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ALTAMIRA A Graphics Editor for the IBM PC by Brodie Lockard MANUAL FOR Altamira GRAPHICS EDITOR Version 1.0 1 - Introduction........................................1 2 - Getting Started, Help, Getting Out, and Printing....2 3 - Moving the Cursor, and Object Commands..............3 4 - Manipulation Commands...............................6 5 - Additional Commands and Tips........................9 6 - Macros.............................................11 7 - Files..............................................15 8 - Colors, Palettes, and Customizing the Defaults.....16 9 - Translating Designs, Bitmaps, and User Support.....17 10 - Command Summary....................................19 11 - Glossary...........................................20 (C) Copyright 1985 by Brodie Lockard. All rights reserved. These programs are provided on an "as is" basis without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to quality and performance of these programs is with you. Should the program prove defective, you assume the entire cost of all necessary repair, servicing, or correction. In no event will the author be liable to you for any damages, including any lost profits, lost savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use these programs, even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such damages. 1 - INTRODUCTION Welcome to ALTAMIRA! This user-supported software is for anyone who wants to draw pictures or diagrams on their IBM PC, or experiment with the color graphics capabilities of the machine. It is not a business- graphics package, nor a scientific graphing tool. You will not find bar graphs, exploding pie-charts or log-log scales in here. But you will find the tools to do many fun and useful things: with ALTAMIRA you can design logos, create posters and cards, plan a garden, make maps, draw floor plans, or just create beautiful pictures. ALTAMIRA was written for the IBM PC, and it will run on some PC-compatible machines (the Zenith Z150, for example). Specifically, you need an IBM or compatible color/graphics adapter, a color monitor, one double-sided disk drive, 128K of memory, and DOS 2.0. If you have 192K of memory, you'll be able to make more detailed displays. You can use this program with a monochrome monitor running off the color/ graphics adapter, but you won't be able to take advantage of some of the features. ALTAMIRA runs on the IBM Enhanced Graphics Adapter in 320x200 4-color mode. ALTAMIRA makes it possible for you to draw pictures on your computer's screen by moving a cursor to indicate where you want to put lines, circles, boxes, and so on. Once you draw an object, you can change its color, change its size, rotate it, move it, copy it to another place on the screen, or erase it. All control is via the keyboard, so you don't need a mouse, joystick, lightpen or touch screen. The cursor keys move the cursor, and single-key commands draw the objects. The objects you can draw include boxes, filled boxes, lines, dotted lines, dashed lines, vectors, dots, circles, dashed circles, filled circles, arcs, polygons, horizontal and vertical hatching, ellipses, filled ellipses, and text. You can also change the screen's background color, change the distance the cursor moves at each step, and manipulate groups of objects. You can save your design in a file, add to it from another file, or display one design on the screen while editing another one. You can set up your own initialization file so that ALTAMIRA always starts out the way you want it to. Finally, designs can be saved as bitmaps, or translated into Pascal so they can be included in your own programs (if you have Turbo Pascal version 2.00 or higher). Inspiration for ALTAMIRA comes from many sources, but in particular from the ID/SD graphics editor on the Control Data PLATO (C) system. I have often wished the PLATO system had color, but I have also often wished the IBM PC had 512x512 resolution. I would like to thank Hector Mandel of Urbana, Illinois for sharing his INKEY.COM program, without which ALTAMIRA would have been much more troublesome to write. Altamira is the site of a cave near Santillana del Mar in northeast Spain. Paleolithic cave paintings discovered there in 1879 are acknowledged to be one of the summits of prehistoric art. -1- 2 - GETTING STARTED, HELP, GETTING OUT, AND PRINTING GETTING STARTED To begin using ALTAMIRA, type "AM" at the DOS prompt, and press ENTER. (If your system has only 128K of RAM, type "AM128" at the DOS prompt and press ENTER.) You will be asked whether you already have a design. Press "n" and you will be in the editor. The dot in the middle of the screen is the cursor. The numbers at the top right of the screen tell you where the cursor is. The screen is 320 dots wide, and 200 dots high. The bottom left dot is 0,0; the top right dot is 319,199. Two sample picture files have been included for you to play around with: TREK.DES and USAMAP.DES. If you want to try editing these designs, press "y" when you start editing, and type in the name of the file, without the extension (e.g., "TREK"). You can move the cursor by pressing the white keypad number keys at the right of your keyboard. If you're using a monochrome monitor with the color/graphics adapter, rename the file MONO.DEF to be ALTAMIRA.DEF before you begin. HELP While you're editing, pressing "?" will show you a summary of commands. Try a few of these commands by pressing the command's letter (e.g., "l" for line). The object will be drawn wherever the cursor is. See sections 3-5 for details on how these commands work. GETTING OUT To get out of the editor, press "Q", or ESC, and then "y". If you've created a design, you will be asked whether you want to save it. If you don't, press "n". If you do, press "y" and then enter the name of a file in which to save your design. Do not include an extension in the file name you enter (see section 7 for details). PRINTING If you have DOS 2.0 and a printer that does graphics, you can print any of your designs by following these steps: 1. Use the GRAPHICS.COM routine that came on your DOS disk (type "graphics" at the DOS prompt, and press ENTER). 2. Go into ALTAMIRA, and display your design on the screen. 3. Make sure your printer is on, and press SHIFT-PrtSc. -2- 3 - MOVING THE CURSOR, AND OBJECT COMMANDS MOVING THE CURSOR The cursor is the little dot in the center of your screen when you begin editing. Move it by pressing the white keypad number keys at the right of your keyboard. If you hold down a keypad key, the cursor will move continuously. You can move the cursor in bigger steps by using the keypad keys while holding down a SHIFT key, or by "locking" the keypad with the NumLock key. Initially, pressing a shifted cursor key will move the cursor 10 dots. If you want to change this distance, press "j" and enter the new distance. The shifted keypad-5 key will return the cursor to the center of the screen (160,100), and shifted keypad-. (keypad-period) will put the cursor at the bottom left of the screen (0,0). CTRL-Home will mark the cursor's current position as a "homebase." CTRL-End will return the cursor to its most recent homebase. If you move the cursor off one side of the screen, it will "wrap around" and appear on the other side. OBJECT COMMANDS ALTAMIRA lets you put objects on the screen by typing commands on the keyboard. Once the objects are on the screen, you can change their colors, move them around, and so forth (see Manipulation Commands). This section lists the commands for producing these objects. A * next to a command means that the command requires two points--for example, two opposite corners of a box must be indicated for the box to be drawn. For *ed commands, first press the command letter (e.g., "b" for box), then move the cursor to the second point needed, and press either SPACE or ENTER (whichever you like) to complete the object. Here is a summary of the commands for drawing objects. Details are on page 4. Command Object Required point(s) ------- ------ --------------- . dot only one l line end point d dotted line end point | dashed line end point V vector end point *b box opposite corners *f filled box opposite corners *h horizontal hatching opposite corners *v vertical hatching opposite corners *a arc end points, intersection point *o circle center, any edge point *O filled circle center, any edge point *keypad0 dashed circle center, any edge point *e ellipse center, a point showing width & height *E filled ellipse center, a point showing width & height gray* repeat last obj. 2nd point of whatever last object was , repeat current obj. 2nd point of whatever current object is *z polygon center, any vertex t text starting point of text p reset point only one g grid only one -3- Objects will be drawn in the color of the cursor. You can change the cursor's color with the "c" command (see below). The last two commands in the list, "reset point" and "grid," do not actually create objects. The l, d, | and V commands will take the cursor's current position as the second endpoint, and will assume the first endpoint to be the location where something was last drawn. If you want to establish a different first endpoint, without actually drawing an object, press "p". The "g" command draws a grid on the screen, starting at the cursor position and continuing horizontally and vertically, to the edges of the screen. The lines are spaced according to how far the cursor is set to jump ("j" command). This grid is not a real object; it is only for judging distances and planning displays, and it will disappear if you replot the screen. For arcs, you must supply three points: a starting point, an ending point, and a third point for the arc to intersect. Press "a" at the starting point, and SPACE or ENTER at the other two points. Large arcs can be very slow to draw; smaller arcs are not too bad. The program therefore only allows arcs up to a certain size. Arcs with a radius greater than 600 will not work, though an attempt will be made to draw them using lines. When you press "e" or "E" for an ellipse, the cursor's position will be stored as the ellipse's center. You should then move the cursor as far sideways, and as far up or down, as you want the ellipse to extend, and press ENTER. For example, pressing "e" with cursor at 100,100 and then ENTER with the cursor at 130,110 will produce an ellipse with its center at 100,100, its left and right edges at 70,100 and 130,100, and its top and bottom edges at 100,110 and 100,90. To enter text, press "t", type in the text, and press ENTER. ALTAMIRA was not designed with text in mind, and its text capabilities are somewhat limited. There is a limited amount of space allotted for text, but you can Duplicate any existing text as much as you like. In the graphics mode that ALTAMIRA uses, text can only be positioned within 40 columns and 25 rows. You cannot position text at any dot you like--eight dots one way or another is as precise as you can get. Be careful, therefore, when you move text around on the screen. Also note that you cannot move text off the screen. It will either wrap around, or wedge itself into one corner of the screen, but it will always be displayed, unless you DELete it. Text cannot be Sized or Rotated, but it can be Colored, Moved, DELeted and Duplicated (see the next section). The "repeat last object" command will create whatever object you last drew, using the cursor's position as a reference point. If you just drew a box with its second corner at 50,50, moving the cursor to 100,100 and pressing the gray* key will produce a box of the same size and thickness, with its second corner at 100,100. Its color will be determined by the cursor's current color. There is also a "repeat current object" command. See the next section for an explanation of the "current object." -4- Some commands will ask for additional information. All of these commands have default values which will be used if you press ENTER without typing anything. For instance, once you've set the points for a box, you'll be asked how thick you want the box to be, in dots. If you just press ENTER, a value of one will be used automatically. If you feel unsure about any of these commands, give them a try and they should become more clear. -5- 4 - MANIPULATION COMMANDS THE CURRENT OBJECT The program always considers some object to be the "current object." This object can be used as a reference point for various commands. You can see which object is the current one at any time by pressing "=". Objects are stored in the order they're drawn: the first object you draw is object #1, the second is #2, and so on. The current object is object #1 until you change it, as you can do with the following commands. The white - and + keys move the "current" marker backward and forward one, respectively. The gray - and + keys make the current object the first and last object, respectively. The number keys across the top of the keyboard, 1234567890, move forward 1 to 10 objects, and these keys' controlled counterparts, CTRL-1 through CTRL-0, move backward 1 to 10 objects. Typing "G" will let you set the current object to whichever object you like, by number. When you change the current object, the new current object will flash, and its name and final coordinates will be displayed for reference. The "#" key tells how many objects there are, the maximum number of objects allowed, and the number of the current object. For example, "25/2000 objects, Current=10" means there exist 25 objects out of a possible 2000, and the current object is object #10. There is a maximum of 2000 objects in AM; a maximum of 1000 objects in AM128. MANIPULATION COMMANDS Once you have some objects on the screen, you can manipulate them in various ways. To manipulate objects, first indicate what you want to do with them, by pressing one of the following keys: M move C color DEL delete D duplicate S size R rotate Then, indicate which objects you want to manipulate, by pressing one of the following keys: 0 objects of color 0 (the background color) 1 objects of color 1 2 objects of color 2 3 objects of color 3 A all objects C the current object # several objects, starting at the current one (you're asked how many) BACKSPACE abort the manipulation You will be prompted for any necessary information, as follows (press ENTER alone for default values). -6- Move "Moving" (Default=No Change) Move the cursor in whatever direction, and for whatever distance, you want to move the objects, and then press ENTER or SPACE. For example, if the cursor is at 100,100 when you press "M", and at 120,30 when you press ENTER, the objects will be moved right 20 dots and down 70 dots. WARNING: If you move something off of the screen, it will still be there, as long as you don't move it too far. The area you have to work in is bordered by lines at -3200 below and to the left, and 3200 above and to the right. If you manipulate an object into one of these borders, it will get smashed and you will probably have to redraw it. Since 3200 is ten times the width of the actual screen, you shouldn't have to worry much about these borders. Color "What color(0123)?" (Default=No Change) Press the number, 0, 1, 2 or 3, that you wish to be the new color of the selected objects. Note that color 0 is the background color, so pressing 0 will change the objects' color to that of the background, usually making them invisible. DELete "Press y to delete (y/n)" This prompt is just to keep you from unintentionally deleting something. Press "y" to delete the selected objects; press "n" (or anything else) to change your mind. Duplicate "Duplicating" (Default=Directly on top of original objects) Move the cursor in whatever direction, and for whatever distance, you want to move the duplicate objects in relation to the original objects, and then press ENTER or SPACE. For example, if the cursor is at 100,100 when you press "D", and at 120,30 when you press ENTER, the objects will be moved right 20 dots and down 70 dots. If there is not enough room to duplicate all of the chosen objects, you will be given the chance to cancel the duplication by pressing "c". See the warning above under Move. Size "Change X's size by what (-10..10)?" (Default=1) "Change Y's size by what (-10..10)?" (Default=1) Enter two numbers, one at a time, to indicate by what proportion you wish to change the objects horizontally (X), and vertically (Y). Negative numbers flip the objects around. For example, entering 2 and -.75 will double the objects' width, squash them to 3/4 of their current height, and flip them upside-down. Entering -1 and 1 will not change their size, but will reverse them left-to-right. Take care not to Size things -7- too extremely (see the warning above under Move). When you Size something, ALTAMIRA tries to keep the result on the screen, towards the bottom left. Circles, ellipses and polygons may sometimes extend past the screen's edge, and on rare occasions, with extreme sizes, sets of objects may go off the screen completely. If this happens, try Moving the objects down and left, carefully, until you get them back in sight. Note that Sized objects will sometimes become a bit distorted--lines may become jagged and so on. This effect is a limitation of a 320x200 screen, and regretfully cannot be avoided. Rotate "Rotate how many degrees (0..359)?" (Default=0) Enter the number of degrees you want to rotate the objects counterclockwise. The objects will be rotated around the cursor's current position. You can think of this manipulation as sticking a pencil into the screen where the cursor is, and pivoting the objects around the pencil. Note that because of the way they're drawn, some objects cannot be rotated: boxes, fills, horizontal and vertical hatching, ellipses, filled ellipses, and text are unaffected by this manipulation. If you think you'll need to rotate a box, use four lines instead. FILE MANIPULATIONS Several options involving files are available by pressing "F": 1 Save this design in a file. 2 Read a design from a file, and add it to this design. 3 Leave this design on the screen, but switch to editing another one. 4 Save your current macros in a file. [Macros are explained in section 6.] 5 Append a file of macros to the current ones. 6 Translate this design into Pascal. [See section 9.] 7 Save this design as a bitmap. 8 Return to editing your design. 9 Leave the program. These options should be self-explanatory, with one exception. There is not an option to explicitly stop editing your current design and switch to another. To do this, either DELete all your objects, or if you want to save them, press "F", choose option 1, and then DELete them; then press "F" and choose option 2. Option 3 lets you display one file while editing another (for example, you might want to see the floorplan of a house's second story, while editing the floorplan of the first story). Note that after choosing this option, if you do anything to replot the screen, the design you are not editing will not be redrawn. See section 7, Files, for more details. -8- 5 - ADDITIONAL COMMANDS AND TIPS There are a number of other commands which don't quite fall under Object Commands or Manipulation Commands. Here they are. ? See the help page, a summary of the commands available. Q Quit the program. You can also quit by pressing ESC, CTRL-C, or CTRL-Break. L Move the status line to another line (1-25). This is the line that shows the cursor coordinates and prompts. Press ENTER to leave it alone. X Toggle the display of the cursor X,Y coordinates. If you don't want the position of the cursor to be displayed, press X. n Replot the screen. N Redraw all the objects, but without erasing the screen first. c Change the color of the cursor. You'll be asked which color you want (0-3). B Change the color of the background. You'll be asked which color you want (0-15). T Change the color of the text used in prompts and for the cursor coordinates. You'll be asked which color you want (0-3). P Change the current palette. You'll be asked which palette you want (0-3). (To exit the c, B, T, and P commands without changing anything, press ENTER or BACKSPACE. See section 8 for more information about colors.) j Change the distance the cursor moves with each press of a shifted keypad key. This number is initially 10. Press ENTER alone to exit without changing anything. SPACE or ENTER Clear the status line. If you're drawing a *ed object (e.g., a Box or a Circle), pressing SPACE or ENTER will complete the object. If you're not drawing a *ed object, these keys will clear the status line. BACKSPACE Erase/Abort. BACKSPACE will erase the last object you drew. If you are in the midst of drawing an object which requires more than one point, BACKSPACE will get you out of that midst (abort the object). -9- INS Insert an object just before the current object. This command is useful when you want to add an object but you don't want it to be the last object. Press INS and then add your object. If the current object is, say, #9, the object you insert will become #9, and the current object marker is moved to object #10. The current object therefore stays the same, so that you can insert several objects in a row without worrying about where the current object marker is. Just press INS before you add each object, and they'll be inserted in the order you create them. TIPS Take some time to plan your display before you start creating it. Make use of the grid command to estimate dimensions and proportions. You can make your display much easier to change if you draw related objects in the same color. Objects of the same color can be manipulated together without disturbing the rest of the display. Take advantage of this feature, and use the Color command to group objects together. The combination of current object, manipulating by #, and the INSert command also makes it easy to change displays after they're created. Learn how these commands work, and make use of them. Macros can save you a lot of repetitive effort. After you feel comfortable with the rest of the commands, read about macros in section 6 and try them out. -10- 6 - MACROS When you are creating designs, you may have reason to repeat a certain set of objects over and over. You can do this with the Duplicate command, but if you have to duplicate things many times this approach can be tedious, and it takes up a lot of space (see section 7, Files). Both of these problems can be solved by using macros. Macros in ALTAMIRA are much like macros in word processing packages and other software. If you are drawing, say, the floor plan of a building, you may need to redraw some things many times--doorways, windows, stairs, and so on. You can save yourself a lot of work by drawing a window once, and recording it as a macro. Then whenever you need to draw a window, you can tell ALTAMIRA "put this macro here," rather than redrawing the whole window each time. HOW MACROS WORK Once you have drawn the set of objects you wish to record as a macro, press "m". The menu "Macros: Edit/Record/Draw/Size/Line/Zap/<-" will appear on the status line. Press "R" to Record a number of objects as a macro, starting at the current object, and enter the number (one macro can contain a maximum of 30 separate objects, or 20 separate objects if you're using AM128). The macro will be recorded, and you can continue editing. To put a macro into your design after it has been recorded, you must know where the macro has been stored. You can be using up to 90 different macros at any time, and each macro has a number from 1 to 90 associated with it. When you record a macro, it's stored in the next available slot, so the first macro you record will be macro #1. Once it's recorded, you can put it into your design by pressing "m" (for "macro"), then "D" (for "Draw"), and then entering "1". When you record a macro, its objects are stored in relation to the point 0,0. When you draw a macro, its objects are drawn in relation to where the cursor is. So if you draw a macro with the cursor at 20,10, its objects will show up 20 points to the right, and 10 points above where they were when you recorded them. It is therefore usually best to draw your macros toward the bottom left corner of the screen. Try a couple and you'll see what I mean. Once you have recorded three or four macros, it's going to be hard to remember which is which. If you press "m" and then "E", you will be taken to the Macro Editor, where you can organize your macros--copy them, delete them, move them around, and revise them. The editor is a 9x10 grid, showing all of your current macros in their appropriate boxes, at 1/10 scale. (This explanation will make a lot more sense if you go into ALTAMIRA and record a few macros, then go into the Macro Editor, and try the following commands as you read about them. The following explanation assumes you are using Palette #0.) -11- When you're in the Macro Editor, one of the boxes around one of the macros will be red, instead of brown. This macro is the "current macro," and its number is shown at the screen's top right. To change which macro is the current one, use the cursor keys as usual. The shifted cursor keys move the red box to the four sides, and four corners, of the grid. Besides moving the red box (and current macro) around, you have the following options. These options are listed at the top of the screen, and are accessed by pressing E, Del, M, C, Z, or ENTER. Edit - Edit a macro. If there is room, the current macro will be added, object by object, to your current design. You can then edit these objects as you wish, and record them into another macro slot. The original macro will not be changed. DELete - Delete a macro. The current macro will be deleted. Mark - Mark a macro for copying. The current macro will be outlined in green, and become the "marked" macro. Copy - Copy the marked macro. If there's anything in the current macro, it will be deleted, and the marked macro will be copied into the current one. Use M, C and DEL to move macros around in the grid. Zap - Delete ALL the macros you're using. You'll be asked for confirmation. ENTER - Leave the Macro Editor and return to the regular editor. Macros can be Moved, Colored, DELeted, Duplicated, and Sized. They cannot be Rotated. To rotate a macro, go into the Macro Editor, Edit the macro, and rotate its objects together. You can then save the objects as another macro if you wish. Macros cannot contain other macros or text. Note that though a macro is made up of individual objects, the macro itself is a single object. So if you're manipulating a number of objects, be sure to count a macro as only one object, no matter how many individual objects it may contain. Also note that a macro's objects may be of the same, or of different colors. If all the objects in a macro are of the same color, the macro is considered to be of that color. If a macro contains objects of different colors, then the macro itself has no definite color, and it will not be affected when you manipulate a group of objects by color. Nor can individual objects within the macro be manipulated by color, as this would break up the macro. There are four other options available when you press "m" from within the regular editor. BACKSPACE merely clears the status line (hit BACKSPACE if you've pressed "m" by accident). "Z" will delete all of the present macros, just as in the Macro Editor (you'll be asked for confirmation). "L" is explained on the next page. "S" will let you set the X and Y sizes for the macros you draw. Besides having a position, macros have an X-size and a Y-size. The X-macro-size and Y-macro-size are both set to 1 by default, but you can change these sizes so that when you draw a macro it will be bigger, or smaller, than -12- when you recorded it. If you want to draw a macro and make it half as wide and twice as high as when you recorded it, press "m", and then "S", enter .5 and 2, and then draw the macro where you want it. To return to "normal" sized macros, press "m", then "S", and then enter 1 and 1. SHORTCUTS There is a handy shortcut to drawing macros and keeping track of their numbers. Instead of having to enter the Macro Editor to see which macro has what number, you can view ten of your macros on the screen while you're in the regular editor. Pressing the F1 key will display macros 1-10 at the bottom of the screen. Pressing F2 will display macros 11-20, and so forth, up to F9 (F10 does nothing since there are only 90 macros). The shifted function keys, SHIFT-F1 through SHIFT-F10, will draw the first through tenth macro of the set which is currently displayed on the screen. So if you press F3, macros 21-30 will be displayed on the screen; if you then press SHIFT-F5, macro #25 will be drawn wherever the cursor is. F1 followed by SHIFT-F9 will produce macro #9. F8 followed by SHIFT-F8 will produce macro #78. If you want the line of ten macros to be displayed somewhere other than the bottom of your screen, press "m" and then "L", and type in a number from 1 to 10. Entering 1 will display the line at the top of the screen; entering 10 will display it at the bottom; other numbers display it in between. There is one further shortcut still. A set of ten macros need not be displayed for the shifted F-keys to work. When a shifted F-key is pressed, the current macro is checked to see which row of ten macros it's in (1-10, 11-20, etc.). This row, and the shifted F-key, are used to determine which macro to draw. So if you left the red box in the Macro Editor at macro #47 (row 5), pressing SHIFT-F6 will produce macro #46--the sixth macro in the fifth row. Furthermore, pressing an unshifted F-key moves the current macro into the appropriate row. (If this is confusing, don't let it worry you--it's just a shortcut. You can always use "m", "E" to check which macro number you want, and then use "m", "D" in the regular editor.) A FEW MORE DETAILS ABOUT MACROS When you draw a macro, its number, location, and size are stored. If you then change that macro, the new version will be displayed EVERY PLACE you had the old one, in whatever size the old one was drawn. So if you record and draw a few macros, and then go into the Macro Editor and move them around, your design will change accordingly. For this reason, it is wise to plan and record as many of your macros as possible before using any of them. Also note that once a macro is recorded, the objects which went into it can be deleted, and the macro will remain intact. -13- If you Size a macro after drawing it, it may not end up just where you expect. When ALTAMIRA sizes macros it tries to keep them in the same place. This works well for Sizing single macros, but if you Size a macro together with some individual objects, or with some other macros, they will probably end up spread apart from each other. You can always Move them individually after you Size them. You may wish to have several macro sets, depending on what kind of design you're making. YOU MUST SAVE YOUR MACROS IN A FILE IF YOU WISH TO USE THEM AGAIN. This can be done via "F" in the regular editor. When you return to editing a design that contains macros, you must have the correct macro file loaded, or your macros will not be displayed correctly. If you have no macro file loaded, macros will not be displayed at all. Don't panic, they're still there--they're just not being shown. See section 7, Files. -14- 7 - FILES If you want to save a design you've made, you can do so at the end of the editing session, or at any time while editing by pressing "F". If you edit a file that already exists, that file will not be changed unless you save a design in it later. Designs are actually saved in file pairs: one file for the design, and another file for text, if there is any in your design. Any file name you specify is given a .DES extension for the design file, and a .TXT extension for the text file. (Therefore, the file name you enter cannot contain a period.) For instance, if you call a file pair "myfile", a file called MYFILE.DES will be created to store your design. If the design includes any text, a second file called MYFILE.TXT will be created to store that text. If your design contains text, be careful to keep the .TXT file on the same disk with the .DES file. If you don't, the text in your design won't be displayed correctly. If you are using macros in your design, YOU MUST SAVE THOSE MACROS IN A FILE IF YOU WISH TO USE THEM AGAIN. Press "F" and choose option 5, "Save your current macros in a file." The file name you enter will be given a .MAC extension automatically, so do not include a period or extension in your file name. Whenever you edit a design that uses a certain set of macros, the correct macros must be loaded from the appropriate file. Load a file of macros by pressing "F" and choosing option 6, "Append a file of macros to the current ones." The file of macros whose name you enter (don't type in the ".MAC" extension) will be added to the macros you are currently using, starting at the end of the current macros. If the macros you're reading in are supposed to start at number one, you should Zap your current macros before appending. (If you want to save your current macros, do so before you Zap them.) When you leave the program, if you have made changes to your macros since you last saved them, you will be warned and given the chance to save them in a file. Designs are stored in a compact format to save space, so .DES, .TXT and .MAC files cannot be edited except through ALTAMIRA. The more objects you have in a design, the bigger the .DES file will be. Similarly, the more macros you have in a design, the bigger the .MAC file will be. But, because macros' numbers are significant, when you save a file of macros, every macro is saved from #1 up to the macro with the largest number, even if some of those macros are empty. Therefore (although empty macros don't take up much space), you can save a little space on your disk by keeping your macros' numbers low. .TXT files are of constant size, no matter how much is in them. Designs can also be saved in bitmap form, or in Pascal source code form, for use in your own programs. See section 9 for details. -15- 8 - COLORS, PALETTES, AND CUSTOMIZING THE DEFAULTS The colors ALTAMIRA uses are chosen from a palette of three foreground colors and one background color. The foreground colors are predetermined by the palette, but the background color can be any of the 16 colors which can be shown on the IBM PC using the standard IBM color/graphics adapter. There are four palettes available, numbered 0-3. Within a palette, the background color is color number 0, and the other three colors are numbered 1-3, as follows: Color number: 0 1 2 3 Palette 0 Background Green Red Brown Palette 1 Background Cyan Magenta LightGray Palette 2 Background LightGreen LightRed Yellow Palette 3 Background LightCyan LightMagenta White When ALTAMIRA starts up, it looks for a file called ALTAMIRA.DEF, and uses the numbers there to determine certain things like the color of the cursor. If no file called ALTAMIRA.DEF exists on the default disk drive, the program uses internal values. The ALTAMIRA.DEF file that came with this package looks like this: 0: Palette Number (0-3) | COLOR CODES: 1: Text Color (0-3) | 0: Background Color (0-15) | 0 Black 8 DarkGray 1: Cursor Color (0-3) | 1 Blue 9 LightBlue 3: Help text color #1 (0-15) | 2 Green 10 LightGreen 6: Help text color #2 (0-15) | 3 Cyan 11 LightCyan 160: Initial cursor position (X) | 4 Red 12 LightRed 100: Initial cursor position (Y) | 5 Magenta 13 LightMagenta 1: Status line (1-25) | 6 Brown 14 Yellow 10: Macros line (1-10) | 7 LightGray 15 White 1: Show cursor position? (1=yes 0=no) |___________________________ 10: Shifted keypad keys jump this many dots (1-100) 2: Version of Turbo Pascal (C) you're using If you want ALTAMIRA to start up with different values, use your favorite text editor to change this file. The program only looks at the numbers in front of the colons, on the first thirteen lines. The rest of the file is there only for reference. Read the charts carefully, and be careful changing these values! Inappropriate values can have strange results. For instance, if you change Palette Number to 1, and Background Color to 3, the cursor and the background will both be cyan, and you won't be able to see the cursor. If there are any real errors in your ALTAMIRA.DEF file, internal values will be used. Most of these values can be changed from within the editor. See section 5, Additional Commands. In addition to the ALTAMIRA.DEF file, this disk comes with a file called MONO.DEF, which contains values for running the program on a monochrome monitor attached to the color/graphics adapter. If you're using this setup, rename the MONO.DEF file to ALTAMIRA.DEF, and everything will be legible on your monochrome monitor. -16- 9 - TRANSLATING DESIGNS, BITMAPS, AND USER SUPPORT TRANSLATING DESIGNS ALTAMIRA is written in Turbo Pascal (C). If you want to insert a design you've made into another Turbo Pascal program, follow these steps: 1. When you get your design the way you like it, press F, choose option 6, and enter a filename (without an extension). A file of that name, with a ".TRA" extension, will be created, and filled with the Pascal procedure calls needed to draw your design. Don't worry about text or macros--everything will be translated correctly, as long as it's displayed on the screen correctly. 2. Insert the file's contents into a procedure in your program (procedure "MyDesign", for example). Also include in your program the necessary procedures from the file OBJECTS.PAS, which is on your ALTAMIRA distribution diskette. Some of these procedures call each other--be sure to include all the needed ones. Alternatively, you can include the entire OBJECTS.PAS file in your program by using the compiler directive {$I OBJECTS.PAS} at the top of your program (just before your first procedure). 3. Wherever you want to display the design in your program, be sure you're in GraphColorMode, and call procedure MyDesign. See the Turbo Pascal manual, version 2 or 3, for details about GraphColorMode. If you're using a palette other than #0, you'll need to set that with a call to Palette(X); where X is the palette number you want. 4. There is a messy detail in translating concerning which version of Turbo you have, 2.0 or 3.0. In Turbo 2.0, there is a bug in the DRAW command: DRAW(X1,Y1,X2,Y2,Color) does not light point X2,Y2 when X1<>X2. The function DrawX near the top of OBJECTS.PAS corrects for this. However, if you have Turbo 3.0, DRAW works correctly and DrawX is not needed. ALTAMIRA checks the file ALTAMIRA.DEF to see which version you're using, and writes "Draw" or "DrawX" to the translation file, as appropriate. If you're using Turbo 2.0, you don't need to do anything. If you're using Turbo 3.0, you should edit ALTAMIRA.DEF to indicate that fact, and then edit OBJECTS.PAS to delete procedure DrawX and to replace each occurance of "DrawX" with "Draw". ALTAMIRA will then translate designs correctly for you. BITMAPS Designs can also be included in your own programs by saving them in bitmap format. This format takes 16K of space on a disk for any design (no matter how many objects are in it), and is much faster to load and display than inserting a .TRA file as described above. Designs are saved as bitmaps (with the extension ".BIT") by using file option 7 in the main editor ("F", then "7"). The image shown on the screen in the editor is exactly what will be saved, so be sure to get rid of the cursor and its coordinates if you don't want them there. You can do -17- this by changing the cursor color to 0, and pressing "X" to toggle the cursor coordinates. You can display any bitmap you've saved by including the following procedure in your program and defining the type STR80 = STRING[80]. Then call DisplayBitMap('mydesign.bit',PalNum,BGColor); where 'mydesign' is the name you entered when saving your design, PalNum is the number of the Palette you want, and BGColor is the number of the background color you want. PROCEDURE DisplayBitMap(BitMapFile: STR80; PalNum,BGColor: INTEGER); TYPE GBuff = ARRAY[0..16383] OF BYTE; { graphics screen buffer } VAR BitMap : FILE; VisiBuf : GBuff ABSOLUTE $B800 : $0000; { screen memory } BEGIN{DisplayBitMap} GRAPHCOLORMODE; PALETTE(PalNum); GRAPHBACKGROUND(BGColor); FILLCHAR(VisiBuf,SIZEOF(VisiBuf),CHR(0)); { clear graphics buffer } ASSIGN(BitMap,BitMapFile); RESET(BitMap); BLOCKREAD(BitMap,VisiBuf,128); { BLOCKREAD the screen to buffer } CLOSE(BitMap); END{DisplayBitMap}; USER SUPPORT If you are using ALTAMIRA and finding it of value, please consider a contribution, in whatever amount you feel is appropriate ($20 is suggested). Thanks for your support! Brodie Lockard 479 Santa Clara Ave. Redwood City, CA 94061 (415) 368-4967 You are encouraged to copy and distribute ALTAMIRA and its related files, to upload them to bulletin boards, and to otherwise share them, provided you distribute only the original files, include all the files, and charge no fee or consideration of any kind. The ALTAMIRA diskette is available from the above address if you send a formatted diskette and a stamped, addressed diskette mailer. Brodie Lockard August 1985 -18- 10 - COMMAND SUMMARY OBJECT COMMANDS a arc o circle b box O filled circle (spot) . dot keypad0 dashed circle d dotted line t text | dashed line v vertical hatching e ellipse V vector E filled ellipse z polygon f fill , repeat current object h horizontal hatching gray* repeat last object l line F1-F9 show macros m macro menu SHIFT- F1-F10 draw a macro MANIPULATION COMMANDS M move D duplicate C color S size Del delete R rotate OTHER COMMANDS c change cursor color B change background color T change text color F file manipulations L move status line X toggle x,y j set jump size P change palettes g grid n replot N replot without erasing p reset point INS insert an object SPACE/ENTER clear status line <- erase last object ? help ESC quit COMMANDS FOR CHANGING/SHOWING THE CURRENT OBJECT # show # of objects = flash current object 1-0 go forward 1-10 objects G go to any object CTRL- 1-0 go back 1-10 objects gray+ go to last object + go forward 1 object gray- go to first object - go back 1 object MOVING THE CURSOR On the keypad: 1-9 move the cursor one dot SHIFT- 1-9 move the cursor ten dots SHIFT-5 center cursor SHIFT-. move cursor to 0,0 CTRL-Home set homebase CTRL-End return to homebase -19- 11 - GLOSSARY abort - To stop a command in the middle and not complete it. Altamira - The site of a cave near Santillana del Mar in northeast Spain. Paleolithic cave paintings discovered there in 1879 are acknowledged to be one of the summits of prehistoric art. background color - The color of the screen, any of 16 colors numbered 0-15. current macro - The macro framed in red in the macro editor. current object - An object kept track of by the program and used as a reference point for certain commands. cursor - The dot moved around the screen to indicate where objects are to be drawn. default - A value used when no other value has been specified. design - A collection of objects, text, and macros. dot - The smallest part of the screen that can be colored or erased. In ALTAMIRA the screen is 320 dots wide and 200 dots high. file pair - Two files, one containing objects and the other containing text. If there is any text in a design, saving the design will create a file pair, instead of a single file. The file containing objects has a DES extension; the file containing text has a TXT extension. filename - A name given to a file, one to eight characters in length. In ALTAMIRA, the symbols must be taken from the following: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 $ & # @ ! % ' ` ( ) - { } _ ^ ~ \ filename extension - A label, one to three characters in length, which may be added to a filename. The filename and extension are separated by a period. ALTAMIRA uses one of five extensions, depending on what's in a file: BIT, DES, MAC, TRA or TXT. F-key - A function key, F1 through F10. foreground color - One of three colors determined by the palette in use. Objects are typically drawn in a foreground color. hatching - A set of evenly spaced lines. help page - A summary of the commands available. Press "?" to get there from the regular editor; press ENTER to leave. -20- initialization file - The file ALTAMIRA.DEF. When ALTAMIRA starts up, it uses the numbers in this file to determine certain things like the color of the cursor. If no such file exists on the default disk drive, internal values are used. macro - A collection of objects, treated as a single object. Macros have a size, a location, and an associated number between 1 and 90. macro editor - The portion of the program which lets you mark, copy, and delete individual macros. Press "m" and then "E" to get there from the regular editor. Press ENTER to return to the regular editor. manipulation command - A command to move, rotate, or otherwise change an object or group of objects. marked macro - The macro framed in green in the macro editor. A macro must be marked before it can be copied. object - A line, circle, box, or other shape drawn on the screen. object command - A command to create an object and draw it on the screen. palette - A predetermined set of four colors--one background color and three foreground colors. Four palettes are available, numbered 0-3. Within a palette, the foreground colors are fixed but the background color can be changed. PC-compatible - Able to run software originally written for the IBM PC. picture file - A file with a DES extension, containing a design. polygon - A multi-sided figure, such as a triangle or pentagon. regular editor - The portion of the program you will usually be using. When you're creating or manipulating objects, you're in the regular editor. replot - To redraw the screen. source code - The programmed instructions used by the computer to create a usable program. status line - The line that shows the cursor coordinates and prompts. text - Writing; words and symbols (as opposed to objects like boxes and arcs). translating - Changing a design into a file with a TRA extension, the contents of which can be included in another Pascal program. -21- Turbo Pascal (C) - The compiler used to change ALTAMIRA's source code into AM.COM. user-supported software - Software which can be freely copied and shared, but which carries a notice asking for a contribution to the author if the software is found to be useful. Such contributions are the only compensation the author receives for his or her work. vector - A line with an arrowhead on one end. -22-