 !SpriteFS
 

 By D. Salt


 RISC PC compatible


 !SpriteFS is a pseudo-!Paint program which allows you to view the sprites
in the system sprite area as if they were in a !Paint window.

 The sprites window can be opened by clicking Select or Adjust on the
SpriteFS icon.

 You can load sprite files by dragging either to the SpriteFS icon, which
appears on the left of the icon bar, or to the system sprites window.
Sprites loaded in this way are added to the system sprite pool, which will
grow to accomodate them.

 Individual sprites, or the whole sprite area, can be saved.

 The window can, of course, be resized, and does its best to act like a
!Paint sprite file window.


 The Main Menu
 
 Misc             submenu 'Misc'
 Display          submenu 'Display'
 Save             save box for all sprites in the system sprite area
 Sprite '<name>'  submenu 'Sprite'
 
 Update            redraws the sprite area window
 
 Clear             clears the sprite area (requires confirmation if sprites
                   exist)

  Misc
  
  Info     information window, as is standard
  Sprites  information on the system sprite area: size, amount used, number
            of sprites

  Display
  
  Drawing and name     as in !Paint
  Full info            as in !Paint
  
  Use desktop colours  as in !Paint

  Sprite '<name>' - this sprite was under the pointer when Menu was clicked
  
  Copy    enter the name of the copy of sprite '<name>'
  Rename  enter the new name for sprite '<name>'
  Delete   deletes sprite '<name>'
  
  Save    save box for sprite '<name>'
  Info    information on sprite '<name>': size, width, height, mode,
           whether it has a mask or palette


 The Icon Menu
 
 Info  information window, as is standard
 Quit   quits !SpriteFS


 Notes
 
 The 'Save' option will be greyed out if there are no sprites to save; the
'Sprite ...' option and its submenu will be greyed out if there was no
sprite under the pointer when Menu was clicked.

 If at all possible, transferring data to or from another application makes
use of memory transfer, thus avoiding scrap files.

 !SpriteFS will try to repair damage to the sprite area should it find any.
However, it cannot deal with bad sprites - it only checks the size of the
area, the pointers to the first sprite and free space, the number of
sprites, and the size of each sprite (used to find the next). You will be
told of any damage that can be dealt with.

 If a sprite name is corrupted, that sprite cannot be deleted, saved or
renamed, and will show up as 'Bad sprite' in the sprite window. In this
situation, you should save all the sprites that can be saved (if they aren't
already), preferably to !Paint, making a single sprite file, then you should
clear the sprite area and reload the sprites, along with any others which
are needed.


 RISC PC compatibility
 
 !SpriteFS will attempt to display new format sprites with up to 256 colours
on all RISC OS computers. To indicate that they are new format sprites,
their names are displayed in blue.

 As yet, it has only been tried with 15- and 32-bit colour sprites; it will
display these correctly on a RISC PC, but will not even attempt to display
them on older machines.

 Also, I do not know whether the mask format remains the same in new format
sprites. Only time will tell...

 Thanks must go to Morley Electronics for visiting the 1994 IT exhibition at
Northumberland College (in Ashington, for those who don't know), thus giving
me the chance to gather this information and use it!

 You thought I was going to say "Archimedes" there, didn't you?
