Version history

1	first release
2	T(M;
3	polyline using [Ctrl] key
4	highlight from text cursor,  grid filled rectangles and ellipses .NGS file-extension (NewsGroupSketch) F6 focus textwindow
5	F1 Help window (small) supervise polyline (closed bracket) supervise legend text (closing quote") supervise total graphic text size (< 4kB)
6	ARC added  (90° in 4 quadrants) Draw circles with center+radius [Ctrl] Statusbar with size display in editwindow.

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Will you use it?

Which enhancements do you think are "MUST DO" ?

Would you write a similar program for another OS 
                   and talk about some standardisation issues?

Canvas size is fixed to
320x200 pixels.

Note:
the example text in the left
column is "old fashioned".
Connected lines can be
represented now as polylines,
which reduces the overall size.

When you painted a line or rectangle, the coordinates are written into the textfile immediately at the bottom. This made it very easy for me to program. On the other hand, it would be necessary to scan the whole text if the user wants to erase a line in the image window to erase the text line too. This is simply too complicated for me hobby Delphi programmer...

I did it this way: switch to the text window and erase the line, then [F7] = redraw from text.

Another idea was the use of templates or blocks. But how? 

Either I define diodes and transistors and logical gates in the NGpaint program, and make D( or G( or whatever new lines. How many symbols should I define?

Or I have the high tech choice: let the user define templates. This would make the text almost undreadable, each line would get more complicated. What if a symbol is part of another - deep structure like with nested procedures.

My thought behind was: it should be even possible to draw on paper manually, simply reading the text.

If there are better programmers to do that, OK from me. But I BEG FOR SIMPLICITY, especially regarding the text.

I really would appreciate to keep the idea SIMPLE and EASY. It is not a drawing program, but a sketch utility for a particular purpose.

Yes, I will try to add a ZOOM, together with the approach of the variable canvas size. In the moment I am proud of the snap feature...

This paragraphs are not written to blame the friendly people who mailed me their ideas. Please understand that I am not a professional graphics programmer and not a professional Windows programmer. I found the idea brilliant to add the lines to the text simply when the mouse button is released. No OOPs, no hidden list of objects which are converted to a readable textfile upon close like AutoCAD does. I like the idea to switch between the text- and the painting window when drawing.

And I like the idea that it should work with plain DOS as well. No 16 Mio colors, no trillions of shades and hidden lines etc. No .GIF - file writing, no Move of areas, no filled areas.

  A SKETCH utility only, please!

There is one further point of fear: The Unix people have another text file format with LF only for new line as opposed to DOS/Windows with CRLF.

Regards, Franz Glaser

It would be encouraged if programmers would make a companion program for other operating systems, Linux, Mac etc.

There are NO SECRETS in the NGpaint program.

It would not make much sense to make the Delphi source program public. The programming with Delphi cannot be ported to Linux or Mac anyway. And what the hell should it be good for to have more Windows implementations? And if a professional Windows programmer wants to make another Windows program, he/she surely will not need my source. And if he/she is a non - professional Windows - programmer like me, what should be the benefit for the community.

The "standard" can be viewed simply by looking on the text with some example drawings.
It is not worth to explain it. Only the text shall be standardized.

Until now only 4 distinct tools are defined: Line Rectangle Ellipse and Text.
Line can be extended to a polyline with additional XY pairs. 

On lines, rectangles and ellipses, the first number can be replaced with 

Text will be enhanced to S M B for small/medium/big or so.??? No vertical
text, no mirrored text, no variable fonts. This is for sketches only.

Lines must start leftmost, and should not get appending text. Though
this is now unimportant except with the L( lines, it should be
treated as a standard for the future. But empty lines and lines,
that have no ( in column 2 are simply ignored.
NGpaint does NOT search the closing ). It reads as many items
as necessary for the tool and then ignores the rest of the line.
But polyLine will try to read more xy pairs until end of line.

I do not want to make global definitions in front of the drawing
text. Each tool has all the information it needs in the textline. No
nested constructions, all lines are interchangable. This contradicts
the definition of the canvas size also. I think that a sketch should fit
in the 320x200 pixels, that has few lines as to keep the mails short.

I will not introduce particular predefined symbols for a particular
application, like electrical circuit diagrams or mechanical parts
like nuts. The program should be usable in religious newsgroups
too to paint an angel (not very wise, I know, but you should
understand the point).

Idea: To allow for relative coordinates for X2andY2 etc. I am thinking of another 
delimiter symbol than the semicolon, eg. ;..;X1;Y1#X2#Y2
where X2 and Y2 can become negative values too. I think that the X1andY1
should be absolute for every element. So the whole rectangle... can be easily
replaced on the text editor window.

In the actual implemetation there is no fixing for the delimiter. The scanner does
not interpret the semicolon or the trailing closing bracket. It simply looks for
characters in 0..9 and A..Z, anything else is  a delimiter. This has to be extended
with the hyphen for negative relative coordinates, of course. Saying that the
semicolon is not standardized is only a half of the truth: NGpaint writes it, and
I would like to keep it except for special signalling, eg. the "relative" issue above.

The text string must be started and terminated with " but end of line works too.

What I plan to add: If the user is in the text window, the cursor on a line, 
the particular item shall be highlighted on the graphic. This idea comes from
my son and I treat it as very useful.   Already implemented in Version 4. Does not
work with "text", sorry.