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DESKTOP PAINT 2.3 __________________________________________________________________ If you like this program, please do one of the following: If you have not previously done so, go down to your local bookstore and buy a copy of "Coven: A Novel", by Steven William Rimmer, published by Ballantine Books. Read the book and tell your friends about it if you like it. Send us some comments about the book or a photocopy of the cover and we'll consider you a registered user of this program. If your local bookstore doesn't have Coven, ask them to order it for you. Alternately, send us $35.00, the normal user fee for this software. (The book is $3.95 or $5.50 in Canada: considerably cheaper than cash.) Please note that we cannot accept book covers as registration for Desktop Paint if you have previously registered another Alchemy Mindworks package this way. A disk of extra fonts and tools to convert fonts from GEM/Ventura VGA, Windows 3 FNT and Macintosh FONT and NFNT files is available to registered users for $10.00 if you order it when you register, or $15.00 afterwards. Registered users of this software are entitled to phone support, notification of upgrades and good karma. When you register Desktop Paint we'll send you a copy of the latest version. Please tell us the version number of your copy of Desktop Paint when you register. Our address can be found at the end of this file. Please tell us the exact name you wish to have Desktop Paint registered under. NOTE: If you're searching for Coven and having trouble finding it, you can mail order it from the following book store: Christies of Cookstown, P.O. Box 392, Cookstown, Ontario L0L 1L0, Canada, (705) 458-1562. The cost is $7.00, which includes the postage. The author would like to thank everyone who's thus far chased it down (or tried). Please give Desktop Paint to your friends, but if you do, give them the entire Desktop Paint package as you received it, unconfigured. NOTE: Australian users of Graphic Workshop should contact our Australian distributor, Budgetware, P.O. Box 496 Newtown NSW 2042. Phone (02) 519-4233 FAX (02) 516-4236. NOTE: German users of Desktop Paint should contact our German distributor, PD-SERVICE-LAGE, Postfach 1743, D-4937 Lage, West Germany. A German language version of the package is available from them as well. (AND FINALLY) NOTE: Users of versions of Desktop Paint prior to 2.0 should read this file carefully, as the user interface has changed a bit as it pertains to drawing colours, the mouse and the zoom tool. __________________________________________________________________ Welcome to Desktop Paint... WHAT IT IS __________ Desktop Paint is a bitmapped paint program designed especially for use by people who run desktop publishing software such as Ventura Publisher, PageMaker, Publish It and so on. It will prove equally useful to users of high end word processors, such as WordPerfect. Desktop Paint will allow you to quickly create and modify bitmapped graphics, either for use as stand alone pictures or for inclusion in other documents. It features a wide variety of file formats, a powerful selection of drawing tools, an easy to operate user interface and lots of room for customization. Desktop Paint supports the following image file formats: - MacPaint MAC (and PSF MAC files) - Ventura IMG - PC Paintbrush PCX - TIFF - WordPerfect WPG Note that Desktop Paint will only create and work with monochrome files. Note also that it will only work with WPG files which contain bitmapped images. Desktop Paint is a paint program, rather than a drawing program. It does not support GEM, Corel Draw, Designer, DXF or EPS files. Unlike many other paint programs, Desktop Paint features complete XMS and EMS support. It will handle enormous images... pictures which unpack into several megabytes... if you have sufficient extended or expanded memory in your system. Desktop Paint requires a Microsoft compatible mouse and driver and one of the following display adapters: - Hercules - EGA - VGA You can run Desktop Paint on any PC, even really old 8088 based systems. It will prove a bit slow on very low end systems. If you are running it on a slower machine it will be a bit snappier if you use a Hercules compatible monochrome graphics card rather than an EGA or VGA card. Most EGA and VGA compatible cards have Hercules emulation modes. You can run Desktop Paint in as little as 384 kilobytes of memory, although this will severely restrict the size of the pictures it will manage. A full 640 kilobytes is preferable, and two megabytes of XMS or EMS is desirable if you plan to work with large pictures. If you wish to use Desktop Paint with graphics files in formats other than those it currently supports, we recommend that you get a copy of Graphic Workshop, which will convert among virtually all of the popular image file formats. See the end of this file for more information about Graphic Workshop. RUNNING DESKTOP PAINT _____________________ You should place the following files in the directory you plan to keep Desktop Paint in. - DTP.EXE The program - DTP.RES Fonts and other resources - GALLERY.RES Picture fragments - DTPINSTL.EXE The installer - RMOVER.EXE Resource mover - EXAMPLE1.PCX A picture file We will discuss how to permanently configure Desktop Paint shortly using the DTPINSTL program, but for now it will run well enough right out of the box... or out of the ZIP. Type DTP. When the program has loaded you'll see a grey screen with a menu bar at the top. Click on one of the menu items to pull down a menu. Drag the mouse pointer to the menu item you wish to select and release it. The function you've chosen will pop up. (Chances are you already know how to work a menu bar.) Desktop Paint assumes that your mouse has two buttons. In most cases, you'll be using the left one to click on things. On a two button mouse, drawing with the left button will produce black lines and drawing with the right button will produce white lines. If you have a three button mouse you might have to experiment a bit to see which button draws white lines. To open a file, you must first tell Desktop Paint which of its file types you want to deal with. It comes set up to default to PCX files... we'll see how to change this later. Select the File Type item from the File menu and set the file type you wish to use. Next, select the Open item and select the file you want to Open. If you want to start from scratch, select the New item instead. The New function comes set up to default to creating 640 by 480 pixel files. You can type in different values if you like, and these default values can be changed with the installer program. A work area will open on your screen. If the picture you want to work on is too big to fit on the screen all at once, scroll bars will appear to allow you to move the work area over your picture. If you wish to open a different picture, you must first select Close from the file menu to close your current picture and then select New or Open. You can return to DOS at any time by selecting Quit from the File menu. You can run Desktop Paint and load a file into it with one command from the DOS prompt. For example, if you wanted to edit a file called PICTURE.IMG, you could do this C>DTP PICTURE.IMG This would run Desktop Paint and load the picture as if it had been loaded with the Open command from the File menu. Desktop Paint's dialog boxes will respond to the keyboard. If you hit the Enter key when a dialog box is visible, the box will respond as if you had clicked in the "Ok" box. If you hit Esc it will respond as if you had clicked in the "Cancel" box, assuming there is one. A WORD ABOUT MICE ----------------- Desktop Paint is driven by the driver of a Microsoft or Microsoft-compatible mouse. The driver itself is what makes the arrow cursor appear. Most Microsoft-compatible mice, such as the Logitech mice, have complete implementations of the driver and will not prove to be a problem with Desktop Paint. Some very economical mice do not implement the graphic cursor. In these cases, Desktop Paint will appear to function but the cursor will not be visible. If this happens to you, you will probably find that getting a copy of the real Microsoft MOUSE.COM mouse driver and replacing the one for your mouse with it will solve the problem, and will make anything else you use your mouse with work a bit better as well. There are a very few clone mice which are sufficiently peculiar as to be unrecognizable by the Microsoft mouse driver. These mice will not work with Desktop Paint. You can usually find the latest version of the Microsoft mouse driver on bulletin boards. A WORD ABOUT MEMORY AND DESKTOP PAINT _____________________________________ Desktop Paint is forever calling for and releasing blocks of memory. Each time it opens a window, displays a picture or an icon, responds to a mouse click and so on, it calls for at least a bit of memory. If you hear a beep when you ask Desktop Paint to do something, this usually indicates that it could not find enough memory to do what you asked it. This may be because you're running it in restricted memory, or because most of your memory is occupied by a picture. If possible, you should not run Desktop Paint from a shell program, or shelled out of another application, as this will reduce the amount of memory it has available for its own use. In very cramped memory situations, you can free up a bit of memory by unselecting an area of your drawing if one is currently selected. Selecting things will be dealt with later in the discussion of the Selector tool. Note that if you attempt to quit Desktop Paint and there isn't enough memory to open the window that asks "Do you want to quit?", Desktop Paint will assume that you do and return you immediately to DOS. As such, you can't actually get trapped in it. THE MENUS _________ The easiest way to go through the functions of Desktop Paint is to look at its menus and toolbox. Here's a quick overview of the menus, starting from the left edge of the screen. Note that many of the menu items have keyboard equivalents. This is indicated by a diamond and a letter, the diamond representing the Alt key. For example, if you wish to select the Open function, you may do so by either selecting it from the file menu or by holding down the Alt key and hitting O. Some menu items may be printed in grey type, rather than in black. These are disabled. Items are disabled because it's inappropriate to use them at the moment. For example, you would not be able to select the Print item until there was a picture in Desktop Paint to print. The Desk Menu ------------- Clipboard: This function lets you see the most recent fragment cut or copied from a picture or copied from the Gallery. The Clipboard is a holding area for bits of images. In the Clipboard window, the current contents of the Clipboard will be displayed padded out with black if they're too small to fill the window or cropped if they're too big. This is only how the image is displayed in the window, and will not affect it when it's pasted into your picture. You can import and export small image files into and out of the Clipboard in the current file format, as set by the File Type item of the File menu. The dimensions of imported files must be fairly modest... certainly no larger than those of your current drawing area. The Clipboard will complain if attempt to import a picture which it considers to be too large. You can change the file type to import pictures in a file type other than that of the picture you're working on. For example, to import a small PCX file into the Clipboard while you're working on a larger TIFF file, load the TIFF file, select File Type from the File menu and select PCX. Select Clipboard from the Desk menu and click on Import. Select the PCX file you wish to import. Once you've closed the Clipboard window, you can use the Paste item of the Edit menu to paste the imported picture into your drawing. We'll discuss cutting and pasting in greater detail in the Edit menu section. Note that because all MacPaint files are of fixed dimensions which are too large to fit on the Clipboard, you can't import MacPaint pictures into the Clipboard window. Gallery: The Gallery is a place to store image fragments which you might want to paste into a picture some time in the future. The Gallery is permanent... you can build up little image file fragments from day a to day and access them whenever you want them. The Gallery is stored in a file called GALLERY.RES. One will be created if it can't be found. Desktop Paint comes with a version of GALLERY.RES with several image fragments in it. You can delete this if you want to start fresh. Picture fragments get to the Gallery through the Clipboard. Assuming you have previously cut, copied or imported something to the Clipboard, open the Gallery window and select Copy. The contents of the Clipboard will be added to the Gallery. When you have several images in the Gallery, you can step through them with the Previous and Next buttons. The Clear button will delete the currently visible image from the Gallery. The Paste button will copy the currently visible image into the Clipboard, such that you can subsequently export it to a small image file or paste it into your drawing. Note that unlike image files, the pictures in the Gallery are stored uncompressed. A Gallery with several dozen images in it is undesirable because it takes a long time to step through them and because GALLERY.RES will take up a lot of disk space. As a rule, you should keep image fragments you use fairly frequently in the Gallery and others in image files on your disk which you can import into the Clipboard when they're needed. About: The About box will tell you what version of Desktop Paint you're using, as well as how much memory you have free at the moment. Note that is only conventional DOS memory... it does not include any XMS or EMS you may have on hand. File Menu --------- New: The New function allows you to create a blank drawing of any size... at least, of any size you have memory for. The smallest dimension a drawing can have is thirty-two pixels on a size. The largest is 32,767 pixels. Note that a drawing 32,767 pixels square would require 131,068 megabytes of XMS or EMS to contain it. You cannot create a new drawing which occupies more memory than you have. Open: The Open function will load a drawing from your disk into Desktop Paint. You must have the file type set appropriately before you select Open. The same minimum and maximum file sizes apply to Open as they do to New. You can't open a file if there's one currently visible in Desktop Paint... you must close your existing file first. Close: The Close function disposes of an existing drawing and prepares Desktop Paint to have a different drawing opened or created. Save: The Save function will save your current drawing back to the disk under the current file name. If you have started your drawing from scratch with New, you must first select Save As to assign it a file name. Save As: The Save As function allows you to save your drawing under a new file name. The file type will be the current file type, as set by the File Type function. Print: The Print function will print your current drawing to a laser or dot matrix printer. Desktop Paint supports PostScript and LaserJet compatible laser printers in four resolutions. Note that even though your printer may have three hundred dot per inch resolution, you can still print to it at a lower resolution. Selecting, for example, one hundred dot per inch resolution will cause the picture to be printed larger. Desktop Paint prints to a dot matrix printer through a special driver resource called a PDRV, which lives in DTP.RES. There is a PDRV installed in the distribution version of Desktop Paint for an Epson FX-80, which is emulated by most dot matrix printers. This option will be visible as the ninth printer in the print box list. If you don't need dot matrix support you can remove the PDRV from DTP.RES to save a bit of disk space, memory and to shorten the time it takes Desktop Paint to boot up. Managing resources is discussed later in this file. If there is no PDRV available, the ninth printer will be unavailable. This will also happen if you have failed to place DTP.RES where Desktop Paint can find it. You can select the number of copies to be printed. The number can range from 1 through 99. Note that this value only affects output to laser printers. Printing to an external printer driver will only print one copy at a time no matter how the Copies value is set. Get Info: This will allow you to look at any image file of the currently selected file type and see how big it is, how much memory it will require to edit, how many colours it has for file formats which support colour and so on. You can use this function to compare the amount of memory a picture will need to load into Desktop Paint with the amount of free memory you actually have available, as displayed in the About box. As a rule, with no TSR programs installed, Desktop Paint running on a machine with 640 kilobytes will have about three hundred and fifty kilobytes free. File Type: The File Type function will allow you select the file format for use in subsequent file operations. The current choices are MacPaint, Ventura/GEM IMG, PCX, TIFF and WordPerfect Graphics. Note that you can load a file from one format, change the file type and then save it in another. The current file type setting affects Save, Save As, Open, Get Info and the import and export functions of the Clipboard. Quit: The Quit function returns you to DOS. Edit Menu --------- Copy: The Copy function is only active when an area of your drawing has been selected using the Select tool... the scissors. When selected, the Copy function will copy the contents of the selected area into the Clipboard. Cut: The Cut function behaves like Copy except that it will fill the selected area with white and unselect it. Paste: The Paste tool is only active if there's something in the Clipboard. It will paste the current contents of the Clipboard into the upper left corner of the drawing window. It will be selected, and you can move it to where you want it to be. If you hold down the control key while pasting, the pasted fragment will be transparent. Clear: The Clear function behaves like the Cut function except that it does not copy the selected area to the Clipboard. It just fills it with white and unselects it. Invert: The Invert function is only active when an area of your drawing has been selected. It inverts all the pixels in the selected area black for white. Flip horizontal: The Flip Horizontal function is only active when an area of your drawing has been selected. It flips the selected area right to left. Flip Vertical: The Flip Vertical function is only active when an area of your drawing has been selected. It flips the selected area top to bottom. Rotate (90, 180 and 270): These three functions are only active when an area of your drawing has been selected. They rotate the selected area by the specified amounts. Scaling The Scaling function is only active when an area of your drawing has been selected. It scales the selected portion of your drawing to your choice of sizes... a dialog box will pop up asking for a scaling factor. The scale factor can range from .1 (ten percent of your original) to 10 (one thousand percent of your original) assuming that the scaled fragment will actually fit in the drawing window. You can specify different horizontal and vertical scaling factors by selecting the "Anamorphic" box. If this box is not selected, clicking in the most recently changed value will copy it to the other value. Trace Edges: The Trace Edges function is only active when an area of your drawing has been selected. It will modify the selected area so that the original image is replaced by one having lines around all the formerly black parts of the picture. Multiple tracings can look extremely slick. Fatten: The Fatten function is only active when an area of your drawing has been selected. It will modify the selected area so that all the lines of the original image are fattened up. Smudge: The Smudge function is only active when an area of your drawing has been selected. It will make the details of the selected area fuzzy. You can select Smudge multiple times to increase the amount of smudging. Gadgets Menu ------------ Gradient: The Gradient function allows you set the characteristics of the gradients which are drawn by the Gradient tool, to be described shortly. Specifically, you can set the direction in which the gradient will progress and the minimum and maximum values for the extremes of the gradient. The range for the gradient values is zero through 255. Set Line: The Set Line function selects the current drawing line width. The current choice for line width are thin, one pixel, and thick, three pixels. You can also select no thickness, which is useful if you want to draw a filled rectangle or gradient with no line around it. Note that there are some limitations to the way lines are drawn around ellipses in this version of Desktop Paint, as described in the section on BGI Problems. Set Fill: The Set Fill function lets you select the fill pattern for all filled drawing including the paint roller fill tool. There are thirty-eight standard fill patterns in the Set Fill box. You can select one to be current by clicking in it. Note that a white fill is not the same as no fill. A rectangle which is filled with white will obscure any black pixels below it, while a rectangle with no fill will not. You can edit the currently selected fill pattern by clicking on the Edit button. This will open a window for editing the pattern. The Paste function in the pattern edit window will copy an eight by eight pixel rectangle from the Clipboard into the pattern you're editing... assuming there's an image at least this big in the Clipboard. This allows you to capture patterns from any drawing. You can save pattern sets to disk and load them through the Set Fill box. You can also set up Desktop Paint to use a default pattern set which you've created, rather than the one it comes with. See the section on modifying DTP.RES for more about this. Grid: The Grid function allows you to turn the magnetic grid on and off, and to set its spacing. When the grid is switched on, the mouse will snap to the nearest grid point when you draw things, allowing you to accurately position lines, rectangles, ellipses and so on. Text Menu --------- Font Size: The Font Size function selects the size in which the current font will be drawn. It will also tell you what the current font is, just in case you forget. When Desktop Paint first boots, the current font is the first one in the Font menu and the current size is the smallest size that font is available in. Left, Centre and Right: These functions set the direction that text will be drawn. As an aside, American users can modify this menu to read "Center" rather than "Centre" by including the file AMERTEXT.RES in the DTP.RES file. See the section on modifying DTP.RES for more information. Font Menu --------- The Font menu will only appear if DTP.RES is present and if there are some fonts in it. Desktop Paint comes with three fonts initially, these being Swiss, Dutch and Courier. Swiss corresponds to ITC Helvetica and Dutch corresponds to Times Roman. Courier looks like typewriter type. Various sizes of Swiss and Dutch are available. Selecting a font from the Font menu will make it the current text font when you next use the text tool. A check mark will appear next to the name of the current font in the font menu. THE TOOLBOX ___________ The toolbox will appear at the left side of your screen when you have opened or created a drawing file. The currently active tool will be inverted. You can select a new tool by clicking on it. Selector (the scissors): The Selector tool allows you to select areas of your drawing. Selected areas can be transformed using the tools in the Edit menu. You can move a selected area by placing the mouse cursor in it, holding down the left button and dragging it to its new location. If you hold down the left shift key while you select an area, the original image below the selected area will be left behind, and a copy made to appear in the selected box. If you do not, the image below the selected area will be filled with white. You can cause a selected area to become a permanent part of your drawing by clicking outside it. The selection box will go away. This is called "deselecting". Normally, selected areas are opaque, that is, white areas will obscure and black areas beneath them. If you hold down the control key while you drag, transform or deselect a selected area, the selected image will become transparent. Any black pixels below it will remain visible. On EGA and VGA systems there is a limit to the size of the area you can select... a box will appear to complain if you attempt to select an area which is too large. This is a BGI problem... they're explained below. If you paste an image fragment into your drawing, it will appear in the upper left corner of your drawing window and behave as if it had been selected with the left shift key held down. Airbrush (ozone friendly spray paint): The Airbrush tool will allow you to spray random areas of black pixels in your drawing window. The longer you leave the mouse in one place and held down, the blacker the area will become. Text (the big T tool): The Text tool will allow you to draw text in your picture using the currently selected font, font size and direction. The text will emanate from wherever you click in the drawing window. A vertical text cursor will indicate where the next character will appear. If you hit Enter when you are typing text, the cursor will move down a line. You cannot draw text if part of the text would appear outside the drawing window. Text is always drawn black... at least, it is in this version of the software. Line: The Line tool allows you to draw lines. The thickness and the colour of the lines is set by the Set Line function in the Gadgets menu. As there is no sense in drawing a line with no thickness, the line thickness will default to a thin line if you have it set to no thickness. You can constrain lines to be perfectly horizontal, vertical or diagonal by holding down the left shift, right shift or alt key respectively. Eraser (the pencil end): The Eraser tool allows you to erase areas of your drawing. If you erase with the left button of your mouse the eraser will be small. If you erase with the right button it will be large. The eraser always erases to white. Rectangle: Filled Rectangle: The Rectangle tool draws rectangles... seems pretty obvious, doesn't it... Rectangles will be drawn in the current line drawing colour and thickness and will be filled with the current fill pattern if you've selected the filled rectangle tool. You can constrain rectangles to be perfect squares by holding down the Alt key. Fill (paint roller): The Fill tool performs a "flood" or "bucket" fill using the currently selected fill pattern. It works whether you have the fill function for rectangles and ellipses turned on or off. Having selected the fill tool, click in a solid black or white area of your drawing. It will be filled with the current pattern. The fill tool likes to fill closed areas. If the area you attempt to fill has a hole in its periphery, the paint will leak out and fill the area outside it, too. The Undo tool is very useful when you're using the Fill tool. If you attempt to fill an extremely complex area, it's just possible that Desktop Paint will run out of fill memory. It will say so with a complaint box. In this case, simply click in the unfilled area to continue filling. Ellipse: Filled Ellipse: The ellipse tool draws ellipses. In fact, due to a limitation in the BGI driver, as detailed later in this file, you'll see a rectangle as you draw the ellipse and an ellipse only after you release the mouse button. Ellipses will be drawn in the current line drawing colour and thickness and will be filled with the current fill pattern if you've selected the filled ellipse tool. However, due to another BGI limitation, you can't draw filled ellipses with no line around them. You can constrain ellipses to be perfect circles by holding down the Alt key. Undo: The Undo tool will undo the last thing you did and then select whatever tool you were using before you selected undo. Changes to your drawing cease to be undo-able after you save the drawing, scroll the drawing or draw something else. Brush (the paintbrush): The Brush tool allows you to draw freeform lines in the currently selected line colour. Zoom (the magnifying glass): The Zoom tool allows you to zoom in on a section of your drawing and make pixel by pixel changes to it. When the zoom window is open, clicking in the enlarged area will set pixels to black and white... the left mouse button sets them to black and the right one to white. If you select Ok, the modified area will be pasted into your picture. You can Undo zoomed changes if you don't like them after you've closed the Zoom box. Gradient: The Gradient tool draws rectangles which will be filled with a graduated grey tone, the details of which are defined in the Set Gradient function of the Gadgets menu. The area will be surrounded by a line as defined in the Set Line function of the Gadgets menu. You can have a no thickness line if you like. If you hold down the control key while you draw a gradient, it will be transparent. On EGA and VGA systems there is a limit to the size you can draw a gradient. Desktop Paint will complain if you exceed it. Gradients are useful for giving areas a three dimensional appearance. CONFIGURING DESKTOP PAINT _________________________ You should find that Desktop Paint will run without any need to configure it. However, you can fine tune it for your needs with the DTPINSTL.EXE program once you've had an initial play with it. The DTPINSTL program must reside in the same subdirectory as DTP.EXE. To run it type DTPINSTL A screen like this one will appear. Desktop Paint installer version 2.2 RUN TIME DEFAULTS Default file type: PC Paintbrush MacPaint file extension: MAC GEM/IMG file extension: IMG PCX file extension: PCX TIFF file extension: TIF WPG file extension: WPG Pattern file extension: PTN Extra memory: EMS XMS/EMS overhead (kilobytes): 64 Default printer: PostScript 100 DPI MacBinary header: ON Default New width: 640 Default New depth: 480 Drive map: ABCDEFGH Path to DTP.RES: Registration name: [ Unregistered ] Registration number: 00000 You can change the values in any field by cursoring down to it and hitting Enter. Here's a quick overview of what the fields in the installer do. Default file type: This line sets the default file type which Desktop Paint will initially use to open and save files with. MacPaint file extension: GEM/IMG file extension: PCX file extension: TIFF file extension: WPG file extension: These lines allow you to change the file extensions with which Desktop Paint will look for each of its image file types. Pattern file extension: This line will allow you to change the extension under which Desktop Paint saves and loads fill pattern blocks. Extra memory: Set this line to tell Desktop Paint whether you have EMS or XMS memory available. Make sure you set this to EMS or XMS if you have extra and want to work with large pictures. Make sure you choose the appropriate type of extra memory for your system or Desktop Paint may crash. If you're running Desktop Paint under Windows 3, use XMS. XMS/EMS overhead (kilobytes): This line tells Desktop Paint how much free DOS memory to leave if it has EMS available. If this value is set to 64... sixty-four kilobytes... any picture which would leave less than 64 kilobytes of free DOS memory were it to be loaded would instead be loaded into EMS. If EMS is not enabled, this value is ignored. Increase this number if you start running into memory problems in Desktop Paint when you're editing large files and you have XMS or EMS. Default printer: This line sets the default printer. Do not set it to "Dot matrix" unless you will have a PDRV resource loaded into DTP.RES, as described below. MacBinary header: This line allows you to decide whether or not to have MacBinary headers written to MacPaint files which Desktop Paint creates. Some programs, such as PFS:First Publisher, require MacPaint files without headers. Note that both kinds of MacPaint files will be read by Desktop Paint regardless of this setting. Default New width: This line sets the default width value which appears in the New box in Desktop Paint. Default New depth: This line sets the default depth value which appears in the New box in Desktop Paint. Drive map: This is a string which should contain all the letters of the legal hard and floppy drives on your system. It should have no spaces or extraneous characters. This string is not checked for validity. Path to DTP.RES: This should be the complete DOS path to the directory where DTP.RES will be located on your system. It should include the drive letter and a trailing backslash. For example, C:\PAINT\ This string is not checked for validity. If you get it wrong, DTP.RES will not be loaded when Desktop Paint is run. With this string set correctly, you can run Desktop Paint from anywhere on your hard drive and still have it find its resource file. Registration name: Registration number: When you register Desktop Paint, we'll send you back a number. Enter your name in the registration name field exactly as it was when you registered Desktop Paint and your registration number in the next field. Upper and lower case matter. This will disable the beg notice at the end of Desktop Paint. If your name contains characters with accents or other non-English characters, please read ACCENT.DOC for instructions for entering them into the Registration name field. COMMAND LINE SWITCHES _____________________ You can use command line switches when you run Desktop Paint to temporarily adjust the settings which DTPINSTL configures. Each command line switch is of the form /XXX, a slash and three letters. Multiple switches should be separated by spaces. These are the current command line switches. /DOS - disable EMS and XMS /EMS - enable EMS /XMS - enable XMS /MAC - default to MacPaint files /IMG - default to IMG files /PCX - default to PCX files /TIF - default to TIFF files /WPG - default to WPG files /MCH - enable MacBinary header /MCN - disable MacBinary header /RES - disable loading DTP.RES FONTS ----- Assuming that you have fonts installed in DTP.RES, the Font menu will appear in Desktop Paint and you'll be able to type text into your pictures. Desktop Paint comes with a basic selection of fonts, and you can add more to it. Fonts are large, and a whole family of fonts can easily cause DTP.RES to swell by a few hundred kilobytes. There is no commercial source of proportional bitmapped fonts for PC applications per se. Instead, Desktop Paint allows you to utilize fonts from other sources. Specifically, you can convert bitmapped fonts from GEM applications such as Ventura Publisher, from Microsoft Windows 3 FNT files and from Macintosh FONT and NFNT resource files. Once converted, these fonts can be added to Desktop Paint. If you downloaded Desktop Paint from a bulletin board, you'll probably be able to find a wealth of suitable fonts there too. There are three separate programs to do these conversions, GEM2FONT, MAC2FONT and WIN2FONT respectively. There is also a program called SEEFONT which will allow you to look at samples of the fonts you've converted to see what they're like. The basic Desktop Paint package does not include these tools... it's arguably big enough as it stands. Registered users can have a disk with these programs on it as well as an assortment of additional fonts ready to add to DTP.RES for $10.00 if it's ordered when you register, or for $15.00 afterwards. The font toolkit also includes the source code and instructions to write your own assembly language dot matrix printer driver PDRV resource, should you feel like doing so. MANAGING RESOURCES __________________ The DTP.RES file is a list of resources. Resources are unrelated bits of data and code which Desktop Paint might need. These could have been kept as separate files, but keeping them all in DTP.RES makes them easier to manage, requires less space on your hard drive and allows Desktop Paint to get at them more rapidly. Desktop Paint looks at DTP.RES when it first boots up... assuming that it's there at all. If Desktop Paint can't find DTP.RES, it simply doesn't use any of the things it expects to find as resources, such as fonts. All of the resources which might be in DTP.RES are optional. If you don't want to deal with resources or you like Desktop Paint as it is, just skip this section. These are the resource types which Desktop Paint will recognize in DTP.RES. BTMP - bitmapped "sign on" message FONT - screen fonts MENU - alternate menus PTRN - alternate default pattern block PDRV - dot matrix printer driver Some or all of these may be present in DTP.RES, depending on how you want to configure Desktop Paint. Using RMOVER ------------ In order to work with resources you'll need RMOVER.EXE, which is included with the package. RMOVER allows you to add resource files together, to extract resources from a file, to delete resources from a file and to list all the resources in a file. Listing resources: Let's begin with the simplest function of RMOVER, listing the resources in a resource file. DTP.RES is a resource file. To see what was in it, you would do this. RMOVER DTP /L You would see something like the following list for the DTP.RES file which comes with the distribution version of Desktop Paint. Resource mover version 1.0 - copyright (c) 1990 Alchemy Mindworks Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Description: Extracted resource 33 resource(s) _____________________ Rsrc 0000 - type:BTMP - number 000000012 - 08004 bytes Rsrc 0001 - type:PDRV - number 000000000 - 00348 bytes Rsrc 0002 - type:FONT - number 000000000 - 02471 bytes Swiss 8pt #2 Rsrc 0003 - type:FONT - number 000000001 - 02971 bytes Swiss 9pt #2 Rsrc 0004 - type:FONT - number 000000002 - 03535 bytes Swiss 10pt #2 Rsrc 0005 - type:FONT - number 000000003 - 04045 bytes Swiss 11pt #2 Rsrc 0006 - type:FONT - number 000000004 - 04559 bytes Swiss 12pt #2 Rsrc 0007 - type:FONT - number 000000005 - 05897 bytes Swiss 14pt #2 Rsrc 0008 - type:FONT - number 000000006 - 07391 bytes Swiss 16pt #2 Rsrc 0009 - type:FONT - number 000000007 - 09077 bytes Swiss 18pt #2 Rsrc 0010 - type:FONT - number 000000008 - 11135 bytes Swiss 20pt #2 Rsrc 0011 - type:FONT - number 000000009 - 13599 bytes Swiss 22pt #2 Rsrc 0012 - type:FONT - number 000000010 - 15575 bytes Swiss 24pt #2 Rsrc 0013 - type:FONT - number 000000011 - 20891 bytes Swiss 28pt #2 Rsrc 0014 - type:FONT - number 000000012 - 30731 bytes Swiss 36pt #2 Rsrc 0015 - type:FONT - number 000000013 - 01875 bytes Dutch 6pt #14 Rsrc 0016 - type:FONT - number 000000014 - 02519 bytes Dutch 8pt #14 Rsrc 0017 - type:FONT - number 000000015 - 03215 bytes Dutch 9pt #14 Rsrc 0018 - type:FONT - number 000000016 - 03425 bytes Dutch 10pt #14 Rsrc 0019 - type:FONT - number 000000017 - 04113 bytes Dutch 11pt #14 Rsrc 0020 - type:FONT - number 000000018 - 04631 bytes Dutch 12pt #14 Rsrc 0021 - type:FONT - number 000000019 - 06023 bytes Dutch 14pt #14 Rsrc 0022 - type:FONT - number 000000020 - 07815 bytes Dutch 16pt #14 Rsrc 0023 - type:FONT - number 000000021 - 09293 bytes Dutch 18pt #14 Rsrc 0024 - type:FONT - number 000000022 - 11665 bytes Dutch 20pt #14 Rsrc 0025 - type:FONT - number 000000023 - 13939 bytes Dutch 22pt #14 Rsrc 0026 - type:FONT - number 000000024 - 16355 bytes Dutch 24pt #14 Rsrc 0027 - type:FONT - number 000000025 - 21885 bytes Dutch 28pt #14 Rsrc 0028 - type:FONT - number 000000026 - 30735 bytes Dutch 36pt #14 Rsrc 0029 - type:FONT - number 000000027 - 01875 bytes Swiss 6pt #2 Rsrc 0030 - type:FONT - number 000000028 - 03839 bytes Courier 12pt #102 Rsrc 0031 - type:FONT - number 000000029 - 09049 bytes Courier 20pt #102 Rsrc 0032 - type:FONT - number 000000030 - 12425 bytes Courier 24pt #102 Deleting resources: This is how you would delete a resource from DTP.RES with RMOVER. Let's delete the PDRV resource. This has resource number zero. RMOVER DTP /D /TPDRV /N0 The /D switch tells RMOVER to delete a resource, /T switch tells it the type of the resource to delete and the /N switch tells it the number of the resource to delete. Extracting resources: This is how you would extract a resource from DTP.RES, that is, to copy it from DTP.RES to a separate resource file of its own. Extracted resources live in resource files having one resource. You could later add such a resource to another resource file. In this example, we'll extract the PDRV resource. Note that this will not delete it from DTP.RES. RMOVER DTP /E /TPDRV /N0 /FEPSNFX80.RES The /T and /N switches work as before. The /E switch tells RMOVER to extract a resource. The /F switch tells it the name of the file to put the extracted resource in. This file... EPSNFX80.RES... will be deleted if it exists and a new one created. Adding resources: This is how you would add a resource to DTP.RES. In this example we'll add TEXTURE.PTN to DTP.RES. This is an alternate set of pattern blocks which comes with the Desktop Paint package. RMOVER DTP /A /FTEXTURE.PTN The /A switch tells RMOVER to add a resource. Note that all the resources in the file indicated by the /F switch will be added to DTP.RES. NOTE: RMOVER can quite easily delete resources you might want to keep if you give it erroneous instructions. Keep a backup copy of your resource files while you're working with it. Common Resource Types --------------------- Here's what each of these resources does and how to work with them. Make sure as you work with DTP.RES that you keep a copy of the original DTP.RES file which comes with Desktop Paint so you can start over if you find you've deleted something you might want. The BTMP Resource: Including a BTMP resource in DTP.RES is purely cosmetic. It will give you something to look at while the rest of the DTP.RES file is being read. A BTMP is simply a monochrome bitmapped picture fragment. There's one in the default DTP.RES file which comes with Desktop Paint. You can change this to one which you create if you like. The resources in DTP.RES are read in the order they appear in the file. If a BTMP resource is located as the file is initially read, Desktop Paint will display it in the middle of the screen and leave it there while it's reading the rest of the file. For the best effect, the BTMP resource should be the first one in DTP.RES. You might well be wondering how to create a BTMP resource. It's quite easy. When image fragments are saved to the Gallery in Desktop Paint, they're stored as BTMP resources. To make a BTMP resource for your DTP.RES file, generate the picture you want in Desktop Paint, select it, copy it to the Clipboard, paste the Clipboard into the Gallery, quit Desktop Paint and extract the last BTMP resource from the Gallery to a separate file. A less complex way... especially if you have a rather full GALLERY.RES file... is to rename GALLERY.RES to something else and follow the above procedure. Desktop Paint will create a new GALLERY.RES with only one BTMP resource in it. Rename this GALLERY.RES to something else and your original Gallery file back to GALLERY.RES. When you add resources to a resource file, they're always added to the end of the file. You'll want to have your new BTMP at the beginning of the file. To make this happen, begin by deleting the existing BTMP resource from DTP.RES. Then, add all of DTP.RES to the file with your new BTMP resource in it. Finally, delete your old DTP.RES and rename your new file to DTP.RES. Clear as mud, this. It might take a few tries to get it right. The BTMP resource you use for a sign-on message should have a horizontal dimension which is an even multiple of eight. You can handle this easily by using the New function in Desktop Paint to create a picture the size you want your sign on image to be... 320 by 200 pixels is a good size... and then selecting the whole drawing when it's completed. If you want to make Desktop Paint boot as quickly as possible... especially on a fairly slow system... you can delete the BTMP resource from DTP.RES entirely. The FONT Resources: Each font which will be available in Desktop Paint must have a separate resource. Thus, if you have Dutch in seven sizes, there will be seven FONT resources for Dutch. A complete discussion of fonts is available in FONTS.DOC, which comes with the font toolkit discussed above. Note that Desktop Paint can function without any fonts in DTP.RES at all. If you have no need of the text capabilities in Desktop Paint and you want it to boot up more rapidly, remove all the fonts from DTP.RES. The MENU Resources: You can add MENU resources to DTP.RES to change the names of the menu items in Desktop Paint. The AMERTEXT.RES file included with Desktop Paint is an example of such a menu. It replaces the Text menu in Desktop Paint with one in which the spelling of "Centre" is American, that is, "Center". Add AMERTEXT.RES to DTP.RES if you want to make this change. The Desktop Paint package does not come with a resource file editor, which is what you would need to create further custom menus. Registered users of the software can contact us for more information about modifying resources like this if they wish. The PTRN Resource: If you don't like the default set of fill patterns which comes with Desktop Paint, you can replace them with one of your own devising by including a PTRN resource in DTP.RES. To create a PTRN resource, use the edit function of the Fill box in Desktop Paint to create the pattern set you want and save it. The file you save it to will be a PTRN resource. Add it to DTP.RES. Desktop Paint defaults to using dithered grey level fill patterns. However, it comes with a set of more interesting fill patterns in TEXTURE.PTN. You can load these in when you want to use them, or you can make them the default pattern set by adding TEXTURE.PTN to DTP.RES, as discussed previously. The PDRV Resource: If you want to be able to print to a dot matrix printer you'll need a PRDV resource in your DTP.RES file. There's one in the default DTP.RES to support the Epson FX-80, which is emulated by most other dot matrix printers. If you want to drive a printer which does not emulate the Epson FX-80, or you wish to use a higher resolution mode of a more sophisticated printer, you must create a new PDRV resource for your printer, delete the existing PRDV resource from DTP.RES and put your PRVR in its place. A discussion of printer drivers and the creation thereof can be found in the Desktop Paint font toolkit, described earlier. BGI PROBLEMS ____________ Desktop Paint currently uses the Borland BGI graphics drivers to do much of the work of managing its user interface and drawing pictures. This has resulted in a few problems which are inherent in the BGI drivers, and hence beyond us to do anything about. They are: - You can't draw filled ellipses with a zero line width, as you can filled rectangles. - Certain patterns which are mostly white will not fill white areas completely with the paint roller tool. - You can't select very large areas of a drawing if you're running Desktop Paint on an EGA or VGA card. - There are only two available line widths. - Ellipses are drawn as rectangles as you're drawing them, and only appear as ellipses when you're done. We're looking at either re-writing the BGI drivers a bit or using a different graphics package altogether to overcome these bugs for the next major release of Desktop Paint. COMING IN THE NEXT MAJOR RELEASE OF DESKTOP PAINT _________________________________________________ If you register Desktop Paint you'll be notified of the next major release of the software. Among the things we're working on are: - An irregular area selector tool - Solving the BGI problems - Editable brushes - Brush with pattern - Text drawn in patterns - Text effects - Free rotation - Polygon tool We are also most interested in suggestions from registered users. ROLL YOUR OWN _____________ This is yet another book plug. If you're interested in writing programs which use graphics, you'll find everything you need to know in "Bitmapped Graphics", also by Steve Rimmer. It's published by TAB books, (TAB book 3558). It features code to pack and unpack MacPaint, IMG, PCX, GIF and TIFF files, as well as chapters on screen drivers, dithering and printing. If you would like to write programs with a graphical user interface like the one in Desktop Paint, you will find the complete user interface code used herein in The PC GUI Book by Steve Rimmer, published by TAB Windcrest (TAB book 3875). It will be available toward the end of 1991. If you can't find them locally, contact the bookstore mentioned at the beginning of this file. (Don't call them about the GUI book until it's actually published, though.) MORAL DOGMA ___________ If you like this program and find it useful, you are requested to support it either by buying the book mentioned at the top of this file or by sending us $35.00. We'd rather you bought the book. This will entitle you to telephone support, notification of updates, a free copy of the latest version of Desktop Paint and other good things like that. More to the point, though, it'll make you feel noble. We've not infested the program with excessive beg notices, crippled it or had it verbally insult you after ten days. We trust you to support Desktop Paint if you like it. Oh yes, should you fail to support this program and continue to use it, a leather winged demon of the night will tear itself, shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the nether world, hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for blood on its slavering fangs and search the very threads of time for the throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to know that. We are Alchemy Mindworks Inc. P.O. Box 500 Beeton, Ontario L0G 1A0 Canada Other programs we've done that you might like include: DESKTOP PAINT 256 - A powerful super-VGA paint program, Desktop Paint 256 will let you create and edit pictures stored as PCX, GIF, TIFF and IFF/LBM files. It features a rich selection of drawing and image manipulation tools, XMS and EMS support to work on large images and a user friendly interface. Looking very much like monochrome Desktop Paint in colour, it's a powerful application which will be equally useful for picture collectors, artists and desktop publishing users... it makes a quick and easy to use editor for grey scale TIFF files, too. Supports Paradise (and compatibles), Headland Video 7 and ATI VGA Wonder cards. Note that you must have one of these super-VGA cards to use Desktop Paint 256... it does not run in the standard 320 by 200 pixel "standard" VGA mode. GRAPHIC WORKSHOP - This is the last word in image programs. It converts, prints, views, dithers, transforms, scales and halftones MacPaint, GEM/Ventura IMG, PCX, GIF, TIFF, WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM, BMP and EPS files. It drives CGA, Hercules, EGA, VGA, Paradise, Video 7, Trident, Tseng Labs, Orchid, Hercules Graphics Station and ATI VGA Wonder cards. It features batch processing, extended and expanded memory support, an intuitive user interface and easy to follow menus. It allows you to convert colour image files into superb black and white clip art for desktop publishing, among other things. VFM - Ventura soft font manager deluxe with a side of fries. Adds new fonts and creates width tables with menu driven simplicity. GRAFCAT - Prints a visual catalog of your image files, with sixteen pictures to a page. Drives all LaserJet and PostScript laser printers, and works with any mixture of GIF, PCX, MacPaint, TIFF, WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM, EPS, BMP, PIC and IMG files. CROPGIF - allows you to crop smaller fragments from your GIF files. Use graphic Workshop, above, to convert other formats into GIF files for cropping. This program uses a simple mouse interface to make cropping image fragments no more complicated than using a paint program Requires a Microsoft compatible mouse. CINEMA - Displays a continuous "slide show" of image files. You can set up the images to be displayed using a simple script language. Cinema works with most super VGA cards, using the same drivers as Graphic Workshop, and with CGA, EGA and Hercules cards. It works with any mixture of GIF, PCX, MacPaint, TIFF, WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM, EPS and IMG files. FI - File Information... this is a small utility which will examine mystery image files and tell you what they are and some details of what's inside them. GIFINFO - Creates catalog files from your GIF collection, allowing you to store fifty or more miniature full colour representations of GIF files on a single quad floppy. STORYTELLER - Is a hypertext program with a mouse driven graphical user interface which will allow you to create reports, manuals and interactive fiction, among other things, which has a tree structure. Each page of a storyteller document can lead to related sub-pages, which can in turn have their own sub-sub pages, and so on. It looks slick and is exceedingly user friendly. If you can't find them in the public domain, they're available from us for $35.00 each. BUNDLING DESKTOP PAINT ______________________ If you'd like to include Desktop Paint with your product, please get in touch with us. We have several ways to help you do this so your users get the most out of Desktop Paint and we don't have to set our leather winged demon of the night on 'em. SOURCE CODE AVAILABILITY ________________________ It isn't. The source code for the user interface, however, is available in the PC GUI Book, mentioned above. SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTORS ______________________ We are happy to have Desktop Paint distributed by shareware distributors provided you distribute a copy which has come directly from us and that you don't modify the package in any way. We will provide a free master copy of the current version of this software to those distributors which we feel make a reasonable effort to promote the registration of our shareware. Other distributors are welcome to distribute the package if they purchase a registered copy of it. If you wish to request a free master copy of this package for distribution, please send us a copy of your current catalog and a letter requesting a copy on your letterhead. We will not consider requests which are not accompanied by a printed catalog. Sorry... we've been getting deluged with requests. REVISION HISTORY ________________ Version 2.3 - Fixed several minor bugs, including one in the Paste function which would leave black lines around some pasted images. Version 2.2 - Added extended memory support, fixed an inconsistency in the select box. Version 2.1 - Fixed a bug in the clipboard display which caused the program to crash in some circumstances. Added double-clicking to the file selector. Version 2.0 - Added drawing support for two-button mice, added filled ellipse and rectangle tools, tightened up the zoom mode, added smudging. Version 1.9 - Improved the select / unselect function. Version 1.8 - Fixed a bug in the selector box. Version 1.7 - Fixed a minor memory allocation bug in the Select Fill dialog box. Version 1.6 - Added a check mark to the Text menu, fixed several memory allocation problems and changed the memory management a bit to reduce potential heap fragmentation. Version 1.5 - Fixed a bug which caused the text cursor to remain on the screen after scrolling. Version 1.4 - Added a copy count to the Print box, sped up the menus a bit, added check marks to the font menu to indicate the current font. Added the Fatten command to the Edit menu. Version 1.3 - Installed a fix which cures a problem with some revisions of Everex VGA cards. In former versions they appeared to draw the screen in odd colours now and again. Version 1.2 - Cleaned up a few inconistencies in the menus, fixed a problem with the undo function used after two consecutive Pastes (it undid both of them) and allowed for foreign language characters in the registration field. Version 1.1 - Added Trace Edges function, fixed a bug which caused some Hercules compatible cards to misbehave after running Desktop Paint. Version 1.0 - Desktop Paint wanders out into the infinite cosmos seeking destiny. LEGAL DOGMA ___________ The author assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss caused by the use of these programs, however it comes down. If you can think of a way a picture program can cause you damage or loss you've a sneakier mind than mine. All the trademarks used herein are registered to whoever it is that owns them. This notification is given in lieu of any specific list of trademarks and their owners, which would not be as inclusive and would probably take a lot longer to type. That's it...