💾 Archived View for mirrors.apple2.org.za › archive › apple.cabi.net › Graphics › Splasher_v3.00 › M… captured on 2024-05-10 at 15:26:05.
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
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Splasher version 3.00 This is a program for putting up a splash screen and playing music when a program firts starts up. It contains: Splash Editor, a user paint program for choosing and modifying the graphic image splashed on the screen. It also chooses what music to play. SplashM.L, a file to be linked to a program as a dynamic segment. Clays.MTool, This is a users tool that actually plays the music. It must be in either either the same directory as the program or in the tools subdirectory of the system disk to be able to play music with splasher. Demo source code to show how to link SplashM.L to a program and call it. A. Menu Commands Apple menu... The standard about menu plus various desk accessories. File menu... Open Resource-- This opens a resource in a S16 program file or a resource file created by Splash Editor, that contains information on what graphic to display and what music or sound to play. Close-- Close the front desk accessory window Close All-- Close all the desk accessory windows Save as-- Save graphic image and the information in the options menu as a PNT file or a resource. Defaults to resoure. If saved as a resource you can also save it as a 256 color image. When saved as a resource another dialog window appears asking for the resource number. You can save several images by using different numbers. When you are saving the information to be splashed on the screen on program start up, you save it as the name of the program. It doesn't overwrite the program but is saved as a resource to that file. If you want this image to splash on the screen make sure the resource id matches the one that the program uses to splash with. This should probably be 1. See Open. This program has password protection. If an image has been previously saved and password protected you must enter the password. Without it the changed or new image cannot be saved. After you successfully entered the password, it then ask to to set a password. Enter any 15 characters you want. If you don't want it password protected press OK with no text. New to version 3.00, if you have 'Create launch program' checked in the options dialog box, choose the file name of a program file. You should get the message 'That file already exist'. Choose 'replace'. The file isn't really replaced but another created with the extension of *.spl This will be the program you launch that has the splash screen that will then launch the original program. If *.spl already exist you get an error message saying so. To change the splash screen of a program that already has a *.spl file you can save the information directly to the *.spl file. Be sure and have 'Create launch program UNchecked if you do this. The file SplasherHead must be in the same directory as Splash Editor. Delete-- Delete a file or files. This will not delete locked files or directories Initialize disk-- This will only initialize 3.5 and 5.25 inch diskettes. It won't even recognize a hard disk. GSOS can't tell if there is an unformatted disk in a 5.25 inch drive or if the drive is empty. So the program may try an initialize an empty 5.25 inch drive. If you have hit the initialize key by mistake or just want to leave the initialize mode the quickest way is to hit return to get to the "name the file" dialog box. Use the delete key to erase any name from the box then hit the return key. You will then be out of the initialize mode. Page setup-- For printer Print-- Prints the background picture to a printer Quit-- Quits the program Edit menu... Undo-- Undo the last thing that was painted to the screen with one of the paint commands. The menu item says what is to be undone. Such as undo trace, undo line, ect. Right after you do an undo command it then say undo undo. If you do something that can't be undone it will just say undo. Anything that can't be undone will be proceeded with a message asking if you want to save the background before you continue. What undo actually does is swap pages of the background. Whenever you do a paint command such as trace, line, ect. It first copies the present background to the other page and sets a flag to say the background has changed since it was lasted saved or loaded. Cut-- Cuts a brush to the clipboard. Copy-- Copies a brush to the clipboard Paste-- Paste a brush from the clipboard. Clear-- Clears the background to the background color. Set options-- Set the number of seconds the splash image will stay on the screen and the name of the resource. Also allows you to choose to play music or not when the splash image is loaded. It shows the name of the music to be played. Don't forget to SAVE any changes to the appropiate file for them to take affect. New to version 3.00 you can 'Create launch program' to splash a screen then launch the chosen program. Show clipboard-- Creates a window showing the clipboard. To get rid of the clipboard window you can either us the menu command which is a toggle or just press the mouse outside of the clipboard window but inside the background window. Picture size-- You can choose the size of the background. The widest it can be is 655 pixels. The highest it can be is 409 pixels. The largest it can be is ((pixels wide)/2) * pixels high = 65535. The background must be at least 320 pixels wide and 200 pixels high. When the image is saved as a resource the size is automatically changed to screen size( 320 x 200). palette-- You can choose the colors for the 16 palette colors. You can also choose the range and direction for cycling the palette. Choose the color number you want to change by clicking on the color bar in the right of the dialog box with the mouse. Each color has three components red, green, and blue. Use the scroll bars to choose the color. You can check the number values of RGB by pressing the value button or pressing "V" on the keyboard. There are four separate ranges for cycling as numbered at the bottom of the dialog box. Each of the four ranges also has two directions as indicated by the arrows to the left of the speed bar. The speed bar controls the speed at which the cycling occurs. This is separate for each of the ranges. For each of the four ranges you choose the range by clicking and dragging the horizontal bar of the bracket just to the right of the color bar in the dialog window. When the top and bottom bar are on the same color there will be no cycling for that range. There are several ways to leave the palette dialog box. If you hit the cancel button, press the escape key, or press the mouse button outside of the dialog box all the changes you have made will be lost. To save the changes press the OK button or just hit the return key. Another dialog box will come up warning you that you will lose the other palette if you continue. Just like there are two backgrounds there are two palettes. If you continue the palette that existed before you made the present changes will be moved into the restore palette buffer. The palette that was there before will be the one that will be lost. If you hit cancel or press the escape key the palette color changes will not be saved BUT the cycle changes will be. Restore palette-- Switches between the two palettes mentioned above Default palette-- Sets the palette to the default. The warning that you will loose the other palette is presented. Brush palette-- If a brush was loaded from disk you can use this command to use the palette that came with that brush. When you use this command it uses the palette from the last brush that was loaded from disk if any. The warning that you will loose the other palette is presented. If you hold down the option key both saved palettes will be loaded. Cycle-- Starts and stops the cycling of the palette. It is a toggle switch Delete a brush-- This deletes the brush that is presently animated Undelete brush-- This un-deletes the last brush that was deleted. Also making it animated. Tool box-- This is a toggle switch that removes and replaces the tool.box that is on the right of the screen containing the paint commands and palette and ect. Info bar-- This switch toggles on and off the info bar at the bottom of the screen. The info bar contains the number of the brush that is animated if any. And the coordinates of the mouse in the graphics window. Parts menu... Load brush-- Loads a PNT file as a brush. Save brush-- Saves a brush as a PNT file. Choose Graphic-- Loads a graphic image. This also can load a graphic from resource fork of a program file if it has a graphic image saved to it. If the image is from a resource another dialog window appears asking for the resource id number. If you know there is a resource there but you get the message specified resource not found. Then you need to pick another number. Hopefully the creator of the image picked 1 or some low number. Choose music-- This brings up a standard file dialog window to choose the name of the music to play with the splash screen. Choose font-- Choose the font to be used with the text mode Set high bit-- When this is checked the characters printed in text mode will have there high bit set allowing special characters from fonts. B. Tool box commands The tool box is on the right side of the screen. It contains the drawing commands. The palette of colors and other commands. To choose the commands click the mouse in the icon. Pen size-- The two left and right "arrows" control the size of the pen to be drawn with. The box just above them shows the size of the pen. Trace-- The "S" shape is for the trace mode of drawing. You can trace the pen on the screen when you hold down the mouse button. Line-- The "/" shape is for the line mode of drawing. Press the mouse button where you want the line to start. Keep the mouse button down until the line is where you want it to end. Curve-- The "curved" shape is for the arc drawing mode. Press the mouse button where you want the curve to start. Keep the mouse button down until the end of the curve is where you want it. To make the curve bend the other way move the mouse passed the zero point x or y axis if the original point is at zero, zero. Fill-- The "paint bucket" shape is for the fill mode. The fill mode fills in an enclosed area with the color in the paint bucket. The point chosen for filling is at the tip of the paint coming out of the paint bucket cursor. The fill mode will fill passed the edge of the visible screen. Square-- The half shaded "square" shape is for the square drawing mode. The upper left is for a unfilled square. The lower right is for a filled square. Click the mouse where you want the square to start and then drag the mouse to where you want the square to stop and release. In the square drawing mode there is a cross hair that stretches to the entire screen. If the pen size is smallest the rest of this discussion is unimportant. The cross hair starts out in the middle of the square. Pressing keys 1-4 moves the cross hair to the corners of the square. This is so you can better align the square that you want to draw. The realignment of the cross hair doesn't take affect until the pen is moved. Oval-- The half shaded "oval" shape is for the oval drawing mode. The upper left is for a unfilled oval. The lower right is for a filled oval. Click the mouse where you want the center of the oval to be and then drag the mouse away the center for the size of the oval. Polygon-- The half shaded "polygon" shape is for the polygon drawing mode. The upper left is for a unfilled polygon. The lower right is for a filled polygon. Click and release the mouse where you want one corner of the polygon to start. A line will start at that point. To create the next corner click and release the mouse where you want to corner to be. To finish the polygon click the mouse on the first point of the polygon or press the space bar. Alphabet-- The "A" is for the text drawing mode. When the text mode is first entered a vertical bar cursor is put in the upper left corner of the window. All key strokes are supported. Also supported are carriage return, space bar and cursor movement keys. With the high bit set checked in the Parts menu you can print 251 characters total. The cursor can also be moved to any place in the window by clicking the mouse on that point. Where ever the pointer is clicked that will be the upper left limit of the cursor of character placement. A carriage return at the end of a line will bring the cursor back to that left limit and not to the left edge of the screen. You can change the color of the characters and the color of there background using the color controls. The delete key is not supported. Magnify-- The "Magnifying glass" is for creating a magnified image. The window is cut in half. The right half is the magnified image of the left. You can use most of the paint tools in both halves of the window. The tools that can't be used while the magnify window are active are "Fill", "Alpha" and "Add". Add-- The "Add" is for creating brushes. In the add mode there are cross hairs like in the square mode but there is no pen square. Click the cross hairs at one corner of the shape you want to save and drag to the diagonal corner of the shape you want to save and release. At this point you are put in the see mode. And the added brush is animated. See-- The "See" is for viewing a brush that is in the table. The brush can be moved around the screen (animated). Also you can paint as in the trace mode with that brush. To activate see you can also press the "S" key. The pointer can be moved to the upper left hand corner of the brush by pressing the '1' key. Undo-- The "Undo" is the undo in the edit menu Clear-- The "CLR" is the clear in the edit menu Color controls-- At the bottom of the tool box (the lower right hand corner of the screen) is the color control panel. At the top of the this panel is a square within a square (color indicator square). The inner square is the foreground color. The foreground color is the color of the painting pen and also the color of the character in the text mode. The outer square is the background color. The background color is used in clearing the screen and the background in the text mode. To choose a color for the foreground color, click the pointer on one of the colors in the color control panel below the color indicator square. To choose a background color while clicking on one of the colors hold down the command (open apple) key. C. Miscellaneous graphic information While in the painting window the pointer can be made invisible by pressing the escape key. Sometimes it needs to be pressed twice. This works as a toggle switch pressing it again will bring back the pointer. The arrow keys are used for scrolling the paint window except in the text mode. Pressing command-M (open apple M) will remove the top menu bar. This is a toggle switch. Sometimes the palette information in a loaded picture may be damaged. When you load the picture the screen may go all black or all one color. If this happens here is what you can do. Press command-R (open apple R). The restore palette command. You will then be using the palette that was there before and the picture should be visible.