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WHAT IS FormCode/Gen? . . . . . . . . . 1 COMPATIBILITY:. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 INSTALLATION & SETUP: . . . . . . . . . 2 HOW TO USE THIS MANUAL: . . . . . . . . 3 WYSIWYG APPLICATIONS: . . . . . . . . . 3 DIFFERENCES FROM TYPICAL WINDOWS APPLICATIONS: . . . . . . . . . 4 PRINTING FROM WITHIN WINDOWS: . . . . . 5 CODE GENERATION STRATEGY: . . . . . . . 5 Program Files: . . . . . . . . . . 5 Understanding the Generated Code:. 6 SCREEN LAYOUT:. . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 DESIGN UNITS: . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 FORM DESIGN OBJECTS:. . . . . . . . . . 11 BASIC DESIGN PROCEDURES:. . . . . . . . 12 Drawing Objects: . . . . . . . . . 12 Zooming and Panning: . . . . . . . 13 Selecting Objects: . . . . . . . . 13 De-Selecting Objects:. . . . . . . 14 Moving Objects:. . . . . . . . . . 14 Stretching Objects:. . . . . . . . 14 Editing Object Definitions:. . . . 14 MENU DESCRIPTIONS:. . . . . . . . . . . 14 The File Menu: . . . . . . . . . . 15 New: 15 Open: 15 Save: 15 Save As: 15 Gen Code: 15 Check Sheet: 15 Print: 15 Page Setup: 15 Label Setup: 16 Open DBF: 16 Memory Left: 16 Exit: 16 About: 16 The Edit Menu: . . . . . . . . . . 16 Delete: 16 Cut: 17 Copy: 17 Paste: 17 Move To Back: 17 Move To Front: 17 Group: 17 Un Group: 17 Toggle Select: 17 The Alignment Menu:. . . . . . . . 18 Center on Horz: 18 Center on Vert: 18 Snap X to Grid: 18 Snap Y to Grid: 18 Mark Align Ref: 18 Align Left: 18 Align Top: 18 Align Right: 18 Align Bottom: 18 The Settings Menu: . . . . . . . . 18 Grid: 19 Disp Grid: 19 Disp Crosshair: 19 Rulers On: 19 Gravity On: 19 Show Text Ext: 19 Hide Images: 19 Box Defaults: 19 Line Defaults: 19 Text Defaults: 19 Table Defaults: 19 DESIGN OBJECT DESCRIPTIONS: . . . . . . 20 Box Objects: . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Line Width 20 Fill Pattern/Shade 20 Border Type and shadow 20 Line Objects:. . . . . . . . . . . 20 Text Objects:. . . . . . . . . . . 20 Field 21 Expr 21 Build... 21 Font.. 21 Box... 22 Pattern.. 22 Justification 22 Margins 22 Table Objects: . . . . . . . . . . 22 Table Title 22 Column Title and Total Rows 22 Border Type 22 Define Columns 22 Column Width (23); Column Body Background (23); Edit Title, Body, Total (23) Check-box Objects: . . . . . . . . 24 Bitmap Image Objects:. . . . . . . 24 WHAT IS FormCode/Gen? FormCode/Gen is a unique piece of software that allows you to design printed forms and mailing labels in the powerful graphical environment of Microsoft Windows and then generates native dBASE code to print these forms from your favorite database management system using your data. Windows is not required for printing the forms, only for designing them. Your forms can contain text with a variety of fonts, fill shades and patterns, lines, boxes, background gray-shading and fill patterns, tables, check-boxes, and bitmap images. FormCode/Gen combines the power of Windows' graphical, WYSIWYG, environment for interactively designing the forms with the powerful data management capabilities of the dBASE systems for actually printing them with data. FormCode/Gen has been highly optimized for printing at high speeds - which is untypical of most windows applications. Code generated by FormCode/Gen can print forms with speeds close to the theoretical printing speed of the printer! The code generated by FormCode/Gen is native dBASE code so there is no need for any external libraries, etc. This also allows free distribution of the generated code. The generated code is highly structured and is divided into a user and a system section. The system section contains the actual coordinates of fields, font information, etc, and can change when modifications to the forms are made. The user should never modify this section of the code since the changes will be lost when the form is modified and code is re-generated. The user section contains the query commands such as opening databases, setting relations and filters, initializing and incrementing variables and record pointers, etc. FormCode/Gen generates a template for this section of the program. The user can modify it according to his/her needs. Designing forms in FormCode/Gen involves the following steps: Start up the program from Microsoft Windows; design your form/label using the editing commands; open any database files that you need and place the dBASE fields on the form/label; save your file and generate code; add the necessary commands for setting up your query to the generated code; run your program to print the forms you just designed. Note that you can also print your forms from within Windows while you are designing them, but these forms will not have actual data in them. COMPATIBILITY: The code generated by FormCode/Gen is compatible with the following systems: dBASE III Plus, dBASE IV, FoxBASE Plus, FoxPro (both 1.0 & 2.0), Clipper Summer 87, and Clipper 5.0. Run time justification of memo fields, however, only works with FoxPro (both 1.0 & 2.0) and Clipper 5.0. The output is compatible with all HP LaserJet and compatible printers starting with the LaserJet Series II and up. For the most part, the output is also compatible with the older LaserJet model with the exception of dealing with paper sizes other than the default. The program requires HP LaserJet printer driver version 3.61 or later for Microsoft Windows for the LaserJet Series III printers and version 3.3 or later for the LaserJet Series II and older printers. Though older driver versions may work they have not been tested. To find out which version your printer driver is go to the printer- setup dialog from the Windows Control Panel and then click on the About button. It is also recommended that you use printer driver for the same type of printer on your development system as your destination printer. For example code generated by using a printer driver for HP LaserJet III should be run only on Series III printers and not on Series II, etc. Using a different driver may not always cause problems, but some font selection codes do get interpreted differently by the different printer models. FormCode/Gen allows you to use all internal and cartridge fonts for the LaserJet and compatible printers. Soft-fonts can also be used. However, soft-fonts, if used, must be permanent soft-fonts. That is they must be loaded in the printer before code generated by FormCode/Gen is run. Usually soft-font software will modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to automatically download all soft-fonts. FormCode/Gen itself will not download any soft-fonts. INSTALLATION & SETUP: To install FormCode/Gen on hard disk C:, create a subdirectory \FCG on the C: drive and then set this directory as your current working directory by typing CD \FCG. Next type: A:UNPK_FCG This will place all FormCode/Gen files in the directory \FCG. FormCode/Gen needs an extra printer installed from Windows. This printer must be identical in type to your default printer and should also have the same cartridges installed for it as your default printer. Of course, both of these printers must be HP LaserJet compatible. Also, the font cartridges installed for these printers must exist on the final destination printer where the dBASE code will run to print the forms/labels that you design. To install this extra printer follow these steps: Edit the WIN.INI file in your Windows directory using a text editor. Using your favorite text editor or Windows Notepad, add a line to the [ports] section of this file. This line should be: FCG.TMP= After you have added this line, save the WIN.INI file and start up Windows. From the Windows Control Panel double click on the Printer icon. This will bring up the Printers dialog box. Click on the Add Printer button and from the list of printers select the printer that you will be printing to. Windows will tell you that a driver already exists for the selected printer. Select the Current option to tell Windows to use the existing driver. After installing this new printer, click on the Configure button. This will bring up the Printers-Configure dialog box. From the list of ports presented, select FCG.TMP. This option will only appear in the ports list box if you modified the WIN.INI file properly as described earlier. Next click on the Setup button to add any font cartridges that you will be using. Make the newly installed printer active from the Printers dialog box. However, do not select this printer as your default printer! This completes the installation process. You should now have two printers installed from Windows. The first one is your default printer that you previously had installed in Windows. This printer is connected to the actual physical port that you will be printing to (e.g LPT1:, COM1:, etc). The second printer is identical to the default printer in type and font cartridges and is an active printer, but it is connected to the pseudo port called FCG.TMP. HOW TO USE THIS MANUAL: Like most people, we are sure our users hate reading program documentation and they are justified in doing so. However, we encourage you to read the following sections before you use FormCode/Gen. Believe us, this will save you some grief later on. Important sections to read: What Is FormCode/Gen, Installation and Setup, Differences from Typical Windows Applications, Printing from Within Windows, Code Generation Strategy, and Bitmap Images (if you will be using bitmaps). The rest of the manual can be used as a reference. Use it only when you can't figure something out. WYSIWYG APPLICATIONS: As you perhaps already know, WYSIWYG is an acronym for 'What You See Is What You Get'. In WYSIWYG applications, the results of your efforts displayed on the CRT screen closely match the final printed results. Typically this means that fonts, and graphics are displayed on the CRT screen as they would print on the printer. Almost all Windows applications including FormCode/Gen are WYSIWYG applications. Even thought these applications display results that match the printed output much better than non- Windows applications, they have their limitations. Following is a brief discussion of some of these limitations: The number one source of inaccuracy is fonts. There are several reasons for this. First of all is the difference in resolution between your printer (300 dots/inch) and the display screen (usually under 100 dots/inch). It is simply impossible to create fonts that are identical. The second big difference is the source of the font. The font that is used in Windows to display your text is more than likely from a different vendor than the font that you will print with. Windows tries to find the closest display font that matches the printer font that you select, but in a lot of cases the font is only remotely similar. Another source of difference in FormCode/Gen arises from the fact that FormCode/Gen allows you to select a pattern for the text foreground also. This capability is built into the Laser Jet and compatible printers. However, trying to display the exact foreground patterns in Windows is not possible without sacrificing a great deal of speed. For this reason, FormCode/Gen displays the different text foreground patterns by using a different color for the text foreground. One more source of inaccuracy appears in bitmaps. Since bitmaps are also designed for the printers' resolution, displaying them in Windows usually means shrinking them. This shrinking can often result in images that look fairly distorted. However, these images will print OK. DIFFERENCES FROM TYPICAL WINDOWS APPLICATIONS: FormCode/Gen works like most Windows applications in most aspects and also complies to the IBM Common User Access (CUA) standards. However, since its end product, the dBASE code, has to run outside of Windows and still has to produce results that you got when printing from Windows, FormCode/Gen has to do a few things differently from most typical Windows applications. The biggest difference has to do with how you set up your printer and how you print from Windows. FormCode/Gen completely bypasses the Windows device drivers for printing forms from Windows. This gives us two advantages: The printing speed is orders of magnitude faster, and the forms print identically from within Windows or from outside windows (i.e from dBASE). The disadvantage is that the printer setup is local to FormCode/Gen and has nothing to do with the printer setup of Windows, and that you can not use the print manager when printing from FormCode/Gen. There are a few other differences which are mainly there because neither Windows nor the IBM CUA specifies some functions that we believed are important. So we implemented them. If you don't like things that don't comply with the CUA spec, just don't use these features, but we bet you will. The first one is aborting a stretch or draw operation: In most Windows applications, if you have started a stretch or draw operation by pressing the mouse button, you can not abort it. With FormCode/Gen, you simply press Esc to abort the operation in the middle. The second one has to do with the mouse right key. We use it for de-selecting objects. You can de-select single objects by right clicking on them, or you can de-select by area. The third one is that FormCode/Gen allows you to move the cursor out of the edit window even during operations such as stretch, draw, or move. This allows you to use the scroll bars in the middle of a stretch or draw operation. You could even move or re-size the window in the middle of such operation. However, you should refrain from using menu commands while in the middle of such operations. The primary purpose of this implementation is to allow the user to use the scroll bars in the middle of operations. Most windows programs do not allow you to do this, however, we felt that this allows greater ease in editing so we implemented it. PRINTING FROM WITHIN WINDOWS: The forms you design will be destined to printing from dBASE eventually. Certainly, however, you are going to want to print them from within Windows in your design phase. Since FormCode/Gen needs some extra information that the Windows device drivers do not provide, you need to make sure that an extra printer is installed as described in the Installation Section. The other important thing to remember when printing from Windows is that you can not use the Windows Print Manager to print from FormCode/Gen in Windows. The Print Manager must be turned off from the Windows Control Panel by first clicking on the printer icon and then un-checking the Use Print Manager check- box when the printers dialog appears. CODE GENERATION STRATEGY: Program Files: FormCode/Gen deals with three different files when generating code: PCLDRV.PRG, <design>.PRG, and <design>.MPG, where <design> is the name of your design. The PCLDRV.PRG file contains the low level printer driver routines. All generated code makes calls to procedures in this file. The procedures in this file remain fixed. Depending upon which option you selected from the File Menu, Page Setup command, the contents of this file either get appended to the generated program in <design>.PRG, or a SET PROCEDURE TO PCLDRV statement is generated to make these procedures available to the generated code. Which option works best for you will be determined by which dBASE system you are using (dBASE, Fox, Clipper, etc), and how many designs you deal with, etc. The <design>.MPG file contains the main program. When you first create a design, select the Generate Template Main Program option from the Page Setup dialog (the default). Having this option checked will make FormCode/Gen generate a template main program. You can modify this generated template main program in the <design>.MPG file. However, after you have made changes, make sure that you un-check the Generate Template Main Program check-box from the Page Setup dialog box so that your changes do not get overwritten. FormCode/Gen can only generate a template main program. In almost all cases you will have to modify the generated main program to include code for opening database files, setting indexes and relations, and defining the query. FormCode/Gen combines the code contained in the <design>.MPG file with the generated procedures into <design>.PRG. This allows you to make any changes that you may wish to make in the <design>.MPG file. When code is generated, the contents of <design>.MPG automatically get included in the <design>.PRG file thus combining hand written code with generated code! Understanding the Generated Code: FormCode/Gen generates several procedures for your design. The procedures FCGINIT, FCGFIXOBJ, and FCGVAROBJ are always generated. Other procedures such as FCGTBROWn and FCGTBENn are generated only if the design contained any table objects. FCGINIT defines and initializes all global variables. All global variable names begin with FCG and are therefore easy to identify and purge using the RELEASE ALL LIKE FCG* command. FCGFIXOBJ draws all fixed objects in the design. Fixed objects include lines, boxes, static text, and table borders, etc. FCGVAROBJ draws the variable objects, i.e field text and table data. If you selected the Use Printer Macros check-box from the Page Setup dialog box, FormCode/Gen will define and use a printer macro for all objects that FCGFIXOBJ draws. The procedures FCGFIXOBJ, FCVAROBJ, FCGTBROWn, etc, all contain low level information such as sheet coordinates, etc, for your design. You should never modify these procedures since your changes will be lost when code is re-generated. If your design contained any table objects, FormCode/Gen will generate either one or two procedures for each table, depending on whether the table had a totals row. These procedures are called FCGTBRWn, and FCGTBENn where n is a unique number that FormCode/Gen arbitrarily assigns to each table. FCGTBRWn prints the specified row of the table identified by n (e.g FCGTBRW0 is used to print one row of table 0), and FCGTBENn prints the totals column for table n. The remaining parts of the table such as the border and background pattern, etc, are printed from FCGFIXOBJ along with other fixed objects. These procedures (i.e FCGFIXOBJ, FCGVAROBJ, FCGTBROWn, etc) themselves, however, are not self contained. That is, they do not generate the escape sequences needed to driver your printer. Instead, they make calls to procedures in the printer driver library file. The name of the file that contains the library procedures is PCLDRV.PRG, and it comes on your distribution disk. The procedures in this file must be accessible to the calling procedures. FormCode/Gen makes sure that these procedures are accessible either by generating a 'SET PROCEDURE TO PCLDRV' in the main program or by actually copying the contents of PCLDRV.PRG into the generated code. Which action is taken depends on whether the Append Procedures From PCLDRV.PRG check-box in the Page Setup dialog was checked or not. If you un-check the Append Procedures From PCLDRV.PRG check-box in the Page Setup dialog box, the generated code will not contain the procedures from PCLDRV.PRG. Instead a SET PROCEDURE TO PCLDRV statement will be generated in the main program. This will make all procedures in the PCLDRV.PRG file accessible to the main program. However, on some systems (for example dBASE III Plus, FoxBase Plus, etc) the procedures FCGFIXOBJ and FCGVAROBJ themselves will now not be accessible to the main program. This approach will therefore not work on these systems. One more important aspect of generated code that you need to understand is the use of global variables. FormCode/Gen uses variable and procedure names that start with the letters FCG. This keeps them separate from all user variables and procedures. Some of the variables that the program uses are global variables so they take up space even when printing is done. A simple solution for this problem is to delete all variables that start with FCG using the command: RELEASE ALL LIKE FCG*, which deletes all memory variables that start with FCG. This, however, should be done only after all the printing procedures have been executed. The following example contains a main program as it was generated by FormCode/Gen followed by a modified version of the same program. Following the program is a line by line explanation of the code. (Note: Some long lines wrap around): 1: * This is the template main program 2: * Upon code generation, it is placed in the file with the .MPG extension. 3: * From there it is included in the .PRG file along with other generated 4: * procedures. 5: * You should modify this main program to add necessary statements for 6: * opening databases, initializing and increment variables, etc. Make all 7: * changes to the .MPG File and NOT the .PRG file. Also, after you have 8: * modified the .MPG file, un-check the "Generate Template Main Program" 9: * from the File->PageSetup dialog box. This will keep the .MPG file from 10: * being overwritten by FromCode/Gen 11: SET TALK OFF 12: * Comment out the next line for debugging. 13: SET CONSOLE OFF 14: SET PROCEDURE TO INV 15: DO FCGINIT 16: SET PRINT ON 17: DO FCGSTART WITH 1, 0, 2, 4, 300 18: ?? FCGRSTVAR 19: 20: FCGPAGE = 1 21: DO WHILE FCGPAGE <= 1 22: DO FCGFIXOBJ 23: * Code for printing table 0. 24: FCGTBROW = 0 25: DO WHILE FCGTBROW < 6 26: DO FCGTBRW0 WITH FCGTBROW 27: * Do all variable assignment, file pointer movement, etc, here. 28: FCGTBROW = FCGTBROW + 1 29: ENDDO 30: * Make sure all totals fields are up to date at this point 31: DO FCGTBEN0 32: DO FCGVAROBJ 33: * Do all variable re-assignments, file pointer movements, etc, here. 34: ?? chr(12) 35: FCGPAGE = FCGPAGE + 1 36: ENDDO 37: DO FCGEND 38: SET PRINT OFF 39: SET CONSOLE ON 40: RETURN Lines 1- 10: Comments generated by FormCode/Gen. Line 11: Talk must be turned off during printing! Line 13: Setting console to OFF keeps the PCL escape sequences from being echoed on the screen. However, it helps to turn this option on while debugging, otherwise system messages and prompts don't get displayed either. Line 14: This line makes all procedures in this file accessible to the main program which is also contained in this file. This is unnecessary for some systems such as FoxPro since FoxPro will automatically find any procedures contained in the same file as the main program. So for FoxPro you can delete this line. Line 15: FCGINIT initializes all global variables for the printing routines. Line 16: Directs output to printer. Line 17: Creates the job set-up string by calling FCGSTART. Parameters passed are number of copies, orientation (portrait), paper size (letter), paper source (lower tray), and graphics resolution (300 DPI, currently unused). The values passed to FCGSTART come from the settings of the Page Setup dialog but can be changed at run time. For example, you could prompt the user for the number of copies and the paper source and then pass these values to FCGSTART. Line 18: Sends the printer control string created by FCGSTART to the printer. Lines 20 & 21: Start a dummy loop for printing a number of pages; in this case one. Line 22: Prints all fixed objects in the design such as lines, boxes, table borders, etc. Lines 24 & 25: Start a dummy loop for printing a number of table rows; five in this case. Line 26: Prints all columns in the specified table row. Line 28: Increments the table row counter. Line 29: Ends the table loop. Line 31: Prints the totals row in the table. Line 32: Prints all other field text in the form. Line 34: Send a form feed to the printer. Line 35: Increments the page counter. Line 36: Ends the main loop. Line 37: Sends the job termination command to the printer setting the printer state back to it's default value. Lines 38, 39, 40: Clean up and return. You could add another statement such as RELEASE ALL LIKE FCG* at this point to free all memory variable created by the FCGSTART routine. The following lines show a modified version of the code listed above. This example is typical of the type of modifications that you will make to the code. In this example it is assumed that the form was designed using fields from two related databases, CUSTMERS and ORDERS. The CUSTMERS database contains customer information such as name, address, phone number, etc, and the orders database contains recently taken orders from these customers. The form was designed using a table element for printing individual orders for customers. This design is contained in your distribution disk in file INV.FCG and INV.MPG. The databases are also on the distribution disk. The design only uses courier 10 and 12 point fonts so it should print on most LaserJet compatible printers without problems. Following the code is a line by line explanation of the program. 1: SET TALK OFF 2: SET CONSOLE OFF 3: SET PROCEDURE TO INV 4: DO FCGINIT 5: SET PRINT ON 6: DO FCGSTART WITH 1, 0, 2, 4, 300 7: ?? FCGRSTVAR 8: select 1 9: use custmers 10: set safety off 11: index on cust_num to cust_num 12: select 2 13: use orders 14: set relation to cust_num into custmers 15: 16: DO WHILE .not. eof() 17: DO FCGFIXOBJ 18: FCGTBROW = 0 19: mTOTAL = 0 20: mCUSTNUM = cust_num 21: DO WHILE cust_num = mCUSTNUM 22: DO FCGTBRW0 WITH FCGTBROW 23: FCGTBROW = FCGTBROW + 1 24: mTOTAL = mTOTAL + cost 25: skip 26: ENDDO 27: mAPPREC = "We apraciate our customers!" 28: if (mTOTAL > 500) 29: mAPPREC = "You are one of our very special customers!!" 30: endif 31: if (mTOTAL > 1000) 32: mAPPREC = "You are one of our best customer!!!" 33: endif 34: DO FCGTBEN0 35: skip -1 36: DO FCGVAROBJ 37: skip 38: ?? chr(12) 39: ENDDO 40: DO FCGEND 41: SET PRINT OFF 42: SET CONSOLE ON 43: RETURN Lines 1 - 7: Remain unchanged from the generated code. Lines 8 - 11: Opens the CUSTMERS database and creates the needed index file for this database. The index is created from scratch in this example to provide all users an index compatible with their system since most dBASE systems use their own unique index structures. Lines 12 - 14: Open the second database and set the necessary relation. Line 16: Starts the loop for scanning all records in the orders database. Line 17: Prints all fixed objects in the design such as lines, boxes, static text, and table borders, etc. Lines 18 - 20: Initialize the memory variables needed for printing the table. Line 21: Starts the loop for processing all orders belonging to the same customer. Line 22: Prints all columns in the specified row of table. Line 23: Increments the table row counter. Line 24: Updates the memory variable that keeps track of the sum of the COST field. Line 25: Moves the record pointer in the ORDERS database to the next record. Line 26: Ends the loop for printing table rows. Line 27 - 33: Set the value of the memory variable mAPPREC to a string based on the results of summing the COST field in the ORDERS database. Line 34: Prints the totals row in the table. The totals row was designed using the memory variable mTOTAL which at this point contains the total cost of all orders. Line 35: The record pointer at this point has moved to orders for the next customer so move it back to the current customer before printing the rest of the form. Line 36: Prints the rest of the field text in the form. The customers name, address, etc., and the appreciation string get printed here. Line 37: Move record pointer to orders for the next customer. Line 38: Sends a form-feed to the printer. Line 39: Ends the main program loop for printing forms. Line 40: Sends the printer reset command to the printer resetting the printer to its default state before the job started. Lines 41 - 43: The normal ending sequencing. The code presented in this section was from a design that uses a table object to print tabular data. If your design does not contain the table object, the generated code will be a lot simpler. SCREEN LAYOUT: The screen layout for FormCode/Gen is typical of most Windows applications. The left hand column, starting from the top, contains icons for the form design objects described below. Below these icons are the Zoom In and Full Page buttons. Below these buttons are displayed the default settings for box, line, and text objects. The big window in the middle is the edit window. Below the edit window is a status line that displays the current cursor position, number of objects currently selected, and the current grid setting. DESIGN UNITS: FormCode/Gen uses one hundredth of an inch as its basic design unit. All widths, etc, entered by the user in dialog boxes must be in this unit. For example 1/4 of an inch is entered as 25. Do not enter decimal numbers such as 1.5 for one and a half inch. One and a half inch should be entered as 150. However, the program displays the current cursor position in decimal inches (eg 1.33, etc) on the status line. FORM DESIGN OBJECTS: Forms in FormCode/Gen are designed using six basic design objects. These objects are: Boxes, Lines, Text, Tables, Check-boxes, and Bitmap Images. A complete discussion of each object in detail is given later in this manual. This section briefly describes the objects: Boxes can make a form look beautiful and help form groups of related data. The user can specify the type of border, border thickness, inside fill pattern, and shadow for boxes. Lines can be drawn horizontally and vertically, but not diagonally, and the user can specify the line thickness. Text can be either static text or a text field (field here means database field, variable, or expression). The user can specify the font and foreground pattern/shade for text. Text can be single line or multi-line. Text is always enclosed in an enclosing box. If you do not want the box, simply give it a border width of zero and no fill. FormCode/Gen allows text to be left, right, center, or left/right justified. If the text is field text, justification will be performed at run time since the actual contents of the text field are not known until run time. Run time justification, however, takes its toll both in terms of speed and memory. Check-boxes allow a more user friendly representation of true/false data. In the current version of FormCode/Gen, check-boxes are of fixed size. The user only specifies the logical expression for the check box. If the logical expression evaluates to a true, the box will be checked, otherwise it will remain empty. Tables are a very powerful way of allowing you to build rows and columns of data. A variety of different border types can be specified - including no border at all. Tables may or may not have a table title, column titles, and a totals row. Each table column can have its different font, background and foreground pattern, margins, etc. It is also very easy to design tables with alternating background patterns. The last form design object is a bitmap image. FormCode/Gen itself is not an image design package. It is assumed that images will be designed in other presentation graphics and/or desk-top publishing packages (such as Micrografx Designer, Aldus PageMaker, Ventura Publisher, etc) and then imported into FormCode/Gen. Images can also be obtained from a variety of scanning devices and their accompanying software. The only format currently available for importing bitmap images into FormCode/Gen is the Tag Image File Format or TIFF. However, since TIFF is so universally available, this does not pose any serious restrictions on the user. BASIC DESIGN PROCEDURES: This section describes the basic editing procedures that you will use for designing forms. A detailed description of all the menu commands follows. The basic editing procedures used in FormCode/Gen are the same as in other Windows graphics applications. The only features unique to FormCode/Gen are the aborting of stretch and/or draw operations using the Esc key and the use of the right mouse button for de-selecting selected objects one by one or by area. The following paragraphs briefly describe the basic editing procedures: Drawing Objects: All of the form design objects (boxes, lines, text, etc) can be drawn by first clicking on the corresponding objects' icon in the object window. This will highlight the current design object by reversing its video rendition. Now move the cursor to the edit window and press the mouse left button where you want one corner of the object. Drag the mouse to where you want the other corner of the object and release the left button. This procedure applies consistently to all design objects including text, tables, and bitmaps. Some objects, such as lines and boxes, are drawn instantly as you release the mouse button, while others, such as text and tables, pop up a dialog box to be filled with information before the object is drawn. Also, some objects, such as tables, de-select their object icon in the design object window on the top left side of the screen while others leave it selected allowing you to continuing drawing more objects of the same type without clicking on the object icon each time. This is done to convenience the user. Frequently drawn objects, such as boxes and lines, leave their icon selected so more boxes and lines can be drawn quickly. Infrequently drawn objects, such as tables, de-select their icons putting the user back in edit mode to continue editing. To quit the object draw mode and get back to edit mode, simply click in the space below the form design objects. When none of the form design objects is highlighted, you are back in edit mode. Zooming and Panning: FormCode/Gen provides two levels of zoom; full page and zoomed in. For form design these two levels give enough flexibility to the user. To change from one zoom mode to the other simply click on its button. The Full Page button takes effect immediately and the display is updated as soon as you press the button. The Zoom In button does not zoom in immediately. Instead it presents you with a zoom rectangle as you move the cursor back to the edit window. Move the zoom rectangle to the objects that you want to zoom in on and then click the mouse left button to zoom in. Panning works exactly as it does in all Windows applications by using the scroll bars next to the edit window. Selecting Objects: You have two different ways of selecting objects: A single object can be selected by clicking the mouse left button when cursor is on the object. If the shift key is pressed while clicking on the object, other objects that were already selected remain selected and the new object is also selected, otherwise previously selected objects are de-selected. Several objects can be selected together by moving the cursor to one corner of the window, pressing the left button, and then moving the cursor to the other corner while keeping the left button pressed. As the left button is released, all objects that fall completely inside the stretch box will be selected and everything outside the box will be de-selected. You may encounter difficulty selecting objects some times. This is especially true when you have overlapping objects and/or smaller objects that are completely inside larger objects. The object in front gets selected when you may be trying to select the object behind it. Simply click again without moving the mouse to select the object behind. If you have several overlapping objects, keep clicking without moving the mouse and each object will be selected in sequence till you reach the last object under the cursor. Another solution is to make some large objects unselectable by editing their definition. This will keep them completely out of your way while editing. You could also use the Edit Menu, Move to Back command to move the larger object behind the smaller object and out of the way. De-Selecting Objects: De-selecting works identically to selecting except that you use the right mouse button instead of the left. An Individual object can be de- selected by clicking on the object, or several objects at a time can be de-selected by using the area de-select operation. Moving Objects: Objects can be moved one at a time, or several objects can be moved together. To move a single object, de-select everything else and then press the mouse left button after moving the cursor on top of the object that you wish to move. The object can be dragged by moving the mouse while the button remains pressed. The move is completed by releasing the button or aborted by pressing Esc. Several objects can be moved together by first selecting the objects that you want to move and then pressing the mouse left button on any one of these objects. Drag the objects to the desired position while keeping the button pressed. Stretching Objects: Objects can be stretched in any direction by first moving the cursor to the corner of the selected object where stretching is to take place. When cursor is in its proper stretch position, the cursor shape will change. Press the mouse left button and stretch the object while keeping the button pressed. Release the button to complete the stretch operation, or press Esc to abort. Objects can be stretched within legal limits only. In particular, you can not stretch objects to a size smaller than possible for the object. The smallest possible size is determined by the type of object that you are stretching. For example, for a text object, the smallest size is determined by the actual text string, the size of the font, the number of lines of text, and the margins. Editing Object Definitions: You can edit the definition of form objects by double clicking on the object with the mouse left button. This will bring up a dialog box for editing the objects definition. Some objects, bitmap images for example, have no definition that can be edited. Double clicking on these objects will do nothing. MENU DESCRIPTIONS: Following is a description of all menu commands available in FormCode/Gen. There are four pull-down menus that the program uses namely, File, Edit, Alignment, and Settings. The File Menu: The File Menu has the following commands: New: Clears the previous design and starts a new form or label design. The user is prompted for the type of design, either form or label. Open: Opens a previously saved design. FormCode/Gen files have an extension of .FCG. The open dialog works just like any Windows open file dialog box. Save: Saves the current design in file. If the design has not yet been given a name, the user is prompted to enter a name for the design. Save As: Saves the current design under a different file name. Gen Code: Generates dBASE code for the current design. This is the end result of FormCode/Gen. The generated code is placed in a file that has the same name as the design itself and has an extension of .PRG. If the design contained any bitmap images, a separate file is generated for each image. These files have the same names as the TIFF files that were read in, but they have an extension of .PCL since they contain PCL commands to print the image. These files must be distributed along with the .PRG file. Also, the image files are placed in the same directory where the design file is saved even if the original TIFF files were opened from different directories. This allows convenient distribution of the image files. Also, before you can generate code, you must have an additional printer identical to your default printer installed from Windows. This printer should be connected to FCG.TMP from the ports selection menu. For more information on this, read the section on Installation and Setup. Check Sheet: Checks the design for design error such as objects that are outside the sheet boundaries. If such objects are reported by FormCode/Gen, the Toggle Select command can be used to select and delete these objects. Print: Prints the current design to the default Windows printer. The default printer can be changed from the Windows Control Panel. You must disable the Windows Print Manager while printing from FormCode/Gen. Also, you must have an additional printer identical to your default printer installed from Windows. This printer should be connected to the FCG.TMP pseudo port from the ports selection menu. For more information on these, read the section on Installation and Setup. Even though the default printer is set from the Windows Control Panel (and must be set before starting FormCode/Gen), the program ignores all other settings of the default printer such as paper source, orientation, etc. These settings are obtained from the page setup inside FormCode/Gen. The page setup menu is explained below. Page Setup: This menu has all the options that apply to the overall design, such as paper size and bin, orientation, number of copies, etc. FormCode/Gen saves all of these settings in the design file along with all other design data. These settings take precedence over the printer setup that is set from the Windows Control Panel. Selecting the Use Printer Macros option will cause FormCode/Gen to generate code that defines and uses printer macros for all fixed objects (lines, boxes, bit- maps, etc) in the design. Choosing this option can significantly increase printing speed, especially if your printer is connected to a slow serial port. However, this speed is gained at the expense of printer memory. If your printer does not have enough memory, using this option may result in printer errors. Checking the Generate Template Main Program will make FormCode/Gen generate a new template main program for your design upon code generation. This template main program is first placed in the file <design>.MPG and then from there it is also included in the <design>.PRG file, where <design> is the name of your design file. Normally, you will select this option after first creating a design to generate a template main program. You would then modify the template program in <design>.MPG and also un-check the Generate Template Main Program option to keep your modifications from being overwritten by FormCode/Gen. The Append Procedures From PCLDRV.PRG option tells FormCode/Gen whether or not to append printer driver routines from the driver library file into the generated code. If this option is un-checked, the procedures are not physically copied from the driver file but instead a SET PROCEDURE TO PCLDRV statement is generated making these procedures accessible to the generated routines. This produces smaller code, however, it will only work for some dBASE systems (for example FoxPro) and not for others (for example FoxBASE Plus). Label Setup: This menu sets all label parameters if the design is a label. If the design is a form rather than a label, this menu command remains disabled. Open DBF: You can open up-to 50 database files at a time for placing fields in your design. If any databases are open, the Build... button in text and table dialogs is enabled. This allows you to select fields from the databases to build text and table expressions. Memory Left: Displays the amount of memory currently available to Windows. This memory, however, can be used by other applications running concurrently also. If the amount of memory is low (below 300K) you may want to consider closing some of the other applications. Exit: terminates the program after prompting the user to save any unsaved edits. About: Displays copyright and version information for FormCode/Gen. The Edit Menu: The Edit Menu has the following commands: Delete: Deletes all selected objects. The objects are not placed on the clipboard, and are lost forever. Cut: Copies all selected objects from the design to the clipboard and deletes them from the design. Note that FormCode/Gen uses a private clipboard rather the Windows global clipboard. This is because the data from FormCode/Gen is not in any of the formats that most Windows applications can understand, so it would be pretty worthless to place the data on the Windows clipboard. Copy: Copies all selected objects from the design to the clipboard without affecting the design. Note that FormCode/Gen uses a private clipboard rather the Windows global clipboard. This is because the data from FormCode/Gen is not in any of the formats that most Windows applications can understand, so it would be pretty worthless to place the data on the Windows clipboard. To copy objects from one design to another, simply use the copy command to copy the selected objects to the clipboard. Then open the new design file and paste from the clipboard. Paste: Pastes objects from the local clipboard into the current design. Objects are placed on the clipboard using the Cut or Copy command. Objects are placed at a slight displacement from their original position, i.e the position they were at before cutting or copying, in the design. Move To Back: Moves the currently selected object behind all other design objects. All other objects retain their relative positions with respect to each other. As new objects are placed in the design, they are placed on top of existing objects. This command may be necessary to change this default order. Move To Front: Moves the currently selected object in front of all other design objects. All other objects retain their relative positions with respect to each other. As new objects are placed in the design, they are placed on top of existing objects. This command may be necessary to change this default order. Group: Objects can be made part of a group of objects. When an object that belongs to a group is selected, all other objects in that group are also selected. To group several objects together, first select them, and then use the group command. If any of the selected objects belonged to another group previously, they loose their membership in the old group. Un Group: Removes all selected objects from their groups, if any. Toggle Select: Selects all objects that are currently not selected, and de-selects all objects that are currently selected. This command can be very useful for selecting objects that get outside the sheet boundaries and become out of sight. For example to select all design objects that are outside the sheet boundary and thus out of sight, first select all objects inside the sheet boundary by using the area select command over the entire sheet, and then use this command to select all objects that are outside the sheet limits. The Alignment Menu: The Alignment Menu has the following commands: Center on Horz: This command works differently depending on how many objects are selected. If only one object is selected, it will be centered horizontally on the page. If two or more objects are selected, the smaller objects will be centered horizontally inside the largest object. The position of the largest object remains unchanged. Center on Vert: This command works differently depending on how many objects are selected. If only one object is selected, it will be centered vertically on the page. If two or more objects are selected, the smaller objects will be centered vertically inside the largest object. The position of the largest object remains unchanged. Snap X to Grid: Snaps the left and right sides of all selected objects to the nearest grid point. The top and bottom sides remain unchanged. Snap Y to Grid: Snaps the top and bottom sides of all selected objects to the nearest grid point. The left and right sides remain unchanged. Mark Align Ref: Marks the currently selected object as a reference point for alignment. The actual alignment is performed using the Align Left/Top/Right/Bottom commands explained below. Align Left: This command works in conjunction with the Mark Align Ref command. The Mark Align Ref command is used to mark one object as a reference point. This command, when followed by the Mark Align Ref command performs the actual alignment by aligning all currently selected objects to the left side of the reference object. Align Top: This command works in conjunction with the Mark Align Ref command. The Mark Align Ref command is used to mark one object as a reference point. This command, when followed by the Mark Align Ref command performs the actual alignment by aligning all currently selected objects to the top side of the reference object. Align Right: This command works in conjunction with the Mark Align Ref command. The Mark Align Ref command is used to mark one object as a reference point. This command, when followed by the Mark Align Ref command performs the actual alignment by aligning all currently selected objects to the right side of the reference object. Align Bottom: This command works in conjunction with the Mark Align Ref command. The Mark Align Ref command is used to mark one object as a reference point. This command, when followed by the Mark Align Ref command performs the actual alignment by aligning all currently selected objects to the bottom side of the reference object. The Settings Menu: The settings menu allows the user to change all system settings and editing preferences. All of these settings are stored in the design file along with other design objects and restored when a design file is opened. The Settings Menu has the following commands. Grid: Sets the horizontal and verticle grid. Grid units are specified in hundredths of inches, so for example a half inch grid is specified as 50 points. All edit and draw operations snap to the nearest grid point. Even though the cursor moves smoothly between grid points, the coordinate display on the status line is in multiples of the grid units. Disp Grid: Turns on/off the displaying of the current grid. Remember that objects snap to the current grid setting regardless of whether the grid display is turned on or off. Disp Crosshair: Turns on/off the crosshair across the edit window. Rulers On: Turns on/off the rulers displayed on top of and to the left side of the edit window. Gravity On: When gravity is turned on, the cursor tends to pull itself to grid points as if it were being attracted to the grid points. When gravity is turned off the cursor moves smoothly between grid points and can stop in the middle of grid points. Gravity has no affect on how drawing or editing actually works, it is simply a preference on how the cursor behaves. Show Text Ext: As explained in the section on What You See is What You Get or WYSIWYG, FormCode/Gen displays your design on the screen as accurately as possible. However it is not always possible to find a screen font that exactly matches the printer font being requested and Windows uses the best match it can find. On many occasions, this font will be significantly different from the printer font in both size and style. This is specially true, when dealing with unusual or very small typefaces. This commands turns on/off the display of the actual extent of all text as it will be printed. The extent are displayed by drawing blue color rectangles in the exact positions where the text will appear when printed to the printer. Hide Images: Bitmap images are slow to draw, and can significantly slow down editing speed. This command turns on/off the display of all bitmap images. When images are hidden, they are replaced with blue rectangles that show their position but are much faster to draw. Box Defaults: Sets the defaults for box objects. All new boxes are drawn using these settings. The new settings are displayed in the status window in the lower left corner of the display. Line Defaults: Sets the defaults for line objects. All new lines are drawn using these settings. The new settings are displayed in the status window in the lower left corner of the display. Text Defaults: Sets the defaults for text objects. All new text is drawn using these settings. The new settings are displayed in the status window in the lower left corner of the display. Table Defaults: Sets the defaults for table objects. All new tables are drawn using these settings. DESIGN OBJECT DESCRIPTIONS: FormCode/Gen provides the user with six basic design objects for designing forms and labels. These objects are Boxes, Lines, Text, Check-boxes, Tables, and Bitmap Images. The following paragraphs describe all of these objects in greater detail: Box Objects: The use of boxes can dramatically improve the appearance of any printed form. Boxes can be used to group items together by placing them inside boxes and also to contain other objects such as text and bitmap images. The user can specify the following parameters for boxes: Line Width: Specify line width in hundredths of inches. For example enter 10 for one tenth of an inch. If no line is desired, for example a box with shading only and no border, enter a width of 0 (It would be pretty meaningless to have a box with both no border and no fill) Fill Pattern/Shade: Boxes can have a fill pattern or gray shade to fill the interior of the box. Select the fill by using the scroll bar on the fill selector in the Edit Box Definition dialog box. It is important to note that a fill of White is not the same as a fill of none. A white fill overwrites any objects under the box, whereas with a fill of none, objects underneath the box remain visible. Border Type and shadow: Boxes can have either a single border or a double border and a shadow can be specified for boxes. Line Objects: In the present version of FormCode/Gen lines can only be either horizontal or verticle. This is because these are the only types of lines that can be drawn on all HP Laser Printers before the Laser Jet III without sacrificing speed. Since forms usually only have horizontal or verticle lines, however, this should not pose any serious problems. The only parameter that the user specifies for lines is the lines width. Specify the width in hundredths of inches (e.g one tenth of an inch is 10 units). Text Objects: FormCode/Gen provides a great deal of flexibility in drawing text. All text is enclosed in an enclosing box whose definition can be edited by the user. If an enclosing box is not desired, simply give it a width of 0 and a fill pattern of white or none. Text is divided into two main categories: Field Text and Static Text. Static text appears in your forms exactly as it appears on the screen or as it is printed from Windows. That is, the contents of the text object remain the same. Field text on the other hand can be a database field, variable, or any other expression that evaluates to a character value in dBASE. Numeric, date, and logical values must be converted to character. Static text can be single line or multi-line. To enter multiple lines of text, press Ctrl-Enter at the end of each text line (simply entering Enter will close the dialog box). As many lines of text as desired can be entered. The selected justification applies to all entered lines. Field text can also be single line or multi-line. However, only the L/R justification, which justifies both left and right, can be used with multi-line field text. The actual number of lines in multi-line field text can only be determined at run time, therefore the user should leave enough room to fit the longest possible text. Multi-line field text is extremely useful for printing memo fields in FoxPro (1.0 and 2.0) and Clipper 5.0. Simply draw a box large enough to contain the text, select L/R justification and other options as desired, and enter the name of a memo field as the text expression. That's all there is to printing beautiful left and right justified text that is automatically filled line by line from your memo field! FormCode/Gen does run time filling and justification. The Edit Text Definition dialog box provides the user with two separate edit boxes for entering text. The top box is titled Enter Display Text:. In this box enter the text as you would like Windows to display it while editing. If the text object is static text then the display text is also the actual contents of the text object. If, however, the text object is field text, the display text is only used to display the text from Windows, and also for printing the form from within Windows. In this case you may want to put some meaningful text as the display text. For example, you can put your name where a name database field appears. Also, in the case of field text, the actual length of the text remains unknown until it is printed from dBASE using your data. Therefore make sure you leave enough room to account for the longest possible values. Another thing to keep in mind is that the extent of the text can not simply be calculated based on the number of characters since with proportional fonts different characters have significantly different width. Following is a description of other items in the Edit Text Definition dialog box: Field: Mark the check box to indicate that the text is field text rather than static text. As long as the check box is un-marked, you will not be able to enter anything in the expression edit box. Expr: If the Field check box is checked signifying field text, this edit box can be used to enter the field expression. The field expression must be a valid dBASE expression and must evaluate to character type. The Build.. button can be used to help build field expressions. Build...: This push button will be enabled if the text is field text and any database files have been opened from the File Menu. Click on the button to retrieve fields from open database files to build the field expression. Font..: Click on this push button to select the font for the text. The list of fonts presented contains all the fonts that have been installed from Windows. Select the desired typeface, size, and style (bold and/or italic). Box...: Click on this button to edit the definition of the enclosing box for the text object. The Edit Box Definition dialog appears. Editing box definition for text boxes is identical to editing box definition for stand alone boxes which is described above. Pattern..: Click on this button to specify a foreground pattern for the text object. The Edit Text Pattern dialog box appears to allow you to select a pattern for drawing the text. Justification: Select the desired justification from Left, Right, Center, or L/R. The justification is with respect to the enclosing box, even if the box is not visible. Margins: Specify the left, top, right, and bottom margins in hundredths of inches (e.g 1/10 inch specified as 10). Again, the margins are with respect to the enclosing box. Text justification is performed inside the margins. Table Objects: Tables provide a very convenient and powerful way of presenting tabular data, i.e data that falls in rows and columns. FormCode/Gen provides a great deal of flexibility in the design of tables: Tables can have single or double border, and for single border the width for all the lines can be specified individually. Tables may or may not have a title, and table columns may or may not have a title and a total. Each column can have its own font, background, margins, justification etc. The following is a detailed description of the table object: A table is defined in terms of these items from the Edit Table Definition dialog: Table Title: A table may or may not have a title. Check the Table Has Title check box to determine whether the table has a title. If the check box is checked, the Edit Title... button can be used to edit the title definition. Column Title and Total Rows: The table may or may not have a column titles row and a column totals row. Check the desired check-boxes. The selections you make will determine how the Edit Table Column dialog box is presented. Border Type: Select either a single or a double border. If a single border is selected, you can define the widths of individual lines that define the border. To do this click the Define... button. All widths are entered in hundredths of inches (e.g 1/10 of an inch is entered as 10). Define Columns: Click on the various buttons in this group box to edit the definitions of individual table columns. At the top of the box are displayed the total number of columns in the table and the current column. The current column is the one whose definition is edited by clicking on the Edit... button. You can insert and delete columns at any position desired. Columns are numbered starting at 0. When the Edit Table Definition dialog first pops up, the current column field will say All. This means that when you click on the Edit... button you are editing column definition for all columns. This is very useful for defining common characteristics to all columns, such as font, background, widths, etc. After the common characteristics have been set for all columns, the individual column definitions can be edited individual to modify their unique characteristics. Each table column is defined in terms of several things such as width, background, and cell. These items are defined from the Edit Table Column dialog which appears when you edit a column. The following is a more detailed description of items in this dialog box: Column Width: Columns can have an absolute or relative width. If absolute width is selected, the width value is specified in hundredths of an inch. Absolute width fixes the width of the specified column to the entered value. Stretching the table will have no effect on the width of absolute width columns, only relative width columns will stretch. For relative width columns, the value is interpreted as a relative number. This can be looked at as a percent number if the sum of all relative width columns is 100, but it does not have to be a percent number. For example, if the sum of all relative width columns adds up to 300, then the widths of individual columns will not be a percent value. When the user stretches a table object, either when creating a new table or when stretching an existing one, FormCode/Gen calculates column widths as follows: First all absolute columns are assigned their absolute width, then the remainder amount is distributed over all of the relative width columns proportionately by their relative widths. If a table does not have any relative width columns, it can not be stretched in the horizontal direction. It has a fixed horizontal size. The minimum verticle size of a table row is determined by the text font being used, and the margins, etc. Column Body Background: You can select a pattern and or gray shade for each columns background. This background can be applied to all rows in the column, only the odd rows, only the even rows, or no rows at all. This odd/even/none/all selection applies only to the body of the that column. The actual pattern can be select by using the Edit Body... button. If columns have titles and totals, specified from the Edit Table Definition dialog, the backgrounds of these titles and totals remain unaffected by the odd/even/none/all selection. This selection only applies to the body part of the column. Edit Title, Body, Total: These push buttons allow you to edit the title, body, or totals cell for a table column. The title, and total buttons will be enabled only if table has column titles and totals. These cells define the text font to be used, the justification for the text, the margins, the text foreground pattern, and the cell background pattern. For the title cell the entered text is treated as static text, i.e it appears literally in the printed form. For the body and totals cells, the text is treated as a text expression. The expression could be a database field, variable, or any other valid dBASE expression that evaluates to a character value. Expressions that do not evaluate to character values, such as numeric, date or logical, must be converted to character type. When a table is printed from Windows, its cells contain the cell numbers for text. The actual text will be displayed when the table is printed from dBASE. Check-box Objects: Check boxes provide a more attractive way of presenting logical data. The user specifies an expression for each check-box. This expression can be a database field, memory variable, or any other valid dBASE expression that evaluates to a logical value. If the expression evaluates to a true value, a check-mark is placed inside the check-box. Otherwise the check-box remains empty. When printed from Windows, check-boxes are always printed with a check-mark in them since the logical expression can not yet be evaluated. Bitmap Image Objects: Bitmap images can be included in forms designed with FormCode/Gen. However, this software itself is not meant to be a graphics image design package so no image editing is possible. Images can be edited with other graphics/desk- top publishing packages and then brought into FormCode/Gen. Images can also be obtained from a variety of scanners. Typically the images brought into a design will be logos, etc. Upon code generation, FormCode/Gen creates a separate file with a .PCL extension for each imported image in the design. This file contains the pre-processed image and must be distributed along with the .PRG file generated. The user needs to understands a few things about images before using this feature. Some of this knowledge will help you in selecting proper options when options when generating images from your imaging software. Images can be brought into designs by reading Tag Image Format files or TIFF files. At present, this is the only format that FormCode/Gen can understand. However, TIFF is such a universal format that this does not put any serious limitations on the variety of images that can be brought in. FormCode/Gen supports the full class B of TIFF files. In particular, this means that it is capable of reading monochrome images and allows unpacked as well as compressed images using Pack Bits and CCITT 1D compression schemes. When generating TIFF files from scanner or imaging software two things must be taken into consideration: The resolution of the image and half-toning. Both of these are described in greater detail in the following paragraphs: Most imaging and scanner software packages can produce TIFF images with a variety of resolutions. For scanners the resolution typically is 75, 150, or 300 dots per inch. All of these are acceptable resolution values for HP Laser Jet and compatible printers and FormCode/Gen will accept any of them without any problems. The higher the resolution, the better the quality of the image will be, but at the same time the larger the image file size will be and the slower to print the image will be. Most imaging and graphics packages will also give you an option for specifying image resolution. If your package allows you to select from printer or screen resolution, select printer resolution. Images written at screen resolution may not print very well, and will certainly not be of the right size. Another factor to consider for images is half-toning or dithering. Both of these are methods of simulating shades of gray on printers that can only print black dots. Imaging packages and scanner software can take an image that was originally designed with or scanned from a colored or true gray scale image and write it to a TIFF file as a monochrome image by performing half- toning or dithering on it. FormCode/Gen itself does neither dithering nor half-toning of images. So this step must be performed at the source. Some imaging packages will only let you specify the type of TIFF file as Monochrome, Color, or Gray-scale. If you were exporting (i.e generating a TIFF file) for a colored or gray-scale image and specified monochrome as the output type, most of the good packages will automatically do half-toning or dithering before writing the image out as a monochrome bitmap. FormCode/Gen prints images from dBASE by sending a pre-processed version of the image (contained in a file with the .PCL extension) directly to the printer. The reason for using this approach is that dBASE does not have any other means for sending binary data to the printer without intervening with the data. In the supplied printer driver library, the file is copied to the printer using the DOS copy command in procedure FCGIMAGE. The /b switch is used to keep DOS from interpreting the data as an ASCII file and must be specified. The copy command copies the file to the DOS PRN device. By default DOS treats PRN as LPT1. If your printer is not connected to LPT1, you can either change the copy command or use the DOS MODE LPT1=XX command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to redirect all output from the PRN device to the true physical device that your printer is connected to (e.g COM1). You must edit the FCGIMAGE procedure in the PCLDRV.PRG file to reflect the port that your printer is connected to. On systems other than DOS, such as Novel, Unix, etc, you will probably need to change the copy command itself also not just the printer port. For example in Unix the command may look like: cp pict.pcl /dev/prn. The following are registered trade marks of their respective owners: dBASE (Ashton Tate Corp.), FoxPlus/FoxPro (Fox Software Inc.), Clipper (Nantucket Corp.), LaserJet (Hewlett Packard Corp.), Aldus PageMaker (Aldus Corp), Novel (Novel Inc.), Unix (AT&T Corp.).