X-Canvas Basics
(This page best viewed at 1024x768)

No attempt is made to completely specify X-Canvas it's only function is to give an example of how the enhanced features of the GIMMEx32 functions and illustrate some of the X-prompt syntax and equivalent XAPI calls. That said I will probably say more about the interface then strictly about necessary for that objective.

This specific page only covers the X-Canvis interface basic elements to make discussions of X-Canvas more understandable. First off the program is designed to run on a 720x450 Screen but can also run in a Virtual Screen Group and in this case we will run it in a 960x678 pixel screen group with

Screen scaling. (Note: When in Preview Mode scaling changes so that the Aspect Ratio is preserved.)

The Basic user interface element areas are:
  1. The Drop Down Menu
  2. The Tool Box
  3. The View Port
  4. The 4-D Navigator
  5. The Color Management
  6. The Status Summary and Help

Each of these areas will be explained in more detail below.

1. Drop Down Menu Area
  

    This  operates just like any other drop down menu.

2. Tool Box Area

  This area acts exactly like the same region in
  the "CoCo Max III" software that inspires X-Canvas.

3. View Port

The Viewport is the biggest interface taking up about half the total screen space.
As the full unstretched screen is 720x450 and the Viewport area is 514x304.
(514x304)/(720x450)=0.482.. This is where the picture shows itself for manipulation by the program.
In other words what's in the Viewport is what you are currently working on.

4.                                       The 4-D Navigator
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  The 4-D Navigator lets you navigate in three dimensions around a picture you
  are editing plus in the case of a video clip lets you navigate to and handle the
  buffering of frames in memory.

  Dimensions are X  Y  Z and T.

  X= The horizontal offset of the upper left pixel shown in the upper left corner of
  the View Port from the upper left pixel of the actual picture.

  Y= The vertical offset of the upper left pixel shown in the upper left corner of
  the View Port from the upper left pixel of the actual picture.

  Z= The layer selected T M or  B. Only that layer or that layer and those below it
  will show in the View Port.

  T= The Frame in the video to show in the view port.

This is either T = TOP LAYER = #  M= MID LAYER = #.1  B= Base Layer = #.2
                
The Timeline shows a graphic display of all the frames, indicating the current frame in Dark Green
and those loaded into memory buffers in YellowGreen vs. those still on disk in White.
The Maximum number of frames is 255 click a frame and type
                                
   A  To Update all frames in the scratch file with data in memory buffers.
   B  For it to load into memory from disk in background.
   F  Make this frame the Focus for the "View Port" it becomes the current frame (Must already be in Memory )
   R  To Reload current frame from disk
   S  To save changes in frame to disk
   U  To save changes in frame to disk and then dump frame
   X  To Cancel all current changes by relaoding all in memory frames from disk.
   Z  Show frame status for all frames +/- 10 Frames from frame clicked frame.
       The status window shows reference frame numbers above each frame so you can
       click T= and type in that frame number and an action code.
       The Z option only works if there are more then 38 frames.     

5, Color Management Area


                  Shows current Foreground, Background and Captured Colors as well as 60 palette entrys.
                  The top Row is always pallet slots 0 -->19
                  The next two rows are 20->59 by default but may be set to show
               any
                  of the six groups of 40 consecutive colors. Such as 20 to 59, 60 to 99 ect.
                  with the last group being 220 to 255 + Last four Captured Colors on the Color Stack.

Some special cases:
Palette slots 0 to 15 are reserved for coco3 colors. 
Palette slot 16 is reserved for the most recent captured color.
Palette slot 17 is reserved for 100% transparency and
Palette slot's 18 and 19 work together as a pair to create a flashing color.
            Because the color in slot 18 swaps with either TRANSPARENCY, INVERSE, BLACK or WHITE depending on the first 2 bits of slot 19.
            The frequency of the swap is determined by the last 6 bits.
where  0 = 1/16 th of a second 1 is 2/16 th of a second and so on until  111111 which is 2 full seconds.

xs
 

6. Status Summary and Help

 
This line has a RED ? that you can click for help here is the process.

In the example above DW means that the selected picture source media is the Drive Wire Server other possibilitys are  FD - Floppy Disk , HD - Hard Disk or uD - Undisk Volume.

The 1 means that the file is on drive number 1.

OS9 means that the file is on an OS9 formatted volume other options are RSF - Radio Shack Floppy and MFDMicrosoft Floppy Disk

TESTPICTURE  is the name of the file loaded for editing.

64K/700K is the size of the currently active frame and the size of the entire file.

48K is the free memory on the CPU running XCanvas.
             
92,408K is the free disk space on the volume "TESTPICTURE.CMF" is on.

NSP  indicates No Sprites in Movie.

7  of   9  indicates that we are editing frame 7 of a 9 frame movie clip.