FINE LINE Curve drawing and painting program - for low res. color Atari ST. Designed expressly for drawing fine lines and curves with an optional distinctive sharp appearance, this program also includes other painting features, and an easy, unobtrusive menu design. PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS: To get menu, move mouse cursor to right edge of screen. To leave menu, move mouse cursor out of menu area. MENU: 1. LOAD - Load a NEOchrome or DEGAS low resolution picture. 2. SAVE - Save picture. To save in NEOchrome format, specify a .NEO filename extension. Otherwise, the DEGAS format is used. 3. DRAW - Click mouse buttons to connect points: Left button for straight lines -- Right button for curves. To start a new curve, disrupt current curve by getting the menu, then leave menu area and proceed to draw new curve. To resume current curve, select "CONT" and leave menu area. 4. ERASE - Erase. 5. FILL - Fill in closed area with selected color. 6. SHARP - Lines and curves will be drawn to appear sharp (actual appearance depends on pallette and on color of region on which curve will be drawn). 7. GRID - Sets up a grid when DRAW is in effect. Includes invisible grid points midway between visible grid points. Only grid points can be connected by lines and curves. 8. COLOR - Steps through eight colors (red,violet,yellow,white,black,blue,green,skyblue), using selected half of pallette to represent eight shades of the color. The other half of pallette remains unchanged, unless it consisted of the desktop pallette and would render the menu invisible (i.e. when primary foreground color is the same as the background color). The desktop pallette is obtained by pressing the ESCape key when the menu is active. 9. RED - Steps through eight shades of red to mix with color in selected half of pallette [if there is no red component in that color]. 10. GREEN - Steps through eight shades of green to mix with color in selected half of pallette [if there is no green component in that color]. 11. BLUE - Steps through eight shades of blue to mix with color in selected half of pallette [if there is no blue component in that color]. 12. INVRS - Inverts the shades in selected half of pallette. Will affect sharpness, which depends on shade of region on which curve will be drawn. Pallette which creates sharp appearance on darkest background will create sharp appearance on lightest background if inverted. 13. PICK - Select rectangular region for future pasting. Click either mouse button, selecting the first corner, then click again, selecting the opposite corner. 14. PASTE - Click either mouse button to paste the previously selected rectangular region at the current mouse position. 15. STYLE - Displays menu for selecting fill pattern or line drawing style. Some line drawing styles (try rounded end with a thick line) create special effect in sharp drawing mode. 16. PIXEL - Displays a magnified view of cursor neighborhood. Click the left mouse button to plot point at cursor position in the selected color. Click the right mouse button to freeze magnified view, inorder to move cursor to magnified view window and edit it (by clicking left mouse button). Unfreeze by clicking right mouse button again. 17. CONT - Continue the drawing which was disrupted by appearance of menu. 18. QUIT - quit. Colors (shades) can be selected from pallette at right side of menu. KEYS: The UNDO key can be used to undo the last draw, fill, erase, or paste. When in DRAW mode, and mouse buttons not pressed, the UP arrow is similar to UNDO, but retains direction information of the "UNDONE" line. This enables controlled discontinuities in curve direction. When in DRAW mode, and mouse buttons not pressed, the LEFT arrow key cycles backwards through the last 512 points, and the RIGHT arrow key cycles forwards through the last 512 points. When in DRAW mode, and right mouse button pressed, the UP arrow stretches the curve to make it tall, and the DOWN arrow squashes the curve to make it fat. The ESCape key recovers the desktop pallette when menu is active. The correspondence between the FINELINE pallette and the pallette on bottom of Control Panel (desktop accessory) is as follows: FINELINE arangement 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Control Panel arangement 11 12 0 1 4 3 7 9 12 11 13 14 15 2 6 5 8 10 14 13 15 BRIEF TOUR: Set desktop to low resolution. Run the program FINELINE.PRG Leave menu region (if menu is visible). Click the mouse. Move mouse. Click again: Left button for straight lines -- Right button for curves. Etc. Experiment with the features described in "MENU" and "KEYS" sections above. You should be able to draw smooth curves, curves with corners, curves with a sharp appearance, and curves with varied "ellipticity". You should also be able to select any of the last 512 points and continue drawing from the selected point. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact Arie Berman 912 16'th St. #2 Santa Monica, Ca 90403 Monetary contributions (any amount) will also be appreciated. Thankyou.