Thank you for using DrawIt, a very elementary graphics editor for
the MS-DOS platform. This document serves to answer your frequently asked
questions on the program.
Here is what each file does:
DRAWIT.EXE -- The executable of DrawIt. Required.
EGAVGA.BGI -- Graphics drivers for EGA/VGA video-cards, supplied
by Borland International, Inc. Required.
TRIP.CHR -- Triplex font, provided by Borland. Optional, but
removing it gives a sloppy look to DrawIt.
SANS.CHR -- Sans Serif font, again provided by Borland. You
can remove it at the cost of losing some eye-candy.
DRAWIT.ABT -- The 'About..' image. You can delete it if you
don't want the '?' button to show anything.
DOC\* -- Directory to store this page and its images. Optional,
but removing it may leave you with no other source of help while using
Drawit!
SRC\* -- DrawIt source-directory. Not needed unless you want
to improve upon the existing program.
Spray: Gives a spray-paint effect. Click and drag the mouse to
spray colour.
Fill: Fills bounded areas with the chosen colour. Click within
an area to fill it with colour. Note: Fill-algorithm is still buggy!
Text: Allows for text entry. Type in the text and press ESC
when done. ENTER takes you to the next line. Note: Backspace key doesn't
work yet!
Eraser: Erases colours, and fills with white colour. Click and
drag to erase.
Select: Use this tool to mark a rectangular area to translate/rotate/scale/clip
or to cut/copy.
Bezier curve: Draws a Bezier curve. Click and drag the mouse
to create an initial line. Then click twice to mark the two control points.
Finally press any key to finish.
Spiral: Draws spirals. Click and drag to draw a spiral of suitable
dimensions.
Rectangle: Draws a rectangle. Click and drag to draw a rectangle
of desired dimensions.
Ellipse: Draws an ellipse. Click and drag to draw an ellipse
of desired dimensions. Tip: You can use this tool for drawing circles as
well.
Polygon: Draws a polygon. Click to specify the points, and right-click
when done. The polygon is automatically closed by drawing a line from the
last point to the first point.
Filled rectangle: Draws a rectangle filled with the chosen colour
and/or fill-pattern. Click and drag to draw a filled rectangle of desired
dimensions.
Filled ellipse: Draws an ellipse filled with the chosen colour
and/or fill-pattern. Click and drag to draw a filled ellipse of desired
dimensions. Tip: You can use this tool for drawing filled circles as well.
Line: Draws a line. Click and drag the mouse to draw a line
of the desired length.
Pencil: Free-hand drawing. Click and drag to draw arbitrary,
free-hand lines and points.
| Spiral, rectangle, ellipse, polygon, line and free-hand
drawing can be done with either normal lines or thick lines. Clicking on
any of these tools displays an additional line tool-box for you to choose
the desired line.
|
 |
 |
Clicking on the filled-rectangle and filled-ellipse displays an additional fill-style tool-box from which you can choose a fill-pattern. |
Translate: Copies the marked area to another point. Click to
specify the new point.
Scale: Magnifies or reduces the marked area by the specified
factors. Enter the X- and Y-scale factors to scale the marked area. Note:
No input validation is done! Backspace does not work!
Rotate: Rotates the marked area by the specified angle. Type
in the angle in degrees. Note: No input validation is done! Backspace does
not work!
Clip: Only the marked area is retained, and the rest of the
drawing area (the canvas) is cleared to a uniform white colour.
Cut: Clear the marked region. Note: This is the inverse of Clip.
Copy: Copy the marked region. This is done at the time of marking
itself, but I have nevertheless placed an icon. :-)
Paste: Paste the marked region. Click to specify the new point.
Note: This is the same as Translate.
New: Clears the drawing area.
Open: Opens an existing image file. Type in the name of the
file and press ENTER. Backspace does not work! Note: DrawIt cannot open
any popular image formats. It uses its own format, which is a disk copy
of raw pixels of the image.
Save: Saves the current drawing to a file. Type the name of
the file and press ENTER. Backspace does not work! Note: DrawIt cannot
save your file as a JPEG or bitmap image. It copies the memory area onto
the disk, that's all.
The ? button shows the About image, and the X button
quits DrawIt.
Deepak can be contacted at deepak@despammed.com.
Home-page: http://www.symonds.net/~deep/
Mahesh can be contacted at mahesh_vg@indiatimes.com.
Kala can be found at http://www.symonds.net/~ash/
To compile the source, you need Turbo C++ 3.0 for MS-DOS. Copy the DrawIt source files
DRAWIT.H and DRAWIT.CPP, and also the small memory model
object file C0S.OBJ to a directory of your choice.
Load Turbo C++ and change to this directory.
Create a new project by invoking Project > Open Project. Type in a name
for the project file, and click OK. Add the file DRAWIT.CPP to
the project. Press ALT+F9 to compile, and CTRL+F9 to execute. The graphics
driver file (EGAVGA.BGI) must be present in the same directory
as the executable (DRAWIT.EXE) for DrawIt to run successfully.
Note that you have to change to the DrawIt directory every time you have
to work with the DrawIt project under Turbo C++.