17 Bit Software 4: Phase Four

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Text File | 1994-03-01 | 29.7 KB | 539 lines

You can scroll through the text by using the arrows and slider on the right, and then click the X in the top left corner to quit, or the following keys... Up & Down arrow keys - To move up/down a line Shift + Up & Down arrow keys - To move up/down a page Ctrl + Up & Down arrow keys - To move to top/bottom of text Return or Esc to exit. If you would like to print these instructions .... Press RETURN. Click on PRINT SHOP and then on DOCS (ensuring that your printer is ready to go). Wait. KIDS DTP 2 was written with AMOS Professional V. 2.00 ====================================================== This is not finished. I suspect it never will be. Whenever we return to it bits are added or changed. This is how it stands at the start of 1994. If you have any observations or suggestions that would enhance it further let me know and we can add it on......eventually. It's well past midnight. It's freezing. I can't find my pink fluffy bunny slippers anywhere. So lets get this over with so I can get to bed...... In general........ Pressing the HELP key will throw up these instructions. Oh! You know! If you are entering text the HELP key will show the Word List to aid spelling. You control the programme by clicking buttons in a tool box. From simply selecting a font to producing an animated page just click and it is done. If the tool box is in your way pressing the SPACE bar will make it vanish. Press again and it will return. On the top left and bottom right corners of the tool box are arrowheads. Click on these to move the tool box up and down the screen. On selecting some items you will be asked to select an option by pressing the Left Mouse Button ( = LMB) or the Right Mouse Button ( = RMB). On some selections you will also have the chance to press a letter key to enhance your options. This is all explained in the message box as you progress and is soon understood by even the youngest users. The colour palette only appears when it is needed. The SPACE bar will hide it along with the tool box. Note the two whites. The first white (on the left) will be transparent if you cut something out; use the second white if you want a a white colour to show. When you are dragging out a box, to either draw or cut out, it MUST be from the Top Left corner to the Bottom Right. Clicking on the toolbook (other than on a button) should cancel a selection. As you make a selection the buttons will change to the next level to offer a further set of options. The 8th button on each successive level is labelled BACK. Clicking this will bring you back up through the levels until you reach the top level again. From the top level you can select........ EXIT This is the one with all the dust on. It is rarely used. EAR PLUG This is used to silence the cacophony that terrified the cat. INFO This is where you find how little memory/disc space is left to use. PRINT SHOP This is where you take your page/book to be printed. BOOK SHOP This is where you take your page to add it to your book. TEXT This is the editor from which you can place text on your page. PICTURE This is the editor for your graphical additions to your page. PUZZLE This is where you go to add a puzzle to your creation. Ok! Lets make a book..... We click on Picture. We can now choose buttons to... DRAW. FILL. PATTERN. SPRAY. WIPE. UNDO. OTHER STUFF. BACK Selecting Draw will offer you... FREEHAND Use the Up/Down arrow keys to change line thickness. You start with a thin pencil. You can move up to a chunky crayon & a thick marker. When using the Crayon you can press C and change to a Chalk. The RMB will erase your line back to the original white. With the Crayon & Marker draw slowly or the line will be dotty. Only the thin line is available for.... STRAIGHT Press S first and the line will stay straight providing you stay reasonably straight when clicking the start & end points. CIRCLE Click the centre point and drag out to the required size. After the first you can click RMB to keep the next circle concentric. SQUARE Click on the TOP LEFT corner and drag out a box to the BOTTOM RIGHT corner. POLYGON Click a start point then click LMB on each corner. Clicking RMB will join your last point to your first creating an enclosed shape. CUT BRUSH LMB to cut a new brush. RMB to use the last one. Only one brush is stored. I have left a brush to use - RMB. When cutting out a brush remember that the original white paper colour will be transparent. All other colours will be solid. Having cut a brush LMB will paint with it while RMB will end. UNDO Will undo whatever you just did. BACK to the main Picture tools from where you can....... FILL Will fill an area with the current paint colour. The filling continues until a line is met. Make sure the area is enclosed. The smallest gap in a line will let the paint spread all over the your page and make a terrible mess. ROLLER Select a pattern type for your roller then apply it to an area to cover. The area needs to be enclosed to limit the spread. SPRAY LMB spray a single colour. RMB spray a mix of all colours. WIPE Are you sure? Press Y if you really want to destroy your page any other key will cancel this option. If you pressed Y then click the LMB to restore the original white paper or RMB for paper the same colour as the last selected paint colour. UNDO Will undo whatever you just did. Handy when the paint spreads! OTHER STUFF....... FLIP Drag out a box. The contents will be flipped upside down. LMB to paste this back on the page. RMB to cancel this option. FLIP <> As above but flipped left to right. You can flip a whole page if you have enough memory. ANIM Add simple animation effects to your pages. These will, obviously, not work on a printed page but can add another element to the creative processes that the user can employ. First you will need an object to animate. You can have up to four objects animated on each page. Select..... CUT Drag a box around the image to be animated. This will be stored for later use. Remember that the original paper white will be trans- parent when cut out; any other colour will appear as solid colour. Having stored your objects you may want to go back and WIPE your page and create a background to animate them over. SET ANIM Click LMB to move the object Left to Right or RMB to move the object Top to Bottom. LMB to move ONE WAY repeatedly moving from start to end or RMB to bounce back and forth between start and end points. Click on the start and end points Press a number key - 1 = slowest, 2 = medium and 3 = fastest to set the speed of the object as it moves. You can repeat this Setting procedure until you are happy with them. Once these are set for all objects... RUN will perform the animation sequence for you - after a brief delay while everything is setup. Click the mouse to end the animation & return to the editor. CLEAR Will cancel all your objects and forget the previous settings. Use this when starting a fresh sequence to ensure that there is nothing left over from the last one. >>> N.B. The animation details are CLEARed when you save a page in the BOOK SHOP. To continue editing it you will have to take it out of the BOOK SHOP and your settings will be reinstated. BOXES This was originally at the top level but has sunk down here as it was not used very much. Boxes will limit your drawing to within their boundaries. These are mostly used if you have some text on a page and do not want it scribbled over. WHOLE PAGE Cancel the drawing limitation so that whole page can be drawn on. MAKE BOX Drag out a box. Graphics will be limited to this box. You can have eight boxes on each page. ACTIVATE If you have more than one box clicking on this then in the box in which you wish to draw will make it the current box. BLOCKS BOX You can make a sliding blocks type puzzle. Use this to assist in designing the image for your puzzle. UNDO will remove the outline of the box but you have to click WHOLE PAGE to clear the limitation too. BACK to the OTHER STUFF.... STICKERS A selection of images are available to aid your designs. LMB will select the one to use. RMB will cancel this option. When you have selected a sticker you can press... F to Flip it left to right Having stuck it on the page you can press... U to Undo the last sticker W to build a Wall left to right. This was originally done so that the bricks in a wall would be aligned but it is good for straight runs of anything - roads, flowers, houses, cupboards etc. LOAD a new sheet of stickers. Choose from .... Inside - furniture, kitchen sinks etc. Outside - gardens, doors etc Bodies - heads, limbs etc. Mixed - this is the mixture you first get without loading any. Space - rockets, planets etc. Town - roads, houses etc. Yours - whatever you make. MAKING STICKERS: Some of you may...surely that should be...All of you can make better stickers than me - you will probably find my Town a little perspectively challenged! This is best done in Dpaint or the like.... Load your copy of DPaint. Insert the KIDS DTP disc and select LOAD from the picture menu. Select KIDS-3 (thats the name of the disc) then select STICKERS which is the directory where I put the stickers. Clever stuff eh? Select STICKERGRID.IFF and LOAD it. Now you can paint away making lots of lovely things within the squares. Having filled the squares we need to cut the sheet as a BRUSH. Click on the Brush cutter thingy (never known what it is meant to be) which is to the left of the 'A' for the text; or just press B on the key- board. Press F10 to get rid of the toolbox and menu bar. Click in the top left corner and drag to the bottom right corner of the white half of the grid screen. Your line should cover the bottom black line of the grid - it will change colour. Release the mouse button and you will have grabbed this section as a BRUSH. Press F9 to get the menu bar back. With the Right Mouse Button select the BRUSH menu (the second one along) and select SAVE. Select KIDS-3: and STICKERS to get in the right directory and call your creation STICKERS.IFF nothing else will do! Yes you do want to overwrite the existing STICKERS.IFF. That's all there is to it. Next time you load KIDS DTP 2 your very own work will be available at a click of a button. BACK to the OTHER STUFF..... MAGNIFY Place the square over the area to be magnified. An enlarged copy appears in the top left corner of the screen. This is not much of a magnifier but it does allow corners to be straightened or a small area to be filled. Oops! You can't magnify anything in the top left corner where the copy appears! Use the following... LMB - draw on the magnified image in the current colour. RMB - Fill an area in the magnified image with current colour. P - Pick a colour from the magnified image by clicking on it. U - Undo the last drawing/filling action. click somewhere on the toolbox when finished with the magnifier. BACK to the main Picture tools from where you can go....... BACK to the top level. Having created an artistic type masterpiece we go to the Text editor. Text is prepared by typing it in to the message box one line at a time. If your line is wider than the page it will be trimmed back to the last space and you can paste it on the page and then continue with the next line. Your options are.. WRITE ON Select a font to use. If you have selected a font before it will be shown in red as a reminder. As you type your text into the message bar the Current Letter is shown in black. Use the following keys... HELP - Will show the word list to aid spelling. DEL - Deletes the current letter. BACKSPACE - deletes the letter to the left of the current one. Left & Right arrow keys will scroll you through the text. RETURN - End this line so that it can be pasted on the page.... LMB - Paste freely on the page RMB - Aligns the left edge with the last line. + BLANK The paper under your text is only as long as the text. If you paste your text over a coloured background you will have a ragged edge down the Right hand side. Use this to drag out a white box to level off the right margins. FRAME With a block of text on the page drag a frame around it to keep it neat. LMB = Solid line edge. RMB = (not very) Fancy border. EDIT LAST LINE Restores your last line to the editor. If you are going to make some drastic changes then before using this use...... UNDO Removes whatever you last did to your page. EDIT WORD LIST Change the word list as and when required. The arrow keys will move you (the flashy word) around the list. Use the f keys (the grey ones above the number keys). F1 = Add a word. Replaces the currently flashing word or vacant space. Type into the message bar. Backspace if you make a mistake. This will then be sorted into the list. F2 = removes the flashing word from the list. F10 = Clears the whole list. N.B. If you change the list it is not saved until you click on EXIT. Do not just switch off or the revised list will be lost. BACK to the top level... A word about the word list.... Respondents to the first version seemed to fall neatly into two camps. If the mother replied she would express a desire to adorn my body with scented oils. The fathers would suggest the incorporation of a spilling chucker. At first I was happy to go along with this (I mean the chaps; those oils make your string vest go all matted and leave terrible stains on the lining of your anorak) but on reflection it did not seem such a good idea. Mainly because..... - The average childrens dictionary can have tens of thousands of words; most of which will not be needed nor ever used. - They will not include peoples names. - The checking process would reject the gibberish that young children will type in "'cos they like the noises". Unless you want your child to end up as stupid as some of our present politicians you should encourage this. - It will not point out wrong words - if we wanted to type HEAR we could enter HERE, HER or HEIR and they would be accepted although wrong. A child once wrote an exciting story about a house fire. "The fire engine arrived. The fireman went up the ladder and climbed in the bedroom window. When he came out he was pregnant." When questioned the author explained that they had used a dictionary which had told them that pregnant meant "carrying a child." - I think it was Mark Twain who observed that anyone who only knew one way to spell a word was severely lacking in imagination. - Sing your own song. Dance your own dance. Write your own words. No one ever got anywhere by following everyone else. I digress.... The puzzle editor was quite a problem to write. How automated should it be? An early version of Word Search, for example, asked for a list of words and then arranged them in a grid for you. Too easy! If they are going to claim that it is their work they should put some thought into it..... The first two will WIPE your page. Make sure you save anything you want kept. CROSSWORD This does not do much. You will need to plan the layout of your answers. Use this to fill in the blanks and add the numbers. Place the cross of the pointer directly over the black lines that make the top left corner of the square you want to number and click. Use the text editor to add your clues. WORDSEARCH Type in a word. Backspace to erase mistakes. An arrow appears where your mouse pointer was. LMB will rotate this to indicate which way the text will go. RMB when you have the right direction. Click in the grid at the point where the FIRST letter of your word will be. If we had typed in WORD and rotated the arrow so it points left (DROW) we need to click in the grid where the W will go. There are no checks on size, you need to ensure there is room for your word. It does check that an existing letter is not replaced by another. The next two require an image on the page to work with. SLIDING Click the large square over part of your page to grab it for use BLOCKS in the puzzle. If you selected Blocks Box in the picture editor you will have an area the right size. The rest of the page is WIPEd. If you want this to go in a book you MUST take it straight to the BOOK SHOP and store it. If you are not keeping it you can play it in the puzzle editor. Click on a block next to the empty space to slide it into the empty space. Get the empty square to the top left corner. This will not work when printed! DOT TO DOT You will need a BLACK outline to work with. The outline is only a guide when placing the dots and will be erased. Carefully click the LMB on the line to place a dot. Take care with changes of direction/corners etc. Click the RMB when all the dots are in place. Now click LMB to place numbers next to the dots. The numbers are positioned under the centre of the pointer so have the dot in one of the outer quarters. Click the RMB to end MAZE acts like the stickers enabling you to build the walls of a maze. Indicate entrance & exit points and there you have it. BACK to the top level... After all this effort to produce a page you will want to store it. Take it to the BOOK SHOP (should this be the BOOK MAKERS?) where you can select.... DEMO A demonstration of just how wonderful KIDS DTP 2 is. When you hear a ding click the LMB to turn a page or the RMB to close the book. PAGE OUT Take a page out of your book to do some work on, or print, it. You enter the page number and it loads back into the editor. PAGE IN Put a page in your book for safe keeping. Each book can only have nine pages. If this is a problem split it into parts one, two etc. When starting you will be asked to name the Author & Title. These will be used for future pages unless you SET otherwise. You need to identify the page number. This is identified as Last was Page Number OF Total Number. Initially this will be "Last was 0 of 0". After putting a page in it will be "Last was 1 of 1" etc. If you had a book with 4 pages and took out page 2 for editing when you put it back in you will see "Last was 2 of 4". Select 2 to overwrite the original page 2 or another page number. This can only ever be one more than the total. So in this case could be any number up to 5. RECYCLE Remove the pages from a book and rename the empty book to re-use. Asks for Author & Title to avoid destroying the wrong book but.... ================================================================= >>>> VERY VERY EVER SO IMPORTANT <<<<<< Under NO circumstances is anyone allowed to recycle another persons book. Especially when it is their "very bestest book ever and it took ages and ages to do". It is usually about now that they start hurling toys at each other and I take cover behind the sofa. Of course! That's where I left my pink fluffy bunny slippers. ================================================================= READ BOOK Automatically shows each page on screen. Use the LMB to turn to the next page. The RMB will close the book and return you to the shop. SET TITLE Locates another title by the same author or creates a new book. SET AUTHOR Locates the section where all the books by this author are stored, or adds a new name to the list, then asks you to select a title. BACK to the top level. BOOK SHOP User Notes: Use the backspace to clear mistakes when setting Author and Title. As the book reader flips between two pages (if no one else has can I claim the term Techno Recto as my own?) you will need an even number of pages. If you do not have an even number a page reading "THE END" will be added to your book as you read it. A title page is displayed at the start with your name & title. In case you have not guessed - the BOOK SHOP is where you save your work on a disc. If you have an external drive KIDS DTP 2 assumes that your work disc is in that and the programme disc is in the internal drive. If you have just the internal drive then you will be prompted to change the disc as required. The programme will make a directory on the work disc which it will call BOOKSHOP | | It will then -------------------------------------------------------- make a sub- | | | | directory for Angharad Haydn Duncan Wendy each author... | | | | | | Book1 Book2 Book1 Book1 Book1 Book2 Then a Sub-Sub directory for each book. Computers can get confused if you leave spaces in their instructions. So when entering the title etc. spaces are automatically replaced by an underline "_". The book directories carry the pages, information about the pages, animations puzzles etc. The pages are stored as AMOS packed pictures. If you want to use them as IFF pictures in, for example, DPaint you will need a copy of AMOS. Load AMOS. Press ESC to enter direct mode insert your work disc and type Load "DF0:BOOKSHOP/AUTHOR/TITLE/PAGE NUMBER",10 where AUTHOR, TITLE & No. are replaced by the names you have used on the disc. This will load your page into bank 10. Now type Unpack 10 to 0 which will unpack bank 10 into screen 0. Type Save IFF "DF0:Your-Picture-Name.iff",0 and screen 0 will be saved as an iff file for future use. Ok we have created and saved a book all we need to do now is print it in the PRINT SHOP: Select from...... PAGE Print the current screen STRETCH from screen size to A4 size. This will work but...... ================================================================== >>>> WARNING <<<<< A SOFTWARE FAILURE can occur after stretching a page with some printer/preferences settings. Try it on yours and see what happens! ================================================================== CUT Drag a box around an area of the screen and that part will be printed in the centre of the page. With careful use this is handy for making up a page, from various sources, on the printer. BOOK Identify Author and Title and each page will be loaded and printed. After each page you can position the paper. Press Y to continue or any other key to cancel this option. DOCS Send these instructions straight to the printer. PREFS This will run Jonathan Potters' PPREFS programme. Use it to change the settings/drivers for the printer. Experiment! I have left a few printer drivers on this disc. I have an ancient Epson 9 pin (RX-80) so the current driver is the Epson X one. Try it and see. If you have a 24 pin try changing to NEC Pinwriter. If there is nothing here that works you will need to copy a suitable driver into the "Printers" directory in the "Devs" directory. Then run Preferences to select and set it. Good Luck! SOME TIPS: This was written for children. It has been slowed down at several places. Do not try and whizz around the buttons. Slow and steady wins the race. With children of different ages - give them their own copy with a WORD LIST suited to their own needs. Saves a lot of trouble. As does individual work discs. You can assume any name as an author (I think it has to be at least 2 letters long) but each new name will create a new directory on the disc. This will fill your disc with strange names and you will not remember what is where. Be sensible - just like me! Animation objects can pass over each other. The first one cut out will be at the back, the second will pass over it, the third over them and the fourth will be at the front. Create a static object by giving it the same start and end positions. Earlier objects will then pass behind it. Plan ahead. Imagine what your page will look like then make it happen. If making an animated page prepare the objects first. Cut them out ready. Go back WIPE the page and create the background image then return to the ANIM section and SET your objects as desired. PROBLEMS [:( (bits I'm aware of but have not got around to fixing yet.) Sticky buttons: This seems to be mostly the FILL button which comes off the rails and gets confused. If you 'scratch' through the colour palette a couple of times then all is well again and you can continue. Circle: sometimes does not recognise that you want to stop and will draw a circle under the BACK button. Moving slowly and deliberately from drawing page to toolbox seems to help. Edit Last Line: Can get confused if you make a short line the full width of the page. It may trim your line back to the original length. No Escape: Once you have made your selection (printing etc.) you are stuck with it. I will add an escape so it can be canceled. Disc Swapping: Single disc drive users will have to swap back and forth between the KIDS DTP 2 disc and their WORK disc. I think I have found all the places where this happens and have put a delay to wait until you have changed discs. I have re- arranged it to minimize the number of swaps but it is much easier with an external drive. If children are left to do it themselves it must be stressed that discs must not be taken out while the light is on; best to wait a few seconds after it has gone out. A600: These seem to use the fonts in a different order. I think I have found where these problems occured but if you spot any other problems do let me know. Jumpy Telly: Some older/larger television sets may not like the brilliant white paper colour. If your screen seems to jump go to the print shop and click the spare/blank button. This will turn the paper darker. You may need to do this several times to stop the jumping. If the programme is unable to locate a page it will say "I'm confused" and ask you to SET AUTHOR again. This should re-establish the correct path and all will be well again. Remember your memory. Throw another log on the fire and let me tell you about days of yore when a computer would fill your front room and would have a massive 16K of memory. You could run an entire Local Area Health Authority with one of those..... Children just don't know when to stop. They will slap colours all over the place add some coloured patterns to that and then put some stickers on top. It looks wonderful but can be over 40k when squashed. Adding animation to it will add another 10-15k. Multiply this by half a dozen pages and... This was written on ye olde 1 Mb A500 with half chip/fast RAM. Things were getting a bit tight by the time we came to add the animation section. I have not added any checks to limit the sizes of objects to animate etc. You can do more than us on an A600 or A1200. Start cautiously and try bigger ones till they fail to work properly then you'll know! Taller ones are better than wider ones. We started to encounter problems if the objects are more than three stickers square but they will often work ok in the book reader on KIDS DISK 4. The demonstration on this disc had to be cut down to run on our A500. KIDS DISK 4 contains a stand alone book reader which will leave you with much more memory. It has a larger demonstration too. I have yet to try all the possible combinations. Anyone for animated sliding block puzzles? If you try something that it does not like it may stop very abruptly or it may report an error number and then continue. If the latter happens please make a note of the number and send it to me along with a description of what you were trying to do and I will try and correct it for the next version. Yikes! Look at the time! Hardly seems worth going to bed now..... Your comments on this and/or other programmes for children are most welcome. January 1994