My Favorite GEOS Utility

by Dick Estel

A program's most important aspect is what it DOES for you. But other factors can make it a special
favorite. Paint Scrap by Dennis Seitz has the characteristics to be a classic, and also does an important
job that I need to do.

In 1989, several programs appeared on Q-Link, the Commodore on-line service, that allowed the user
to create photo scraps larger than the geoPaint drawing window. This is especially important to users of
geoPublish; and as artists began creating large images, the desire to clip them and use them in our own
creations increased.

Among the programs that accomplish this task are the following:

Big Clipper - requires entering coordinates, a tedious hit and miss task
Scrap It - works OK, but scrap size is limited
Scrapit! - Also does the job, but is quite slow. This program is redeemed by numerous other useful
features
ScrapCan - A close second to my favorite, but it's commercial, and requires the purchase of
GeoCanvas
Paint Scrap - the king of the heap, and here's why:

When you first open any GEOS program, the pointer has to appear somewhere. In some programs, it
appears where you last left it. Other times, the programmer has it appear in a particular spot. When you
first run the Desktop, it appears on the FILE icon in the command line, which always seemed foolish to
me, since you can't use anything under that menu until you do something else first.

When Paint Scrap opens, the pointer appears on the OPEN icon. Since you can't do anything till you
open a geoPaint file, this is the exact right spot. When you click on OPEN, a list of geoPaint files
appears, with the pointer on the OPEN icon (a click now opens the first file in the list; or you can scroll
through the file names till you find the one you want). 

After you select the desired file and it is displayed, the pointer appears within the display, where you
define the area to be clipped with an edit box. After you click to set the box, it stays there, and you can
go to the EDIT icon at the top. A click here displays the choices COPY and PASTE (the latter never
implemented). With the double-click mouse driver that I use, I can use the right button on EDIT to
produce two clicks, and it will active both the EDIT and COPY commands. 

At this point a dialog box listing all active drives appears, allowing you to select the disk you want to
copy to. Lo and behold, the disk you are using is highlighted, and the pointer appears on the OK icon.
Normally this is the choice you want to make, and a click at this point causes the scrap to be copied.
Now the pointer moves to the FILE icon at the top, and you can CLOSE (with a double click) or
QUIT. My normal choice is either to move to the GEOS icon in order to paste the scrap into an album,
or to CLOSE the file in order to clip from another one.

All this may seem to be a rather minor consideration, since moving the pointer around is not exactly an
onerous chore. But the technique DOES save time, and more importantly, it reflects the kind of thought
and consideration for the user that went into the creation of the program. 

Unfortunately, I exchanged only one or two messages with Dennis commending him for his efforts (and
I did send the modest $5 shareware fee). Shortly after this he disappeared from Q-Link and apparently
from the Commodore world. Whatever you're up to now, Dennis, we who are about to clip salute you.
Paint Scrap is a worthy monument to your involvement in GEOS.


From The Interface, newsletter of Fresno Commodore User Group, via the Commodore Information
Center http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html