Fritz: All Fritz/All Fritz.zip/All Fritz/FILES/GRAPTIES/ANOTHER1.LZH/TMWPART1.EXE/lha/MODES.DOC

Text File | 1992-08-05 | 10KB | 179 lines

         ******************* ABOUT GRAPHICS MODES ********************

             When  The Multimedia Workshop starts up, it automatically
         detects the  graphics  card  in  your  computer  and  adjusts
         accordingly.   With most graphics cards there are two or more
         graphics modes available in which you can work. For instance,
         if you have an EGA system, you can create pictures in one  of
         two EGA modes or in one of two CGA modes.  But if you use the
         EGA-High mode, other computers with only CGA will not be able
         to  display  your presentations properly.  So, you'll have to
         decide what mode to use. Of course, your  presentations  will
         look  better  if  you  use  the  highest resolution mode your
         computer supports, but at the cost of losing the  portion  of
         your audience who have only lower resolution equipment.

             Resolutions are measured in pixels, the  little  dots  of
         which everything that appears on your monitor are composed.

             These are the modes supported by The Multimedia Workshop:

               CGA-LO 320 x 200 4-color
               CGA-HI 640 x 200 2-color
               EGA-LO 640 x 200 16-color
                 (also called UNIVERSAL MODE)
               EGA-HI 640 x 350 16-color
               Hercules MONO 720 x 348 2-color
               VGA-HI 640 x 480 16-color
               VGA-Lo 320 x 200 256-color

             When starting a new picture, your computer will present a
         menu  of  the  graphics  modes  available  on your particular
         computer.  (If you have HERCULES, there is only  one  choice,
         so the menu is skipped.)

             If  your  computer  supports  it,  EGA-LO  16-color, also
         called UNIVERSAL MODE, is a good choice.   It  is  reasonably
         high  resolution,  but  plays  on  all  standard  EGA and VGA
         computers. But also, it plays on Hercules  and  CGA  systems.
         UNIVERSAL  MODE  will still work on CGA and Herc, but only in
         monochrome (2-color).  Therefore, you can make a presentation
         which looks good on expensive equipment, yet still  plays  to
         the rest of the IBM-compatible audience!

             If  you  have  CGA  or  Hercules equipment, you can still
         write  in  UNIVERSAL  MODE, and I'll tell you more about that
         later.

             Let's look into the other modes in some more detail:

         CGA-LO  320  x 200 4-color: The people who marketed CGA color
         systems used to tell you that CGA can display up to 16 colors
         at a time, and that's true - in text mode.  But in  graphics,
         only  4  colors  can  be on the screen at a time.  There is a
         little trick built into  The  Multimedia  Workshop,  however,
         which  makes  it  seem  like  there  is  a  little more color
         variety.  You can control the 'background' color.   In  other
         words,  one  of  the  four  colors  can  be  changed within a
         picture.  More about this later.

         CGA-HI 640 x 200 2-color: This is the same resolution as  the
         EGA-LO  mode,  but monochrome. It has twice as many pixels as
         the lowest VGA resolution . So, even though it is CGA, it  is
         reasonably good resolution.  When you write a presentation in
         UNIVERSAL  MODE, on a CGA system, it uses this mode, and just
         leaves out the color.  It does  this  by  making  all  colors
         which are not black, white.

              This  is  a very presentable resolution, as is evidenced
         by some successful shareware products you  might  have  seen,
         NON-MEDICAL  PAIN  RELIEF, BICYCLE TUNE-UP, and OXY-ACETYLENE
         WELDING, which were  created   with   earlier   versions   of
         The Multimedia Workshop.

         UNIVERSAL MODE (also known as EGA-LO) 640 x  200  16-color  &
         2-color:  If  you have an EGA or VGA system, you can write in
         this mode directly using all 16 colors.  When  your  finished
         product  is  displayed  on other EGA and VGA systems, the end
         users will see 16 colors, but if used on  a  monochrome  EGA,
         Hercules  or  CGA  system, the same presentation, in the same
         resolution, will appear in monochrome (2  colors).   This  is
         done  by making all colors other than black, white.  The best
         way  to  write  in  UNIVERSAL  MODE for the widest variety of
         computers, is to keep your backgrounds mostly black, and make
         sure  differing  colors  are  not essential to your pictures.

             Also, be careful about using fills (filling an area  with
         solid  color  or a pattern), they don't work exactly the same
         on different graphics displays. Use fills minimally, or check
         your  Universal  Modes  presentations  on  several  different
         computers.

             Writing a UNIVERSAL MODE presentation to run on a variety
         of  monitors is difficult.  Circles, ellipses and text adjust
         automatically so that round objects come  out  circular,  not
         elliptical,  and  so  your presentations should be checked on
         various systems if you use these graphics objects.

         EGA-HI 640 x 350: This is almost VGA, but not all EGA systems
         support this mode. The first EGA cards had only 64  kilobytes
         of display RAM and could not display this.

         HERCULES  MONO  720 x 348: This is a rather weird resolution,
         but  is  still   quite   common,   especially   in   business
         applications.   If  you  choose this resolution specifically,
         only Hercules and VGA systems will be able to display it.  In
         fact, some VGA and  most  laptop/notebook  VGA  systems  will
         distort   it   to  fit  within  their  640  horizontal  pixel
         resolution. If your  computer  supports  only  this  graphics
         mode,  you  can still create in UNIVERSAL MODE, and I'll tell
         you more about that later.

         VGA-Hi  640 x 480 16-color: If your computer can support this
         mode, you can also  write  presentations  in  all  the  other
         modes.  However, if you create in this mode, only those folks
         who   also   have   VGA  on  their  computers  can  see  your
         presentations.

         VGA-Lo 320 x 200 256-color: Again, you'll be restricting your
         audience to owners of VGA equipment if  you  use  this  mode.
         Although  the  resolution  is quite low, with so many colors,
         very  realistic  pictures can be drawn. VGA-LO supports fewer
         fill  patterns  and  type  faces and the FASTMODE option does
         not work with this mode. BLOW OFF DELAYS works fine.

         NOTE:  On  many VGA cards, Hercules mode will run only if the
         Hercules mode is pre-selected with a bit of software provided
         with  your video card.  If you ignore this fact, when you try
         to use The Multimedia Workshop in Hercules mode on  many  VGA
         systems, the light goes out and you have to reboot.

                                  .PCX FILES

             PCX  is  the  most common format for storing pictures and
         clip-art on disks.  There are many  wonderful  works  of  art
         available  in  these files.  Many are public domain.   Within
         the   .PCX  family  are  several  variations,  and  with  The
         Multimedia Workshop you can use most  of  them  in  your  own
         presentations.

             You can display .PCX files in  any  of  the  seven  video
         modes,  although  you  usually must use the mode in which the
         chosen .PCX file was created.

             In  other  words,  if you have a 256-color VGA .PCX file,
         you won't be able to use it in  Hercules  mode.  There  is  a
         facility  built into The Multimedia Workshop to report on the
         format of a .PCX file which you are considering for use.   If
         you  are  writing with a VGA-equipped computer, for other VGA
         computers, you can use almost anything in your  presentation,
         due to the automatic video  mode  switching  capabilities  of
         MSHOW  and  The  Multimedia  Workshop.  For instance, you can
         chain a CGA 2-color, a  CGA  4-color,  and  a  VGA-256  color
         picture together in presentation!

             You can also attempt to bring mis-matched video mode .PCX
         files into your pictures.  Sometimes you  can  cross  formats
         with  no difficulty, sometimes the computer will crash in the
         attempt, but you CAN always try it and see what happens!

             In some cases, you'll only get the upper left corner of a
         picture when attempting to display a  high-resolution  format
         picture at a low resolution.

             If you have an EGA or VGA-equipped machine, keep in  mind
         that  when creating a presentation in Universal Mode, keep in
         mind that the .PCX files which work in Universal Mode on your
         computer (actually EGA-LO 16-color) will not work when  shown
         on  a  Hercules  or CGA-equipped computer, because .PCX files
         are loaded into specific memory addresses on various graphics
         cards, and cannot  make  the  transition  from  one  type  to
         another.
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