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- The Draftsman
-
- Version 2.0
-
- for
-
- Mah Jongg -V-G-A- Version 2.0
-
-
-
-
- The Draftsman, Mah Jongg -V-G-A-, and all documentation
- Copyright 1989 Ron Balewski
-
-
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-
-
-
- WHAT IS THE DRAFTSMAN?
-
- The Draftsman is a drawing program specially designed to draw
- and modify tiles for Mah Jongg -V-G-A-.
-
-
- WHAT DO I NEED?
-
- The Draftsman requires a VGA graphics card and monitor and a
- Logitech compatible mouse. You can also use a two-button mouse
- such as the Microsoft mouse, however certain operations which
- depend on the center mouse button will be unavailable to you.
-
- Any PC-XT or compatible with 512k of memory will run The
- Draftsman just fine. You can probably get by with less memory, but
- I don't know the exact lower limit.
-
- Of course, you need Mah Jongg -V-G-A-. But that should be no
- problem, because you got this program with MJVGA!
-
-
-
- USING THE DRAFTSMAN
-
- ==> Drawing
-
- First, be sure that all of the .ICN files, PAL.CFG, and
- DRAFTSMN.EXE are on the same diskette (or in the same hard drive
- subdirectory). Then, log onto that drive or subdirectory and type
- DRAFTSMN to start the program.
-
- All drawing must take place in the magnified view on the right
- side of the screen. Below the magnified image, you'll see three
- dots labeled Left, Center, and Right. To draw with any of these
- colors, just hold down the corresponding button and move the mouse!
- The small normal-size tile in the upper center of the screen will
- be changed along with the magnified view.
-
- The colored squares on the bottom right of the screen are your
- color selections. To load any of the colors into the left button,
- just click on it with the left button. To load a color into the
- center or right buttons, hold down either button while clicking on
- the desired color with the left button.
-
-
- ==> Mixing Paint
-
- Any of the 16 colors can be customized at Ye Olde Painte
- Shoppe. To select a color to re-mix, just click on it. You can
- then add or subtract any of the three primary colors (red, green,
- and blue) by clicking on the up or down buttons above the color
- name. Each click will raise or lower the color by one "notch."
- You can raise / lower the color by ten notches by holding the right
- mouse button in while clicking on the up/down button.
-
-
- - Page 2 -
-
-
-
-
-
- You can save a color assortment by clicking on Save Palette.
- Clicking on Load Palette will un-do your latest changes by reading
- back the current palette file. Note that once you write the
- palette file with the Save palette button, you CAN NOT un-do the
- changes (unless you go back and re-mix the colors, of course).
-
- One very important point to remember when you mix paint is
- that ALL the tiles must use the SAME color palette. So, if you
- change, say, a red into a green, then ALL the tiles that use that
- red will be changed to green! You MUST be VERY careful at Ye Olde
- Painte Shoppe! Planneth ye strategy most carefully, or ye could
- endith up with more problems than ye bargained for!
-
-
- ==> Selecting a Tile
-
- To select a tile for editing, first click on the Load Tile
- button. The Current Tile box will change to a Select box and a
- small menu will appear. Click on Previous or Next until the name
- of the desired tile appears. Then click on Load.
-
- Loading a new tile will NOT automatically save the current
- tile. You MUST click on Save Tile before loading another one if
- you wish to save your changes!!!
-
-
- ==> Color Re-Mapping
-
- The Draftsman provides an easy way to change every occurrence
- of of some color to another. The easiest way to explain this is
- with an example. So, here goes:
-
- Let's assume that a tile has a number of red pixels that you'd
- like to change to green. You could, of course, change the red into
- green at Ye Painte Shoppe. If you didn't ever use that red
- anywhere else, you'd be able to get away with it. But let's assume
- otherwise. Besides, the perfect green is already mixed! To change
- all those reds to that green, just: 1) Load the red into the left
- mouse button (see Drawing section for details on loading colors
- into buttons). 2) Load the green into the center (or right) mouse
- button. 3) Click on the center (or right) circle. That's it! All
- the red pixels will be changed to green!
-
- The general rule is to load the current color into the left
- button & the new color into the center or right. Then click on
- whichever circle has the new color.
-
-
- ==> Exiting The Draftsman
-
- To exit The Draftsman and return to DOS, just click on the
- small "real-size" tile in the upper center of the screen. Sorry,
- but I couldn't find anywhere to put an exit button! So, this'll
- have to do!
-
-
- - Page 3 -
-
-
-
-
-
- GENERAL COLOR INFORMATION
-
- The colors are numbered from 0 to 15 from left to right, top
- row first. So, the upper left box is color 0 and the bottom right
- box is color 15.
-
- The screen background is color 0. You cannot change this,
- although you can change the background color by modifying color 0.
-
- All of the tile edges use color 7. Again this cannot be
- changed. But, all the edges can be changed by re-mixing color 7.
-
- All of the tile backgrounds use color 1. You can change this,
- but it's easier just to re-mix color 1.
-
- All of the numbers use color 11. This is another one that can
- be changed, but should be changed at Ye Painte Shoppe for
- convenience.
-
- All of the menus use color 15. To re-color the menus, this
- color must be changed at Ye Painte Shoppe.
-
-
-
- BLANK TILES
-
- I'm enclosing a file called BLANKS.ZIP, which contains a complete
- set of blank tile icons. To un-zip this file, you'll need a copy of
- PKWARE's PKUNZIP. Since PKWARE's ZIP utilities are shareware, you
- should be able to find them on a local bulletin board system.
-
- I'm sorry about making you look for PKUNZIP, but the files
- wouldn't fit on the disk wnless they were compressed. PKZIP has a
- method of turning ZIP files into auto-extracting EXE files, but I
- couldn't get this feature to work right. The resulting EXE files
- always damaged a couple of the icon files. Enclosing the ZIP file is
- the only reliable way to get these blanks to you.
-
-
- USING ALTERNATE TILE SETS
-
- Currently, MJVGA isn't designed to take full advantage of
- alternate tile sets (since there aren't any yet). To use a new
- tile set, you must copy the new V00.ICN thru V41.ICN files over the
- old ones. There is no way to have this release of MJVGA look to a
- different subdirectory for tile sets. If there is enough interest
- in multiple tile sets, I'll add this ability to a future release.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- - Page 4 -
-
-
-
-
-
- FUTURE VERSIONS
-
- I'll admit that this version of The Draftsman is neither as
- feature-filled nor as user-friendly as it can be. But, this is
- just a marketing-test version. I don't know if anyone's willing to
- take the time to re-draw complete tile sets. If you use and enjoy
- The Draftsman, please let me know! I'd also appreciate hearing
- your suggestions for improvement. What features would you most
- like to see added?
-
- Future releases (or the lack thereof) will depend on you. If
- nobody uses The Draftsman, I won't waste my time upgrading it. On
- the other hand, if it's used and enjoyed, I won't mind taking the
- time to add goodies to it. It's up to you! Your letters and
- comments will tell me whether or not The Draftsman is useful.
-
-
-
- SHAREWARE
-
- Please remember that Mah Jongg -V-G-A- is NOT public domain
- software! It has been released as shaeware! If you use and enjoy
- Mah Jongg -V-G-A- and The Draftsman, you are urged to send a
- contribution of $15.oo to become a gegistered user. Complete
- registration details can be found in the Mah Jongg -V-G-A- manual
- (MJVGA20.DOC). The Draftsman is included with the Mah Jongg
- -V-G-A- package. No separate registration fee is requested.
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- - Page 5 -
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