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Text File
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1997-04-16
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6KB
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120 lines
HI resolution
ST computer
ART utility
By
M.J.Langley'88
HISTART is a high quality, high resolution art utility. I have
attempted to include all the standard features plus others which I
personally like, or are very practical from Power BASIC, in which this
utility is written. One such feature is the powerfull RAYS feature, which
I found very immpressive when I tried it on MEGABLIT in XOR mode (also, if
you use RAYS in XOR mode on top of the grey (Desktop pattern), then you
get a good effect).
There are a few imperfections in HISTART: the lack of a magnify
mode:- impossible from BASIC (and I can't afford either an assembler, or
Hisoft BASIC to combined the two (sympathy please!)), also the copy/paste
options contain no manipulation abilitys (such as rotate, etc.), again not
possible from BASIC, and also the arc, pie slice, and filled pie slice,
are very inaccurate-probably because all the numbers dealt with are small
numbers with rounded decimal points, but the end result is multiplyed by
about 570!!!!
The features of HISTART are:
4 possible drawing and blitting modes,
work on 2 screens at once,
ram load/save,
merge 2 screens in 4 possible ways,
copy part or all of the screen into a buffer for duplicating etc.,
text in combinations of 5 fonts,
pen and line thicknesses of up to 51 pixels,
6 types of line (dot,dash etc),
3 end/start of line styles,
37 styles of fill plus user defined fill,
UNDO,
loads and saves DEGAS files (by means of displacement from start of file),
seeded fill,
paints in fill pattern in specified width of up to 640 pixels.
filled rectangles and rounded rectangles, filled ellipse, and filled
pieslice with or without perimeters,
rectangles,rounded rectangles,ellipse,pie slice, arc, and line and pen,
realistic, random air spray, with diameter of up to 400 pixels,
rubber,
add dots to specified area- avoids unrealistic solid white or black areas,
fill marked irregular area,
clear specified rectangle,
invert specified area,
plus more...
Options are made from a dragable bar of icons (press right button to
drag it), most of which have obvious functions. Left clicking normally
enters mode, and right clicking normally allows you to set things, such as pen width. Here are brief
descriptions of the icons from left to right:
Pen: left clicking puts you in pen mode.
right clicking lets you set the pen width.
Line: left clicking puts you in line mode.
right clicking lets you chose which line mode,and what type of
line, etc.
Arc: left clicking puts you in Arc mode.
arcs are drawn by rubber boxing an ellipse and then marking a
point on the perimeter, and a 2nd one. An arc is drawn along the
circle anticlockwise from point 1 to 2.
Circle: left clicking puts you in circle mode.
Square: left clicking puts you in rectangle mode.
right clicking lets you chose right angled or rounded rectangle
mode.
Pie slice:left clicking puts you in pie slice mode.
pie slices are drawn like arcs.
The next 3 icons put you in the respective filled mode.
But right clicking on the filled square lets you chose filled right angled
rectangle or filled rounded rectangle modes.
Fill: lets you enter seed fill mode.
Spray can:left clicking puts you in air spray mode.
right clicking lets you set size and rate of spray.
Brush: left clicking puts you in brush mode.
right clicking lets you set brush width.
Rubber: left clicking puts you in rubber mode.
Outlined1:left clicking puts you in copy mode.
Outlined2:left clicking puts you in paste mode.
Clear: left clicking puts you in clear area mode.
right clicking clears the screen.
Invert: left clicking puts you in invert area mode.
right clicking inverts the screen.
Cut fill: lets you set the user defined fill.
Fill Area:lets you mark out an irregular area to fill.
Text: left clicking, puts you in text mode(point, type, ENTER).
right clicking resets all the font choises.
Various letters: lets you toggle the fonts.
Eye: removes the pointer and iconbar. press space to return.
Palette: left clicking lets you toggle the color.
right clicking lets you set the fill perimeter status and mode.
UNDO: Undoes the last operation.
Shadow: left clicking lets you swap screens.
right clicking allows you to RAM load/save (both operations use
the same buffer).
Disc: left clicking lets you save your screen.
right clicking lets you load a new screen.
Exit door:exits the program.
To find out how to use these options properly, experiment. Just
remember that most drawing options require you to drag a rubberbox, but
lines are normally rubber banded. Experiment!!!
I hope to produce manu more hires programs including a configorable
sreen dumper, lowres to hires-grey-scale screen converter, DTP, PacMan,
etc. And I intend to revise HISTART to include a magnify mode etc. All
this is home work, and revision permitting.
Good drawing,
M.J.Langley.
PS. For details of the associated programs: iconed.app, gallery.app,
setgal.app see the corresponding .doc file.