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Text File | 1991-11-20 | 13.7 KB | 312 lines

* GENUS FONT EDITOR * Demonstration Version Copyright 1991 Gregg Rodgers All Rights Reserved Release Date: November 20, 1991 GENUS is distributed in the USA and Canada exclusively by CodeHead Software Introduction ------------ GENUS is a fast and powerful editor for Calamus typefaces that uses an icon-based user interface designed for "at-a-glance" operation. Once you get accustomed to the icons, switching functions and invoking features becomes very quick and easy. To make it even simpler to learn to use GENUS's tools, there is an automatic help feature that shows you the function of each icon (in the title bar at upper right) as you pass the mouse cursor over it. The drawing screen incorporates a ruler at the top and side with guide marks displayed and changeable at any time simply by clicking, holding and dragging the letters on the ruler. The guide lines are marked on the top ruler as "L" (left em square), "C" (center), and "R" (right em square). The side ruler marks "U, A, X, B, D, L" are Upper em square, Ascender, X-height, Baseline, Descender and Lower em square. Although the side guide lines are freely positionable, they should remain in this order. The top guide lines are also adjustable, but the "C" line always remains in the center. Guidelines can be locked by clicking the black box where the top and side rulers meet. An "L" will be displayed when the rulers are locked. Calamus uses the position information of these guide lines to properly display the characters. The most important settings are the base line and the upper and lower em square. The Icons --------- Arrow icon: Selected by default. Use to select and move points. Clipper icon: Select this icon to delete lines and curves. Disable this function by right-clicking or choosing another icon. Pencil icon: This along with a LINE or CURVE icon will allow you to draw lines or curves. Place starting points by left-clicking with ONLY the pencil icon highlighted. Choose the curve or line icon to continue. Line/curve: These icons, when selected, determine whether lines or curves will be placed. Note: You may toggle between lines and curves while drawing by using the right mouse button. Auto smooth: When highlighted a small cross cursor is displayed. Click on any point of a path containing curves that you wish smoothed. Four curves set in a diamond or square will generate a circle. Right click to exit this mode. Reverse icon: Reverses the drawing direction of a path. When selected, the mouse changes to a small cross hair. It will de-select itself after you click on any point in a path. Disable by a right-click. The direction of a path can be shown in the kerning window. Connect end This will cause all open paths to connect into points: closed paths. A CLOSE PATH Routine is also called when changing characters or invoking the disk icon. Snap icon: For invoking the snap-to-grid function. Snap coordinates can be set from the calculator. Select all: Click this icon to select all points of all paths. (lasso) Disk icon: The disk icon will display a dialog box where you may load, save, merge or erase font files on your disk. This is also where you fill in the details of font name, your name, company etc. Bit-Image: A fat-bit editor for the font label. Clipboard: For temporary storage of paths or characters. NOTE: Full clipboards may be cleared by pressing the F1 or F2 keys. Calculator: Allows mathematical modifications to sub paths, full characters, or globally to all characters. Pin icon: This icon lets you define the center of rotation. Kerning: For defining the kerning bars for optimized or character width kerning. Tangents: Turns the display of curve tangent lines on and off. Free_form Selecting this icon allows you to draw free-form helplines: helplines that will appear on the screen in the same position no matter which character you are editing. The lines are drawn by left-clicking the start point on the draw screen and, while holding the mouse key down, drawing the line out in any direction. You may have up to 10 lines and 10 circle/ellipses. To erase helplines, right-click the start point. Exit this function by right-clicking. Free-form Ellipse lines are placed in an identical manner Ellipses: as helplines. Helplines are toggled on and off with the F9 key. Zooms: There are four levels of magnification. While in a zoom level from 2 to 4 you may pan and scroll using the black bars that are superimposed over the rulers. Link icon: This will link all previously separate paths into one continuous path. Paths are linked in the order they were placed on the draw screen with the end point of the first path being connected to the start of the next path and so on. Copy Image: While working on a font, you may wish to copy the the image of a character to the background to act as guide when working on a similar shaped character. i.e. "e,c" or "p,b". Camera: Choosing this icon will allow you to load a scanned image saved in Degas PI3,PC3 or IMG format. NOTE: The background images are toggled on and off with the F10 key. Screen Saver: Invoke the built in screen saver with this icon. When this icon is selected, GENUS automatically blanks the screen after 4 minutes of inactivity to save your screen from "burn-in." A small analog clock is displayed in random positions during this time. Hit any key or mouse button to re-activate the editor. Trash icon: For deleting full characters or paths. If no path is selected the full character is deleted. If you hit the trash by mistake you may recover the character by using the UNDO key. Desk: Will clear the screen and display a standard GEM menu bar. You may now call any accessories that you have installed. Choosing "Return To Editor" from the header on the accessory drop down menu will re-display the editor where you left off. All the definable characters are displayed in the character table. To choose a character for editing, simply click it. If you click on the black bar at the top of the character table ALL the defined characters are shown as inverse. Clicking again, anywhere on the screen, returns the table to normal. An alternative character table is available by clicking the table "switch" at the upper right of the table. This will display the 28 character shapes and their corresponding keyboard character. A scroll bar is incorporated to move to any character. Underneath the character table you may display any of two fonts that you may load in from the File menu. You may transfer full characters or paths through the buffers back and forth between fonts. Click the font that you want active at any time. Accessing files: ---------------- When you choose the disk icon, a dialog box will appear that will allow access to your files on floppy or hard disk systems. This dialog box is also where you fill in information on the font name, creator and company. To enter or change information in this area, just click anywhere on the line you wish to edit. Pressing the ESC key will clear the line of any information it holds and allow you to type in the information you wish to be saved along with the font itself. Accessing the files is accomplished by moving the mouse into the box marked DISK. A drop down menu will appear where you may: LOAD CALAMUS Load an existing Calamus font file. SAVE CALAMUS Save the current file in memory. (NOTE: This feature is disabled in the demo version.) MERGE CALAMUS Merge an existing Calamus format font file; any undefined character cells in the font currently in memory are filled with any characters that exist in those cells. LOAD OTHER Load an existing PageStream or Publishing Partner font for conversion to a Calamus font. SAVE CVG Save any single character cell as a Calamus Vector Graphic file. (NOTE: This feature is disabled in the demo version.) LOAD CVG Load a simple (monochrome) CVG image. SAVE PREFERENCES Saves all the settings of the calculator, the current paths and the last picture file type that you have accessed. The next time you boot Genus, the settings will be remembered. NOTE: Paths are set by loading the different file types from their current locations. QUIT Quit Genus and exit to the desktop. Selecting Points ---------------- (With the arrow icon highlighted) To select all points on a single path, hold down the Alternate key and click any point in that path. To select individual points without deselecting previously select points, hold the Shift key while left-clicking a point. To deselect a point, simply click it again. Missing a point (too far away for the routine to find the point) will NOT cause all the points to be deselected, as long as you are holding the SHIFT or ALT key. GROUP SELECTION: While holding the LEFT-SHIFT key, click somewhere to the upper left of a group of points that you wish to select. The editor will first search the character data for a point within range (3 pixel area around a point). If no point is found, the editor will show the mouse as an arrow. Now when you move the mouse to the lower right a rubber box will be drawn allowing you to surround a group of points within this box. On releasing the mouse button all points within the box will be selected. This is especially useful when you want to select a group of points that overlap on top of each other allowing you to move them all at once ... for instance, a start and end point that are in the same position. Note: If you try to copy any points selected in this way into the clip-boards, they will not copy. Individual points cannot be stored this way. Only full paths selected with ALT-click or full characters may be placed into the clip-boards. Box selection of points (even all points) defines them as individual points and not full paths. Each point remains selected until you left-click somewhere off the character without holding the SHIFT or ALT key. All selected points will then be deselected. The Wrap-Up ----------- Of course, there's a lot we haven't told you about GENUS. We haven't even started to explore the wonders of GENUS's automatic kerning functions (for adjusting inter-character spacing), for example. But hey -- after all, this is only a demo! The fully operational version of GENUS is available for the retail price of $175.00 US, either from your local dealer or directly from CodeHead Software. SPECIAL OFFER! -------------- Call the CodeHead order desk at the telephone number below and say you've read this text file, and we'll give you $25.00 off the retail price of GENUS! That's right -- mention this text file and GENUS is yours for only $150.00! But hurry, because this offer will only be good for a limited time. For More Information, or to Order: ---------------------------------- Contact your local dealer or call: CodeHead Software P.O. Box 74090, Los Angeles, CA 90004 Tel: (213) 386-5735 Fax: (213) 386-5789 Visa, MasterCard, and American Express accepted.