Havoc Rainbows User manual -------------------------- Contents -------- 1. Introduction 1.1 copyright information 1.2 What's it for? 1.3 About this manual 2. The control panel 2.1 General 2.2 The pointer 2.3 Rainbow manipulation functions 2.31 Changing individual lines 2.32 Copy 2.33 Blend 2.34 Clear 2.35 Changing the size 2.4 Disc functions 2.41 Load 2.42 Save 2.43 Quit 2.5 Moving the control panel 3. Using the rainbows in your programs. 4. Feedback 1 Introduction -------------- 1.1 Copyright information ------------------------- This program is copyrighted (c)by John Hawkins. It may be distributed freely as long as this document is always included in any distribution. 1.2 What's it for? ------------------ Havoc rainbows is used to design rainbows for AMOS (Classic, Pro and Easy) programs, because you can never get quite the effect you want from Set Rainbow alone, and defining the values manually in your program is really tedious. It saves the rainbow as a special bank, which can the be displayed in your AMOS program via an included procedure. 1.3 About this manual --------------------- Yes, the interface is very simple and intuitive. Therefore this manual is aimed at the novice user. However, there are one or two points that may not be immediately obvious to the advanced user. 2 The control panel ------------------- 2.1 General ----------- When you first run Havoc rainbows you are presented with an information screen, after which you are taken to the main control panel, which is over the top of a screen on which you will assemble your rainbow. At the moment, the rainbow isn't very impressive, merely a block 48 lines high, and completely black. But that will soon change. 2.2 The pointer --------------- Surprisingly enough, this is very important. When you move the pointer onto the rainbow, the program automatically makes the line you are over flash. Note also that the line number is displayed on the control panel. If you click the left mouse button when you have a flashing line, this will fix the line in place, selecting that line for editing. If you want to de-select this line, simply press the right mouse button when the pointer is over the rainbow. Obviously, the pointer is also used to activate the various buttons on the control panel. This brings us nicely on to the next subject..... 2.3 Rainbow manipulation functions ---------------------------------- 2.31 Changing individual lines ------------------------------ Now, let's assume you've selected a line on the rainbow (by clicking on it). Unless you happen to like entirely black rainbows, you're going to want to change some colour values. Note that as soon as the pointer was situated over the rainbow, some little squares appeared on the bars on the right hand side of the control panel. These bars are, surprisingly enough, RGB slider gadgets. The top bar represents red, the middle green, and the bottom blue. The further to the right the square is within each bar, the more of that particular component that rainbow line contains. This content is also represented by a single hexadecimal digit to the side of the bar. (Think of it like a decimal digit, but a->f represent 10->15). So then, at the start each line has 0 of each component. No red, blue or green, which makes black. To change this value, move the mouse over onto one of the squares, and drag it left and right (hold the left mouse down, and move it left and right). You should notice the colour line changing in the rainbow, and the colour being represented in the window to the left hand side of the RGB slider, as well as the relevant digit changing. Try different mixes of red, green and blue to get nice colours. If you are unfamilar with this sytem of colour mixing, you'll soon get used to it. Although this may seem all well and good, to individually set every line of the rainbow in this manner would take a long time. Therefore some other useful functions are provided, and these are described below. 2.32 Copy --------- If you wish to copy the colour value from one line of your rainbow to another, the procedure is as follows: Select the source line as though you were going to edit it. Click (with the left mouse button) on the copy button on the control panel. Now move the mouse pointer back onto the rainbow, note you now have another flashing line to move about, and a small "to" has been added to the pointer, indicating that you need to select a destination line. When the line you wish to copy to is flashing, hit the left mouse button, and the copy will take place. Simple, eh? 2.33 Blend ---------- Blend produces a smooth progression between two line in your rainbow. In order to use it, make sure you have two lines, with different colour values, preferably with some space inbetween. The procedure is the same as copying a line. First, select the starting line. Next, click on the blend button on the main control panel, now select a destination as you did with copy. The program will then fill in the space inbetween the two lines with nice blend effect. 2.34 Clear ---------- If you've made a mess of your rainbow, and what to blank it and start again, click blend on the control panel. This will set all of the values to black. 2.35 Changing the size of your rainbows --------------------------------------- You may well wish to have a rainbow of a size other than 48. To increase the size, click on the + on the control panel, and to decrease, click on the -. Note that the current number of lines in your rainbow is displayed in a box underneath these two buttons. Currently, the largest possible rainbow you can have is 280 (about as much as a screen can take) lines, and the smallest is 4 lines (any smaller is a bit pointless). 2.4 Disc functions ------------------ 2.41 Load --------- To load a rainbow from disc, simply click on load, and select the file you want to load from the file requester (I'm sorry, but I've used the AMOS file requester. For instructions, consult your AMOS manual.). 2.42 Save --------- When you have finished (or are part way through and being cautious) and want to save your rainbow, simply click on save and specify the file name in the file requester. You should end the name with .rain, e.g. my.rain, new.rain, rubbush.rain etc. This isn't essential, but it helps you to keep a track of which file is what 2.43 Quit --------- Not really a disc function, but anyway.... To quit from the program, click on the quit button. 2.5 Moving the control panel about ---------------------------------- If you are creating a larger rainbow, parts that you wish to edit may become obscured by the control panel. To move it out of the way, click on the title bar, and, holding the mouse button down, drag it up and down. Incidentally, if you click on the title bar with the right mouse button, the information screen is put up again. As before use the right mouse button again to return to the control panel. 3 Using the rainbows in your program ------------------------------------ All information for this is provided in the file rainbow_displayer.amos, which also includes the required procedure. You don't have to state this program was used or anything stupid like that, but if you did want to, I'd be very happy. 4 Feedback ---------- If you wish to contact the author, for bug reports (doubtful), comments, ideas for improvements or just a general chat about things AMOSish, then you can contact me as follows: Snail-mail: John Hawkins, 29, Shields Crescent, Castle Donington, Derby, DE74 2JS. (This is my home address- my college address is a bit volatile) E-mail: ssu95jh1@reading.ac.uk (Obviously I can only reply in term-time) Internet: http://www.reading.ac.uk/~ssu95jh1/ (this page is well worth a visit, honest). Coming soon... -------------- Current projects in the pipeline (some more than others!) are: Multimedia Professional /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ A Multimedia authoring system. Possibly the first non-commercial one yet? It's roughly along the lines of Hyperbook, but at the same time, quite different. Hopefully to be released as licenceware. IFF to ASCII /\/\/\/\/\/\ A utility to make ASCII art, by analysis of IFF pictures. Available now from my web site, and anywhere else I can get it to. Operative /\/\/\/\/ A game, that can most easily be likened to Hired Guns. It's going to be an absolute epic. ***DON'T MISS IT!*** It should be finished early on in 96. Wurlde of Magicke /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ An Ultima type game. Not done much on it yet, so it could be a long while before it comes to fruition. [The end]