bex v0.2a ( I'm a German with basic knowledge in english. If you want to correct and post back this documentation I would be happy. ) email : harms@minnie.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de or real adress : Christian Harms Holbeinweg 6 71229 Leonberg GERMANY - EUROPE Well, well, well, this is another Bitmap-Editor for/in Mode X : BEX. Ä Ä Ä 0. BackGound-Information 0.1 History 1. Introduction 2. MainScreen 1st Screen to Paint 3. Pal - Menu 3.1 Palette-Screen change Color-Table 4. Tools - Menu Tools like Rotate,Zoom, Get/Put ... 5. Clipboard manage many Bitmaps on RAM-Cache 0. BackGround-Information [Future on] Ok, but why v0.1, if this a ready program ? Hmm, well : I want to make a Sprite-Animator and the first,little step is this Sprite-Editor, and later (I dont know when), I will program v1.0. And then, you will find BEX as one menu-point in my Animator. [Future off] This Program can be used by Mouse or Keys, Mouse is better. Every Click on a Button (for example) with the Mouse emulates a keycode. So - it was very easy to program these many Buttons. Every time, you can abort functions with ESC ! Ideas - post it to my email-number. If you are interested in the XLib for Turbo Pascal, wait until second half of October,93. OK, XLib are now real TP-Units ( with asm; ... ), but Button-Manager, 16x16-Font and so on are new. 0.1 History v0.1 OK, take all features, and sub all of v0.2... and you see, what for functions was in v0.1 . v0.2 Tools-Menu split in Tools-Menu (Pixel-functions) and Pal-Menu (Color-functions). Added SOFTENING and Mode-Button for RGB or 16x16-palette in Pal-Menu. Mode (Grafic modes of XLib) added to Tools-Menu. Bugs in ClipBoard fixed. Also new, painting with mouse from Tools-and-Pal menu. Reading Gif and PCX-Pictures. Good Looking Help-Screen from every Menu by pressing F1. 1. Introduction I named this editor "Bitmap Editor for Mode X" or short "BEX" . If exist a file "BEX.PAL", it will be loaded. If the Size min. 6 Bytes more then the real Palettes-Size (256*3), then are these six Bytes the Numbers of Gray0 to Gray5 for the Buttons, Text and so on. If no file exists, a "optimal 6-7-6 RGB-Color-Table" will be set as default. ( This Palette is also used by PhotoStyler for Windows, and you can design wounderful Pictures and save them with this Palette. ) I used the PBM (Planar Bitmap) Format of Themie Goutas - XLib Maximal Size are 250x250, for Rotate only 125x125 (more will forget). Usage : bex or bex 2. MainScreen MOUSE: In the Zoom-Window of the bitmap, you can put a pixel with the left Mouse-Button and get the color of a pixel with Right. Color are able to be chosen from the palette in the upper,right corner by pressing a Mouse-Button, too. Other options are able to be activated by Buttons. 2,4,6,8 are the directions of the Numeric Keypad and it can have scrolled large pictures with the left Mouse-Button. Horizontal Scroll is in Zoom 4 or 8 not so slow as in the other Zooms. If you activate the Scrooool-Buttons with the right Mouse-Button, it will scroll to the border of the Bitmap. "Dir" is self-explaining. "Load" : First, you have to choose the file format and type the name. Extension will added if necessary. After loading GIF and PCX the picture with own color-palette will matched with actual palette. Results are better with RGB-like palettes then normal 16x16-painting-palettes. Special palettes (XLoad in palettescreen) are the best way for best colors. "Save" : like Load ... After having activated the "sIze"-Button you can change the save-Size of your Bitmap (See also "X"/"Y" in Tools-Menu). Click Left on the Pal-Button, you go into the Palette-Screen. With Right, you can flip between two different Display-Modes of the Palettes. 1st is the normal one of my RGB-Palette, 2ed is a 16x16-Display for all other palettes (like Yak-Pal and so on.) KEYBOARD: Using the cursor-keys, you can move a little Cursor. By pressing Space, you Put a pixel, Enter, you get the pixel-color as actual Color. "+" Increases the actual Color, "-" Decreases the Color (Ok, it's stupid, but If you have an other (simple) idea ?). "sIze": Move the cursor to the new corner, an press I and the new borders will be set. Scrooooling: You can scroool the Bitmap with the numeric keypad, if NumLock is lightend. Scroll to the End/Begin of the Bitmap, use PgUp,PgDown for Y-, Home/End for X-direction. Buttons can be activated by big characters: L,S,D,T,I,P With F10 you can change the Pal-Mode (See Pal-Menu). After pressing "L", you can choose format by P,B,G or X. Press F1 to open the Help-Screen. 3. Pal - Menu MOUSE: "big": If you have too sparse lines, you can make it bigger. By every point all 4 neighbours will be filled with the Point-color if the are in color 0. "out": You can make Outlines for Sprites. It makes a comic-effect like Commander Keen. Left Mouse-Button makes a little, Right Mouse-Button a big OutLine in the actual color. "Soft" : I had seen the "SOFTENING" in a big, prof. Picture-Designer. The mathematical background was ready quickly , but a fast technic was this not. With "<-" and "->" you can move the curv of the exp-function. X-axis is radius from the pixel to the neighbours, Y-axis in *10% the factor for the summ of the new color. Softening with a loaded gif/pcx with matching palette do nothing. "Mode" : The default RGB-palette is a 6-7-6-level palette and it will showed in a 36x7 Array with separate 4 Gray-Colors. The normal palette is showed al a 16x16-Array, because the first 16 colors are gray, next red,green,blue,yellow and so on. Mode can be activated with rigth-click on "Pal"-Button. "Edit" jump into the palette-screen. KEYBOARD: The two Outlines can be chosen with "O" and "o", "big" with "B" and "b". Mode can activated from MainScreen with F10. Press F1 to open the Help-Screen. 3.1 Palette-Screen MOUSE: On the Colors, you can choose it by pressing into the Color-Array. If you want to decrease the Red/Green/Blue-Part of the actual color, activate the Button with the Left-Mouse-Button, Increase with the Right Mouse-Button. With the Buttons "Gray0" to "Gray5" you can change the Menu-Colors. Save, Load and Directory are not to be commentated (I hope it.) "Save" will save Color-Numbers of Gray0 to Gray5 after the Palette-Data, too (see also 1.Introduction). "Xload" load a palette directly fron the a images. You have to say the name of the picture and the start-index of the palette. "Reset" will set the default RGB-palette. "Match & Ok." will match actual Bitmap with the changed palette. "Match all & Ok." will match actual Bitmap and Bitmaps on the Clipboard. "Ok." set the palette - diff. colors in actual Bitmap could be. KEYBOARD: The actual Color can be changed by the cursor-keys, the "Red"/"Green"/ "Blue"-Parts can be increased by the "r","g","b" and decrease by "R","G","B". With "0".."5" you can change the Menu-Colors. And with "L","S","D" you can Load,Save and show the Directory for other Palettes-Files (most *.pal). Other Keys : "X","E","M","A","O"-ESC Press F1 to open the Help-Screen. 4. Tools - Button MOUSE: "+" and "-" are the Buttons to Zoom, Unzoom the Big Bitmap, very usefull in higher resolutions.On the "X"- and "Y"-buttons you can change the Pixel-Width/Height of the Bitmap (2-250). With "<->" and "v^" can flip the Bitmap horizontal/vertical. Ok, "Fill" : Click in a area, and this area will be filled with actual color. The Fill-Algorithm don't run over the (X,Y)-Border. "Clear" will the Bitmap fill in the (X,Y)-Border with the actual color. And "Rot" is a dirty Rotate-function with a Range of 1-359, but one-step- Angle. "Get" : You can save a rectangular area out of the Zoom-Window at disk, and if possible (System-Memory), cache to the clipboard. "Put" : choose one Bitmap from the clipboard and have put it to the position you pointed to (see more 5. CLipboard). "Mode" : In the menu you can select with clicking on the line the Mode X- graphic mode. These are the some modes from XLib. KEYBOARD: "+","-","X","Y","<->","v^" look under MOUSE. "Fill" will fill on Cursor-Position with actual Color. Clear will the Bitmap in the (X,Y)-Border have filled with the actual color. "Get" and "Put", you can choose the Corners with Mouse or Keyboard. "Mode" : Move with the cursor-keys in the row and select with Enter or Space. Press F1 to open the Help-Screen. 5. Clipboard MOUSE : Here you can choose a Bitmap by pointing on the Name-Button and get it with the "Get"-Button. New bitmaps can be added to the Clipboard with "Load". "Kill" will the actual bitmap kill from the Clipboard-list. ESC will abort Clipboard and "Ins". KEYBOARD: The first ten Bitmaps can be shown with "0".."9"-Keys. Other with "+" and "-". "Get" can be activated with "G" or Enter. Other Keys: "L","S","D","K".