mDRAW Tutorial

               Session Start: Wed Oct 07 19:56:47 1998
<Augustus> Leapin is giving a lesson
<<Kayroller> What is mdraw
<Leapin> okay I is ready
<Leapin> mdraw is a drawing program for mIRC
<Leapin> in a few minutes, it makes ascii art drawing very simple
<Leapin> do a search on the net for mDRAW
<Leapin> it is a very tiny program
<Leapin> only about 300k
<Leapin> and well worth the download
<Leapin> it is freeware so not charge
<Leapin> okay when you open mdraw you should see a few buttons across the top
<Leapin> the first icon is to make a new file
<Leapin> unlike other new file options, this one will erase any work you
have done so far
<Leapin> and open a new .txt/notepad file
<Leapin> so make sure if you have done some work to save it before you open a new document
<Leapin> when you open mdraw it automatically opens a new canvas
<Leapin> the second icon is the save icon
<Leapin> it will ask you for a name the first time you save your work
<Leapin> after that it will overwrite the file
<Leapin> and save the new information
<Leapin> let me know when you have done this
<Leapin> okay the third icon over is copy to clipboard
<Leapin> this allows you to copy what you have done so far to memory so
 you can paste it later into a new document
<Leapin> or maybe to notepad or some other word processor
<Leapin> the 4th icon is a grid
<Leapin> the grid will appear on your canvas/document and helps you draw
               things straight
<Leapin> it is very handy to have the grid turned on
<Leapin> to turn it on simply click the grid icon
<Leapin> to turn it off again click it one more time
<Leapin> the 5th icon is the character icon
<Leapin> it allows you to use character from the ascii dos chart
<Leapin> it also includes letters of the alphabet
<Leapin> and numbers
<Leapin> this is sometimes used to do shading of ascii art
<Leapin> the final icon, the 6th over is the colour bar
<Leapin> pressing it once opens the colour bar for you to pick a colour
<Leapin> once you have selected a colour and start to draw with 
that colour  on your canvas/document the bar will disappear
<Leapin> that is a royal pain in the behind, but you get used to it
<Leapin> if you want to change colours you have to click the colour bar
               icon again to see it again
<Leapin> now to do actual drawing..
<Leapin> to set the TEXT colour or Character colour left click on the
               colour you want to use
<Leapin> you will notice the word Typing at the bottom of the colour bar
               turns to the colour you just clicked on
<Leapin> if you did some typing now it would be the colour you have
               selected
<Leapin> if you want to get a solid block (highlight) of colour with no
               text then left click once and right click once
<Leapin> the area where the word Typing used to be should turn the 
colour you just left/right clicked on
<Leapin> you can also left click on colour and right click another 
colour which would allow you to do something like this...
<Leapin> k12,4 hello there
<Leapin> oops
<Leapin>  hello there
<Leapin> or if you left and right click the same colour you would get..
<Leapin>  hello there
<Leapin> a solid block of colour
<Leapin> now to actually draw..
<Leapin> select the colours you wish to use
<Leapin> and then go to the document/canvas and hold down your left mouse  button
<Leapin> either click once, for one pixel (grid square) of colour 
or keep holding down and dragging your mouse to get a line of colour
<Leapin> draw something, and switch colours if you want
<Leapin> when you are completed your masterpiece hit the save icon
<Leapin> give your file a name (no more than 8 letters) and navigate 
to the  folder you want to save it in
<Leapin> I save mine in my mirc text folder because that is the only place 
  you can use the ascii files anyway
<Leapin> to play the file, use your play command in mirc
<Leapin> it will come out like normal popup type ascii arts
<Leapin> to get a shading effect 3d sort of, just use a lighter shade of
               the colour, and a darker one for the shading
<dancin> How big? Flooding?
<Leapin> dancin try to keep it under 10 grid lines
<Leapin> you rarely flood off if it is under 10 lines of text
<dancin> Do we have to put a script somewhere?
<Leapin> dancin your work should probably be saved to your text file folder for mirc
<Leapin> to play it I use the following script in my alias editor
<dancin> so you do not need anything else. Just click on the file?
<Leapin> ../F4 /play $file C:\mirc\text\*.txt 600}
<Leapin> without the dots ..
<Leapin> just from the /f4 over
<Leapin> a setting of 600 is good, but you can change it to faster or
               slower if you want
<Leapin> nope just use the f4 key
<Leapin> and pick from the list
<Leapin> to play
<Kayroller> Leapin mirc has 66 spaces in its screen so if you do art you
  need to subtract your name and <> and 1 space and then popups will fit
<Leapin> kr that is very handy info to have thanks
<Peanuts1> Wouldn't that flood
<laoks> that depends on your monitor doesn't it?
<Leapin> I am not too sure skoal
<Kayroller> no your monitor only show what is there
<laoks> I would think thats the number of pixels
<Kayroller> I know I have 54 space to do across the screen for art and up to 10 lines down
<laoks> kay I mean if say a 17" monitor had 66 space wouldn't a 21" monitor  have more?
<Kayroller> the smaller the nick the more room for popups