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****** Tombstone Artist, version 2.0 *** *** A RIPscrip Drawing Utility. ** ** ** Here Lies ** * * Copyright 1993 - 1996 Steven Lang aka Tyger * TOMBSTONE * * ARTIST * * 2.0 * * * * R I P * RIPscrip is a trademark of ****************** TeleGrafix Communications, Inc. --------------------- - Table of Contents - --------------------- Introduction Licensing and Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Getting Started Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Getting Around . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Command Line Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Using Tombstone Artist Draw Color and Fill Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Line Style and Fill Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Line, Multiline and Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Bezier Curves, Arcs, and Pie Slices . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Squares and Filled Squares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Polygons and Filled Polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Circles and Filled Circles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Ovals and Filled Ovals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Flood Fill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Place Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Put Pixel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Copy and Paste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Snap-to grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Mouse Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Mouse Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Palette Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Save RIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Load RIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Clear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Undo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Quit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Support, Registration and Credits How to contact us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Legal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 ---------------- - Introduction - ---------------- Licensing and Distribution -------------------------- Tombstone Artist is a copyrighted program. It has been released for distribution as shareware. Considerable work has gone into developing this program. You are granted a license to try Tombstone Artist for an evaluation period not to exceed one month. If, after this time, you find that Tombstone Artist is useful and you intend to continue using it, then you are expected to register it. The registration fee is $30. This will legally allow you to continue to use Tombstone Artist beyond the trial period, and it will entitle you to program support. Registration will also remove the registration messages. Please see the registration form that was included in this archive to register Tombstone Artist. Sysops are encouraged to post Tombstone Artist online for downloading by their users. Tombstone Artist may be uploaded to commercial and hobby bulletin boards and other computer mediums for transfering files, provided that no fee is charged to download Tombstone Artist beyond any regular connection or subscription fees. This archive may only be distributed in the origonal form of the main archive, containing documentation and the program archive. A list of all included files is in the main archive. If you are missing this list or any of the files, please contact the author as mentioned in the How to contact us section. The documentation may not be modified by users, nor may the program and the documentation be separated when it's distributed. Printed or photocopies of the documentation may not be sold without the written permission of the authors. No person, other than the authors, may accept payment or royalties for this program. This license to use Tombstone Artist does not include the right to sell Tombstone Artist for a fee. Overview -------- Tombstone Artist was written because we saw a need for a good shareware RIPscrip drawing program. All the ones we had seen were crippled, or just were insufficient. So, we got a copy of the RIPscrip Protocol, and this is the result. Our intent was to write a RIPscrip Drawing program that wasn't crippled, and supported most of the RIPscrip command set, including mouse regions and buttons support. Features -------- o Ability to Load and Save RIPscrip files. o Full drawing commands, including lines, squares, circles, polygons, and more! o Palette editing. o Mouse Regions and Areas. o Custom line and fill styles. o Undo/Redo. Tombstone Artist 2.0 Page 3 ------------------- - Getting Started - ------------------- Requirements ------------ Tombstone Artist requires at least an EGA display with 256k of video memory and approximately 384k of system memory free. Less memory, and you may not be able to Undo, use Copy and Paste, or use the fonts. Tombstone Artist also requires DOS 3.0 or greater to run, and a microsoft compatable mouse. To view Simplex, Complex, Triplex Script, Script, European, Bold Outline, the user needs RipTerm 1.53+ or compatable. The other fonts will work in all the versions. Installation ------------ Installing is extremely simple. Create a directory where you wish to install Tombstone Artist, and copy all the files to it. Then, create a subdirectory under that called FONTS, and copy all the .CHR files to it. To save yourself harddrive space, you may stick Tombstone Artist in your RipTerm directory, and it will use the same font files as RipTerm uses. When you run Tombstone Artist, if the subdirectory RIP doesn't exist, then it will create it for you. When you load and save rip files, and don't provide a path, then Tombstone Artist will automatically assume you want to use the RIP subdirectory. To make installing Tombstone Artist easier, a batch file has been included to move all the files to whatever directory you wish. Getting Around -------------- Getting around inside of Tombstone Artist is easy. The program uses a simple to learn set of buttons you can click on with your mouse. The menus are really simple and their meaning is clear, and they are available at the bottom of your screen. But, when you want to use the full screen to draw, you can scroll the menus off and on by hitting the <ESC> key. Command Line Options -------------------- -N . . . . Bypass the title screen. -S# . . . Set Scroll Speed to # (1 is slowest, 9 is fastest, 0 is off) -R <file>. Load <file> at startup. Tombstone Artist 2.0 Page 4 -------------------------- - Using Tombstone Artist - -------------------------- Draw Color and Fill Color ------------------------- The Draw Color is the color that drawing is done in, and for filled areas, is also the border color. The Fill Color is the color used by all the filled draw commands to fill the areas. When you click on the colors, their buttons are depressed. Line Style and Fill Style ------------------------- The Line Style command changes the width and style of the lines that are drawn. Clicking on the question mark button will bring up a menu allowing you to create your own line styles. All lines drawn will be in the current line style, including borders. Fill Style allows you to change the styles of the fills done using all the fill commands. Clicking on the question mark button will again bring up a eight by eight grid which you can create a custom fill style with. All future fill commands will use the current fill style. Line, Multiline and Rays ------------------------ These three commands are essentially the same. Line is the standard line command. It lets you draw a line from one point to a second point on the screen. Multiline is an extension of line that will then let you place additional points, and the line will be continued from one point to the next. Rays are work the same way, except that all the lines you place will meet at the first point you chose. All lines drawn will be in the current draw color and line style. Bezier Curves, Arcs and Pie Slices ---------------------------------- Bezier Curves are a powerful drawing tool. With just four points, you can define a variety of curves and loops. To create a Bezier Curve, click on the Bezier Curve button and draw a line from where the curve should start, to where it should end. Once you draw the line, two crosses will appear, one on each end of the line. These are the middle two points. They can be moved around by clicking near the one you wish to move, and moving it while holding down the left mouse button. Once you have a curve you like, you can press the right mouse button to place it. If you click on the Bezier Curve button when it is already active, a slidebar will appear allowing you to change the number of segments that are used to make the Bezier Curve, from 2 to 500. 50 is recommended for most uses, above that can be slow on some systems. Certain line styles do not work as expected with Bezier Curves. You can still draw the curve, but your result may range from nothing to a line that fades across the curve. Arcs and pie slices (filled arcs) are more basic tools then Bezier Curves, but they have their uses, too. To draw an arc or pie slice, first mark the center by clicking the left mouse button. You will then be able to adjust the size of a circle. Click where you wish your arc to begin with the left mouse button, then move the mouse to where you wish it to end, and click again. The arc will be drawn counterclockwise from the first point to the second one. You now have an arc or pie slice. Tombstone Artist 2.0 Page 5 --------------------------------- - Using Tombstone Artist (cont) - --------------------------------- Squares and Filled Squares -------------------------- The square command will let you place a square on the screen. Ordinary squares are simple outlines using the current draw color and line style. Filled Squares are solid squares using the current fill color and fill style, but are not outlined. (This is due to RIPscrip, not an error in the program) Polygons and Filled Polygons ---------------------------- Polygons and filled polygons allow you to make shapes with up to 512 sides. Polygons are drawn the same way as multilines, you place a series of points and lines are drawn from one to another. Ordinary polygons are drawn in the current draw color and line style. Filled polygons are filled in the current fill color and fill style, and outlined in the current draw color and line style. Circles and Filled Circles -------------------------- Circles and Filled Circles allow you to place circles on the screen. When placing the circle, you are provided with a square box that shows the top, bottom, left and right sides of the circle. The circle itself isn't drawn until you have it the size you want. Circles are drawn in the current draw color and line style. Filled circles are filled in the current fill color and fill style, and outlined in the current draw color and draw style. Ovals and Filled Ovals ---------------------- Ovals and Filled Ovals are the same as circles, except that the you are not limited to perfect circles. Flood Fill ---------- Fill will fill an area of the screen in the current fill color and fill style. NOTE: Unlike most paint programs, fill does not fill one color with another. Instead, fill will fill a section surrounded by one color with another. Fill will fill up to the current draw color. Fill will not fill beyond the current draw color. Tombstone Artist 2.0 Page 6 --------------------------------- - Using Tombstone Artist (cont) - --------------------------------- Place Text ---------- Clicking on place text will bring up a menu allowing you to enter the text to place, and select a font, size and orientation. (horizontal or vertical) When you have text entered, and are on the drawing screen, the mouse cursor will change into a box the size of the text, allowing you to place as many copies of it as you want wherever you want in the current draw color. If you already have text to place, and you click on the place text button, the menu will not pop-up, but instead you can place more text on the screen. Clicking on it a second time will bring the menu back up. NOTE: You can not place the 8x8 block font vertically. Also, you may not be able to place text at the top of the screen. Again, this is due to RIPscrip, not an error. Also, the fonts Simplex, Complex, Triplex Script, Script, European and Bold Outline require that the user has RipTerm 1.53+ or compatable. Put Pixel --------- Put Pixel allows you to place one pixel at a time in the current draw color. Holding down the mouse button will not keep putting pixels. As placing individual pixels is very inefficient, due to the way RIPscrip works, it is not suggested that you use this command much, but it's included for completeness. Copy and Paste -------------- Two commands that should prove to be extremely useful are copy and paste. Clicking on the copy (scissors) button will allow you to copy a section of the screen into the clipboard buffer. You are limited to 64k (a little over half of the screen) Paste allows you to paste the clipboard image to the screen. Snap-to Grid ------------ This is very useful for making precise marks, or placing a mouse region over an existing mark. To use a grid, simple select the grid button. This will get you a menu allowing you to toggle a visible grid, a snap-to grid, both, or neither, and an option to edit the grid size. When editing the grid size, just click the moise button to adjust one of the two hilited crosses. The nearest one will be automatically chosen. Tombstone Artist 2.0 Page 7 --------------------------------- - Using Tombstone Artist (cont) - --------------------------------- Mouse Regions ------------- Mouse Region are among a few of the commands that make RIPscrip so powerful. Because of this, they are a little more complicated then other commands. When you click on the mouse regions button, you are given a menu. From this menu, you have three options: Del, Add and OK. Del will delete the currently selected button. Add will give you the drawing screen again, and you will be allowed to draw a box on the screen. This box is the Mouse Region, they are displayed as a box with numbers in the center telling which one it is. When you are not in the mouse regions menu, these boxes won't be visible. The box defines an area for that mouse region. A mouse click inside the box will cause that boxes Host Command to be sent. When two boxes overlap, the topmost one is used. After defining the region, you will be given the menu again, where you can define the Host Command. The Host Command is the command sent to the BBS when the users clicks in this region. Any text you type while in the mouse regions menu goes into the current regions Host Command. Control characters appear in white on blue, while normal characters appear as white on black. (So, to send the command M<return> you could enter either M<enter> or M^M. And, it will be displayed as a white on black M, and a white on blue M) You can change whether a region is reversed when it is clicked by clicking on the 'visibly inverted' button. The default is that the regions will be inverted when they are clicked on. All defined mouse regions are listed in a selection box on the left of the menu, and you can change the command you're editing by clicking on the up and down arrows. The final menu command, OK, will simply leave the menu. You will need to select a drawing tool before you can draw again. Mouse Buttons ------------- Mouse Buttons are similar to Mouse Regions, and like the Mouse Regions, are a very important part of RIPscrip. The work exactly like Mouse Regions, except that they will draw a beveled button with text on it, and have hotkeys. Unlike when you place a Mouse Region, an actual button will be displayed, with it's number on it. The user won't see the number on it, instead they will see the button's label. Like Mouse Regions, the buttons will disappear when you are doing anything other than Mouse Buttons. The buttons are visible to the user, but to avoid them being written over, they are placed at the end of the rip file. The commands in the Mouse Button menu work the exact same as those in the Mouse Regions menu, with one noticeable difference. Where there is only one text field in the Mouse Regions menu (Host Command) there are three in the Mouse Buttons menu. The Host Command is again the string that is sent to the BBS when the Button is clicked on. The Label is the text that is displayed on the button, and the Hotkey is the key that the user can press to select that button. (The hotkey is highlighted when the buttons are displayed) You can move between these three fields by pressing the TAB key, or by clicking on one of the other strings with the mouse. Tombstone Artist 2.0 Page 8 --------------------------------- - Using Tombstone Artist (cont) - --------------------------------- Palette Editing --------------- Clicking on the Edit Palette Button will bring up a menu with a button for each of the colors, at their current setting, and a set of 3 sliders for red content, green content, and blue content. To change a palette entry, select the color you want to edit, then adjust the red, green, and blue content until it is satisfactory. To reset the palette to normal, click on the RST (RESET) button. To undo the current changes, but keep your old custom palette, click ABT (ABORT), otherwise click OK when you're done to use the palette you've made. Save RIP -------- This will save the current screen as a RIP file. You will be asked for the filename, which can include the drive and path. If you do not supply a path, then it will be assumed that you wish to save the file to the RIP subdirectory. If you don't supply an extension, then .RIP will be used. If the file already exists, then you will be asked whether or not to overwrite it. You can also save a RIP file by pressing "S". Load RIP -------- This will load a RIP file for editing. You will be asked for a filename, which can include the drive and path. If no path is specified, then the RIP subdirectory will be assumed, and if no extension is supplied, .RIP will be used. If the file doesn't exist, you will be given an error message. You can also load a RIP file by pressing "L". Clear ----- Clear will clear the current screen. If it isn't saved, it will ask if you wish to save it first. The Draw Color, Fill Color, Line Style and Fill Style will all be reset, and all the Mouse Regions and Buttons will be erased. You can also clear the screen by pressing "C". Undo ---- The standard undo. If you make a mistake, undo will remove it. If you're short on memory, you may not be able to use undo on everything. After undoing something, you can change the colors and styles, and then click undo again, and undo will redo what you just did with the new settings. The Load and Save commands will both erase the undo buffer, and you won't be able to undo after using these commands. You can also undo by hitting "U". Quit ---- Exits Tombstone Artist. If the current file isn't save, it will ask you if you wish to save it first. You can also quit by hitting "Q". Tombstone Artist 2.0 Page 9 --------------------------------- Support, Registration and Credits --------------------------------- How to contact us ----------------- Steven lang can be contacted most quickly via internet as tiger@ecis.com You can also send Snail-Mail to: Steven Lang 1542 Pleasant Lane Lafayette, Ca. 94549-2215 How to Register --------------- If you find this program to be useful, it would be appreciated if you would register it. Registering helps keep the shareware idea alive. Registering is only $30. For more info on how to register, please see REGISTER.DOC. Credits ------- Special Thanks to John Friel for the Bezier Curve source code and Bob Martin for spotting the Bezier Curve source code and forwarding it to us. Also to Nancy H. Miller for helping distribute Tombstone Artist, and to Morgan McConnell for reporting a major bug with the mouse button routines. Many thanks to the talented artists at ACiD productions, who sent me the wonderful title graphic new to this version. Very special thanks to Jonothan Lang, who inspired me to start work on Tombstone Artist in the first place. Legal ----- RIPscrip, RIPaint, RIPdraw, and RIPterm are trademarks of TeleGrafix Communications, Inc. Tombstone Artist 2.0 Page 10