A.C.E. 2/ACE CD 2.iso/FILES/DOCS/COMICST.LHA/ComicSetter.doc

Text File | 1995-06-06 | 113.3 KB | 2,537 lines

                        COMICSETTER USER'S GUIDE

Typed in by the DOXTOR. Edited by PARASITE.
If you want a cracked version of this program, contact us, it's cracked by
SHAGRATT of LSD/AUTOMATION.


1. GETTING STARTED

CONTENTS OF THE COMICSETTER PACKAGE
Please check to see that you have received a complete COMICSETTER package
consisting of the following:
o       This Manual
o       A Registration Card
o       A COMICSETTER Program Disk
o       A COMICSETTER ClipArt Disk

REGISTRATION
Please complete your registration card and return it to Gold Disk Inc. as
soon as possible. As a registered owner of COMICSETTER you are entitled to
many benefits including:
o       Technical Support. Registered COMICSETTER owners receive free
        technical support through the Gold Disk Technical Support
        Department (See Appendix A:Technical Support Information).
o       A free subscription to the Gold Disk newsletter, New Laser Times.
This publication reports on new and creative uses for Gold Disk products,
including user tips and suggestions from our Technical Development
Department. Future upgrades to COMICSETTER will be announced in New Laser
Times.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

MEMORY REQUIREMENTS:
        A minimum of 1 Megabyte of memory is required.

DISPLAY MONITOR:
        Any Amiga compatible monitor. If working in high resolution mode,
        a long presistence monitor is recommended. Flicker-reducing,
        tinted screens are also available for standard Amiga monitors.

DISK DRIVES:
        One Amiga 3.5" disk drive is required.

OUTPUT DEVICE:
        COMICSETTER outputs to all Preferences printers.

DISK CONTENTS
        There are two disks contained in the COMICSETTER package. One disk
is labeled PROGRAM and contains the COMICSETTER program and all of the
data that the program uses, including fonts.
        The other disk is labeled COMIC ART-GENERAL and contains all the
COMICSETTER clip art used with the program, including tutorial artwork.
See Appendix E for a complete listing of all of the clip art included on
this disk.

CONVENTIONS USED IN THIS MANUAL
        The COMICSETTER manual and the software it describes follow the
standard Amiga user interface. It is assumed that you have some
familiarity with basic Amiga procedures. However, as a refresher, we
recommend that you read the following conventions adhered to throughout
this manual.

o       Bullets (o) indicate related information, lists, or sequences.

o       The use of Amiga hierarchy of terms for pull down menus. Main
        menus are called "menus", options in a menu are called "items",
        and options in sub-menus are called "sub-items". The
        terms "requester", "gadgets", and "tools" are also used.

o       Uppercase is used for words or phrases referring to specific
        COMICSETTER menus, requesters, and tools. Some examples: The
        PROJECT menu, FILE requester, PANEL CREATE tool.

o       Menu selections are often listed in this manual using the format:
        Menu/Item/Sub-Item. For example, TEXT/STYLE/BOLD refers to the BOLD
        sub-item in the STYLE item of the TEXT menu.

o       Keyboard equivalents are graphically depicted in the pull-down
        menu displays. Where keyboard equivalents are indicated, the
        following notation is used (where "x" is a specific character):

o       A x - Depress x while holding the RIGHT AMIGA key.

o       Moving the mouse pointer to a desired location, pressing and
        quickly releasing the left button is called "clicking". If this is
        done to select an object, it is sometimes referred to as
        "selecting".

o       PLacing the mouse pointer on a desired location, pressing the
        left button and holding it down while moving the mouse is referred
        to as "dragging".

Backup those disks before starting!

2. OVERVIEW
This section of the manual is intended to give you a basic familiarity
with the COMICSETTER screen and its components in preparation for the
TUTORIAL. Indepth descriptions of the various COMICSETTER functions appear
in the TUTORIAL and following sections of this manual.

We recommend that all COMICSETTER owners, even experienced Amiga users,
read these sections of the manual so they can learn to use COMICSETTER to
its fullest potential.

You should have COMICSETTER running on your Amiga while you read the
manual, so you can practice the various COMICSETTER functions as they are
described.

TOUR OF THE COMICSETTER SCREEN

The COMICSETTER screen (which you should have visible on your Amiga
monitor in front of you) consists of a large window for showing a part of
a page, surrounded by a variety of menus, tools, and gadgets.

TITLE BAR
At the top of the screen is the "title" bar, showing the name and version
of the program. To the right of this, COMICSETTER displays the current
"document name." Initially, this should read UNTITLED 1. To the right of
the Document Name is a "coordinate position indicator". This shows you the
current x/y (horizontal/vertical) position of your pointer in relation to
the top left-hand corner of the page (once the page is created). By default,
the units of measurement are in inches, but can be changed to display in
pixels or centimeters. Finally, at the far right side of the TITLE bar are
the standard Amiga "screen-to-front/screen-to-back" gadgets. Clicking on
these gadgets will let you toggle back and forth to the Workbench screen.

MENU BAR
Hold down the right mouse button to make the "menus" bar visible. There
are seven COMICSETTER menus available: PROJECT, EDIT, LAYOUT, TEXT, ALTER,
PREFERENCES, and DOCUMENTS.

SELECTING MENUS, ITEMS, AND SUB-ITEMS
(This sections describes how to access the various standard Amiga menus
and sub-menus).

REQUESTERS
Some menu items are followed by three periods (for example,
PROJECT/OPEN...). The three periods indicate that if you select this item,
a "requester" will appear. A requester is a window containing several
options that you can choose from. For example, selecting PROJECT/OPEN
will call up a familiar-looking Amiga FILE requester showing you what
files are available, and allowing you to load a file into COMICSETTER if
you wish. You can cancel any requester by clicking on the CANCEL! gadget.

TOOL PALLETTE
Running down the left side of the screen is the COMICSETTER "tool" palette,
which contains all the different drawing modes and tools you will use to
create comics. The TOOL palette consists of the following: nine "general"
tools, the "drawing mode" gadget, eight "drawing tools", a "color"
subpalette, and a "line width" selector.

(This palette is shown in the IFF file CS.PIC included in this archive.)

GENERAL TOOLS SUB-PALETTE
This part of the TOOLS palette contains nine general tools to help you lay
out a page. They are the NULL POINTER, PANEL CREATE tool, GROUP CREATE
tool, HAND MOVE, SEND-TO-BACK tool, SEND-TO-FRONT tool, BALLOON CREATE
tool, TEXT tool, and BTIMAP CREATE tool.

DRAWING MODE GADGET
The DRAWING MODE gadget is set by default to allow you to draw in
"structured drawing" mode. Click on the gadget and the T-square and
triangle is replaced by a paint-and-brush BITMAP DRAWING icon. Click
again, and the STRUCTURED DRAWING icon reappears. For a complete
discussion of sctuctured and bitmap graphics, see Chapter 8: Graphics.

DRAWING TOOLS
This part of the TOOL palette contains eight DRAWING tools. They are the
PAINTBRISH, AIRBRUSH, FILL, SMEAR, POLYGON tool, RECTANGLE, ELLIPSE, and
BEZIER tools.

COLOR SUB-PALETTE
This section of the TOOL palette allows you to set your ink and bacjground
colors. A palette of 16 colors is given. Each color can be changed to any
of the 4096 possible colors. The "fill toggle" gadget allows you to turn
fill on or off. The "fill pattern" gadget shows the selected fill pattern.
Every color can be changed by double-clicking on that gadget, which brings
up a COLOR PALETTE requester.

LINE WIDTH SELECTOR.
This gadget allows you to select the width of the line you are drawing
with. The line width can be adjusted by clicking on either the right arrow
to increase the thickness, or the left arrow to decrease thickness. By
holding the left mouse button down while over an arrow, the line thickness
will continue to increase until you release the button. A dashed line
indicates that no line will be drawn.

SCROLL BARS
COMICSETTER allows you to create pages that are larger than can be shown on
the screen. The "scroll" bars are located on the bottom and right side of
the COMICSETTER screen, and allow you to view and work with any part of a
large page that can't be viewed in its entirety. They are standard Amiga
scroll bars.

PAGE NUMBER GADGET
The "page number" gadget, at the lower right-hand corner of the screen,
displays the number of the page currently being worked on in your
COMICSETTER document. To see how this works, select LAYOUT/ADD PAGE to
create a page. When the ADD PAGE requester comes up, click on the OK
gadget. The center part of the COMICSETTER screen will change from black to
white as a blank page is created. the PAGE NUMBER gadget will change from
Page 0 to Page 1. Select LAYOUT/DELETE PAGE. A requester will appear;
select OK to delete the page. The page number gadger will again indicate
Page 0 (no pages in the document).
The number of pages in a COMICSETTER document is limited only by disk
space. The number of elements and objects on a page is limited by how much
memory you have available.

SELECTING THE PROPER TOOL
As you learn how to use COMICSETTER, you must remember to select the proper
tool for the proper working mode. Remember to look at the TOOL palette and
check to ssee which tool is selected. For example: you may be trying to
alter one object when another object is active. This is a common source of
confusion. Simply select the NULL POINTER tool, click on the object you
want to work with, and then start again.

POINTER SHAPES
ComicSetter will change the shape of the pointer depending on the operation
that you are attempting. There are four different pointer shapes.

The first is the "null pointer" (an arrow), which is what ComicSetter starts
out with. The NULL POINTER can be selected by clicking on the NULL POINTER
tool. The NULL POINTER allows you to select and move objects on the screen.

The "create pointer" (a crosshairs) signifies that ComicSetter is ready to
create something. This can be anything from a new panel, to any of the
graphic elements.

The "move pointer" (a hand) indicates that you can move your field of view
about your page, or move objects around.

The "sizing pointer" (four arrows pointing outward) will appear when you
are attempting to re-size an object or panel. It returns back to its
previous pointer when the re-sizing operation is complete.

KEYBOARD EQUIVALENTS
COMICSETTER supports a large variety of "keyboard equivalents", short-cuts
that access menu operations from the keyboard. All menu selections that
have a keyboard equivalent will show the equivalent in the menu. A
complete list is in Appendix B.

KEYBOARD MODIFIERS
"Keyboard modifiers" are used in conjunction with tools to alter their
purpose. This is accomplished by holding down a specific key while using
the mouse. Throughout the manual, keyboard modifiers are explained in their
applicable sections. Also, Appendix B lists all keyboard modifiers.

PRINTER ENVIRONMENT
If you have not already done so, configure ComicSetter (hereafter referred
to as CS to save this poor typist's aching fingers) to the type of
printer that you will be using, from the WorkBench through Preferences. WB
1.3 printer drivers are used. Appendix C lists printer information.

3. TUTORIAL
The best way to learn CS is by experimentation. With some practice,
assisted by the tutorial and other reference information in the manual, you
can learn to take full advantage of every powerful CS feature and produce a
wide range of dynamic graphic creations.
In this tutorial you will produce a simple one-page, one-panel comic and
print it. The principles that you are introduced to in this tutorial will
provide the basic sateps in organizing any similar project. At all times,
feel free to experiment with the various CS functions at your command.

You will need:

o The Program Disk.
o The General ClipArt Disk
o A blank, formatted data disk.
o A suitable output device.
Start up the program.

CREATING A PAGE
The first step is to create a page. To do this:
o       Hold down the right nouse button and move the pointer to the LAYOUT
        menu. When the pointer touches the word LAYOUT, a "pull-down" menu
        appears.
o       Keep holding down the right mouse button, move the pointer to the
        ADD PAGE item, then release the mouse button. An ADD PAGE requester
        window appears, showing a number of adjustable settings. For the
        moment, use the default settings.
o       Click once, with the left mouse button, on the OK gadget in the
        lower left-hand corner of the requester. The requester will
        disappear and the CS screen will change from black to white
        representing the page you have created. Also, the scroll bars on
        the bottom and right-hand side of the screen will adjust to
        indicate what part of the page you are viewing.

SAVING COMICSETTER DOCUMENTS
One important procedure that should be stressed when using CS, or any
software product, is that you should save your work often. This "insurance"
will pay for itself the first time you run into any difficulty. For
example, saving a document before a major layout change will give you the
option of returning to the original layout at any time. This can be
extremely helpful, especially when first learning to use a computer or a
particular program.
Before you actually begin creating your comic layout, you should learn how
to SAVE and LOAD your documents. Although this tutorial is short, you may
not be able to finish it in one session. Knowing how to save your current
document gives you the option of stopping and later continuing from where
you left off. Since you have already created a page, let's demonstrate how
to save the blank page, as a document, to disk. There are two ways of
saving a document to disk. The first is the use of SAVE AS.

TO USE SAVE AS:
o       Place your formatted DATA disk in the external disk drive, or if
        your Amiga only has one disk drive, replace the CS disk with the
        DATA disk.

o       Select the SAVE AS item from the PROJECT menu.

o       When the SAVE DOCUMENT AS requester appears, click on the df0:
        gadget if your data disk is in drive 0, or the df1: gadget if it is
        in drive 1.

o       Click to the right of the FILE line. A cursor will appear allowing
        you to type in the name of the document to be saved. For this
        example, type TESTSAVE.

o       Click OK to save the document. You will notice that the FILENAME
        that you have typed is now displayed on the TITLE bar. Also, if you
        pull down the DOCUMENTS menu, the name of your file, TESTSAVE, will
        appear to the right of the check mark.

With CS, it is possible to have more than one document in memory at one
time. Every time you create or retrieve a new document, it will be added to
the list in the DOCUMENTS menu. This feature is discussed in more detail in
the DOCUMENTS section of the manual.

USING THE SAVE ITEM:

The second way of saving your document is to select PROJECT/SAVE. The SAVE
item is very convenient when you are updating a file that you are working
on. You could save modifications to the file frequently without the hassle
of re-entering the same file name information.

WARNING: The SAVE item overwrites the previously saved file!

Selecting PROJECT/SAVE causes your file to be saved immediately to the disk
and directory that was used in the Save As operation. If the SAVE AS has
not been previously used, a SAVE DOCUMENT AS requester will appear.

RETRIEVING OR OPENING FILES:
If you want to load a previously saved file, select PROJECT/OPEN. To
demonstrate this function, clear the document in memory, and restore the
document that you have just saved.

TO CLEAR THE DOCUMENT IN MEMORY:
o       Select the PROJECT/CLEAR item. If you have changed anything on the
        page since the comic was last saved, a "Warning" requester will
        appear asking if you wish to SAVE the comic again.

o       Click on the NO gadget. The page on screen will be erased. The name
        of the document will, again, become UNTITLED.

TO LOAD THE PREVIOUSLY SAVED DOCUMENT:
o       Select the PROJECT/OPEN command. A requester similar to the one
        used in the SAVE AS item will appear.

o       Select the drive which contains your data disk. CS will display the
        contents of that disk.

o       Click on the TESTSAVE file. CS will take your selected file, and
        will transfer the name to the FILE line.

o       Click on OK to load the file. CS will load the file and you'll see
        your document on the screen (in this case,a blank page).

NOTE: Double-clicking on a file name will also load it.

Now that you knwo how to LOAD and SAVE files, you can begin the tutorial
with the option of stopping and restarting any time you wish. Again, a
reminder to frequently save your document. It is very easy to load a
previously saved document, but much harder to recreate it from scratch if
something goes wrong.

Before starting, let's ensure that preferences are set correctly:
o       Select PREFERENCES/SHOW BOXES
o       From the PREFERENCES menu, select UNITS/PIXELS. This means that all
        coordinates will be displayed in pixels.

PANELS
Every comic layout, from a full comic book to a single-picture comic,
consists of a number of panels. Panels are the working frames in which you
assemble your images. In CS, all of your images and text must be created
within panels. This allows you to move a panel, with all of its contents,
to a new location.

A panel is not restricted by size, and can be up to a full page in
dimension.

ADDING A PANEL:

o       Click on the PANEL CREATE tool in the TOOL palette. Your pointer
        will change into a cross-hair.

o       Position the pointer to where you want the top left-hand corner of
        the panel to appear. For this tutorial, the exact position doesn't
        matter, but you should place it in the area of (10,10) as indicated
        by the COORDINATE POSITION INDICATOR GADGET.

o       Hold down the left mouse button and, by moving the mouse, drag the
        crosshairs to the position where the bottom right-hand corner of
        the panel should be, in the general area of (560,180). A large
        rectangle should be drawn out in the process. When you are
        satisfied with the position, release the mouse button. The panel's
        border will change to a dashed line indicating that it is active.

MAGNIFICATION
CS gives you four different magnification levels to work with, 200%, 100%,
Full Page, and 50%. Zooming in is useful for adding fine details to your
layouts. Zooming out can show the entire page.

A CLOSER LOOK
To view your panel up close:
o       Select PREFERENCES/MAGNIFY/200%. The page will zoom in to fill the
        screen. Now only a small part of your page will be visible.
        However, you can move your field of view to see other parts of the
        page.

To see the right side of the panel:
o       Grab the bottom scroll bar and drag it about two inches to the
        right. When you release the button, you should see the top right
        hand side of the panel. The same procedure applies to the vertical
        scroll bar.

To see how our new panel looks in relation to the entire page, we can view
our document in FULL PAGE magnification mode.

A FULL PAGE VIEW:
o       Select PREFERENCES/MAGNIFICATION/FULL PAGE. The page will zoom to
        full view, to appear as a white rectangle on a black background.

All features of this program work in any given magnification level. From
this point, freely use any magnification level you desire. The tutorial
will prompt you to set a particular magnification level only when it is
necessary for completing a specific function of this tutorial. However, for
speedy response, we recommend you work in 100%.

SELECTING AND MOVING PANELS
Before moving or changing a panel it must be selected and made active. An
active panel has a dashed border. An inactive panel has a solid border. To
demonstrate:
o       Click on any part of the page which does not contain a panel. This
        will de-select your original panel. The panel will have a solid
        border indicating that it is inactive.

TO SELECT A PANEL:
o       Move the pointer over the panel that you wish to select and while
        pressing the RIGHT-ALT key, click on the panel with the left mouse
        button. The border now changes from a solid to a dashed line,
        indicating an active panel.

TO MOVE A PANEL:
o       Make sure the panel is selected.
o       Move the pointer over the panel and grab onto it while holding down
        the Right-Alt key by pressing and holding down the left mouse
        button. Your pointer changes to a HAND.
o       Move the mouse to drag the panel to its new location and release
        the button. It's that simple.

THE COMIC
Let's start creating the tutorial comic:
o       Clear the page of the panel(s) you have created by making
        the panel active and selecting EDIT/ERASE.

o       Create a panel with the top left hand corner near (10,10) and the
        bottom right corner near (560,180).

IMPORTING A BACKGROUND
For the tutorial comic, begin by importing a background into the active
panel:

o       Make the panel active.

o       Select PROJECT/IMPORT GRAPHICS, or double-click the BITMAP CREATE
        tool. Your pointer will change to a cross hair. CS is now waiting
        for you to define the area into which the graphic should be
        imported.

o       Position the pointer inside and near the top left-hand corner of
        the panel.

o       Hold down the left mouse button and drag out a rectangle to the
        bottom right hand cornerof the panel. The background you will
        import will fit into this guide. The portions of the graphic
        outside the panel will not be visible. CS will now display a file
        requester similar to the one shown earlier when you saved your
        document.

o       Insert your CLIP ART disk into a drive.

o       Click on the drive number gadget to see the contents of the CLIP
        ART disk.

o       Click on the directory called BKGDS.

o       Select the file called Interior-Tech.

o       Click on OK. The file requester will disappear and a new window
        will appear showing you the background that you will import into
        the tutorial comic. The "Graphic Clipping" window is placed on top
        of the existing CS window, and may be moved or sized.

Along the top of the Graphic Clipping window are five gadgets which are
explained in the BITMAP GRAPHICS section of this manual. For now, your
concern is to clip a section of the background to fit exactly into the
guide that you have created.

o       Click on the "Guide Clip" tool, the 'G' gadget along the top of
        the graphic window. As you move the pointer, a rectangle, the same
        size as the one you drew, will move along with it. If you move the
        pointer outside of the GRAPHIC window, the picture inside the
        window will scroll in that direction.

o       Once you have established the desired position, click the left
        mouse button. You should see your background appear in your panel
        right before your eyes.

IMPORTING CHARACTERS
Now you need some characters to place on top of the background. The process
for importing characters is identical to the process for importing
backgrounds, props, your own images, etc.
o       Select PROJECT/IMPORT GRAPHICS

o       Draw a small guide on top of the background you just imported. The
        IMPORT GRAPHIC clipping window will appear with your previous
        background. Since we want a new image, choose the FILE tool which
        is second from the left.

o       When the file requester appears, choose the PARENT item at the top
        of the list; this brings you up one directory level.

o       Select the MALE directory to view its files.

o       Select Med_Poses_&_Parts.

o       Click on OK.

You will be piecing together a character from the parts given in this
screen. If you try using the Guide function to clip out the character's
parts, as we did with the background, you might clip out unwanted portions
of other images within the clipping rectangle.

For this reason, CS gives you the ability to clip images using a polygon
tool. This offers unlimited control over the objects that you clip,
regardless of how irregularly-shaped they may be.

First clip out the character's upper body part which is located at the far
left side of the GRAPHIC window:
o       Select the POLYGON clipping tool located at the far right side
        along the top of the GRAPHIC window. The pointer will change to an
        X shape indicating CS is ready to polygon clip.

o       Move the pointer to a position, anywhere around the character's
        upper body part and press-and-release the left mouse button. Now,
        when you move the mouse, a line will be drawn from the position
        where you clicked to the current pointer position.

o       Move the mouse pointer further around the character and press the
        button again. The line will be fixed to the second point, and you
        will be able to continue with a second line. In this manner, you
        will be able to completely enclose the image by carefully drawing a
        series of lines around it. The lines can be as short or as long as
        you wish.

o       If you make a mistake while clipping, press the right mouse button
        and start again.

o       When you have enclosed your image, quickly double-click the left
        mouse button. The image that you have clipped will now be
        transferred to your comic layout. You do NOT have to return to the
        exact starting point. Double-clicking will join the last point to
        the first point.

More than likely, the clipped image, called an object, will not be in the
precise position you desire. But, don't worry. CS gives you the full
ability to edit and move these objects. And, since every object on the
screen is kept track of separately, they may be moved and treated
independently of one another.

TO MOVE YOUR OBJECT:
o       Position the pointer over to the object that you wish to move, and
        while pressing and holding the left mouse button drag the object to
        the desired location.

CONTINUE BUILDING
Obviously, you still need a head and the lower part of the body to finish
your character. Continue to select PROJECT/IMPORT GRAPHICS, using the
POLYGON tool to select the pieces that you wish.
Once these pieces are on the panel, move them so that they connect
together. Complete the character.

*To position characters more precisely, turn off the FAST MOVE feature by
selecting PREFERENCES/FAST MOVE.

TALK TO ME!!
CS gives you the unique ability to enter dialogue as speech balloons, and
then edit this text at any time. Here's how:
o       Clock on the BALLOON tool (a balloon with B in it) in the tool
        palette. Your pointer will change to a cross-hair, indicating that
        a speech balloon may be drawn.

o       Move the balloon to anywhere on the panel, hold down the left mouse
        button, and drag out a rectangle for your speech balloon. When you
        release the mouse button, CS will present you with an ENTER TEXT
        requester.

o       Type in the caption you want your character to say. We suggest
        "COMICSETTER MAKES MY DAY!"

o       Hit the RETURN key. CS will create a round speech balloon with this
        caption inside it.

Depending on the length of your caption, the entire text may not fit in the
speech balloon. You will have to re-size your balloon. Details in chapter
12:Balloons.
Round speech balloons are nice, but they are not complete until a tail is
added, signifying that the character is speaking.
A speech balloon consists of two components: the text component and the
graphic component. To add a tail, we only wish to modify the graphic
component.
Remember that a speech balloon is really just an object, similar to the
background or character that you clipped earlier. Before you can modify an
object you have to make it active:

o       Click on the speech balloon to make it the active object. You will
        notice that the outline becomes dashed, but wait...another box
        appears inside the balloon (if you don't see this, make sure that
        PREFERENCES/SHOW BOXES is selected). Remember, a balloon is made up
        of two components. The graphic component is the outside part, and
        the box within is the text component.

To tell CS that you only want to modify the outside graphic component:
o       Position the pointer within the dashed outline of the balloon, but
        not over the smaller inside text box.

o       while pressing the CTRL key, click on the left mouse button.
        Several small rectangles will appear around the outline of the
        balloon. These are called CONTROL POINTS. Control points allow
        fantastic manipulation of graphics.
Finally, let's add the tail:
o       Move the pointer onto a control point, preferably one closest to
        your character's mouth.

o       Hold down the left mouse button while dragging out a tail.

o       Release the button when you are satisfied with the tail's location.

TO MOVE A WHOLE BALLOON:
o       Deactivate the balloon by clicking anywhere outside the balloon.

o       Reactivate the balloon by clicking on it with the left mouse
        button, and drag it to the new location. The reason for
        deactivating and reactivating is that you had previously activated
        only the outside component of the balloon. Experiment and see
        first-hand what happens in either situation.

PRINT
Having completed your first comic on screen, the last remaining function of
this tutorial is printing out a copy for everyone to see. You shoudl have
your printer and Preferences (the Workbench program, not the CS Menu
Preferences--it is confusing, eh?--The DOXTOR) set so that we can print
your comic out immediately.
o       Select PROJECT/PRINT...CS pops up a PRINT DOCUMENT requester. Check
        to see that Grey Scale is selected if you are using a standard
        black & white printer, or that COLOR is selected if you are using a
        color printer.

o       Select START. Your printer should start printing after a few
        seconds.

CONCLUSION
You have created a comic! Where do you go from here? Experiment. There are
many additional features that weren't discussed in this tutorial. Only
through experimenting with the various features listed in the following
chapters will you actually acquire skill in their use. The following
chapters are not in the "hands-on tutorial" style, but will explain all of
CS' advanced features in detail.

The comic that you have just created is a great starting point for further
experiments with moree advanced features. The tutorial example file is
saved under the filename:COMIC.FINAL and can be loaded from the TUTORIAL
directory of the ClipArt disk. Of course, your's won't look exactly like
the example, but if nothing has gone wrong, it should be similar.

4. DOCUMENTS
A document is a page, or collection of pages, created with CS. Besides
Saving and Opening individual documents, CS gives you the ability to have
several documents in memory at one time, and to transfer information
between them.

OPENING DOCUMENTS
The PROJECT/OPEN selection will produce an OPEN DOCUMENT file requester and
CS will immediately start reading the most recently accessed disk. This is
DF0: by default.
Clicking on any of the driev gadgets, or selecting a directory, will cause
CS to execute that action immediately. Clicking on a file name will
transfer that name to the File line. Double-clicking on a file name will
tell CS to open that file.
If you are in a sub-directory, the first selection will always be <PARENT>.
Clicking on this will take you back one level.

*Pressing RETURN is equivalent to clicking on OK.*
*Pressing ESC is the same as clicking on CANCEL.*

SAVING DOCUMENTS
There are two methods of saving documents.
o       Select PROJECT/SAVE AS. A file requester will appear. Click in the
        line to the right of the word FILE to produce a cursor, and type in
        the name of the file. The click on the OK gadget.

o       Select PROJECT/SAVE. The file will be saved to whatever disk and
        directory was used in the previous SAVE AS operation. If SAVE AS
        has not been used, a SAVE AS requester will appear when SAVE is
        requested. The SAVE item is very convenient when you are working on
        a comic, allowing you to save ti often without the hassle of
        re-entering file name information.
*WARNING! The SAVE item overwrites the previously saved file!*

MULTIPLE DOCUMENTS
CS gives you the ability to have several OPENed documents in memory at the
same time, listing them in the DOCUMENTS menu. Make selections from this
menu to list the various documents you ahve opened. CS will not permit you
to open the same document twice at the same time.

NEW DOCUMENTS
The PROJECT/NEW command allows you to create a new document while keeping
your old document intact. After selecting PROJECT/NEW, CS will appear as it
does when you normally start the program, a black screen. However, the
DOCUMENTS menu will list all of the documents in memory.

CLOSE DOCUMENT
If you wish to remove a document from the screen document dorectory, use
the PROJECT/CLOSE command. If you have made any changes since the last
time that document was saved, CS will produce a "Warning" requester stating
this fact. Click NO to close the document, YES to click the SAVE DOCUMENT
requester, and CANCEL to abort the operation.

5. PAGES
A page in CS is similar to a printed page in a comic book or other
publication. The dimensions and margins of the page are defined to match
those that will be printed. As in traditional publications, images in CS
will be drawn and laid out on these pages.

UNITS
You can select the units of measurement through the PREFERENCES/UNITS item:
Pixels, Inches, and Centimeters. The default value is Inches. Changing
units of measurement will result in the use of those units throughout the
program.

ADDING PAGES
The LAYOUT/ADD PAGE selection will produce an Add Page requester which
allows you to define the following page attributes:
o       SIZE: CS offers a choice of four predefined page sizes: STANDARD,
        LEGAL, A4 and A6. Selecting a page size will display its dimensions
        in the WIDTH and HEIGHT indicators in the selected units of
        measure.

        CUSTOM page specifications are available by selecting CUSTOM, and
        typing the desired dimensions in the WIDTH and HEIGHT indicator
        lines. Regardless of the UNITS and output resolution, the maximum
        size of a page is 1008x1008 pixels.

o       MARGINS: The margin feature is used in conjunction with the
        AutoPanel feature. By default, CS provides an 0.5 inch margin on
        all sides of the page, but any value from zero to the maximum page
        size may be entered.
        Margins do not restrict manual placement of panels. The margin
        sizes will vary in pixels depending on the output resolution
        setting in PROJECT/ENVIRONMENT SETUP. (See Chapter 16)

        AutoPanel: CS can create a page with ready-made panels. To the
        right of the AutoPanel gadget are the X and Y value indicators.
        X represents the number of panels horizontally, and Y the number of
        panels vertically.

        Horizointal and Vertical Gaps are the respective spacings between
        the horizontal (X) panels, and the vertical (Y) panels.

SELECTING PAGES
The page visible on the screen is always the active page. Pages can be
selected using the PAGE NUMBER gadget at the bottom right side of the CS
screen.
o       Click on the Page Number gadget for its requester.

o       Click on the up or down arrows to change the page number by one
        value in either direction. Or click on the Page Number line and
        type in the desired page number from the keyboard.

DELETING PAGES
CS allows you to dleete a page, as well as a group of consecutive pages,
without having to view that specific page by:
o       Select LAYOUT/DELETE PAGE. CS will produce a DELETE PAGE requester.

o       Click on the range and type in the range of pages you wish to
        delete; then Click on OK.

MOVING PAGES
Selecting LAYOUT/MOVE PAGE command will bring up a MOVE PAGE requester
which has three areas for input:
o       RANGE X TO Y: You can move a group of consecutive pages. X value
        represents the starting page and Y value is the ending page number.

o       AFTER PAGE: This is the page that you wish to insert your group after
        All of the pages in the requested range will be moved after this
        page. The order of pages within the group will stay the same.

6. PANELS
A panel encloses all images for a particular comic frame. As with
traditional comics, CS panels are rectangular, and may have a border of
variable thickness and color.

All objects must be created within a panel. Therefore, a panel is the first
element required on a CS page. If a panel is moved, all of its associated
images will move with it. In this manner, a panel acts as a common anchor
point.

By default, an image will not be visible outside of its panel, but CS does
provide the option of altering this, and for moving objects to other parts
of the page as described in Chapter 8:Graphics.

CREATING
Clicking on the PANEL CREATE gadget changes the pointer to a cross hair
signifying that a panel may be created. Hold down the left mouse button
while dragging out a rectangle. The PANEL CREATE mode remains active until
you cancel it by selecting another gadget.

CONSTRAINING PANELS
Hold down the SHIFT key while dragging out a panel to constrain the panel
to a square. In some magnification levels, the screen representation may
not look like a square. However, CS takes the resolution of the output printer
into consideration and will print a true square.

AUTOPANELS
AutoPanels allow you to create a page containing a specified number of
panels. See Chapter 5:Pages for a full explanation of the AutoPanel
feature.

SELECTING PANELS
A Selected panel has a dashed highlight around it; non-selected has no
highlight; and the panel containing a selected object has a solid
highlight. CS will also display the panel's printable borders by default.
CS allows you to select individual panels in two ways:
o       Move the pointer over any part of the panel and while pressing the
        RIGHT-ALT key, click the left mouse button.

o       Select the Marquee Tool (Group Create), hold down the RIGHT-ALT
        key, and drag out a rectangular frame around the panel to select.

By using Extended Select you can select more than one panel and modify all
of the selected panels simultaneously. There are several ways to select
more than one panel:
o       Select the first panel by holding down the RIGHT-ALT key, then hold
        down the right-SHIFT key to select additional panels. All of the
        selected panels will have dashed borders.

o       Use the MARQUEE tool, hold down the RIGHT-ALT key, and drag out a
        rectangular frame around all of the panels you wish to select.

o       Ensure that NO panels are selected by clicking anywhere on the page
        outside of the panels and objects. Then select EDIT/SELECT ALL to
        select all of the panels on the page.

TO DE-SELECT A PANEL
o       Select another single panel. This will de-select the first panel.

o       Select any object or group within any panel.

o       Click on any part of the page which does not contain any panels or
        objects.

If you have a set of panels selected, the above three methods will
de-select all of the panels. If you wish to de-select one panel from a set
of selected panels, click on that panel while depressing the RIGHT-AMIGA
key.

MOVING
There are two ways to move panels:
o       Grab and move the selected panel directly on the screen.

o       Enter exact co-ordinates for the panel's position into the panel's
        ATTRIBUTES requester. See PANEL ATTRIBUTES (below).

SIZING
Changing a panel's size leaves the objects in the panel at their old sizes
and positions. The portion of each object which is visible will be adjusted
to the panel's new edge.
USING THE MOUSE:
o       There are eight control points around the selected panel's border.

o       Grab the control point, and drag it to its new dimensions. Grabbing
        a side control point allows you to only size that side. A corner
        control point allows you to size two intersecting sides.
CS provides an option which allows you to enter the exact size of the panel
using the keyboard. This will be discussed later in this chapter under
ATTRIBUTES.

SCALING
Scaling a panel will also scale the contents of that panel by the same
proportions.
USING THE MOUSE:
o       Hold down the LEFT-ALT key and grab the control point by pressing
        and holding down the left mouse button.

o       Drag the panel to its new dimensions and release the mouse button.

DELETING PANELS
Panels can be deleted in two ways:
o       Select the panel and press the DELETE key.

o       Select the panel and choose the EDIT/ERASE item.

*If you accidentally delete a panel, use the EDIT/UNDO item to bring it
back!*

PANEL ATTRIBUTES
The ALTER/PANEL ATTRIBUTES selection gives you full control over all
aspects of the selected panel.

POSITION
The POSITION INDICATOR allows you to specify the exact location of the top
left-hand corner of the selected panel in relation to the top left-hand
corner of the comic page. The position is indicated in units of measure
selected in PREFERENCES/UNITS.
o       Position X Y:
        The X value represents the horizontal distance from the left side
        of the page to the left side of the panel.

        The Y value represents the vertical distance from the top side of
        the page to the top of the panel.

SIZE
The top left-hand corner of the panel is specified by the POSITION
indicator. The other corner locations are controlled using the SIZE values
X and Y:
o       The X value represents the horizontal size (width) of the panel.

o       The Y value represents the vertical size (height) of the panel.

SCALE
It is possible to scale a panel up or down in size. Scaling will also scale
the contents of the panel to the same proportions. Use the SCALE values
X and Y:
o       The X value represents the horizontal scaling factor that is to be
        applied. The position of the left side of the panel will remain
        fixed and the right side will adjust accordingly.

o       The Y value represents the vertical scaling factor that is to be
        applied. The top side of the panel will remain fixed and the bottom
        side will adjust accordingly.

BORDER WIDTH
Most comic panels have borders. CS allows you to change border widths. The
default border width is 1 pixel but panel borders may range from 0, or no
border, to a maximum thickness of 16 pixels. Width is specified in pixels.

BORDER COLOR
By default the panel border is black. However, CS provides a selection of
sixteen chosen colors for the border:
o       Click on the up or down arrows to cycle through the colors.

o       Panel's border width and color can also be changed by selecting the
        panel and using the line width and line color gadgets.

7. GRIDS
CS provides grids to help you position panels more precisely. In addition
to being a visual guide, the grids in CS can automatically align panels and
objects to the grid line intersections--something that grids on paper
can't do. The grid lines will not print out on your final page.
Grid spacing is specified in the units selected in PREFERENCES/UNITS. CS
allows you to vary the grid spacing by entering a user-definable value.

DISPLAY
The PREFERENCES/SHOW GRID selection is used for displaying a grid on the CS
screen. The default value os 10 pixels by 10 pixels. Showing the grids will
not restrict any panel or object manipulation; this is only a visual
guide. Grids can be turned off by again selecting PREFERENCES/SHOW GRID.

CHANGING GRID SIZE
Selecting the PREFERENCES/CHANGE GRID...item will present a requester
allowing you to set the Grid Spacing.
o       HORIZ. allows you to change the horizontal grid distances.

o       VERT. allows you to change the vertical grid distances.

The values are entered in units-of-measurement corresponding to the
PREFERENCES/UNITS selection.
The minimum grid setting is 1 by 1 pixels, although a grid setting with
such a low value would probably not be very useful.

SNAPPING
PREFERENCES/SNAP TO GRID allows you to accurately position panels at grid
intersections. When the SNAP TO GRID item is selected, all objects being
created or moved will align the top-left corner of the object to the
nearest grid intersections.

8. GRAPHICS
CS allows you to introduce graphic components to your comics in two ways:
o       By creating them within the CS program using the graphic tools in
        the tool palette.

o       By importing previously created graphics from Clip-Art disks, or
        any other source. CS accepts any standard Amiga IFF image (except
        HAM).

BITMAPPED AND STRUCTURED GRAPHICS
CS allows you to use and manipulate two different forms of graphics:
o       BITMAPPED GRAPHICS that are created by paint programs such as
        Deluxe Paint, Aegis Images, etc. You create an area, called a
        bitmap, and then modify the pixels in that bitmap to create a
        picture.

o       STRUCTURED DRAWINGS created from components that are mathematically
        defined. These components can be lines, arcs, and curves, each with
        line weight and fill pattern attributes.
Structured drawings require less memory than Bitmap objects. It is also
possible to alter structured drawings after they are created.

GRAPHICS MODE TOOL
The GRAPHICS MODE tool allows you to select either structured or bitmapped
graphics drawing modes.
When the GRAPHICS MODE tool resembles a palette and paint brush, CS is in
bitmapped graphics mode.
When the tool resembles a T-square and triangle, CS is in the structured
graphics mode.

OBJECTS
All CS graphic elements are called objects, whether they are bitmapped,
structured, or even plain text. Objects react similarly to panels in that
they can be moved, sized, or scaled. Objects can be placed over one another
to create desired images.

BITMAPPED OBJECTS
Before you can create any bitmap graphic in CS, you must define a blank
bitmap object. Once defined, this object may be modified with the tools in
the tool palette. For more information on creating blank bitmapped objects,
see Chapter 9:Bitmap Graphics.

STRUCTURED OBJECTS
Structured graphics, unlike bitmap graphics, do not require an object to be
defined before creating the graphic. Simply create the structured graphic
in a panel. Structured graphics are covered in Chapter 10:Structured
Graphics.

TEXT OBJECTS
Text is handled in a similar manner as a graphic import. CS requires that
you drag out the text object, then enter the desired text. For more
information, see Chapter 11:Text.
All objects must be created within a panel, and there is no limit to the
number of objects that may be contained within a panel.

SELECTING OBJECTS
A non-selected object is displayed with no border, see PREFERENCES/SHOW
BOXES to show borders around non-selected objects. A selected object is
displayed with a dashed border. To select an object:
o       Simply click on the object using the left mouse button. Unlike
        selecting panels, using a keyboard modifier is not required.
        However, the different individual and multiple selection methods
        are still applicable, including:

o       Selecing objects individually by clicking on them.

o       Using the MARQUEE TOOL to select more than one object.

o       Using the LEFT-SHIFT key to EXTEND SELECT additional objects.

o       Using the LEFT-AMIGA key to de-select a single object from an
        EXTENDED SELECT set.

o       Using the EDIT/SELECT ALL item to select all objects in a selected
        panel.

MOVING OBJECTS
Objects can be moved by grabbing them and using the left mouse button. If
the object is not the currently selected object, it will become active.
More than one object may be moved at once. Extend-select the objects to be
moved and then, while holding the L-SHIFT, pick up any one of the objects
you want to move. The rest will move along with it, keeping the same
relative positions.

CROPPING BITMAPPED OBJECTS
CS allows you to crop Bitmapped objects by grabbing and moving any of the
eight control points around the selected object. Cropping a bitmap doesn't
change the image's size, but reduces the amount of the image which is
visible. The bitmap can later be enlarged to its original size, revealing
the portions which have been hidden by previous cropping. It is not
possible to crop a bitmap larger than its original size.

SCALING BITMAPPED AND STRUCTURED OBJECTS
Bitmapped objects can be enlarged or reduced in size. Unlike cropping,
scaling alters the image in your object. For example: scaling a bitmapped
object to twice its size, will make the individual pixels of the image
twice as large.
Scaling a structured graphic will not affect its resolution since it is
mathematically defined. The end result would be a larger or smaller graphic,
but the individual pixels making up the graphic would not change in size.
To scale bitmapped and structured graphics:
o       Hold down the LEFT-ALT key, grab any control point around the
        selected object and scale to the desired size.

SCALING TEXT OBJECTS
Scaling a text object will result in the text box changing size while the
text within remains unchanged. To scale text objects:
o       Hold down the LEFT-ALT key, grab any control point around the
        object and scale to the desired size.

CHANGING OBJECT ATTRIBUTES
As with panels, full control over objects is provided through the
ALTER/CURRENT...selection. This selection works similarly for bitmapped,
structured and text objects:
o       Select the object you wish to alter.

o       Select the ALTER/CURRENT...item. CS will present an OBJECT
        ATTRIBUTES requester into which changes may be entered.

POSITION
The POSITION indicator allows you to specify the exact location of the
top-left corner of the selected object in relationship to the top-left
corner of its panel. The values are displayed according to the units of
measure selected in the PREFERENCES/UNITS menu.
o       HORIZ.: This value controls the horizontal distance from the
        left hand side of the panel.

o       VERT.: This value controls the vertical distance from the top side
        of the panel.

SCALING
It is possible to scale an objct up or down.
o       HORIZ.: This value controls the horizontal scaling factor. The left
        side will be anchored, and the right side of the object will be
        adjusted accordingly.

o       VERT.: Thsi value controls the vertical scaling factor. The top
        side will be anchored, and the bottom side of the object will be
        scaled accordingly.

VISIBILITY
By default, all objects outside of a panel are not visible. If an object is
partially outside, it will be cropped at the panel border. However, CS
allows you to override this setting, allowing an object to be visible
regardless of its position on the page.

TRANSPARENT COLOR
In each object, one of 16 colors is actually "transparent", allowing
whatever is behind to be seen. By default, white is each object's
transparent color. Use this gadget to change the transparent color of an
object. In many cases, what is behind is the page which is white in color.
CS allows you to specify a different transparent color for each object.

LINE WIDTH
The LINE WIDTH selector at the bottom of the TOOL palette allows you to
select the width of the lines drawn by the following tools: polygon,
rectangle, ellipse, and Bezier drawing tools, in both Bitmap and Structured
drawing modes. If a structured graphic object, or a speech balloon, is
active, changing the width selector will immediately change the width of
the lines in that object.
As well, future graphics will be drawn with the selected line width until
another selection is made.
For bitmapped graphics, you will have to select the line width desired
before you start to create the image.

COLOR PALETTE
The COLOR PALETTE behaves similarly to the LINE WIDTH selector. If you wish
to change the color of an ACTIVE structured, or speech balloon, object:
o       Select a new color from the color palette. Your object will change
        color immediately.

Note again that this only applies to structured objects, and speech
balloons, NOT bitmapped objects.
The SELECTED COLOR indicator displays the selected foreground and
background colors. To select a different foreground color:
o       Click on the FOREGROUND indicator in the SELECTED COLOR indicator.

o       Click on any color in the COLOR palette.

The same process applies for changing the background color.
By default, the foreground color will be black, and no background
color will be specified.
The bottom two gadgets in the COLOR palette are used with BACKGROUND
colors. The tool on the right is the Pattern Fill selector. The tool on the
left is NO FILL.

SELECTING NO FILL:
o       Select the BACKGROUND indicator.

o       Select the NO FILL tool.

o       This will result in no BACKGROUND color.
By default, FILL is turned off.

SELECTING A PATTERN:
o       Select the BACKGROUND indicator.

o       Select the PATTERN tool. The background color will be set to the
        current FILL pattern. The PATTERN tool will always indicate the
        current pattern.

TO CHANGE THE BACKGROUND PATTERN:
o       Double click on the PATTERN tool. CS will present you with a FILL
        PATTERNS requester.

o       Select any of the twenty-five patterns. Each pattern is made up of
        four colors. On the right side of the requester, the four basic
        colors are shown. Click on the arrows beside each of the color
        indicators to change the color.

o       The SET option is only valid if you are changing the background of
        an existing, editable graphic, such as a structured or text object.
        Selecting SET will change the CURRENT PATTERN into the pattern used
        by the object that you are editing. This option allows you to
        recall previously used patterns and color combinations.

CHANGING COLOR
CS allows you to specify any of the Amiga's 4096 colors as your 16 working
colors. It is strongly suggested that the first two colors (white and
black) be left alone. If these colors are changed, gadgets, menus, and
requesters may become difficult (or even impossible) to read. It is wise
to leave the last two colors (medium and dark grey) alone as well, but they
are less important than white and black.
To change any of the 16 working colors:
o       Double click on the color in the color palette that you wish to
        change. CS will display a color requester.
        The Color requester permits you to change the overall RED, GREEN,
        and BLUE components of the color that you wish to create.
        Modification of the HUE, LUMINANCE, and SATURATION is also
        possible.
        To change any of the values, grab and drag the corresponding
        SELECTOR bar. As you move the selector, the new color that you are
        creating is simultaneously displayed at the bottom right position
        of the COLOR palette.

o       The R, G, and B sliders control the amount of Red, Green, and Blue
        components in your color. There are 16 different levels for each.

o       The H slider controls the HUE of color. This is the color's
        relative position in the color sectrum, similar to the colors of a
        rainbow.

o       The L slider controls the LUMINANCE of color. Think of this as the
        intensity, or brightness, of the color. The lower the slider, the
        more black is added to the color. When the slider is at the very
        bottom, the color black will always result.

o       The S slider controls the SATURATION of the color. Think of this as
        the degree of pure color. The lower the slider, the more white is
        added to the color.

        Using the H,L, and S sliders gives you an alternative method of
        selecting colors. When you change any of these sliders, the R, G,
        and B values change accordingly.

SPREAD allows you to specify a starting and ending color and have CS
generate a spread of colors between the two.
o       Create the color at one end of the spread.

o       Create the color at the other end. The relative locations of the
        starting and ending colors is important for it defines the number
        of intermediate colors that will be generated.

o       With one of the two colors active, click SPREAD and then click on
        the other color.

EXCH. allows you to exchange the location of two colors on the color
palette. This is useful when you wish to change a certain color throughout
your comic.
o       Select the first color to be exchanged.

o       Select the EXCH. tool.

o       Select the second color to be exchanged. The two colors will change
        locations.

COPY allows you to duplicate one of the 16 current colors onto another
color location.
o       Select the color to be duplicated.

o       Select COPY.

o       Select the palette location into which you wish to copy the first
        color.
CANCEL will disregard all modifications that you have made to the COLOR
palette, and restore the previous palette.
UNDO will undo just the last change you made.

9. BITMAPS

IMPORTING
The process of importing bitmap graphics was quickly covered in the
Tutorial. This section explains in detail the different features of the
IMPORT GRAPHICS function.

A bitmap graphic can only be imported into a panel. Therefore, prior to
selecting PROJECT/IMPORT GRAPHICS..., create a panel on the page. To import a
graphic:
o       Select IMPORT GRAPHICS...(a shortcut is to double-click the BLANK
        BITMAP tool). The pointer will change to a crosshair indicating
        that a frame or guide to receive the graphic should be drawn.

o       Drag out a frame within the panel. This frame does not restrict the
        size of the imported graphic but is used as a reference for the
        GUIDE clipping function (explained later in this section). A FILE
        requester will appear if nothing has been imported yet.

o       Enter the proper drive, directory and filename of the graphic you
        wish to import. CS will present the GRAPHIC CLIPPING window.

By default, the GRAPHIC CLIPPING window is displayed at the center of the
screen. The window may be resized and moved about the screen. CS will
remember these alterations the next time the window is displayed.
Move the mouse pointer outside of the window to scroll the image in the
direction of the pointer. The farther the pointer is from the window, the
faster CS will scroll the image. An alternate method for scrolling is
pressing the four keyboard arrow keys. Holding the SHIFT key down will
increase the scrolling speed.

The functions of the five tools across the top of the GRAPHIC CLIPPING
window, in order, are:

o       Cancel Import, the standard Amiga CLOSE gadget on the left, is
        selected to cancel the graphic import function.

o       The NEW IMAGE tool (resembles a disk) is selected to produce the
        file requester, allowing you to select a different image file.

o       GUIDE (G) CS remembers the dimensions of the frame or guide that
        was drawn within the panel after selecting IMPORT GRAPHICS...
        Selecting the GUIDE clipping tool will produce a rectangular
        clipping frame of identical dimensions. Move the frame over the
        area that you wish to clip and click on the left mouse button.

o       The RECTANGLE CLIP tool is selected to define a new rectangular
        clipping frame.

o       The rightmost tool, POLYGON CLIPPING, allows clipping of irregular
        shapes. Click the left mouse button to draw a polygon around the
        image. The lines can be of any length. To terminate the polygon,
        double click the left mouse button. CS will automatically create
        a final line joining the last point of the frame with the
        starting point.

CREATING A BLANK BITMAP OBJECT
To create a blank bitmap object inside a panel:
o       Select the BLANK BITMAP tool (the face). Your pointer will change into
        a cross-hair.

o       Drag out the object. The dashed border indicates that it is the
        current object. CS remains in the OBJECT CREATE mode, allowing you
        to create more blank bitmaps.

An object may extend beyond its panel. The only restriction to the BLANK
BITMAP tool is that the starting corner of the object must initially be
inside of the panel. After creation, the object can be moved completely
off of the panel.
CONSTRAINING OBJECTS
To create square blank bitmaps, hold down the SHIFT key while using the
BLANK BITMAP tool. Depending on the viewing magnification, and screen
resolution, the result may not appear to be square. However, CS takes the
printer output resolution into consideration and the object will print as
a true square. By releasing the SHIFT key, you will again be able to
generate rectangles.

MODIFYING A BITMAP OBJECT
CS provides eight different tools to add to the contents of bitmap
objects, imported clip art as well as images created entirely within the
program. To modify a bitmap object, make sure that the object is active
and that the GRAPHICS MODE tool is set to BITMAP (the palette and
brushes icon).

PAINTING TOOL
Use the PAINT tool to draw directly on the bitmap using the selected
foreground color. As long as the left mouse button is depressed, CS will
trace your mouse movements.

BRUSH TYPES
Double clicking on the PAINT tool will produce the BRUSH TYPES requester.
Select any of the displayed brushes.

CONTINUOUS LINE TOOL (POLYGON TOOL)
The LINE tool is used to create straight continuous lines.
o       With the LINE tool selected, move the pointer to a starting
        position, click the left mouse button at that location and drag
        out a line.

o       Click the left mouse button at a second location; a line will be
        drawn from the first point to the second point. Continue clicking
        to create a connected sequence of lines.

o       To terminate the sequence of lines, double-click the left mouse
        button on the final point.

CLOSING POLYGONS
CS can automatically close polygons. Hold down the CTRL key while double
clicking to terminate the sequence of lines.
CONSTRAINING
Hold down the SHIFT key to constrain lines to 45 or 90 degrees. This is
useful if you want to create perfectly horizontal, diagonal, or vertical
lines with little effort. Releasing the SHIFT key will allow you to resume
creating lines at any angle.

BOX TOOL
The BOX tool allows you to create rectangular shapes.
With the BOX tool selected, move the pointer to a starting location, hold
down the left mouse button and drag.
CONSTRAINING BOXES
Hold down the SHIFT key while creating a box to generate squares.

ELLIPSE TOOL
The ELLIPSE tool allows you to create ellipses.
With the ELLIPSE tool selected, move the pointer to the starting location
and drag out the ellipse.
CONSTRAINING ELLIPSES
Hold down the SHIFT key while dragging out ellipses to generate true
circles.

FILL TOOL
The FILL tool allows you to fill in a closed area on the bitmap with the
current background color or pattern. You can also fill an entire blank
bitmap object with this feature.
With the FILL tool selected, position the pointer inside the area that you
wish to fill and click the left mouse button.

AIRBRUSH TOOL
The AIRBRUSH tool will spray a random stream onto the bitmap in the chosen
FOREGROUND color. The AIRBRUSH is activated by holding down the left mouse
button.

AIRBRUSH SETTINGS
Double click on the Air Brush tool to bring up the Air Brush Settings
requester:
o       SIZE controls the radius of the area the Air Brush will paint.

o       FLOW controls the rate that color will flow onto the bitmap.

SMEAR TOOL
The SMEAR tool is used to mix up pixels within a specific distance of the
pointer. This is useful for blending two joining colors within an object.
Double clicking on the SMEAR tool brings up a requester similar to the Air
Brush requester.

BEZIER CURVES
Your BEZIER tool provides the ability to produce curves. This involves
entering the location of four points to which CS fits a curve. This
function is performed interactively so you will always see the curves are
they are being formed.
This is a very powerful graphic tool which requires some experimentation to
fully master. The following brief guide illustrates the power available
through the use of Bezier curves. To produce a Bezier curve:
o       Select the BEZIER tool, and move the pointer to the location of the
        first point (of the curve).

o       Press the left mouse button and drag out a line to the second point
        and release the button.

o       Move the pointer to the third location, and press the left mouse
        button. While holding down the left mouse button, move the pointer
        to the location of the fourth point. CS will display the location
        of the 3rd point while you drag the pointer.

o       When you release the button, the curve will be generated in the
        bitmap object.

CONTINUING BEZIERS:
A standard Bezier curve is composed of four points, but it is possible to
draw a continuous curve which is built from a number of Beziers placed
end-to-end. In this situation, the first point of the new Bezier is the
same as the last point of the old one and the second point of the new
Bezier is automatically chosen so that the two Bezier curves join together
smoothly. CS performs this automatically, while the additional curves are
generated. To continue a Bezier:
o       Hold down the CTRL key while generating the last two points of a
        Bezier as previously described. When you release the left mouse
        button to place the fourth point, the Bezier you have just
        completed will be drawn as usual. In addition, the first two points
        of a new Bezier will be placed automatically.

o       Place the third and fourth pointrs of the new Bezier as described
        above. If, while you do this, you keep CTRL depressed, you will
        have yet another half-completed Bezier at the end. You can link a
        total of 30 Bezier curves together this way.

CONSTRAINING BEZIERS:
Hold down the SHIFT key to constrain either of a Bezier curve's tangent
lines to 45 degree increments. You may constrain the first and last line
segments of the Bezier curve, while freely placing the middle
segment.

LINE WIDTH TOOL
The LINE WIDTH selector is active for the CONTINUOUS LINE, ELLIPSE, BOX,
and BEZIER tools. Be sure to select the proper line width before generating
the graphic. In Bitmap mode, once the line is drawn, you will not be able
to edit it.

COLOR
Color should also be set before the graphic is created. The Foreground
Color selector affects every graphic tool, with the exception of the FILL
tool. The FILL tool uses the Background color for its operation.
If the Background color is set to a color pattern then the CONTINUOUS LINE,
RECTANGLE, ELLIPSE, and BEZIER tools will fill their areas with this
selection. For example: if the background color is RED, and the foreground
color is BLACK, using the BOX tool will produce a solid red rectangle with
a black border. Experiment with these tools; they can produce some surprising
effects.
The BACKGROUND color can be turned off by selecting the NO FILL tool. This
allows graphics to be created without any fill. The FOREGROUND color can
not be turned off, but setting the line-width to zero will produce the same
effect.

A PATTERN FILL can be chosen instead of a background color, and operates
similarly. See Chapter 8:Graphics.

SAVE BITMAP
CS provides the ability to save an entire page, or just a panel, as a
bitmap on disk. This powerful feature allows you to create a comic layout
in CS, save it as a bitmap, and import this layout into any program which
supports IFF graphic files.
This means your CS layouts may be imported into Professional Page and
printed on a PostScript laser printer. Professional Page can also be used
to professionally color separate CS comics for color offset printing.
CS layouts can also be imported into animation packages which support IFF
graphic files.
To save a COMICSETTER Panel as a Bitmap:
o       Select PROJECT/SAVE BITMAP/PANEL... This will save the current
        panel as a bitmap graphic. After selecting this item, a SAVE
        CURRENT PANEL BITMAP AS requester will appear on the screen. Enter
        the disk, directory, and filename to which you wish to save the
        bitmap.

To Save a COMICSETTER Page as a Bitmap:
o       Select PROJECT/SAVE BITMAP/PAGE... This will save the current page
        as a bitmap graphic. After selecting this item, a SAVE CURRENT PAGE
        BITMAP AS requester will appear on the screen. Enter the disk,
        directory, and filename to which you wish to save the bitmap.

10. STRUCTURED GRAPHICS
CS provides the ability to create Structured Graphic elements (DOXTOR's
NOTE: So far, CS is unique among Amiga graphic programs in having both
Bitmap AND Structured graphics). Structured graphics are mathematically
defined lines and curves. For this reason, they are completely editable and
can print to the full resolution of the defined output resolution.
Furthermore, structured graphics take up much less memory than bitmaps.

CREATING
A blank object does not have to be created prior to the actual creation of
a structured graphic. As well, a structured graphic is completely editable
with no restrictions to size, shape or color once created. After a
structured graphic is created, CS places a border around it, defining that
object.

GRAPHIC MODE TOOL
Before attempting to create a structured graphic, make sure that the
graphics mode tool is properly set to STRUCTURED GRAPHICS mode (T-square
and triangle rather than palette and paintbrushes). The select any of the
appropriate tools and start creating your graphic.

LINE TOOL (POLYGON)
The LINE tool allows you to create straight continuous structured lines in
the same way as bitmap lines are drawn.
o       With the LINE tool selected, move the pointer to a starting
        position, click and drag out a line.

o       Click the left mouse button at a second location; a line will be
        drawn from the first point to the second point. Continue clicking
        to create a connected sequence of lines.

o       To terminate the LINE draw tool, double-click the left mouse button
        on the final point.

CLOSING POLYGONS
CS can automatically close polygons. Hold down the CTRL key while double
clicking to terminate the line function.

CONSTRAINING
Hold down the SHIFT key to constrain lines to 45 or 90 degrees. This is
useful if you wish to create perfectly vertical, horizontal, or diagonal
lines with little effort. Releasing the SHIFT key will allow you to resume
creating lines at any angle.

BOX TOOL
The BOX tool alows you to create rectangular shapes.
With the BOX tool selected, move the pointer to a starting location, hold
down the left mouse button and drag out the rectangular guide.

CONSTRAINING BOXES
Hold down the SHIFT key while creating a box to generate squares.

ELLIPSE TOOL
The ELLIPSE tool allows you to create ellipses.
With the ELLIPSE tool selected, move the pointer to the starting location
and drag out the ellipse.

CONSTRAINING ELLIPSES
Hold down the SHIFT key while dragging out ellipses to generate true
circles.

BEZIER CURVES
The BEZIER tool provides the ability to produce curves. This involves
entering the location of four points to which CS fits a curve. This
function is performed interactively so you will always see the curves are
they are being formed.

This is a very powerful graphic tool which requires some experimentation to
fully master. The following brief guide illustrates the power available
through the use of Bezier curves. To produce a Bezier curve:
o       Select the BEZIER tool, and move the pointer to the location of the
        first point (of the curve).

o       Press the left mouse button and drag out a line to the second point
        and release the button.

o       Move the pointer to the third location, and press the left mouse
        button. While holding down the left mouse button, move the pointer
        to the location of the fourth point. CS will display the location
        of the 3rd point while you drag the pointer.

o       When you release the button, the curve will be generated in the
        bitmap object.

CONTINUING BEZIERS:
A standard Bezier curve is composed of four points, but it is possible to
draw a continuous curve which is built from a number of Beziers placed
end-to-end. In this situation, the first point of the new Bezier is the
same as the last point of the old one and thesecond point of the new Bezier
is automatically chosen so that the two Bezier curves join together smoothly.
CS performs this automatically, while the additional curves are generated.
To continue a Bezier:
o       Hold down the CTRL key while generating the last two points
        of a Bezier as previously described. When you release the left mouse
        button to place the fourth point, the Bezier you have just
        completed will be drawn as usual. In addition, the first two points
        of a new Bezier will be placed automatically.

o       Place the third and fourth pointrs of the new Bezier as described
        above. If, while you do this, you keep CTRL depressed, you will
        have yet another half-completed Bezier at the end. You can link a
        total of 30 Bezier curves together this way.
CONSTRAINING BEZIERS:
Hold down the SHIFT key to constrain either of a Bezier curve's tangent
lines to 45 degree increments. You may constrain the first and last line
segments of the Bezier curve, while freely placing the middle segment.

LINE WIDTH TOOL
The LINE WIDTH selector is meaningful for all of the structured graphics
tools. Select the line width before creating a graphic. If an existing
structured graphic object is selected, and the line width altered, that
graphic will reflect this change. Structured graphics can be edited in this
way at any time.

COLOR
Color can be selected prior to creating a graphic, or afterwards to modify
a structured graphic. The Foreground Color selector affects every
structured graphics tool.
If the Background color is set to a color or pattern then the CONTINUOUS LINE,
RECTANGLE, ELLIPSE, and BEZIER tools will fill their areas with this
selection. For example: if the background color is RED, and the foreground
color is BLACK, using the BOX tool will produce a solid red rectangle with
a black border. Experiment with these tools; they can produce some surprising
effects.
The BACKGROUND color can be turned off by selecting the NO FILL tool. This
allows graphics to be created without any fill. The FOREGROUND color can
not be turned off, but setting the line-width to zero will produce the same
effect.
A PATTERN FILL can be chosen instead of a background color, and operates
similarly.

MODIFYING STRUCTURED GRAPHICS
Structured graphics are moved in the same manner as are panels or bitmap
objects. Simply use the left mouse button to grab the object and move it to
the desired location.

CONTROL POINTS
Structured graphics can be fully edited in size and shape.
When a structured graphic is selected, control points will be visible
surrounding the graphic. Any of these control points may be grabbed and
moved to change the size of the graphic.

SCALING STRUCTURED GRAPHICS
Holding L-ALT while an object is selected will cause 8 control points to
appear around the object's frame. Grabbing and moving control points while
still holding L-ALT, will scale the entire object to a new size. This
procedure was discussed in detail in Chapter 8: Grahics; Scaling.

BOX AND ELLIPSE
These structured graphics have eight control points, one at each corner of
the frame, and one at the midpoint of each line. Grabbing any of these
control points and moving it is similar to resizing a panel. When a control
point is moved, the graphic itself will resize, showing you exactly how it
is being changed.

LINES
Control points in continuous lines are located at each joint of the line.
If only one line segment exists, there will be a control point at each end
of the line. Grabbing any of the continuous-line control points will allow
you to move the location of that point while the other points remain
stationary.

BEZIER CURVES
Bezier curves possess the most advanced form of control point manipulation.
Initially, only two control points are visible in a standard, non-continuous
Bezier curve. These two points will be at the ends of the curve.
Clicking on either of the two control points will display a tangent line
and another control point at the end of the tangent line.
The direction of the tangent line defines the direction of the curve at the
control point where the curve meets the tangent line. The length of that
tangent line defines the magnitude, or degree of curvature to that segment.
To change the location of the second control point, or the length of the
tangent line, grab the control point at the end of the tangent line, and
move it to the desired location.
Moving the original control point, at the base of the tangent line, will
keep the secondary point, at the end of the tangent, anchored.
If you wish to move the whole tangent line, without changing either its
direction or its length, hold the LEFT-AMIGA key while moving the original
control point. The entire tangent line will move at once.

CONTINUOUS BEZIERS
When you click on one of the control points connecting two Beziers, you get
a tangent line extending in both directions, with a new control point on
each end. In this situation, each tangent line can be edited independently
as previously described.
If the LEFT-AMIGA key is held down, the changes in one tangent will be
reflected in the other. For example: by holding down the LEFT-AMIGA key and
changing the length and rotating the tangent by 45 degrees, the other
tangent will also change in length by the same amount, and rotate 45
degrees in the opposite direction. The rotation is always around the base
control point. If the LEFT-AMIGA key is held while moving the center
control point, all three points will move together. This has the effect of
keeping the curve smooth as in (a). If the tangents are moved
independently, as in (b), a curve with sharp points may result.
The only way to completely understand the full use of Bezier curves is to
experiment. By moving the control points, it will only take you a few
minutes to learn the basis on which Bezier curves operate.

ATTRIBUTES
Structured graphics are objects, just like bitmap and text objects. All of
the attributes discussed in the Chapter 8:Graphics, fully apply to
Structured Graphics.

11. TEXT
Text can be added to CS layouts in two ways. The first is by integrating
text with bitmap objects. The second way is to create text as a separate
object.
The advantage of creating separate text objects is the ability to edit that
text at a later time. If the text is integrated as part of a bitmap, it is
a permanent addition.

TEXT IN BITMAPS
To place text in a bitmap object:
o       Select the bitmap mode and make certain the Graphics Mode tool is
        set to the Bitmap mode.

o       Select the TEXT tool from the TOOL palette. The pointer will change
        to a cross hair signifying that the location for the text can be
        defined.

o       Drag out a rectangular guide, defining the text location. CS will
        produce an ENTER TEXT: requester.

o       Type the text into the text line and press RETURN. The text will
        appear as part of the bitmap.

TEXT AS AN OBJECT
To create text as a separate object:
o       Make certain that the GRAPHICS MODE tool is set to STRUCTURED
        GRAPHICS.

o       Select the TEXT tool from the TOOL palette. Again, the pointer will
        change to a cross hair. CS is waiting for an object to be created,
        into which the text will be placed.

o       Drag out a text area. As in the bitmap mode, a text requester will
        be produced.

o       Type the text into the TEXT requester and press RETURN. CS will
        create an object and place the text within.
The location of text within the rectangle you drag out depends on the TEXT
FORMAT specified, whether you're adding the text to a bitmap, or creating a
text object. For an explanation of text formats, see FORMATS later in this
chapter.

MODIFYING TEXT OBJECTS
Text located in bitmaps can not be directly modified. However, text in
TEXT objects can be altered.
The size of the object can be modified in the same way as other objects:
o       With the object selected, grab any of the control points around its
        frams and drag it to the new size. The text inside will readjust
        accordingly.
Although you are changing the physical size of the object, you cannot
change the size of the text. To do this, you must select a different font,
or font size. See FONTS, later in this chapter.

CHANGING THE ACTUAL TEXT
To edit the text in a text object:
With the object active, choose TEXT/EDIT. The familiar ENTER TEXT requester
will appear, allowing you to edit the existing type.

TEXT ATTRIBUTES
Many text attributes may be selected, including the font used, style of
text, and the text format. All of these attribute items are located in the
TEXT menu.
FONTS
Selecting TEXT/FONT... produces a FONTS requester This requester allows you
to change to a different font type:
o       Move the pointer over the desired font and click the left mouse
        button. Most fonts have multiple sizes listed on the far right-hand
        side of the requester.

o       Select the proper size.

STYLE
Every font can have various styles assigned to it; UNDERLINED, BOLD, and
ITALICS. Any combination of styles can be selected simultaneously. These
styles apply to the entire text object; unless overridden by embedded codes
(see below).
o       Select TEXT/STYLE and choose the attributes that you wish your text
        to have. When an attribute is selected, a checkmark will appear to
        the left of it.

o       To turn off all attributes, select TEXT/STYLE/PLAIN.

FORMATS
Text can be positioned within TEXT objects in three ways: LEFT, RIGHT, and
CENTER justified.
Select TEXT/FORMAT and choose the format that you wish your text to have.
Only one of these may be chosen at a time for any given Text object. A
checkmark will appear to the left of the chosen format.

EMBEDDED CODES
You can add codes directly into your text. Mpost of these codes control the
various text styles, such as Bold, Underline, and Italic, overriding the
styles chosen from the TEXT/STYLE submenu. The codes themselves will not be
displayed or printed.
Insert these codes while entering text in the ENTER TEXT requester, when
you want to have a single text object containing more than one style of
text.

CODE                    FUNCTION                        EFFECT
\B                      Turn BOLD on                    BOLD
\b                      Turn BOLD off
\U                      Turn UNDERLINE on               UNDERLINE
\u                      Turn UNDERLINE off
\I                      Turn ITALICS on                 ITALICS
\i                      Turn ITALICS off
\n                      New Line
\p                      Turn off all styles             PLAIN
\\                      A '\' caracter is displayed

Several of these codes may be used in conjunction with one another. For
example, if you entered:
        Hello \Bthere\b, Bob,  CS would print 'there' in BOLD.

COLOR
Text will always appear in the current FOREGROUND color. If the text is a
TEXT object, then the color can be changed by the same method as for
changing color of a structured graphic. Background color is not used in
TEXT objects.
With the text object selected, change the foreground color. The text color
will change accordingly.

OTHER ATTRIBUTES
A TEXT object behaves as all other objects do and can be further modified
using the ALTER/CURRENT... selection as described in Chapter 8:Graphics.

12. BALLOONS
SPEECH BALLOONS add a special dimension to our favorite comic characters.
There are several different types of speech balloons. Some are rounded
(used when characters are talking), and others are jagged (showing force or
strong action).
CS provides the ability to create several different types of speech
balloons in various sizes, place text within them, and drag out speech
tails. Since speech balloons are specialized structured graphics, the tail,
or any other part of the graphic can be edited. The text element is a text
object grouped to the structured graphic.

CREATING THE BALLOON
o       Click on the BALLOON TOOL. The pointer will change into a cross-hair.

o       Drag out a frame for the speech balloon.

o       CS will present a text requester. Enter the text in the text line.
        The speech balloon will be created using current line width, color
        and balloon attributes.

BALLOON ATTRIBUTES
Ballon attributes must be set before creating the balloon. Other than
color, line width and text contents, there is no methof of changing
attributes after the balloon is created.

To select balloon attributes:
o       Double click on the BALLOON tool in the TOOL palette. CS will
        present a Balloon requester containing optional settings.

SHAPES:
CS provides six different balloon shapes, all of which are editable.
Clicking oin any of the shape diagrams will select that shape.

FEATURES:
Certain balloons can be selected to have EVEN or JAGGED peaks. When EVEN is
selected, all of the peaks will be of equal size. When JAGGED is selected,
some peaks will be higher than others.
The #PEAK counter indicates the number of peaks and control points that
your balloon will have. The default value depends on the shape of balloon
that you are using.
The PEAK HEIGHT controls the height of the peaks above the "valleys"
between them. Any value between 0 and 100 is allowed. Using a peak height
of 0 will result in an ellipse being generated with the number of control
points that were specified on the #Peaks line.

EDITING THE BALLOON
A balloon is really a group containing two components: a text object and a
structured object. In a standard speech balloon, the text object is within
the structured object. To modify the balloon or the text, the group must
be entered and the appropriate component must be made active. For more
information on groups, see Chapter 14:GROUPS. Only a brief summary is given
here. To select either of the objects in a balloon:
o       Click on the balloon to select it. The two objects in the balloon
        will become visible (if PREFERENCES/SHOW BOXES is turned on).

o       Hold down the CTRL key while clicking on one of the two objects.
        That object will become active.
Once a balloon is entered, you can simply click on the object that you wish
to edit. The frame of that object will turn from dotted to dashed and
control points will become visible.

STRUCTURED COMPONENTS: ADDING A TAIL
The graphic part of a balloon is simply a structured graphic with many
segments--either a continuous line or a Bezier curve. Any editing that is
possible with a normal structured graphic is possible with the balloon.
Adding a tail has been simplified to grabbing and holding any control point
to its desired location, and dragging out a speech tail. As with normal
Bezier curves, clicking on any control point will bring up the tangent
lines for finer control of the graphic.

TEXT COMPONENT: EDITING
Once a balloon is entered, selecting its text object will allow it to be
edited just like any other text object. Therefore, by grabbing the visible
control points, you can adjust the size of the object. Choose TEXT/EDIT to
edit the actual text. For more information on TEXT objects, see Chapter
11:TEXT.

OTHER ATTRIBUTES
A speech balloon's COLOR and LINE WIDTH attributes can be chosen before the
balloon is created, and modified afterwards. These features work the same
way as with other graphic objects. For more information of COLOR and LINE
WIDTH attributes, see Chapter 8:GRAPHICS. In the same way, a balloon's
text attributes can be chosen, before or after creating the balloon, using
the TEXT menu.

13. EDITING
CS provides many tools to assist in object editing. One of the most useful
tools is the UNDO command. Other commands allow you to MOVE, DUPLICATE, and
DELETE panels and objects.

UNDO
Selecting EDIT/UNDO reverses the immediately previous change or delete that
you might have invoked. This applies to panels, and all types of objects.
Pages are excluded from the UNDO features.
Some operations cannot be undone. If the most recent operation is not
undoable, the EDIT/UNDO menu will be ghosted out to indicate this.

CUT
Selecting EDIT/CUT will remove the selected objects or panels from the
screen, placing them in the PASTE BUFFER.
The PASTE BUFFER is a temporary storage area for panels and objects. The
contents of this buffer can be recalled at any time. Therefore, you can CUT
an object from one page and PASTE it onto another page. CUT cannot be
undone with UNDO--PASTE is the only way to reverse the effects of a CUT.
Once a panel or object has been cut, it remains in the paste buffer until
CUT or COPY is selected again.

EDIT/COPY is similar to CUT, except that the selected panels or objects
will not be erased from the screen. The EDIT/COPY selection transfers a
copy of the object or panel into the PASTE BUFFER without affecting the
original. This command is used in conjunction with the PASTE command.

PASTE
Selecting EDIT/PASTE, after a CUT or COPY command, will transfer the
objects or panels in the PASTE BUFFER back onto the original locations on
the current page. For example, a panel CUT from the top portion of one page
will PASTE into the same location on the current page. It is possible to
PASTE an item several times, onto the same page or different pages. Each
new copy will be placed on top of the original object. You are then free to
move the copies to new locations.
NOTE: When CS PASTES an object or panel, it will make that item active. In
the case of a panel, the panel will be active even if there are several
objects in the panel. If you select the PASTE item again, CS will produce
an error message. The reason for this is that you would be trying to paste
an object into an object, or a panel into a panel, and this is not
possible. You can, however, paste an object into a panel. A PASTE command
will copy an object from the PASTE BUFFER into the current panel,
regardless of the panel's position on the page.

ERASE
Selecting EDIT/ERASE permanently deletes the selected objects or panels
from the CS layout. This allows you to delete objects without affecting the
object or panel in the Paste Buffer.

DUPLICATE
The EDIT/DUPLICATE selection is convenient for creating several copies of
objects or panels. Simply select the object or panel that you wish to
recreate and select the DUPLICATE function. CS will place the second copy
slightly below and to the right of the original, so that it may be easily
grabbed and moved. The DUPLICATE command will not affect any objects or
panels in the Paste Buffer.

After a Duplicate, the new copies of the items will be active, rather than
the oriignals. The copies can therefore be moved together to a new location
by grabbing one of them while holding down the L-SHIFT key.

FLIP
The EDIT/FLIP selection allows you to create mirror images of active
objects or panels. This incredibly useful feature greatly multiplies the CS
ClipArt options.
When you select an EDIT/FLIP, a sub-menu of two chioces will appear:
o       HORIZONTAL: CS will flip the contents from left to right, resulting
        in a mirror image.

o       VERTICAL: This will flip the contents from top to bottom, resulting
        in an upside-down image.

LOCK
Selecting LAYOUT/LOCK will protect the active panels or objects from any
further changes. A LOCKED object can not be moved or modified in any way.
If the panel or group is locked, all of the objects it contains will also
be locked.

UNLOCK
Selecting LAYOUT/UNLOCK will UNLOCK the selected object or panel, allowing
you once again to move, modify, or delete it.

ALIGN
This command aligns all of the selected items, either relative to each
other or relative to the panel or group which contains them. It is possible
to align items horizontally or vertically, or both at the same time. In the
horizontal direction, if you choose LEFT (or RIGHT), the items will move so
that their left (or right) edges all line up. If you choose CENTER, the
items will move so that they are all centered on the same vertical line.
Vertical alignment works similarly, aligning the items' top or bottom
edges, or centering the items on the same horizontal line.
To align a set of objects or panels:
o       Select all of the items that you wish to align. See Chapter 7:
        PANELS, for more information on selection.

o       Select LAYOUT/ALIGN... . CS will present an ALIGN requester.

o       Choose the desired alignment options.

ALIGNING TO PARENT:
There are two basic ways to align items. These are controlled with the TO
PARENT item in the ALIGN requester.
If TO PARENT is chosen, all of the items will be aligned relative to their
parent item. They will move to the edge of the parent's frame, or they will
be centered within it, depending on the options you choose in the VERTICAL
and HORIZONTAL sections of the requester. It is possible to align just one
item TO PARENT.
The parent of an object is the group or panel of which it is a member. This
is also the parent of a group. All of the panels on a page have the same
parent--the page itself.
If TO PARENT is not chosen, CS will align relative to a frame which
surrounds all of the selected items. Thus, if you align LEFT, the program
will find the leftmost of all the selected items, and will move the rest of
the items to line up with it. RIGHT, TOP, and BOTTOM work similarly. If you
CENTER-align without choosing TO PARENT, the program will choose, from
among the selected items, the left edge which is farthest left, and the
right edge which is farthest right; it will then move each of the selected
items so that its center is half-way between those two edges. Although
possible, it is useless to align just one item without TO PARENT--every
item is already aligned relative to itself!

14. GROUPS
The purpose of a group is to join several objects together, allowing you to
move and modify all of them at once. For example: grouping a graphic
character created from several pieces offers the obvious advantage of
moving the complete character as a whole, without moving all of the pieces
separately and reassembling them. Note: objects and groups can be grouped;
panels cannot.

CREATING
o       Select all of the objects that you wish to include in the group.
        The objects must all be from the same panel. For more information
        on the methods of selecting and extended selecting objects, see
        Chapter 8:GRAPHICS.
o       Once all of the objects to be grouped have been selected, use the
        LAYOUT/GROUP function to make the selected objects into a group. A
        frame surrounding all of the selected objects will appear. The
        borders of the individual objects will change from dashed (selected)
        to dotted (deselected).
When the group is not selected, the borders of the individual objects in
the group will disappear, and only the group border will be visible.

SELECTING, MOVING AND SCALING
Once a group has beencreated, it acts just like any other object. It can be
selected, moved, and scaled using the methods described for objects in
CHAPTER 8:GRAPHICS. When a group is moved or scaled, all of its members
will move or scale along with it. It is never necessary (or possible)
to explicitly resize a group. Whenever a group's member are changed (sic),
the group's frame will automatically be adjusted to exactly contain them.

ALTERING
Selecting ALTER/CURRENT... will produce the GROUP ATTRIBUTES requester.
This requester allows you to exactly specify:
o       Position: the group relative to the panel.
o       Scaling: The horizontal and vertical scaling factors that will be
        applied to the group.

UNGROUPING
To ungroup a selected group of objects, select LAYOUT/GROUP
OPERATIONS/UNGROUP. The group's members will still exist, but they will be
no longer in a group. They will all be selected, making it easy to deselect
a couple (using L-Amiga-Click) and regroup the rest.

ENTERING A GROUP
There are times when it is necessary to modify one object within a group.
To enter a selected group and gain access to its individual members:
o       Hold down the CTRL key while clicking the pointer over the member
        to be made active. The object will become active, allowing full
        access. Once a group has been entered all of objects within that
        group are accessible by clicking on them. Extended selection is
        also possible at this point.

If an object within a group is modified, the group frame will readjust to
accommodate the change.
If the group contains a sub-group, enter the group and then use the same
procedure to enter the sub-group.
To leave a group, just click anywhere other than in any of the group's
members. The group's members will no longer be individually selectable.

15. PREFERENCES

DISPLAY BOXES
To turn the display of borders ON or OFF, select PREFERENCES/SHOW BOXES. A
checkmark will appear left of the menu item if the item is turned on.
The only borders displayed will be those of the current active objects, and
their corresponding panels. Turning on PREFERENCES/SHOW BOXES causes all
objects and panels to be displayed with borders around them. These borders
may be dashed, solid, or dotted depending on the current state of the
object.

GADGETS
There are situations where maximum screen viewing area is desired,
especially when editing very large panels. CS provides the option of making
the tool palette disappear, increasing your viewing area by about 10%. To
turn the TOOL PALETTE OFF, select PREFERENCES/SHOW GADGETS.

FAST MOVE
CS has a method for moving objects very quickly. By default,
PREFERENCES/FAST MOVE is selected. This setting allows objects to be moved
quickly, by only displaying the frame of the object being moved. When FAST
MOVE is turned on, a checkmark appears to the left of the item.
When the FAST MOVE option is turned off, the contents of the moving object
will be visible providing for accurate positioning. The disadvantage of this
is that CS may take a second longer to prepare the object to be moved.

INTERLACE
Selecting PREFERENCES/INTERLACE will double the CS screen resolution
allowing you to view twice as many vertical lines. The disadvantage,
naturally, is flicker, about which 'nuff said.

PAGE CACHE
Turning on Page Cache allows work on very large documents without placing a
great strain on the Amiga's memory availability. With Page Cache ON, CS
will temporarily store most pages of your document on disk. Only the
current page will be in memory. The disadvantage of Page Cache is that it
may take a few extra cesonds to moce from one page to another. The
advantage gained is a comic whose size is only limited by available disk
space.
Selecting PREFERENCES/PAGE CACHE produces a sub-menu containing two items:
o       USE PAGE CACHE is a switch to turn the feature ON or OFF.

o       SET DIRECTORY... displays a PAGE CACHE DIRECTORY requester which
        is used to select the disk and directory in which CS will store the
        non-current pages.

AVAILABLE MEMORY
Selecting PREFERENCES/AVAILABLE MEMORY... displays an Available Memory
requester. The requester shows you the total free memory currently at your
Amiga's disposal:
o       CHIP: Total amount of CHIP memory (duh...).

o       FAST: Total amount of FAST memory (duhhhhh...).

o       CHIP LARGEST and FAST LARGEST: These show for the two types of
        memory, the size of the single largest available chunk of memory of
        that type.

16. PRINTING

SETUP
First, you must set the printer driver, as usual, by using the WORKBENCH
Preferences program.

PRINT
Selecting PROJECT/PRINT will produce a PRINT DOCUMENT requester, providing
the necesary options for printing the document:
o       FROM PAGES X TO Y: allows a range of pages to be selected for
        printing. By default, CS will print the entire document. Click in
        the page lines to specify the range of pages to be printed.

o       #COPIES: CS will print this many copies of the requested pages.
        Default is 1.

o       DFLT: In this setting CS will scale the page as required to make it
        fit on the physical page in your printer.

o       CUSTOM: gives you control over scaling factors that are applied
        during printing. A 1.0 by 1.0 scale instructs CS to print every
        pixel with no scaling.
        Depending on these values, the output may be larger or smaller
        than the page on your printer. If it is larger, only part of the page
        will actually be printed.

o       DENSITY: Depending on the selected printer, several print DENSITIES
        may be available for use. Click the pointer over the appropriate
        density to select it. The DPI value will display the actual dots
        per inch for the chosen density.

o       COLOR: The color setting tells CS to print comics in their original
        CS colors. The color quality depends greatly on the type of color
        printer connected to the Amiga. This setting should not be used
        with a B&W printer!

o       GREY SCALE: If this setting is used, CS will convert all colors
        into appropriate grey shading that your printer can output. The
        grey shades are created by different patterns of black dots which
        give the appearance of a solid grey color, a technique used oin
        newspaper photographs. The type of DITHERING pattern is selected
        using the DITHER SETTING gadgets in this requester.

o       BLACK & WHITE: Printing in BLACK & WHITE will force all colors to
        be either black or white--no grey-scaling will be attempted. A
        color comic may not output satisfactorily when printed in B&W mode.
        In B&W printing, there is a threshold; any color darker than the
        threshold will be printed as black; the rest of the pixels willmbe
        white. Although this threshold cannot be changed within CS, you can
        change it using WorkBench Preferences.

o       DITHER: CS provides three settings for grey scale patterns:
        o ORDERED: Which creates bits with uniform placement of light and
        dark pixels.
        o HALFTONE: which creates bits with dark or light pixels radiating
        from a central point. This emulates the dots of a newspaper's
        halftone photograph.
        o FLOYD-STEINBERG: Which creates bits with a randomized placement
        of light and dark pixels.

        Experimentation is the best way to determine which of these
        settings produces the best quality output on your printer.

o       SMOOTH: if any upward scaling is performed, the SMOOTH function
        helps CS to smooth out some of the jagged edges common to dot
        matrix printers. The degree of improvement depends on the printer
        and amount of scaling. Smooth cannot be used with Floyd-Steinberg
        dithering. Selecting either of these turns off the other one.

o       CORRECT: This function helps CS to more closely match the printed
        colors to the screen colors. Of course, this is only applicable
        when a color printer is used.

o       MANUAL: This is for single-sheet feeding of your printer.

o       EJECT: This ejects the last page of your comic from the printer.

o       START: This starts the printing operation using the selected
        attributes.

o       PAUSE: This pauses a print while in progress.

o       RESUME: This unPAUSEs the paused printing.

o       CANCEL!: This aborts a PAUSEd printing, returning you to CS.

o       QUIT: Clicking on this aborts the PRINT DOCUMENT requester.

ENVIRONMENT SETUP
There are times when CS must produce either a comic which looks good on the
screen, or one which looks good on paper--it can't do both at the same
time. For example, when you use L-SHIFT with the Ellipse tool to draw a
circle, what you see on the screen is very unlikely to be circular; it
will, however, appear circular when printed. In order to do this correctly,
the program must know, while you are creating a comic, the resolution of
the printer on which it will be output.
When CS firsat starts up, it checks the printer settings you specified to
the Preferences progra, on the assumption that they describe the printer
you will be using to output your comics.
If you plan to use a different printer than the one in your Preferences
(for example, if you're working at home, but plan to use a friend's color
printer for your final output), you should tell CS about this so that it
can get things right. To do this:
o       Select PROJECT/ENVIRONMENT SETUP... menu item. An ENVIRONMENT SETUP
        requester will appear.

o       Enter the resolution (Dots per inch, or "DPI") for the printer you
        will be using for final output.

If you create a comic with the wrong printer resolution, everything will
still work OK, but the final output won't look quite as good as if the
correct resolution had been used.
If, when the program starts up, the printer information is not available,
the settings for a common type of printer (Epson) will be used, and you
will be told about it so that you can change the settings to the correct
ones for your printer.

17. COMIC HINTS
(This chapter contains generic rules for making good-looking comics. The
chapter is nowhere near as good as Stan Lee and John Buscema's HOW TO DRAW
COMICS THE MARVEL WAY, which ANY aspiring comic book creator should read
thoroughly. Besides, I don't want to type out a crummy chapter wwhen I can
recommend a good book...)

APPENDIX A

Technical Support
If you have problems, you might try calling Gold Disk's Tech Support Line
at [phone] between 9:00 and 5:00 Eastern weekdays. They might not ask
if you're a registered user...

APPENDIX B

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
Many of the gadget and menu functions can be accessed through the keyboard.
Here are the shortcuts: (Ax means RIGHT-AMIGA and key "x")

PROJECT MENU
Project/New                     A N
Project/Open                    A O
Project/Save                    A S

EDIT MENU
Edit/Undo                       A Q
Edit/Cut                        A X
Edit/Copy                       A C
Edit/Paste                      A P
Edit/Duplicate                  A D
Edit/Flip/Horizontal            A H
Edit/Flip/Vertical              A V
Edit/Select All                 A A

LAYOUT MENU
Layout/Group Operations/Group   A G
Leyout/Group Operations/Ungroup A U
Layout/Add Page                 A P
Layout/Lock                     A L

PREFERENCES MENU
Preferences/Magnify/200%        A 1
Preferences/Magnify/100%        A 2
Preferences/Magnify/Fullpage    A 3
Preferences/Magnify/50%         A 4
Preferences/Snap to Grid        A R
Preferences/Show Gadgets        A M
Preferences/Interlace           A J

TEXT MENU
Text/Edit                       A E
Text/Font...                    A W

Keyboard Modifiers
The following chart summarizes the keyboard modifiers, and the mode in
which each operation functions.
To use a desired function, press the specified Modifier key whilew clicking
in the appropriate area with the left mouse button.
The Edit column (below) is in effect when a keyboard modifier is used for
an editing operation, i.e., clicking or grabbing any visible control point.
The Selection column (below) is in effect when a keyboard modifier is used
in a selection process, such as clicking inside the body of an object.

MODIFIER                SELECTION                  EDIT
(none)                  Select Single Object
Left-Shift              Extend Single Object       Constrain
Right-Shift             Extend Select Panel        Constrain
Left-Amiga              Deselect Object            Move Tangent
                                                   point with points
Right-Amiga             Deselect Panel             Move Tangent
                                                   point with points
Left-ALT                                           Scale Panels or Objects
Right-ALT               Select Single Panel
CTRL                    Descend Into Group         Close Polygon
                                                   Continue Bezier

In the Edit column, there is no difference between the left and right Shift
keys, or between the left and right Amiga keys.

APPENDIX C
This appendix is all about the 1.3 printer drivers, and contains nothing
that isn't in the Workbench 1.3 manual.

APPENDIX D
Write Gold Disk at...

APPENDIX E
This is a dump of all the graphic images on the ClipArt disk.

APPENDIX F
This is the program "license" agreement.

And finally...

GLOSSARY
active panel & subject          The current panel or object, on which all
                                modify operations are performed.

background color                See fill color.

backup                          To copy disks and files for safekeeping.

bezier curve                    A matmematically defined smooth curve.

bit                             An abbreviation for "binary digit". Groups
                                of bits are used to represent characters
                                and other information. The most common
                                grouping is the "byte" (8 bits).

bitmapped graphic               A graphic created with pixel representation.

bold                            Letters with heavier blacker appearance.

cache                           A temporary storage area on disk where the
                                computer stores unused pages to save memory.

carriage return                 Often referred to as the RETURN key.

center-justified text           Text centered on the full line, with both
                                margins ragged.

CLI                             If you don't know by now...

click                           Ditto...

crop                            To trim a graphic to a reduced size by
                                hiding part of the image.

directory                       A place on a disk where files are kept...

document                        The comic being currently worked on within
                                ComicSetter.

DPI                             Dots Per Inch--printer resolution.

drag                            Typing 100 pages of documentation--I mean,
                                to move objects on the screen with the mouse.

file requester                  Surely you've seen these by now also...

filename                        Uh, the name associated with a file (Get it?)

fill color                      The color used as the background when a fill
                                is requested.

fill pattern                    A pattern used in a fill.

Font                            A set of characters in one style and size.

foreground color                See line color.

function key                    Those grey keys on top of the keyboard (Fn).

gadgets                         Potato peelers, doorstops, can openers, etc.

grid                            A set of non-printed lines to guide layouts.

group                           A collection of objects.

halftone                        A continuous grey tone simulated by a
                                pattern of pixels.

handles                         Small rectangles which can be dragged to
                                change the size or shape of an object or panel.

hard disk drive                 What many want, and not so many have.

icon                            A representation of a saint in the Russian
                                Orthodox Church.

interlace mode                  Amiga-haters' favorite gripe.

italic                          Text that slants to the right (GOP text).

justification                   How you defend the purchase of a 4 MB RAM
                                expansion to your spouse.

left-justified text             Right ragged edge text (COMPUTE! books)

line color                      The color in which graphics and text appears.

line weight                     The thickness of a line.

Manual feed                     Feeding paper to a printer by hand.

Margin                          The blank area around the printed part.

Menu bar                        If You Don't Know By Now...

Object                          A simple graphic or text element. Objects
                                can be bitmapped, structured or text.

panel                           A rectangular area on the page. Every
                                object must belong to a panel, and the only
                                part of an object which is visible is that
                                within the object's panel.

paste buffer                    The area where objects which have been cut
                                or clipped are temporarily kept.

Pixel                           A dot of light on the screen. ("Picture
                                element", abbreviated.)

Pointer                         That funky little arrow that the mouse moves.

requester                       A box which asks for something.

resolution                      The number of horizontal and vertical lines
                                in the screen and printer.

right-justified text            Left-ragged text.

scaling                         Changing the size of an image proportionally.

screen                          That glowing area on your monitor, dummy.

scroll bar                      The gadgets on the bottom and sides of the
                                screen, which allow you to see different
                                parts of a large frame.

select                          1. To invoke a menu option.
                                2. To activate one or more panels, groups,
                                   or objects.

Sizing gadget                   The thingie that  allows windows to be made
                                bigger or smaller.

submenu                         A menu within a menu.

tool                            Hammer, saw, pliers, screwdriver, etc.

typeface                        A particular combination of type family,
                                style and weight.

Workbench                       If you don't know by now...