ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/GRAPHICS/MISC/WEAVE20.ZIP/WEAVE.DOC

Text File | 1991-09-09 | 25.8 KB | 619 lines

OVERVIEW
********

`WEAVE' is written for IBM PC's and compatibles in Turbo Pascal 5.5,
and will provide a graphical display of a pattern after you provide
the draft.

Some basic features:

   * up to 16 treadles, 16 shafts

   * up to 1023 warp or weft threads

   * rising or sinking sheds

   * 16 colors for color monitors

   * ability to edit colors in palette

   * 5 `shades': black, dark grey, grey, light grey, white for
     monochrome monitors and printing

   * view graphics pattern at 4 possible magnifications

   * print graphics pattern or draft  on Epson-compatible printer

   * save patterns as files for later editing

   * editing capabilities:

        * insert/delete rows or columns

        * repeat, copy, transfer blocks, or entire region, of a pattern

        * color substitution and exchange

        * mouse support for cursor positioning

The draft is made by moving the cursor around in a screen with the
warp pattern at the top of the screen, weft pattern on the right, and
the tieup in the upper right corner, as drafts are usually published.
Threads, shades and tieups are selected or deselected with various
function or numeric keypad keys.  The pattern associated with the
draft is displayed on the remainder of the screen (in text mode).
For large patterns, the text screen represents a window for which one
can move around and view other portions of the draft and its
associated pattern.  Auxilliary features such as printing are menu
driven.

The graphics display uses the graphics mode of the screen to display
the pattern without the draft.  There are four magnifications, the
smallest corresponding to one pixel per thread, and the others with
two, four and eight pixels per thread, respectively.

The program supports color on EGA and VGA monitors, and dithered
shades of grey on a Hercules compatible or CGA monitor [as well as on
the color monitors].  (Since the CGA palette has only 4 colors, and
the color capability of the program uses a palette of 16 colors, a
CGA monitor has been programmed to display high-resolution
monochrome.) The shades of grey match the graphics printout.

FILES ON THE DISK
=================

   * WEAVE.EXE - the executable program

   * WEAVE.DOC - this file

   * WEAVE.HDW - a default loom configuration file which you can
     change (see below)

   * *.PTN - sample pattern files for you to load and edit

   * *.WRP - sample warp files

   * *.TRD - sample treadling files

   * *.TIU - sample tieup files

   * *.CLR - sample color palette files

INSTALLATION
============

2-Floppy System
---------------

Make a working copy of your diskette using the DOS DISKCOPY command,
or copy all the files explicitly using the DOS COPY command.

Hard Disk
---------

Create a subdirectory called `WEAVE', or any other name of your
choice.  At the DOS prompt, place the original floppy in  drive A:,
and then copy all files from the diskette using the  DOS COPY command.

Alternatively, by means of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, you may place the
actual program WEAVE.EXE somewhere on your path (such as a binary
subdirectory containing other executable programs), and setting the
environment variable  `WEAVEDIR' to be the directory containing the
configuration file WEAVE.HDW plus any pattern (.PTN) files, e.g., as
follows:

   * `set weavedir=c:\weave\'

The program may then be run from any directory on the disk.

RUNNING `WEAVE'
***************

To start `WEAVE', make sure that either your floppy is in the
current default drive, or your default subdirectory contains  all the
files copied from the original diskette.  Then, at the DOS prompt, type

   * `weave'

If everything loads successfully, you should see the threading/tieup
screen.  It contains 3 basic regions:

   * warp [across top]

   * weft/treadle [down right side]

   * tieup [upper right corner]

You may edit one of these regions at any one time.  As you edit, the
information in all three regions is combined to display the resulting
pattern.  You can get essentially immediate results when trying
various combinations of warping, tieup and treadling.

Basic Operations
================

The most common operations are performed using the numeric keypad and
keys surrounding it, with a few other characters from the keyboard.

Quit [`Q']
----------

To get out of `WEAVE', press `Q'.  You should be prompted with

   * `Really Quit (Y/N)?'

Press `Y' if you really want to quit.  The DOS prompt should then
return.  If you press any other key, you will remain in `WEAVE'.

Select Region [`Home - PgUp - PgDn']
------------------------------------

The region you wish to edit is selected by pressing

   * `Home' [warp]

   * `PgUp' [tieup]

   * `PgDn' [treadling]

You should see the cursor jump to the region chosen.  It becomes the
*active region.*  By definition, there is only one active region, and
some actions will not be possible if the cursor is not in the
appropriate active region.

Arrow Keys
----------

Use the Up-Down-Left-Right arrow keys to move about within a given
region.  The current row and column are displayed at the lower right
of the screen, and the current shaft or treadle is displayed in dim
video in the upper right corner.  As you move past the end of either
the warp or weft display, the pattern will scroll to keep the cursor
in view until you reach the first (#1) or last (#1023) thread.

Select/Deselect Thread/Treadle [`+/-']
--------------------------------------

Use the `+' key to select a shaft for a warp thread in the warp
region, a particular connection of shaft to treadle in the tieup
region, or a treadle in the treadle region.  Your choice nullifies
any previous choice of shaft for warp thread or treadle for weft
thread [multiple treadling is currently not available for this
program...].  To cancel any particular choice, press the `-' key.  If
nothing is there to cancel, the key has no effect.

Select Thread with Number Keys
------------------------------

Within the warp region, you may select threads by entering the shaft
number: 1--10 for shafts 1--10, and ALT-1--ALT-6 for shafts 11--16.
The cursor will automatically move one column to the left.  Initial
entries proceed more quickly this way than with the +/- key entry
method.  The same feature applies in the treadle region, with the
cursor moving down one row after each entry.

Color Selection [`F1-F10,  Shift F1-Shift F6']
----------------------------------------------

The warp and treadle regions each have their own *active colors.*
Each thread selected for warp or weft is assigned that color.  You
can change the active color by pressing one of the 16 color function
keys: F1--F10 and Shift F1--Shift 6.  The current thread (warp or
weft) will immediately take that color, and the chosen color becomes
the default color for that region, that is, all future Thread Select
(`+' key) presses will have that color until another color is chosen.
The colors in the inactive region are not affected.

On a monochrome system, and when patterns are printed, the only way
of representing colors is through shading, or dithering.  There are
five shades, Black, Dark Grey, Grey, Light Grey and White.  Note that
`Black' means no image on the screen, and `White' means the color of
the monochrome display (white, amber or green).

Repeat Pattern
--------------

When you have entered all pattern information in the warp region to
make it unique (as you would when you copy the complete warp pattern
from a pattern book or magazine article), make sure that the cursor
is positioned at the last warp thread, then press the `R' key.  The
warp pattern will then be duplicated for up to 1023 warp threads;
this repeat length is also used by the graphics display utility.  Do
the same thing for the weft pattern.  If you wish to change the
pattern or the repeat length, simply press `R' at the end of the new
pattern when you are ready.

Clear Region [`ALT-C']
----------------------

Press `ALT-C' to clear all information in any of the three regions.
Note that if you clear the tieup region, the treadles are no longer
connected to anything, so the pattern is lost.  However, the
treadling and warp information is still there: a pattern will
re-appear when you enter a new tieup.

Print Pattern [`P']
-------------------

Press `P' to obtain a print (on an Epson-compatible printer) of your
threading and treadling information.  The format will resemble
typical published pattern matrix illustrations.  If you have a large
pattern of either warp or weft threads or both, the printout may take
more than one page.

Advanced Operations
===================

Jump Rows/Columns
-----------------

To move around more quickly within the warp or weft regions, hold the
`CTRL' key down and press the desired arrow key.  This will shift the
cursor slightly less than one screenful.

Jump to Beginning/End
---------------------

To move to the beginning or end of the currently defined pattern,
hold the `ALT' key down and press the desired arrow key.  The ``end''
of the pattern is given by the number of the largest row or column
displayed on the status line at the bottom of the screen.

Insert/Delete Row/Column `[Ins/Del]'
------------------------------------

To insert a column just to the left of the cursor in the warp region,
press the `Ins' key.  The shaft connection must be supplied for that
new row.  To delete the column containing the cursor, press the `Del'
key.  Similarly, to insert a row just below the cursor in the weft
region, press the `Ins' key.  To delete a row, press the `Del' key.

Block Functions [spacebar/`B']
------------------------------

A *block* is a subsection of a warp or treadle region.  You can copy
and repeat blocks of a pattern within the warp or treadle region, or
copy from one region to the other.  A block to be repeated or copied
must first be defined.  To begin, press the spacebar.  A block in the
region containing the cursor is now `active'.  As you move the
cursor, you will see a highlighted region which shows what `WEAVE'
considers the block to be.  When you have highlighted the desired
region, press the spacebar a second time.  The block is now
`defined'.  You may now make (multiple) copies of the block anywhere
you like.  Move the cursor to a point where you wish the first thread
of the copy (rightmost thread in the warp region, topmost thread in
the weft region) to be, and then press `B'.  You will then be
prompted for the number of copies of the block to be made, starting
at that the cursor location.  Enter the desired number equal to or
greater than 1.  The entire contents of the block, including color
information, is copied that number of times.  A block can be copied
only if it is defined (an active block cannot be copied).  At any
time, if you press the spacebar a third time, the block is turned
`off', and the highlighting disappears, and you are free to define a
new block for that region.  You can also easily define a block with a
mouse (see below).  There are separate block functions for the warp
and weft regions.  Leaving a block in the `defined' state does not
affect any other operations.

There are several other block functions available.  If you wish to
copy or repeat a block in a region, but without transfering the
colors, press `ALT-B'.  If you wish to copy a block from one region
to another (say, from warp to treadle), make sure a block is defined
in the `from' region, place the cursor at the desired starting point
in the `to' region, and press `X' to copy/repeat without color
transfer, and `ALT X' to copy/repeat with color transfer.  Note that
`B' and `X' have opposite functions regarding color: the most common
use is expected to be transfering both pattern and color within a
region, and pattern only between regions, but both options are
available.

To reverse the sequence within a block, press `V'.  For example, a
block in the warp region with shaft sequence 123343 will become
343321.

Region Functions
----------------

In addition to manipulating blocks, or subsections, of a region, you
can copy from one entire region to the other.  The square weave, or
*trompe as writ,* function enables you to copy the warp pattern onto
the treadling sequence.  For example, if the warp sequence is
123443..., then the square weave function makes the treadling
sequence also 123443... Press `S' to get square weave without color
transfer, and `ALT-S' to have the color transfered also.

You can also `flip' the pattern--interchange warp and treadling--by
pressing `L', which also exchanges the colors, and `ALT-L', which
does not.

Color Functions
===============

If you have a VGA or EGA monitor, you can make use of a palette of 16
colors in your pattern.  You can reassign colors by number to the
warp and weft threads in your pattern.  In addition, you can edit the
actual colors in the palette, as well as reassign the shades of grey
associated with each color in the palette for purposes of printing or
for viewing on a monochrome monitor.

Color/monochrome toggle
-----------------------

When editing your pattern, the `M' key allows you to toggle between
color and monochrome modes (only on color or monochrome VGA monitors;
on a monochrome monitor, the mode is always monochrome).  This allows
you to inspect the graphics display to see how it will print, since
the dithering in monochrome mode is the same as that used to print
the graphics display.

To access the remaining color functions, press `C' to get the color
menu.

Color reassignment
------------------

The `S' key allows you to substitute all occurrences of one color in
a region with another.  Pressing `X' lets you interchange all
occurrences of any two colors within a region.  The `B' key allows
you to set all colors in a defined block to a new color.  The `R'
does the same thing in an entire region.

Palette editing and shade mapping
---------------------------------

To alter the actual color or shade of grey assigned to a palette
number, press `M' to get the color Map menu, then press the key
(F1--F10, Shift F1--Shift 6) for the color number you wish to modify.

To edit the color (VGA or EGA monitors only), press `P' to get the
Palette menu.  The color is determined by it numerical content of
Red, Green and Blue, each with a strength from 0 to 63.  You can
change the strength of each of these primary colors (note that these
are primary light colors, corresponding to the phosphors on a color
monitor, as opposed to primary pigment colors) by pressing `R', `G'
or `B', and then pressing the Up or Down arrow key.  If you press
CTRL-Up or CTRL-Down, the number changes by 4 units, and ALT-Up or
ALT-Down changes the number by 16 units if you want to move around
quickly.

While the RGB content fully defines the palette color, there are
three auxilliary quantities supplied for your convenience which you
can also edit in place of the primary quantities, namely, Hue,
Saturation and Luminosity, which range from 0 to 255.  The Hue
measures the location of the color on the spectrum from violet to
red.  The Saturation gives the color's purity, where 255 is the
purest, and 0 represents grey (washed out).  The Luminosity gives the
brightness of the color.  You may wish to edit these instead of the
RGB numbers directly, because they may better represent the way you
think about how to relate one color to another.  To do this, press
`H', `S' or `L' and use the Up/Down arrow keys.  As you go up or
down, you will see the RGB numbers change to accomodate a change in
Hue, Saturation or Luminosity, with the other auxilliary quantities
held fixed.

You can edit any of the six numbers associate with the color content
as much as you like.  If you like your final result, press `A' to
accept the redefined palette entry.  When you return to your pattern,
all threads with that color palette number will be displayed with the
new color.  If you don't wish to preserve your palette change, press
`C' to cancel your changes and leave the entry the way it was.

To change the shade of grey associated with a color number, press `S'
in the Palette/Shade menu.  Then press `B', `D', `G', `L' or `W' to
associate Black, Dark Grey, Grey, Light Grey or White, respectively,
with that particular palette entry.

Mouse Functions
===============

If you have a mouse with a Microsoft-compatible driver that has been
loaded before running `WEAVE', you can use it for cursor positioning
and block commands.  Clicking the "left" mouse button in any of the
three regions will cause that region to become active, and the cursor
will be positioned at that location.  Clicking the "right" mouse
button in the warp or treadle regions will cause that region to
become active, and a `copy block' will be defined as the region
containing the point where the mouse was clicked and the cursor
location for that region.  If a block region is active or defined,
clicking the left button will also deactivate that region.  The
result is that you can position the cursor and outline copy blocks
quickly with the mouse.

Auxilliary Functions
====================

Title [`T']
-----------

You can give your pattern a title of up to 60 characters by pressing
`T'.  You will then be prompted for the title.  It will be displayed
on the screen, and appears on all printouts of pattern matrix or
graphics displays.

Graphics [`G']
--------------

When the pattern matrix is displayed on the screen in text mode, you
can generally see only a portion of a complete pattern in the
remainder of the screen.  The graphics mode of `WEAVE' allows you to
see a much larger portion of the pattern.  Press `G' to move to
graphics mode.  The screen will clear, and a menu will appear with
options for the size of the pattern to be displayed, a print option,
along with `Q' to return to the pattern matrix screen.  The four
pattern sizes are selected by the function keys

   * `F1' : Smallest

   * `F2' : Smaller

   * `F3' : Larger

   * `F4' : Largest

The `Largest' size is comparable to that displayed on the pattern
matrix screen (text mode).  Each successively smaller size has half
as many pixels for each thread, ending with `Smallest', which has one
pixel per thread.  Since a pixel can only be on or off on the
monochrome display, shading is achieved by making subpatterns with
greater or smaller numbers of pixels either on or off.  Thus the
shading will look best in the `Largest' display, while for the
`Smallest', there will be a shading effect only in an average sense.
For many applications, `Smaller' and `Larger' (`F2' and `F3')
represent attractive compromises.

When the graphics display is complete, it waits for a keypress before
displaying the graphics menu.  This allows you to use a `hot key'
screen capture utility, if you have one, to capture the graphical
pattern without the appearance of the menu.

You can sometimes speed up the graphical display by pressing
`ALT-F1'--`ALT-F4'.  Under this option, a complete repeat length of
the pattern is displayed, then rapidly copied to the rest of the
screen.  Only full copies of the repeat pattern are made, so the
final image may be smaller than when you choose the first method,
where the computer recomputes the image at every point, but the
display time is much shorter, especially for `Smallest' size option.

To get a graphics print of the display, press `P'.  The image printed
is 720 x 348 pixels (the size of a Hercules screen) regardless of the
size of your particular monitor.  Black dots correspond to blank
portions of the screen, and white dots correspond to an illuminated
pixel (the color of the phosphor).

Press `Q' when you are done with the graphics utility to return to
the print matrix screen.

Hardware and Defaults [`H']
---------------------------

`Hardware' in this case refers to the physical properties of your
loom.  These include the number of shafts, number of treadles, and
whether the shed is rising or sinking.  When you first start `WEAVE',
the default is four shafts, six treadles and a sinking shed, for
which X's appear in the tieup region.  To change any of these, press
`H'.  You may then select the menu items to change shaft number [S]
or treadle number [T].  You will be prompted for the number you wish
(maximum 16 in either case).  Pressing `X' or 'O' will toggle the
shed between rising, for which O's appear in the tieup region, and
sinking, for which X's appear.

If you wish your modified choices to be the default configuration
when `WEAVE' starts up again, press `D'.  These choices will then be
saved in a file (WEAVE.HDW).  If this file is present at startup,
`WEAVE' will read it and use those settings instead as the default.
If you have set the environment variable `WEAVEDIR' to a directory
path of your choice, `WEAVE' will read and write the hardware
configuration file using that path.  You may always change them at
any time within `WEAVE', though all pattern information is cleared if
you change shaft or treadle number.

Size Compatibility Issues
-------------------------

When copying sequences between regions, it may happen that the two
regions don't have the same width, say, there are four shafts and six
treadles.  When working with entire regions, the basic rule of thumb
is that `WEAVE' will always enlarge a region to fit the incoming
information, if necessary.  For example, if you load a treadle file
with six treadles into a pattern that has only four, then the new
pattern will have six treadles.  No information is lost, but of
course the tieup region at that point only has four out of six
treadles connected, so you must supply additional information to make
this action meaningful.  The same idea applies to the square weave
and pattern flip options described above.  For block copying between
regions, however, no such accomodation is made.  For example, if a
six-treadle block is copied into a four-shaft warp region, sequences
which refer to numbers 5 and 6 will be blank, and you must supply the
missing information.  If you really want six shafts, then you can
make that change using the Hardware menu before you copy the block.

If you enlarge the number of treadles or shafts from the Hardware
menu, no information is lost, but you will have to fill in the empty
tieup sections to make such a change meaningful.  If you reduce the
number of treadles or shafts, then `WEAVE' will keep what it can, but
sequences which refer to the now-missing numbers will become blank.

Files [`F']
-----------

Any pattern or region which you create can be saved as a file, which
can be retrieved later for further editing or printing.  Press `F' to
get the Files menu.  A submenu will appear with the keywords
`Pattern', `Warp', `Treadle', `TieUp' and `ColorMap'.

To work with a pattern, press `P'.  A second submenu will then appear
with the options `Save', `Load' and `Delete'.  To save a pattern,
press `S'.  You will be prompted for a name of up to 8 characters
(the extension .PTN is added by the program if you do not supply
one).  All pattern size, threading, treadling, shed and shade
information is saved in the file.  To load a file, press `L'.  A box
will appear displaying all files with the extension .PTN.  Simply
enter the desired file name (i.e., without the .PTN extension) to
retrieve the pattern.  A few sample patterns are included on the
original diskette.  To delete a file, press `D'.  Follow the same
procedure as for loading a file, only this time the file will be
erased.

Warp files contain all information about a warp region.  Their file
names carry the extension .WRP, and they can be saved, loaded and
deleted in the same fashion as complete pattern files.  Treadle files
carry the extension .TRD and TieUp files the extension TIU.  If you
stay with these extensions, you do not need to enter them when typing
a file name--the extension is added automatically.

You can also save the palette and shade assignment to the 16 palette
entries in a file which can be loaded at a later time.  For example,
you may have a single pattern using a particular set of color
numbers; with several color files, you can reassign the palette
entries to try various color schemes which together may span more
than 16 colors.  ColorMap (.CLR) files can be saved, loaded or
deleted in the same fashion as the other types of files discussed
above, using the Files main menu.

`HELP!'
-------

To save screen space for the pattern, the only visible options
displayed are those with submenus, along with the `Quit' option and a
keypad map, which contains all functions available within `WEAVE'.
Press `K' to get the first page of the map, and use the spacebar to
cycle through the map pages, and return to the program.

PROGRAM NOTES
*************

Program History
===============

   * 5/89: version 1.0

   * 5/90: version 1.1 -- added environment support and file delete
     options

   * 5/90: version 1.5 -- added color support and warp/treadle entry
     by number [from Phil Scadden (New Zealand)]

   * 11/90: version 1.6 -- fixed file naming bug, added CTRL/ALT
     keypad functions, added mouse support

   * 12/90: version 1.8 -- added various block manipulation and color
     substitution features; added separate file options for each region

   * 1/91: version 2.0 -- added palette/shade editing functions;
     added fast graphical display option

Some of the patterns in the distribution are taken from The
Handweaver's Pattern Book, by Marguerite Davidson.

For any other questions or comments, I can be reached at the e-mail
address below.

`WEAVE' may be freely distributed, or distributed for a nominal
copying/mailing fee, but may not be sold for profit.  `WEAVE' carries
no warranty, and the author assumes no liability in its use.

Brad Keister
[e-mail] (internet)
keister%poincare.phys.cmu.edu@CARNEGIE (BITNET)