Command Post 6

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Text File | 1993-09-21 | 11.3 KB | 241 lines

TurboPaint -- Game Builder Lite copyright 1991,1993 Ed Simpson An MVP Software Production TURBOPAINT'S TOOLBOX -------------------- The Toolbox consists of a wide range of drawing and color selection features. o choose a color for drawing or filling, simply point to the color with the mouse's cursor and then click the left mouse button. The other tools are selected in the same manner. Here is a list of these drawing tools starting with the top left tool (straight lines) and preceding downward. Row 1. Straight lines, Pixels (dots), Irregular Lines, Brush strokes, Text, Color fill. Block, Paste. Row 2. Unfilled rectangle, Filled rectangle, Erase, Printer, Unfilled circle, Filled circle, Polygon, Rays. The F10 key is used to remove or replace the toolbox. This allows you to remove or replace the toolbox and paint on the section of screen that it covers. MAKING LINES ------------ To draw lines, first select the tool at the top left corner of the tool selector. Once it's selected and you can see that it's highlighted, you're ready to draw straight lines. Begin by pointing the mouse at the starting point of your intended line and pressing the left mouse button. Make sure that you keep the left button pressed while you are drawing the line. Now, with the left button still pressed, move the mouse pointer to where you want the line to end. Release the left mouse button and your line becomes part of the picture. Choose the 'Set' pulldown menu to find the two line options. To set the line width, select the menu entry labeled 'Line Width'. A dialog box that displays the current line width will appear. To increase the width of the line, click the left button on the line. To decrease it, click the right button on the line. The maximum width is eight, and if you exceed this amount, the program will return to a width of one. If you decrease the line width past one, the program will set the line width to eight. To set the line pattern, choose the entry in the 'Set' pulldown labeled 'Line Style'. A dialog box with eight line patterns will appear. To choose one of these, click the left mouse button on your selection. The line style affects all line and rectangle operations except the free-hand drawing tool. You can redefine any of the line patterns. Just click the right mouse button on the pattern you want to change. A new dialog box will superimpose itself over the previous box. Line definitions, are composed of sixteen bits. To toggle any of the sixteen bits, just click on it with the left mouse button. Now press Return or click on Ok to return to the Line Style dialog. You can reset the program defaults by deleting the file PREFS. UNDO ---- If you make a mistake while drawing, you can usually undo it, if you haven't done anything else. Undo your mistake by pressing Escape or selecting the 'Undo' entry in the 'Extra' pulldown menu. RECTANGLES ---------- Drawing filled and unfilled rectangles follows a procedure similar to drawing lines. With the appropriate tool selected, move the mouse pointer to either the upper left or the lower right corner of the rectangle. While holding the left mouse button down, move the mouse pointer to where the opposite corner of the rectangle should be. Release the left mouse button to complete the rectangle. If you're drawing with a filled rectangle, you may want to change the fill pattern. To do this, choose the 'Set' pulldown and select the 'Fill Style' entry. A dialog box with eight choices will appear. Choose one by clicking on it with the left mouse button. The fill pattern will apply to all filled tools. You can redefine any of the fill styles. Just click the right button on the one you want to change and another dialog box will appear on top of the Fill Style box. Toggle the bits of the pattern by clicking the left mouse button on them. When you are done, press Return or click on Ok. For any of the filled shapes (filled rectangles, filled circles, or filled ellipses) you can set several border options. The first choice is whether to have borders. The second choice is whether the border will be the currently selected line style or a plain solid pattern. You can set these options with the 'Borders' entry in the 'Set' menu. CIRCLES AND ELLIPSES -------------------- To draw a circle or an ellipse, first point to the center of the figure you want to draw, then press the left mouse button and stretch the shape to the desired dimension. Moving the mouse in the X and Y directions will stretch the ellipse in that dimension. Circles will remain perfectly round regardless of the position of the mouse pointer. RAYS AND POLYGONS ----------------- To draw a set of rays, position the mouse at the origin. Hold down the left mouse button and move the pointer to the end of the first ray. Keeping the left button pressed, press the right button to place this ray in the picture. Now move to the endpoint of the next ray and click the right mouse button. Do this until all of the rays have been drawn, then release the left mouse button. Drawing polygons is similar to drawing rays. Position the cursor, press the left mouse button, and move to the first vertex. Click the right mouse button while pressing the left button. Move to each vertex and press the right button. FILLING ------- To use the Fill tool, position the mouse pointer at the position where you want to fill. It will continue filling the screen until it meets the selected fill color. If you try to fill a shape that is not completely closed, the fill will bleed outside of the destination shape. PIXELS ------ There are two tools for drawing pixels (dots). The second tool in the first column of the toolbox draws a single pixel. The third tool in the first column draws a set of pixels (an irregular line). To draw a single pixel, select the single pixel tool, position the mouse pointer, and click the left button. To draw a set of pixels, select the free-hand drawing tool, and position the mouse pointer. Hold the left button down as you move the mouse pointer wherever you want to draw. When you are done, release the left mouse button. THE AIRBRUSH ------------ The airbrush tool allows you to blend colors and soften edges. To use this tool, select the airbrush tool in the toolbox. Position the mouse cursor and hold down the left mouse button. The slower you move the brush, the thicker the texture appears. You can change the airbrush attributes. To do this, choose the 'Set' pulldownand select the 'Airbrush' entry. A dialog box that will let you set the airbrush size and flow will appear. CUT AND PASTE ------------- To cut a block, select the scissors tool icon. Position the mouse pointer at the upper left corner of the rectangle that you want to cut. Hold the left mouse button down and drag the box until the image you want to capture is framed by the rectangle. Release the left mouse button and it will be copied into the clipboard buffer. There are two options when you cut from the screen. You can copy from the screen (leaving the screen intact) or you can cut from the screen (removing the rectangle and the background from the screen). To change options, choose the 'Set' pulldown and select the 'Block' entry. If you have 'Copy only' set to yes, the screen won't change when you cut. If it's set to no, the portion of the screen that you cut will be removed. To save a block to disk, choose the 'Extra' pulldown and select the 'Save Block' entry. Enter the filename and the program will save the block to disk. The blocks aren't compatible with any other formats. You can't use blocks from different video modes either. Once a section has been cut or loaded from disk, it can be pasted on the screen. Select the paste tool icon and position the cursor. Pressing the left mouse button will cause the tools to disappear. As long as you hold the left mouse button down, you can move the block. To place it in the picture, release the left mouse button. There is a memory restriction in EGAHIGH. At runtime the program allocates the remaining memory for the clipboard buffer. The block you can cut is directly related to the amount of memory the program finds. LOADING FONTS ------------- You can load any GEM font. To do this, choose the 'Extra' pulldown and select the 'Load Font' entry. Highlight the font you want to load in the file selector. The system font is resident when TurboPaint runs. Remember that loading fonts uses memory. You can't load an unlimited number of fonts. If your system is close to the memory limit, other operations might be affected if you load too many fonts. To set the font that you will use, choose the 'Set' pulldown and select the 'Text' entry. To cycle through the loaded fonts, click the left mouse button inside of the text box. You can select different styles of each font by clicking the right mouse button in the text box. ENTERING TEXT ------------- To put text in your picture, select the text tool icon. Position the mouse pointer and click the left button. The tools will then disappear. There are two ways that you can enter text, free form or formatted. To enter text in a free form manner, simply type the text. You can move the mouse anywhere on the screen and the text will follow. This method is good ifyou're trying to fit text into a picture. If you want to enter multiple lines of text, it's better to press the left mouse button once more where you want the text to start. The mouse will disappear and a text-type cursor will appear. Type your text and press Enter at the end of each line. The cursor will then go to the beginning of the next text line, ready for you to type it in. When you're finished typing, you can move the text anywhere on the screen. Click the left mouse button to place the text. Click the right mouse button to exit from text entry. MAGNIFY ------- You can magnify selected parts of the screen by choosing the 'Extra' pulldown and then selecting Magnify option. After you've selected one of the magnification factors, the tools will disappear and you'll see a rectangle appear on the screen. Position the rectangle so that it frames the region you want to magnify. Then click the left mouse button. At the far left side of the screen you'll see the chosen section of the picture in the actual size and to the right of that you'll see the magnified version. To draw, just click inside of the rectangle that contains the magnified version. You can pick different colors at the far right side of the screen. If you're drawing in MCGA mode, you can use the right mouse button to scroll through all 256 colors. To quit and go back to the full screen, press the right mouse button. The escape key will undo any drawing while you're in magnify mode. SHADOWS ------- You can shadow many of the drawing functions. Do this by choosing the 'Set' pulldown and selecting the 'Shadow' entry. There is a color selector that lets you set the shadow color. The grid of nine squares is where you set the relative position for the shadow. The numbers 1-4 let you set the distance of the shadow from the original shape. Finally, you can turn the shadow on or off. The shadow attribute works with lines, rectangles, squares, circles, and ellipses.