The world's first Text-Oriented Paint Program!  

AnsiPaint 1.0 Documentation.

I like to think this is a really neat program.  I've heard there may be
something like this available for the PC, but I've never seen it (I'm not
basing this on any other program).

How it works:  

AnsiPaint lets you create ONE screen of text, including ANSI backgrounds,
any embellishment (underline, boldface, etc), using any background or
foreground colour.  The program itself uses the same pallette as another
program by myself, "CommPlX", a terminal program designed for use on
American People/Link.  You'll see why later.


TO ENTER TEXT:

Just click the mouse where you like and start typing.
The program is always in overstrike mode - a limitation that will
disappear in a later version.  The reason for this is basically the same 
reason that DPaint doesn't scroll things when you're inserting text - Text 
is meant to be done after the artwork itself (if that makes any sense).

Note that if you do do your text first, any of the drawing functions
will change the background colour of the text but will not change the
text itself.

TO DRAW:  

Select the background colour you want to use from the menu.  (Drawing
always happens in the background colour).  Then, hold down the shift
key and hit the left mouse button to start drawing.  

IMPORTANT NOTE:  AnsiPaint will let you draw all the way across the
screen.  Depending on where your text is to be displayed, this might
NOT be a good idea - remember the CLI window is typically only
78 characters wide, and if you are going to send your creation
via some online service (especially during conference mode where
your own name will be to the left side of anything drawn), Take care
to stay within bounds.

TO DRAW A BOX:

Just drag out a box any time.  It will be done in the background pen
and will not erase any text inside the box.  (currently, the only way
to erase the screen is to quit).

SAVING/LOADING:

Because of the way ANSI works, once you create the output file,
AnsiPaint won't let you reload it to change it.  If you think that
someday you might want to change what you've created, you should
create an "Intermediate" file, which will be 8204 bytes long, using
the appropriate menu option.  This file can be reloaded for later
editing.

Once you've created the ANSI output file, that's it - you can type
it, you can combine it with other text (using a text editor, or
the AmigaDOS Join command), lots of other possibilities.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you are going to create files here that are to be read from the
CLI, you cannot use more than the first four colours.  This is because
the Workbench screen only has 4 colours, and someone might not
be happy if you go beyond that.

A general rule of thumb is that colours 0 and 1 (Black and White) are
the primary colours.  Colour 2 is supposed to be a dim colour, and
colour 3 is a lighter colour - if you draw with this in mind (ie, if
you need to do shading, use colour 2), your creations should look
okay with anybody's preferences.

APPLICATIONS:

 - For creating headers on readme files, like I've done with this
   one.  This is REAL simple:  Create your text, then create the
   Ansi file to go on top of it, and just type 
   "Join Header Document as Result" and this will join the two files
   "Header" and "Document" as "Result".  

 - For creating BBS menus.  Depending on what BBS you use you might
   have a fair bit of editing to do to these.  8-)

 - Title Screens or Login Screens or Logout screens on BBS's.
   The files this thing creates can be used directly as say the
   Login.txt file for a BBSPC system.


COMMPLX:

AnsiPaint can create standard ANSI output, and it can also create output
in "CommPlX" format.  CommPlX is a program that lets you substitute 
2-character keystrokes for many ANSI attribute-modification sequences.
You can, for instance, create a screen in CommPlX and send it via
the Ascii SEND command in CommPlX into a conference on People/Link.
(Note that you have to have your character send speed set really slow,
or else the 1 second delay between any 2 lines on Plink will eat
some of your text).  Also, remember that when you are in conference,
the left side of the screen shows your name - if your name is 5 characters
long, then you have 9 less characters to work with - keep this in mind.

To get a CommPlX file output, do what you would normally do to create
an ANSI output file - but make sure the first character of the file's 
name (as shown in the Filename string gadget at the bottom of the 
file requester) is the character '!'.  So, writing to RAM:Hello would
give you an ANSI file, but RAM:!Hello would give you a CommPlX file.


DISTRIBUTION:

AnsiPaint is being released as FreeWare.  FreeWare is like ShareWare except
that I don't want any money for it.  (Just buy my BBS when it comes out).
AnsiPaint can be distributed wherever PD software is welcome, but cannot
be included on any commercial software without written permission by
yours truly.

	Steve Tibbett
	2710 Saratoga Pl. #1108
	Gloucester, ON
	Canada K1T 1Z2
	
	BBS: 613-731-5316
	Plink ID: STEVEX
	Bix ID: s.tibbett