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Vdraw
A SHAREWARE drawing program by
Stephen Vermeulen
Copyright (C) 1987 by Stephen Vermeulen
======================= Copyright Statement ========================
The program: "Vdraw 1.19" is Copyright (c) 1987 by Stephen Vermeulen. The
author reserves all rights to this program. The author grants private
owners of Commodore Amigas the right to copy this program and use it
for their own private purposes. Permission to use this program by
any Government, or any agency thereof (including any group that receives
financial support from any government), or for any commercial use
is not granted. To obtain permission for governmental or commercial use
write the author at the address below and include the number of machines
you will be using Vdraw on, and the frequency of updates you want.
This is a public domain screen drawing program, you may copy it without
guilt but if you use it much, and especially if you want it to improve,
please send me US$20.00 (CDN$20.00 in CANADA only) and I will register
you as a user and send you a copy of the Vdraw manual.
My name and address is:
Stephen Vermeulen
3635 Utah Dr., N.W.,
Calgary, Alberta,
CANADA, T2N 4A6
My phone number is: (403) - 282 - 7990
===================== Program Update Policy ===========================
NOTE: the following prices are in U.S. DOLLARS, unless
you live in Canada, then you can read them as
Canadian dollars.
As I work on improving Vdraw quite a lot (the version number increases
by 0.01 about every 2 weeks) I have established the following update policy.
Send me $7.00 for every update you wish to receive and a list of version
numbers you want to receive and as the version numbers become available
I will send you new Vdraw disks. If you want to reduce this cost, send
me a disk with your name/address and version desired on the label and
$3.00 instead.
For example you might want to receive four updates with about two months
between each update. To do this send me a check for $28.00 and ask for
the following Vdraw versions (assuming 1.09 is the current version) 1.13,
1.17, 1.21, and 1.25. Or else, send me 4 disks with name/address/version
information on the labels and a check for $12.00.
You could also include a note as to how much upgrading you wish to see
in the new version, for example "wait for a major new feature like "line",
"when you have done 30 hours of changes",
etc.
NOTE: you do not have to be a registered user to ask for updates, however
my hearing is considerably better when a registered user asks for
a new feature or change.
=============== Need a new feature or found a BUG ? ==================
Write me! Write me! Write me! Remember though, I seem to be able to
understand a REGISTERED users' comments much better (faster).
=======================================================================
----------------------- Release 1.19 Notes --------------------------
This release is the first to feature the new, entirely ICON driven, user
interface. Since this required such a major rewrite of the program there
may be new and unexpected bugs. There are some new features and some of
the old features have not been added yet (see 1.20) ...
NOTE: Vdraw 1.16 was the last to feature the menu style
user interface, Vdraw 1.17 and 1.18 were released
to a few of the Registered Vdraw Users who were
interested in having the new icon interface as soon
as possible.
-------------------------- Using Vdraw -------------------------------
Using Vdraw, the bottom row of icons selects the major tools. When you
have selected a major tool the tool's icon will be highlighted and a new
panel of modes for this tool will appear on the right hand side of the
display, you use these mode icons to select the features of the tool you
want to use.
The major tools are (from left to right):
1. Line mode - Sketching
- Straight lines
- Horizontal / Vertical lines
- and various line styles
- ... the arrow head feature is not installed yet ...
2. Box mode - Hollow boxes
- Solid boxes
- Patterned boxes ... not installed yet ...
- Invert an area.
3. Curve mode - Circles
- Circular arcs, hold down the CTRL, left SHIFT,
and left ALT keys to adjust parameters.
CTRL and mouse moves adjusts one end point of the
arc.
LEFT ALT and mouse movements adjusts the other
end point of the arc.
LEFT SHIFT and mouse movements adjusts the radius
of the arc.
- Single control point Bezier curve, click on the
first end point and then on the second end point,
adjust the shape by moving the mouse, when you are
satisfied click again.
- Dual control point Bezier curve, click on the
end point locations, then move the mouse while
holding down either the LEFT SHIFT or the LEFT ALT
keys. This adjusts the points which control the
slopes at the end points. Finally click the select
button when you are satisfied.
- The + and wedge icons select modes for the drawing
of circles and circular arcs.
- note: to get circular circles on the printer you
will have to set the aspect ratio parameter
in the vdraw.profile file. See the profile
section.
4. Spray Paint - While you hold the select button down and move the
mouse you spray paint in the current pen colour.
- To adjust the spray slide the R and D gadgets, the
R gadget adjusts the radius of spray and the D
gadget adjusts the density of spray.
5. Brush mode - first make some cuts in the cut mode, then ...
- This allows you to brush with an area you have
cut from the drawing surface, or a cut you have
loaded.
- You click on the two arrow icons to select the
brush you want to use.
- The brush and paste icons indicate whether you
are in continuous brush mode or in single copy
paste mode, click on these to select the mode.
- There is a slight bug in this one, the very first
time you release the select button after brushing
the area under the brush will be incorrectly
restored.
- Note, this mode will ignore any clicking of the
CloseWindow gadget, this is to prevent memory
deallocation problems.
6. Fill mode - not installed yet ... This mode will allow you
to fill in one of several predefined fill patterns
(which you can customize), or to use any of the
cuts as a fill pattern.
7. Magnify mode - Upon entry yo this mode the screen is redrawn at
an 8 fold magnification. The area that is
magnified is the top left corner of the current
window.
- You can scroll the view with the arrow keys.
- You do single pixel editing in this mode by
clicking on the pixel you wish to set to the
current pen colour.
8. Text mode - Click in the text requester at the bottom of
the screen, hit return, and then when you hold
the select button down you will drag the text
around the screen.
- Change the text style with the underline, boldface,
italics, and extended mode icons.
- Change the text drawing mode with the 1, 2,
complement, and reverse video mode icons.
- When you are satisfied hit the OK icon, otherwise
hit the QUIT icon.
- A known bug in this one is that upon exiting from
text mode the highlighting of the currently
selected major tool becomes brain damaged, this
is not dangerous, but it is anoying ...
9. Font mode - Use this mode to select the font you wish to
use for text typing. Note: if the system cannot
load the font (because of memory problems) a
message will be printed in the DOS window. The
EMERALD fonts are particularly large.
10. Lock mode - Use this mode to lock areas to prevent them from
being permanantly damaged.
- box the area in the drawing you wish to backup, then
hit the closed lock icon.
- you can then lock another area following this
procedure.
- the arrow buttons will show you what areas are
currently locked.
- to restore an area that was locked and then
damaged by some editing just select that lock
with the arrows and then hit the open lock icon
- to restore all locked areas hit the "many shackles"
icon
- to discard a locked area you do not want to restore
any more, select it with the arrows and then hit
the trashcan icon.
11. Cut mode - use this mode to cut areas from the drawing surface
for use as brushes or to selectively save.
- The arrow icons step you through the list of cuts.
- The trashcan is used to discard any cuts you do
not want anymore.
- The currently displayed cut may be saved to disk
using the TO DISK icon.
- A file may be loaded from disk into a cut using
the FROM DISK icon.
- The number of cuts is only limited by available
memory.
- Note: the cutting process makes the currently
selected Background Pen the transparent colour
in the cut.
12. Fx mode - this mode, when implemented, will allow you to do
all sorts of neat things with the various cuts
that you have on hand, rotates, mirroring, stretching,
distorting, shearing ...
13. Erase mode - hit ALL to erase everything to the background colour
- or just box areas you want to erase.
14. Palette mixer - Select the colour to be adjusted with the drawing
pen icon and the colour palette across the top of
the screen
- remix the colour with the sliders.
- the bug in this one is that Intuitions AUTOKNOB
does not show up until you turn borders off, but
you still get borders ... Not dangerous but
an anoyance.
15. nothing yet
16. Print mode - This mode allows you all sorts of flexibility
with printing
- The BOX icon tells the printer routine to print
only a boxed area. The default area is the
current window view, however, you can just box
any area and then that area will be printed.
- The ALL icon tells the printer routine to print
the full bitmap.
- The AS icon tells the printer routine to AUTOSIZE
the printing. This mode makes the printed output
have the save aspect ratio as the screen displays.
When this mode is on, the scaling factors are
ignored.
- The MULTIPAGE icon (the one with three overlapping
boxes) is used if you want the output to appear
as a number of pages that you cut and paste
togeather. Note: this mode works best if you
have a bitmap that is the same size as the printers
page.
- The scaling icons (1x, ... 5x, 1y, ... 5y) select
the expansion factor for the X and Y directions
to be applied to the bitmap. This allows you to
use a bitmap that is (say) 1/4 the area of the
full size printer's page and have a full page
printout without any distortion of line thicknesses.
- Once you are satisfed, press the print icon.
17. Disk mode - this allows you to do loading and saving of
pictures and portions of pictures.
- The BOX icon tells the save routine to save only
the boxed area, and tells the load routine to
restrict the loading to only the boxed area.
- To set a boxed area just click in the main window
and box the area desired.
- The ALL icon tells the load and save routines to
use up to the entire bitmap.
- The P icon tells the save routine to save the
data in packed format (less disk space used)
- The U icon tells the save routine to save the
data in an unpacked format.
- The CM icon tells the save routine to save the
screens ColourMap along with the routine, it tells
the load routine to use any ColourMap data in the
image file.
- The NOT CM (CM with the line over top) icon tells
the save routine not to save a colour map, and
tells the load routine to ignore any colour map
data that may be in the file.
18. Graphics mode - not implemented yet ... Possible features here
include changing screen modes while in Vdraw.
-------------------------- Vdraw Profile ------------------------------
There is a file called "vdraw.profile" that should be in the Vdraw:
directory. This file contains several parameters that can be used
to customize Vdraw to your particular requirements.
A typical file might be:
1000
400 250 4
7 -11
100000
320 200
A line by line explaination follows,
1000 This number is the aspect ratio multiplied by 1000. 1000 means the
pixel's height is the same size as the pixel's width. To make
circles circular on a printer (Epson driver) where there are 120
dots per inch horizontally and 72 dots per inch vertically you
calculate the value thus:
72
--- * 1000 = 600
120
400 This is the width of the super bit map. You can make this quite
large (say 1000), possibly the best thing to do is to make this
the same as the number of horizontal pixels your printer prints.
(The Epson driver seems to do 120 pixels per inch, so I use 960)
250 This is the height of the super bit map, for an 11 inch page on
an Epson I use 720.
4 This is the number of bit planes to use, this sets the number of
colours you get. Currently, this can be 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. Note
that if you use a 640 wide screen this can only be 1, 2, 3, or 4.
7 -11 These will be used for arrowheads when they are implemented.
100000 This is the refresh rate of the zoom lens that comes on in the
lower right hand corner of the display when the menu button is
pressed. This is the number of micro seconds between refreshes
of the display.
320 This is the width of the screen to use, this is normally either
320 or 640, however, you can specify other values if you have a
monitor that can display the overscan area. But, if you specify
some non standard value you must realize that intuition only allows
you to move the mouse to position 319 or 639.
200 This is the height of the screen to use. This is normally either
200 or 400 for North American systems, if you live in Europe you
can probably use 256 or 512, this has NOT been checked, let me
know if it works! Again, you can use non-standard values if you
want to squeeze a bit more onto the screen.
------------------------- Extra Credits ----------------------------
Let me express my thanks to Charlie Heath at MicroSmiths Inc. for putting
his file name requester (that I am using) into the public domain. This
requester appears on Fish Disk #35 along with the following copyright
statement:
::::::::::::::::::::::The Copyright Statement:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Demo Program for using FILE NAME REQUESTER
This program shows how to use the file name requester, getfil.o
(c) 1986 by MicroSmiths, Inc.
Permission is granted to use the object code routine 'getfile' in any
Amiga program, commercial or otherwise, EXCEPT that it shall NOT BE
used in any Text Editor, and it shall NOT BE SOLD as an OBJECT MODULE
or in a LIBRARY.
:::::::::::::::::::End of The Copyright Statement:::::::::::::::::::::::::::