Under DOS and Windows, you can create color as well as
color/monochrome screens, but the interface is quite, um, lacking.
Although I usually develop under DOS/Windows, I use this utility all
the time. I create my screens in Define Screens and then colorize
them with fP Screen Painter.
When I use Define Screens to colorize a screen, I can never
remember which ALT or CTRL key combination will
get me the color I desire, so I end-up cycling through the keys until
I find the color I want or constantly bringing up the online color
help screen. This is time consuming and frustrating
for me, and probably for you too.
Or maybe your Linux/Unix customers are demanding color screens, but all you see are a ton of unbillable development hours to give it to them because filePro makes you jump through hoops to do it?
Under Unix and Linux, you can use color screens, but you have to create the color screens on a DOS/Windows box and then use fP Transfer (a separate utility from fP Technologies - you will need two copies of it at $120 a copy) to convert and copy the files over to the Unix/Linux box. And remember that if you have to change the screen in any way (add or move text), you have to have to go back to DOS/Windows, recolorize the screen and then transfer the screen again because Unix/Linux Define Screens only creates and saves monochrome screens. What a total pain!!
"There HAS to be a better way!" you mutter as you fire up fP Transfer for what feels like the thousandth time.
Well now there is.
The fP Screen Painter allows you to colorize your filePro screens directly on the Unix/Linux box! No fP Transfer required. It is fast, easy and economical.
As you can see, the interface is light-years ahead of Define Screens.
I can select the colors from a screen full of choices. Move the cursor and press "N" or "I" (Normal or Inverse), and the color is selected. It just doesn't get any easier than that.
| Now I have to be clear that this utility does not replace Define Screens. It cannot create screens from scratch, nor can it edit the text on the screen. To do that, I would need to generate a new screen checksum. Since fP Technologies has not made the checksum algorithm public, I could not include features that change the checksum. |
On the other hand, fP Screen Painter does something that the Define Screens utility can't do - it prompts you to specify how to save the screen - as color, monochrome or color and monochrome.
Once you are done editing the screen, save the screen.
You will be prompted like this:
