Acorn User: China/Acorn User China CD-ROM (UK) (Disc A)/Acorn User China CD-ROM (UK) (Disc A).bin/HENSA/COLOUR/PALETTE.ARC/!Palette_Documents_ReadMe

Text File | 1994-02-07 | 23.1 KB | 598 lines

Palette 1.34 (07-Feb-1994)
==========================

(c) James Ponder (Jp) of DoggySoft, 1993-1994


This program is not Public Domain, this is the full version but if you
continue to use it for longer than a month then please register (for details
about registration then please read 'Register' in the 'Documents' directory).



Introduction
============

This program has been written as a replacement PaletteUtil as I was not
satisfied with the default module included with RiscOs. The main advantages
of using this Palette are as follows:

  **  Displays current mode on iconbar.
  **  Search for modes of a certain resolution and number of colours.
  **  Has contrast and brightness controls.
  **  You can save and load palette files that contain parts of the palette.
  **  You may have several (up to 16) default palettes.
  **  It has a much better palette editor (contrast/brightness controls).
  **  The mode menu is user changeable.
  **  The modes can be selected using hotkeys very quickly.
  **  The whole program is very flexible with lots of configurations.
  **  Two palette altering modes, RGB and CMYK.
  **  Supports all RiscOs 3 palette star commands.
  **  Includes a screen saver.

and many more features...



The basics
==========

The palette allows you to set to the colours used by the desktop, and the
screen modes used to display te desktop. The palette icon is located on the
right of the icon bar. The basic functions are:

  * setting the palette (the colours used on the desktop)
  * inverting the screens colours
  * changing to a different screen mode
  * saving the current palette
  * setting the desktop to its default values

Each basic section also has a number of extension sections, please refer
the relevant area of this file for more details.



Palette altering
================

The palette defines the set of 16 colours that will be used by the desktop
and the colours of the pointer and the screen border. Each colour is defined
in terms of the intensity of the red, green and blue colour 'guns' in your
monitor. For example, setting all three guns to zero intensity produces
black, and all three fully on produces white.

To see the current setting, click on the palette icon. The palette window
then appears. You can check the precise setting of a colour by clicking on
it. The logical number associated with the colour is displayed, and the
sliders at the top of the window show the red, green and blue intensities.
To change a setting, position the pointer within one of the sliders, and drag
it to the level you want. The colours on the whole screen reflect the changes
as you make them (not true for 256 colour modes).

You can use the palette to change the border and pointer colours, by clicking
on one of the special boxes to the right of the grid of colours and adjusting
the sliders as above. The boxes are:

  * BD - to set the screen border colour     Referred to as colour 16
  * M1 - to set the pointer's outer colour   Referred to as colour 17
  * M2 - to set the pointer's inner colour   Referred to as colour 18
  * M3 - to set the pointer's misc colour    Referred to as colour 19

Note that if you change the colour balance of colours 0 (white) or 7 (black),
the grey tones 1-6 are changed to match.  However, if you then restore
colour 0 or colour 7 by dragging the sliders back to their original
positions, you will find that the grey tones are not identical to the ones
you started with.  To restore the original palette, choose a default palette
from Palette's icon bar menu.

When you have finished changing the palette, click on the close icon in the
palette window. If you want to save the changes permanently, see 'Saving a
palette file' below.

There are contrast and brightness controls, the calculation involved is that
the red, green and blue elements are multiplied by (brightness/64) and then
contast is added to the red, green and blue elements of each colour.

You can also edit in CMYK mode, an alternative to the standard RGB editing
method, see below.



CMYK palette altering
=====================

Palette supports CMYK (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Key), a well known method of
colour seperation for printing.

You can treat the editors as using the same principle as RGB (Red-Green-Blue)
editing, but in actual fact as you drag the bars around they are converted
back into RGB for RISC OS to handle.

If you are editing in CMYK mode you may notice some interesting effects, if
you drag the bars around and then select the same colour that you are
presently editing, the bars will change position.  This is because it will
try and find the least amount of ink to be used when printing.



Inverting
=========

Unlike the RISC OS Palette, you have the option to invert not only the grey
colours 0 to 7, but also colours 8 to 15. The action of inverting either the
greyscale or the colourscale can be configured to either a 'swapping'
technique as used on the RISC OS Palette or a 'real invert'. The swapping
method swaps colours 0 and 7, colours 1 and 6 and so on, whereas the 'real
invert' actually inverts each individual colour by taking the red, green and
blue compositions and subtracting them from 255.

Inverting will also invert the RGB form of the colour, the CMYK will be
recalculated.



Saving a palette file
=====================

If you change the desktop colours, you may wish to save them for later use.
To do this, follow the 'Save' option on the iconbar menu. This leads to a
save box.

The save box is used as normal, except that it has a section at the bottom
for specifying a range of colours - you don't have to save all of them. It is
often useful, for example, to be able to save all the ordinary colours but
not the mouse or border colours.

If you can see the range icons then Palette will save using the numbers it
has been given.  If you have not toggled the window so that the icons are in
view then it will save the entire palette.

Note that the standard RISC OS Palette utility cannot read the palette files
unless they have all the colours loaded.



Loading a palette file
======================

To restore the palette from a file, either double-click on a palette file,
or drag the file onto the palette icon on the icon bar. Palette files are
indicated by a palette icon in the directory display.



Defaults
========

A number of default palette files are included with this program so that
you may 'return' to some useful selection of colours:

  a)  !Default    - Default palette
  b)  !Default2   - Default palette with darker border and nice mouse colours
  c)  Grey16      - A grey palette
  d)  Grey16-1    - A grey palette in reverse
  e)  Neon        - A neon palette for night time viewing
  f)  RealGrey    - A grey representation of the default palette

The reason that the first two files have a '!' before them is so that they
are always at the top of the menu. Don't put '!'s before any of the palette
files unless it is to make them move to the top.   When you click on the
'Default' option it will choose the top item in the menu.

To add/delete/change the palette files then just alter the files in the
directory marked 'Defaults'. It will not take effect immediately - you will
have to reload the program.

If there are no palette files in the directory 'Defaults' then the submenu
will be removed and Palette's internal default is used.

I do not currently know how to deal with 256 colour palettes, so don't put
any in Palette's 'Defaults' directory as it won't work.  If anyone could
provide me with documents I would be most grateful.



Mode Menu
=========

One of the most used feature of the Palette is that of changing modes. On the
original Acorn Palette there was a set number of modes and that was of course
very limiting as usually it doesn't have the mode that you most commonly use.

The first thing to decide is how many modes you want on the menu. If you want
4 'permanent' modes then you must ask for 5 entries on the menu as there is
always a writeable icon at the bottom of the mode menu (like the original
has). Go to the options window and change the number of entries on the mode
menu (in this case to 5); also select the option that says that you can edit
the modes from the mode menu.

Now that you are in the editing mode, you can now follow the Icon bar menu to
get to the mode menu. As you can see all the entries have a caret in them so
that you can alter them. Make sure there is a space after each number (before
the text). The text doesn't have to be in brackets (it just looks nice if it
is).

If you decide that you chose too many icons (or too few) then you can change
the options again without destroying the contents of the icons you just made.

Once you have set it up, go back to the options and alter the width of the
mode menu; this will not change any of the text (ie, it will not shrink the
text) just the size of the icons in the menu. Once everything is perfect
just de-select the editing icon in the options window and all the icons bar
the bottom one will become 'permanent' (not writeable).



Mode Finder and Mode Display
============================

RISC OS mode numbers are not very useful - they tell you absolutely nothing
about the mode. Palette allows you to search for modes by their number of
colours and resolution. Select 'Mode' on the iconbar menu to open the mode
find window or select 'Mode Finder' from the 'Misc' menu.

The top section of the window allows you to specify the number of colours
that you are looking for, and the resolution - 'low', 'medium' or 'high'. In
general, high resolution modes can only be used on a VGA or multisync
monitor.

The bottom section of the window is a scrolling list of the modes which fit
the specification. Clicking on a mode changes to that mode.

You can specify in the options window whether you want the modes to be
'validated'. If the modes are validated, then only the modes which can be
used on your monitor are listed - if they aren't, all modes fitting the
specification are listed. Validating the modes makes mode finding slightly
slower.


The 'Mode Display' option opens up a window with a grid of icons, the purpose
is to allow you to quickly see which modes are installed on your computer.

If an icon is shaded out, it means that the mode is either not available or
that it is a text-only mode. The foreground colour of each icon represents
how many colours each mode has:

  Grey - 4 or 2 colours
  Blue - 16 colours
  Red  - 256 colours

After each mode number there is a letter, 'l', 'm' or 'h'.  These correspond
to the resolution of the mode, ie. 'low', 'medium' or 'high'.  Clicking on
an icon changes to that mode.

When you use this feature Palette invokes an external application, this is
because this feature is not one that is likely to be used very much and the
memory would be wasted if built-in to Palette.



Randomise
=========

This is a superb routine that randomises the palette! It is located on the
Edit Palette window, try it and see. (Just not on a full stomach...)



Hotkeys
=======

The hotkeys used by this program have been chosen so that they should not
interfere with any other known program. To activate a hotkey press the left
CTRL key and the left SHIFT key (in any order) and then press a key command:

keys '1' to '0' operate the mode menu. 1 will change mode to the mode in the
(top strip)     first menu option, 9 the 9th, and 0 the 10th.
Keypad numbers  allow you to change to a specific mode.
key  '-'   will toggle the icon on the icon bar.
key  '='   will default the palette to the first palette on the menu.
key  '£'   will cause the caret to be lost.
key  'Esc' will open up a window displaying the day, date and time.

You may also change mode by specifying the actual mode number to change to.
First hold down the left CTRL and the left SHIFT keys as usual and then type
in the mode number you want to change to on the keypad:

hold down: left CTRL and left SHIFT
press and release: 1 (on keypad)
press and release: 5 (on keypad)
release: left CTRL and left SHIFT

This changes from your current mode to mode 15.



Why would I want to make the icon disappear?
============================================

Some people after they have set up the mode menu may not want to have lots
of icons on the icon bar, so Palette provides the option of hiding its icon.
You can still use the hotkeys to change mode. Use the hotkey '-' to bring the
icon back.



Miscellaneous features
======================

Clicking on 'Options' will do the same as clicking with adjust on the icon
bar: produce the options window for Palette. For details about the options
window then please read 'Configuring this program'.

Clicking on 'Lose Caret' will of course disown the caret from any window.
This is useful when hotkeys are needed by some programs (eg. Menon or
IconDir).

For information about the 'TaxanModes' menu, please see 'Configuring this
program'.

For information about the 'Mode Finder' and 'Mode Display' options please
read 'Mode Finder and Mode Display', earlier in this file.



Configuring this program
========================

You can configure this program by clicking 'adjust' on the iconbar or by
selecting 'Options' from the iconbar menu. Options avaliable are:

  a)  Icon installs on startup
  b)  A beep is sounded when you change mode using hotkeys
  c)  A quit from the task manager will kill the PaletteUtil module.
  d)  Modes on the mode menu can/cannot be editted.
  e)  Inverting the greyscale will use the 'real invert' method.
  f)  Inverting colours 8-15 will use the 'real invert' method.
  g)  Number of items on the mode menu.
  h)  Width in characters of items on the mode menu.
  i)  Reset Contrast/Brightness on new palette.
  j)  Contrast/Brightness affect mouse pointer.
  k)  Colour options (4096 or 16.8 million).
  l)  Screen saver options.
  m)  TaxanModes loading options.
  n)  Mode finder options.
  o)  Grading options.
  p)  Clock options.

Also on the options window there is a 'quit' icon. Clicking on this will
produce a small menu with 'Temporary' and 'Permanent' on them - a temporary
quit means that the program can be re-loaded without using a disc by going
to the task manger icon and entering 'Desktop_PaletteUtil' at 'New task'.
A permanent quit will totally quit the program, and kill the module.

Note that when the new Palette dies, the old RISC OS one does not start up
again - this is because the RISC OS Palette unfortunately prohibits this.

The number of items in the mode menu is important when tailoring your copy
of Palette. This is one of the most useful features - you can change the text
and the modes in the mode menu.

Colour options are used by Palette to know whether or not to round the
palette down or not (when you drag the bars for example). This is useful
because setting R, G and B to 240, 244, and 248 will actually be rounded
down by the Wimp to 240, 240 and 240 if you don't have a colour enhancer,
therefore to reflect this you should configure Palette to 4096 colours.

TaxanModes options are for people who own a Taxan795 monitor (maybe other
Taxans). If you do not have a Taxan monitor then disable the feature as it
is useless. If you have a hard disc then you may like to have the modules
loaded when you select one of the modules on the Misc menu or if you have
a floppy drive and don't want to insert the disc which has Palette on it,
then you may like to select the option to load both modules into memory for
good (this uses around 6k).

There are two grading options, the first "Grade when changing colours 0
and 7" means that Palette will 'grade' the palette when you change either
colour 0 (white) or colour 7 (black) so that colours 1 to 6 match them.
You may unselect this option so that Palette will no longer do that.

When you randomise a palette from the Edit Palette window, and the "Grade
when randomising" is set then it will make sure that colours 0 to 7 are
graded as well, this can lead to better palettes being randomised.

The clock options are very configurable, you may ask Palette to open it on
startup, rather than use the hotkey to open it.  The position, size and
format of the icon is also user configurable.  The icon will be word wrapped
by the Wimp so multiple line entries are acceptable.

You can specify an offset from the top or the bottom of the screen, this is
useful if you want the clock to always be in the top left corner in all
screen modes.



Clock
=====

The format field is very flexible, the string is copied character for
character unless a '%' is found.  If this character is followed by any of
the following codes, then the appropriate value is used:

cs    Centi-seconds
se    Seconds
mi    Minutes
12    Hours in 12 hour format
24    Hours in 24 hour format
pm    'am' or 'pm'
we    Weekday, in full
w3    Weekday, in three characters
wn    Weekday, as a number
dy    Day of the month
st    "st", "nd", "rd" or "th"
mo    Month name, in full
m3    Month name, in three characters
mn    Month name, as a number
ce    Century-1 (eg. 19)
yr    Year within century
wk    Week of the year, Mon to Sun
dn    Day of the year
%     Insert a '%'

To cause leading zeros to be omitted, prefix the field with the letter 'z',
for example "%z12".

The hotkey is CTRL-SHIFT and ESCAPE.


Screen saver
============

In the options window are the options for the screen saver.  The first option
is to tell Palette whether or not to screen save the screen, and following
that is the delay time - defaulted at 5 mins.

Palette provides two effects, the first is "Dancing Lines" and the second is
"Fireworks display".  The "Dancing Lines" effect is mode independant, but the
second enters mode 15 to run.  There is also the option to "Just blank" so
that the screen just blanks instead of making an effect.

The "Fade screen before" option involkes a random screen wipe to black,
instead of jumping to black to start the effect.

NB: Unfortunately there seems to be some conflict between the built in RO3
screen saver (infact, anything that switches off the MemC), therefore you
should make sure that both screen savers are not enabled at the same time.
(Palette will automatically disable the built-in RO3 Palette on start up if
you have enabled Palette's screen saver.)


The effects in Palette are just two of the many effects that the shareware
program LifeGuard can do.  LifeGuard is a modular system and runs LifeGuard
effect files which you can write yourself.  LifeGuard also has a password
facility and can choose a random effect from a list of effects that you have
loaded.  LifeGuard also supports out-of-desktop blanking which Palette does
not.



Registration window
===================

The registration window that appears on startup will automatically close if
another task loads up.  This is so that Palette may be added to a boot file,
as it would be very annoying for the registration window to appear every time
you turn on the computer!  Because of this you must make sure that Palette is
not the last task in your boot sequence.



Programs from DoggySoft
=======================

Buy "The Hacker", only £5 from DoggySoft. A wonderful games-hacking utility,
that makes it incredibly easy to make your own cheats for games - infinite
lives, extra time, whatever you like. You just press Alt-Alt while in the
game, and The Hacker pops up to allow you to poke around! Many features are
provided to help with making cheats. You can then return back to the game,
exactly where you left off...


Buy "Diss", from DoggySoft. Incredible value at only £10. The BEST desktop
disassembler for the Archimedes, it has FAR too many features to list them
all here, but they include:
  * multiple files
  * multiple views
  * FAST disassembly
  * Add labels to the code - so instead of:
      B       &38271738
    you get:
      B       mouse_click
  * Automatic labels generation for:
      module entry points, SharedCLibrary functions, ABCLib functions,
      BASIC assembler programs, LINKed programs
  * Automatic un-squeezing of squeezed files
  * Simple built-in assembler for editing programs
  * Search code to produce list of addresses
      Search for SWIs, instructions, values, references, etc.
  * Source code generator
etc. etc. etc... This product is indispensable for the serious programmer.


Also, look out for DoggySoft public-domain products, such as:
  WimpExtension  Desktop programming module (as used in Palette)
  Rough Time     Excellent clock utility, with alarms
  HourMake       Make your own custom hourglass
  FileExtras     Useful file utilities
  NodeList       Nodelist browser for scanning for BBSes
  IconDir        Provides a disc stucture with icons on a menu
  Cookies        Gives you a nice cookie on startup!

Watch out for Light Cycles, coming soon...



Copyright
=========

This program may be distributed everywhere, if you want to include it on a
magazine or PD library then you should contact me for a new version.

The 'Sprites' file included in this program may be altered, but you must
distribute the un-altered version.  Make sure that the size of the sprites
are not altered as this would probably do weird things.

Please note that after you have used this program for over a month, you are
required to register as this is a shareware program.



Thanks
======

Thanks to David Coleman and David Dade for providing the best meeting place
for Archimedes users, namely Arcade.

Thanks to Jon Ribbens for writing WimpExt that this program uses. (And for
the mode-finding code.)

Thanks to Ben Dooks for buying my 'fixed by Watford Electronics' A3000.

Thanks to Owen Gilson for lots and lots of things:  For example he has helped
me with this program by telling me about all the things I got wrong :-)

Thanks to Mark Wheeley for the 'randomise' suggestion.

Hello to everybody who uses Furzefield Hq, Arcade and Digital Databank.

Hello to Piers, because I'm sure he would like to be mentioned ;-)

Thanks to Edward Hobson for always helping me out with all things to do with
comms... Give his BBS a call on 0829 782667 or 782676.

Thanks to Brian Howlett and Martin Tillman (two of my registered users) who
have given me helpful hints and told me about bugettes.

Boo goes to Andrew Clover!


Why you cannot reload the old Palette
=====================================

When you quit Palette, you can then RMREINIT the old Palette Utility, but
unlike most extension modules, you cannot then do Desktop_Palette as it says
that you must do *Desktop to reload it... If you do "*Desktop" it will have
the side effect of also reloading all ROM based RMKILLed modules.  To get
around this, the only way is to directly send a Wimp_StartedWimp to force it
to reload, but Acorn have provided no way to get the location of the private
word of the Palette and so as far as I can see, there is no way (other than
to reset) to reload the old Palette nicely.



Contacts
========

If you have any suggestions, or you have found a bug, or even if you just
want to tell me how great you think this program is, ring or write to the
address in the textfile 'DoggySoft'.

If you are a PD Company or a magazine then DoggySoft would be happy to
supply copies of all our latest PD programs.

*****************************************************************************
Do not forget to call the DoggySoft support BBS 'Furzefield Hq', 24hrs on
[phone] for the latest versions of all our Public Domain and Commercial
programs.  The FidoNet address is 2:252/166 if you wish to NetMail us.
*****************************************************************************