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Text File | 1989-06-09 | 20.7 KB | 486 lines

June 9, 1989 ********************************************** * * * D R A W F I L L * * * * version 2.0 * * * * (c) 1989 Richard Biffl * * * ********************************************** DrawFill is a programming tool to help design graphic fill patterns for the Borland Graphics Interface (BGI) used by Borland's Turbo languages. The command-line syntax for running DrawFill is: DRAWFILL [D=<driver>] [M=<mode>] [P=<path>] [R] [/A] [/C] [/R] [/L] [/"<K>["]] Items in square brackets (e.g., [R]) are optional. (All parameters are optional.) Items in corner brackets (e.g., <driver>) should be replaced as indicated in the detailed descriptions of the parameters. Case is ignored. So is the order of the parameters; but if the same parameter occurs more than once, the last instance takes effect. Parameters are separated by a space or a tab. Command-line parameters: D=<driver> Driver specification M=<mode> Mode-number specification P=<path> Path to screen driver file (.BGI) and LITT.CHR R RAM-resident mode /A /C /R /L /"<K>" Hot-key specifiers, for RAM-resident mode Usage of these parameters is described in detail in a later section of this document. FILL PATTERNS An important element of the Borland Graphics Interface is the "fill pattern." A fill pattern is a pattern eight pixels wide and eight pixels high, which is repeated like a wallpaper pattern to fill part of the screen. Fill patterns make any graphical output more lively, and they are especially useful in monochrome graphics as substitutes for colors. The BGI contains the following procedures that paint fill patterns on the screen: Bar Fills a rectangular area with the current fill style and fill color. Bar3D Draws a three-dimensional bar and fills its face with the current fill style and fill color. FillEllipse Draws an ellipse and fills it with the current fill style and fill color. FillPoly Draws a polygon and fills it with the current fill style and fill color. FloodFill Fills any bounded region with the current fill style and fill color. PieSlice Draws a pie slice and fills it with the current fill style and fill color. Sector Draws an elliptical sector and fills it with the current fill style and fill color. By default, the fill style is solid and the fill color is the maximum color in the current palette. The fill pattern can be set by calling either of the BGI's following two procedures: SetFillStyle Sets a pre-defined fill pattern (see Borland manual for descriptions). SetFillPattern Sets a user-defined fill pattern. SetFillPattern defines a new fill pattern from a pattern definition and a color. The pattern is defined in an array of 8 bytes, one byte for each row of pixels. Each byte's value is the sum of the values of the lit pixels in the row. The values of the pixels, from left-most pixel to right-most, are decimal notation: 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1 hexadecimal notation: $80, $40, $20, $10, $08, $04, $02, $01 For example, a fill pattern defined by (0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0) does not light any pixels. A fill pattern of (255,255,255,255,255,255,255,255) lights all pixels. (3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3) draws vertical lines two pixels thick; the pixel with value 2 and the pixel with value 1 are both lit in each row. (0,0,0,255,0,0,0,255) draws horizontal lines on every fourth row of pixels. SetFillPattern allows the creation of fill patterns that are more interesting than straight lines. Sketching such patterns on graph paper, though, and manually calculating their pixel-row values, is a tedious and error-prone task. DrawFill was made to simplify the process. USING DRAWFILL DrawFill lets you concentrate on creativity instead of bit values. You move a circular cursor around an eight-by-eight grid, toggling pixels on or off as you go. The pattern you are creating, and its changing values, are displayed simultaneously next to the grid. You can scroll the whole pattern, invert it, or change its colors until you see just what you want for your own program. The values you need will all be on the screen, ready to copy into your program. If you make DrawFill resident in memory, it will even do some of the copying for you. When DrawFill starts, a command menu appears at the bottom of the screen. The command menu lists all of the available command keys, the current state of all toggle switches, and the current graphics driver and graphics mode. The command keys are simple: <arrow keys> Move the circular cursor from pixel to pixel on the drawing grid, when Scroll Lock is OFF. When Scroll Lock is ON, the arrow keys scroll the whole pattern through the drawing grid. Home, End Move the cursor to the left-most and right-most columns, respectively. PgUp, PgDn Move the cursor to the top-most and bottom-most rows, respectively. <spacebar> Toggles the current pixel on or off. Ctrl-Home Erases the current fill pattern and returns the cursor to the top-left pixel. Esc Exits from DrawFill. Scroll Lock When ON, allows the user to scroll the fill pattern up, down, left, or right, using the arrow keys. NOTE: Take care when using Scroll Lock in DrawFill's resident mode, if your keyboard has a Scroll Lock indicator. When DrawFill pops up, it saves the status of the toggle keys, which is restored when DrawFill pops back down. However, there is no way (known to me) to restore the status of the Scroll Lock indicator light on your keyboard. Your light may therefore indicate the opposite of your computer's Scroll Lock status. To prevent this annoyance, return to DrawFill's original Scroll Lock status before exiting from DrawFill when it is memory- resident. H Toggles hexadecimal mode or decimal mode for representing the numerical values of the fill pattern. Hexadecimal values are preceded by a dollar sign ($), as in Turbo Pascal. M Toggles the graphics mode for the current screen driver. The mode number is defined by the BGI driver; it is NOT the same as the ROM BIOS's mode number. F Toggles the color of the fill pattern. S Toggles the foreground color of the screen (other than the pixels which compose the fill pattern). B Toggles the background color of the screen. I Inverts the fill pattern, so that pixels that were lit are turned off and pixels that were off are turned on. W Writes the code for the fill pattern as it exits DrawFill (available in resident mode only). The pattern will be written from the point where the cursor was when you popped DrawFill up. COMMAND-LINE PARAMETERS The command-line syntax for running DrawFill is: DRAWFILL [D=<driver>] [M=<mode>] [P=<path>] [R] [/A] [/C] [/R] [/L] [/"<K>["]] Items in square brackets (e.g., [R]) are optional. (All parameters are optional.) Items in corner brackets (e.g., <driver>) should be replaced as indicated in the detailed descriptions of the parameters. Case is ignored. So is the order of the parameters; but if the same parameter occurs more than once, the last instance takes effect. Parameters are separated by a space or a tab. D=<driver> Driver specification By default, DrawFill automatically uses the Borland BGI driver that can provide the highest-quality graphics output on your system. The D=<driver> parameter overrides the default driver. The parameter specifies a Borland driver when <driver> is the NUMBER (NOT the filename) of the appropriate Borland driver. Borland drivers and their numbers are listed in your Borland manual. NOTE: The IBM 8514 graphics driver and the AT&T 400-line driver CANNOT be installed automatically; if you are using one of them, you MUST specify either D=6 or D=8, respectively. Example: DRAWFILL D=8 Initializes ATT400 driver (BGI driver #8). You can also use the D=<driver> parameter to use a non-Borland screen driver. For example, if your system has the Spiffy Graphics Array, and its manufacturer provided a driver for the Borland Graphics Interface, you can use it by specifying the FILENAME of the driver (NOT a number) in place of <driver>. The DOS path to the driver should be included if the driver is not in the current directory or in the directory specified by the P=<path> parameter. Examples: DRAWFILL D=SGA.BGI DrawFill uses the custom screen driver in the file SGA.BGI. DRAWFILL D=\SPIFFY\SGA.BGI DRAWFILL D=SGA.BGI P=\SPIFFY DrawFill uses the driver SGA.BGI in the SPIFFY directory of the current disk. If the D=<driver> parameter specifies an invalid driver, the error may not be detectable by DrawFill and the screen may go blank. If so, try pressing Esc to escape back to the DOS prompt. If your computer seems hopelessly locked up, reboot it immediately to prevent the possibility of hardware damage. M=<mode> Mode-number specification By default, DrawFill tries to use the screen driver's mode with the highest graphics quality. You can override the default mode with the M=<mode> parameter, where <mode> is a NUMBER. The valid modes for each Borland screen driver are listed in your Borland manual. A specification of an invalid mode is ignored. Example: DRAWFILL M=0 Initializes the default driver in mode 0, which usually has the lowest resolution but sometimes (e.g., on the CGA) has more colors than the highest-resolution mode. NOTE: Be sure to use Borland's mode number with the M=<mode> parameter, NOT the ROM BIOS mode number. NOTE: You can also change modes from within DrawFill, by pressing <M>. P=<path> Path to screen driver file (.BGI) and LITT.CHR DrawFill requires the appropriate driver's .BGI file, and the LITT.CHR font file. (These files are not included with DrawFill; they are included with all Borland languages that use the Borland Graphics Interface.) By default, if the .BGI file is not found in the current directory, the program will terminate with an error message. If the LITT.CHR file is not found, the program will run using only the default font, which will make only a cosmetic difference. A path to the .BGI and LITT.CHR files may be specified on the DrawFill command line with the P=<path> parameter. Example: DRAWFILL P=C:\TP\TPGRAPH Looks in the TPGRAPH subdirectory of the TP directory on drive C. DRAWFILL P=.. Looks in the parent directory above the current subdirectory. R RAM-resident mode The R parameter loads DrawFill into random-access memory, where it resides while you run other programs. You can pop DrawFill up by pressing a hot-key combination. By default, the hot-key combination is <D> <Right Shift> <Alt>. (You can remember this because "DRA" are the first three letters of "DRAwFill.") DrawFill will pop up when you hold down the <Right Shift> and <Alt> keys while you press <D>. You can change the hot-key combination with command-line parameters, as described below. DrawFill has a special capability in resident mode. It can write the code for the pattern you create directly into whatever program you were running when you popped DrawFill up. Press <W> in resident mode and DrawFill will pop down, writing the code for your fill pattern to your screen. This is handy when you pop DrawFill up from an editor while writing a program that will use your fill pattern. DrawFill uses almost 85,000 bytes of memory in resident mode. It remains resident until you reboot your computer (unless you have a memory manager that can release resident programs without rebooting). Example: DRAWFILL R Makes DrawFill resident in memory, and reports how much memory it uses and what hot-key combination is in effect. NOTE: Because of limitations on the memory available to save the screen, DrawFill can only be popped up from text and CGA- graphics modes. /A /C /R /L /"<K>" Hot-key specifiers, for RAM-resident mode The default hot-key combination to pop DrawFill up when it is resident is <Right Shift> <Alt> <D>. You can change either the hot shift-key combination, or the hot character key, or both. The shift keys are specified by /A for <Alt>, /C for <Ctrl>, /R for <Right Shift>, and/or /L for <Left Shift>. Any combination of these four shift keys is permitted. The character key is specified by /"<K>", where <K> is any character from <A> to <Z> or numeral from <0> to <9>. The second quotation mark is optional. If you change only the shift-key combination, or only the character key, the default will be used for the other part of the hot-key combination. Examples: DRAWFILL R /C Installs DrawFill in memory, with a hot- key combination of <Ctrl> <D>. DRAWFILL R /"F" Installs DrawFill in memory, with a hot- key combination of <Alt> <Right Shift> <F>. DRAWFILL R /C /"F" Installs DrawFill in memory, with a hot- key combination of <Ctrl> <F>. The effective hot-key combination will be displayed when DrawFill is installed in memory. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY DrawFill has been written with care, and I will make an honest effort to exterminate any bugs reported by users. Beyond that, however, I specifically disclaim all other warranties, expressed or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, with respect to both the software and this documentation. In no event shall I be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, nor for any special, incidental, consequential or other damages. I do not know of any risk in using DrawFill; but if there is a risk, the user bears it. DISTRIBUTION POLICY DrawFill is protected by United States copyright law and international treaty provisions. It is not in the public domain. You need not pay anything to use DrawFill to create fill patterns for graphics programs, either commercial or non-commercial. (You may also use it to doodle to your heart's content.) However, you may not incorporate DrawFill itself into another program, product, or commercial package, without my prior written consent. You may distribute DrawFill and this documentation, provided that you distribute both DRAWFILL.EXE and DRAWFILL.DOC, TOGETHER and UNALTERED. Please let me know of any need for patches or revisions. If you must change one of the files yourself, you may not distribute a copy of the altered version to anyone else. No distributor may charge for this program or documentation without my prior written consent, except that distributors may charge a nominal fee (no more than $10) to cover the costs of distribution. The latest version of DrawFill is available from me for $10. If you tell me which version you already have when you place your order, and it IS the latest version, I will return your money, unless you tell me you would prefer to receive an automatic upgrade when the next version is released. Happy pixellating! ********************************************** * * * Richard Biffl * * 2922 28th Street, N.W. * * Washington, D.C. 20008 * * CompuServe 73607,3043 * * * ********************************************** DrawFill was written in Turbo Pascal and Turbo Assembler. RAM-resident routines are from TSRUnit by Ken L. Pottebaum, which accompanied his article, "Creating TSR Programs with Turbo Pascal," Dr. Dobb's Journal vol. 14 no. 5, May 1989. DrawFill is a trademark of Richard Biffl. Turbo Pascal and Turbo Assembler are trademarks of Borland International, Inc. ----------------end-of-author's-documentation--------------- Software Library Information: This disk copy provided as a service of The Public (Software) Library We are not the authors of this program, nor are we associated with the author in any way other than as a distributor of the program in accordance with the author's terms of distribution. Please direct shareware payments and specific questions about this program to the author of the program, whose name appears elsewhere in this documentation. If you have trouble getting in touch with the author, we will do whatever we can to help you with your questions. All programs have been tested and do run. 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