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Text File | 1985-04-13 | 28.0 KB | 1,141 lines

GMACH IIH Preliminary Documentation -Graphics at the speed of sound-...... GMACH II by Al DulH GLoading MACH IIH Load DOS 2.XX and GPAPHICS.COM followed by MACHII. This procedure will begin the program. The program has a default of drive A, so have all necessary files on that drive. Also, MACH II will, by default, use drive A to store the label data files. GExiting MACH IIH To exit MACH II, make sure you are back at the main menu. Choose GAlt F2H. You then see the DOS prompt once again. GINTRODUCTIONH This program enables you a great deal of flexibility in control over what you see on the screen. Basically, you have the graphics functions of BASICA in a new format. The program assumes you understand the LINE, CIRCLE, PAINT, GET, and PUT statements in BASIC. Consult your BASIC manual for all the details. First, all the functions will be described in detail. Then, some tips on how to get started and how to best use the functions in combinations with each other will be explained. The functions are accessed from and in conjunction with the GMACH II by Al DulH Function keys by themselves and in conjunction with the Shift, Control, and Alternate keys. GMACH II by Al DulH -GF1-F4-(Change color)H- On the bottom of the screen are four color boxes, including the background. A small bar inside one of the boxes indicates what color you will draw in. Pressing GF1H will select the background color for all subsequent plotting. Pressing GF2H will select the next color, and so on. The bar moves to indicate which color you are currently using. -GF5-F6: LinesH- These two keys will draw a line from a starting point, defined by GF10H, to the present cursor location. The starting point set by GF10H will from now on be called the REFERENCE POINT. While both keys draw lines, they perform slightly different functions. GF5H will draw a line from the REFERENCE POINT to the present cursor location and leave the REFERENCE POINT where it is. GF6H will draw a line, but will make the cursor location the NEW REFERENCE POINT. For example, let's say, the cursor is in the center of the screen, you move the cursor up and press GF6H, a line will be drawn to the end of the previous line, as in dot-to-dot type drawing. The difference between these two keys will easily be seen the first time GMACH II by Al DulH they are used. -GF7-Ellipse/CircleH- When you press this key, you will see a box on the screen. If you see a point located at the center of the screen, it is merely a box with zero dimensions. This box is your Variable Cursor, as opposed to a fixed cursor. Variable and Fixed refer to size, not movement. Position the cursor to your liking and press ENTER. Read the section on the Variable cursor on how to move it around the screen. In addition to the regular variable cursor functions, there is one special function in the ellipse code. Pressing "S" on the keyboard will Scale the variable cursor to draw a circle instead of an oval. After you press ENTER, an ellipse will be drawn to the size defined by the variable cursor. You may cancel the circle operation if you press ESC before you press ENTER. -GF8-PaintH- This key enables you to fill areas with a single color. Pressing this key will cause the cursor to disappear so as not to get in the way. It takes two more key presses to complete the function. After pressing GF8H, press GF1-F4H to indicate the color you GMACH II by Al DulH want to paint WITH. The color bar on the bottom of the screen will NOT indicate your choice. Don't worry, the key press has been recorded. Next, press GF1-F4H to indicate the color of the BORDER of the area to be filled. Consult the BASIC manual for further explanation. Be careful that there are no holes in the boundary and that its all the same color or the paint will spill all over and possibly ruin the picture. You may also cancel the paint operation if you press ESC before you complete the third key press. -GF9-HomeH- Pressing this key returns the cursor to the center of the screen. -GF10-Plot DotH- Pressing GF10H plots a dot in the color selected by GF1-F4H. It also sets the REFERENCE POINT which is used in drawing lines. It is advisable to set the REFERENCE POINT before you draw lines. Otherwise, a line you draw may shoot off in an unexpected direction. In other words, use this key when you're not sure where the REFERENCE POINT is. It is perfectly all right to use this key to just plot single pixels, as when working on fine detail or shading. This coordinate dictates the point the picture will GMACH II by Al DulH rotate around if dealing with rotation, or in the case of scaling, the point the picture will expand away from or shrink towards. The default value is the physical center of the screen, (160,100). If you enlarge your picture, it will grow from the center of the screen. However, if you give (0,0) as the center of the screen and then enlarge your picture, it will expand away from the upper left corner of the screen. The next parameter is rotation. Entering a positive value (in degrees) will rotate the picture counter clockwise while entering a negative value will rotate the picture clock-wise. The final set of values are the scaling parameters. Entering a value greater than 1 will cause the picture to expand, while entering a value less than 1 will cause the picture to shrink. For example, entering for x-scale will make the picture twice as wide in the x direction, while entering a .5 for x-scale will make the picture half as wide. To enter values for deformation parameters, use the plus and minus keys on the far right side of the keyboard to make the arrow point at the parameter you want to change. Then press the enter key. The value disappears and a question mark takes its place. Type in the value you want and press the enter key again. To exit this madness, press Esc. GMACH II by Al DulH -GShft-F1-(Change Background Color)H- GShft-F1H changes the color of the background. -GShft-F2-(Change Palette)H- This key enables changing the standard IBM palettes and includes two non-standard palettes as well. -GShft-F3-(Get Upper Left Corner)H- Gets the upper left corner of an arbitrary area on the screen to be copied elsewhere on the screen. Place the box around the object that you wish to make a copy of, them move it to the area you wish to place it. If you hear a beep this means that your copy has crossed over the border and cannot be placed. To correct this move to a slightly different spot. -GShft-F4-(Area Delete Function)H- -GShft-F5-(Box Upper Left Corner)H- Sets the upper left corner of a rectangle to be drawn on the screen. The shape of the box will be that same GMACH II by Al DulH shape as the box that you are viewing. -GShft-F6-(Not used at this time)H- -GShft-F7-(Put)H- Places the area defined by GET on the screen. Use the cursor keys to place the box around the object that you want to copy and press RETURN. Now it is in memory. To place it press GSHIFT-F3H. -GShft-F8-(Not used at this time.)H- Dictates the method used by PUT. Eg. PSET, PRESET, XOR, OR, AND. -GShft-F9-(Status)H- Shows the state of several important variables in the program , such as color, REFERENCE POINTS, screen center, scaling, rotated degrees, etc. -GShft-F10-(Files)H- Lists the files on the default drive defined by GCrtl F8H. GMACH II by Al DulH -GCtrl-F1-(File Load)H- Pressing this key loads a .PIC file from the default drive and executes it. You may append to the file and resave it to the diskette. -GCtrl-F2-(File Save)H- Pressing this key saves the new or appended file to the diskette. -GCtrl-F3-(File Delete)H- Pressing GCtrl-F3H deletes the file from diskette. A list of file will come up for easy reference. -GCtrl-F4-(Deformation Mode)H- GCtrl-F4H enables you to enter translation, rotation, and scaling parameters when creating a vector file. (Cannot be used when creating screens.) -GCtrl-F5-(Execute Vector File)H- When you load a .PIC file from the disk, the file is GMACH II by Al DulH played out and tour picture is redrawn. This key is used in conjunction with Deform Mode (GCtrl-F4H). If you go into Deform Mode and change any parameters, this key must be pressed upon exiting Deform Mode. The vector file will then be played back using the new deform parameters. If you change something in Deform Mode and fail to press this key, mass confusion will result and neither I nor the program will take responsibility for your ruined picture. -GCtrl-F6-(Screen Load)H- This function will load any BSAVEd screen into MACH II for further modification. To use it, press GCtrl-F6H. You will be asked for a file name. Just give the name, not the drive or exten-sion. The screen image will then be loaded. MACH II only looks for screen files with a .BSC extension. To load a screen created from BASIC or another program, you must first RENAME the file to have a .BSC extension. -GCtrl-F7-(Screen Save)H- This function will BSAVE the screen image on disk. To use, press GCTRL-F7H. You will be asked for a file name, Type in only the name, not the drive letter or the extension. The screen image will then be saved on the GMACH II by Al DulH disk. The file is saved with the extension .BSC. -GCtrl-F8-(Change Drive)H- Pressing this key enables you to change the drive on which files are saved to or loaded from. To use, press GCtrl-F8H. You will be given the default drive and asked for a new drive letter. Enter only the drive letter. Do not type in the colon after the drive letter. It is auto-matically adds by the program. Do not remove the MACH II disk from the drive you start it from. The program periodically accesses its disk for needed files. The default drive used when the program starts up is A drive. -GCtrl-F9-(Coordinate Toggle)H- Pressing GCtrl-F9H will turn off the coordinate display if it is on and turn it on if it is off. -GCtrl-F10-(File Create)H- Pressing GCtrl-F10H will create a vector file for screen- pixel drawing. GMACH II by Al DulH G-Alt-F1-(Hardcopy)H- Prepares the screen for hardcopy. To use, press this key then Prt Sc. G-Alt-F2-(Exit)H- Exit to system diskette. G-Alt-F3-(Text Entry)H- This menu lets you select one of five fonts. When the prompt ENTER FONT NUMBER is seen enter a number between one and five. The fonts are as follows: Normal, Bubble, Roman, Old English, Script (Hand writing). When the prompt ENTER TEST appears type the text you wish to display. However some fonts have large lettering so it may go off the border to limit your text. When you are done with the text you are ready to start placing you fonts. After the font is loaded from disk, you will get a box. For normal size and length press `N'. To center type `C'. Press `L' for left border and `R' for right. Use the box for size, width , and length. G-Alt-F4-(Move Text)H- GMACH II by Al DulH Allows you to reposition the last entered text string. This is useful if you wish to change color of a font. Also if you want to change the size. G-Alt-F5-(Text Edit)H- GAlt-F5H is global text edit. This allows you to go back and reposition previously entered text. G-Alt-F6-(Global Text Edit Reposition)H- After repositioning text via GAlt F5H, if you are still not satisfied, use this key to reposition the text selected by global text edit. G-Alt-F7-(Not used at this time)H- G-Alt-F8-(Undo)H- Removes last graphic entry. Useful for correcting mistakes. CANNOT BE USED FOR SAVED SCREENS (.BSC) G-Alt-F9-(Screen paint)H- If your screen print routine prints differently in Hi-Res than in Medium-Res, press this key to display the screen GMACH II by Al DulH in Hi-Res mode. G-Alt-F10-(Clear Session)H- Resets the program to begin creating a new file. GMACH II by Al DulH -GTEXT ENTRYH- Press GAlt-F5H. Answer the prompts. You have five fonts to choose from and are thus numbered 1-5. The length of the text may extend to the edge of the window but may not go overboard. After answering the prompts, the selected font will load into memory. You will see a dot of a rectangle on the screen. This is your text cursor. The numeric keypad will move the entire box around on the screen. Press Num-Lock and the keypat will move the top and right edges of the cursor only. This way, you may make the cursor any size you wish. When you are satisfied with the size and placement of the cursor, press the ENTER key. The text will then be drawn, automatically scaled to fit the cursor. The scaling of the text is based on the average size of the characters on a scale 1:1. Therefore, the text may not fit perfectly inside the cursor. Three keys aid in the positioning of the cursor. Press "N" to display the text on a scale of 1:1. Press "L" to left justify the cursor, "C" to center the cursor, and "R" to right justify the cursor. The keypad normally moves the cursor 10 Pixels at a time. For fine tuning, Press Ctrl (backarrow) to make the cursor move one pixel at a time. Press Ctrl (arrow) GMACH II by Al DulH to move the cursor 10 pixels at a time. GAlt-F4H will erase the last entered text and give the text cursor back to you. You may then reposition the cursor using the above rules. GFONTS H 1-Normal This is a font to label things that do not need things to be very eye catching. Because its small size it is very good for sentences. 2-Bubble This font is good for eye catching graphs, charts and the like. Since the space inside the letter lets you color it different color, it will always make a interesting mix. 3-Roman This is the best looking font of all. It is very easy to read and for that works the best. This is a large font to be careful as how many letters you place at the TEXT prompt. 4-Old English This font is very good, and the lettering is nicely done. There is one small problem that you may come up against the followinf Upper case letter do not work : O,Q,Y, and V. All of the lower-case letter function. GMACH II by Al DulH 5-Script This font trys to duplicate hand writing. It is the largest font so be VERY careful placing this on the screen. GMACH II by Al DulH GMACH II by Al DulH