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WinRIP Lite - Version 1.0. Demonstration Software. Copyright (c) 1993 K. Waddon All rights reserved. This version of WinRIP Lite is for DEMONSTRATION purposes only. WinRIP Lite is commercial software NOT shareware. The author does not guarentee that the demostration version of WinRIP Lite is complete nor that it is bug free. This software may be reproduced and distributed at will as long as no charge is made for providing copies of the software apart from the cost of materials, i.e. diskettes. This software may be made available for download from any bulletin board system as long as it is available in a directory for which no charge is made for access. For details on how to order WinRIP Lite, see the file "ORDER.FRM". There are no warranties with respect to this documentation. The information contained within this document is subject to change without notice. WinRIP Lite can be used and/or copied only in accordance with the terms specified. The Author and authorised dealers assumes no responsibilities for errors within the documentation. No part of this guide may be reproduced or transferred in any form or by any means with the written consent of The Author. Trademarks. ----------- IBM PC, IBM XT and IBM AT are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. INTRODUCTION What Do You Need to Use WinRIP Lite? In order to use WinRIP Lite, there are certain hardware and software requirements. Hardware Requirements The following system requirements are applicable when using WinRIP Lite: IBM PC/XT/AT or comatible computer. Colour Graphic Display (VGA), with appropriate video card. Software Requirements Microsoft Windows 3.1 About This Manual This manual is meant to be a guide to using WinRIP Lite. It will not explain all the features of Microsoft Windows. For information concerning Windows you may need to refer to the documentation supplied by Microsoft with your copy of Windows 3.1. Windows Annomalies. ------------------- The is one feature of provided by the RIPscrip Specification that is not available in WinRIP. This is user defined line styles. Windows does not provide a method of defining line styles apart from those provided as standard within Windows. The 'standard' line styles available with RIPaint ARE available with WinRIP. Flood Fill Problems. Some RIP images create with editors other than WinRIP can cause problems with flood fill. This is caused by the line termination method used by windows. Windows 'rounds' the end of a line, whereas RIPaint and other editors tend to 'chop' the line. Therefore some images may not flood fill correctly if they were not created using WinRIP. THIS IS ONLY A PROBLEM WITH LINES THAT ARE 3 PIXELS THICK. INSTALLATION. Before you make use of the WinRIP Lite Demonstration Software, you must first install it on your system. First, you should create a directory on your hard disk into which the contents of WRIPDEMO.ZIP should be unpacked. We suggest for simplicities sake that you call this directory WINRIP. There is a sample BATCH file to automate the installation if you prefer (INSTALL.BAT) You must now create several sub-directories in the WINRIP directory, these are: WINRIP\RIP WINRIP\ICONS WINRIP\BUTTONS WINRIP\PATTERNS These are the default directories where WinRIP will expect to find RIP Image, RIP Icons, Button Styles and Fill Patterns respectively. Present in the WINRIP directory you will find three Windows TrueType Font Files, these are: SANS.TTF GOTHIC.TTF TRIPLEX.TTF You will need to install these fonts into Windows. To do this you will need to use the 'Control Panel' utility (Normally found in the 'Main' window of the Windows Desktop. Select Fonts from the Control Panel and use the 'ADD' option to select and install the three fonts. Thats all that is necessary to install the Demonstration Version of WinRIP Lite. The commercial version of WinRIP Lite has an installation utility that will install WinRIP for you. The Editing Window. ------------------- Before you can perform any drawing with WinRIP Lite, you need to have an editing window open. This can be accomplished in two ways, either create a new picture, in which case a blank editing window is opened , or load an existing picture for editing. To create a new RIP image select the "New Picture" option from the pop-up File menu. To load an existing picture, select the "Load Picture" option from the pop-up File menu. When loading an existing RIP picture, a dialog box will be opened containing directory list and file list boxes. This will enable you to select the picture file that is to be loaded. In both cases an editing window is created which will measure 640 x 350 pixels and will be given a black background. Once the editing window has been created the Toolbox Window will become active, as will the greyed items on the pull down menus. You will notice however that the "Load Picture" and "New Picture" options on the File menu are now greyed. This is because you can only have one RIP image open at any one time. The Main Menu Bar. ------------------ The Main Menu Bar along the top of the main window, contains several options, each of which will be explained in this section. The Edit Menu. -------------- There are two entries on this menu, the UNDO facility erases the last drawing action. Once an action is "undone" it cannot be reinstated. The "Redraw Image" option simply clears the edit window and redraws the stored picture. This is useful if you want to see how the picture will be drawn at the remote terminal. The Icon Menu. -------------- This menu, like the Edit Menu, only has two entries. The "Icon Editor" option loads the Icon Editor Utility so that you can create new icons and edit existing ones. The "Load Icon" option allows you to load an icon for pasting onto your picture. When this option is selected a File Open dialog Box will be displayed containing Files List, Directory List and File Type boxes. The file type box displayed beneath the file list box has two files types specified, *.ICN and *.ICO. The .ICN file type is an icon stored in RIP format, the .ICO file type refers to Windows Icon format. WinRIP Lite is capable of importing and converting Windows Icons. If you decide to load a Windows Icon, a message box will be displayed asking you if you wish to save the Icon in RIP format. If you respond by clicking the "Yes" button you will be presented with a File Dialog Box so you can specify which directory and file name is to be used to save the icon. A rectangle, the exact size of the icon, will be displayed near the top right hand corner of the edit window. This rectangle may be moved to the position where the icon is to be pasted by moving the mouse pointer (which is changed to a hand in drag mode) into the rectangle, holding down the left hand mouse button and dragging the rectangle to the required position. Once the icon is in the desired position you can paste it onto your picture by clicking the right hand mouse button. The Fill Menu. -------------- The Fill menu contains five entries all relating to the Fill Colour, Fill Pattern and Fill Boarder Colours. Fill Toggle On/Off. ------------------- This option is a checked item, this means that selecting it does nothing more than placing a 'tick' against it. However, what selecting this actually does is to cause solid shapes, i.e. circles, rectangles, polygons etc to be automatically filled with the current fill colour and pattern. Fill Border Colour. ------------------- Selecting this option from the Fill menu causes a window to be displayed showing the 16 colours in the currently active palette. From these colours you may select one to be the current Fill Border. This is used by the Flood Fill Tool when flood filling an area of the image. The flood fill will stop at the border colour. Clicking "Cancel" leave the border colour selection unchanged. Fill Pattern & Colour. ----------------------- Selecting this option from the Fill menu causes a window to be opened containing two sets of controls. The large set of buttons represent the 12 standard fill patterns that may be selected. The colours arranged as two rows of eight are the 16 colours of the currently active palette. To select a Fill Pattern simply click on the desired pattern. You will notice that the large rectangle opposite the OK and CANCEL buttons will be filled with the selected pattern. To select the Fill Colour simply click on the desired colour. Clicking on the CANCEL button will restore the Fill Pattern and Colour to their previous state. Fill Pattern Editor. -------------------- This option calls up the Pattern Editor, which allow you to create your own customised fill patterns. The Pattern Editor has two rectangular areas displayed side by side. The left hand rectangle represents an 8 x 8 pixel area in which the pixel are greatly enlarged. The right hand rectangle is used to display the effects of your editing, i.e. the rectangle will be filled with the pattern that you create so that you can see the effects your fill pattern will produce. Button/Mouse. ------------- This menu contains one entry, Button Designer. This is dealt with later in a separate section so won't be gone into here. Options Menu. ------------- This menu, with the exception of the Object Lister, contain options concerned with the drawing tools. Write Mode Option. ------------------ This calls up another pop-up menu which has two items on it, "Normal" and "XOR". These two drawing modes effect how objects are drawn on the screen. In "Normal Mode" objects are draw in the currently selected draw colour. In "XOR Mode" the object is drawn on the screen by XORing the current draw colour with the colour already on the screen. A "tick" will be displayed against the currently active mode. Line Thickness Option. ---------------------- This allows you to select the width of lines drawn on the screen, this also includes the thickness of boundaries of circles, polygons etc. Two options are available, line thickness of 1 pixel and line thickness of 3 pixels. Bezier Curve Smoothness Option. ------------------------------- A Bezier Curve is made up of several straight lines, obviously the smoothness of the curve is determined by the number of straight line segments that make up the curve. This option allows you to specify the number of segments that should be present in any Bezier Curve that you draw. The default is ten line segments, that is, each Bezier Curve will be made up of ten straight lines. The higher the value specified here the smoother the curve will appear on the screen. Note, Bezier Curves are calculated using floating point arithmetic, the greater the number of segments in the curve the slower the processing will be. Object List Option. ------------------- Not Active. Font Menu. ---------- The Font Menu allows you to select a Font Typeface and font Size. Font Style Option. ------------------ This causes another pop-up menu to be displayed listing the available Font Styles. Select the style of font you require from this list. The currently selected font will have a "tick" displayed next to it. Font Size Options. ------------------ These options allow you to select the size of the current font. Entries consist of a series of magnification factors, 1x, 2x ... 10x. Select the font size you require. A "tick" will be displayed next to the current font size. Applicable Drawing Controls. ---------------------------- In the next section the drawing tools are discussed in detail. With each drawing tool there is listed the "Applicable Drawing Controls". These mean that these options are used with that particular drawing tool and effect the display. These controls are: The Current Drawing Colour. The Current Line Pattern. The Current Line Thickness. The Current Fill Colour. The Current Fill Pattern. The Write Mode. The Font Size. The Toolbox. ------------ The Toolbox contains all the drawing tools needed to create a "RIP" image. Note that the toolbox is inactive while there is no editing window open. The tools, listed from left to right, top to bottom are: Pie Slice Line Draw Set Pixel Hollow Rectangle Filled Rectangle Hollow Circle Filled Ellipse Circular Arc Elliptical Arc Hollow Polygon Bezier Curve Mouse Region Flood Fill Text Input Filled Rectangle Create Button The block of 16 colours at the bottom of the Toolbox show the 16 currently active drawing colours, i.e. the current active colour palette. The currently active drawing colour may be changed by clicking on one of these colours. Each of the drawing tools available in the Toolbox will now be discussed in detail. Pie Slice. ---------- This tool allows you to draw a pie slice, it will be filled with the current fill colour and pattern. To draw the pie slice move the mouse pointer to the point where you require the center of the arc to be. Hold down the left hand mouse button and without releasing the left hand mouse button, move the mouse pointer to position where the arc is to start, then release the left hand mouse button. As you move the mouse pointer out from the center a line will be 'rubber banded' to follow the mouse pointer, giving an indication of the boundary of the arc. This line will form the radius of the arc. Next, hold down the left hand mouse button again and move the mouse pointer to the position at which the arc is to end and release the left hand mouse button, WinRIP Lite will then erase the 'rubber banding' lines and draw the pie slice. Applicable Drawing Controls: Draw Colour, Line Thickness, Fill Colour, Fill Pattern. Draw a Straight Line. --------------------- This tool allows you to draw a straight line, in the current drawing colour and line thickness. To draw a line move the mouse pointer to the position at which the line is to start and click the left hand mouse button. Move the mouse pointer to the position at which the line is to end. A 'rubber banding' line will be drawn from the line start position to the mouse pointer as it is moved. When the mouse pointer is at the point at which you want to end the line, click the left hand mouse button. WinRIP Lite will then draw a permanent line from the start point to the end point. Applicable Drawing Controls: Draw Colour, Line Pattern, Line Thickness, Write Mode. Set Individual Pixel. --------------------- This tool sets an individual pixel to the current drawing colour. Move the mouse point to the position of the pixel you wish to set and click the left hand mouse button. Applicable Drawing Controls: Draw Colour Rectangle. ---------- This tool will allow you to draw a rectangle in the current drawing colour and line style. Move the mouse pointer to the top left hand corner position where you want the rectangle to start and click the left hand mouse button. Now move the mouse pointer to the position where you require the bottom right hand corner of the rectangle. A rectangle will be 'rubber banded' whilst you are moving mouse pointer. When the mouse pointer is positioned correctly click the right hand mouse button and WinRIP Lite will erase the 'rubber banded' rectangle and redraw it permanently. Applicable Drawing Controls: Draw Colour, Line Pattern, Write Mode. Filled Rectangle. ----------------- This tool draws a rectangle that is filled with the current fill colour and pattern. You define the rectangle in exactly the same way as for the RECTANGLE tool described above. Note the rectangle will not be drawn with a border. Applicable Drawing Controls: Fill Colour, Fill Pattern. Circle. ------- This tool draws a circle in the current draw colour and line thickness. Move the mouse pointer to the point which is to be the center of the circle and click the left and mouse button. Move the cursor away from the center point and a circle will be 'rubber banded' as you move the mouse. When the circle is the correct size, click the left hand mouse button to fix the circle. Applicable Drawing Controls: Draw Colour, Line Thickness. Filled Ellipse. --------------- This tool draws a complete ellipse in the current drawing colour and fills the interior with the current fill colour and pattern. The method for drawing the ellipse is the same as for the circle above. Applicable Drawing Controls: Draw Colour, Line Thickness, Fill Colour, Fill Pattern. Circular Arc. ------------- This tool draws a circular arc in the current drawing colour and line thickness. To draw the arc, move the mouse pointer to the position which is to be the center of the arc. Hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse pointer to the position where you wish the arc to start and release mouse button. Hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse pointer to the position at which the arc is to end. Release the mouse button. The arc will now be drawn. Applicable Drawing Controls: Draw Colour, Line Thickness. Elliptical Arc. --------------- This tool draws an elliptical arc in the current drawing colour and line thickness. The arc is drawn within a rectangular 'bounding box' which would contain the entire ellipse (if one were being drawn). The first step in drawing the arc is to define the bounding box, to do this move the mouse pointer to the position at which the top left hand corner is to be positioned. Click the left hand mouse button. Next move the mouse pointer to the position at which the bottom right hand corner of the bounding box is to be positioned and click the left hand mouse button. The 'rubber banded' bounding box will now be erased, and a line will be drawn from the center point of the imaginary ellipse to the mouse pointer. This line may be moved and defines the point at which the arc will start. Hold down the left hand mouse button and position the mouse pointer at the point at which the arc is to end. Release the mouse button and the arc will be drawn. Applicable Drawing Controls: Drawing Colour, Line Thickness. Polygon. -------- This tool will draw a multi-sided closed polygon in the current drawing colour, line thickness and line pattern. Move the mouse pointer to the position where the polygon is to start and click the left hand mouse button. Repeat this procedure for each point in the polygon. As you move the mouse pointer the polygon will be drawn in and 'rubber banding' lines will be used to connect the mouse pointer to the last and first points defined. To terminate the polygon click the right hand mouse button. Applicable Drawing Controls: Drawing Colour, Line Thickness, Line Pattern. Bezier Curve. ------------- This tool allows you to draw customisable curves. Four control points are used to create the path that the curve follows. Two of these control points define the start and end points of the curve and the curve will actually touch these two points. The remaining two point are control points which 'pull' the curve away from the straight line defined by the start and end points. These two control points need not be actually on the curve. To draw a curve, move the mouse pointer to the position at which the curve is to start and click the left hand mouse button. A small square point will be drawn. In actual fact this represents all four control points of the curve, one on top of the other. The order in which WinRIP Lite considers these points to be stacked, from top to bottom is the end point, 2nd control point, 1st control point, start point. To define the end point of the curve, move the mouse pointer over the square control marker, hold down the left hand mouse button and drag the control point to the position at which the curve is to end. Release the mouse pointer. A 'rubber banding' line will be drawn from the start point to the end point, and the curve will also be drawn, which should resemble a straight line. The square control marker at the start point will have been erased. To move the 2nd control point, move the move pointer to the start position of the curve (easily found because of the 'rubber banding' line and hold down the left hand mouse pointer. The square control marker will be re drawn and it may be dragged to the position you require. Release the mouse button. You will now notice that the curve has changed shape. Repeat this procedure to position the 1st control point. Once you have separated the four control markers you may adjust their relative positions by positioning the mouse pointer on a control point and dragging it to the desired position. When you are happy with the shape of the curve, click the right hand mouse button to erase the control markers, the rubber banding lines and to make the curve permanent. The 'smoothness' of the curve, which is made up of n segments of straight lines may be set from the by pulling down the Options menu from the menu bar. Applicable Drawing Controls: Draw Colour, Line Pattern, Line Thickness, Write Mode. Mouse Region. ------------- This tool allows you to define a rectangular area on the screen that functions as a "HOT" mouse region. If the user clicks the left mouse button while the mouse pointer is within the mouse region then terminal will transmit a predefined text string to the host. The rectangle is drawn using the same procedure for drawing a Rectangle (defined above). When the drawing of the rectangle is complete a dialog box ( shown below) is displayed so that you may enter the text that is to be sent to the host when this region is clicked. The text entered into the dialog box above may contain control characters where each control character is represented by an ASCII character preceded by a ^ character, i.e. a 'RETURN' character may be entered as ^M. The two other fields in the dialog box are checkboxes and if checked will have the following actions if they are checked: Invert the image when this region is clicked. Indicates that the region should be visibly inverted while the mouse button is down, offering the user visual feedback that the region has been clicked. Reset all windows and clear the screen after this region is clicked. This will physically zoom the text window to full screen size and clear the screen. This is useful if the text instructs the host to enter an area that does not support RIP Graphics. Flood Fill. ----------- This tool is used to flood fill a region with a specific colour and pattern. Move the mouse pointer to a point within the area to be flood filled and click the left hand mouse button. The area will will be upto the border colour, at which point the operation terminates. Fill colour, pattern and border colour are selected by pulling down the Fill menu on the menu bar. Applicable Drawing Controls: Fill Colour, Fill Pattern. Text Entry. ----------- This tool allows you to enter text into your RIP image in the current draw colour and font. Move the mouse pointer to the position where the text is to be placed and click the left hand mouse button. The dialog box shown below will be opened so that you can enter the required line of text. The text entry area is larger than one line of text, this is for future developments to WinRIP Lite. You may only enter one line of text at present. On clicking the OK button, the dialog box will clear and a bounding rectangle displayed, this bounding rectangle may be dragged to the required position and then the right hand mouse button clicked to paste the text. The text is output in the currently selected font and size. To change the font style and font size use the Font option on the menu bar. Applicable Drawing Controls: Draw Colour, Write Mode. Filled Polygon. --------------- This tool is identical to the Polygon tool described above with the exception that the interior of the polygon is filled with the current fill colour and pattern. Applicable Drawing Controls: Draw Colour, Line Style, Line Thickness, Fill Colour, Fill Pattern, Write mode. Define a Button. ---------------- This tool creates a new mouse button in the style currently defined in the Button Designer. As the operation of this tool is closely linked with the Button Designer you are strongly recommended to read the section entitled "The Button Designer" prior to using this tool. To create the button move the mouse pointer to the upper left hand corner of where the button is to be positioned and click the left hand mouse button. Note that this may not be the actual top left hand corner of the button as any bevel, recess and sunken effects are not taken into account at this stage. The dialog box, shown below will be opened so that you can specify the Button Label, the text to be sent to the host etc, when the button is clicked. The button label is the text that is displayed with the button, exactly how this label is positioned relative to the button itself is dependent on settings in the button style. The 'Hot' Key defines a key on the keyboard which if pressed has the same effect as if the button was clicked using the mouse. The text to send to the host is simply the text that the terminal will send to the host system when the button is clicked. The 'Draw button as already selected' if checked means that the button will be drawn as if it had been clicked. The default if <<ENTER>> is pressed, if checked, means that if the user presses <<ENTER>> then the text associated with this button is sent to the host in response. Once you have clicked on the dialog box's OK button and the dialog box cleared from the screen, the button can be drawn. This is carried out in one of two ways. For a button with a predefined width and height, a rectangle will be drawn on the screen representing the button surface. This rectangle may be dragged to the required position and the right hand mouse button clicked to paste the actual button. If no width and height has been specified in button style, the button is sized by a 'rubber banding' rectangle. Once the rectangle is the correct size etc. click the left hand mouse button to create the button. Applicable Drawing Controls: Font Sizes. The Button Designer. -------------------- Although The Button Designer comprises only of one window, it is complicated and significant enough to warrant a section all to itself! The Button Designer does not do anything visibly on the screen, except display the window shown overleaf, but creates an internal template definition for a button, which is used in conjunction with the Button Drawing Tool to actually create buttons. Button Types. ------------- There are only three main types of buttons, these are Plain, Icon and Clipboard Buttons. The "Button Type" is selected by clicking one of the Radio Buttons in the Button Type box at the top left hand corner of the Button Designer Window. You will notice that only one Button Type may be selected, this is because only one of Button Type may be in use at any one time. Plain Buttons. -------------- A plain button is exactly what it says it is, "plain". A plain button does not use an icon in the image of the button. The button is constructed as a 'coloured' box, the colour of which corresponds to the SURFACE colour specified in the Button Designer window. (See below for details of the Surface colour. Special effects may also use the "Special Effects" (described below) to enhance the image of the button. Plain buttons may be of any size, or they can be of fixed size. Clipboard Buttons. ------------------ A Clipboard Button uses the current contents of the clipboard to provide the button image. This means you could use an image that you have previously loaded into the clipboard as a button, and keep reusing it. This method improves transmission efficiency by not having to keep on transmitting an icon file name etc. Icon Buttons. ------------- An Icon Button uses a specified icon for it's image. When you create a button using the Button Tool, you will be expected to provide the icon file which is to be used as the button image. This will be the normal file open dialog box, you may use both RIP format Icons and Windows Icons as the button image. The icon specified will determine the actual size of the button and you may drag it to any position you desire. The rectangular mouse field drawn to represent the icon for 'dragging' purposes is exactly the size of the icon to aid you in accurate positioning. Button Labels. -------------- Every button can have an optional text label which can appear in one of several different locations relative to the button itself. It's purpose is to inform the user of the function of the button. The actual text of the label is not specified in the Button Designer but when the button is actually created. However, the placement of the label is specified in the Button Designer window by clicking one of the radio buttons in the Label Orientation Group. This specifies where the label is to appear relative to the button and may be one of the following: i) Label text positioned above the button. ii) Label text positioned below the button. iii) Label text positioned to the right of the button. iv) Label text positioned to the left of the button. v) Label text positioned centrally within the button. Label Colour (Foreground). -------------------------- The colour of the label text may be selected by clicking on the Foreground button in the Button Designer Window. This will pop-up a Colour Dialog box from which you can choose on of 16 colours from the currently active palette. The colour chosen will also be used to colour the 'Foreground Button' in the Button Designer window, so that you can see immediately the current selected colour. DropShadow Effect. ------------------ You may also specify that the Dropshadow special effect is to be used with the label. You do this by 'checking' the Dropshadow Checkbox in the Button Designer Window and by specifying the colour of the shadow by changing the colour of the 'Background' button. This effect will first write the label text using the Background colour, but offset 1 pixel above and to the left of the 'normal' label position. Next the label text is displayed again, this time in the 'normal' position and using the Foreground colour. The overall effect of this option is to give the impression that the label is floating just above the screen and is casting a shadow. Text Centering Adjustment. -------------------------- Where the Label Orientation has been specified as either LEFT, RIGHT or CENTER, the label will be centered vertically relative to the button so that the text does look like it's "too low" or "too high". In some situation though, in particular with large fonts you may notice that text centering is not quite right. This may be more evident with text with descenders. Note, this situation cannot occur within WinRIP Lite as the descenders ARE taken into account when centering the text vertically, as is the Internal Leading. However, you must be aware that programs such as RIPaint and RIPterm DO NOT take into account the descenders when vertically centering text. The Adj Text, should therefore be 'checked' where you are using text for the label that has descenders to ensure that the text is centered correctly in RIPterm. This option has no effect within WinRIP Lite. Hot Key Underlining. -------------------- If you have specified that this button is a "Mouse Area", then you have the option of underlining the hotkey in the label text (if the hotkey character occurs in the label). This is used to indicate visually to the user, what the hotkey is. If the "Underline" checkbox is "checked" in the Button Designer window, then the first occurrence of the hotkey character is underlined. If the Dropshadow effect is also active the underline will also be dropshadowed. Special Effects. ---------------- The "Bright", "Dark" and "Surface" colours are used with plain button styles and with the special effects. These colours represent the hilighted colour, the shadowed colour and the normal surface colour that is used with the special effects. Typical combinations that might be specified are WHITE, DARK-GREY and LIGHT-GREY respectively to give a "3D chiselled-steel" effect. Bevelled Buttons. ----------------- You can give any button a "Bevel", this gives the impression that the side of your button are slanted giving a 3D impression that the button is raised off of the screen. The size of the bevel may be specified with the "Size" field in the Button Designer window. This is a numeric field which may contain a value between 0 - 99 inclusive. This number specifies the actual width of the bevel (in pixels). The default width of the bevel is 3 pixels. Bevels use all three special effects colours (BRIGHT, DARK and SURFACE), the Surface colour is used on the corners to give the impression of an edge. Note, the bevel is not implemented unless the "Bevel" checkbox has been 'checked'. Also if the bevel effect is turned on the the actual size of the button will be LARGER than the rectangular image you see on the screen. The bevel is added onto the button "image". This means that if you are creating an icon button, none of the actual icon will be overwritten by the bevel. If a bevel button is a "Mouse Area", then the size of the mouse area is expanded to include the bevel. Recessed Buttons. ----------------- To enable the recessed effect, the "Recess" checkbox in the Button Designer window must be 'checked' A recessed button has a 3D effect that makes the button look as if it has been hewn out from the surrounding area. When clicked a recessed button will not invert/halite the recess. This is because the recess appears to be part of the surrounding area and not the button itself. The recess effects adds two pixels to each side of the button, so the overall result is that the button will be four pixels wider and taller. Also the recess has no effect on the size of the mouse region for a mouse button. The recess effect makes use of all three special effects colours, plus BLACK. Sunken Buttons. --------------- To enable the sunken effect, the "Sunken" checkbox in the Button Designer window must be 'checked'. The overall effect is such that the interior of the button looks as if it has sunk a little from the edges of the button. The sunken effect does not affect the overall size of the button or mouse region in any way. The effect is drawn after any icon has been pasted onto the button and is drawn one pixel inside the actual button image. Chiselled Buttons. ------------------ The chisel effect also affect the actual image of the button and should primarily used with plain buttons. A chisel is a rectangular outline drawn several pixels inside the image of the button. A chisel is made up of two colours (BRIGHT and DARK) and is two pixels thick. The chiselled effect, like sunken, draw on top of the actual button image. Mouse Buttons and Non-Mouse Buttons. ------------------------------------ Buttons may be created in two different modes. A mouse button is clickable and returns a text string to the host when it is clicked. A non-mouse button on the other hand has no host command, no hotkey, cannot be inverted when clicked, in fact it can't even be clicked and does absolutely nothing other than display itself on the screen. Creating a Mouse Button. ------------------------ To define your button as a "Clickable Mouse Button" ensure that the "Mouse Area" checkbox in the Button Designer window is "checked". When the "Mouse Area" is active more effects are available to you. Invert Button. -------------- The "Invert" field in the Button Designer window is used to determine if the button is to be inverted when the user clicks on it. If the "Invert" option is not "checked" then nothing visibly will happen to the button when the user clicks it. Plain buttons and clipboard buttons simply invert the image of the button when they are clicked. Icon buttons may also be inverted in the same manner, however icon buttons also have another method of inverting. Inverting an Icon Button. ------------------------- One aspect of icon buttons that sets it apart from other buttons is the fact that you can specify an icon file for the image of the button (in WinRIP Lite, this may be either a RIP format icon or a Windows icon). If you enable the "Hot Icon " field in the Button Designer window, you are effectively specifying a different method of inverting the button. Instead of simply inverting the button as described above, RIPterm will attempt to load a new icon file and stamp it on the button. The file name of this new icon will be the same as the button icon but use a file name extension of .HIC. If a hot icon file does not exist the button is inverted in the normal way. Reset Screen after button is clicked. ------------------------------------- This option is activated by "checking" the "Reset" field in the Button Designer window. It is used to clear the screen and make the text window full size. This is used where clicking the button would cause the user to enter a non-graphical section of the BBS. Therefore allowing the user to interact with the BBS in full screen text mode. Radio Buttons, Checkboxes and Button Groups. -------------------------------------------- Another feature of the Button Designer is to allow the grouping of button into categories. These button groups act collectively to create button like Radio Buttons or Checkboxes. Button Groups. -------------- A group of buttons is a collection of zero or more buttons that are related to each other in some way. You may have a maximum of 36 groups. Each group may have as many buttons as you wish to a maximum of 128. When you create a button you assign it a group number. All subsequent button that a re created are automatically place in this group until you change the "Group No" in the Button Designer window. Radio Buttons. -------------- A group of Radio Buttons are quite common in computer application, especially in the Windows Environment. The "Plain", "Clipboard" and "User Icon" button in the Button Designer window for instance are Radio Buttons. The feature of Radio Buttons that makes them so useful is that only one Radio Button in the group may be active at any one time. So if you turn on a particular Radio Button in a group, all the others will be turned off! A Radio Button is defined by 'checking' the "Radio Group" checkbox in the Button Designer Window. CheckBoxes. ----------- Checkbox groups, unlike Radio Buttons, are groups where more than one button may be active at any one time. An example of this is the Button Designer window, where the special effect are specified by 'checking' a checkbox. A checkbox button is defined by "checking" the "checkbox" field in the Button Designer window. Creating Fixed Size Plain Buttons. ---------------------------------- There are two fields in the Button Designer captioned "Width" and "Height", you can enter the actual size of the buttons to be created (in pixels). This saves having to draw the button with the Button Tool. If you set these fields to ZERO, then when you create a button with the Button Tool you will have to "click and drag" to dynamically size the button. Auto-Clipboard Buttons. ----------------------- An Auto-Clipboard that will take the image of the button and automatically place it onto the Clipboard for use by later button commands. This saves having to draw the button again and again. To activate the Auto-Clipboard feature "check" the "AutoClip" checkbox in the Button Designer window. Note, You should not use Auto-Clipboard feature if the "Hot Icon" facility is active. Saving and Loading Button Styles. --------------------------------- You may save a button style to disk so that in future you may reload them instead of having to recreate them. Simply click the SAVE or LOAD button in the Button Designer window . This will cause the File Open dialog box to be opened where you can select the file to be save to, or the file to load. Default Button Style. --------------------- The default button discards the current button style and reinstates the default button configuration. This default configuration contains the following settings: Button Type = Plain Bevel = Active Bevel Size = 3 Background Colour = BLACK Bright = WHITE Dark = Dark Grey Surface = Light Grey Key = WHITE Corners = Light Grey