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PsL Monthly 1994 February
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DOS
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ICONDOS.ZIP
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ICONEDIT.DOC
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IconEDIT
ver. 1.2
Copyright 1993, EFD Systems
All Rights Reserved
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─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
T A B L E of C O N T E N T S
Description ----------------------------------------------------------- 3
Installation and Startup ---------------------------------------------- 4
Building Menus -------------------------------------------------------- 5
Editing and Copying Icons --------------------------------------------- 6
Command Buttons ------------------------------------------------------- 8
How-To ---------------------------------------------------------------- 9
Mail Order ------------------------------------------------------------ 11
Maintenance Log ------------------------------------------------------- 12
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Description
IconEDIT is the graphical setup and maintenace utility for IconDOS. IconEDIT is
used to build and edit icon menu files containing up to 32767 icons. With
IconEDIT you can draw your own icons from scratch or you can copy and modify any
of the provided library icons. At the same time, you can edit an icon's title
and attach a DOS command string and password to the icon.
IconEDIT is almost totally mouse driven; therefore, a MicroSoft compatible mouse
is required. If a mouse driver is not present at startup, IconEDIT will abort
with a short message. IconEDIT also requires a VGA monitor (EGA will not work).
This condition is also checked at startup.
IconDOS icons are always 32 by 32 pixels. Wallpaper is also a 32 by 32 pixel
graphic that is placed into a special file, PAPER.ICN, for display as a tiled
backdrop pattern. Therefore, IconEDIT does not make a distinction between icons
and wallpaper and will edit either. During editing, IconEDIT displays a normal
and an expanded view of the icon. Drawing with the mouse always takes place in
the expanded view.
IconEDIT can now assign a 4 character password to an icon. IconDOS requests the
password before executing the icon's command string. Passwords are case
insensitive, i.e. caps and lower case are considered to be the same.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Installation and Startup
Installation is very easy. Simply make a new directory and copy all of the
IconDOS files to it. If you insist, a batch file called INSTALL.BAT has been
provided which will do this for you. Change to the drive and directory where
the IconDOS files are located and type:
INSTALL path Example: INSTALL C:\MENU
To start IconEDIT, type:
ICONEDIT iconfile [buffile]
"iconfile" is the name of the file that you wish to edit. The file will be
created if it does not exist. "buffile" is the name of an optional
cut/copy/paste buffer file. If "buffile" is not specified, IconEDIT will create
and use a file called ICON.TMP. The "buffile" is the key to copying and moving
icons between files. Try editing DEMO.MNU for practice.
NOTE: The buffer file grows in size with each CUT or COPY command. ICON.TMP is
never deleted or overwritten, only added to. Therefore, you may wish to delete
this file from time to time in order to prevent it from becoming excessively
large.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Building Menus
An icon menu file can be built by hand drawing icons using IconEDIT; however, it
is easier and faster to copy icons from the provided icon library whenever
possible. Specific instructions for copying icons using IconEDIT are provided
in the following section. Icon titles, command strings and passwords can be
attached to the icons. Command strings are limited to 14 characters as imposed
by the IBM keyboard buffer; therefore, the command string is normally used to
call a batch file with a parameter. The batch file actually contains the list
of DOS commands needed to carry out specific icon actions. A single batch file
file can contain multiple sets of commands, one set for each icon in a menu. In
this case, an icon specific parameter should be included in the icon command
string. This parameter can be used inside the batch file to select the proper
DOS command set. RUN.BAT is a fully commented batch file which illustrates this
technique. This file can be modified for your own needs as desired. This batch
file is also used to make the menu system re-entrant by returning control to
IconDOS after a command set has been executed. Comments in RUN.BAT also
illustrate this.
To allow IconDOS to operate from any directory, the batch file containing the
DOS command sets should be located somewhere inside your DOS path. IconDOS can
be accessed from outside the IconDOS directory by specifying the full path for
both IconDOS and menu file like this: C:\MENU\ICONDOS C:\MENU\DEMO
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Editing and Copying Icons
As noted earlier, IconDOS is mostly mouse driven. Notes on-screen explain how
the CTRL and ALT keys will modify certain mouse actions. The keyboard is only
used to enter and edit icon titles, command strings and passwords.
All drawing takes place in the expanded view of the icon. Individual pixels are
painted by clicking inside a pixel box. Lines can be drawn by holding down a
mouse button and moving the cursor. A wide brush (3 X 3 pixels) is available
for filling in larger regions by holding down the ALT key while drawing.
The left and right mouse buttons can be assigned drawing colors by clicking on
the color bar. To erase instead of draw, simply assign the background color to
one of the buttons and draw over the area to be erased.
Note that you must explicitedly store your artwork to disk by clicking either
the SAVE or APPEND command buttons; otherwise, your work will be lost when you
leave IconEDIT or move to the next icon.
To edit a title, command string or password, click inside the labeled edit box.
The mouse is disabled until editing is terminated by ENTER or ESC. The box
editor provides Insert and Overstrike modes toggled with INSERT. Alt-C will
clear the box, Alt-R will restore. Home and End move to the box start/end.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Editing and Copying Icons (cont'd)
When building a menu, it is generally preferable to copy an icon from the
provided library, ICON.LBR, instead of drawing your own icon from scratch.
To copy icons between files, start IconEDIT in the following manner:
ICONEDIT fromfile tofile
For example, to copy icons from ICON.LBR to MYMENU.MNU, start IconEDIT with:
ICONEDIT ICON.LBR MYMENU.MNU
Click on the small actual size icon (upper right) for a full screen display of
the available icons. The buttons at the extreme upper right are used to flip
screens/pages. Click the desired icon to bring it int