|01 Screen To specify the name of the picture file to retrieve, click on the |12Filename|12 field and type in the name. You may also click on |12Directory|12 to open the File requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual). You may use this file simply as a reference for setting the background or actually load it. As soon as you type the filename in the field and press the return key (or alternatively select from the file requester) all the screen parameters such as the resolution are read from the specified picture file. However, if you do not want the picture displayed but want to retain the screen parameters then click again on the Filename field and use the Del key (or Right Amiga-X to clear the whole line) on your keyboard to erase the filename. You can also use variables to specify filenames as described in the File Requesters section of Chapter 3 in the user manual. The filename can refer to either a picture, a brush, or an animation file. If you choose an animation file the Screen icon will display the first frame of the animation. Under Screen Definition, there are several modes available. Click on the first multistate gadget on the left to select between |12High Resolution|12, |12Low Resolution|12, |12Extra Halfbrite|12, |12Hold and Modify|12, |12Current|12, or |12File Defined|12. For a definition of the first four modes, see Chapter 5 in the user manual. The Current option simply retains the current screen as it was defined by a previous Screen icon in the flow of an application. If you use a variable for filename and you want to use the screen definition from the IFF file at presentation time, then you should choose the option called File Defined. Each of the screen modes may be in either |12Interlace|12 and/or |12Overscan|12. To select either of these options, click on the two on/off gadgets on the right side of the requester, and a check mark will appear to indicate your selection. The third on/off gadget, |12Cursor|12, is to specify whether you wish to have the mouse pointer appear on the screen or have it turned off. If the check mark is in On state (default) the mouse pointer will be displayed. The next multistate gadget refers to the number of colors used. Depending on what you chose for screen resolution there are restrictions on available number of colors. You can specify your selection using the color gadget. The third multistate gadget on the left selects the palette as either |12Current|12, |12Modified|12, or |12Original|12. Current refers to the palette used in the application flow just before the Screen icon. Override tells the screen icon to ignore the previous palette and use the specified one (after using Adjust Palette, below). The Original setting causes AmigaVision to use the palette defined in the file when the application is run using |12Present|12. Choose the |12Adjust Palette|12 gadget if you wish to make changes to the palette from a specified picture file. The Palette requester is presented. First click the mouse pointer on a color of your choice and the slider gadgets will show the current settings settings for that color. Use the slider gadgets to adjust that palette color. |12Left|12 and |12Top|12 gadgets are used to specify the coordinates of the top left corner of the picture. Click on either gadgets to enter the Specify Value requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual). Here you can specify the top and left coordinates of the screen in terms of pixels in current resolution. Note that 0,0 refers to the top left corner of the screen. You are allowed to specify negative values of top or left coordinates if you want to display only part of a picture. Click on the |12Transitions|12 gadget to specify the screen pattern to be used when switching pictures. The Transitions requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual) is presented. There are a number of screen transition effects, dissolves, slats, and fades, available as options. It is important to note that you cannot use any of the screen transition effects except Fades when you are going from one screen resolution to another. You can also use the Fades to create transitions from one screen color to another. Also if you are using transition effects when going from one palette to another the old palette is used until the transition is completed and then the screen colors are set to the new palette. For these reasons it is recommended that you use a single resolution and palette throughout an application, if you want to use transition effects. Experiment with them until you find a satisfactory transition for your application. It is a good practice to choose one or two effects and use it throughout the application to avoid disorienting the viewer. |02 Digitized Sound To specify the sound file to be used, click on the |12Filename|12 field and type in the name. Or you may click on the |12Directory|12 gadget to open the file requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual). You can also use variables to specify filenames as described in Chapter 3 in the user manual. Using the on/off gadget select |12Pause|12 on or off. Pause on means pause the application until the sound file has been played back completely. This is the default option. The application moves to the icon following the sound icon after the completion of the sound event. The Pause off state starts the sound and continues to execute the next icon in the outline. Turn the Pause off if you want to start the the sound and immediately also start executing the action of the following icon such as an animation or a video sequence. This way you can synchronize sound and video. The |12Speaker|12 gadget allows specification of |12Left|12, |12Right|12 or |12Stereo|12 sound. Stereo samples will be played back in stereo while mono samples, if played back as stereo the stereo effect will be simulated. You can simultaneously play a number of sound files. There are four channels in Amiga hardware and each mono sound file takes up one channel to play back. Each stereo file uses two channels. Thus you can have one sound playing through the left speaker, another through the right, and have a third stereo sound play back on both. Thus you can superimpose multiple sounds to create special effects. Click on the multistate Sound gadget to specify |12Start|12, |12Stop,|12 or |12Stop All|12. Start and Stop gadget requires a specific sound filename to either start or stop playing the sound. The Stop All option, which does not require a filename, stops all the sounds that are being played back simultaneously. You can click on the |12Loop|12 and the |12Rep|12 gadgets to access the Specify Value Requester (see Chapter 3 in the user manual). In this requester you can enter the number of times you want the specified sound to be repeated. The number 0 will cause the sound to repeat endlessly. Finally, you can use the volume control slider gadgets to adjust the volume. Preview the sound to make sure the volume is consistent with volumes of other sounds in the application. The range of index for volume selection is from 0 to 64. This setting overrides the volume settings in the Defaults (see Chapter 4 under the Project Menu for details on Defaults). |03 Synthesized Speech If you want to specify a filename first use the multistate gadget below the Memo field to select Filename as the option. Then use the |12Directory|12 gadget to open the File requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual) where you may specify the volume, drawer, and name of the file to be used. You may also click on the field below the Directory gadget and type in the desired filename. You can also specify the filename as a variable as described in Chapter 3 in the user manual. If you are entering a text string, type the desired text in the field. If you do this, be sure that the multistate gadget above the field is set to |12Text String|12. You can enter a maximum of 255 characters for text string. For longer text you must use a file. You may also enclose variable names in brackets for Speech to say. For example, if a variable is defined using the Variables icon as Number = "One" and you type in the Text field: The number is [Number] then the synthesized voice will say "The number is One" during play back. To set voice parameters in the speech requester you may use the three multistate gadgets on the right hand side. The top gadget lets you choose the Sex as |12Male|12 or |12Female|12; the next gadget below lets you select the speaker |11i.e.|11 |12Left|12, |12Right|12, or |12Stereo|12; the next one below lets you choose between |12Robotic|12 or |12Natural|12 voice. On the left side of the requester there are three gadgets. The first one is to turn |12Pause|12 On or Off. The default state is On. If Pause is On the speech is played back completely before the application moves on to the next icon in the flow. If Pause is Off then the speech is started and the application immediately also executes the action of the following icon. The next gadget below the Pause sets |12Enable|12 state to On or Off. If you are using a file and set Enable on, the parameters in the requester will override any found in the file. The multistate gadget below the Enable gadget is to specify |12Start|12 or |12Stop|12 of playback of speech. You can set the |12Volume|12 using the slider gadget. The range of volume index is from 0 for the lowest to 64 for the highest volume. This setting overrides the value specified in the Defaults option (see Chapter 4 in the User Manual). |12Pitch|12 refers to the tone of voice used. Use the slider gadget to set the desired pitch. The lowest index value for setting is 65 and the highest is 320. |12Rate|12 refers to the speed of the speech. Use the slider gadget to set the desired rate. The lowest index value of speed is 40 and the highest is 400. |04 Music The |12Directory|12 gadget opens the File requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual) where you specify the name of the music file to be played. You may also click on the |12Filename|12 field and type in the desired filename. You can also specify the filename as a variable as described in Chapter 3 in the user manual. The |12Pause|12 on state is set as default and it is useful if you want the project to wait until the music file has completed playing before performing the action of the next icon. If you want the icon following the music icon to execute immediately then set Pause state to Off. The |12MIDI Output|12 is set to On if you want the music to be played through a MIDI instrument. Currently a maximum of four MIDI channels are supported. Click on the multistate |12Start/Stop|12 gadget to specify whether you want to start or stop the music file. It may be necessary, for example, to stop the music file playback, if a user interrupts the music to ask for help. Once stopped, however, you cannot resume at that point after the completion of an interrupt. You have to start again at the beginning of the music file. You must specify an instrument path in the text field provided for this purpose. A music score file will not play back if AmigaVision cannot find the path for instruments in your disk. Instruments refer to digitized sounds from various instruments such as piano, cello, horn etc. that are used in your score file. Please refer to your music software manual for more information on instruments. Most music software available in the market should also allow you to sample your own sounds and create custom instruments. You can also specify an instrument path using the |12Defaults|12 option listed under |12Project|12 in the pulldown menu in the flow editor. If you have specified a default path it will be displayed in the field provided for the path. You can play back the music file repeatedly a number of times using the Loop feature. If you set the Loop state to on the Reps gadget will be activated and you can click on it to specify the loop count. The number 0 will cause the music to repeat endlessly. You can use the slider gadget to control the volume of the music. The range for the index value for volume control is 0 to 64. |05 Graphics Click on the |12Object Editor|12 gadget to enter the Object Editor (Chapter 5 in the user manual) where you will create the text and objects to be used on the screen. When you enter the Object Editor through the Graphics icon you will not be able to create hit boxes |11i.e.|11 objects with response strings. However, you can define actions such as visual and audio feedback. If you click on the |12Background|12 gadget, the objects are stamped into the background. This means that the objects will remain on the screen until the background is replaced (|11i.e.|11 by a Screen icon). If Background is not selected, objects will only remain on the screen until the actions of this icon and its siblings have been performed. There are four separate multistate gadgets under the heading of |12Color Cycle Control|12. Each of these refers to one of the color cycling ranges that was saved in the picture (IFF) file. You can control each of the first four ranges. Each of the multistate gadgets has four possible states. You can start the color cycling in the |12Forward|12 or the |12Reverse|12 direction; turn the cycling effect |12Off|12, or leave it unchanged (N/C) if it has been turned on by a previous Graphics icon. |06 Brush The |12Directory|12 gadget opens the File requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual) where you specify the name of the picture file to be displayed. You may also click on the |12Filename|12 field and type in the desired filename. The picture files include standard pictures, brushes, and animation. If you specify an animation file the first frame of the animation will be displayed. You can also specify the filename as a variable as described in Chapter 3 in the user manual. When you load an arbitrarily shaped brush on the screen, a rectangle enclosing the brush is shown as the default case. If you do not want this enclosing rectangle shown then set the |12Cookie Cut|12 gadget to the On state. Click on the multistate palette gadget to specify |12Current|12 or |12Override|12. If |12Current|12 is selected, the brush will be displayed using the current background palette. The |12Override|12 option which is the default, uses the brush palette, changing the existing colors of the background. |12Left|12 and |12Top|12 gadgets are used to specify the coordinates of the top left corner of the picture. Click on either gadgets to enter the Specify Value requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual). The coordinate value of 0,0 refers to the top left hand corner of the screen. You can specify negative values for the coordinates if you want to show just part of the brush. Click on the |12Transitions|12 gadget to specify the screen pattern to be used when switching pictures. The Transitions requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual) is presented. All effects except for the Fades are available for transitions within the area of the brush. Fades work on the whole screen rather than on the area of the brush. |07 Video Select |12Pause|12 to cause the application to wait until the video is finished before executing the next icon in the outline. There are four multistate gadgets, representing |12Video|12, |12Audio Channel 1|12, |12Audio Channel 2|12, and |12Index|12 display, for specifying the state of the videodisc player. Each gadget has three possible states: |12On|12, |12Off|12, or No Change (|12N/C|12). For example, if On or Off is selected for Video, the video signal will be turned on or off if the videodisc player has the feature. Some players do not allow video to be turned off. The two audio channels can be controlled similar to the video. If N/C is selected then the status of the player will remain as is. Index refers to the frame number which appears on the screen as displayed by the videodisc player. AmigaVision supports a number of videodisc players and these are listed in Section 1. There are two methods by which you can specify the videodisc command and the player status in AmigaVision. One is by selections in the video requester. There is a list of commands shown in the command window. These are the most general commands that are supported by all videodisc players. The second method of specifying the videodisc command is by interactive control of the player using the Video Controller. We will address this method later. Click on a video command of your choice in the window. The command will appear highlighted. Certain commands such as Play, Search, and Autostop require specific frame numbers. If you select these commands the Parameter gadgets (|12Param 1|12 and |12Param 2|12) shown below will let you specify the parameters. For instance, the |12Play|12 command requires two parameters |11i.e.|11 the starting and the ending frame numbers. The |12Search|12 command requires one parameter, the frame number. If you know the video frame numbers, you may enter them from Specify Value Requester (see Chapter 3 in the user manual) which you can access by clicking on the Parameter Gadgets. Alternatively you can assign variable names in which the frame numbers have been stored. The variable names that have been defined previously will be displayed in the Specify Value Requester. To use the second method of specifying a video command click on the |12Controller|12 gadget to enter the Videodisc Controller. The Videodisc Controller is described in Chapter 5 in the user manual. Here you may interactively control the videodisc player and select frame numbers, the video command, and the player state. When you click on the Save gadget in the Controller the entire information required for the video requester is transferred automatically. This spares you the effort of noting down frame numbers and commands. Any frame numbers selected will be entered into the two fields under the Command. However, you cannot specify variable names using this method. |08 Animation The |12Directory|12 gadget opens the File requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual) where you specify the name of the animation file to be played. You may also click on the |12Filename|12 field and type in the desired filename. You select |12Loop|12 if you wish to play an animation which has end frames that loop back to the beginning frame (a looped animation). The looping action is specified at the time you create the animation file. If you select |12Loop|12, specify the number of repetitions in the |12Reps|12 field. When you click on the field, the Specify Value requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual) is presented. Note that if you specify zero in the Reps field, an infinite loop is created. Click on the |12Palette|12 gadget to specify |12Current|12 or |12Override|12. If Current is selected, the animation will be displayed using the current palette. If Override is selected, the animation's palette will be used, changing the existing colors. |12Left|12 and |12Top|12 are used to specify the coordinates of the top left corner of the picture. Click on either field to enter the Specify Value requester. Here you can enter the coordinate values. Note that the Left coordinate has to be an exact multiple of 8 so that the animation can be located on a byte boundary. Even if you enter an inconsistent number such as 28 it will get rounded to 24. The Top coordinate, however, can be any integer within the screen resolution. Negative coordinates are not allowed. Click on the |12Transitions|12 gadget to specify the screen pattern to be used when switching to the first picture of the animation. The Transitions requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual) is presented. Note that animation does not override screen attributes such as resolution. The attributes can be changed only by the Screen icon. |09 Text File The |12Directory|12 gadget opens the File Requester where you specify the name of the text file to be displayed. You may also click on the |12Filename|12 field and type in the desired filename. Or you can specify filename as a variable as described in Chapter 3 in the user manual. Click in the |12String|12 gadget to open the Specify Value requester (Chapter 3 in the user manual). Specify a sting variable containing a specific string value to identify the place in the file at which to begin displaying text. The first occurrence of the string is found, and text is displayed from that point onward. The search is case sensitive so that you can search to specific locations in a text file. This feature is useful in defining a glossary of terms. You can, for instance, create an ASCII text file with a list of words, each followed by its definition. You can make the word list in all capital letters so that you can quickly search for an occurrence of the word. If a user needs a definition you can present a data field (using the Form icon in database section) and get a string which can be searched for in the text file and the definition of the word displayed. Click on the |12Object Editor|12 gadget to enter the Object Editor. Use the |12Add-Text Window|12 option in the Objects menu to create the window which will display the text. Here you can specify the size, location, the background and border colors of the window and the text, color for highlighting, font, and font size. You must also define special purpose hit boxes, if you want to permit an end user to scroll text through the window. In addition, the end-user needs a hit box for quitting the text window. You have the option of using four text scrolling commands: |12Lineup|12, |12Linedown|12, |12Pageup|12, and |12Pagedown|12. In defining hit boxes that are associated with the text window you use as response strings "lineup," "linedown," "pageup," and "pagedown." You need a hit box with "quit" as the response string to terminate the text window. These response strings are |11not|11 case sensitive. The creation of text windows is described in detail in Chapter 5 in the user manual. If you want to highlight specific phrases you can use ||10 characters before and after the phrase in your text file. Also if you do not want to reformat columns or tables before presenting through the text window include in your text file the characters ||3 before and after that part of the text. You can also create italic, bold, and underlined phrases using ||11, ||12, and ||13 characters in your ASCII file respectively. The text window options are described in detail in Chapter 5 in the user manual. Currently text windows can be controlled by end users only with a mouse or touch hit boxes. Keyboard based controls are not available. Click in the |12Timeout|12 gadget to specify the amount of time in seconds the text file will be displayed on the screen. Note if Timeout is set to zero, the text file displays for an infinite amount of time. Timeout can be used as an alternative to hit box for exitting the text window.