Using pictures in tests

     Most graphics programs can save pictures as PICT files, but they usually don’t save them “correctly.”  By “correctly,” I mean the following:  instead of storing the smallest rectangle enclosing the picture, they store the size of the document.  When you then import such a picture into Tester, it thinks the picture is huge and displays it accordingly.  It ends up looking silly.

     Two programs that do save PICT files “correctly” are MacDraw Pro and UltraPaint.  The easiest way to find out if your program saves PICT files “correctly” is to try saving a picture as a PICT file and then importing it into Tester.  It will be very obvious whether or not it works.

     If it doesn’t work, you can get around the problem with the following procedure:

     1)  Run Tester and the graphics program simultaneously
     2)  Open the picture file with the graphics program
     3)  Select the relevant part of the picture (the tighter the fit, the better)
     4)  Copy this onto the clipboard
     5)  Use “Add picture...” or “Change to picture...” as appropriate to paste the picture into Tester

     This procedure may, in fact, be easier no matter what.  If your program can’t handle PICT files at all, you will have to do it this way.

A note on creating pictures

     One point to watch out for when creating pictures is that it is much better to paste “bitmapped” pictures than “object” pictures into Tester.  Bitmapped pictures are created by “paint” programs (like MacPaint or UltraPaint’s paint layer).  Object pictures are created by “draw” program (like MacDraw or UltraPaint’s draw layer).  Bitmapped pictures are better because they require much less memory and because the Macintosh system occasionally forgets to draw the entire picture if it is an object picture.
     Typically, however, it is easier to create object pictures because each piece of the picture can be moved around without affecting any other part.  This is especially helpful when entering text, because only object pictures allow you to edit the text later.  Thus, the best way to create pictures is to build an object picture with a drawing program, convert it to a bitmapped picture by pasting it into a paint program, and then pasting this into Tester.