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-
- CAPTION MACHINE v1.00
- ---------------------
-
- by Andrew Ives 1993
-
- This program is freely distributable. You may copy this program
- but all textfiles must remain intact and along with the main
- executable program. You can use this program on any video, film
- or whatever with no credit to the author.
- This program may be included on a PDCD if you wish, but
- I would like to be informed. It can also be used on a magazine
- coverdisk, but again I would like to know.
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
-
- About the program:-
- After using Dpaint for all my DTV captions, I began to realise
- that this wasn't really the way to do it. Seeing as Scala and
- other pro-video programs were beyond my pocket, I decided to
- write an easier/quicker way of doing it.
- Although you could do anything Caption Machine does on Dpaint,
- it would take some loading and you would probably accidentally
- tape the menu or something.
-
- Using the program:-
- This version of Caption Machine has 5 caption pages. On these
- pages you can type your caption (up to 54 characters over 3 lines).
- When doing this, you can change the colours, foreground and
- background, the backing - 0%, 50% and 100%, the font, the
- position and also the outline around the whole caption.
- All of these attributes are stored along with the text in memory.
- When you change between these pages, these attributes will
- automatically change back to their settings. This is so that
- all 5 captions don't have to be the same colour/place/font etc.
-
- Everything can be clicked on by the left mouse button to toggle
- its contents. Alternatively, everything but the colours, can
- be activated by pressing a key which is highlighted in red on the
- panel. From the main panel, pressing space will give further
- instructions in more detail.
-
- A Quick Rundown -
-
- P - "P"lay
- C - Position "C"hange: top, middle or bottom.
- T - "T"ype in a caption, ESCape escapes.
- All the regular keys then type. <- backspace
- deletes, comma and full stop work, * on the
- keypad is a special char from the particular
- font you are using and ENTER on the keypad is !.
- SEE NOTE BELOW
- S - "S"waps over the background/foreground colours.
- ^Up vDown - Moves the fonts up and down through the 10
- built-in fonts.
- <left >right - Moves through the pages. The number is in the
- bottom right and the red triangles next to it
- can be clicked on with the mouse to duplicate
- this keyboard command.
- F1-F5 - Changes directly to page 1-5.
- 0 - makes backing 0%
- 5 - makes backing 50%
- 1 - makes backing 100%
- G - "G"enlock sync on and off. Press this if your
- screen is rolling.
- O - "O"utlines on and off. This draws a border around
- your whole caption.
- The six triangles above and below the colours are for clicking on
- with the mouse, to change the RGB values of the fore/background
- colours. This is the only way to do this (I didn't know which keys
- to use)
-
- NOTE: During (and only during) type mode, pressing * on the keypad
- gives an asterisk (or special character) from the font you are
- using. ENTER on the keypad is for exclamation mark. This is all
- stated on one of the information pages shown by pressing space.
- What this doesn't say however, is that A600 (no-keypad) owners
- can press apostrophe (top-left, below ESC) instead of * and
- also the real return key instead of Enter on the keypad.
-
- Anyway, all of this is quite obvious and doesn't need to be
- remembered from this list. You should find it easy and quick to
- use.
-
- DURING PLAY:-
- When playing, the function keys 1-5 display captions 1-5 while
- space clears the screen. You should press each one to see if
- everything is correct before recording your video. It is easy
- to accidentally hit one of the mouse gadgets on exit and not
- notice. ESCape exits from play mode.
-
- FURTHER DETAILS-
- You should find that playing your video over the blue (col0) screen
- in play mode is perfectly still and pressing F1-5 will bring your
- caption up instantly over your film. Press G on the menu if it
- rolls.
- [On Dpaint, pressing J only swaps between 2 screens,
- and using an anim would take 10 pages to do what Caption Machine
- does. Also, jumping between captions4 then 1 then 3,2 and 5 and
- 3 again would be impossible in Dpaint without getting some rubbish
- up you don't want recording. Otherwise you will have to stop your
- video again and that is an annoyance you can do without. I know.
- This was written to do "Lap 1", "Lap 2" etc over a film, without
- stopping the video every five minutes.]
-
- Look out for further updates to this program. There are likely
- to be at least a few more versions, when I get around to writing
- them. I have an enhanced version for my use which you can get
- from me by sending me 5 disks of PD (AGA/HAM pictures, CGfonts,
- game demos, anything like that - bearing in mind I have an A1200.)
- Like I say though, this is my version, and I have written it
- especially for my A1200 (although no AGA bits), so if you have
- some different Amiga, don't come crying to me if it's incompatible.
- It should work if this version works, but you never know.
- My version has more fonts and pages, and perhaps will have more
- features by the time you read this. PD to the following address:-
-
- Andrew Ives,
- 4 Sandpiper Close,
- Haverhill,
- Suffolk.
- CB9 0JH.
-
- PS If you wish you had some great font you've drawn available on
- Caption Machine, send it to me as shown on ExampleFont.Lo2 on this
- disk, and when you send me 5 PD disks as above, I will incorporate
- it into the program for you. You can send me up to 4 if you want.
- These will be added to the fonts already in it. You won't lose any.
- NOTE: You can only have , . ! and one more for punctuation. All
- are 16 x 16, but the actual letters should be 15x15 or they will
- join together when typed in words. Also, I may want to use your
- font in further versions, so say so if you don't want me to.
-