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- Atlantic Information Management Inc. June 16, 1985
-
-
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- VINCENT
-
-
- VINCENT is a very easy to use screen painter designed to produce screens
- that are useable in remote applications for bulletin board systems. Two
- versions of each screen are produced. One with the ANSI.SYS escape
- sequences embedded in it and the other in direct video ram buffer
- format. Each screen also has an associated data definition file to
- locate input data areas. All attributes that are supported by direct
- video ram I/O (0-255) are accessible through VINCENT.
-
-
- SCREEN PAINTER - VINCENT COMMAND
-
- To execute the screen painter, enter the command
-
- C> VINCENT screen-name
-
- Where "screen-name" is the name for a screen. This must
- be specified WITHOUT a .qualifier as one is created.
-
- EXAMPLE:
-
- VINCENT test
-
- will create the following files:
-
- TEST.SCR - screen image
-
- TEST.DFD - Data field definitions
-
- TEST.DAT - Empty file to contain data input.
-
- TEST.VRM - file containing video ram image
-
- DATA FIELDS
-
- To define a DATA INPUT field, enter '@' characters
- where the data will be entered.
-
- EXAMPLE :
-
-
- OPTION ===> @@@@@
-
- Defines an input field 5 positions long.
-
- All data definitions are written to the .DFD file
- in the format :
-
-
-
-
-
- 1
- Atlantic Information Management Inc. June 16, 1985
-
-
- LINE COL LENGTH RAM-ATTRIBUTE ANSI-ESCAPE-SEQUENCE
-
- Where LINE and COL are the starting coordinates of the
- input area, LENGTH is the length and ATTRIBUTE is a number
- from 0 to 255 representing the video ram attribute
- character (i.e. 7 is white on black). The ANSI-ESCAPE-SEQ
- is the escape sequence that ANSI.SYS uses to create this
- color. There is one line in this file for each data field.
- The DFD file is in ASCII format and can be listed using
- "type".
-
- VIDEO RAM FILE (.VRM)
-
- The video ram file (.VRM) contains 4000 characters which
- can be written directly to the video ram buffer. The
- data stream is in the format character-attribute pairs
- running form screen location 1,1 tp 25,80 ; left to right,
- top to bottom.
-
- USING THE SCREEN PAINTER
-
- The screen painter has a simple screen editor contained
- within it. Generally, you can type anywhere on the screen
- and that will be placed into the file. Additionally the
- following commands are available:
-
- KEY FUNCTION
-
- ^a - APPEND a line after the current line
- ^d - DELETE a line
- ^l - LAST last character repeat
- ^q - QUIT without saving data
- ^r - REPEAT a line
- ^p - PAINT paint colors
- ^u - UNDO undo from last save
- ^w - WRITE to file (save)
- ^x - XPAINT repeat last paint color
- INS - INSERT character
- DEL - DELETE character
- ESC - ESCAPE (quit)
- PGDN - PGDN go down page
- PGUP - PGUP go up page
- HOME - HOME go to line 1 ,column 1
- END - END Erase to end of line
- CURSOR(s) - CURSOR Move cursor on screen
- ENTER - ENTER redraw screen
- --->| - TAB forward
- |<--- - TAB backward
-
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- Atlantic Information Management Inc. June 16, 1985
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- When the ^P key is depressed a color palette is displayed. To
- abort color selection you can use the ESC key. Select one of
- the colors by positioning the cursor over the color combination
- desired and depress enter. The input screen will then be
- redisplayed. To color an area on the screen do the following :
-
- 1) Select the starting position of where to color by
- positioning the cursor and depressing the enter key.
- This will start the painting operation.
-
- 2) Use the cursor keys to position the color area and
- depress ENTER to complete the operation.
-
- 3) To abort window selection use the ESC key.
-
-
- Data in in the input file is NOT saved each time
- the screen is cleared or any special commands are used.
- Use the (^w write) command to explicitly save the data.
-
- WARNING - WAIT FOR THE SCREEN TO BE COMPLETELY REWRITTEN
- BEFORE ENTERING ANY OF THE CONTROL KEYS.
-
-
- DISPLAYING A SCREEN
-
-
- The VINC utility is provided which can display a screen
- and retrieve the users input data. THIS IS A VERY SIMPLE
- program written in "C" and provided in source and executable
- form. A much more elaborate program could be created.
-
- To use VINC.
-
- FROM BASIC:
-
- 00..... SHELL "VINC screen-name"
- ' file screen-name.DAT has data in it
- ' one ASCII record for each data field.
- ' These are written to the file from left to
- ' right, top to bottom.
-
- FROM .BAT
-
- VINC screen-name
-
- FROM "C"
-
- 1) AS SYSTEM COMMAND
-
-
-
-
-
- 3
- Atlantic Information Management Inc. June 16, 1985
-
-
- system("vinc screen-name") ;
-
- 2) AS A SUB FUNCTION
-
- Alter the code as follows :
-
- REMOVE
- main(argc,argv)
- int argc;
- char *argv[];
- INSERT
- vinc(name)
- unsigned char name[];
-
- REMOVE
- strcpy(filename,argv[1]);
- INSERT
- strcpy(filename,name);
-
- 3) VINC has been tested using the C86 compiler
- small model. (V2.20J)
-
- Finally, there is one aditional utility provided: SHOW which
- is identical to vinc but uses the video ram image (.VRM) file for
- very fast local screen processing.
-
- A quick note for use of VINCENT with RBBS-PC:
-
- VINCENT should help build/modify color menu screens easily.
- To create a color graphics welcome menu, for example:
-
- VINCENT WELCOMEC
- RENAME WELCOMEC.SCR WELCOMEC
-
- In editting a screen, an IBM graphic character can be created
- with an ALT-asciicode entry. Characters can be repeated with
- the ^r command.
-
- VINCENT writes .SCR files beginning with a clear screen escape
- sequence. Each screen is written out as 24 lines. If you want
- a shorter screen use an editor or other utility to delete
- records as necessary.
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