Newkids Edutainment

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Newkids Edutainment / Newkids Edutainment.iso / kidg / childgra / cg-man.doc < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1992-08-15 | 25KB | 644 lines

CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 USING THE MOUSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 CHOOSING AN OPTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 CHOOSING A COLOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 THE DRAW OPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 LINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 BOX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 CIRCLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 MACRO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 CHOOSE A PROGRAMMED MACRO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 CHOOSE A USER-DEFINED MACRO . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 STORE EXISTING DRAWING AS MACRO . . . . . . . . . . . 5 PAINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 TEXT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 CLOAK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 GRAPHICS FUNCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 CLEAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 DELETE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 ANIMATE MARK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 ANIMATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 FILE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 STORE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 GET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 EXPORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 SEE DIRECTORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 CHANGE DIRECTORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 CLOAKING AND ANIMATING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 PRINTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 DR. MOTES' COLORBOOK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 FINAL COMMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 CHILDREN'S GRAPHICS Version 4.0 INTRODUCTION Although anyone may find it useful, this graphics program was designed especially for children. With this software your child can draw lines, circles, boxes, text, or other figures we call macros. You can create your own macros or choose one of the macros that is programmed or built into the software. The programmed macros can be drawn in one of four sizes -- small, medium, large, and extra large. When the drawings are complete your child can color-in the drawings by painting them with a choice of 16 colors. By placing animation marks in the drawings at strategic locations you can also animate your drawings. This is a little more complicated and may require parent's assistance. This software comes with some example drawings. Some of these drawings are already painted and animated for demonstration purposes. These are listed as DRAW1C.CGP, DRAW2C.CGP, DRAW3C.CGP, and so on. Others are just line drawings which your child can paint. These are listed as DRAW1.CGP, DRAW2.CGP, etc. Think of them as pages in a coloring book. You may load these files using the FILE option. DRAW2C.CGP is an animated cartoon that clearly demonstrates the animation capabilities of this software. To see this file in action just load it using the FILE option then click on the ANIMATE option. One of the most powerful features of this graphics package is its macro capability. You can make a drawing, store it as a user-defined macro then recall it and place it in your drawings anywhere you want and as many times as you want. You will find some user-defined macros on the disk that have already been created for you. These can be recalled through the MACRO option. -1- All options are shown on the screen during operation. The top row contains what we call functions. These are: CLEAR, DELETE, MARK, ANIMATE, and FILE. The second row contains the draw options. These are: LINE, BOX, CIRCLE, MACRO, PAINT, TEXT and CLOAK. The bottom row contains the color choices. To choose any function, draw option, or color simply place the mouse cursor on it and click the left mouse button. The following paragraphs describe the operation of this program in detail. USING THE MOUSE You must use the mouse to select options and move the cursor. The left button is used in place of the return key to accept or answer yes. The right button is used in place of the ESC key or to answer no. You may use the right button or the ESC key to escape from most options before completing them. This software requires a mouse. CHOOSING AN OPTION You must use the mouse to choose options. To select an option just move the mouse until the point of the cursor arrow is on the option you want then press the left button. CHOOSING A COLOR We'll cover the options and functions in reverse order starting from the bottom and working up. At the bottom you'll see all the color choices. You'll notice that one has a check mark on it. The check mark shows you which color is currently chosen. To select another color move the mouse cursor to the color and press the left mouse button. The check mark will move to your new color choice and will not change until you select another color. -2- All your drawings and paints use the color you select. One thing you must remember is that paint always flows until it reaches black. So, if you want to color a drawing you must draw it with black paint. THE DRAW OPTIONS Now lets learn about the draw options such as LINE, BOX, CIRCLE, MACRO, PAINT, TEXT and CLOAK. To select one of these options place the mouse cursor on one then press the left mouse button. When a draw option is selected it will change to red so you'll always know which option is currently in effect. That option will stay in effect until you choose another. LINE Use this draw option to draw a line between any two points in the drawing box. If LINE hasn't already been selected (indicated by a red color) then select it using the mouse. Now, move the cursor to where you want the line to start and press the left button. Don't release it yet. Now move to where you want the end of the line and release the button. The line will be drawn using the color you selected earlier. Remember, if you want to paint your drawing you'll need to draw it with the color black. You'll find colored lines useful when you want to hide unwanted lines. For example, when you place a macro in an existing drawing, the lines in the macro and existing drawing will overlap. You can remove these lines by drawing over them with lines which are the same color as the background. BOX Use this option to draw a box. After you select BOX, move the cursor to where you want one corner of the box then press the left mouse button. Without releasing the button move to -3- where you want the other corner of the box and release the mouse button. It doesn't matter which corner you start with. CIRCLE Use this option to draw circles. Verify that CIRCLE has been selected from the Draw Option line then move the mouse cursor to where you want the center of the circle to be. Press the left mouse button. While holding the button down, move the mouse to enlarge the circle to your desired size then release the mouse button. The circle will be drawn in your selected color. MACRO Macro refers to a command that draws a complex figure for you automatically --- a house for example. Choose this option and you'll see a list of three Macro options to choose from. These options are CHOOSE A PROGRAMMED MACRO, CHOOSE A USER- DEFINED MACRO, and STORE EXISTING DRAWING AS MACRO. Programmed macros are those that are programmed into the software and cannot be changed. The user-defined macros are those that you can create and delete. These are stored as macro files on your disk. The third option allows you to store one of your drawings as a macro file. Options can be selected from this Macro Menu by using either the keyboard or the mouse. To use the keyboard, use the up and down arrow keys to highlight the options you want then press ENTER. To use a mouse, move the mouse up or down to highlight the option you want then press the left button. CHOOSE A PROGRAMMED MACRO If you choose to select a programmed macro another menu will be shown with a list of macros to choose from. Select a programmed macro by highlighting the desired macro using the technique described above then press ENTER or the left mouse button. Next, you must choose a size from another list. Your choices are: SMALL, MED, LARGE, and EXTRA LARGE. Finally, move the cursor to where you want the macro drawn then press the left mouse button. The programmed macro will be drawn with the size and location you have selected. It will also be drawn in your selected color. -4- CHOOSE A USER-DEFINED MACRO The USER-DEFINED MACRO option allows you to place a previously designed macro into your current drawing. When you choose this option, you'll be shown a list of these macros to choose from. Highlight the desired macro using the arrow keys or the mouse then press ENTER or the left mouse button. Next, select a location for it to be drawn. Do this by placing the cursor over the desired location then pressing the left mouse button. The user-defined macro will be drawn exactly like it was drawn when you stored it. If it was black when it was stored it will be black when it is drawn again regardless of which color you have currently selected. STORE EXISTING DRAWING AS MACRO The STORE EXISTING DRAWING AS MACRO option allows you to store your drawing as a macro file. You must not have any animation marks or other user-defined macros in this drawing. After you select this option, type a name for the macro file but do not include an extension. For example, suppose you have a drawing of a dog. Do not type DOG.MCR for the filename. Just type DOG. A MCR extension will be automatically added to the end. PAINT This option allows you to fill in an enclosed area with the currently selected color. The paint will fill all the area surrounded by black lines. If the area is not completely surrounded by black, the paint will spill over outside the area. If the paint spills you can correct it by going to the delete option and deleting it. Verify that PAINT has been selected from the Draw Options Line then move the mouse cursor to a point within the boundary and press the left mouse button. The area within the black boundary will now be filled with the color previously selected. If you try to delete a border while it contains paint it will make quite a mess when you redraw it; therefore, delete its -5- paint first. If you want to paint your drawing it is best to wait until all your drawing is finished. This allows you to make changes in lines, boxes, circles, and macros without having to delete the paint first. TEXT Choose this draw option if you want to type some text in your drawing. This option supports most ASCII characters including the number characters 0 through 9. Verify that TEXT has been selected from the Draw Options line then move the cursor to where you want the text to start and press the left mouse button. Now you can start typing text. If you make a mistake you can use the backspace key to delete previously typed text. When you're done press ENTER on the keyboard. The text will be typed using the color you previously selected. Once you've entered text you can delete it using the DELETE option from the function line. We'll cover this in detail later. CLOAK This option allows you to hide part of your drawing from view without actually deleting components. This is very useful for creating animated drawings. Select the CLOAK draw option then locate the cursor at one corner of the drawing that you want to hide. Press the left button then without releasing the button move the mouse to the opposite corner of the area to be hidden. Release the button and the entire area within the box you just drew will be hidden from view. You may now repaint the hidden area (assuming that area is also bounded by black at some point). -6- GRAPHICS FUNCTIONS The following functions are selected from the top row of the screen. Select them by placing the mouse cursor on the one you want then press the left mouse button. CLEAR Select this function if you want to clear or erase all components on your drawing. Be careful with this one! DELETE Use this option to delete individual elements in your drawing. The last thing drawn will begin to flash and you must answer the question "Do you want to delete this?". Use the left button for yes and the right button for no. Choose yes and the drawing will be redrawn without that object. Choose no and the next object will flash. This continues until you either choose yes, press the ESC key to escape, or all objects are flashed. When deleting a painted area, the entire paint does not flash. Only a small circle located around one pixel in the painted area will flash to indicate which painted area is being referenced. When deleting a user-defined macro, a circle (larger than the one for a painted area) will flash around the starting point of the macro. ANIMATE MARK Choose this option if you want to store the current drawing to be used later as an animation screen. Whatever is in the drawing at the time you click on this option will become a screen in your animation. After you mark a screen for animation you can make changes to the drawing then mark it again. Don't forget to cloak or hide parts of the drawing that you don't want to show in the next animation screens. Do not eliminate the pieces with the DELETE option if you're animating. Once they are deleted, they are gone forever. They will not show in the animation. See the CLOAK and CLOAKING AND ANIMATION sections for more details on cloaking. -7- You can put up to seven animation marks in one drawing. Also, these marks can be deleted just like any other drawing element. ANIMATE Use this option to animate your drawing if you have placed animate marks in the drawing as it was created. The animation screens will be shown sequentially. There are two animation speeds. To slow the animation rate to the slower speed press <. To increase the rate back to the faster speed press >. To stop the animation press ESC or press the right mouse button. There are several drawings supplied on this disk that are already animated. Retrieve them using the FILE option and try them. FILE Select the FILE option from the function line when you need to get an existing drawing, store a drawing for later use, or change the directory. Your options in the FILE menu are STORE, GET, EXPORT, SEE DIRECTORY, and CHANGE DIRECTORY. STORE Use this option to store or save a drawing to a file. After choosing this option you must type the name of the file where the drawing is to be stored. Do not put an extension on the file name. For example, do not use something like draw10.dat. Just use draw10. The extension is added automatically. GET Use this option to retrieve a drawing you previously saved. You are shown a list of existing files to select from. Select by highlighting it then press ENTER or the left mouse button. -8- EXPORT Use this option if you want to export your drawing to my colorbook program. You will be asked to supply a filename for the colorbook page without an extension. Type the filename then press ENTER. Remember, the colorbook requires pictures that are drawn in black. So, make sure all your drawings you want to be colored or painted are drawn using black. SEE DIRECTORY Choose this option if you just want to see all the graphics files on the current directory. Press the left mouse button to return to FILE MENU. CHANGE DIRECTORY Use this option to change your home directory. You may find it useful to store some graphics files in a subdirectory. In this case you can use this option to change to that subdirectory. Once you choose this option you'll have to type the name of the directory you want then press ENTER. That's all the functions and options. Now let talk technique. CLOAKING AND ANIMATING The purpose of cloaking is to hide a piece of a drawing without deleting it. This is sometimes easier than going through the delete process. For creating an animated drawing it is absolutely essential. If you're creating an animated drawing and you want to take a piece of your drawing out for the next animation screen you should not delete that part of the drawing. If you do, that piece of the drawing will be lost forever and will not show in any animation screen. To hide a section of your drawing without deleting it you can cloak it. Another way to hide a draw component is to draw over it with another identical component in dark gray color. -9- Lets try an example. Go to the FILE menu and get the graphics file called DRAW2C.CGP. There are two files with similar names. Make sure you get the one with the C after the 2. This is an animated drawing. Now that you have the drawing select ANIMATE and give it a try. When you're ready to stop the animation press ESC or the right mouse button. Next, select the DELETE option. When it asks you if you want to delete animate mark # 7 press the left mouse button for yes. We want to make the man wink so lets cloak his right eye. Choose CLOAK and use it to draw a box around the right eye. His eye should now be covered with a gray patch. Now choose the skin color and the PAINT option. Color in the patch with this color. It may take a couple of tries to get it all colored in so be patient. Once you have the patch colored in choose LINE and the color BLACK. Draw a horizontal line where the eye once was then select the MARK option. This will mark the current screen as animation screen # 7. Now try your animation by selecting ANIMATE. PRINTING This program was not designed with its own print routine. If you want a hard copy of your drawing you must load your favorite graphics screen dump memory resident program before you load this program. A program like this that supports most printers, called GRAPHICS, usually comes with your operating system. If you have GRAPHICS loaded press the SHIFT key then the PRINT key without releasing the SHIFT key (if your computer has it, press the PRINT SCREEN key instead). Your drawing will now be printed on your printer. Read your DOS manual for more information about this graphics utility. -10- If you have Word Perfect (tm) you can also use its screen grabber, called GRAB, to save the screen image to a file then print it from within a document. DR. MOTES' COLORBOOK This program is closely related to the Children's Graphics program; therefore, I've included it on the same disk. With the graphics program's EXPORT command you can create pages to be used with the colorbook program. This program is very simple to use. Use the mouse pointer to select a color then use the pointer to color the drawing. You can save the drawing you've colored under a different name or you can get another drawing. At the top of the screen you'll see 32 color choices. Place the mouse pointer on the color you desire then press the left mouse button to select it. The selected color will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. After you've selected a color, place the mouse pointer on the drawing where you want that color then press the left mouse button. Your selected color will stay in effect until you choose another. Any of the colors can be covered over except black and black/gray checks. Once you use these two colors they become permanent. Therefore, I recommend you always store your page before using either of these colors just in case you decide it's not the color you want. If so, you can recall the page you stored previously. Use the GET PAGE option to select a new colorbook page. Use the mouse to select the option similar to the way described above. Or, you can press the "g" key on the keyboard. You'll be shown a list of pages to choose from. Use the mouse or arrow keys to highlight the page you want then press the left mouse button or the ENTER key. The page you selected will be displayed on your screen. -11- Use the STORE PAGE option to store pages you've already colored. You can't copy over one of the original pages. If you try, the new page will be stored with the same name but with a "b" added to the end of the name. Actually, this will happen to any page that has a title that starts with "page". For this reason, you should name all your colored pages MYPAGExx where xx represents a number specified by you. Choose the STORE PAGE option using the mouse or the "s" key on the keyboard. Once you do this you'll have to type a file name or page name for your drawing. When you type a colorbook page name to store, do not use an extension. For example, use something like mypage10 but not mypage10.gfl. The gfl will be added to the end automatically. The current page name will always be displayed at the bottom right of the screen. Instructions will always be displayed on the bottom row of the screen. To escape from the program press the right mouse button or the ESC key. When you're asked if you really want to exit the program press either "y" for yes or "n" for no. FINAL COMMENTS I hope you and your children enjoy these programs. A lot of time went into designing them. Hopefully they are much easier to use than the elaborate commercial products that require large manuals. To run the programs just type go then press ENTER. I'VE MADE EVERY EFFORT TO REMOVE ALL BUGS FROM THIS SOFTWARE; HOWEVER, I CAN'T GUARANTEE THAT NONE EXISTS. NEITHER CAN I GUARANTEE THAT A VIRUS HAS NOT BEEN ATTACHED TO THE PROGRAM SINCE I'VE RELEASED IT. THE RISK MUST BE ALL YOURS. BY USING THIS SOFTWARE YOU ARE EXPRESSING YOUR WILLINGNESS TO ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE RISKS. If you're interested in educational software for children try my program called SCHOOL-MOM. It is a menu driven program with modules for Music Composition, Art, English, Spelling, -12- Math, Time and Exams. It's a complete educational tool for kids age 4 to 14. You can get it from your favorite shareware dealer, from the IBMAPP forum on CompuServe, or from me by specifying it on your registration form. All rights reserved, 1992 Dr. Andrew Motes MOTES EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE PO BOX 575 Siloam Springs, AR 72761 _______ ____|__ | (R) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER This software is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442-9427 or send a Compuserve message via easyplex to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. -13-