ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/GRAPHICS/MISC/ICONED10.ZIP/ICONEDIT.DOC

Text File | 1991-11-25 | 5.6 KB | 129 lines

                          IconEdit V1.0

        by William C. Thompson ([e-mail]) - 11/91

     This icon editor was help make your programs look more
professional by adding an extra artistic element that was before
missing because of the ominous task of drawing the pictures.  This
program makes it all very easy.  You use the editor to create your
icons (variable size), save it to disk, and load it into your
program using the sample program provided below.  You can work on
several icons simultaneously.  Drawing is made easy with intuitive
commands and clicking.  Now that I've put in my plug, let's get
started.

     The first thing anyone wants to do with sort of thing is play
before they start anything real, so I am going to walk through the
program step by step.

     You can select the foreground color by left-clicking in the
color bar.  The foreground color bar change as you select.  The
background color can be selected by right-clicking.  Now that
you're armed with your colors, you're ready to draw.  Left and
right clicking will color in the blocks of the icon.  Each block
represents one pixel.  Notice that the picture is also being drawn
in the first box of the lower-right hand corner.  This is how the
icon will actually appear on screen.  When you're ready to erase
what you've done and start over, select Clear in the menu to fill
the icon with background color.

     Now that you've had a chance to give it a quick test, you
would like to be able to set the size.  Select Set Size in the
menu.  The mouse will disappear, and you will be prompted for the
size of the new icon.  There must be at least two rows (up and
down) and columns (side to side), but no more than fifty of either.
Illegal entries will be ignored.  Pressing ESC will abort the
selection.

     The icon can be easily transformed.  Flip Horizontal will flip
the icon about the horizontal axis.  Flip Vertical will flip it
about the center line.  Rotate Left will rotate the icon once
counter-clockwise, and Rotate Right will rotate the icon clockwise.

     Often you would like to change or erase all of the blocks of
a particular color.  Select this color as the foreground color.
Then select Change Color.  You will then be prompted for the color
to change it to, or you can select Cancel.

     Selecting Grid Color will change the color of the grid to the
foreground color.  This is useful if you are drawing in the current
grid color (light gray) or would like to hide the grid.

     You should now be familiar with all of the basic tools of
drawing.  Once you have created a masterpiece, you would like to
save it.  Select Save in the menu.  The mouse will disappear and
you will be prompted for the file to save it to.  The file will be
saved in the current directory with an .ICN extension.  A sample
program to read the image into a Pascal program is listed near the
end of this document.

     The nine boxes (slots) in the lower-right hand corner store
icons that may be worked on at once.  Simply select one of the
boxes to make that your working slot.  The current slot is
indicated by a yellow rectangle surrounding the slot.  The Copy
option allows you to copy the icon to another slot.

     Select Load to load an icon from disk.  If nothing happens,
either the file does not exist in the current directory, or it was
unable to be accessed.  The icon will be loaded into the current
slot, wiping out everything there, so make sure you select a slot
with nothing important in it.

     Transformations can also be performed on sections of an icon.
Position the mouse to where you want to start selecting a section.
Click both buttons at once to mark the first corner.  You will be
prompted to select the second corner.  You can escape the entire
process at any time be selecting Cancel.  Position the mouse and
double-click again to set the second corner.  A box will formed
around the selected section.  Clear will fill the section with the
background color.  You can also flip it horizontally and vertical.
If the section is square, it can be rotated left and right as well.
You can move or copy the section to another place in the icon.
These require a somewhat more lengthy explanation.

     For each selection, you will be prompted to provide the upper-
left hand corner of the destination.  The destination must allow
enough space for the size of the selection.  When you move a
section, it fills where the section used to be with the background
color.  For moving or copying, squares in section with the
background color are ignored.  This means that any block that is
the background color will not overwrite any block in the
destination.

     This should be all you will need to create your icons, now you
need to read them into a program.

program readicon;
uses
  graph;
var
  gd,gm: integer;
  f: file;
  image: pointer;
  size: word;
begin
  gd:=detect;
  initgraph(gd,gm,<graphics path>);
  assign(f,<icon file>);
  reset(f,1);
  size:=filesize(f);           { gets size of image }
  getmem(image,size);          { allocates memory }
  blockread(f,image^,size);    { reads Size bytes from file }
  close(f);
  putimage(<x-coor>,<y-coor>,image^,copyput);
  readln;
  closegraph;
end.


     All source code (well-documented) is available for $20.  I
would even be willing to make slight modifications for a humble
fee.  Send all inquiries and requests to:

William C. Thompson
11896 Carlton Rd. Box 620
Cleveland, OH 44106

I can be reached via E-mail at [e-mail].  If you prefer more
primitive means of communication, I can be reached by phone at
[phone], but be prepared to leave a message. :)