^^ Welcome to this new version of DMC GOLD from AGAS Productions. UPDATED TEXT AUG 1997 Please note that most references to F1 Software/Steve Bye should now be ignored! Steve has passed F1 Software/Licenceware over to Phil Wilkinson at 1 Lower Mill Close, Goldthorpe, South Yorkshire, S63 9BY. e-mail phil@ware5d.demon.co.uk I myself (Andy Gibson) can only be contacted via e-mail now (NO MORE SNAIL MAIL coz I won't receive it due to new address :( If you want to contact myself for any reason, e-mail me at: andy@agasinc.demon.co.uk (correct as of Aug 1997) Anyway, let's move on.... First of all I must point out that you won't find much help with working on your disk mag via the articles with this release! That's what your printed manual is for. However, you can load any of the articles or pictures supplied into either a text editor or paint package to see how the effects are achieved. Past users of DMC will notice BIG changes with this new release. For starters: There are now 4 types of articles you can create! 1) Normal Coloured Page Articles which can have up to 15 cols on screen and also coloured ClipArt images. 2) Split Screen Page Articles with coloured text and coloured ClipArt images. 3) Scrolling Text Articles (like this one you are viewing - NEW to DMC GOLD V3.0) These type of articles cannot have any coloured text or ClipArt, but they are far easier to create for beginners. Plus the fact that they have a nice background picture to help spice them up :) 4) Secret Article. This is a special `Encrypted' file which nobody can read unless they know the password. You cannot even view it in a text editor, so it is 100% hacker proof. The Secret Article an be any of the three types mentioned above. The first two articles above can now also have 4 fonts to choose from, each with 8 text styles to choose from. (These features are also new to DMC V3.0) You'll also notice the NEW SEARCH feature which will be a big help to all those PD Libraries who use DMC for their cat disks. Now your customers can find the title they are looking for easily. No more scanning hundreds of pages :^) Also updated are the page selection modes. This is a cosmetic change only, but it's far better than previous versions. You'll also soon come to realise that DMC is now more system friendly than ever before. You can easily spread your production over as many disks as you need and DMC will now ask for the correct disk to be inserted (when required). No more nasty WB Screen Requestors :) DMC is still 100% compatible with files packed with CMania, which is the BEST file packer on the Amiga. Previous DMC users will know that I have been using it for two years in connection with DMC. To prove just how good CrMania really is, most of the commercial game developers now use it's crunching routines. Big name games such as Gloom and XTreme Racing to name only a couple. Yet another new feature to DMC V3.0 is that your Configuration file is stored as one file now (instead of the previous 2) and whatsmore, it's now fully `Encrypted' so nobody can hack it from your disk. Nobosy can rip you off anymore with this protection. They MUST have the Config Maker to edit/create a config file now. Talking of which, the Config Maker is also a new feature to this version. It creates your config file for you - instead of you having to type it up via a text editor. It makes life a lot easier. Written mainly due to Tony Horgan's review of DMC V2.3 in CU Amiga! Not only does this file hold your text and correct paths to files, it now also holds important information about the Secret Article. This erases the need for a seperate data file to be held on disk (as with DMC V2.3's DMC.Secret.info file) The configuration is now set-up about twice as fast, so I have removed a whole section of code from the main executable file also. (You will no longer see the config bar setting up) No doubt you will also have noticed that DMC V3.0 can now play an animation before the intro pics load up. Plus the addition of a new intro pic too. (DMC.Pic0) This is shown while DMC sets up the config file and also while it loads the music module and the new backpics! The DMC.BackPic is yet another new feature to this release! It is shown behind the Index Page's Text to help liven it up a bit. All colours for the Index Page's text is taken from this file also. (no more HEX Codes to mess about with - eh Tony Horgan?) I'm actually beginning to see why DMC V2.3 scored a low score! This new version is just oozing with loads of new improved features! The manual has been retyped and revamped also and is set out more neatly than before. It took me a good few hours to put it together and I'm sure you all managed to follow it with ease. (hope so) Well, that's not everything that I've done for this release, but I'll let you discover the rest at your own leisure. Before I go, I must also point out that I've decided to release this version of DMC as a sort of mini-disk-mag so that you get the general idea on how to set up a proper diskzine. If you're new to DMC, you'll learn a lot from this. If, on the other hand, you're a user of past versions, then I'm sure you'll know exactly what to do. I have included as much information in the text files and I've used all the codes which DMC uses to dispay ClipArt and fonts etc as I can so you can see how it's done. I use Cygnus Ed Pro V3.5 to write all my articles mainly due to the fact it has a Format option! What the Hell am I talking about? How can you format text! Well, take a look at all the articles in this release of DMC and you will see that they are all fully justified. ie. All text starts and stops at the same point on each line. This helps keep things very neat indeed. I used to do this by hand before I discovered Cygnus Ed though and it took ages! I think EdWord Pro V5 and also ProText have a similar feature too. It's really up to you if you want fully justified text or not, but I would suggest that you try and use it if at all possible. I also tend to add six spaces to the start of each line. THIS IS NOT A TAB! DMC doesn't like TABS, so don't use 'em please! Your text editor should have an option to make TABS=SPACES. If so, use it. If it doesn't, then you could add them by pressing the space bar SIX times, but don't use the TAB key! (next to `Q' on keyboard) Anyway, I don't wanna bore you to death, so return to the INDEX now and read some of the other articles supplied with this release. End. P.S. Check out the digi-pics of both myself and Steve Bye somewhere via the Index...... .... Steve no longer runs F1 Software anymore (Aug 1997), but this release of DMC GOLD was first released during Aug 1996 - e-mail me if you want to see new updates to DMC ;^) andy@agasinc.demon.co.uk