- TEXT PAINT - (TM) v1.2 Copyright (c) 1993 Kevin Solway DESCRIPTION: Text Paint is a text-based paint program which can produce plain or multi-coloured text screens, and supports 43/50 line modes on EGA/VGA systems. This program is ideal for those times when you need to provide relatively simple diagrams or pictures without the memory and time overheads associated with more detailed graphic images. Also creates slide shows which you can distribute. Text Paint will only work on systems equipped with a mouse. Text Paint comes with the program Text Capture to capture screen images in full colour for editing with Text Paint. Text Paint files can be incorporated into "Bigtext" document files. Bigtext (by the same author) creates self-displaying books with illustrations. A NOTE ON USER-SUPPORTED SOFTWARE: The user supported software concept (usually referred to as shareware) is an attempt to provide software at low cost. The cost of offering a new product by conventional means is staggering, and hence dissuades many independent authors and small companies from developing and promoting their ideas. User supported software is an attempt to develop a new marketing channel, where products can be introduced at low cost. If user supported software works, then everyone will benefit. The user will benefit by receiving quality products at low cost, and by being able to "test drive" software thoroughly before purchasing it. The author benefits by being able to enter the commercial software arena without first needing large sources of venture capital. But it can only work with your support. We're not just talking about Text Paint here, but about all user supported software. If you find that you are still using a program after a couple of weeks, then pretty obviously it is worth something to you, and you should send in a contribution. - USAGE - To run the program: From the DOS prompt, type TPAINT then press Enter. Text Paint will only work on systems equipped with a mouse. Also, you can enter a file to edit from the command line: for example, tpaint filename.scr Help: Pressing F1 from inside Text Paint will display a help screen with all the essential instructions. To draw: Hold the left button of the mouse down and drag the cursor (the pen) around the screen. To draw on the very bottom line of the screen (below the menu options) you can drag then pen onto the bottom line while drawing, or hold down the RIGHT button of the mouse. Select pen type: Click on "Pen" to select the pen style, then clicking on the character you want. Clicking on a space between the characters will select the space character. The currently selected pen type is coloured bright white. Pen Colour: Click on "Pen col" to select drawing colour (both background and foreground). Background colours range vertically from 1..16 while foreground colours range horizontally from 1..16. The currently selected colour is indicated with an asterix. Background Colour: Click on "B/g col" to change the original page colour. All occurances of that background colour (whether they were part of the original page, or whether they have been drawn) will be converted to the new background colour. Load: Load a previously saved screen, or any standard ascii text file into Text Paint for viewing or editing. Any standard ascii text file can be loaded, and then saved as a Text Paint file. But be warned: Text paint may not be able to load all of the lines of larger files, so if you save the file under the same name then text will be lost from the original file. Save: Saves work to disk. If you do not provide an extension then an extension of .SCR will automatically be appended to the file. For example, if you type a file name of MYFILE then the file will be saved as MYFILE.SCR You can save the file in colour format or plain format. The only value of saving screens in plain format is if your screens are likely to viewed on mono monitors. Colour screens will sometimes look messy on a mono monitor. A compromise is to save screens in colour format, but to use a black background which will provide good contrast on mono monitors. New: Clear the current screen and start a new drawing. If the current screen has been changed then you will be prompted to save it before it is cleared. Erase: Sets the cursor working as an eraser by setting the pen style to that of a space. Overwriting with different colours or pen style: Pressing Alt-C will cause overwriting of what is on the screen with a new colour, but preserves the pen character. Alt-P will cause overwriting of what is on the screen with a new pen, but preserving the colour. When colour overwriting is on, a white "O" will appear after "col" on the bottom line of the screen. Similarly, when pen overwriting is on this is indicated by a white "O" after the word "Pen". Of course, when both colour overwriting and pen overwriting are on, this is the same as normal drawing mode. Fill: - also, change colours or characters of areas. To fill an area of the screen with the currently selected pen style and colour, click on "Fill" then click on the area you wish to fill. You can fill any pen/colour combination with another pen/colour combination. If you want to change the colour of an area of the screen, but want to preserve the pen style (eg, the colours surrounding some text) then press Alt-C for "colour overwriting" (see above) before you select "Fill". If you want to change the characters but want to preserve the colours of an area, press Alt-P to enable "pen overwriting" before you select "Fill". Undo: This function undoes the last piece of work - up to 10 levels. Keep pressing Undo to return to your original work. Box: To draw a box on the screen, firstly click on "Box" then click on the screen where you want the corner of the box. Keep holding the left button down while you drag (rubber band fashion) the box to the shape you want. Special feature: if the "pen" character is a line drawing character, then a box will be specially designed using the appropriate line drawing characters for corners etc. Text: To type text into your picture, firstly click on "Text" then click on the number of the font you desire. Then click where you want to begin typing. Press Enter to accept what you have typed or press Escape to cancel it. Undo will erase any text you type so you can get the positioning correct. Lines: Select "Lines" then draw lines around the screen by holding the left button down, as you do with normal drawing. Special select colour and pen style: If you can see a character or a colour on the screen that you want to use, then rather than selecting them from the "Pen" and "Pen colour" menus, it is often faster to use the following short-cut: Position the cursor on the character, then press "C" to grab its colour, "P" to grab its pen style, or "B" to grab both its colour and pen style. That is: "C"olour "P"en "B"oth Condensed lines on EGA/VGA: If you have an EGA or VGA system then a small arrow will appear at the bottom right corner of the screen. Clicking on this arrow will switch between 25 line mode and 43/50 line mode. Viewing the entire picture: Hold down the right mouse button to remove the bottom menu line for viewing the full picture. VIEW.EXE to view Text Paint files: VIEW.EXE is a small program whose sole task is to display the screens you create with Text Paint. Registered users of Text Paint can distribute this program to other parties to display their Text Paint files. For example if you have a saved text screen called picture.scr then you would issue the command: view picture.scr or view picture (view.exe will assume picture.scr) The picture will be displayed until a key is pressed. Alternatively you can make view display a picture for only a few seconds with the command: view picture.scr 3000 (displays for 3000 milliseconds) = 3 seconds Using this feature you can create your own slide shows by displaying a number of screens from (say) a batch file. Using the program BAT2EXEC.COM you can turn these batch files into .COM files. If your screen images have more than 25 lines then VIEW will automatically switch to condensed line mode on EGA/VGA systems to display the picture. * Better still - BIGTEXT * Better than using VIEW.EXE to display your screens is BIGTEXT. This program (also written by myself) creates self-displaying books with illustrations. Bigtext can convert big text files of up to 700k or more into executable self-displaying text programs that fit on a 360k disk. Complete with menus, searching and printing, Bigtext is great for books, catalogues, reports and manuals. Importantly, Bigtext can display Text Paint files in full colour, integrated seemlessly into the text. Bigtext can also execute other programs from within the text, so you can have complex VGA graphic illustrations as well. TCAPTURE - Text Capture Text Capture (which accompanies Text Paint) is a memory resident program that can capture text screen images - IN FULL COLOUR - from other programs. These images can then be viewed and edited with Text Paint. ************************************************************************ LICENCE: Copyright (c) 1993 Kevin Solway. All rights reserved. This program is provided AS IS without warranty, expressed or implied. This program is in the public domain. Users are encouraged to make as many copies as they like and to distribute them to whoever they choose. Under no circumstances is this program to be sold, except where clubs distribute programs without profit. If the program Text Paint does not accompany this program then registered copies are available from me for $10. Suggestions are welcome. Kevin Solway, PO Box 207 St Lucia 4067 AUSTRALIA ************************************************************************ --------------------------------------------------------------------- LICENCE/REGISTRATION: Full registration details in the file TPORDER.DOC Registration for Text Paint costs $10 but is FREE when you register Bigtext for $30. Kevin Solway PO Box 207 St Lucia 4067 Australia ---------------------------------------------------------------------