The program EasyPaint is a small graphics program, which is going to show you the different aspects of programming with EasyGem. Please do not compare this small demo program with professional drawing programs.
The program creates a menu with the most important functions, defines and uses dialog boxes, and utilizes all three types of windows. A careful study of the program text will easily illustrate the possibilities of the EasyGem commands.
There are a few pictures in the folder "Pictures," which you may load for practice purposes using the menu item 'Open...'. The pictures were created with the program "MadArt," which was completely programmed using Omikron Basic. If your computer is set to an indirect color mode (256 colors or less), then a new color palette will be created for each picture. This can result in some of the control elements such as window frames, menus, etc. being somewhat obscured. Therefore, it is recommended to switch first to direct color mode (thousands or millions of colors). This will also improve the color quality of the pictures.
Program Use:
We do not want to spend a lot of time explaining what happens when the menu item 'Save' or 'Print' is selected. Such standard functions are probably well known to all users. But we do want to point out a few special items or items that are not self-explanatory.
File Menu:
First, clicking on "New ..." will open a dialog box, which may be used to indicate whether you want to open a text or graphics window. If you decide on a text window, please do not forget the fact that the width and height dimensions of a virtual text window have to be set in letters and not in pixels.
When using "Open ..." and after the FILESELECT box has been exited, first the file type of the file is requested. If you are dealing with a text file, then a text window opens automatically, in case of an image file, a graphics window.
WARNING: If the file is the wrong type, it may be possible that, for example, EasyPaint tries to load an image into a text windows, an action that is of course impossible.
Edit Menu:
This menu offers the usual functions such as cut, paste, copy, insert and delete. A special case exists when using the insert option in a graphics window. If the target window contains an already marked block, then the image is inserted into that block and its dimension adapted to the size of this block. If a block has not been marked, then a ghost frame gets stuck to the mouse pointer as soon as the mouse is moved in the target window. By pressing the mouse button, it is possible to insert the block at the position of the ghost frame. If an additional modifier key is pressed together with the mouse button, then the process will be canceled.
Graphics Menu:
A possible application for user windows is illustrated here. You may open windows to choose line patterns, fill patterns as well as drawing tools. The tool properties are displayed in a dialog box. This might not be a very easy to use method but, remember, this is only a demo program, illustrating how to define and call a dialog box.
Mixed Menu:
This menu offers options to change the size of the virtual window or the text attributes. Of special interest is the third menu option, namely because it shows how to call a dialog box without relinquishing control of the program.
