CANVAS Due to the size of the programs on this month's Cover Disk it was impossible to include the Canvas documentation files on the same side as the program. Unfortunately this means that only double sided drive owners get to see the documentation. But don't worry as there is a tutorial inside the magazine and limited instructions can be found further on in this file. HOW TO USE THE DOCUMENTATION ON SIDE 2 OF THE DISK Ensure you've got a blank disk or a disk with about 150K free. Copy CANVAS.PRG to the root directory of the blank disk. Copy the MANUAL folder on side 2 of the disk to your blank disk. Ensure everything inside the folder is copied correctly. You should end up with a disk containing Canvas in the root directory and lots of ASCII files inside a MANUAL folder. Run Canvas from the new disk - it must be in drive A. Don't run Canvas from drive B or a hard drive otherwise you won't be able to read the documentation files. Once Canvas is up and running, hit the Help key. A menu will appear. Tap a letter on the keyboard to view the corresponding help file on screen. Please note not all help files are complete; you'll need the fully working commercial version for that. USING CANVAS Double click on the CANVAS.PRG file. A screen will appear full of icons. To use something like line drawing or box drawing, click on the appropriate icon. Before describing each individual menu type, you must realize the general interaction procedure with the menus... Anyone accustomed to using Degas or Degas Elite will already understand the principles since they are similar to those used in Canvas. While on the Main Menu screen (the screen which you are presented with when you load in Canvas), you may click on the right button to alternate between the current work screen and the main menu. The left button performs an operation - on the menus it selects a menu item whereas on the work screen it performs the current mode operation eg. Draw. On other menu screens the right mouse button may have other functions which are explained in the Menu Selector Descriptions section of this manual. Menu Selector Descriptions The ease of use of Canvas stems from the menu system developed specially for it. This system consists of a number of menu selector types described below: Action Bars These are simply boxes enclosing some text. By clicking the mouse button on them an action is performed. The nature of the action is different for each action bar. Colour Selectors The only Colour Selector Bar found on Canvas is located at the bottom of the Main Menu screen. It consists of the current palette of 16 (lo-res), 4 (med-res) or 2 (hi-res) colours. Along the top and bottom of the colours run thin bars which contain the rotate markers. You will see at some point along each of them a marker. The top one indicates the start rotate marker and the one below shows the end rotate marker. The end marker must always be to the right of the start one, and you are prevented from setting them in any other fashion. The rotate markers serve as a selector for a number of functions. Obviously, they select which colours are cycled by the rotate function, but they also allow you to select which colours are used by the Rainbow options available to most of the modes. Icon Selectors This Menu type consists of of block of smaller options of which only one can be selected at a time. The mode selector on the Main Menu screen for instance can only have one mode selected at once. Icon Selectors may vary considerably: they may have different numbers of options in them both horizontally and vertically; they may contain simple text or icons (pictures). You can see which of the options has been selected since it is 'lit up', in otherwords, it has had a marker placed over the top of it which makes it easy to recognize. Some selectors may have title bars - do not confuse these with the actual options! They are separated from them by two horizontal lines close together right across the top of the selector. Title bars on other Menu types also occur and are similar in appearance. Infobars These are probably the most complicated Menu type since there are so many ways of using them. In brief they are a means of inputting a numeric value, which is displayed in the centre of the box. These are the methods of editing that value: 1) Clicking on the '<' or '>' signs causes the value to be brought to a minimum ('<') or maximum ('>') value possible for that particular infobar. 2) The arrow signs cause the value to be increased or decreased by one. 3) By clicking on the centre of the box where the value is displayed you are able to type in a new value. Three underscores will appear. Typing in the desired value and pressing the key causes the number to be changed and returns you to mouse mode. While typing in a number, the mouse is disabled. Note that only numeric values can be entered from 0 to 999. 4) On some Infobars you may find an extra box with a large left-pointing triangle on it. This shows that that Infobar holds a value representing an image. Since it is very difficult to work out the number of an image, the following method has been included: by clicking on the triangle portion of the Infobar, you will be able to select the desired image from the appropriate work screen. The image number is then displayed on the infobar - no messing! Multiple Icon Selectors These are very similar to ordinary Icon Selectors. The difference is that more than one item may be selected at a time ie. more than one may be 'lit'. Plus/Minus Bars These are all fairly obvious and consist of some text in the centre with a '-' on the left and a '+' on the right. By clicking with the left mouse button on the +/- signs you change the value they represent by one. The right mouse button changes the value by ten each time. Note that the value is not visibly changing anything on the P/M Bar but is most probably altering another menu type somewhere else on the screen. Shifters Note that some Shifters may not have the vertical arrows on them. By clicking on the bars with the arrows you are changing a value. The interior displays exactly what you are changing - it may be the size of someting or a fill pattern for instance. Special Selectors It is not possible to explain all the types of Special Selectors since they are all designed specifically for one menu item. Where a Special Selector occurrs an explanataion will be given in the Menu Item Descriptions section of this manual. Toggle Bars Toggle bars may appear to be very similar to Action bars. However, most of them do not perform an event as soon as you click on them. Instead they 'toggle' on and off. You can tell when it is on since it is 'lit' up.