R.L.E. v2.0 ----------- RLE means Raster-Line-Editor and I suppose you already know what this tool is good for. It is meant to aid you in designing these colored-copper-bars which are used in every demo. Looking at this demos you will easily note, that the colors used in these copper-bars (or copper-stripes) are of a very special kind. Of none! This is, because it is very hard for a programmer to hack in the colors for these stripes in via SEKA as RGB values. It is nearly im- possible to determine what values to use in order to get a special color. So one usually sticks to the simple Red/Green/Blue stripes and their com- binations Yellow/Magenta/Cyan/Grey/Black. This becomes a little bit boring, because it shows that you are a lazy one, not willing to make good-looking stripes. Another possibility is to use DPaint. Here you use the spread func- tion of the palette menu and then steal the color-chunk from the IFF file. This is the common way of getting cooler stripes. And now, RLE is exactly the tool to fill in this gap. It was designed in March 1989 and was for a long time only for my private usage. During the whole year, RLE was changed and improved four times. The last change was in the week before the release date. In the beginning I thought about selling the program, but I could not imagine that anyone would buy it, so I dropped this idea and decided to give away RLE as PUBLIC DOMAIN! So you are allowed to use the program without any per- mission. BUT I WANT YOU TO LEAVE ALL THE FILES I LIST NOW ON THE DISK WHEN YOU SPREAD RLE! There are some files you need, in order to work with the program, others could be dropped, but I insist on leaving ALL files on the disc, or you break with the rules of PUBLIC DOMAIN. The files you have to copy along with the master program are: - LIBS:arp.library (used for the file-requester) - S:RLE.Config (used for the single-keycolor mode) - :READ.ME (this file!) - :Cols -DIR (example colors) - :RLEv2.0e (the master program) - :Copper-Demo (the demo showing the result of an RLE-session (1MB)) (If there is no place on your spreader-disk, you are allowed to forget the Copper-Demo, but try to spread it also.) ============================================================================ RLE is fully copyrighted; no part may be changed, copied, sold, re-assembled or used in your own program! Neither with a written permission (because you won't get one!). ============================================================================ RLE Manual: ----------- Please note that RLE cannot be started from the workbench! In addition, RLE will (when editing) take FULL CONTROL OVER THE AMIGA, so please do not run any programs in the background, because they could get damaged and cause the AMIGA to crash. RLE is packed with DISCOVERY'S IMPLODER, and will use about 140K of memory to decrunch; also RLE will allocate lots of CHIP-Memory for its own use. If you have only 512K, you NEED NOT to disconnect you external drives or to use ADD21K, because since RLE is hungry, it is not so hungry. Getting started: ---------------- When RLE is loaded and successfully decrunched, it will try to allocate memory, open the arp.library and S:RLE.Config. If one of the first two attempts are in vain, you will get an error message and a 20 as return code. If the Config file is not found, the startup will continue nevertheless. After the window opened, you will see the following 10 gadgets: +---------------+ +----------------+ 1 | Load a raster | | Load to buffer | 6 +---------------+ +----------------+ +---------------+ +----------------+ 2 | Save a raster | | Save a buffer | 7 +---------------+ +----------------+ +---------------+ +----------------+ 3 | Source raster | | Source buffer | 8 +---------------+ +----------------+ +---------------+ +----------------+ 4 | Undo changes | | Load Iff color | 9 +---------------+ +----------------+ +---------------+ +----------------+ 5 | Enter Editor | | Read new Prefs |10 +---------------+ +----------------+ Please note that these gadgets shown here are simplified and do NOT MATCH with the ones in RLE, but they do mean the same and these here are only shortened, because i am to lazy to write a lot! Explanation of the main menu: ----------------------------- 1) This function calls a file requester (from arp library) and want you to load a RLE-color file into the work area. The file you are loading must NOT be a RLE file, it can be any file you want (even an ASCII file), but only the first 290 words are loaded. 2) This function is to save the whole workarea 3) This function generates an assembler sourcecode of your colors. They are NOT saved as a copperlist, but as a list of DC.W's for only the colors. This function generates a sourcecode from the whole workarea. 4) Every time you enter the editor, your workarea is copied into a spare buffer. Click on this gadget if you want ALL your modifications on your raster abandoned and get the raster you were previously editing back. 5) Any explanation necessary? 6) This function is nearly the same as function 1, but the data you load goes into the block-buffer instead to the workarea. You can merge rasters in the editor with this function. 7) The data currently in the block-buffer gets saved. Useful if you want only a special area saved instead of the whole workarea. (this automatically generates a smaller output file unless your block has the size of the whole workarea) 8) The same as 3, but does it only with the block-buffer contents. (see annotation 7) 9) Here you can load the color-chunk from any IFF-file if you previously made a color-range with DPaint or any other drawing program. 10)With this function you load a new definition for the single-keycolor mode (see explanation below) 11) ??? (to quit, press the window's closing gadget. No security-check!!!) RLE - The editor ---------------- After you clicked on gadget nr.5, the screen will blank, and you are in the main editor. Here you design your raster-stripes with the help of powerful functions. The mouse is NO LONGER USEFUL, because all commands are entered via keyboard. This may sound striking at the beginning, but later on you will see, that working via keyboard is much faster than it could be by mouse. PRESSING THE HELP KEY WILL BRING UP A HELP SCREEN WITH ALL KEYS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS EXPLAINED. THIS IS ONLY A SMALL HELP, BUT YOU SHOULD MAKE EXTENSIVE USE OF IT WHEN WORKING THE FIRST DAYS WITH RLE!