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READ.ME
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========= NEW Ver. 1.51 ==========
*** DRAFT CHOICE Ver 1.51 (C) Copyright 1988 - 91 ***
------------------------------------------------------
TRIUS, Inc., P.O. BOX 249, North Andover, MA 01845
Tel.(508)794-9377 FAX.(508)688-6312 BBS:(508)794-0762
This file, contains a variety of recent changes, and other useful
information that did not make it into the Ver 1.5 printing of the users
manual. Please, READ IT THOROUGHLY! It contains very important
information with regards to Ver. 1.5 and 1.51 and reading it now will
probably save you time and trouble later on!
You can print this file by COPYing it to your printer with the
following command: copy READ.ME prn, or, you can view it on your
screen with the command: type READ.ME
For more information on technical support for DRAFT CHOICE, please see
the user's manual.
Shareware and the Association of Shareware Professionals
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
_______
____|__ | (tm)
--| | |-------------------
| ____|__ | Association of
| | |_| Shareware
|__| o | Professionals
-----| | |---------------------
|___|___| MEMBER
The shareware concept makes it possible for you to obtain extremely
powerful software at an affordable price, and it lets you evaluate the
software before you register.
Shareware is kept alive by YOUR support.
Evaluate the program for 30-days and give copies to your friends for
evaluation. If, after the 30 days, you continue to use the program,
then register it by sending us the registration form included in this
help file or by calling our order number at 508-794-9377. You will receive
the Latest version, Printed manual, Symbol Libraries, 90-day free Technical
Phone Support and newsletter, BBS Technical Support and Reduced price
Upgrades. Help support new developments in DRAFT CHOICE, register
your copy today!
TRIUS, Inc. is a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals
(ASP). ASP wants to make sure the shareware principle works for you.
If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an
ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help.
The ASP Ombudsman helps to resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member,
but does not provide technical support for that member's products.
Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at:
ASP Ombudsman
545 Grover Road
Muskegon, MI 49442-9427
or send a Compuserve message via easyplex to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536.
Ordering Information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you have not already ordered your registered copy of DRAFT CHOICE,
you may do so using the order form in the ORDER.ME file, or by calling
TRIUS, Inc. and charging your purchase on your credit card.
You may also order your copy on-line by calling our TRIUS Support BBS
at (508) 794-0762 [2400,N,8,1 - 24 hrs].
If you live outside the US and Canada contact TRIUS, Inc. for a dealer
in your country. Purchasing through these dealers can save you the
delay and inconvenience which may be involved in dealing with currency
conversions and international shipping and in many cases will provide
you with faster technical support.
INSTALLATION
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The DRAFT CHOICE Disk should contain the following Files:
DINSTALL.EXE - DRAFT CHOICE Installation Program
DRAFTC.FLS - Archive used by DINSTALL
LHARC.EXE - Compression Program (c) Haruyasu Yoshizaki, 1988-89
READ.ME - This File
ORDER.ME - Registration/Order form
VENDOR.DOC - Info on Distributing Shareware Copies
LICENSE.DOC - Please Read This!
........... - Other files from time to time
To install the program follow the instructions below:
1. Start your computer and make sure you are at the dos prompt.
2. Insert the DRAFT CHOICE diskette in Drive A or B.
3. Type A: (or B:, depending on step 2, above) and press ENTER
4. Type DINSTALL, press ENTER and follow the on-screen instructions.
STARTING THE PROGRAM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The information provided below is to help you start the program for
your hardware configuration. For more details about the operation of
the program press the F1 (function) key once you have started the
program.
DRAFT CHOICE is started from DOS using the command:
A> DC /Option1/Option2/Option3/..... [ENTER]
Available Command Line Options
------------------------------
/H - Enables graphics for Hercules
/E - Enables graphics for EGA
/ATT - Enables ATT display graphics
/EV - Enables VGA (640x480) Graphics
/EM - Enables Monochrome VGA Graphics
/ES - Enables Super VGA (800x600) graphics
/Q - Quick screen updating for CGA
/V1 - Force CGA mode on VGA monitor
/NT - No Keyboard Turbo (Eliminates conflicts with some programs
that directly manipulate the keyboard registers)
/MONO - Used with monitors that do not display shades properly
/NE - Do not use Expanded memory even if it is detected
/VM=NN - Use the disk drive to emulate EMS RAM. NN=number of 16K pages
/VP=d:\Path; - Path for Virtual Memory (Note the ; at the end)
For more Command line options, refer to user's manual.
NEW in Ver. 1.51
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(a) F5 - De-Select Entity Toggle
Press F5 to toggle entity selection mode from ADD to SUBTRACT.
i.e. If 10 entities are selected for copying and entity #2 had
to be de-selected, press F5 to toggle the SUBtract mode ON, and
re-select the entity #2 to remove it from the copy operation.
(b) Draft Choice now features a choice of either bit mapped or vector
fill patterns. Bit mapped were the fill patterns available in Ver. 1.5,
and are prefered when plotting to a dot matrix or laserjet printer.
Vector based fill patterns, are constructed using lines and are recommended
when plotting to a pen plotter. NOTE: Both fill pattern types can be mixed
in the same drawing....
There isn't always a matching bitmap to vector pattern. You may have to
emulate some of these patterns manually when converting.
(c) Added a new printer driver for the OKIDATA microline 182+ series
of 9-pin Dot Matrix Printers. The driver should also work on 24-pin
OKI printers but has not been tested. Any comments would be appreciated.
CAUTION: This driver assumes that the OKIDATA printer is in the OKIDATA
graphics mode. An EPSON printer driver should be selected if the EPSON
graphics mode is set on your OKIDATA printer.
(d) Moving through large symbol libraries is made easier by, adding
Prev [page] and Next [page] commands under the SYMBOL, USE dialog window.
(e) The MEASURE, DIMENSION command now has two options, PLACE and
SETUP. PLACE, places a dimension line. SETUP, lets you select
from the following options:
PARALLEL
Toggling this option ON, places dimension text
parallel to and above a solid dimension line.
3.5 FT
──────────────────────
HORIZONTAL
Orient dimension text horizontal, place at midpt of the dimension
line and break the dimension line.
─────── 3.5 FT ───────
Arrow
Arrows will be used to define the end of the dimension lines.
3.5 FT
<────────────────────>
Slash
Small line segments, at 45 degrees to the dimension line, will be
used to signify the end of the line.
3.5 FT
│────────────────────│
(f) The MEASURE, QUERY submenu now contains a new command, INFO.
Invoke this command to get information about AM usage, the number of
entities that may be handled with the current configuration, etc.
(g) The OPTION, COLOR command now gives you the ability to change the
color of many options:
MENU - menu pull-down window
LETTER - first letter in each menu option
HILITE - menu highlight bar
SCREEN - cursor cross hair, drawn elements in BWON mode, etc.
The bottom (background) color bar has no effect on the color when
changing screen color attributes. The background will always be black.
If you select a different background color, then entities might become
temporarily invisible, while they are drawn, although they become
visible again when an Image, Update command is executed.
Also, note that because of the multicolor scheme used,
selecting Blue, Red, Purple, Light Gray or High Intensity
Blue, might result in symbols temporarily overwriting the
screen when the Symbol, Used command in invoked.
PROMPT - prompt line
ACTIVE - currently selected default option in dialog window
INACTIVE - options not selected in dialog window
When an option is selected, you will see two color bars, one displays
the foreground and the other the background color options. On both sides
of each bar, is an arrow pointing left and right respectively. Click on an
arrow to cycle the small, double-block selection cursor through the various
colors. The word 'COLOR' displays the fore/background color combination.
(h) The option OPTION, TOGGLE menu displays a new option, WHITE.
This option is currently enabled (ver 1.51e) for LCD laptop users.
(i) Font creation has been made simpler by allowing the use of any
entity (not just simple line segments) in defining characters.
Any entity is converted when character definitions are created.
(see note at the end for info on creating/editing font characters).
(j) Press [HOME] to place the cross-hair cursor in the middle of
the screen. This should make the cursor visible when the cross-hair
cursor is in a complex drawing or when the cursor is off to one of the sides.
(k) The mouse driver if active will disable the Keyboard Turbo mode.
This was done to avoid problems that had been reported with the Turbo mode
interfering with certain keyboard BIOS versions.
(l) A new toggle option was added, DEPTH, under the Options, Toggle
sub-menu. This option toggles the 3-Dimensional look of options in
the dialog windows ON/OFF.
(m) When output to a plotter has been selected, the user is given an
opportunity to specify an X,Y offset and a fudge Factor, prior to plotting.
In most cases, the default offsets (0,0) and 1.023 should be used. In cases
where the 0,0 coordinate point of your plotter is not the lower left
corner, these offsets may be used to position the plotted image
correctly on your paper.
(n) The File, OShell command will now allow you to specify a path
and file name, before executing the child process.
(o) The Iso (Isometric) mode of Draft Choice was totally revamped. The
user now may set his/her own default Isometric angle (ISOAGL) under the
Options, Default menu. Also an extra bisection of the isometric angle
is provided, to help with more accurate design. i.e. if you specified an
angle ISO of 30 deg, then the Iso angles will be 15,30,60 and 90 degrees.
(p) A significant modification was made in the way Draft Choice
handles copying elements across layers. In earlier versions, for
example, if 3 elements - each on a different layer, were copied to
another location in the drawing, the 3 elements would end up on the
active layer. In Ver. 1.51d, the layer id is retained and
the copied block is still in the three original layers.
(q) The FILE, XPORT, BSAVE, command was modified to produce binary
files compatible with the format expected and created by BASICA and
GWBASIC. The following GWBASIC routine will display a graphics file
created using the BSAVE command in Draft Choice.
10 REM Demonstrates Simple routine to get DRAFT CHOICE Bsave image
20 REM Clear screen and set 640x200 CGA graphics
30 CLS
40 SCREEN 2
50 DIM A%(1000)
60 REM Set data segment and offset address to point to storage area
70 DEF SEG
80 AD=VARPTR(A%(0))
90 REM file must reside in current directory
100 BLOAD "TEST.scr",AD
110 REM place image on screen at location X,Y
120 PUT (100,10),A%,PRESET
(r) A new, powerful command, CLIP, has been implemented under the plot
menu. CLIP allows you to print any portion of your drawing and maintain
the original scale. ie. If you have been working on an 8.5"x11" drawing
with scale of 1" = 5', you can print only a small portion of the drawing
and still retain the 1" = 5' scale.
This clip technique, permits you to print drawings larger than your printer
can handle. i.e Say, you created a 22"x32" drawing (no dot printer can print
this in one piece). With the Plot, Clip command, plot half of the drawing
(11"x32") and then use the same command to plot the other half. Tape
the two halves together and you have a 22"x34" drawing.
(s) The /ES=xx switch will start the program in Super VGA (800x600)
mode (16 colors). xx should be replaced by the hexadecimal code for
setting you particular VGA card in that mode. Of course, your monitor
should also be capable of supporting the 800x400 resolution for this
command line switch to work. The required codes for a few selected
SVGA boards are provided below:
Video Adapter Card Mode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~
ATI WONDER SVGA 54
DFI VG-2000 5B
PARADISE PLUS-16 58
PARADISE PROFESSIONAL 58
ORCHID PRODESIGNER 29
STB EM/16 29
GENOA 29
SIGMA X16 29
VIDEO SEVEN VRAM 62 or 16
VGA 1024i 62 or 16
If your Video Adapter card is not in the above list, then take a look
at the user's manual and find the appropriate mode.
Note: many mouse drivers do not operate correctly in Super VGA modes. We
recommended that only the keyboard is used when operating DRAFT CHOICE in
the Super VGA mode.
** E N D **