NOTES ON THE NEW WIMP (Remember, this is only the BEGINNING!) General Rule... Right Click OR ESCAPE to exit a mode or cancel what you're doing Left Click OR ENTER to take action or select something Also... In old WIMP, you usually clicked on an image or palette and then on the function you wanted to perform. In new WIMP, you click on the function first, and then select as many images or palettes as you want until you ESCAPE from that mode. Notable Exception... When you are in a color selection mode (Modify Colors, Color Cycle, Pixel Replace, etc.) Left Click selects the first or source color, Right Click selects the destination or last color. Key things... Cursor keys move the cursor just as the mouse would. Shift-Arrow keys moves the cursor in greater chunks ENTER is same as left click ESCAPE is same as right click Home, End, Delete, and Page Down move the DRAW COLOR box around the color block. This works even if the color block is not displayed. Grey Plus increments the source color EXCEPT in Modify Color Range when it adjusts R,G and B simultaneously Grey Minus decrements the source color EXCEPT in Modify Color Range when it adjusts R,G and B simultaneously On the target screen only... CTRL-Left Click selects the pixel you are pointing at as the DRAW color CTRL-Right Click selects the pixel you are pointing at as the ERASE color When you are changing animation points... SHIFT-RIGHT CLICK restores the animation point to where it was originally. NOTE: Once you leave the target screen, the animation point becomes fixed and can not be restored to an earlier state! When loading images... SHIFT-Left Click allows you to drop multiple copies and even paint with the image. SOME COOL NEW FEATURES... Stronger communication with GSP. Checking for disk space before writing to disk. Clean entering and exiting target screen without crashes. (See note below) New command lets you restart GSP art program from within WIMP. Mouse sensitivity range for being on target screen. Can have your background and cursor colors automatically set when you start WIMP. New function: ADD COLORS TO A PALETTE! (increases the number of colors in the palette so you can set up color animations or just put in some additional colors. This does not set the new colors, just increases the number of colors associated with the palette) Extract feature automates the creation of many images from one large one. (and sets animation points for you) Messages on console telling you what mode you're in. For the Img/Palette Directory, Sequence/Script Directory, and Draw Mode, you get new Menu Bars so more commands are at your reach easily. While you make a box, the endpoints and size are constantly displayed and updated. Copy Work area commands work the way you think they should. In ZOOM mode, you can now pan by scrolling the box around instead of pressing directional buttons. Bulletproof and transparent handling of "out of memory" conditions. Pixel Swap on images added to the pixel replace option. Can create any number of scripts (formerly buffers). Still can only see 4 at a time, though (for now). Read Multiple VDA Files at once using only one palette and create a script automatically. Range modify acts like a real tint. You can always go back to the original state. Animations get reloaded automatically when something relevant changes. You should never need a "RELOAD FRAMES" command. File windows give you a better way to create and select files. Images, Palettes, Sequences and Scripts can all be "marked" for Range operations. Marking can be by name, position, or (for images) by palette. You can mark unused palettes. Search and replace on image, palette, script or sequence names. Delete a Sequence or Delete a Script without having to delete all the frames inside. Palette List shows which palettes are in the color map and which colors they occupy. When you change colors in the color map, WIMP now detects if those colors are part of a palette and gives you the option of changing the palette or not. Animation point values are displayed with the directory for each image. You can now click on them and type in values if you wish. You can change the animation points on a RANGE of images by either setting them to a specific value or offsetting them by a constant value. Sequence and script editing is easier. Condense now gives you the option of stopping after identical and unused colors are removed. True Tinting (and brightness control when R,G, and B are all adjusted together. Anim pts are now transferred with .VDA files between Wimp and Wtarg Merge Function merges any number of palettes into one. Can load images larger than screen size. (Wimp breaks them up into smaller images) Can load .VDA files containing 24-bit color maps. Can place as many images on screen as will fit with one click. Can place all parts of multi part images on screen at once. Modify Colors now has an UNDO function which lets you to go back to the state you were in when you selected the current range or color. Shadow options allow you to create a new separate shadow image. ***************************************************** * IF YOUR SYSTEM SEEMS TO BE HUNG UP... * ***************************************************** ...wait a few seconds. You should get a flashing message that says "GSP timed out on..." Make a note of the seemingly cryptic numbers at the end of the message, then hit ESCAPE or Right click to remove it. WIMP NOW TRIES TO RESEND A TIMED OUT COMMAND! If you get another of the same message, repeat the procedure. If you keep getting the same message, PRESS and HOLD BOTH MOUSE BUTTONS AT THE SAME TIME after you clear the flashing message. At this point... 1) You may be alive again. Try to do something. (don't be scared) 2) You may time out again. 3) you may get an "I'M CONFUSED" message when you try to go to the target screen. At any point, you should be able to save your work and exit WIMP. If you find you are still alive, just keep going. Before you give up, there is a last resort that may get you going without a problem. It is the "RESTART GSP" Command in the first menu (at the left of the menu bar). If that doesn't work, you may have to save your work and restart WIMP. It is extremely unlikely that you will crash so severely that you lose work! EDITING KEYS... When editing a field, the following keys may be used... HOME gets you to beginning of field END gets you to end of field DEL deletes char at cursor without moving cursor BKSPC deletes char before cursor and moves cursor left 1 space SHFT_LFTARR moves cursor left on space SHFT_RTARR moves cursor right on space INS toggles between Overwrite (default) and Insert (Cursor flashes) modes TAB clears field from current position to end ESC exits and restores original field ENTER exits and accepts changes to field IGNORE When more than one field are present... IGNORE IGNORE LFTARR moves to next field IGNORE RTARR moves to prev field IGNORE UPARR moves to field above IGNORE DNARR moves to field below IGNORE SHFT_UPARR,PGUP increments field IGNORE SHFT_DNARR,PGDN decrements field STRING MATCHING... For search strings... * matches any number of any characters ? matches any one character @ matches any number (>0) of the previous character < or % anchors the search string to the beginning of the scanned strings > or $ anchors the search string to the end of the scanned strings [...] encloses a set. A set is a set of characters to match or a range of chars to match. EXAMPLES: [1a2b] will match a single occurance of 1, a, 2, or b [a-e] will match a single occurance of a, b, c, d, or e [*?] will match an asterisk or question mark since they normally would be reinterpreted as wildcards. For translation strings... ^ will be replaced with the source string. i.e. if the source string was [1-9] and the replacement string is :^: then the following translations take place... FUCK1 becomes FUCK:1: FUCK2 becomes FUCK:2: B7TMP becomes B:7:TMP ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES... IMGDIR=directory where .img files are VDADIR= " " .vda files are TMP=directory where you want temp. files to be created (RAM disk if you have one);