Amiga MA Magazine 1998 #7/amigamamagazinepolishissue1998.iso/www/haage&partner/orig/drawstudionon.lha/DrawStudioDemo/Docs/Tutorials

Text File | 1996-11-11 | 16KB | 405 lines

     DRAWSTUDIO TUTORIALS


     Terminology Used
     ----------------
      This manual uses a standard terms for describing the
      action of the program and its user interface. Because
      the program has a standard "look and feel" which is
      shared by other Amiga programs, new users of
      DrawStudio should have little difficulty navigating
      around the program.

      A few simple terms are explained below to give you an
      idea:

           - "Clicking". To "click" on an object or a
           button in a window, depress the left mouse
           button and release without moving the mouse.
           Clicking is the most common mouse operation in
           the program (after movement!).

        "Shift-clicking". Clicking the mouse as above,
           only holding down either of the "shift" keys
           whilst doing it. Shift clicking is used for
           selecting multiple objects. Similarly, Control-
           and Alt-clicking sometimes modify the operation
           of clicking.

           - "Dragging". To drag with the mouse, click down
           with the left mouse button and move the mouse.
           Once you are happy with the drag, release the
           mouse button. Objects are moved on the page by
           dragging them, and Shift-, Ctrl- and Alt-
           dragging may sometimes be performed to modify
           the drag operation.



      Tutorials
      ---------
      Following are a few simple tutorials which will give
      you an idea of the capabilities of the program.


      Starting the Program
      --------------------
      To start DrawStudio, simply double-click on the
      program's icon on Workbench. After the opening splash
      window has opened, you will be presented with a new
      project - ready for work.

      --------------------------------------------------
      IMPORTANT: If DrawStudio opens up with a screenmode
      you would like to change, choose Project/Display and
      click on the "Choose..." button (Screenmode section)
      to select a screenmode of your choice. To save the
      settings for later use, choose Settings/Save
      Settings.
      -----------------------------------------------


      The main window is the project window, and currently
      shows a blank page of paper. This window can be
      resized using the sizing gadget on the bottom right
      of the Project window. Down the left of the window is
      a toolbar;

           The top buttons in the toolbar select the
           drawing tools (lines, circles, curves, text,
           etc...)

           and the bottom buttons allow you to change the
           attributes of objects (colour, line thickness,
           line ends, etc...).

      At the bottom of the project window are two pop-ups
      for the current page and layer (see later) and a
      horizontal scroll bar for moving the page left and
      right. To the right of the project window is a
      vertical scroll bar. This allows you to move the
      portion of the page which is currently being
      displayed up and down.

      The default screenmode is 16 colours and HiRes
      Interlaced screen. This screenmode is available to
      all Amigas (AGA and non-AGA), however you may change
      the screenmode by selecting the "Project/Display..."
      menu item to open the display requester as outlined
      above.

      The display requester also allows you to change the
      display type of the page buffer. The page buffer is
      the area of memory that DrawStudio uses when drawing
      objects before they are displayed on the screen.
      Although all colours are kept in 24 bit accuracy
      internally, the page buffer can store either 1 bit, 8
      bits or 24 bits of colour information.

      Using more bits will allow DrawStudio to display
      objects better on the screen, but will require more
      memory to store the page buffer.

           The 1-bit page buffer gives very fast redraws,
           but only in black and white; this page buffer
           requires the minimum amount of memory.

           8-bit greyscale buffers display all the effects
           available in DrawStudio, only without any
           colour.

           8-bit colour buffers will display in colour, but
           do not show the transparency information that
           will be shown in 8 bit greyscale.

           24 bit buffers are the highest quality, showing
           all the effects available in full colour; they
           also require the largest amount of memory.

      Choosing the page buffer type for your use depends on
      what you are designing and how you wish to output the
      final illustration. If you are using DrawStudio to
      produce diagrams for a technical report for example,
      using a 1 bit page buffer would provide all the
      quality required with a very fast screen redraw. If
      you are producing a drawing which will be printed out
      on a black and white printer, using the 8 bit
      greyscale page buffer will suffice. If you have a
      fast Amiga with lots of memory, using a 24 bit page
      buffer for all instances would be acceptable. You can
      of course change the page buffer type at any time
      during a design as needs require.


      How to Draw Simple Shapes
      -------------------------
      To draw simple lines, rectangles, circles etc... on
      the page, simply click on the appropriate tool on the
      toolbar and drag the new shape out on the page.

      Notice how that when you have drawn an object, it is
      surrounded by eight small rectangular points; these
      are called the "bounding box points". These points
      show the extremities of the object and are only
      displayed when the object is "selected".

      Many of the operations available in DrawStudio will
      only be applied to the currently selected objects.

      When the pointer tool is active, you may click on the
      bounding box points to drag them and re-size the
      object.


      Changing the Appearance of Objects
      ----------------------------------
      By default, all new objects drawn on the page will be
      drawn in the default style - black pen and no fill.
      The things which determine how an object is drawn are
      called the object's "attributes"; the object's
      colour, pen thickness, pen style and line ends are
      all attributes the object may have.

      To change the attributes of an object you can either
      use the Attributes requester ("Object/ Attributes..."
      menu) or the pop-ups which are in the lower half of
      the toolbar towards the left of the project window
      (these popups are the four lowest rows of tools you
      can see in the whole toolbar).

      Try drawing a circle on the page and, while the
      object is still selected, open the Pen (Line Colour)
      pop-up (this is located in the row fourth from bottom
      on the left).

      Click on any of the colours on the palette. The
      object's pen will change colour and the pop-up will
      close. If the object has not redrawn in colour, make
      sure that you are using either a 8 bit or 24 colour
      page buffer. Try changing the Page Buffer to see how
      it effects the way the colour fills are displayed on
      screen.

      Similarly open the Fill pop-up (next to the Pen pop-
      up) and change the colour of the circle's fill.
      Notice that objects can have no fill (None)- i.e. are
      transparent.

      To change the circle's Pen (Lines) dash style, open
      up the pen (Line) dash pop-up. You can also change
      the pen's thickness using the Pen thickness pop-up.

      The bottom two pop-ups change the styles at the start
      and end of lines. Making sure that there are no
      objects selected on page (click on an empty area of
      the page), draw a simple line. It will be drawn as a
      single, thin line. To add an arrowhead to the line,
      make sure the line is still selected and open the
      Line start pop-up.

      The line will now be drawn with arrowheads and the
      pop-up will close.

      But what happens if you want to draw lots of lines
      with arrowheads? It would be a really annoying to
      have to keep on selecting the pop-ups. DrawStudio
      helps you in two ways.

      The first method is to make all lines that are drawn,
      be drawn with arrowheads. To change the default line
      style (this also works for the colours and fills of
      objects), make sure that no objects on the page are
      selected then open the pop-up to change the arrowhead
      style. Now all lines will be drawn with the arrowhead
      that you've selected.

      Another method allows you to "inherit" the attributes
      from any other object on the current page. To create
      an object using the attributes from an existing
      objects, make sure that the original object is the
      only object selected on the page and then create the
      new object; it will be created with the attributes
      inherited from the original object.


      Complex Object Attributes
      -------------------------
      The previous section showed how the colours and line
      styles of objects can be changed using the pop-ups in
      the toolbar. For applying more complex attributes
      (e.g. gradient fills), this must be done from the
      Attributes requester (Object/Attributes).

      Select any object you have on the current page and
      open the attributes requester ("Object/
      Attributes..." menu).

      Here you can select the fill type of both the pen and
      the object fill independently. Try giving the circle
      you created above, a brick pattern for the pen and a
      gradient fill for its centre.

           IMPORTANT: Please Note that patterns can be
           edited. You can choose the colour of the
           foreground and background colours as well as use
           transparent colours.


      Drawing Aids
      ------------
      Creating illustrations with a drawing package is a
      different process than using a paint package.
      DrawStudio has a wide range of layout tools which
      will aid you to create both accurate drawings and
      realistic illustrations.

      The simplest tool which is present in most drawing
      packages is "Snapping to a grid". This is activated
      by either toggling the "Layout/Snap to grid" menu
      item or from the Snapping requester.

      You can snap to the horizontal and vertical grids
      independently and you may adjust the size of the
      horizontal and vertical grids independently. Using
      "snap to grid" is useful when creating technical
      diagrams or flow charts.

      DrawStudio also allows you to snap to objects -
      snapping to object ends, points, lines and curves is
      supported. This is very useful when creating artistic
      illustrations, as these types of illustrations do not
      fit well to a regular grid. To try snapping to an
      object, open the snapping requester and select all
      the snapping to object buttons.

      Now draw a Bezier object which contains both lines
      and curves. Now create a simple line object and as
      you are dragging the end of the line near the Bezier
      object, notice how the line end snaps to the Bezier
      object. The mouse pointer will change to show whether
      the line is snapping to a line, curve, point or end
      of the curve.

      When you release the mouse button, the line will be
      created which snaps EXACTLY to the location on the
      Bezier curve.

      Another tool which can prove very useful is the align
      tool; this is available through the Align requester
      ("Object/ Align..." menu). This allows you to align
      object to each other or to the page as a whole;
      objects may be left, right or centre justified with
      respect to themselves or the page. The align
      requester can also be used to distribute (i.e. spread
      out) objects on the page.

      For example, to centre an object on the page, select
      any object on the page and open the align requester
      and play with the different settings to see how
      powerful this function is. There is a Preview to make
      things more intuitive for you.


      Pages, Layers and Objects
      -------------------------
      So far, we have only considered adding objects onto a
      single page. DrawStudio supports multiple pages (much
      the same way as a DTP program or a word processor),
      allowing documents to be created which will be
      printed out to several pages. To change the current
      page or to add or delete pages you can either click
      the page pop-up at the bottom of the project window
      or select the "Layout/ Pages..." menu item.

      Each page can also contain a number of "layers". A
      layer is like a layer of glass that is laid on the
      page, onto which you can draw objects. Each layer is
      transparent, showing through the layers below it;
      layers can be added and deleted from either the layer
      pop-up at the bottom of the project window or by
      selecting the "Layout/Layers..." menu item.

      Layers allows you to create illustrations by drawing
      the layers one at a time. For example you may want to
      draw the background of an illustration first,
      followed by the foreground objects. This has the
      advantage that once a layer is finished it can be
      made un-editable (so that you won't accidentally
      change it) or displayed greyed out to make foreground
      layers clearer to see. Layers can also be made
      entirely invisible if required.

      By default, all pages are created containing one
      layer called "Layer 1". To create another layer, open
      the layers requester ("Layout/Layers..." menu) and
      click the "New" button; a new layer called "Layer 2"
      will be created.

      Click "OK" to close the requester. Now when you
      create new objects they will be added to Layer 2 and
      you will not be able to edit any objects that are on
      Layer 1 (go on, just try moving one!).

      Once you have objects on both layers you can try
      changing the displaying of the layers in the layers
      requester (try making a layer "greyscale" and then
      "invisible"). The order of the layers can also be
      changed by dragging their names in the list; layers
      at the top of the list are drawn above layers lower
      in list.


      Text
      ----
      Text can be added to the page using the text tool.
      Try selecting the text tool and clicking on the page.
      A cursor is shown and you may enter text by typing
      directly onto the page - pressing the "Enter" key
      will move the cursor to a newline.

      The text may be justified to either left, right or
      central justification using the "Text/ Alignment"
      menu. To change the font style, open the font
      requester ("Text/ Font..." menu) and choose a new
      font.

      To edit the text later, just double click on it with
      the text tool.


      Effects
      -------
      DrawStudio will allows you to warp and bend most
      objects to provide a range of special effects. This
      is all performed through the warp requester
      ("Effects/ Warp..." menu).

      Create some text and make sure it is selected. Open
      the warp requester. Try clicking through the range of
      effects available, adjusting the slider to enhance or
      reduce the scale of the effect. When you have found
      an effect you wish to try, click "Warp" to apply the
      effect.

      Custom warps can be created by clicking on the "Use
      envelope button". This draws a bounding box
      "envelope" with points that can be stretched and
      moved to create stretched envelope.

      This is very much like stretching a rectangular piece
      of rubber -once you click off the object, it will be
      stretched like the envelope.


      Finally...
      ----------
      I hope this has given you a rough idea of the some of
      the capabilities of the program and some of the tools
      available for creating illustrations. The most
      effective way to find out about the program is to
      purchase the full version which will come with a
      comprehensive manual. To order DrawStudio, See the
     "Order Information" file.