Robot Helper Version 3 ReadMe File 12-FEB-97 William Montgomery VE3EC (Last Changed 11-DEC-97) Welcome to Robot Helper Version 3 (RH3). This is a brand new version of Robot Helper written from the ground up to be a full 32 bit Windows 95 application. This means that you must be running Windows 95 to use this program. The current beta versions are written in Visual Basic 4 and Visual C++. Future versions will be converted to Visual Basic 5 ( & VC++) which should improve execution speed and reduce distribution size. Bug Reports: If you find a problem with RH3 please document how the problem can be observed and email me (William.Montgomery@cciw.ca) a report. Please include a brief description of your computer system (mem, cpu, speed etc) along with the bug report. Registration: Registration for RH3 is $65 US funds. This is an increase over previous versions and is to help cover the increased shipping costs and to attempt to recover the costs of the new graphics library used in RH3 along with other development costs. Registrations can be submitted by cheque or money order to: William Montgomery VE3EC 482 Townsend Avenue Burlington, Ontario Canada L7T 2B3 Please be sure to include your name, call, and complete mailing address. Registered users will receive a set of instalation disks for the latest version of RH3 along with a 'key file' which will disable the 15 minute timeout and nag message on exit. Notes: Please be sure to check out the help file for RH3 (F1) for an introduction to the many new features of RH3. Before attempting to communicate with the Robot 1200C please check the Port and I/O settings in the preferences dialog (settings menu). The ports are set to the 'standard' 300 hex base address and the I/O delay is set to 200. This delay value should be fine if you are running a Pentium at 200 MHz. If your CPU is slower you might want to set the I/O delay at your clock speed (ie 90 MHz P5 -> 90). You can then reduce the I/O delay in steps of 5 or 10 until you start to observe errors when uploading or downloading images to the Robot. This version of Robot Helper makes heavy use of 'Drag and Drop' operations. While this makes things very easy to do, it also makes some operations not too obvious for the new user. RH3 also makes heavy use of the 'selection rectangle'. Keep in mind that you can work on selected areas within an image as well as the full image. This applies to disk loads/saves, image processing, special effects, and uploading to the Robot. Selections saved to disk files can later be dynamically placed over an existing image. This is a great way to add fast titles and comments to images. The author would like to thank Jim Barber N7CXI for his assistance with this project and for his many insights into the dark regions of the Windows 32 bit environment. ........................................................................................ Revision History: RH3B1 12-FEB-97 - First public beta release RH3 11-MAR-97 - Release Version 3.0 -minor bug fixes -expanded help file RH301 2-APR-97 - Minor update Version 3.0.1 -expanded help file -TIFF file save /load fixup RH31 9-JUNE-97 - Version 3.1 -first version in Visual Basic 5 -major reworking to get around problems/(features) in VB5 -changes to controls layout -added median and average filters -added mor FX functions -help file not updated yet RH312 20-JULY-97 -Version 3.1.2 -support for 'Large Fonts' setting in Display control panel fixed. The use of 'Large Fonts' is still discouraged as it wastes alot of screen area. If you have trouble seeing the standard 'Small Fonts' it is better to lower the screen resolution to make the fonts appear larger. -Font settings are now maintained for each front panel. This includes Font, Size, and Style. The 'shadow' and 'border' settings are maintained but apply to all front panels. -This version uses a new version of the graphics library (Version 8) so may show some improvements in speed. -The slide show function now supports over 100 new wipes which are selected at random. Wipes are enabled in the 'settings' dialog. -Tool palettes are now slightly larger and contain four tabs. Median and Average filters now are adjustable. -Added emboss, posterize and add noise fx functions. RH313 2-OCT-97 -Version 3.1.3 -TIFF image file load problems corrected in update to graphics library. Problems were observed when loading some TIFF images which had been created/saved in Paint Shop Pro. It appears PSP uses some non-standard tags in the image header that were confusing the TIFF header parser in the image load library function. This has been addressed with an update from the manufacturer. RH314 11-DEC-97 -version 3.1.4 -Well it looks like when they fixed the 'TIFF' bug (see above) another bug crept in which effected the saturation control. Trying to reduce picture saturation would lead to image color corruption. This version uses an updated grahics library which corrects the saturation problem. Side effects of the saturation problem also were visble with some special effects buttons. (fx).