The Best of Select: Games 9/CD_1.iso/dosgames/mahjongg/mjtiles.exe/TILEMAKR.DOC

Text File | 1993-07-07 | 16KB | 351 lines

                             Tile Maker Utility
                         Version 2.01  July 7, 1993
                    For use with Mah Jongg or Tile Match

                                Nels Anderson
                               92 Bishop Drive
                          Framingham, MA 01701-6515
                                    U.S.A.



USING TILE MAKER

The Tile Maker utility allows you to make your own sets of tiles or
modify sets made by others. These tiles can be used with my two
solitaire games, Mah Jongg and Tile Match.

The utility is similar to many paint programs with which you might be
familiar, though because of its specialized nature it includes less
functions. Tile Maker can be controlled with your mouse or keyboard
and requires EGA or VGA graphics.

The best thing to do is get Tile Maker running and experiment.
You'll find designing good tiles is quite a challenge, but it will
allow you to have your own personalized version of the game when
you're done.

You might want to look at other already completed tile sets to see
some of the techniques used. Because the drawing area is so small
you often have to trick the eye to get the effect you want. One
thing to avoid is changing the sloping sides of the tiles. Generally
this will ruin the 3D effect and simply doesn't look good when tiles
are stacked up.

HOW TILES ARE STORED ON DISK

First, some basics about working with tile sets. A Mah Jongg tile
set includes 42 different tiles. Eight of them are in the "wild
card" suits (normally the flowers and seasons suits) where any tile
in the suit matches any other. The other 34 tiles use the standard
matching rule where there are four of each tile on the board and the
tiles must be matched exactly to be removed. You'll want to keep the
game rules in mind when designing your tiles.

Tile Match only needs 36 tiles. Tiles 1 through 34 are used plus
tiles 35 and 39.

All 42 tiles are stored in a single disk file. You'll need to know
how the tiles are numbered so that you store your new tiles in the
proper place. For reference, the standard tile set ("MAHJONGG.TIL")
is numbered as follows:

            Tiles 1 - 9:  suit of dots
                Tile 10:  white dragon
          Tiles 11 - 19:  suit of bamboo
                Tile 20:  green dragon
          Tiles 21 - 29:  suit of characters
                Tile 30:  red dragon
          Tiles 31 - 34:  suit of winds
          Tiles 35 - 38:  suit of seasons
          Tiles 39 - 42:  suit of flowers

GETTING STARTED

Start up "TILEMAKR.EXE" by typing "tilemakr" on the command line.
There are no command line options, but you can include the name of a
tile set file on the command line and that tile set will be
immediately loaded once Tile Maker starts up. Note the drawing area
on the left and the tile set display on the right. If you did not
include a tile set name on the command line the tile set displayed
will be blank, but as soon as you read in a tile set it will be shown.

Along the top of the screen are a series of menus you can select. If
you're using a mouse you just need to point to the word you want and
click. If using the keyboard you can use the functions keys (each
menu is numbered sequentially so Help is F1, Info is F2, etc.). You
can also select menus by holding down the Alt key while also hitting
the first letter of the menu name; for example, you'd hit Alt-F to
open the File menu.

DRAWING

Normal drawing can be done with the keyboard or mouse. Using the
mouse, select the desired color by pointing at the color chart and
clicking. Then to draw just point at the drawing area and click on
each spot where you want to draw.

Because it's common to switch back and forth between two colors, Tile
Maker remembers the last color you've selected as well as the current
one. Use the right mouse button at any time to toggle back and forth
between the current and previous drawing color.

If you're drawing with a mouse there are a few basic drawing shapes
available in addition to the simple dot. Under the drawing area is a
set of push buttons where you can select dots, line, circle,
rectangle, filled circle or box. Click on the desired button and
you'll see it push in to confirm proper selection.

When using the line or rectangles, move the mouse cursor to one end
(corner) and hold down the mouse button. Then move to the other end
(corner) and release the button. When using the circles you start in
the center and pull away until the circle is the desired size. You
can pull in any direction since the circle is symmetrical.

The seventh drawing tool is a special one. It allows you to outline
an area and then change all pixels within that area that are a
specific color into a different color. Select this tool and then
outline a rectangle just as you would with the rectangle drawing
tool. When the area you want is outlined, release the mouse button.
You'll be prompted to select the color you want to change; point
anywhere you want on the screen and click when pointing to the
desired color. Then you'll be prompted for the color you want to
change to; again you can point anywhere on the screen and click. Now
the selected color will change.

The eighth function is fill. Using this function you can fill in an
area of any shape with the currently selected color. When you select
fill the cursor will change to the word "FILL" with a little target
to the upper left. Position the target in the area you want filled
and click to fill. Using the keyboard you can fill by moving the
keyboard cursor within the area to be filled and hitting the Z key.

The ninth function is text entry. Because of the small size of the
tiles only one simple font is used. Characters are five pixels high.
Several different widths are available and Tile Maker will try to use
the widest characters possible given the space available. Depending
on whether you have border set on or off (from the Options menu) the
letters may go right to the edge of the tile face or a one pixel
border will be enforced.

To enter text, position the mouse to the upper left corner of where
the text should start (if using the keyboard, use the arrow keys to
position the keyboard cursor and then hit the L key). You'll then be
prompted to enter the text you want. Lower case letters are not
available but capital letters and most other characters can be used.
If the text you enter is too much to fit in the available space
you'll be told how many pixels too wide it is and you can then adjust
accordingly.

When within the drawing area, the mouse cursor snaps to the center of
each pixel when moving around or drawing dots, lines or rectangles.
If you prefer that the cursor move smoothly you can turn off the snap
function by using Snap Cursor on/off under the Options menu. For most
drawing you'll probably find the snap cursor useful as you'll be able
to more clearly tell what pixel is being pointed to.

Drawing with the keyboard requires typing the letter or number of the
desired color, then moving the cursor around with the arrow keys and
finally hitting space when you want to draw a dot. If you hold down
the space bar a line of dots will be drawn in the direction of the
last arrow key used.

When drawing the position of the mouse cursor is shown just below the
color selection area. If you wish to see the position of the keyboard
cursor instead, just move the mouse cursor outside the drawing area
and move the keyboard cursor with the arrow keys.

MENUS

All functions have keyboard shortcuts that are shown in parentheses
after the name of the function. You can use these keys to access
functions directly without going through the menus. A list of all
keyboard shortcuts is at the end of this document.

If using a mouse you just point to the function you want and click.
If using the keyboard you can select menus using the function keys or
the Alt key plus the first letter of the menu name. Within the menus
you can select functions by number or by using the arrow keys to move
to the function yo