Screen Designer (CBM prg Studio)
| Screen Designer (CBM prg Studio) | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Developer | Arthur Jordison | |
| Company | ||
| Publisher | ||
| Release | 2011 | |
| Licence | Freeware | |
| Platform | Windows | |
| Genre | Cross-Development IDE | |
| Operation |  , 
| |
| Media | - | |
| Language(s) | 
| |
| Information | version 4.5.0 (14.12.2024) http://www.ajordison.co.uk/ | |
The Screen Designer is a part of the CBM prg Studio and a painting and character set tool, which lets you build screens using either standard or user defined characters. Screens can then be exported to assembly DATA or BASIC PRINT statements, for use in your programs.
Features[edit | edit source]
The main features of the screen designer are the character grid (list) on the left and the screen grid on the right. The character grid shows (see upper screen shot):
- The character code (the ones used for POKEing the screen memory),
- The PETASCII code (used with PRINT),
- The default character graphic,
- The edited character graphic, if a user defined character set has been loaded.
- The screen grid's size is based on the target machine and column mode.
Description[edit | edit source]
The screen designer works in one of the following modes:
Drawing[edit | edit source]
This is the main mode . Choose a character to draw with by clicking it in the character grid, then click the left mouse button on the screen grid to plot the character. Click the right mouse button to erase (set to space) the character. The character is plotted with the current character colour.
Lines or Boxes[edit | edit source]
If the lines or boxes option is selected, click a start position and then drag the mouse to the end position. Release the mouse button to draw the line or box. Lines are drawn with the current character, whilst boxes are drawn with box characters, i.e. vertical/horizontal lines and corners. This can be changed by clicking the configure button when in box mode.
Quick Select[edit | edit source]
This function makes switching between frequently used characters (such as space) much easier. There are nine definable characters which have been assigned to keys 1 to 9. Click the quick select tab to see the current key assignments.
The key column shows which key is assigned to which character. Note that the Use quick select... checkbox must be ticked to use this function. This is because the numeric keys are also used to change the colours and so that must be disabled for the quick select to work.
To assign keys to characters, from the grid tab right click the character you want to assign and then choose the key to assign it to.
The quick select key assignments are saved with the screen design file, and the assignments are the same for all screens in the same file. The default list of assignments can be set from the Screen Editor section of the main options.
Character Sets[edit | edit source]
There are two character sets to choose from:
- Upper case, graphics and reverse
- Upper case, lower case, graphics and reverse
Selection[edit | edit source]
You can click the left mouse button on the screen grid and drag it to the required size/position. With the selection you can:
- Cut: Clear the selection and put it into the buffer.
- Copy: Copy the selection into the buffer.
- Fill: Fill the selection with the current character.
- Clear: Clear the selection without copying to buffer.
- Reverse Graphics: Reverse the selection, i.e. inverse video.
- Re-Colour: Colour the selected area with the current colour.
- Enable/disable flashing characters.
- Underline characters.
- Import the character editor's scratch pad (see below)
The selection can also be moved by one character in any direction. CTRL+cursor direction to move.
To paste the buffer, whilst still in selection mode left click the top left corner of where you want to paste (the selection will show a single character box) and choose Paste from the menu.
Re-Colour[edit | edit source]
This acts like the drawing mode but this time you are painting with the current colour.
Text[edit | edit source]
Left click on the screen grid where you want the text to start. A dialog will appear and enter the text in upper case. If the text is longer that the screen line it will continue on the next one. Text can also be added in reverse (inverted).
Path[edit | edit source]
This mode lets you define a path on the screen and generate the XY data from it. See the paths section for more details.
You can drag and drop characters from either the character grid or the map onto the screen, regardless of which mode you are in.
Screen characters can be automatically replaced with new characters, either for the current selection or the whole screen. After choosing replace... from the menu the ‘replace with’ text box is set to the screen designer's current character. Colour information is not affected.
Target Machine Specifics[edit | edit source]
The C128 and PET4000/9000 machines can use 80 column mode. When using the C128 in 80 column mode a different palette is available. When using the PET machines it is possible to change the background and character colours but this is just for ease of use, no colour information is used or produced.
You can switch between 40 and 80 columns for the target machines which support this, although you will get a warning when switching from 80 to 40 columns.
Commodore 64 projects can make use of an Extended Colour Mode. In this mode, each character can have one of four background colours, as well as its own character colour. After switching to extended colour mode, the Colours box changes to:
The two most significant bits in the character code determines which of the four background colours applies to that character, so:
00xxxxxx uses the background colour specified in $D021 01xxxxxx uses the background colour specified in $D022 10xxxxxx uses the background colour specified in $D023 11xxxxxx uses the background colour specified in $D024
Click the colour box to change its colour. The number next to each colour is the address which the C64 uses to store the background colour. Note that as a character's background can only be one of four colours, if you change a background colour, all characters using that colour will be changed.
You can also change a colour with the keyboard. Press '0' to use black, '1' to use white etc. up to '7' for yellow. Press shift and the number for colours 8 to 15.
The default colour which is changed is the character colour. The colour 'type' can be changed from the Colour->Quick change affects menu.
Click the colour's address ($D021 etc.) to draw a character with the selected background and character colour.
Note that only for first 64 characters are available in extended colour mode.
Scratch Pad[edit | edit source]
The character editor's scratch pad can be imported into the screen designer. To do this, go into 'select' mode and then click on the screen where you want the top left corner of the scratch pad to be imported. Then, select Screen | Import scratch pad from the menu or right click and select it from the menu.
You can import part of the scratch pad by dragging the selection rectangle to the size of the rectangle you want and then either right clicking or selecting the option from the main menu.
Note : All characters (including spaces) in the scratch pad will over write whatever was already on the screen. Spaces are not transparent!
A border colour can be set for each screen independently of other screens but the border colour is not exported. The border can be turned off and on using the screens menu. The border colour can be set from the colours (or ECM colours if you're in that mode) menu.
The size of the screen can be adjusted. Select options from the screen menu and the dialog allows the screen size to altered, plus or minus 10 pixels. This is to cater for some videos cards which don't render the screen properly.
