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1995-03-09
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BACKPACK 1.0
by Tom Ekström
Workbench 3.0 or later required
BackPack is freely distributable and
Copyright © 1994 Tom Ekström
1. INTRODUCTION
Tired of that old gray background? BackPack is a collection of nice
backdrops to brighten up your Workbench. As a bonus I've also
included a high resolution mouse pointer, and a startup picture
to be used with BootPic, BootLogo or some similar utility.
2. CONTENTS
2.1. THE BACKDROPS
The backdrops can be found in the (surprise, surprise:) 'Backdrops'
drawer, organized in subdrawers according to the number of colours
they use. You can see a preview of each backdrop pattern by double
clicking on its icon. There are 19 backdrops in all.
As the installation of the backdrops is very simple, I haven't
included any installation script:
Just drag and drop them wherever you want them, then adjust
your WBPattern and ScreenMode preferences accordingly. If you
are unsure of how to do this, consult your Workbench manual.
All backdrops wrap around more or less successfully, so they're
perfectly useable with any resolution and screenmode. Most of the
backdrops were designed to look good on an ordinary high-resolution,
non-interlaced screen (or some other screenmode with a similar aspect
ratio X:Y of about 2:1, such as SuperHires Laced).
Therefore, some of them may look a bit squashed if used on a hires
interlaced Workbench, but that's a matter of taste.
The only backdrop that doesn't wrap is the 'GoodMorning' backdrop,
for which I've included separate versions for interlaced and
non-interlaced screenmodes.
'Keyboard 2' is the only backdrop that has the default palette of
gray, black, white and blue, so it can be used on an ordinary
4-colour workbech.
The other four-colour backdrops can be used on an 8-colour workbench,
if the upper four colours of the palette is set to match those
of the backdrop. Ready-made 8-colour palettes can be found in the
'8_Colour_Palettes' subdrawer. Open the palette using the Palette
preferences, then load the backdrop with WBPattern.
The four-colour backdrops might be useable on an ECS Amiga with
Workbench 2.0 too, with a custom backdrop utility such as NickPrefs
by Nicola Salmoria. NickPrefs is not included with BackPack, but it
can be found in the AmigaLibDisk library, on Fish disk 780.
In any case, increase the number of the colours on your workbench
with the ScreenMode preferences program if the backdrop doesn't
look right.
Note that you can have different backdrops for your workbech and
windows. One favourite combination of mine is to use
'CheckerBoard_Large' on workbench and 'CheckerBoard_Small' on the
windows, on a 64-colour workbench (eats up a lot of memory though :).
2.2. MOUSE POINTER
With the AGA chipset and later (optimistic am I not ? :) it
is now possible to use a high resolution mouse pointer.
For some reason, the default pointer in AGA Amigas is still
in low resolution.
In the 'Pointer' drawer is a preset file for a high resolution
mouse pointer. As the busy image it displays an hourglass.
To see a preview of the pointer, just double-click on the preset
icon. Due to a bug in the Pointer preferences however, some
pixels are chopped off from the left and bottom edges if you
install it this way (at least it does this on my machine).
A better (and more permanent) way to install the pointer is
to drag and drop the pointer icon into the 'Prefs'->'Presets' drawer
on your Workbench. Next, start the Pointer preferences program,
and open the pointer preset file (select 'Open' from the
'Project' menu). Then just click on 'Save' if you want to get
the new pointer automatically each time you reboot your Amiga,
or 'Use', if you want it just for this session.
2.3. STARTUP PICTURE
The second bonus in the BackPack package is a picture meant to be
used with a utility such as BootPic or BootLogo (not included), that
display an IFF picture instead of the ordinary white screen while booting.
BootPic (by Markus Illenseer) and BootLogo (by Andreas Ackermann)
can be found in the AmigaLibDisk library, on Fish Disk 754 and Fish
Disk 963, respectively. Consult the documentation of these utilities
to install and use the startup picture.
This one is in high resolution interlaced, but take a look anyway
if you're using a non-interlaced workbench. I think the flimmering
actually suits the feeling of the picture :).
It's a bit different than the usual Windows-inspired logos.
2.4. FILE OVERVIEW
This is a listing of all files in the BackPack 1.0 package. All
files must be included in a distribution of BackPack. See section
3.1., Copyright, for more information.
BackPack/
BackDrops.info BackPack.doc.info BackPack.guide.info Pointer.info
BackPack.doc BackPack.guide BootPics.info
BackPack/BackDrops/
16_Colour.info 4_Colour.info 8_Colour.info
BackPack/BackDrops/4_Colour/
8_Color_Palettes.info Keyboard1 Keyboard2.info SummerLeaves
AutumnLeaves Keyboard1.info Keyboard3 SummerLeaves.info
AutumnLeaves.info Keyboard2 Keyboard3.info
BackPack/BackDrops/4_Colour/8_Color_Palettes/
AutumnLeaves_Palette.pre Keyboard3_Palette.pre
AutumnLeaves_Palette.pre.info Keyboard3_Palette.pre.info
Keyboard1_Palette.pre SummerLeaves_Palette.pre
Keyboard1_Palette.pre.info SummerLeaves_Palette.pre.info
BackPack/BackDrops/8_Colour/
CheckerBoard_Small IntoTheBlue Letters
CheckerBoard_Small.info IntoTheBlue.info Letters.info
BackPack/BackDrops/16_Colour/
Bathroom GoodMorning_Lace Stone1 Wood1
Bathroom.info GoodMorning_Lace.info Stone1.info Wood1.info
CheckerBoard_Large Sand Stone2 Wood2
CheckerBoard_Large.info Sand.info Stone2.info Wood2.info
GoodMorning SandStone Wallpaper
GoodMorning.info SandStone.info Wallpaper.info
BackPack/Pointer/
Pointer.pre Pointer.pre.info
BackPack/BootPics/
SunnyWelcome SunnyWelcome.info
3. MISCELLANEOUS
3.1. COPYRIGHT NOTICE
BackPack is freely distributable and copyright © 1994 Tom Ekström. It
can be distributed under the following conditions:
(1) The BackPack package must be distributed in its entirety, without
deletions, additions or modifications of any kind. The entire package
may be compressed with an archiver (such as LhArc or Zoo) before
distribution, however.
(2) No profit may be made for distributing BackPack. A reasonable copying
and handling charge for the media is acceptable, however.
(3) No part of BackPack may be included in a commercial product without my
written permission.
(4) Explicit permission is granted to distribute BackPack on InterNet/FTP,
public access BBS's, and to Fred Fish in his AmigaLibDisk library.
3.2. AUTHOR
I can be reached by paper mail at the address:
Tom Ekström
Tiilentekijänkatu 16 as.10
FIN-20810 Turku
FINLAND
(Europe)
or by e-mail at the address:
litoek@kielo.uta.fi
All comments and bug reports (?) are welcome.
Enjoy life! It's never too late to have a happy childhood.