DP Tool Club 24/CD_ASCQ_24_0995.iso/dos/graphic/grafix43/graffix.doc

Text File | 1995-05-09 | 23KB | 498 lines

     FOR LOGO-FREE SCREEN CAPTURES, BECOME A REGISTERED USER


     GRAFFIX (tm) for Windows and DOS, Shareware Edition, v4.3
     Copyright 1993/94/95 Andromeda Software.  All Rights Reserved.


     This is the Shareware Edition of GRAFFIX, a screen-capture system
     that includes two executable program files: DGFX.EXE for DOS, and
     WGFX.EXE for Windows.  The DOS program can capture full-screen
     text or graphics from DOS applications running in DOS or under
     Windows, while the Windows program can capture graphics from
     Windows applications or text from character-mode DOS applications
     running full-screen under Windows.

     DGFX.EXE and WGFX.EXE can run simultaneously on the same computer
     and be activated independently of each other.  The INSTALLATION
     section starting on page 7 explains how to install and run these
     program files on your computer.

     For simplicity, the explanations that follow focus first on the
     Windows version of GRAFFIX, then on the DOS version.


     GRAFFIX for Windows

     GRAFFIX is a clipboard viewer that can save all or part of the
     image on the clipboard to a graphics file in BMP, GIF, or PCX
     format.  In Windows, the entire screen can be captured to the
     clipboard at any time by pressing the PrtSc key (Shift+PrtSc on
     84-key keyboards), or just the currently active window by press-
     ing Alt+PrtSc.  GRAFFIX does not need to be running in order to
     do this.  GRAFFIX can then be opened to save the entire clip-
     board, or the image can be cropped by using the mouse to frame
     a rectangle of any size within the window before saving to disk.

     To save, choose the desired format from the File menu.  A dialog
     box will list the files of the selected format in the current
     directory.  You may select one of the files listed or type a new
     file name in the edit box.  You may also switch to another direc-
     tory or disk drive.

     GRAFFIX for Windows will also display text captured to the clip-
     board.  Text can be saved to an ASCII file or to a monochrome
     graphics file in BMP, GIF, or PCX format.  Two character sets are
     available, OEM and ANSI.  Text can be captured to the clipboard
     by pressing PrtSc while a DOS character-mode application is run-
     ning full-screen under Windows.

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     When minimized to an icon or hidden by another window, GRAFFIX
     is still active in "popup" mode, which means it will pop up onto
     the screen or become visible whenever an image is placed on the
     clipboard.  You can then save the entire image or any rectangular
     portion.  To return to the application that was interrupted,
     simply click on that application's window or minimize GRAFFIX
     back to an icon.  You can turn popup mode off by clicking on
     "Popup" in the Options menu, which will remove the checkmark
     next to this menu item.

     In popup mode, GRAFFIX will pop up when you press the PrtSc key
     OR when another application places a bitmap on the clipboard
     that is compatible with GRAFFIX.  The compatible formats are
     DDB (Device-Dependent Bitmap) and DIB (Device-Independent Bitmap),
     two commonly-used bitmap formats.  If you attempt to save a clip-
     board bitmap whose format is not one of these two, GRAFFIX will
     respond with a dialog box that says "No bitmap exists on the
     clipboard."

     GRAFFIX will not pop up immediately when text is captured to
     the clipboard from a DOS application running full screen in
     character mode.  In this case, GRAFFIX will pop up after the
     DOS program is terminated or minimized to an icon by pressing
     Ctrl+Esc to activate Task Switcher.  If the GRAFFIX window
     becomes hidden by another window, it can be brought back to
     the foreground by double-clicking its icon in Program Manager.


     Cropping the Clipboard Image

     The GRAFFIX display window can scroll the clipboard image hori-
     zontally and vertically by means of the scroll bars.  To mark a
     rectangular area for cropping, move the cursor to one of the top
     corners of the desired rectangle, depress the left mouse button,
     move the cursor to the diagonally opposite corner and release the
     button.  Repeat this process to erase the rectangle and draw a
     new one.  The width and height of the rectangle in pixel units
     will be displayed in the title bar, as will the x,y coordinates
     of the upper-left (UL) and lower-right (LR) corners of the rec-
     tangle.  The origin of these coordinates is the upper-left corner
     of the clipboard image.

     To save the cropped image, select the desired format from the
     File menu.  To erase the rectangle, press Esc or position the
     cursor anywhere on the image and click and release the left mouse
     button.

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     File Menu Item: Save as BMP

     Select this menu item to save the contents of the clipboard to an
     uncompressed Windows Bitmap File with the filename extension BMP.
     Monochrome, 16-color, 256-color, and 24-bit TrueColor modes are
     supported.


     File Menu Item: Save as GIF

     Select this menu item to save the contents of the clipboard to a
     CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format file with the filename ex-
     tension GIF.  This format utilizes LZW compression, and supports
     monochrome, 16, and 256-color modes.  GIF does not support 24-bit
     color modes.


     File Menu Item: Save as PCX

     Select this menu item to save the contents of the clipboard to
     a PC Paintbrush file with the filename extension PCX.  Mono-
     chrome, 16-color, 256-color, and 24-bit TrueColor modes are
     supported.


     File Menu Item: Save as TXT

     Select this menu item to save clipboard text to an ASCII text
     file.  Two character sets are available.  The OEM character set
     is the DOS-compatible IBM extended ASCII character set.  The ANSI
     character set is the one used by Windows.  If you save text to a
     file that already exists, the text will be appended to the file.


     File Menu Item: Open BMP

     Select this item from the File menu to open a BMP file and place
     it on the clipboard.  The image can now be saved in any of the
     three available formats, or cropped and then saved.


     Main Menu Item: Display

     This pull-down menu allows you to select which of the available
     clipboard formats to display.  Normally, Windows will clear the
     clipboard when the PrtSc key is pressed.  However, applications
     can place a bitmap or text on the clipboard without first clear-
     ing it, so that text and graphics can coexist.  This is the case
     when you select Open BMP.  By default, GRAFFIX will display the
     format most recently added to the clipboard.

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     Main Menu Item: Options
     Five options are available:

     Clear clipboard.
       Select this menu item to empty the clipboard.

     Popup mode.
       This is the default mode of GRAFFIX.  When minimized to an
       icon or hidden by another window, GRAFFIX will pop up onto
       the screen whenever the clipboard receives a new bitmap image
       or text.  Select this menu item to turn popup mode off or back
       on again.  To return to the application that was interrupted,
       click on that application's window or minimize GRAFFIX back
       to an icon.

     Enter coordinates.
       Select this menu item to draw a rectangle by entering its
       coordinates from the keyboard, instead of using the mouse.
       The values that appear in the dialog box are those of the
       current rectangle, if one has been drawn with the mouse.  If
       no rectangle has been drawn, the values default to a rectangle
       that contains the entire client area of the GRAFFIX window.
       Coordinates may be entered that exceed the boundaries of this
       client area, and may include the entire image on the clipboard,
       up to a full screen.

       The origin of the rectangle coordinates is the upper-left
       corner of the clipboard image.  To erase the rectangle, press
       Esc or click and release the left mouse button.

     Invert colors
       Select this menu item to invert the colors of the image on the
       clipboard, creating a negative image.  The original colors can
       be restored by selecting this menu item again.

     Text colors
       This menu item allows you to choose the displayed colors of
       clipboard text.  The choices are black-on-white (the default)
       and white-on-black.


     Help Menu

     Online Help is available to explain the features of GRAFFIX.

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     GRAFFIX for DOS is a memory-resident utility that captures gra-
     phics and text-mode screens directly to disk files.  It can be
     activated from within a running DOS application, such as a video
     game, by pressing the "hot key" combination Ctrl+Alt+Space.

     Graphics screens can be saved to either GIF or PCX files, and
     text screens to either ASCII or ATF files.  The ATF format pre-
     serves text color attributes.  GRAFFIX supports all EGA, VGA, and
     SVGA gray-scale and color graphics modes, including 16 and 256-
     color, 24-bit color (VESA modes), monochrome EGA and VGA modes,
     and text modes up to 132 columns by 60 rows.  To minimize memory
     requirements of this TSR, the old CGA and Hercules graphics modes
     are not supported.  SVGA modes are supported for adapters whose
     BIOS is VESA-compliant, which includes most SVGA adapters.


     USING GRAFFIX for DOS

     Super-VGA modes are supported for video cards that have the
     VESA BIOS extension.  GRAFFIX looks for this extension when you
     make it resident, and prints a message on the screen indicating
     whether or not the VESA BIOS extension was found.  Some SVGA
     cards, such as the Video Seven WIN.VGA, require that you run
     a utility program that installs the VESA BIOS extension in RAM
     before an application can make calls to the BIOS extension.

     In the case of the Video Seven card, this utility is named
     V7VESA.COM.  Putting V7VESA on a separate line in your AUTO-
     EXEC.BAT file will automatically load this driver every time
     you turn on your computer.

     In the absence of the VESA BIOS extension on SVGA cards, GRAFFIX
     supports the standard VGA modes, but will terminate and return to
     the application when it encounters a mode it does not recognize.

     When GRAFFIX is activated in graphics mode, a prompt for a file
     name appears at the top of the screen.  The cursor is invisible
     in graphics modes, but you can enter a file name as you would
     in text mode, and backspace to delete characters you may want
     to change.  If no file name is entered before you press <CR>,
     GRAFFIX defaults to the file name SAVE#XXX.GIF/PCX, where XXX is
     the sequential number of the file, and writes the file to the
     current drive and directory.  You may enter the file name with
     a drive and directory prefix, such as d:\dir\filename, where d
     represents any drive letter and dir any directory or subdirectory
     name.  The prompt will accept more than one directory in the pre-
     fix, such as d:\dir\subdir\filename, for a total of up to 23
     characters.

                                - 6 -

     The file name prompt is drawn with palette number 15 against a
     background of palette number 0.  Occasionally, there may be in-
     sufficient contrast between these two colors for the prompt to
     be visible.  In that case, simply press p or g to select PCX or
     GIF, then press <CR> to use the default file name.

     No file name prompt appears in 24-bit color modes, as some adap-
     ter cards do not support text output in these modes.  Instead,
     the filename defaults to 24BITxxx.PCX in the current directory,
     where xxx represents the number in the sequence of files saved.
     The GIF format does not support 24-bit color.

     Video games sometimes use "tweaked" graphics modes that are not
     supported by the BIOS.  GRAFFIX may be unable to capture these
     screens correctly.

     The time GRAFFIX takes to capture a graphics screen and save it
     to disk depends on the speed of your computer, the file format
     chosen, and the graphics mode.  A GIF file takes longer to create
     than a PCX file, because the compression algorithm is more com-
     plex, resulting in a file that is more compact.  The higher the
     resolution of the graphics mode, the longer it will take to cre-
     ate the file, because of the greater number of pixels that must
     be encoded.

     When the screen capture is completed, GRAFFIX will signal you
     with a beep.  During a SVGA screen capture, GRAFFIX will generate
     a series of ascending tones; each tone indicates that the video
     card has switched to a new page of memory.  This is to reassure
     you that the program is indeed processing data, and not hung up
     in an endless loop.


     TEXT MODE SCREENS

     Text can be saved to either an ASCII file or to an Attribute Text
     Format file with the extension ATF.  An ATF file contains two
     bytes for each character: the ASCII code and the color attribute.
     Many DOS applications that run in text mode simulate a graphical
     interface by utilizing the extended ASCII character set to draw
     multi-colored menus and dialog boxes.  Such a screen can be cap-
     tured to an ATF file.

     GRAFFIX includes a DOS utility named AttriByte (AB.EXE) that can
     display an ATF file in its original colors in a graphical screen
     mode, so that the GRAFFIX TSR can capture the screen to a GIF or
     a PCX file.  When you run AttriByte from the DOS command line,
     you will be prompted for the name of an ATF file to display.
     AB.EXE will then switch the screen to the most suitable graphics
     mode available on your computer and display the ATF file.  Attri-
     Byte uses VESA modes to display 132-column text, so the VESA BIOS
     extension should be installed on your computer.

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     If the maximum resolution of your monitor is 1024x768, AttriByte
     will display 132-column text in VESA BIOS mode 104h, which is
     only capable of displaying 128 columns.  Hence, the four columns
     on the right of the screen will not be displayed.  On 1280x1024
     monitors, the full 132 columns will be displayed in VESA mode
     106h, which is capable of displaying up to 160 columns of text.

     You can override AttriByte's choice of screen mode by running
     AB.EXE with the /x command-line switch.  This will cause Attri-
     Byte to display the ATF file in whatever screen mode happens
     to be in effect.  Therefore, it is necessary to put the screen
     into the desired graphics mode before running AB.EXE with the
     /x switch, by means of a screen mode utility such as the one
     included on the software disk that came with your video card.

     When AttriByte displays an ATF file, the image will remain on the
     screen while you activate GRAFFIX for DOS by means of the hot key
     combination.  After you've saved the screen as either GIF or PCX,
     press any key to return to DOS.  If you used the /x switch, the
     screen will still be in the mode you selected, and the DOS prompt
     will be superimposed on the image that was displayed.  Use the
     DOS command CLS to clear the screen, or reset the screen to text
     mode 3 by means of your screen mode utility.

     When you save a text mode screen to an ASCII file, the text will
     be appended to a file if you enter the name of a file that al-
     ready exists.  If you do this when you save text to an ATF file,
     a new file will be created and the existing file deleted.


     INSTALLATION - GRAFFIX for DOS

     To install GRAFFIX for DOS onto your hard disk, copy the files
     DGFX.EXE and AB.EXE into the directory where you want these files
     to reside.  Then, to install the GRAFFIX for DOS TSR into memory,
     change to this directory, type DGFX at the DOS prompt and press
     <Enter>.  From any other directory, type the full path to DGFX
     .EXE at the DOS command line and press <Enter>.  If the "path"
     environment variable in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file includes the drive
     and directory where DGFX.EXE resides, then you need only type
     DGFX at the DOS prompt from within any directory before you press
     <Enter>.

     To make the GRAFFIX for DOS TSR automatically memory-resident
     each time you turn on your computer, insert into your AUTOEXEC
     .BAT file the DOS command line to launch DGFX.EXE, after the line
     that sets the path.

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     Since DGFX.EXE is a TSR, it must be launched from the DOS
     prompt BEFORE opening Microsoft Windows.  It cannot be properly
     installed in memory from a DOS "shell" activated by clicking a
     DOS icon in Windows, nor can it be launched from the "Run" item
     of the Program Manager "File" menu.  However, once DGFX.EXE has
     been installed as a memory-resident program, it can be activated
     from within a DOS program that was launched from DOS, from
     Windows, or from a DOS shell in Windows.  GRAFFIX for DOS is
     activated by pressing the "hot-key" combination Ctrl+Alt+Space.


     INSTALLATION - GRAFFIX for Windows

     WGFX.EXE can be launched from the "Run" item of the Program
     Manager "File" menu, or it can be launched by double-clicking
     its icon, having first installed it into a program group window.

     To install the GRAFFIX icon into a group window, first create
     a directory on your hard disk where you want the GRAFFIX files
     to reside (the DOS manual explains how to do this).  Next, copy
     the files WGFX.EXE and WGFX.HLP into that directory.  Now launch
     Windows and open the program group window into which you want
     to install the GRAFFIX icon.  Next, pull down the File menu in
     Program Manager and click on New.  Select "Program Item" and
     click OK.  The "Program Item Properties" dialog box will now
     appear.

     For Description, enter "GRAFFIX."  Press the Tab key, and
     for Command Line, enter the full path to WGFX.EXE, such as
     C:\GRAFFIX\WGFX.EXE.  Press the Tab key, and for Working
     Directory, enter the path to the default directory where you
     want screen-capture files to be saved.  Now click OK, and
     the GRAFFIX icon will be installed into the group window.

                                *  *  *

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     GRAFFIX for Windows and DOS, Shareware Edition, Version 4.3
     Copyright 1993/94/95 Andromeda Software.  All Rights Reserved.

     The Professional Edition of GRAFFIX for Windows and DOS does
     not display the GRAFFIX logo on saved files.  You may specify
     a custom hot-key combination for the DOS program.

     To register and receive the Professional Edition, send $39 to:

                          Andromeda Software
                          125 North Prospect St.
                          Washington NJ 07882

     NJ residents please include sales tax.

     Steven A. Brown, programmer
     CompuServe: 73140,3340
     INTERNET  : [e-mail]
     FAX       : [phone]


     CREDIT CARD ORDERS

     You may e-mail or FAX your order with your name, address, VISA or
     MasterCard account number, and expiration date.  Please specify
     which of the following methods of delivery you prefer:

     1.  First-class mail on 3.5" disk.

     2.  GRAFFIX.ZIP via binary e-mail on CompuServe.

     3.  GRAFFIX.ZIP as attached file via e-mail on America Online.

     4.  DGFX.UUE and WGFX.UUE via ASCII e-mail on the Internet
         (requires UUDECODE.EXE utility to recover ZIP files).

     The total amount charged to your credit card will be $40.00.
     Orders may also be placed by telephone to [phone].


     SHAREWARE NOTICE

     The Shareware Edition of GRAFFIX is freely distributed.  You may
     use it over a ten-day period to determine its suitability for
     your needs.  To continue using GRAFFIX beyond this evaluation
     period, you will be required to purchase the registered Profes-
     sional Edition.

                                - 10 -

     Registration fees are the only compensation the programmer re-
     ceives for the work and expense of writing this program.  Please
     support the shareware concept of quality, "try-before-you-buy"
     software.  Registered users are entitled to unlimited technical
     support and low-cost upgrades.


     DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY

     THIS SOFTWARE IS SOLD "AS IS," WITHOUT WARRANTY AS TO PERFORMANCE
     OF MERCHANTABILITY OR ANY OTHER WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESSED OR
     IMPLIED.  BECAUSE OF THE VARIOUS HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ENVIRON-
     MENTS INTO WHICH THIS PROGRAM MAY BE PUT, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS
     FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED.  GOOD DATA PROCESSING PRO-
     CEDURE DICTATES THAT ANY PROGRAM BE THOROUGHLY TESTED WITH NON-
     CRITICAL DATA BEFORE RELYING ON IT.  THE USER MUST ASSUME THE
     ENTIRE RISK OF USING THE PROGRAM.  ANY LIABILITY OF THE SELLER
     WILL BE LIMITED EXCLUSIVELY TO PRODUCT REPLACEMENT OR REFUND OF
     PURCHASE PRICE.


     GIF-LZW LICENSE NOTICE

     Use of this software is permitted only to the extent reasonably
     required to determine whether to purchase the software.

     After payment is made, use of this software is limited to use on
     only a single personal computer or workstation which is not used
     as a server.  An additional payment of $10 is required for each
     use on another personal computer or workstation.

     Only a single copy may be made of this software solely for backup
     or archival purposes.  The software may also be transferred to a
     single hard disk.

     Any use of this software in violation of the above is not
     licensed.

     For information concerning licensing the LZW compression and/or
     decompression capability, please contact:

          Unisys Corporation
          Welch Licensing Department - C1SW19
          Township Line & Union Meeting Roads
          P.O. Box 500
          Blue Bell, Pennsylvania 19424

     Graphics Interchange Format and GIF are service marks of
     CompuServe Incorporated.

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