Sprite/Bob Grabber by J.K.Rutterford ------------------------------------ Instructions ------------ The program is in the Accessory Directory. Just load it in from AMOS as you would any other AMOS program. You might like to set the text buffer to say 4096 before loading so that AMOS will ask you to alter it to fit the program in memory. This process gives you the max amount of memory for grabbing! This program is used to grab sprites from a standard iff screen and store them into the sprite bank for use with other AMOS programs. Upon start-up you will see a large orange screen, this is the main screen and in the centre of this there is the control panel. The orange screen is from where all the bobs and sprites are grabbed from. The control panel is used to give all of the available commands. The cursor keys move the control panel up or down the screen. The commands are activated by selecting an icon from the control panel with the mouse. The commands are:- Exit - Exits from the program. The sprite bank and main screen are not affected by this command but if you re-run the program the main screen will return to its default condition but the sprite bank will not be affected. Line and Left Arrow - Move to first sprite image in memory bank. Left Arrow - Previous sprite image. Right Arrow - Next sprite image. Line and Right Arrow - Move to last sprite image in bank. Scissors - Cut section of screen and store in bank. Alien to Disk - Saves images to disk. Disk to Alien - Load images from disk. Warning, the old sprite bank will be erased before the new bank is loaded. TV Screen - Load IFF format picture Magnifying Glass - Activate or Deactivate magnify function. Beneath the image selection arrows is a readout of free RAM memory and how many images are in the sprite bank. If you click on this display you will be asked if you want to clear the sprite bank and reset the screen. Enter Y for yes or N for no. When you select the scissors icon the control panel will zoom down to the bottom of the tv screen out of the way and you are then able to grab a portion of the screen to be loaded into the sprite bank. The sprite image to be loaded is the one currently shown inbetween the left and right arrow icons. If you grab an image number which already exists the old one will be replaced with the new image. To grab a section of the screen press the mouse button once, this will set the top left hand corner of your image. Now by moving the mouse pointer around you can choose where the bottom right hand corner of your image will be. The section to be cut is outlined by a box. WHen you are happy with the size of the image press the button once again and the control panel will zoom back into place and you will find that the image has been placed into the bank. The current image is either displayed above or beneath the control panel depending upon the position of the control panel on the main screen. When you are grabbing a portion of the screen and you have defined the top left hand corner of the image to be grabbed, there are a number of things you can do. Firstly if you should happen to move the mouse behind the left hand corner of the image then the corner will move up the screen with the mouse. Another thing is if you hold down either one of the shift keys you will be able to move the whole box outline with the mouse so that you can replace it at will on the screen. If the magnifying glass is activated then a small square will contain a magnification of what is directly underneath the mouse pointer. The magnification box can be moved by pressing any of the number keys. Each key will move it a different position on the screen. It is best to use the numbered keys at the right side of the keyboard for this purpose as the square will be moved to the same position on the screen as that of its selected numbers position on the keypad. The magnify square is independent of the main screen so if you should try to grab it the computer will grab the section of screen beneath it. When selecting which image to grab you will notice that the computer always lets you select one more than what is in the sprite bank. This is so that you can add to the sprite bank. If anything should go wrong with the program an error will be reported on the top line of the control panel. To continue press the mouse button and the computer will try to carry on with what it was doing. If you are scared of losing your sprite bank when an error occurs press control and C to exit from the program and hopefully the sprite bank will be unharmed! I hope you enjoy using this program and find it a big improvement to the original Sprite Grabber provided with AMOS. J.K.Rutterford All correspondence to me at: JKR SOFTWARE 10 Pritchard Road Southside Gympie Qld Australia