MrClick's HiColEd 0.1
=====================

HiColEd and why I had to make it
--------------------------------

This is MrClick's High Color Graphic Editor (or simply HiColEd).
This is a handy little tool for reading and in future releases
hopefully writing 15 bpb graphics out of any file containing such
bitmaps. I wrote this tool in responds to a tool called Killer
Instinct Image Explorer written by Jabo (visit him at
http://jnes.vintagegaming.com). The program he wrote was very
fast but due to a lack of a GUI hard to handle. Because I am
very interested in reading and writing graphics of different kind
(take a look at my multi console tile editor TilEd) I saw it as a
challenge to learn about the 15 bpb. So I wrote a little program
which after two days evoled into HiColEd.

What to do with HiColEd
-----------------------

HiColEd was successfully tested with the Killer Instinct Arcade
hard drive image file but I am sure that it is able to read graphics
out of any type of file that has 15 bpb bitmaps stored in it.

How to use HilColEd
-------------------

Here comes a very short manual for HiColEd.
In the File menu you can open the file you want to extract graphics
out of. When the file is opened enter the address and the size 
(width and height) of the bitmap you want to view. Press Load to
open another window displaying the bitmap after loading (loading status
can be seen in the caption of the main window). Press + or - to zoom
in and out of the bitmap. Fix colors simply adds one byte to the address
and reloads the bitmap. Page up and Page down increases or decreases the
address by width * height bytes (for scrolling). Resize fits the size of
the viewing window to the size of the bitmap (use after zooming in or
enlarging the bitmap to get a full picture. The X and Y represent show
the position of the mouse pointer on the viewing window. Click on any
pixel on the bitmap to reload the bitmap with the pixel you just clicked
on as the new upper left pixel to adjust the position of the bitmap.
The bookmark function is quite usefull but also very buggy (I guess).
Clicking on Bookmarks/ Load will open a dialog asking for a Bookmark TXT
file. One example for such a file is included in the zip (KI.txt).
It holds the name, address and size of some backgrounds in the Killer
Instinct Hard Drive Image. You can select a bookmark after loading using
the selection box entitled Bookmarks.
You can write your own bookmarks. they are normal TXT files. One bookmark
has the following format:
<Name of the bookmark>,<Address>,<Width>,<Height>{Enter}
Every bookmark is terminated by the next line.
Take a look at KI.txt to get an example.
A BMP dump feature might be added later but right now you can use the <Print>
key to take screenshots and save extracted picture into a file.

Things to say
-------------

First of all: This a like a beta. I cannot promise that it works fine for
everyone and I do not know what damage this program could cause. So use it
at your own risk. Feel free to send me new bookmark files so I can post them
at my page. Feel free to send me money. Feel free to send me any kind of
soft- or hardware that you think could be useful for my work.
I cannot promise anything but I am very excited about adding a 24 bpb BMP
export feature and (oh boy, oh boy) a 24 bpb BMP import feature.

Visit MrClick at http://members.tripod.de/MrClick/Tileeditor/index.html or
e-mail me: MrClick@gmx.de

Special thanks go to Jabo whose program inspired me.

Well, enjoy HiColEd,

                                         MrClick              000926
