-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LockColors Documentation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the AmigaGuide© manual for LockColors. 'Distibution' Legal issues. 'Requirements' What you need to run LockColors. 'Introduction' What does it do, exactly? 'Installation' How to install LockColors. 'Tooltypes ' Customize LockColors. 'Usage ' Which gadgets to press. 'History ' The lifecycle of LockColors. 'Bugs ' That is: Features. 'Future ' Devlopement plans. 'Author ' Snail- and email addresses etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Distribution -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Distribution ~~~~~~~~~~~~ LockColors is ©1994 Torgeir Hovden. LockColors is released as CardWare. So if you like LockColors, and live somewhere exiting, please send me a postcard. The archive you just unpacked may be freely distributed, but you may not charge any money for it, except distribution costs (diskettes, postage etc.) The author can not be blamed for any damage caused by LockColors. Use it on your own risk. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Requirements -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Requirements ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A WorkBench screen with free pens (which means more than 8 colors, 16 colors or more is fine.) LockColors uses OS 3.0+ specific system calls. Thus, version 39 or higher of the operating system is required. To be honest, I really don't know what happens if you try to run this on systems <39, and for all I know your system may very well GURU. On systems fitted with os >=39, LockColors has proved to be very stable, and it has been tested with both Enforcer and Mungwall. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Have you ever wanted a 256 color screen, use 3 bitplane MagicWb icons AND make the whole thing look right? Well, now you can, with LockColors. LockColors is a commodity that gives you total (well almost) over the system palette on Amiga's fitted with OS3.0 or higher. It lets the user customize the palette and then lock the pens, not permitting any other (OS3.0+ compliant) program to change them. The locks are shared, so other may use the pens locked by the user, just not alter them. Use of LockColors makes sense only on screens >8 colors, since Workbench always locks the first 4 and the last 4 colors for system use. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installation ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Just copy LockColors to where you want it (or drag the icon). The WbStartup drawer is a good start. It may be a good idea to keep this documentation also. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ToolTypes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ToolTypes ~~~~~~~~~ DONOTWAIT For Workbench when starting LockColors from the WbStartup drawer. CX_POPUP Should the GUI appair when you run first LockColors? Defaults to YES. CX_PRIORITY Priority of the CxHandler of LockColors. Defaults to 0. CX_POPKEY Hotkey to show GUI. Defaults to lalt l. CFG Name of Configurationfile. Defaults to S:LockColors.cfg These tooltypes may be either used from the CLI or as icon tooltypes. When used from the CLI, see 'Bugs'. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Usage -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Usage ~~~~~ Well, this shouldn't be too hard. The GUI is simple and easy to use. Just press the buttons and see what happens. When the slidergadgets and the cyclegadgets is disabled, it means that the actual pen is already locked by some other application (typically Workbench). Note that pens 0-3 (and the last 4 pens on screens with more than 4 colors) is always locked by Workbench. You may not alter already locked pens, thus disabled gadgets. Choosing Locked on the cyclegadgets causes LockColors to lock the current color, so that it may not be changed. If the cyclegadget indicates Free, the colordefinition will NOT be saved and the color may be set by any application. If some of the pens you have locked are already locked some other time LockColors is run, the definitions is simply ignored. NOTES: Selecting SAVE makes LockColors save the current setup, and then closes the window while still remaining active. Selecting QUIT unlocks all pens obtained by LockColors, and resets to the original palette. LockColors sticks to the default pubscreen (LockPubScreen()), and the screen may not close with LockColors active. If you need to change the screenmode, quit LockColors first. Hints: When configuring your colormap, and you want to use different screendepths with LockColors, always edit the colors on a maximum depth screen. LockColors may very well use a configurationfile saved for a 256 color screen on a 16 color screen (it just reads the 16 first entries), but if you save the colormap on the 16 color screen, the 256 color screen just gets data for the 16 first colors. If you use MagicWb, the icons are 3 bitplanes deep. Because Workbench remaps the palette for deeper screens (to make complement right), the icons look really ugly. With LockColors you just copy the last 4 colors to color 5-8, locks these colors and whoila! The icons gets right every time! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History ~~~~~~~ V0.9 Used a BYTE as pennumber. Caused LockColors to crash when used on a 256 color WorkBench (negative indexes in my colortable...). Fixed. V1.0 Intitial release. Released 16/09-94. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Features -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Features ~~~~~~~~ - Uses topaz 8 for the sliders. Should have been using the Screenfont. Sorry! - Does not give you any hint on syntax when used from the CLI. May be fixed if anyone really needs it. - LockColors assumes 256 levels of intensity for each colorelement (r g & b), but this shouldn't cause any major problems. If you run LockColors on an OCS/ECS Amiga, compute as follows: Myintesity=Shownidensity DIV 16 :-) I haven't found any other undocumented features (bugs), but if you find some, please let me know. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Future -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Future ~~~~~~ - Bugfixes. - Any ideas???? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author ~~~~~~ Snailmail: Torgeir Hovden Moholt Alle 20-62 N-7035 TRONDHEIM NORWAY email: hovden@idt.unit.no