of course, receive the latest version. Lastly, let me know if you have a Tseng HiColor VGA which is not detected correctly (my bios "Tseng" search may let a few implementations fall through the cracks...). Send bug reports, suggestions, etc, to (at least until May 1992): G. Chris Thomas 221 Pine St, Apt 3 Burlington, VT 05401 I hope you find this utility a useful one.