|How to format your stuff for The Word by Freak of NFA The Word #5 is written entirely in AMOS, which might come as a bit of a suprise to some of you. What's not so suprising is that AMOS isn't in the same league as assembler and so several limitations apply to anything you want to send to us: |Articles Your articles should be plain ASCII text, that is, anything you can type from the keyboard with the use of the Shift key. Using the Alt key will produce wonderful characters for "scene text" style docs, and AMOS, or more specifically the routine that pastes your text onto the screen like the clappers, has been adapted to incorporate all of these. The text on the screen is indented by 4 characters, this is because my Editor is set to 72 chars wide, and I'm such a lazy sod that I can't be bothered to change it. If you want to have centralised text, use a 72- character wide screen. If you want to use the big text that appears as headings and stuff, you simply have the "|" character at the start of the line, to be followed immediately by the string you want in big text. You should leave two blank lines AFTER this title, because the font is 24 point (3 lines). |IFF Adverts From now on can you please limit your IFF adverts to NO-LACE/OVERSCAN as the inclusion of too many Hires+Laced (640x512) adverts was crashing the mag, I'm not sure WHY this is so, it just is, so from now on only adverts in 320x256(32) or 640x256(16) will be accepted. Before starting on your IFF masterpiece, boot in original chipset, because AMOS doesn't like AGA Colour values. |Text Adverts? Obviously with this new format, ASCII text adverts can be any bloody size you like. Please refrain from going overboard though. The same character restrictions apply as on the articles. |Modules AMOS isn't really brilliant at playing modules either (although AMOS Pro is better), so if you do produce one, please refrain from using all the fancy timing tricks that ProTracker has up it's sleeve. Remember that a change in tempo might not work in AMOS and your killer module will sound incredibly naff. We store two mods in RAM with this mag, so they don't really want to be heee-uge stonking 300k+ beasties. Ideally your mods should be somewhere around the 70k mark, uncrunched. |Clip Art As you will have seen on the menu, Clipart is used for section headings to make the mag look prettier. Eventually I'm hoping to be able to have it in the articles too, but before I get anywhere near started I'll need some Artwork to use. If you think you can draw better that me (NOT the most difficult thing in the world :-) then feel free to load up DPaint of PPaint or whatever, in 640x256 and do be a few mono piccies. More original artwork stands a better chance of being used. Naturally, one thing we would like is for you to supply an item of clip- art with your name/group/handle on it so that we can stick it on the end of any articles you send, you can whip up some neato ones for the NFA crew as well if you like. I'd recommend that these are no more than 50 pixels high, again in 640x256 mode. |Article Animation We also require a 4-frame anmiation for the article screen, it should be no bigger than 640x210 (preferably including a top and bottom border) and only in two colours (one bitplane). |Loading Screens Every issue will require TWO loading screens. These should be designed as per the IFF adverts, non-AGA screenmodes/colours and no interlace. I will select a couple each issue and credit the artist accordingly. |Preferences Screen On the prefs screen there's an image done in 640x256, 16 colours. We'll have a different piccy every issue, so you can do one as well if you like, just remember that it's greyscale ONLY, it has to fit AROUND the button gadgets, and one colour must NOT be used, so we can make it purple and highlight the buttons with it. |Where to, guv? Finally, please send all your contributions to the Grimsby address in the "Contact NFA" file, if you'd like your disks back then please include an SAE. You can leave a blank and an SAE with us and we'll send your copy of The Word direct upon completion. Alternatively you can call our BBSs to leave articles and other bits, see the file! |Freak/NFA Cheers Chaps!