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present
A new era in Alive article making
with
The Alive KoloUr tAgger (AKT)
note of STS : this useful tool should be included to this aLiVe! archive and I
suggest you check it as soon as possible. This presentation is extracted from
the manual.txt you will find with the AKT. Anyway you should read this first
and then the full manual to know how to handle this small utility.
Introduction
------------
Have you ever written an article for UCM or Alive? If yes, you must be
aware of how painful it is to add colour to your documents without previewing
em. STS adressed that problem by finally releasing a mini shell of the UCM/Alive
shell, but in my point of view it is a bit quirky (you have to edit the main
text in order to make the shell load your text, a bit long loading times if you
are using a disk drive -me included-, etc.)
Adding colour to logos also makes up for some very cool fx in the final
result, but again it is _impossible_ for most people to make it without losing
their hair in despair.
Well, fear no more! The AKT is here and it solves all of the above
problems! All you have to do is enter your text, load it in the AKT and then
colour it!
Usage
-----
The AKT was written on an Atari STE in GFA BASIC (and a bit of asm to
speed up the display routines). So it should be run in ST low or ST med
resolutions. To run it just load ALIVETAG.PRG. It will then bring up the file
selector (provided you are at the correct resolutions). Select a text (use this
manual) and it will load (kinda slow, I'm afraid).
From now on all you have to do is select a block of text and press a key
to add a single colour or a nice colorful effect to your document. Feeling
interested ? Then have a look at the zipfile enclosed with this issue of aLiVe!
and have a look at the full manual please.
Known bugs/future enhancements
------------------------------
This software in its current form is beta. Yes, I know it ain't too cool
to release beta stuff, but I feel that I'm spending a lot of time on a piece of
software that probably no one will ever use. So I'm releasing it as it is, and
if I get enough encouragement I will continue to work on it.
Currently the following list of stuff runs though my mind:
- It doesn't handle correctly headers and picture inclusions.
- When it loads virgin text, it's all in green.
- Gradient fill doesn't work
- Loading is too slow.
- Shift+left/right with spaces bug.
- The fx are all a bit buggy (now that I remember it, PLEASE don't try to use
the fx with small blocks, or the program will choke)
- Blocks are not visible.
- Include/exclude doesn't work with colour fill.
- Character selection screen is a bit crappy.
- I hope that now it works on all keyboards (thanks for the tip STS :)
- Mouse usage isn't implemented (partially because I have no mouse :( )
- I want to clean up the house.
- I want to finish university so I can go back to Athens.
- I want to see Madrugada play live again.
- etc., etc.
As I said above, to fix these problems I need ENCOURAGEMENT!! An e-mail
with flames/good words will be appreciated. Messages in boards (such as DHS
board) won't be taken into account (they don't encourage me too much).
Credits
-------
Coding and ripping of the UCM/Alive main font: GGN/KÜA software productions.
Palette/debugging assistance: STS/LOud! (thanks man :)
-GGN (email : ggn@atarist.com)
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