Vgad

                      A gadget making tool for the Amiga

                        Written and Copyright (C) 1987
                           by:  Stephen Vermeulen
                                3635 Utah Dr. N.W.,
                                Calgary, Alberta,
                                CANADA, T2N 4A6
                                (403) 282-7990.

                         Version 1.00,  14-Dec-1987

                =============================================
                 This program may be freely redistributed
                 provided that no charge is made for such
                 distribution appart from reasonable media
                 costs.  This program may not be distributed
                 with any commercial product without the
                 prior written approval of the Author.
                =============================================

Introduction:

     This little utility was brought to light by the need to create
     windows full of gadgets quickly from finnished art work.  The
     philosophy that was adopted (since I am such a lousy artist) was
     that the Artist should create the ENTIRE window (including gadget
     layout and imagery) and then the Programmer would convert that
     finished art work to the appropriate SHORT[]/Image/Gadget/Window
     structures.

     This approach was tried using a commercial product and the idea
     was found to be sound; however, the approach taken in that product
     necessitated the careful window layout being shattered into
     brushes which would then be separately (and painstakingly)
     loaded and repositioned.  This seemed like a major Government make
     work project so Vgad was born.

     Vgad provides none of the fancy frills associated with other gadget
     editors; it takes a very simple direct approach that you might find
     does the job very quickly.  The idea is: the  a string Gadget of the currently boxed area,
         w   make a Window of the currently boxed area

         q   quit, exit Vgad.

     So the actual use of Vgad goes something like this:

         1.  run Vgad
         2.  box an area
         3.  press a key to indicate what to do with the area just boxed
         4.  are we done?
             4.a  if yes press 'q'
             4.b  if not goto 2.

     And that is really all there is to it.  You will have to do some
     editing of the output file to modify some of the flags, particularly
     in the Window structure, and you will have to chain the gadgets
     togeather and to the window(s).  But that is about it.  I have included
     a small do-nothing example called "test" (test.norm, test.sel, test.c,
     and test.h) where I have flagged the changes that had to be done to
     the raw file.c output of Vgad to get a running program.  Have a look
     at it to see what to do.  Test just hangs around until a Delay(500L)
     times out and then closes, just giving you time to click on the gadgets
     to see that they are alt-image boolean gadgets.

Compiling output:

     Vgad source code has been compiled under Manx 3.4a with the various
     patches that have appeared.  I can see no reason why it should not
     compile under Lattice 3.1 or higher; however, this I have not tested.
     When linking the image data must end up in CHIP ram so with Manx the
     appropriate linker command is:

        ln +cd file.o -lc

     the +cd flag being necessary to put the image data (actually all
     initialized data) in CHIP ram.  You will probably need to do something
     similar if you are using Lattice.

Bugs:

     None known at the current time.  Image generation for proportional
     gadgets is not yet supported.

Comments and Suggestions:

     These are always welcome and invited.  If you want a modification
     send me a letter describing it and if I get around to it I will send
     the result off to Fred Fish.