Create Blazing Graphics - With Half the Code

The Graphics Workshop is a comprehensive collection of graphic subroutines for use with EGA and VGA displays. Five major components add capabilities not present in regular BASIC and also reduce the size of your programs:

The Graphics Workshop is mainly intended for use with the EGA and VGA screen modes; however, some routines are also provided for use with CGA and Hercules displays, as noted. One of the reasons the Graphics Workshop routines are so much smaller and faster than BASIC's is because they don't have to accommodate so many different display memory methods. Also, BASIC requires floating point math calculations as part of its handling of VIEW and WINDOW, even when plotting a single pixel. In contrast, the Graphics Workshop routines use integer arguments exclusively and can reduce the size of your programs by as much as 25K. The Graphics Workshop is also ideal for use with our P.D.Q. library to add advanced graphics capabilities to programs that need to be as small as possible. In all, the Graphics Workshop includes more than 140 routines, 35 BASIC demonstration programs, two font design systems, a .PCX file capture utility, and extensive documentation.

The Graphics Workshop provides small-code replacements for many of BASIC's graphics primitives including CIRCLE, POINT, and LINE (including with box fill). SCREEN replacements are also included to avoid the usual overhead associated with that command. Unlike regular BASIC, all of the low-level routines accept the AND, OR, and XOR style options. This lets you easily add rubber-banding and other special effects to your programs.

Other low-level routines include saving and restoring areas of the screen, plotting and reading individual points, coloring selected portions of the screen, and scrolling regions up, down, left, or right. The Graphics Workshop low-level routines are designed to operate in all the EGA and VGA Screen modes including 256 colors.

Many high-level routines are provided for creating pull-down and vertical "light bar" menus, as well as horizontal Lotus -style menus. The pull-down and vertical menu routines include integrated mouse handling and feature a unique polled mode that lets your program continue while waiting for user input.

Two pull-down menu programs are included, to look and operate just like the menus in the BASIC editor and Windows, respectively. The vertical menu accommodates nearly any number of choices, and you can control its size and placement on the screen. If more items are present than can be displayed, the menu scrolls automatically. All of the Graphics Workshop menus are very easy to set up and call, using a single string array to define the menu choices. All of the menus also save and restore the underlying screen automatically. Existing video memory can be optionally used for storing the screen portions. This avoids having to create separate arrays for storage, leaving that much more memory for your programs.

The Graphics Workshop also includes a text input routine complete with a simulated cursor allowing new text to be added or existing text edited. Both insert and overstrike modes are allowed, and the color and length of the input field can be controlled. A pop-up "message box" subroutine lets you easily place text within any window.

Routines are provided for loading and saving full-screen graphics images using the popular .PCX file format. All of the BASIC-supported video modes are accommodated including VGA, VGA 256-color, EGA, CGA, and even Hercules monochrome. This lets you import high-quality images from all of the popular PC paint programs. Because .PCX screens are compressed, you may store images using as little memory and disk space as possible.

The Graphics Workshop PRINT replacement is up to ten times faster than BASIC's, and it lets you specify both the foreground and background colors. Text may be placed vertically at any arbitrary pixel position, which greatly simplifies adding legends and titles to your graphics screens. Two complete font definition systems are included for designing your own proportional character sets and controlling fully their size, placement, and even angle.

A variety of clever special effects are provided, which you incorporate into your own programs. Effects include wipes, fades, slides, and imploding and exploding screens. All of the tools you need to design your own effects are also included. A complete script-driven slide show program lets you create self-running displays using any of the Graphics Workshop special effects.

A full complement of mouse routines is available to read and set the mouse cursor position and define new cursor shapes. Additional routines report which buttons are pressed, turn the mouse cursor on and off, and control the mouse motion sensitivity.

Finally, the Graphics Workshop furnishes a sophisticated routine for printing the display contents to either an Epson/IBM or compatible dot-matrix printer, or an HP LaserJet. Images may be printed from any of the BASIC-supported video modes, either right side up or sideways. When using a Laser printer the image can also be placed anywhere on the page. Colors may be optionally translated to hatching patterns automatically. This feature is important for distinguishing different portions of a complex graphics screen when printed in black and white.

As with all our products, full source code is provided at no additional cost, so you can see how the routines were designed and even modify them if you want. We genuinely want you to understand how our libraries work and be able to learn from them. All of our products are reasonably priced and include free technical assistance, but they are licensed for use by only one person using one computer at a time. Royalty payments are not required when our routines are incorporated into your compiled applications. However, you may not distribute our source, object, or library files. If your customers need to rebuild your program, they will need their own copy of our product(s).

The Graphics Workshop costs $149 and works with QuickBASIC 4.x, PDS 7.x, and VB/DOS. Add $8 for UPS ground shipping to US addresses only (no P.O. boxes); Connecticut residents must add 6.0% sales tax or show proof of tax-exempt status when ordering. Please email or call for overnight and foreign shipping costs. We accept only prepaid orders accompanied by a check.

Download Demo: GWSHOP.ZIP (144k)