TextStylist from 1. Introduction TextStylist is a text design program, which you can use to add up to 10 different texts of type 3D, Shadow and Flat with individual attributes to a picture. Many picture formats supported for read and save and all texts with attributes can be saved so it is possible to reuse them. Additionally, TextStylist offers some features which other programs of this type often do not provide: · You can select any text surface and give your text a very special appearance. Up to 100 undo / redo steps are supported. · Special functionalities like Drag & Drop and Clipboard functionality are available. · You can generate 10 different gradient backgrounds or use any image to get tiled ones. · Pictures can even be printed very easily. · TextStylist is free - so you do not have to pay anything! We wish you a lot of fun with the program! Your WASEO Team. 2. The Interface After the program has started, you will see the main window of the program: At the left, you can see five menu icons: 2.1. Create text Here you can create your picture and add texts to it. 2.2. Create background Load a background picture or generate one by selection of 10 different background styles. 2.3. Options Here you can change the settings of the entire program like window color, messages gradient colors, language etc. 2.4. Help This tabsheet with the help file. 2.5. About General information like program version, credits etc. The following texts will explain how you can create and print a picture with a text and which settings you can use. 3. How to work with the program Let's walk through an example by entering all data which is required to create a simple picture with an impressive text. 3.1. The Background Picture First we need a good background picture for our text. Therefor, press icon Create background in the menu bar to activate the background panel. 3.1.1. Generating a gradient background At the bottom, there is the Background Settings section and Gradient selection area providing 10 different gradient buttons: 3.1.1.1. Selection of the gradient type and colors Color selection: You can change the start- or end color just by clicking the color box with your mouse and selecting any possible color from the color dialog then. Gradient selection: Just enable a certain gradient type by pressing its button. When the button is down, the gradient type is selected. Any other enabled gradient type will be disabled automatically and its button will be up then. For this example, we change nothing because the gradient type we want is already selected by default. 3.1.1.2. Starting the gradient generation Just press the gradient style button directly. The selected gradient type will be painted with maximal speed. Attention: The paint speed depends on the size of the background picture and the speed of your computer. Although the drawing procedures are optimized, some gradient types could need some seconds to complete. The progress bar at the bottom of the window will show the progress of the paint process. 3.1.1.3. Adding the background picture to the main picture Just press the add button when you think the background picture is good enough to be added to the main picture. Attention: If a background was added and texts were already defined, they will be repainted automatically. Depending on their configuration, this can take more or less time. Of course there are some more possibilities for background images. We do not need them for the example of this document, but they will be explained by the following text: 3.1.2. Loading a background image Attention: Depending on the parameter in section Draw loaded image, the image will be painted in different ways: Tiled: The image will be combined to a pattern. Stretched: The image will be resized automatically to match the available background image size. You can load a background image in two ways: Either via the open button or via Drag and Drop. With the open button: Press the button . The open file dialog will be displayed. Navigate to the location of the image, select it and press OK. With Drag and Drop functionality: Open the folder containing the image. Select it and hold the mouse button pressed. Draw the image to the background picture area and release the mouse button. 3.1.3. Deleting a background image Press the delete button . Answer the confirmation dialog with YES. 3.1.4. Loading a favourite texture Press the texture number button in section Favourite textures. Press the open button , which will start an open dialog. Navigate to an image file, select it and click ok. Attention: The texture will be stretched only for displaying. That means even if it looks smaller, it will keep its actual size. 3.1.5. Adding a favourite texture Press the texture number button in section Favourite textures. Press the add button to add the texture to the background image. 3.1.6. Deleting a favourite texture Press the texture number button in section Favourite textures. Press the delete button . Answer the confirmation dialog with YES. All loaded favourite textures will be saved to file FTEXTURES.DAT automatically and reloaded at the next start of the program. 3.2. Text Painting Painting the text is very easy. Therefor, press icon Create picture in the menu bar to activate the main picture panel. 3.2.1. Typing the text Click the text enter box of the Text attributes section at the right and type your text. All typed text will appear as a preview text on the main picture according to its font name, size and the end color synchronously. For an example, you can type: 3.2.2. The text attributes There are a lot of attributes for the text. Changes will be displayed automatically. Right beside the text enter area of the Text attributes section, the following buttons provide these functionalities: = Font selection. Pressing this button will start the font selection dialog. You can select the font name, size and style, the only attribute ignored will be the font color. = Bold text. The entire text will get the bold character style. = Italic text. The entire text will get the italic character style. = Underline text. The entire text will be underlined. = Align text left. = Center text. = Align text right. 3.2.2.1. The font size The font size box provides a quick way to change the size of the text font. Just press the little arrow buttons to increase or decrease the font size. The preview text on the main picture will be adjusted automatically. Attention: The font size of the text enter area will always be the same. Only the preview text on the main picture will be adjusted. Some fonts (especially screen fonts) will only provide certain font sizes. If they are not met by the font size number, the font size will be left unchanged. The maximum number here is 100. 3.2.2.2. The font depth This value will have the following effects on these types of texts: 3D text: The higher the value, the larger is the text bevel. Shadowed text: The higher the value, the more far away the shadow will appear from its text. Flat text: No effect. Attention: For shadowed text, a value greater than 3 is often not useful, but this depends on the size of the text. The maximum number here is 50. 3.2.2.3. Start and End color The first color box is linked to the start color, the next to the end color of the text. To change the colors, just press the color box and select a color from the color dialog. These colors will have the following effects on these types of texts: 3D text: The bevel will be painted with a gradient starting with the start color and ending with the end color. Shadowed text: The text will be painted with the start and the shadow with the end color. Flat text: Only the start color will be painted. The start and end color may have the same color value, however this is quite useless. 3.2.2.4. The text direction The text direction controls which direction is used for painting the text. To enable a direction, just press the corresponding button. The other buttons will be disabled automatically. This setting will have the following effects for these type of texts: 3D text: The bevel will be painted in the direction of the sample icon displayed on the selected button. Shadowed text: The shadow will be painted in the direction of the sample icon displayed on the selected button. Flat text: No effect. 3.2.2.5. The text surface If a text surface image is available, the program will paint the text with the surface instead of a color. Texts of this type can really look very unique and impressive. The folder Textures in the program folder already provides some textures which can be used for surfaces. To load a surface image from a picture file, follow these steps: Press the open button which will start an open dialog. Navigate to an image file, select it and click ok. To delete a surface image, follow these steps: Press the delete button . Answer the confirmation dialog with YES. For the example in this document, load the surface image Wood.bmp from the folder Textures in program folder. 3.2.3. Positioning the text Move with your mouse pointer to the position you want the text to be placed and press the left mouse button. The text will be moved to the selected position automatically. To move the text to another position, just move the mouse cursor to another position and press the left mouse button again. The text position boxes in section Text attributes will display the exact coordinates: Hint: You can move the text also by keeping the left mouse button pressed until the correct position is found. For the example in this document, place the text anywhere you like, e. g. in the center of the main picture. 3.2.4. The text painting buttons The 3 text painting buttons at the upper right corner beside the main picture area can be used to paint a text in different ways: = Paint 3D Text. = Paint shadowed text. = Paint flat text. After one of these buttons was pressed, the program will save the text attributes to the database automatically. Attention: Always take care you are using 1 text for 1 position and 1 text type. Reason: The database can only save one position, type etc. to a text. Example: First, you painted text 1 at position X=10,Y=10 and then at position X=100,Y=100 and afterwards changed the background image (which causes all texts to be repainted again), only the text at position X=100,Y=100 will be repainted. If you e. g. want to paint the same text again (but with another text type), press the undo button before. For the example in this document, press the 3D text button. If all is correct, your main picture should look similar like this: Congratulation, you painted your first gradient picture with a 3D text including wood surface! Now you can experiment with other text types, surfaces and fonts. We wish you great fun! 3.3. Undo and redo text paintings To undo painting actions, press the undo button . To redo painting actions, press the redo button . Up to 100 steps can be taken back or redone. 3.4. Copy and paste an image The copy and paste functions are useful if you want to manipulate the picture with another image editor program (e. g. to rotate it) and then get it back if you want to save or load an image having a format not supported by the program. Doing this is very simple: To copy the image to clipboard, press the copy button . To paste an image from clipboard, press the paste button 3.5. Loading and saving the main image 3.5.1. Loading an image Before an image will be loaded, you will be asked if the picture has to be displayed either tiled or stretched: Tiled: The image will be combined to a pattern. Stretched: The image will be resized automatically to match the available main image size. You can load the main image in two ways: Either via the open button or via Drag and Drop. With the open button: Press the open button . The open file dialog will be displayed. Navigate to the location of the image, select it and press OK. With Drag and Drop functionality: Open the folder containing the image file. Select it and hold the mouse button pressed. Draw the image file to the main picture area and release the mouse button. Hint: If you load the image via the open button, usually the files of all acceptable image formats will be listed. But you can limit this to a certain type by selecting it from the file type list. 3.5.2. Saving an image Press the save button . The save dialog will be displayed. Navigate to the location where you want the image to be saved. Select an image type from the file type list. Press OK. Hint: You do not need to type the file suffix (e. g. ".bmp"). The program will add it automatically if necessary. 3.5.3. Supported image formats The program can read and save the following image formats: Bitmap (*.bmp) JPEG (*.jpg) Portable Network Graphic (*.png) Enhanced Meta Files (*.emf) ZSoft Paintbrush (*.pcx) Tagged Image Files (*.tif) Truevision Targa (*.tga) The following image format is outdated and can only be read: Windows Meta Files (*.wmf) Attention: Loading or saving the picture to one of the formats above will not include the texts and their attributes! If you want to include them, you have to select the file type TextStylist Files (*.tsf) from the file type list of the open or save dialog (see 3.5.4.) Depending on the image size and type, it can take more or less time to load or save it. The progress bar at the bottom of the program window will show how much of the process is finish. 3.5.4. The file type TextStylist Files This file type will include the main and background picture, all texts and their attributes and the start and end color of the background picture. So it is easy to reuse them again. 3.5. Printing an image Press the print button . The printer selection dialog will be displayed. If you finished your selection, press the OK button or CANCEL to stop the process. 3.6. Clearing an image Press the delete button . Answer the confirmation dialog with YES. 4. Options Here you can change settings for the entire program: 4.1. Section General Options Add background to picture automatically: If enabled, a background picture it will be added to the main picture after loading automatically. Do not show exit dialog: If enabled, the dialog asking if you really want to exit the program will not appear. 4.2. Section Textbox position The box of section text attributes can be positioned at the right or left side. 4.3. Section Messages The messages are usually displayed with a gradient background for better visibility. Here you can change the start and end color of the gradient just by clicking the color box and selecting a color form the color dialog. 4.4. Section Window color Here you can change the program window color. Click the color box and select a color from the color dialog. 4.5. Section Language Here you can select the program language. The list will display the available language scripts which can be selected by your mouse. After the selection is done, call captions, messages etc. will be translated to the selected language automatically. 5. The Help tabsheet This tabsheet provides the help text for this program. At the top left corner is the help file box where you can select the help file in a certain language (English and German as default). Once selected, the corresponding help file will be loaded and the topics will be shown in the help topics box. Here you can select a topic or open one with subtopics by clicking the plus sign in front. There are 3 more buttons right beside the helptext field: = Get a print preview of the help text. = Print the help text. = Search part of help text. You can repeat the search with F3. 6. The About tabsheet This tabsheet contains general information about the program, version and credits. Additionally, it informs how you can support further development of the program. 7. Translations If you want to translate the program to your native language, you can do the following: Open folder LScripts (included in the program folder) Copy and rename script English.lng to the name of your native language (e. g. Francaise.lng) Translate all words behind the '=' sign. When finish, switch to the language via tabsheet Options. If you want to translate the help file to your native language, you can do the following: Open folder Help (included in the program folder) Copy and rename file English.rtf to the name of your native language (e. g. Francaise.rtf). Additionally, copy and rename file English.ini to the name of your native language (e. g. Francaise.ini). Translate the files. Make sure the blue titles in your .rtf-file are exactly the same in your .ini-file. When finish, you can select the new help file via tabsheet Help. 8. Error reporting If you encounter an error, please inform us as detailed as possible by using the following template and sent it to: mailto:waseo@helbing-online.de. Thank you! Error Report Form Program name: Version: Error Message: Description: Operating System: Error is repeatable? ( ) Always ( ) Sometimes ( ) Never Error is data dependent? Y / N Error currupts data? Y / N 9. License This program is freeware. This means that you can freely use this software at no charge but you have to accept all of the terms contained in this License Agreement. You may freely copy the Software, only in its original distribution format and without modification, to other individuals or organizations. Magazine publishers, download sites, ISPs (Internet Service Providers), and other organizations or facilities may freely distribute the Software on cover disks or CDs, newsgroups, forums, web-sites, ftp sites, etc., but only in its original distribution format and without modification. WASEO does not warrant that the operation of the Software will be uninterrupted or error free. You are entirely responsible for determining the suitability of the Software for your purposes and for the use that you make of the Software. Limitations on Reverse Engineering, Decompilation, and Disassembly: You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the product and/or WASEO Software. Restrictions on Alteration. You may not use, copy, modify, translate, or transfer the product and/or WASEO Software or any copy except as expressly defined in this agreement. You may not rename, edit or create any derivative works from the product and/or WASEO Software, other than sub setting when embedding them in documents without the agreement of the author. You may not attempt to unlock or bypass any copy-protection or authentication algorithm utilized by the product and/or WASEO Software. You may not remove, modify or alter any copyright notice or the method by which it may be invoked, from any part of the product and/or WASEO Software, including but not limited to any such notices contained in the physical and/or electronic media or documentation, in the Product's and/or WASEO Software's dialog or 'about' boxes, in any of the runtime resources and/or in any web-presence or web-enabled notices, code or other embodiments originally contained in or dynamically or otherwise created by the product. THE PROGRAM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT WILL THE AUTHOR or AUTHORS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THE PROGRAM, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS LICENSE, UNDERSTAND IT AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ITS TERMS AS THE COMPLETE AND EXCLUSIVE STATEMENT OF THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN US, SUPERSEDING ANY PROPOSAL OR PRIOR AGREEMENT, ORAL OR WRITTEN, AND ANY OTHER COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN US RELATING TO THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THIS LICENSE. If you do not agree to any of these terms, you are not permitted to use the Software in any way, and all copies of it must be deleted from your system(s).