[ THE TOOL DOCK ]

At the bottom of the editor window is a what is ref- erred to as the 'Tool Dock'.  This is divided up into two regions.  On left left side of the Dock are the mode icons, clicking on one of these puts ANSI Mouse into the corresponding mode.  The right side of the Tool Dock is the Status area.  

[ STATUS AREA ]

This is divided up into several sub sections: 

     1) the text style area
     2) the text color indicators
     3) cursor coordinates
     4) the current command text

The text style area indicates the current text style, the indicators are black if the mode is on.  Directly to the left of these is the current character box.  It displays the last character typed or painted with.

The text color indicators display an abbreviation of the color names.  The default colors are black text on a white background.  These may be changed using the Text menu.

The cursor coordinates are the coordinates of the cursor.  (huh?)

The current command text displays information about the processes taking place in ANSI Mouse.  


[ MODE ICONS ]

The modes supported in this version of ANSI Mouse are (from left to right) Selection, Text, Box, Line, Paintbrush, Wrench, Magnifying Glass, Recorder, and Anchor.

[ Selection ]

The selection tool allows you to select (huh?) blocks of text so that operations may be performed on them. These include things like cutting/copying text, colorizing or stylizing text, and filling rectangular selections with a character.

If you select an area with the Selection tool, it will be surrounded by a flashing marquee indicator.

Stylizing text applies the current text style to a selected block of text.

Colorizing applies the current fore/background text color settings to a selected block of text.

Selecting a block of text and double-clicking on the Text tool fills that selected block with the current character.

Double-clicking on the Selection tool selects the entire screen.

[ Text ]

In Text mode, the editor behaves as described in the editor documentation.  This is where you'll do most of the typing.

[ Box ]

In Box mode, you may draw boxes with the mouse.  You just click and drag the outline of the box and when you release, it draws a box in the current box style.  To change the box style and characteristics, use the Boxes.. option on the Special menu or double-click on the Box mode icon.  

Boxes are drawn in the current text style.

[ Line ]

In Line mode, you can draw straight lines of any slope by using the mouse.  The lines are drawn using the current text style.

[ Paintbrush ]

In Paintbrush mode, the mouse allows you to paint freehand with the current character (in the current color and style).

Holding down the Shift key while painting constrains vertical movement and holding down the Command key constrains horizontal movement.

You can alter the function of the brush by choosing from the Painting Mode menu on the Special menu.  The default mode is to paint character, color, and style.

If you double-click on the Paintbrush icon or select ANSI Palette from the Special menu, you are presented with a list of ANSI graphics characters you may choose from.  When you select one and press OK, that character becomes the current character.

If you hold down the Option key when in Paintbrush mode the cursor becomes an eyedropper.  When you have the eyedropper, clicking anywhere picks up the character information at that location.  Note that it picks up the character, color, and style info.

[Wrench]

The wrench tool facilitates the connecting of the various straight-line graphics characters.  It is commonly used in conjunction with the Box tool.  An example would probably illustrate the wrench a bit better.  Suppose you draw two boxes so that they overlap:

                   …ÕÕÕÕÕª    
                   ∫    …ÕÕÕÕª
                   ∫    ∫    ∫
                   »ÕÕÕÕ»ÕÕÕÕº

By clicking the wrench tool at the junctions where the two boxes meet, you get:

                   …ÕÕÕÕÕª    
                   ∫    … ÕÕÕª
                   ∫    ∫    ∫
                   »ÕÕÕÕ ÕÕÕÕº

The characters where lines meet are replaced with the special graphics characters representing the fusion of the surrounding lines.

Double-clicking on the wrench tool performs a wrench operation to everything on the screen.

[ Magnifying Glass ]

The Magnifying Glass allows you to look at the specific information attached to each character space on the screen.  It will tell you:

     The character found there
     The background and foreground color of that char.
     The style of that character
     The name of the script anchored there (if any)

[ Recorder ]

In Recorder mode, all actions relating to text and the text window are recorded into the current script.  Note that a script must be created before the Recorder can be used.  When you first create a script (by choosing New Script from the Scripts menu) it will ask you to provide an anchor point for that script.  Every script must have at least one anchor point (or point of origin).

Clicking on any other mode Icon after you've been using the recorder temporarily suspends recording.  Clicking back on the recorder resumes script recording.  If you make a mistake while recording hitting the Delete key on your keyboard backs up in the script, deleting the last action.

Actions include typing text, moving the cursor, positioning the cursor with the mouse, changing style, and changing color.

Animation using scripts is dealth with in more detail in the Animation section of the online help.

[ Anchor ]

The Anchor tool allows you to add/remove anchor points for the current script.  A script may have as many anchor points as you choose, though any given spot on the screen may only have 1 anchor point.  More on anchors in the Animation section of the docs.