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S C R E E N B U I L D E R a companion program for the QBSCR Screen Routines V e r s i o n 1 . 0 Conceived and Created by Tony Martin of the BAD SOFTWARE Company 1611 Harvest Green Ct. Reston, VA 22094 Software and Documentation are (C) Copyright 1989 by Tony Martin T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S ------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to Screen Builder . . . . . . . . . . . 1 A Few Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Files Included with Screen Builder . . . . . . . 3 Screen Builder's Qualifications . . . . . . . . 4 Starting Screen Builder . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Basic Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Using the Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Saving Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Reloading Your Saved Work . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Entering Extended ASCII Characters . . . . . . . 11 Changing Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Block Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 ASCII Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Disk Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Jump To DOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Techniques and Hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Using Your Screens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Closing Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 page ii Welcome to Screen Builder ------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for looking at the QBSCR Screen Routines and Screen Builder! The BAD SOFTWARE Company, though fictitious, takes its business very seriously and tries to provide useful and interesting software. As an active or potential QuickBASIC programmer, you may have tried at some time to write BASIC code to print a complicated multi-color screen. Only then did you find that not only was it too much work and far too tedious, but it required a lot of code as well. Two or three of those and you've eaten up a large portion of the string and symbol space provided by QuickBASIC. This was a dilema I was faced with many times. There had to be an easier way to create fancy, eye-catching screens without a lot of hassle and wasted code space. And without spending a large sum of money. Naturally, there wasn't an easy answer. After a little thinking, the solution became clear. Screen Builder. Screen Builder is an interactive screen editor. It will let you build screens with as many colors and ASCII graphics characters as you like. They can complex or simple, eye-catching or subtle. Its entirely up to your imagination. The part Screen Builder does for you is make it easy. You can edit your screen just like a word processor does, with a couple of added capabilities, including the entry of extended ASCII characters, entry of text in any color, including blinking colors, and block operations designed specifically for building screens. Then, once your screens are designed and saved, you can use them in your own QuickBASIC programs by way of the QBSCR PutScreen and BuildScreen routines. Both routines can handle the Screen Builder's file format, and will place your screens on the display either very quickly, or in an interesting animated fashion. To get more information about PutScreen and BuildScreen, refer to the QBSCR Screen Routines documentation, included with this package. Ready to begin? Screen Builder is very easy to use and lots of fun. Most of the screen in the QBSCR DEMO program were generated with Screen Builder. Screen Builder even generated the ASCII table that is displayed when you call up it's ASCII Table function. Right after the nasty warnings, we'll begin... page 1 A Few Notices (and Nasty Warnings) ------------------------------------------------------------- You've probably already read the pitch in the QBSCR documentation about shareware. If you haven't, and are new to the concept, you should read it. The QBSCR Screen Routines and Screen Builder are being sold together as a package. The cost for the whole deal is $15.00. See the QBSCR documentation, the last page in particular, if you would like to register. If you do, you'll get a snazzy official disk set, as well as a copy of the LASER program. LASER is a graphics entertainment and stress management program written by BAD SOFTWARE exclusively for its registered customers. Its not shareware, and the only way to get it is to register a BAD SOFTWARE product. And of course, we have the traditional "You can't touch the author if you foul up your computer or your company with this software" and "This software will always be MINE" clauses... The QBSCR Screen Routines and the Screen Builder are (C) Copyright 1989 by Tony Martin. I retain all rights to the software and documentation. Both software packages are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, express or implied. I cannot be held responsible for any consequences arising from the ability or inability to use this software. You may not charge any money or accept any remuneration of any kind for this software without prior written permission from myself. I do not expect royalties or credits if this software is used as part of your program. Sounds pretty grim, huh? If you can't handle it, just picture me as a kindly gentleman helping people across busy intersections. The important message is that Screen Builder and the QBSCR routines are here for you to learn from and use to your benefit. Just remember that if you benefit, so should I. But to move on... page 2 Files Included with Screen Builder ------------------------------------------------------------- Screen Builder's files are thrown in with all the other QBSCR Screen Routine files. This table below will help you sort out what file is whose. File... ...Description --------------------------------------------------- SB.EXE . . . . . . . . . The Screen Builder Program SB.DOC . . . . . . The Screen Builder Documentation COLOR.BIN . . . . Color version of Opening Screen MONO.BIN . . . Monochrome version of Opening Screen ASCII.CLR . . . . . . Color version of ASCII Chart ASCII.MON . . . Monochrome version of ASCII Chart SB_CAP.CLR . . . . . Color version of demonstration SB_CAP.MON . . Monochrome version of demonstration The file SB_CAP is a screen that shows some of the capabilities of Screen Builder. If you have a color display, load SB_CAP.CLR into Screen Builder. Otherwise, use SB_CAP.MON. This file is not used for anything else, so you can delete it after you're finished looking at it. The files MONO.BIN and COLOR.BIN are the Screen Builder's opening screen. If you are short of disk space, you can delete them as well, since SB has its own simpler internal opening screen. Note that Screen Builder designed its own opening screen. The files ASCII.CLR and ASCII.MON are used internally by Screen Builder to display when a user access the ASCII Chart function of the program. Do not delete these files. page 3 Screen Builder's Qualifications ------------------------------------------------------------- This section will briefly describe Screen Builder's capabilities, what it is, and a bit of trivia about it. Screen Builder is an interactive screen editor that allows you to create multi-color ASCII text screens. You have access to all 25 lines of the display for your screens, all 256 color combinations (for color monitors), and most of the ASCII drawing characters. Once created, the screens can be used in any BASIC program using the QBSCR Screen Routines PutScreen and BuildScreen. The Screen Builder can perform several block operations, including move, multiple copy, color change, delete, box draw, and character fill. Screen Builder has an extensive on-line help facility that should get you through most anything you need to accomplish. It's easy to use and very informative. There are a few other goodies, like Jump to DOS and an ASCII table reference chart, that will be covered in more detail later. Screen Builder was written using QuickBASIC 4.5 and the QBSCR Screen Routines. One routine used to check for the existence of a file on disk came from a marvelous book entitled "The QuickBASIC Programmer's Toolbox" and is available from Microsoft Press. If you think QBSCR is good (I don't know if you do), then try this book. QBSCR is cheaper, though... page 4 Starting Screen Builder ------------------------------------------------------------- Screen Builder is pretty simple to use, and starting the program is no exception. To start the program, make sure the files SB.EXE, ASCII.CLR and ASCII.MON are in the same place (i.e., the same drive and subdirectory), and enter the following command: SB followed by the ENTER key. Screen Builder will be on it's way. You'll see an introductory screen, and then after hitting a key to clear it, you'll get a preliminary window of information. This window contains some information about accessing a few of the primary Screen Builder functions. The reason it comes up before you start is that once you hit a key to clear the window, you'll be faced with a blank screen. Nothing but a cursor will be there. The preliminary window tells you how to get help and a few other items before the screen goes blank on you. Once this window is gone, you're on your own. The blank screen is your editing area, where you will be creating your screens. At this point you may begin editing. Basic editing commands will covered shortly in this manual. If you want to have Screen Builder load a file when you start it, you can follow the SB command with the name of a Screen Builder generated screen file. For example, the command SB MYSCREEN.CLR would start Screen Builder, and then automatically load the file called MYSCREEN.CLR. If the file did not exist, Screen Builder would simply load normally. page 5 Getting Help ------------------------------------------------------------- Screen Builder is equipped with an capable help facility. To get help from the edit screen, hold down the Alt key and press H (referred to as Alt-H). A screen of information with a menu will appear. NOTE: If you pressed Alt-H while you were editing a screen, and the help window appeared over top of your work-in-progress, fear not! Your work is still there, and will return once you exit help. The menu in the center of the screen contains a list of help topics. Choose the topic that is closest to the area in which you require help. To choose a topic, use the up and down arrow keys, or the PgUp or PgDn keys to move the selection bar to the topic of your choice. Alternately, you could type the single highlighted letter that is associated with the topic of your choice. Note that this menu was generated with the QBSCR MakeMenu function. Once your selection has been made, some help text will replace the menu. In the upper right corner of the screen, you will see an indicator that tells how many pages there are to this help topic. If there is more than one, you can move from page to page using the PgUp and PgDn keys. Use the Home and End keys to move to the first or last page. To return to the help menu, hit the ESC key. The menu will dutifully return. If you need more help, simply choose another topic. If you are finished with help and would like to return to your work, you can either select Quit from the menu or hit the ESC key. Both operations will return you to the edit screen. page 6 Basic Editing ------------------------------------------------------------- Screen Builder's editing works very much like a standard word processor. You can type normally text will appear on the screen. The cursor is your key to where that text will be placed. Move the cursor to the spot you want you text to be, and type it. The cursor movement keys are as follows: Cursor Movement... ...key(s) --------------------------------------------------- Character right . . . . . . . . . . . . Right arrow Character left . . . . . . . . . . . . Left arrow One line up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Up arrow One line down . . . . . . . . . . . . . Down arrow Word right . . . . . . . . . . Ctrl + Right arrow Word left . . . . . . . . . . . . Ctrl + Left arrow End of line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . End Beginning of line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Home Top of screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PgUp Bottom of screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PgDn While typing, you can be in either overtype or insert mode. In overtype mode, anything you type will replace what you type over top of. In insert mode, text to the right of the cursor will be pushed right to make room for the new characters. Note that in insert mode, if characters are moved off the end of the screen, they are gone and cannot be recovered. You can tell what mode you are in by looking at the cursor. In overtype mode, the cursor is a large block. In insert mode, the cursor is a normal underscore. On slower computers, working in overtype mode will speed typing response considerably. page 7 Using the Menu ------------------------------------------------------------- Screen Builder is equipped with a menu interface that provides access to all the functions of the program. By using the menu, you don't have to know all the keyboard commands while you are new to Screen Builder. Since the menu is optional and every command has a keyboard alternate, you can use the keyboard commands as you become familiar with Screen Builder. To access the menu, press the ESC key while at the edit screen. The top line of the display will become a horizontal list of menu topics. They are File, Graphics, Color, Block, and Miscellaneous. Notice that the first one, File, is highlighted. You can move this highlight to the specific menu you need using the following keys: Highlight Movement... ...Key(s) --------------------------------------------------- One Menu Title Right . . . . . . . . . Right Arrow One Menu Title Left . . . . . . . . . . Left Arrow Last Menu Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . End First Menu Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Home Once the highlight is on the menu title you want, hit either the down arrow or ENTER to get the menu. It will drop down from its title. Once the menu is displayed, you can still select other menus by using the left and right arrow keys to move. Now that you see your menu, you can select the menu command you want by moving the highlight to it and pressing ENTER. The following movements are allowed in the menu: Menu Highlight Movement... ...Key(s) --------------------------------------------------- Down One Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . Down Arrow Up One Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Up Arrow First Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Home, PgUp Last Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . End, PgDn To select a menu entry without moving the highlight, you can press the single letter within your chosen entry that is highlighted. This letter, called the "Quick Access" key, will cause the command to be executed immediately when it is pressed. You do not need to follow it with the ENTER key. Once your command has been selected, it will run and the menu will disappear. page 8 Saving Your Work ------------------------------------------------------------- At any point during your editing session, you can save your work. In fact, it's a good idea to save it every five minutes or so, to prevent accidents from plundering your time investment in your screen. Fortunately, saving a screen with Screen Builder is a simple matter. Once you are ready to save your work, you can either choose the save function from the File menu or hit the Alt-S key combination. A window will appear in the middle of the screen asking you to fill in the file name for the screen. If you have previously filled in a name during this session of Screen Builder, that same name will be filled in for you. While entering a name, you can use the following editing keys: Edit function... ...Key(s) --------------------------------------------------- Move character left . . . . . . . . . . Left Arrow Move character right . . . . . . . . . Right Arrow Move to end of line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . End Move to beginning of line . . . . . . . . . . Home Delete at cursor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Del Delete to left of cursor . . . . . . . . Backspace Erase current entry and start over . . . Ctrl + Y Toggle INSERT mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INS Once the name is correct, whether you had to change anything or not, hit ENTER to have Screen Builder accept it. Screen Builder will then check the disk to see if the file exists already. If it does, a small window will appear informing you of this, and asks if it's OK to overwrite the existing file with the new information. If this is OK, press the Y key, and the old file will be overwritten. If not, hit anything else, and the save will be aborted. You can abort the Save process at any time by pressing the ESC key. page 9 Reloading Your Saved Work ------------------------------------------------------------- You can load a previously save screen into Screen Builder at any time during your editing session by selecting the Load function from the File menu, or by pressing the Alt-L key combination. Once this is done, a small window will appear in the middle of the screen asking you to enter the name of the file containing the screen you want to load. During entry of the file name, the following editing keys are available: Edit function... ...Key(s) --------------------------------------------------- Move character left . . . . . . . . . . Left Arrow Move character right . . . . . . . . . Right Arrow Move to end of line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . End Move to beginning of line . . . . . . . . . . Home Delete at cursor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Del Delete to left of cursor . . . . . . . . Backspace Erase current entry and start over . . . Ctrl + Y Toggle INSERT mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INS When you finish typing the filename, hit ENTER. Screen Builder then checks the disk for the existence of the file you entered. If the file exists, it will be loaded. If it does not, Screen Builder will tell you this and wait for you to hit a key. The function will terminate when you do so. Hit Alt-S to try again, or select Load form the File menu. Note that when Screen Builder loads a file, it may take from 5 seconds to about 45 seconds to do so, depending on the speed of your machine. Although the file will be visible on the screen, there will be no cursor and you won't be able to do anything. You will know when it is finished when the cursor appears in the upper-left corner of the screen. What Screen Builder is doing all that time is constructing an internal representation of your picture, including characters and colors. Please be patient. Once the cursor appears, you may begin editing your screen. page 10 Entering Extended ASCII Characters ------------------------------------------------------------- If you have read this far in the Screen Builder documentation, you surely have some interest in making your programs look good. You'll probably want to use windows, boxes, draw lines, and use other special effects. Many of these can be accomplished by using the extended ASCII characters that lie beyond the normal keyboard characters. To enter a special ASCII character, you have two options. The first and easiest is to use the Screen Builder's ASCII character facility. Screen Builder uses the function keys to enter special characters like box drawing characters. Since there are only ten function keys available, and many more special characters than that, they have been organized into logically related sets. Each set contains ten extended ASCII characters (one for each function key). To see the characters currently assigned to the function keys (i.e., to see which set is active), select the Reminder function from the Graphics menu, or hit the Alt-R key combination. A small window will appear that shows which set number is active, and which characters are currently assigned to which function keys. Once you have determined which key you need to use to display the character you want, you can hit any key to remove the small window. To enter the special character of your choice at the current cursor location, simply hit the appropriate function key. The second method of entering an extended ASCII character is to enter it manually by way of its ASCII code. You might want to do this to get a character that is not in one of the ten Screen Builder character sets. To determine a character's code, select the ASCII Chart function from the Miscellaneous menu, or hit the Alt-A key combination. A chart will appear that lists all the ASCII codes for the characters that Screen Builder can display. Find the character you want to use and obtain its three-digit number. Hit any key to make the ASCII Chart disappear. Now, with the cursor at the location on the screen you want the character, hold down the Alt key, and while it is held down type in the three digit code for the character you selected. The three-digit code MUST be entered on the numeric keypad on the right side of the keyboard for this to work. If you try to use the number keys along the top of the keyboard, it will not work. page 11 Suppose the character you want to enter is not in the currently active special character set? You can follow the above procedure, or you can change to another character set that does have it. There are ten sets of ten extended ASCII characters each. To select a different set, choose the Change Character Set from the Graphics menu, or hit the Alt-G key combination. A window will appear that displays instructions, the currently active character set, and will also show all the possible sets and the characters in them. Note that there is a pointer that points to the currently active set. To change sets, simply use the up and down arrow keys to move the pointer to the set you want to use. You can then hit the ENTER key to accept this change, or the ESC key to abort it and leave the old character set still active. The window will then disappear. There is also a keyboard shortcut for changing character sets. If you know what character set you ant, hold down the CTRL key and press the function key that is numbered the same as the character set you want to use. For example, if you want to use the third character set, you would hit the Ctrl-F3 key combination. Nothing will happen on the screen, but the character set you selected will be active. You can verify this by hitting the Alt-R key combination to see a reminder window. The following table summarizes the keys used to change and enter extended ASCII characters: Action... ...Key(s) --------------------------------------------------- Enter an extended ASCII character from the currently active set . . . . . F1 - F10 Change the currently active set . . . . . . Alt-G See a reminder of the currently active set . . . . . . . . . . Alt-R page 12 Changing Colors ------------------------------------------------------------- When you add text to the screen you are designing, it will always be displayed in the currently active colors (foreground and background). If you need to place text of a different color, the active colors must be changed. To change the active colors, you can select the Change Colors option from the Colors menu, or hit the Alt-C key combination. This will cause a window to be displayed in the middle of the screen. On the left side of the window are a few simple instructions. On the right side is the color matrix. The color matrix is a matrix of all the possible foreground and background color combinations. You will also see a small box somewhere in the matrix (inside the box will be the active colors), and a status line at the bottom indicating the currently selected colors (represented as the value BASIC needs to represent those colors). To select a new foreground/background color combination, move the small selector box to the color combination you want to use. The following keys move the box: Selector Box Movement... ...Key(s) --------------------------------------------------- One space right . . . . . . . . . . . . Right arrow One space left . . . . . . . . . . . . Left arrow End of current row . . . . . . . . . . . . . . End Beginning of current row . . . . . . . . . . Home Bottom of current column . . . . . . . . . . PgDn Top of current column . . . . . . . . . . . . PgUp Note also that if the box reaches the end or beginning of a line or column, subsequent movements will wrap to the other side. Once you have the colors you need selected, hit ENTER to accept the change and clear the window. If you decide you don't like the colors you have selected, hit the ESC key and window will disappear, leaving the original colors active. Any text entered after the colors have been changed will then be displayed in those new colors. page 13 Block Operations ------------------------------------------------------------- Block Operations are Screen Builder functions that are performed on a selected rectangular portion of the screen. The selected area can be as small as a single character cell, or as large as the whole screen. There are several steps to performing a block operation. The general idea is to 1. Mark the block by defining its upper left and lower right corners 2. Performing the selected operation on the block just marked. There are two ways to perform block operations. You can use the menu, or you can use the keyboard shortcut. Both are detailed below. Method 1: The MENU --------------------------------------------------- To perform a block operation using the menu, you would first hit the ESC key to bring up the menu. Choose the Block menu. Once it appears, you select the particular block operation you want to perform. The menu will then disappear and a window that explains how to mark a block will replace it. Read through the instructions if you don't remember how to mark a block. When finished, hit any key to clear the window. Now the marking of the block begins. Move the cursor to the upper-left corner of the block and hit ENTER. Now move the cursor to the lower-right corner of the block and hit ENTER. Whatever block operation you selected from the menu will then be immediately executed. Method 2: The KEYBOARD SHORTCUT --------------------------------------------------- Begin this method of a block operation by hitting the Alt-B key combination. A window that explains how to mark a block will appear. Read through the instructions if you don't remember how to mark a block. When finished, hit any key to clear the window. Now the marking of the block begins. Move the cursor to the upper-left corner of the block and hit ENTER. Now move the cursor to the lower-right corner of the block and hit ENTER. At this point a single menu will appear in the center of the screen asking you to choose which block operation you would like performed on your currently marked block. Select one of the choices, and it will then be immediately executed. page 14 The Block Operations Themselves --------------------------------------------------- The following block operations are provided by Screen Builder: - Move a block - Copy a block (multiple times) - Delete a block - Make a box in the marked area (single or double lined box) - Fill a block with a specific character - Change the colors of a block Each will be detailed in its own section. The instructions for each block operation will not include marking a block, which is detailed above. It will be assumed in the following sections that the user knows how to mark a block. MOVE a Block --------------------------------------------------- Once your block is marked and the MOVE block operation has been selected, you may use the following keys to move the marked block around the screen: Block movement... ...Key(s) ------------------------------------------- Up one screen row . . . . . . . . Up arrow Down one screen row . . . . . . Down arrow Right one screen column . . . . Right arrow Left one screen column . . . . Left arrow Top of screen . . . . . . . . . . . . PgUp Bottom of screen . . . . . . . . . . PgDn Right side of screen . . . . . . . . . End Left side of screen . . . . . . . . . Home Once you have the block where you want it, hit the ENTER key. If you decide you do not want to move the block after all, and want it returned to its original position, then hit the ESC key. COPY a Block --------------------------------------------------- Once your block is marked and the COPY block operation has been selected, you may use the following keys to move the marked block around the screen: page 15 Block movement... ...Key(s) ------------------------------------------- Up one screen row . . . . . . . . Up arrow Down one screen row . . . . . . Down arrow Right one screen column . . . . Right arrow Left one screen column . . . . Left arrow Top of screen . . . . . . . . . . . . PgUp Bottom of screen . . . . . . . . . . PgDn Right side of screen . . . . . . . . . End Left side of screen . . . . . . . . . Home If only want to make one copy of the marked block, then hit the ENTER key once the marked block is where you want it. If you want to make several copies, hit the SPACEBAR to leave a copy in the current position. You will then be able to move another block to another location. Repeat the operation, hitting the SPACEBAR to leave a copy on the screen, until you are ready to place the last copy. For the last copy, hit the ENTER key. If you decide you want to abort the copy process, you can hit the ESC key. Note that this will only abort the CURRENT copy you are making. Any previous copies will still remain on the screen. DELETE a Block --------------------------------------------------- Once your block is marked and the DELETE operation has been selected, the area of the marked block will be erased. This means that all characters in the block will be replaced with spaces, and the colors will be reset to white on black (BASIC colors 7 and 0). Make a SINGLE Lined Box --------------------------------------------------- Once you have marked your block and selected the SINGLE BOX block operation, the are of the marked block will be overwritten with a box constructed of single-line ASCII box drawing characters. The box will be filled with spaces, and will be drawn in the currently active colors. Make a DOUBLE Lined Box --------------------------------------------------- Once you have marked your block and selected the DOUBLE BOX block operation, the area of the marked block will be overwritten with a box constructed of double-line ASCII box drawing characters. The box will be filled with spaces, and will be drawn in the currently active colors. page 16 CHARACTER FILL a Block --------------------------------------------------- Once you have marked your block and selected the CHARACTER FILL block operation, a small window will appear in the center of the screen. In this window you will enter the single character that you want the area of marked block to be filled with. If the character cannot be entered using the normal keyboard keys, you can enter any character in the ASCII set by holding down the Alt key and entering the character's 3-digit ASCII code on the numeric keypad. See the section titled "Entering Extended ASCII Characters" for more information on this topic. After the character has been entered (you do not need to hit ENTER), the area of the screen in the marked block will be overwritten with the character specified. The characters will be written using the currently active colors. CHANGE COLORS of a Block --------------------------------------------------- Once you have marked your block and selected the CHANGE COLORS operation, the area of the marked block will have its colors immediately changed to the currently active colors. Remember to change the active colors to those you want your block to be before you begin this block operation. page 17 Extras ------------------------------------------------------------- The features of Screen Builder described in this section are those that don't fit well into other categories, and are called simply extras. Each of the three functions will be described on their own page to keep things as clear as possible. If you prefer to skip this section, feel free to do so. The functions described here are not necessary for designing screens. page 18 Extras - The ASCII Chart --------------------------------------------------- While you are sitting at the editing screen of Screen Builder, you can call up an ASCII chart that displays all the characters available in Screen Builder and their respective ASCII codes. To see the ASCII Chart, either select the ASCII Chart option from the Miscellaneous menu, or hit the Alt-A key combination. The screen will fill with an ASCII Chart for your viewing pleasure. When you have finished looking at the chart, hit any key to make it disappear and return to your screen. Note that for this function to operate properly, the file ASCII.CLR (or ASCII.MON if you are using a monochrome monitor) must be on the drive and in the same subdirectory as Screen Builder. Otherwise you will only succeed in viewing Screen Builder's error handler. page 19 Extras - Disk Directory --------------------------------------------------- While you are editing a display with Screen Builder you may have the need to check the disk directory for whatever reason. This capability is provided within Screen Builder. To see a disk directory, either choose the Directory option from the File menu, or hit the Alt-D key combination. A small window will appear and ask for a file spec. Here you type in the name of the file you want to look for. Wildcards are supported, and the default of *.* (all files) will be filled in for you automatically. If you want a different file spec, simply delete *.* or type over it. Once you hit ENTER and your file spec is accepted, Screen Builder will display a larger window filled with file names. If there are more file names than will fit in the window, Screen Builder will pause, waiting for you to hit a key to see more file names. At any time during the operation, you may hit the ESC key to abort the operation and return to editing. page 20 Extras - Jump To DOS --------------------------------------------------- Should you have the need to exit to DOS at some point during the operation of Screen Builder, you are will find it easy to do so. To go to DOS temporarily, either choose the Jump To DOS option from the Miscellaneous menu, or hit the Alt-J key combination. The screen will clear and you will see your normal DOS prompt. You may then perform any normal DOS operation. Note that Screen Builder and your display are still in memory, and you may not have enough RAM to run large programs while at DOS via this function. When you are finished with whatever business you and DOS had to do, you can return to Screen Builder and your work by typing EXIT at the DOS prompt and hitting ENTER. Screen Builder will instantly return, exactly as you left it. page 21 Techniques and Hints ------------------------------------------------------------- This section is here to clue you in on the few aspects of Screen Builder that may not be obvious, as well as to impart a few tricks. They are not necessarily related, so they will be presented pell mell. - When loading a screen into Screen Builder, the program has to build an internal representation of your screen. This will cause a delay from the time the screen shows up to the time you can actually do something. The delay may be from 1 second to 45 seconds, roughly, depending on the speed of your machine. Please be patient during this part of Screen Builder's operation. And no, your machine is not locked up. The best way to tell when the program is ready for you to begin is to watch for the appearance of the cursor in the upper left corner of the screen. - Make frequent use of the block operations. They are the real power behind Screen Builder. With them you can do many things quickly. For instance, you can create large block letters with the extended ASCII characters, and then copy them if you need a second occurrence of one already drawn. - That's all to this section for right now. Perhaps there will be more after feedback from users comes in. page 22 Using Your Screens ------------------------------------------------------------- Once you have designed your screens, you can use them easily in your programs. There are two methods for doing this. The first is by using the QBSCR PutScreen routine. This routine will retrieve a file from disk and display it on the screen very quickly. Issue a single statement with the name of the file as a parameter: PutScreen "MYSCREEN.CLR" And that's it. The second method is for creating special effects. By using the QBSCR BuildScreen routine, you can implement wipes and other interesting placement effects. See the REF or DEMO program included for examples. The call is almost as easy as PutScreen. The only extra parameter is the type of effect you want, a value from 0 to 15 inclusive: BuildScreen "MYSCREEN.CLR", 15 Try it just to see what you can do with it. For more details on these routines, see the QBSCR Screen Routines documentation. page 23 Closing Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for giving the QBSCR Screen Routines as well as Screen Builder a shot. Hopefully they will provide you with some utility. If you have any questions about these or any BAD SOFTWARE product, you can reach me at the following address: Tony Martin 1611 Harvest Green Ct. Reston, VA 22094 I'll do my best to answer all correspondence. If you would like to register the QBSCR Screen Routines and Screen Builder, you can fill out and mail in the order form at the end of the QBSCR Screen Routines documentation, along with a check for $15.00 made payable to Tony Martin. You will receive an official disk set as well as a copy of the LASER graphics entertainment program. See the back of that document for more details. page 23