Groovy Bytes: Behind the Moon

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Text File | 1995-02-24 | 18.9 KB | 462 lines

▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▄█▄ ██ ▀██▀▀█▄ ██ ▄█ ▄█▀ ▀█▄ ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ██ ██ ▄▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄██▄▄ ██▄▄▄██ ██ ██ ▀█▄ ▀▀ ██ ██▀▀▀ ▄▄▄██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ▀▀█▄ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ▀█▄▄▄█▀ ▄██▄ ▄██▄ ▀█▄▄▀█▄ ▄██▄ ██ ██ ▀█▄█▀ ▄▄ Help system ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ~Contents~ About AnsiPaint.............2 Registration window (F10)..18 The editor..................4 Pop-Up (Ctrl-F10)..........19 Save file (F2)..............7 Block commands (Ctrl-Q-x)..20 Load file (F3)..............8 Find & replace-commands....22 Draw line (F4).............10 AnsiFont-system (Ctrl-F)...24 Active char (F5)...........11 Mouse-handling.............25 Active colour (F6).........12 Screenshots................26 Clear screen (F7)..........13 Miscellaneous..............27 Options (F8)...............14 A last remark..............29 Information window (F9)....17 Credits....................31 ▄ About AnsiPaint ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ AnsiPaint is a textorintated drawing program. You can create images in 80∙25 char textmode with 256 colour-combinations, change them, save and reload them. Therefore a number of tools are available, as i.e. several block-commands, line-draw functions or the AnsiFont-system. You can load and save ~Heskosoft AnsiPaint-files~, ~ANSI-files~ and plain ~text files~. Further information on this topic on the pages 7-9. Actually, the use of this program is found in the subject of compu- ter-based communication. Especially in the field of bulletin board systems (BBS) information AnsiPaint helps to underline special items, strike out important notes and make the whole mailbox a little bit more colourful. A long time the creation of ANSI-images was just possible with usual text-editors or very complicated an confusing programs. That's why I decided to write this program. With AnsiPaint you can easily place coloured characters, choose cha- racters you won't find on your keyboard and even draw lines. It is possible to export created images as plain text files, these text do not contain ANSI-sequences. You can import images with the formats AnsiPaint supports or with the terminate-stay-resident program ~Ansi-~ ~Keep~ which creates screenshots in the Heskosoft AnsiPaint-format, ready for further manipulation. More about this on page 26. ▄ The editor ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ When you start AnsiPaint, you jump directly in the Editor. Here you can enter ANSI-characters and text. If line function is switched on, you can also draw lines. More about that on the following pages. In the editor are the following shortcuts available: ══════════════════╤════════════════════╦══════════════════╤═════════ pick up colour │ Ctrl-A ║ insert line │ Alt-Y pick up char │ Ctrl-Z ║ delete line │ Ctrl-Y word left │ Ctrl-Cursor Left ║ insert char │ Ins word right │ Ctrl-Cursor Right ║ delete char │ Del line up │ Cursor Up ║ page up │ PgUp line down │ Cursor Down ║ page down │ PgDn line beginning │ Home ║ place active char│ Ctrl- line end │ End ║ │ Enter first line │ Ctrl-PgUp ║ line down │ Enter last line │ Ctrl-PgDn ║ │ As special function there is the color-lock mode. It can be switched on with ~Ctrl-L~. If this mode is active, the colour will change with the char at cursor position. So the active colour is meaningless. This mode is very useful if you are changing already existing images and do not want to change the colour for every single char which has another colour. If you are inserting a char it will be filled with the colour of the char standing there before and not with the background colour. If the color-lock mode is switched on, the active colour on the tool- bar changes to a ~-~. The toolbars at the border of the screen can be handled with the mouse by clicking on the arrows. This will move the window on line or row in the pointed direction. A click on the bar itself goes a page up, down, left or right. ~Ctrl-F7~ redraws the screen, if some TSR-program should have over- written the screen. If you want to change an existing image, besides the color-lock function also the "pick up-color" function is useful. With the short- cut ~Ctrl-A~ the active colour becomes the colour of the pixel where the cursor is standing. You can leave the editor and so AnsiPaint itself with ~Esc~. You can further shortcuts in the chapter "block commands" on page 20 and in the chapter "find & replace-commands" on page 22. ▄ Save file ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ If your press ~F2~ a pop-up menue appears from wich you can choose in which format the image should be saved. If you have chosen the format, you are exspected to enter the file- name. If you don't add a suffix, the standard-suffix for the chosen format is added. These standard-suffix' can be changed under "Options" (F8). Please read also the information about the max. number of lines and rows on page 14 ff. ▄ Load file ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ~F3~ loads a ~Heskosft AnsiPaint-file~, an ~ANSI-~ or a ~textfile~. Either you enter the complete filename for loading the file or you enter a blank space, then you can chose the filename from a lister. Directories are shown in brackets, changing to them is possible with Enter. An ANSI-file dosn't show if it is an animation or a plain picture, so during the loading of such a file, the toolbar changes to the ~AnsiCorder~ (TM). Here you have the following options available: ~Enter~ Show the loading and the construction of the image. ~Esc~ Stop loading the image at the chosen point. ~Space~ Pause the loading and wait for another command. ~+~ Slow motion-mode. Load just the next byte of the picture and show it, then pause. So you can go ex- actly to the point you want to keep the image in the memory. ~Cursor-right~ (Fast Forward) Load image and don't show the con- struction to save time. ATTENTION: Heskosoft AnsiPaint can just load parts of animation, so if you save the image under the same filename, the animation is lost, just the actually seen image is saved. So make sure that you don't overwrite an animation without wanting it. Please read also the information about the max. number of lines and rows on page 14 ff. ▄ Draw line ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ If your press ~F4~ you will find the line-entry on the toolbar changed to green. This means, that the single-line mode is active. Move cursor to draw lines. For double-lines press F4 another time. Now the entry is shaded cyan. Another time F4 turns the entry blue, patterned lines are now drawable. To switch the line mode off again, press F4 a last time. ▄ Active char ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ By pressing ~F5~ you can change the active char. If it is chosen, it can be placed in the editor with Ctrl-Enter. This option is useful to draw a character which you don't find on your keyboard. ▄ Active colour ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ~F6~ loads the colour-table to change the fore- and background of the chars to be drawn. The active colour is also used for colouring a block. ▄ Clear screen ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ~F7~ fills the screen with the standard background colour, resets all values as the active char, the active colour and the cursor position. The clipboard content is not touched by this option. ▄ Options ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ~F8~ loads the options window in which the following options are avai- lable: The first two values (~Maximum lines~, ~Maximum rows~) specify the limits of the picture to be saved. In the editor you always can use the maximum values, the just take effect by saving and loading images in the ANSI- and the text-format. Saving images, the lines, if the should be longer then the max rows value, are cut at the specified position. Loading images, the lines are indented to the next line at the specified position. The next four points set up the standard suffixes for the used file formats. So if you type "noname" for loading a file, the filename is completed to "noname.ans" or "noname.asc" for example. If you want to load the file "noname" just enter "noname." for not adding a suffix. ~File beginning~ says what should be done ad the beginning at an ANSI-file. The screen can be deleted (CLS), the cursor can be set "home" or nothing can be done. ~After form feed~ specifies the same as File beginning considering the picture after a form feed char. Please notify: If this option is not set up to "nothing" you will not be able to load the saved ANSI- image correctly, so make a backup! ~Form-Feed char after line~ instructs AnsiPaint to save a FF-char each entered lines. This option is very useful with mailbox-systems supporting that option. When you're using long texts, after each lines you want to, The -sign is positioned as the first char in the next line. You also can instruct AnsiPaint to clear the screen after that, see options above. If this option is set, FF-chars are over- read while loading an image. This option is only vaild for ANSI- and text files. Under ~mouse double-click~ you can decide wether you want to use the double click and you can also define the speed of the double-click. The next point enables the ask-before-quit-window. ~System colour~ sets up the colours of all the menues, windows, icons etc. If your start AnsiPaint for the first time it detects the graphics adapter you're using and chooses between a monochrom and a colour-setting, which also can be changed afterwards. ~Restore default settings~ sets all in this menue shown options to their standard value. The last option defines the language of the whole program, also for the online-help and some shortcuts. ▄ Information window ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ By pressing ~F9~ you get a window informing you about the state of the most important values as i.e. image size or editor size. ▄ Registration window ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ If you load the registration window with ~F10~ you see wether you are a registered curstomer or wether not :-(. You also find the serial number and the copyright notes. ▄ Pop-Up ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ~Ctrl-F10~ loads a Pop-Up with the Options you don't find on the tool- bar. You can also load the PopUp by holding the right mouse key on the toolbar. ▄ Block commands ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ═══════════════════════════════════════════════╤════════════ mark block beginning │ Ctrl-K B mark block end │ Ctrl-K K copy block to clipboard │ Ctrl-K C paste block │ Ctrl-K P view clipboard │ Ctrl-K V delete block │ Ctrl-K Y show block/hide block │ Ctrl-K H colour block with active foreground │ Ctrl-K F V colour block with active background │ Ctrl-K F H colour block with active fore- and background │ Ctrl-K F B fill block with active char │ Ctrl-K F Z mirror block horizontal │ Ctrl-K S W mirror block vertical │ Ctrl-K S S invert block │ Ctrl-K I read block from file │ Ctrl-K R write block to file │ Ctrl-K W In AnsiPaint you can use a 79x23 char clipboard. It is also possible to end AnsiPaint and paste the block in the next session, the clip- board is saved in the file ANSI.DSK. If you colour a block with the active foreground the maybe different background colours are kept. In opposite to that the colour-background function just colours the different backgrounds and leaves the fore- grounds untouched. If you invert a block you may loose the control wether a block is shown or not, that's why a yellow ~+~ on the toolbar signifies a shown block in opposite to a single point which means, that the block-view is disabled. The majority of block commands are only possible if the block is shown. That's why there are few commands shown at the toolbar when a block is hidden. ▄ Find & replace-commands ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ═════════════════════════════════════╤════════════ find & replace char │ Ctrl-Q A find & replace foreground │ Ctrl-Q F V find & replace background │ Ctrl-Q F H find & replace fore- and background │ Ctrl-Q F B All find & replace-commands are only active when a block is marked and shown. "~Find & replace char~" searches for a destinated char an replaces it with another one, the colour remains untouched. "Find & replace foreground" just replaces the foreground, so does "Find & replace background" with the background. If you chose "~find & replace fore- and background~" the whole colour is replaced, but only if fore- and background-colour are absolutely identical. More commands on the pages 4 ff and 20 ff. ▄ AnsiFont-system ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ~Ctrl-F~ opens the menue of the AnsiFont-system. Here the chosen font and the sample text is shown. You can enter text (up to 79 chars). If you press Enter you can position the text as with the paste-block function. With the program ~APFEL~ (contained in this package) it is possible to create your own fonts. It is not enough to copy the fonts in the AnsiPaint-directory, you also have to modify ANSIFONT.DAT. But this is possible with a usual text editor (i.e. AnsiPaint). Which steps ex- actly should be taken is described in ANSIREG.DAT and the help of APFEL. ▄ Mouse handling ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The mouse-handling dosn't differ a lot the SAA-standard. A (double) click on a menue or symbol choses the destinated option, a click on a toolbar chooses the option pointed at. You can use all on the tool- bar shown options. So i.e. if there are the arrows shown at the block paste-function, just klick at them to move the block with the mouse. If you are in the editor, the left mouse button sets the cursor and also the block beginning. The right one chooses the block end and shows the block. ▄ Screenshots ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ A special chapter are screenshots. With the program AnsiKeep which is running in the background you can easily create your own screen- shots. Start the program AnsiKeep with a direction (i.e. D:\IMAGES\) ad parameter and AnsiKeep will save all screenshots as a Heskosoft AnsiPaint-file in the designated directory. You "shoot a screen" by pressing PrtScr after loading AnsiKeep. The screenshots are named ANSI~n~.HAP, ~n~ is an increasing number. ▄ Miscellaneous ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ All files contained in the package have to be copied to the same di- rectory in which ANSI.EXE is existing. During the installation of AnsiPaint the file ~ANSI.DSK~ is created. This file contains the active colour, the active char, the settings from the options-menue and also the clipboard content. During the exe- cution of AnsiPaint a temporary file named ~ANSI.TMP~ is created. In case of a runtime error you may restore your not saved image by renaming the file and loading it as a Heskosoft AnsiPaint-file. Hardware requirements: IBM kompatible PC with at least 640k memory and about 1 MB free on the harddrive. The use of harddisk-cache is recommended, especially with images which are bigger then the editor window. AnsiPaint now is also able to load files by command line parameters. Syntax: ANSI filename /~format~ The switch format chooses the image-format to load the file. ~/H~ stands for Heskosoft AnsiPaint-file, ~/A~ for ansi-file and ~/T~ for text- file. Example: ~ANSI PICTURE.ANS /A~ loads the file PICUTRE.ANS as an ansi-file. To enable showing ansi-files with DOS-command type you have to load the device driver ANSI.SYS an make an entry like the following in your CONFIG.SYS: DEVICE=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS ▄ A last remark ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ This program is shareware, you can test it for 30 days. ~But if you~ ~want to use it for the further time - register!~ I'm sure this is not the first text which you're reading considering registration and paperwork, but if you should ever have written a program you should know how much work it means. But also if you're not regisered I'd like to hear from you about the program. So if you want to get rid of your critics or if you decovered a buc, write me: Mail: Hendrik Schöttle E-Mail: Hendrik Schöttle @ SL Strandholm 44 (MausNet) 24857 Fahrdorf Hendrik Schoettle @ 2:242/308.75 Germany (FidoNet) Please hand this program also to other sysops, perhaps somone might find it useful. By the way: The ~AnsiPaint-support mailbox~ is the "StarGate" (Fido-classic 2:242/308), phone +49 (0)4638 7291. There you find always the newest version of AnsiPaint and further information to the program in the Heskosoft Support Area and in the menue Werbung. The magic filename for the newest version of AnsiPaint is "ANSI", you get AnsiPaint V2.2 with "ANSIPT22.EXE". You also can try it with the Maus Schleswig, tel. +49 (0)4621 31820, there you should find AnsiPaint 2.2 as ANSIPT22.EXE. If you are a registered customer and want to hand the program on to friends, just delete ANSIREG.DAT and you have an unregistered version. But before that you should memorize the keycode ~well~... ▄ Credits ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Once again another version is completed and I would like to thank the following people, they hepled to complete the program as it is running just now: Frank Baschin Super-SIMM-Quick-Service, SysOp of the Maus SL Jörg Kaiser SysOp of the StarGate, AnsiPaint-Support-Box Björn Schlaak Designer of the AnsiFonts, programmed "APFEL" The programming of Heskosoft AnsiPaint began on Dec, the 8. '92 at 5:44 pm. The first version was upload at january, 24. '93 in the Maus Schleswig. The sources are now containing more then 8000 lines.