Club Amiga de Montreal - CAM/CAM_CD_1.iso/files/159.lha/pointer animator/READ ME FIRST

Text File | 1988-04-27 | 7.7 KB | 163 lines

How To Use the Pointer Animator
(READ ME FIRST)

This file describes the pointer animator and how to call the pointer
animator with a predefined animation sequence.  For information on how
to make your own animated pointers, read "READ ME SECOND".


Introduction

As the name implies, the pointer animator animates the Workbench pointer.
It does this by substituting its own pointer for the default pointer and
then rapidly changing the pointer image to cause the illusion of motion.
The image sequences used are stored in standard IFF ILBM files.  This
allows you to easily edit predefined animations and create your own pointer
animations.  In addition to the normal three color pointer, the pointer
animator also supports a fifteen color pointer.

While at first this may seem like a frivolous workbench hack, it does have
some useful applications.  As well as giving you far more freedom of
expression in your standard display, animation can cause the pointer to be
much more visible.

Our eyes are specially designed to detect motion.  On a normal Workbench
screen with a good contrast between the pointer colors and the display
colors, you can easily distinguish the position of the pointer.  On a 32
color screen it can become much more difficult to identify the pointer at a
glance.  Even with very similar colors an animated pointer is easy to spot.


Starting an Animation

To run a pointer animation from the Workbench, all you need to do is double
click on the animation's icon (you've probably already tried this).  Running
an animation from the CLI is only slightly more difficult.  If the pointer
will work with the default values (default values are the preset values in
the pointer animator program), just type:

pa <file>

Where pa is the name of the pointer animator and <file> is the name of the
animation file.

If the pointer doesn't work well with the default values, you can change
several parameters on the command line (or in the .info file, from the
Workbench.)  You can enter as many of the parameters as you need, as flags
on the command line.  The names and descriptions of the flags follow:

s - speed.  This determines the image update rate of the animation.  1 would
be equivalent to 60 images per second (in Europe, and much of the rest of
the world, this is 50 images per second.)  This is the fastest speed
possible.  To determine the number of images per second, divide 60 (again 50
in many places, all times given in the rest of this assume 60) by the speed.
The default speed is 5.  This is 12 images, or frames per second.

h - height.  The height of the pointer is measured in "pixels" (pixel is
short for picture element: a pixel is a single dot).  You can design a
pointer for any height from 1 to 255 pixels.  If you are using a predefined
animation, it will already have a specific height.  If you specify the wrong
height, the animation will roll like a TV with the vertical sync adjusted
incorrectly.  The default height is 16 pixels.

x - horizontal offset.  Even though the pointer covers an area 16 pixels
wide and many pixels high, there is only one pixel position where the pointer
actually is.  Commodore calls this position the "hot spot" of the pointer.
On most standard pointers, the hot spot is near the upper left corner.  You
can put this spot wherever you want (but actually leaving it in the pointer
image is a good idea.)  The horizontal offset is measured in number of pixels
right of the left side of the pointer.  The default value is 0.

y - vertical offset.  This value, together with the horizontal position,
determines the position of the hot spot.  The vertical offset is measured in
pixels down from the top edge.  The default value is 0.

Using these values from the CLI is easy.  The command:

pa shock -s3 -x1 -y1

uses the animation sequence stored in the file "shock".  It causes the
animation speed to be 20 frames per second and the hot spot to be one pixel
down and to the right of the top left corner of the pointer.  This command
could easily be inserted into your Startup-Sequence to cause the pointer
animator to be automatically invoked when you turn on your Amiga.

You can also set these parameters from the Workbench.  First select the file
by clicking once on the animation file's icon.  Then select "Info" from the
Workbench menu.  The bottom line of the screen that appears should be
labeled "TOOL TYPES".  It will probably contain a line that says something
like "SPEED=5".  This line corresponds to the 's' flag.  By using the up and
down arrow gadgets you can step though all of the parameters.  They should
read something like this:

SPEED=5
HEIGHT=16
X OFFSET=0
Y OFFSET=0

If any of these are missing, you can add them by clicking on the "ADD"
gadget.  When you are done, click on "SAVE" to keep the changes you made.


Stopping the Animation

If for some reason you need to stop an animation, double click on the
"Kill Pointer" icon, or run "Kill Pointer" from the CLI.  If you are just
switching between animations, you don't need to stop the first animation
before starting the second.  It will be done automatically.


For More Fun

I strongly suggest you go make some of your own animations.  It's very easy
and the results are often better than you would have expected.  For more
information on making animations, read "READ ME SECOND"


If You Use Pointer Animator...

This program is shareware.  Feel free to post copies of PNTANIM.ARC to
bulletin boards, in user club libraries, in disk based magazines and
wherever else you feel the urge.  You may also distribute unARCed copies.
But you must include "pa", "READ ME FIRST", "READ ME SECOND", "Kill Pointer",
"Kill Pointer.info" ,"merge" and at least one pointer animation file with its
".info" file (the animation doesn't need to be one of mine.)

If you use it please pay for it.  If I distributed this commercially I would
charge between $10 and $20.  I won't ask for a particular amount, but please
use these values as guidelines.  In addition to the money, I would be glad to
hear any comments or suggestions on any of my programs.  Please send all
correspondence to:

Tim Kemp
P.O. Box 23101
Columbus, OH 43223


Disclaimer

It is sad but true, the Amiga is not very forgiving of software errors.  I
don't know of any bugs in my program.  I have tried using it with several
public domain and commercial programs, but as with any product, you can't
test for every contingency.  Therefore, in no event shall Tim Kemp be held
liable for any damages whatsoever arising out of the use of the pointer
animator program or any of its related programs.

This means, for example, that if you are writing what is likely to become
your third best selling novel on your favorite word processor with a pointer
animation of four grapes paying homage to a zucchini installed and you start
running a paint program to better conceptualize what a six dimensional war
lord might look like when compressed along each of the possible combinations
of four dimensions, and just as you are starting on the fifteenth drawing,
four planets line up with a galaxy far far away and the pointer animator
recognizes this for what it obviously is and prays to its idol the Guru, and
seeing the animator's message of worship upon the screen you sit back too
quickly in your chair, knocking the microwave oven you are using to heat
Brie into your jacuzzi, which is full of attractive people of the opposite
sex, which shorts out the oven and overloads your house's circuits and causes
the pennies you replaced the fuses with to become slightly warm and a high
voltage transformer miles away (but directly over major well-known fault
line) explodes spectacularly, releasing a large amount of stored geological
energy and a small but heavily populated section of California plunges into
the Pacific,  then I am not to blame.