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-
-
- COMPOSER.DOC
-
- TURBO PASCAL SPRITE ARRANGING UTILITY
-
- { Requires : IBM Compatible Computer, PC or MS.DOS 2.xx, 256 k, }
- { and a CGA compatible color card. }
-
- Copyrignt 1986 by Donald L. Pavia
-
- This is a rather unsophisticated utility that I created to do a
- very specific job. It is presented here without apologies. If you
- can make use of it, so much the better.
-
- Composer.Doc allows you to load any screen you have saved to disk
- or to start with a blank screen (Med Res Graphics, 320 x 200, 4 color).
- You may then load a sprite table, choose a sprite from the table,
- move it around freely by use of the cursor keys. You may place it
- at any allowed postion on the screen. Once you have the location you
- desire, you may fix the sprite in that position and send a string to
- your printer that records : table name, sprite number, col and row.
- You may than choose another sprite from the table move it to a second
- desired position relative to the first one. Once you are sastisfied with
- the location, you may fix the position of the second sprite and send its
- location to the printer. A sprite that has been fixed may be erased by
- calling it up again, placing it directly over the undesired sprite, and
- then "fixing' it again. You may also load other sprite tables at will
- and use them for this same procedure.
-
- I devised the Composer utility to help me arrange sprites for
- drawing complicated chemical structures. With this utility it is quite
- easy to arrange even 10 - 20 sprites into a structure. An example may be
- found in Demo2.Pas.
-
- The utility should also be useful as a guide to arranging animation
- sequences which involve a number of sprites. The chemical animation
- sequence in Demo3 was invented with the help of this utility.
-
- You may load screens from PC Paint if you process them with the
- utility SaveScrn.Com which is also found on this distribution diskette.
- Screens from other Paint programs may be used if you use PC Paint's
- Screen Capture utility and store them in uncompressed form (16 kbytes).
-
- The following commands are available by pressing the indicated key:
-
- (R)ecord Sends current coordinates of the active sprite to the printer
- (S)et Fixes the active sprite at the current screen position - A
- second fix will remove the sprite (xor).
- (C)hoose Allows you to choose another sprite from the current table.
- (L)oad Allows you to load a new sprite table.
- (W)rite Saves the entire screen to disk so that you may come back to
- work on it later.
- (+) Steps When active the cursor moves sprites in increments of eight
- pixels in both x and y directions (Default mode).
- (-) Steps When active the cursor moves sprites in x increments of four
- pixels (minimum for x) and y increments of one pixel.
- (X) Exit Return to DOS, saves nothing.
-
- These commands are found in a menu line at the top of the screen:
-
- (R)ec (S)et (C)h (L)d (W)rit (+)/(-) (X)
-
- At the bottom of the screen are coordinates of the current sprite.
-
-
-
-
- 2
-
- When you first start the utility you will be asked three questions:
-
- Screen File ? : If you wish to load a saved screen from
- disk, enter its name. If instead you
- press <ENTER> you will have a blank
- screen to work with (except for menus).
-
- TableName ? : Enter the filename of the spritetable
- you would like to load.
-
- WhichSprite ? : Enter the number of the sprite you want
- to begin with.
-
- While you are moving sprites around on the screen they are "Put" and
- you will see even their blank edges. However, to allow a subsequent
- erasure, when you (S)et them they are "xor'ed" onto the screen.
- In your own programs you can, of course, do this differently, but some
- choice had to be made here. The main function of this utility is to
- provide sprite coordinates not to actually compose the picture. That
- will be done in your code.
-