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-
- FONTEDIT RELEASE 1.0 12/91
- ---------------------------
-
- Written by Chris Howe
- Dept. of CS & EE
- University of Vermont
- Burlington, VT 05405
-
-
- *********************************************************************
- *** This Program is Copyright (c) 1991 by Chris Howe ***
- *** Version 1.0 of this program is released to the public domain. ***
- *********************************************************************
-
-
- INTRODUCTION:
-
- Fontedit is an interactive, mouse-oriented editing tool for
- manipulating the character sets of DOS based computers equipped
- with VGA graphics hardware. Right now, it can only edit text mode
- fonts, but the capability to edit graphics mode fonts may be added
- later if there is sufficient interest.
- A 286 CPU and VGA hardware are required. A mouse is
- required to use interactive mode.
-
-
-
- INTERACTIVE MODE:
-
- Type "Fontedit" with no parameters, and the Work Box will pop up.
-
- The large rectangle on the left side of the Work Box is an enlarged
- view of the currently selected character. Clicking in this area
- will toggle various pixels of the character on and off.
-
- The small box to the right of this area gives an actual-size view
- of the selected character, as well as its ASCII code. When you
- run Fontedit, the initial selection is the Null character (ASCII 0).
-
-
-
- THE TEN BUTTONS:
-
- Clicking on any of the ten buttons will cause the following actions:
-
-
- NEXT: Increment the ASCII code by one, and edit that character.
- Pressing Next at code 255 will go to code 0.
-
-
- PREV: Decrement the ASCII code by one, and edit that character.
- Pressing Prev at code 0 will go to code 255.
-
-
- LIST: Display a table of all 256 characters. Click on any character
- to go directly to it and begin editing. When the table pops
- up, the mouse cursor will be on the currently selected
- character, so you can click on it to return to the Work Box
- without changing anything.
-
-
- FILL: Turn all of the pixels in the selected character on. This can
- save editing time if the character you want to create make is
- going to be composed mostly of pixels that are on.
-
-
- KILL: Turn all of the pixels in the selected character off.
-
-
- RESTORE ONE: Restore the currently selected character to its
- pixel pattern that was found when Fontedit was started.
-
- SUGGESTION: If you are making radical font changes, save a
- font file containing the normal, default VGA font before you
- begin working (see file functions below). Since the restore
- functions only remember what the font was since the latest
- invocation of Fontedit, this could save you from having to
- reboot to reset things.
-
-
- RESTORE ALL: Restore all characters to their pixel patterns that
- were found when Fontedit was started.
-
-
- SAVE: Save the current state of the font to a file on disk.
- The filename entry box may seem small, but it can scroll
- horizontally to accommodate long paths. The arrow keys are
- not active, but the scrolling will occur automatically as
- needed while you are typing characters or backspace editing.
-
- The escape key will cancel the save operation, as will
- pressing Enter with no filename specified.
-
- NOTE:
-
- The mouse is not enabled during this operation.
-
-
- LOAD: Load a font file from disk into the VGA font hardware.
- When you click on the Load button, a list of the files
- in the current directory will appear, along with a box
- above it containing the current path.
-
- WHAT TO DO:
-
- - You can move to a filename with the up and down arrow keys.
-
- - Pressing enter will load the file.
-
- - The list will scroll for larger directories, and the
- page-up and page-down keys are active.
-
- - Subdirectories are preceded by the character, and
- pressing enter will switch to that directory.
-
- - To move up a directory, press enter with the selection
- over the ".." entry, which is preceded by the character.
-
- - You can cancel the load operation by pressing Escape
- at any time.
-
- NOTES:
-
- The mouse is not enabled during this operation.
-
- You can only access the current default drive.
-
-
- CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE:
-
- The directory menu style is modeled after
- Vern Buerg's classic LIST utility.
-
-
- EXIT: Quit, return to DOS.
-
-
-
- COMMAND LINE MODE:
-
- Fontedit [-f filename]
-
- This will load a font file that was previously created with
- Fontedit, without going into interactive mode. This allows
- you to load a customized font from your autoexec.bat file.
- A mouse is not required for this mode.
-
- Note: do not type the square brackets. They indicate that the
- enclosed argument is not required to run Fontedit.
-
-
-
- NOTES:
- A small amount of screen interference is normal while the program
- updates the VGA's internal font tables.