ÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜ Ü Ü Ü Û ß Û Û Û Û Û Û Û ßÜ Üß Û ÛÜÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÜÛ ÛÜÜÜ ÛÜÜÜ Û ßÜß Û ßÛ ÛßÜ Û Û Û Û Û Üß ßÜ ÛÜÜÜÛ Û ßÜ Û Û Û Û Û Üß ßÜ (TM) FOR WINDOWS AND DOS ß ß SHAREWARE EDITION Copyright 1994 ANDROMEDA SOFTWARE. All rights reserved. This is the shareware release of GRAFFIX 2.3, a major revision that extends the screen-capture capabilities of GRAFFIX for DOS to Microsoft Windows. This release includes two separate and distinct executable program files, DGFX.EXE for DOS applications, and WGFX.EXE for Windows applications. The DOS program can be run alone for full-screen text and gra- phics screen captures from within DOS applications running in DOS or Windows, while the Windows program can be run alone for full-screen or single-window captures from within Windows appli- cations. DGFX.EXE and WGFX.EXE can also run simultaneously on the same computer for the ultimate flexibility in screen capture from within both Windows and DOS applications running in Windows. For simplicity, the explanations that follow focus first on the Windows version of GRAFFIX, then on the DOS version. GRAFFIX for Windows GRAFFIX writes the contents of the clipboard to a graphics file. In Windows, the entire screen can be captured to the clipboard at any time by pressing the PrtSc key (Shift-PrtSc on 84-key key- boards), or just the currently active window can be saved to the clipboard by pressing Alt-PrtSc. GRAFFIX does not need to be running in order to do this. GRAFFIX can then be opened to save the clipboard to disk in BMP, GIF, or PCX format. Simply choose the appropriate item from the main menu, and respond to the prompt for a file name. You can include a drive letter and directory specification in the filename edit box, such as d:\pictures\filename.bmp or just a filename to save to the current drive and directory. After the file is written to disk, you can close GRAFFIX or minimize the GRAFFIX window to an icon. When minimized, GRAFFIX is still active in "popup" mode, which means a dialog-box will pop up onto the screen whenever a graphics bitmap is placed on the clipboard. The dialog box asks if you want to save the con- tents of the clipboard to a graphics file, or cancel and continue with the current application. You can turn popup mode off by clicking on the "popup" item in the Options menu, which will remove the checkmark next to this menu item. In popup mode, GRAFFIX will pop up when you press the PrtSC key OR when another application places a bitmap on the clipboard that is compatible with GRAFFIX. The compatible formats are DDB (Device-Dependent Bitmap) and DIB (Device-Independent Bitmap), the two most commonly-used bitmap formats. If you attempt to save a clipboard bitmap whose format is not one of these two, GRAFFIX will respond with a dialog box that says "No bitmap exists on the clipboard." The Windows Clipboard Viewer can be used to examine the contents of the clipboard prior to invoking GRAFFIX. Main Menu Item: BMP Select this menu item to save the contents of the clipboard to an uncompressed Windows Bitmap File with the filename extension BMP. 16-color, 256-color, and 24-bit true-color modes are supported. Main Menu Item: GIF Select this menu item to save the contents of the clipboard to a CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format file with the filename ex- tension GIF. This format utilizes LZW compression, and supports 16 and 256-color modes. GIF does not support 24-bit color modes. Main Menu Item: PCX Select this menu item to save the contents of the clipboard to a PC Paintbrush file with the filename extension PCX. 16-color, 256-color, and 24-bit true-color modes are supported. Main Menu Item: Options Three options are available: Clear clipboard. Selecting this menu item empties the clipboard. Popup mode. This is the default mode of GRAFFIX. When minimized to an icon, GRAFFIX will pop up onto the screen whenever the clipboard receives a new bitmap image. Select this menu item to turn popup mode off or back on again. DIB to DDB. If the clipboard image is in DIB format, GRAFFIX creates DDB and palette data structures before saving the image to disk. Enable this option to add these items to the clipboard when the file is created. The Windows Clipboard Viewer can provide more accurate color rendition if these items are on the clipboard. Help Menu Online Help is available to explain the features of GRAFFIX. GRAFFIX for DOS is a memory-resident utility that captures gra- phics and text-mode screens directly to disk files. It can be activated from within a running DOS application, such as a video game, by pressing the "hot key" combination Ctrl-Alt-Space. Graphics screens can be saved as either GIF or PCX files, and text screens as ASCII files. This version of GRAFFIX supports all EGA, VGA, and SVGA gray-scale and color graphics modes (16- and 256-color), 640 x 480 24-bit color (VESA mode 112h), mono- chrome EGA and VGA modes, and text modes up to 132 columns by 60 rows. To minimize memory requirements of this TSR, the old CGA and Hercules graphics modes are not supported. SVGA modes are supported for adapters whose BIOS is VESA-compliant, which includes most SVGA adapters on the market. USING GRAFFIX for DOS Super-VGA modes are supported for video cards that have the VESA BIOS extension. GRAFFIX looks for this extension when you make it resident, and prints a message on the screen indicating whether or not the VESA BIOS extension was found. Some SVGA cards, such as the Video Seven WIN.VGA, require that you run a utility program that installs the VESA BIOS extension in RAM before an application can make calls to the BIOS extension. In the case of the Video Seven card, this utility is named V7VESA.COM. Putting V7VESA on a separate line in your AUTO- EXEC.BAT file will automatically load this driver every time you turn on your computer. In the absence of the VESA BIOS extension on SVGA cards, GRAFFIX supports the standard VGA modes, but will terminate and return to the application when it encounters a mode it does not recognize. When GRAFFIX is activated in graphics mode, a prompt for a file name appears at the top of the screen. The cursor is invisible in graphics modes, but you can enter a file name as you would in text mode, and backspace to delete characters you may want to change. If no file name is entered before you press RETURN, GRAFFIX defaults to the file name SCREEN.GIF or SCREEN.PCX, depending on the format selected, and writes the file to the current drive and directory. You may enter the file name with a drive and directory prefix, such as d:\dir\filename, where d represents any drive letter and dir any directory or subdirectory name. The prompt will accept more than one directory in the pre- fix, such as d:\dir\subdir\filename, for a total of up to 23 characters. No file name prompt appears in 640 x 480 24-bit mode, as some adapter cards do not support text output in this mode. Instead, the filename defaults to 24BITxxx.PCX in the current directory, where xxx represents the number in the sequence of files saved. The GIF format does not support 24-bit color. The time GRAFFIX takes to capture a graphics screen and save it to disk depends on the speed of your computer, the file format chosen, and the graphics mode. A GIF file takes longer to create than a PCX file, because the compression algorithm is more com- plex, resulting in a file that is more compact. The higher the resolution of the graphics mode, the longer it will take to cre- ate the file, because of the greater number of pixels that must be encoded. When the screen capture is completed, GRAFFIX will signal you with a beep. During a SVGA screen capture, GRAFFIX will generate a series of ascending tones; each tone indicates that the video card has switched to a new page of memory. This is to reassure you that the program is indeed processing data, and not hung up in an endless loop. RUNNING DGFX.EXE AND WGFX.EXE Since DGFX.EXE is a TSR, it must be launched from the DOS prompt BEFORE opening Microsoft Windows. It cannot be properly in- stalled in memory from a DOS "shell" activated by clicking a DOS icon in Windows, nor can it be run from the Windows "Run File" menu. However, once DGFX.EXE has been installed as a memory- resident program, it can be activated from within a DOS program that was launched from DOS, from Windows, or from a DOS shell in Windows. GRAFFIX for DOS is activated by pressing the "hot-key" combination Ctrl-Alt-Space. This is the way to save a full- screen graphic image that is not framed by a window. WGFX.EXE is run the same way as any other Windows program, either from the "Run File" menu or by clicking on its icon, having first installed it in a program group window. The Windows documenta- tion explains how to add a DOS or Windows program to a group. In popup mode, WGFX.EXE will only pop up in Windows, not in DOS or in DOS programs running in Windows. GRAFFIX for Windows and DOS, Version 2.3, Shareware Edition Copyright 1994 ANDROMEDA SOFTWARE. All rights reserved. To order the Professional Edition of GRAFFIX for Windows and DOS, send $39 to: ANDROMEDA SOFTWARE 25 North Prospect St. Washington NJ 07882 NJ residents please include sales tax. Comments, questions, or suggestions about GRAFFIX can be addressed to Steven A. Brown, the author of GRAFFIX, on CompuServe at [73140,3340]. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY THIS SOFTWARE AND MANUAL ARE SOLD "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES AS TO PERFORMANCE OF MERCHANTABILITY OR ANY OTHER WARRANTIES WHETHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. BECAUSE OF THE VARIOUS HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENTS INTO WHICH THIS PROGRAM MAY BE PUT, NO WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IS OFFERED. GOOD DATA PROCESSING PROCEDURE DICTATES THAT ANY PROGRAM BE THOROUGHLY TESTED WITH NON-CRITICAL DATA BEFORE RELYING ON IT. THE USER MUST ASSUME THE ENTIRE RISK OF USING THE PROGRAM. ANY LIABILITY OF THE SELLER WILL BE LIMITED EXCLUSIVELY TO PRODUCT REPLACEMENT OR REFUND OF PURCHASE PRICE.