Aminet 6

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Aminet 6 / Aminet 6 - June 1995.iso / Aminet / dev / basic / ACE_Prgs.lha / gfx / SpiroDraw04.lha / PictSaver.doc < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1994-05-24 | 22.8 KB | 570 lines

// \\ // PictSaver V2.4 \// © 1992 by Preben Nielsen This is FreeWare !!! Whats's new since V2.0 ? PictSaver V2.0 had a bug which sometimes caused it to ignore key-presses. This has of course been fixed. Now there is a new third menu with which you can customize PictSaver and of course you can save your preferences to disk. You can now freely select the keys for PictSaver to act on, which is especially usefull when PictSavers default keys conflict with other programs. Contrary to earlier versions, cutting rectangles now uses the front screen instead of the active screen ! Font-sizes are now taken into consideration when making the menu-bar (the items are still Topaz-80) and the string-gadget. The font-adjustment is not as complete as it could be under kickstart 2.x, but at least it's kickstart 1.2/1.3 compatibel. What is PictSaver ? PictSaver is a small utility that allows you to take snapshots of windows, screens or only part of screens and store them on disk as IFF-ILBM files, which can then be used in any paint-program. How to start PictSaver From CLI/Shell: Type 'PictSaver' and press RETURN. PictSaver auto-detaches. This means that you do not have to use 'RUN' or 'RUNBACK' or the like - PictSaver will not prevent you from closing the CLI/Shell window. You can prevent PictSaver from showing it's startup-message by writing 'PictSaver -q'. This is especially usefull when using PictSaver from the startup-sequence under kickstart 2.x, because otherwise PictSaver would cause a prematurely opening of the workbench-screen. From Workbench: Double-click on the 'PictSaver' icon. How to end PictSaver To remove PictSaver simply run it again as explained above. It can also be done by pressing a few keys on the keyboard - How to do this will be explained below. How to use PictSaver Let me first explain some terms which will be used often in this text. When I write: then I mean: =========================================================================== IFF Interchange File Format - A fileformat created by Electronic Arts to make it easier to interchange files between programs and between different computers. This format is very much used in the Amiga world (and on Macs an PC's too). ILBM InterLeaved Bit Map - A IFF standard for storing graphic images as interleaved lines of pixel-data. An IFF-ILBM file can be used by virtually every bitmap-graphics program on the Amiga. ByteRun1 ByteRun1 is a compression-technique for IFF-ILBM files. It is a standard which is used by every paint-program on the Amiga. Picture-viewers like PPShow can of course also show pictures compressed with this method. Programs allowing compressed pictures can also read uncompressed pictures, but paint-programs themselves often only save pictures the compressed way (except Graphicraft). The reason PictSaver allows you to save uncompressed files, is because you might want to pack the file further with PowerPacker, lharc, zoo or the like. Such packers can often obtain the best results from uncompressed files. Bitplane A block of memory used for displaying graphic images. Amiga-screens are build from combined bitplanes. The number of colors the screen can have is determined by the number of bitplanes it is made from. 1 bitplane gives 2 colors, 2 bitplanes gives 4 colors, 3 pitplanes gives 8 colors etc. Current Amigas can show a maximum of 32 colors (5 bitplanes) without any tricks. EHB and HAM screens use tricks to make 6 bitplanes show 64 and 4096 colors respectively. HAM Hold-And-Modify - A graphics mode which enables your Amiga to show 4096 colors using only six bitplanes. In this mode the color of a pixels cannot be chosen freely, but is a modification of the color of the pixel on the left. Normally six bitplanes should only be able to produce 64 colors, but in HAM mode the fifth and sixth bitplane is used to indicate whether this pixels color differs from the pixel on the left by a change in the Red, Green or Blue part of the color. EHB Extra HalfBrite - A graphics mode which lets an Amiga show 64 colors. This uses six bitplanes, but the Amiga only has 32 color-registers and can therefor only show 32 colors. In EHB mode the colors 32-63 depend pairwise on the colors 0-31 but are shown a bit darker than the original color. Qualifier key Any single one of the keys below: the CTRL-key ( ctrl ) the CAPSLOCK-key ( caps ) the Left SHIFT-key ( lshift ) the Left ALT-key ( lalt ) the Left AMIGA-key ( lamiga ) the Right SHIFT-key ( rshift ) the Right ALT-key ( ralt ) the Right SHIFT-key ( rshift ) Qualifier Combination of simultaneously depressed qualifier-keys. Action-key Any non-qualifier key on the keyboard. LMB The left mouse-button. In general, writing e.g. ctrl-lshift-'a' means holding down the CTRL-key and the Left SHIFT-key and then pressing the 'a'-key. The PictSaver window By default, PictSaver uses the following key-combinations: ctrl-lshift-lalt: Qualifier used for cutting out rectangular portions of a screen. ctrl-lalt-esc: Terminates PictSaver and removes it completely from memory. ctrl-lalt-help: Opens PictSavers window. ctrl-lalt-'w': Saves the active window as a IFF-ILBM file. ctrl-lalt-'a': Saves the active screen as a IFF-ILBM file. ctrl-lalt-'f': Saves the front screen as a IFF-ILBM file. Later on you will see how to customize these key-combinations for your own personal preferences, but I will use the default keys in the following explanation. Pressing ctrl-lalt-help pops up a window looking something like this: .---.-----------------------------. .----> x | PictSaver V2.4 | / |---'-----------------------------| \ | .------------------------. | \ | File | .-> <-------. \ | `--/---------------------' | \ \ `--------/------------------------' Here you write the | / name of the file to / / create. Click here / or press RETURN here to make the window go away. Closing the window means accepting the current settings and PictSaver will start using these settings immediately. The next time you open the window, it will reappear on its current position on the screen. The Menus While the window is open, it has two menus by which you can control PictSavers way of saving pictures, and a menu to control your personal preferences. The 'Special' menu The 'Special' menu contains two menu-items - 'Auto-numbering' and 'Compression'. The 'Auto-numbering' item If Auto-numbering is selected, then every file saved will get an extension added to its name. The extension will be of the form '.###', e.g. '.001'. Turning auto-numbering on will add such an extension to the filename if it doesn't already have one. For every picture saved while auto-numbering is on, the extension will be incremented to '.002', '.003' etc. Suppose you have typed 'filename.023' and use auto-numbering - the next saved file will be named 'filename.023' and the next again 'filename.024' and so on. If auto-numbering if off, you will have to open the window every time to change the name manually. PictSaver will allow you to make the path/filename combination 120 bytes long, but you have to be careful not to make the filename part longer than 30 bytes (Amigados don't use more). When using auto-numbering, you have to remember that the extension is 4 bytes, and that the rest of the filename shouldn't be longer than 26 bytes. The 'Compression' item If Compression is selected then pictures will be saved using the usual 'ByteRun1' compression method (see explanation above). PictSaver defaults to Auto-numbering off and Compression on. The 'Bitplane' menu The 'Bitplane' menu contains seven menu-items. This menu lets you control the maximum number of bitplanes to be saved from a screen. You can choose '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6' or 'All'. If you e.g. are about to save a 5 bitplane picture but only need to save the two lowest bitplanes, then just select '2' before saving the picture. Lets on the other hand suppose that you have chosen '3' and then want to save a picture which only has two bitplanes - PictSaver will then ignore the '3' choice and save only two bitplanes. If you select 'All' then PictSaver will just save the number of bitplanes that the actually screen has (up to 32). If you save pictures from EHB or HAM screens and have specified a bitplane number less than '6', then the saved pictures will no longer be EHB or HAM pictures, but just plain ones. The reason is that both these picture formats need the sixth bitplane to make the Amiga-hardware show the extra colors (64 and 4096 respectively). PictSaver defaults to All. The 'Preferences' menu The third menu 'Preferences' lets you choose the keys to be used when making PictSaver perform some action. It also lets you load/save your preferences from/to file or even revert to the default settings. The 'Cutting qualifier' item This menu-item has eight submenu-items which corresponds to the eight qualifier-keys on the keyboard. The selected items represent the qualifier to be used when you want to cut out rectangular portions of the front screen. When you press the qualifier-keys (on the keyboard :-), PictSaver will present you with a crosshair which will make it easy to do precision-cutting. The default qualifier is ctrl-lshift-lalt. Note that you have to select at least one qualifier-key. Because the actual cutting is done with the mouse, selecting no qualifier-key(s) would make the mouse useless for anything but cutting. The cutting-qualifier has to be different from the action-qualifier. If you do not specify a usable qualifier, then PictSaver will tell you when you try to either close the window or try to save your preferences. The 'Action qualifier' item This menu-item has eight submenu-items just like the 'Cutting qualifier' item. From this menu-item you select the qualifier to be used when you want to: Exit PictSaver via the keyboard Open PictSavers window Save the active window Save the active screen or Save the front screen Note that unlike the cutting-qualifier you don't actually have to select any action-qualifier keys, but if you do, is has to be different from the cutting-qualifier. If you do not specify a usable qualifier, PictSaver will tell you when you try to either close the window or try to save your preferences. The action-key items Now follows five menu-items which by default looks like this: .-----------------------------. | Exit PictSaver: esc (45) | | Open window : help (5F) | | Active window : 'w' (11) | | Active screen : 'a' (20) | | Front screen : 'f' (23) | `-----------------------------' Each of these five items have two purposes: 1: To show the currently selected key. The selected key is shown to the Right. If the key is enclosed like 'w', then it means that the key has been looked-up using the current keymap. In this case it means that to save the active window you have to press the key that normally produces a 'w'. If the key had looked like 'wh..' it would mean that the key (used when saving windows), with the current keymap, normally produces a string starting with 'wh'. The number in the '(..)' is the keys rawkey-number which is unique to this specific key. The rawkey-number can be usefull because the current keymap can make several keys produce the same character or even string (i.e. '-'). Some keys will not be looked up in the current keymap, but will be shown literally. These are: F1 ( the F1 key ) . ( .......... ) . ( .......... ) F10 ( the F10 key ) ESC ( the ESC key ) DEL ( the DEL key ) TAB ( the TAB key ) HELP ( the HELP key ) SPACE ( the SPACE bar ) ENTER ( the ENTER key ) RETURN ( the RETURN key ) BS ( the BACKSPACE key ) UP ( the Up-Arrow key ) DOWN ( the Down-Arrow key ) LEFT ( the Left-Arrow key ) RIGHT ( the Right-Arrow key ) 2: To make it possible to change the keys. To Change a key simply select its menu-item. The PictSaver window will now show the text 'Select any non-qualifier key' and PictSaver will wait for you to press a key on the keyboard. You can now select any key except the qualifier-keys. When you have changed a key you can immediately see it in the menu. NOTE: Remember that what you see in the menu is merely an attemp to display the selected keys in a readable way - PictSaver acts on the physical keypress itself and doesn't care which keymap you are using. The 'Default settings' item This reverts to the default setting which are: Auto-numbering off Compression on All bitplanes Cutting qualifier : ctrl-lshift-lalt Action qualifier : ctrl-lalt Exit PictSaver key: esc Open window key : help Save active window: 'w' Save active screen: 'a' Save front screen : 'f' Window position : 300,150 (window size is 246x43) The 'load preferences' item This attempts to load preferences from the file 'S:PictSaver.prefs'. Note that if the window-coordinates are off-screen, they will be adjusted. The 'Save preferences' item This attempts to save your preferences to the file 'S:PictSaver.prefs'. This saves every setting in the menus, the current name in the windows string-gadget and the current position of PictSavers window. Saving Pictures ! PictSaver will let you save images from screen i three ways: 1. You can save the whole screen 2. You can save a window 3. You can cut out any rectangle just as you do in e.g. Deluxe Paint. If PictSaver, for some reason, can't save the picture (e.g. because of disk-errors), then it will tell you using a requester. Otherwise PictSaver will flash the screen to indicate that all went well. PictSaver can't currently save pictures larger than 4000x16368 pixel and/or with more bitplanes than 32 - but that should suffice in most cases. The following examples assumes default key-settings ! How to save an entire screen To save the active screen (screen containing the active window) simply Press ctrl-lalt-'a'. Pressing ctrl-lalt-'f' will save the frontmost screen instead of the active one - this is usefull because screens can't become active if they contain no window(s). How to save a window To save a window you have to make it the active one (e.g. by clicking the mouse in it), and then press CTRL-LALT-'w'. How to save a rectangulare area of a screen This can only be done on the front-most screen ! When you have got the screen in front you have to: 1. Press ctrl-lalt-lshift. A crosshair will now appear. 2. Use the crosshair to position the mouse in one corner of the rectangular area you want to save. 3. When the mouse is in place press the LMB and hold it down (don't release ctrl-lalt-lshift). The crosshair is now replaced by a rubber-band (Yes, just like re-sizing windows). 4. Now move the mouse until you have framed the area you want to save. 5. Release the LMB. The rubber-band dissapears and the area will be written to a file. If you have made the crosshair or rubberband appear on the screen, and just want it to dissapear, just release the ctrl-lalt-lshift keys (one or all) BEFORE releasing the LMB. The rubberband (or the crosshair) will now be erased and you can start over. NOTE: Cutting out rectangular parts of HAM screen will probably not produce perfect results due to the nature of HAM. The reason for this is that the color of a pixel in a HAM screen may depend on the color of the pixel on the left. If you cut out a rectangle in the middle of such a screen, the saved picture will lack information about the pixels previously to the left of the picture. It is not recommended to try to cut out areas of constantly changing screens because drawing a crosshair/rectangle on such a screen may interfere with other things being drawn at the same time (screens are not being locked !). How does PictSaver work ? PictSaver works by installing an input-handler at priority 55. This handler then signals the program (11 different signals actually) which then takes action. Compatability ! PictSaver has been tested under kickstart 1.2, 1.3 and 2.x on a 2.5 MB 68000 based Amiga 1000 (0.5 MB chip-ram). Please let me know of any problem you might encounter. When contacting me, please state which hardware and software you were using when the problem occured. PictSaver has already been tested together with mungwall, but what I really would like to know is how it performs on a MMU-equipped Amiga using Enforcer (who can tell me ?). Copyright notice !! PictSaver is NOT Public Domain but Freeware. This means that it can be freely distributed as long as you don't ask for more than a nominal fee for copying. This documentation file must always be distributed along with the PictSaver program. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Please send bug-reports, suggestions, comments, used A3000s etc. to: /// /// Preben Nielsen \\\ /// Oehlenschlægersgade 72 st. t.v. \\\/// 1663 Copenhagen V. \/// Denmark Phone: (009 45) 31 21 55 09 ////////////////////////////// Public history ////////////////////////////// V1.0 19-Apr-91: First release. V1.1 18-May-91: V1.0 trashed memory-address 0 by accident. Fixed ! V2.0 30-Aug-91: Changed name from 'PicSaver' to 'PictSaver'. Changed interface. Now features autonumbering of filenames, optional ByteRun1 compression and simple bitplane-control. Uses buffered output for speed. Fixed some minor bug which sometimes made window-saving incorrect. V2.4 24-Jan-92: V2.0 sometimes didn't act on key-presses because of a bit-test on an undefined bit (fixed !). New menu for setting/loading/saving preferences. Hotkeys can now be customized. Minimal interference with screens because now crosshairs and rectangles is being drawn through my own customized RastPort. The menu-bar and the string-gadget are now being adjusted according to the current screen font. I have experimented with locking screens while drawing crosshairs and rectangles, but I had to give it up. If someone tries to open or close a window on the screen while I'm having it locked, then intuition (and therefor also input.device) will wait, the mouse will freeze, and I will be in the middle of a serious lock-up ! The Workbench 2.0 program seems to rely on some kind of insider information in order to drop its rubberband in time. ///////////////////////////////// Credits ////////////////////////////////// Peter H. Orvis for bug-report. Rick Manasa for being persistent. John Lehmkuhl for testing and comments. ////////////////////////////// Future plans //////////////////////////////// - Better adjustment to fonts under 2.x. Perhaps even a 2.x-only version. - Perhaps a rendevouz with Commodities Exchange and/or ARexx (you shouldn't hold your breath though ;-). ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////