; ╖ The file must be an ASCII text file with one tip per line.
; ╖ A line starting with a semicolon is treated as a comment and is ignored.
; - Comments must appear on their own line.
; ╖ Blank lines are ignored.
; ╖ Each tip can have up to 1000 characters.
; ╖ A tip cannot begin with a space or a tab.
A PiXCL application can control the appearance and position of any window on your PC with the WinShow and WinLocate commands.
PiXCL supports 13 of the most commonly used bitmap formats: BMP, JIF, JPEG, PCD, PCX, PNG, PPM, PSD, RAS, RLE, TGA, TIF and raw bitmap data, in 1, 4, 8, 16 and 24 bit modes, where applicable. PiXCL does not provide direct support for GIF files (i.e. it's not meant to be a browser), but GIFs can be displayed with the HTMLControl command.
You can create custom modal dialog boxes with the DialogBox command with buttons, text, group boxes, edits, list boxes and combobox controls. Up to 60 controls per dialog are supported.
You can use buttons, edit controls, comboboxes and list boxes in the client area to create a dialog based application.
You can create a text entry box with a DialogBox command with a multi-line edit control.
MessageBoxes can have any of the built-in icons, and one, two or three buttons with standard text.
If the standard MessageBox styles are not adequate for your needs, use the DialogBox command to create your own messages with any number of buttons, labels and text as needed and any of the icons built into PiXCL.
PiXCL supports double buffering with foreground and background drawing. See the SetDrawMode command.
You can capture an area of the screen using the SaveRectangle area if you maximize then hide the PiXCL application window.
The MDI editor has a code writer Helper Application, set on the Helper App#2 button. The source code in available for you to modify in cre8app.pxl.
The MDI editor has a toolbar, toolwindow and icon selector and code writer Helper Application, set on the Helper App#1 button. Click the button and the necessary code fragment is written to the Clipboard, and can be pasted into your application. The source code in available for you to modify in editools.pxl.
PiXCL creates an internal image list of bitmaps loaded with the LoadBitmap and Draw*Bitmap commands. PiXCL tries to display images from the memory list first, and if not found, attempts to load from the disk file.
All image processing commands work on images loaded into the PiXCL image list in memory. Use the SaveBitmap command to write the result to disk.
You can create an image in the client area, and save it to disk with the SaveRectangle command. The file type is autmatically decided by the specified file extension.
If you have any sort of TWAIN compatible input device such as a scanner or digital camera, you can access the device with the set of TWAIN_* commands, and import images directly into the PiXCL image list.
PiXCL supports read and write access to the Windows Registry, and also to INI files. See the RDB* commands and the FileRead_INI and FileWrite_INI commands.
You can read some or all of an ascii file with the FileRead_ASCII and write data back with the FileWrite_ASCII commands. Both commands support offset start and text length operations.
You can play any .WAV file with the set of WAV* commands, if you have a SoundBlaster compatible sound card. You can use the Windows Sound Recorder application to create sound clips.
You can turn off the progress bar on bitmap loads with the AutoProgressBar(DISABLE) command. The default is enabled.
PiXCL supports user definable toolbars and floating toolwindows with the Toolbar and ToolWindow commands. Toolbar buttons can be small or large, 3D or flat style.
You can make a standalone EXE with the PiXCL Runtime builder, and adjust the window style parameters, such as making the window non-sizable by selecting the thin border style.
PiXCL supports text and bitmap image copy and paste from and to the Clipboard with the Clipboard* commands.
PiXCL 4.12 and later include support for simple communications using the serial ports COM1 - COM4. This support is designed to enable devices such as digitizing pads and tables that output coordinate data strings, and accept control commands. Start with the SetComPort command.
Windows Shell commands are available for programmed access. See the sample file CPLaplet.pxl.
If you are a registered IDRISI(tm) GIS user, then you have access to the IDRISI interface with direct PiXCL commands. You also need to download the MERCURY.DLL and MERCUR32.DLL libraries from the IDRISI web site. See the set of IDR_* commands.
There are two styles of programmable about box. The first uses the AboutUser command to produce a small custom dilaog, and the other uses the ShellAbout command to display the standard Windows shell box, with other system information.
There is a set of Time functions to get, set and display the local and system time. Start with the GetLocalTime command. You can also display a calender date picker with the MonthCalControl command.
PiXCL supports If-Else-Endif, For-Next and While-EndWhile structured programming methods.
PiXCL supports nested subroutines.
PiXCL 4.20 and later support floating point variables (Number&&) as well as integers (Number) and strings (Number$). There is a floating point math function set as well.
You can generate a pseudo-random number with the Random command.
The code writer, 'cre8tapp.pxl', source code is provided so you can extend the application any way you need. The code sample 'user1_12.pxl' is the basis of the applications that 'cre8tapp.pxl' modifies.
Dynamically updated menus can be created using String variables for the menu item text, and the SetMenu command in a subroutine, or using multiple subroutines for varying situations.
PiXCL has significantly greater capability than Microsoft VBscript, and does not require the Windows Scripting Host (WSH) to run.
You can remove the progress bar that appears when images are loading with the utoProgressBar(DISABLE) command. The default is enabled.
You can add your own user defined commands in your own DLLs if you purchased the geoPiXCL product, or the PiXCL 4.4 User Command Extension API product. A sample DLL project for Visual C/C++ comes with the API.
geoPiXCL has many more available toolbar buttons and built in dialogs than PiXCL.
geoPiXCL includes spectral signature generation, classification and principal component enhancement options.
You can add more tips by editting the "tips.txt" file in the PiXCL installation directory.
