TweetFollow Us on Twitter

Draw Picts
Volume Number:3
Issue Number:9
Column Tag:Basic Forum

Draw Picts from Basic

By Steven Leach, Chemical Engineer, Santa Clara, CA

Create PICT Files for MacDraw™ using MS Basic

This a solution to a problem that I was having when I was writing a rather complex figure in BASIC and wanted to save my very valuable work, but wouldn’t or couldn’t use the clipboard, or scrapbook. It seemed to me that the names for the BASIC pictures and the PICT file of the scrapbook seemed awful close so I thought why not bypass the scrapbook altogether ? My first step was to get the format for the MacDraw™ files. I located this on Compuserve in Tech Note 27. But beware there appears to be an error in the wording of this document for it states “If your application is going to create or modify information that you want to make available to MacDraw, you will want to create a data file in the PICT format.” The tech note goes on to explain the first 512 byte header, of which the first 4 bytes is supposed to be “DRWG”, or “PICT”, and if the next two bytes are not “MD” then the rest of the header can be zero bytes (chr$(0)). Well I have news for you this just does not work , the MacDraw™ page comes out blank.

However on examining the PICT files created by several programs like SuperPaint, and Cricket Draw I ascertained that the entire 512 byte header should be zeroed. Walah! my file is read properly. Now what about complex pictures that may be stored in your program as several picture strings. Well here we must concatonate them into a single picture string in order to get the file to be read properly, as is done in the short sample program presented in Listing 1.

This program will work with any MS Basic 2.0 or greater, but if you check, the line segments that make up the sine wave are individual objects in MacDraw™. This is fine for some cases but some of the items I wanted to appear as polygons, or grouped objects. The solution is available in the CLR libraries that are provided in MS Basic 3.0. If you wish to have a polygon in the PICT file, simply create one using the libraries. This adjustment is shown in Listing 2 for the sine wave picture that is later labeled as PICT2$. I also set the creator of the file to be MacDraw™.

I’m in heaven; I can save my pictures for all posterity. Wait what happened to my picture it’s the same and yet different. As usual there are some sobering quirks that you need to know about before you start celebrating. These quirks show up in version 1.9, I have not had a chance to use the version 1.95 that is being released now. The quirks are:

1) Any patterns that are used to draw lines are lost, the lines are solid lines in MacDraw.

2) As you guessed there is the usual problem with the fonts that are presented in MacDraw™.

3) Polygons saved to the PICT file as polygons can never be ungrouped, but they have all of the nice properties that polygons have, they can be smoothed and reshaped.

4) If you use an uneven pen , i.e. when the x and y dimensions of the pen are different; MacDraw will even the line out using the largest size. An example of this is given in listing 1&2 where the rectangle is framed with a pen that is (3,1). When you view the MacDraw picture you can see that the rectangle has a 3 pixel wide line on all sides.

Ok we can create MacDraw PICT files, is it possible to go the other way ? You bet. As a matter of fact it’s easy as long as we restrict the MacDraw picture to relatively simple things. This is required because the string variables that are used to store the pictures in BASIC are limited to 32767 characters. A BASIC program that is quite general is shown in listing 3.

This opens up the possibility of drawing anything in MacDraw and then reading it into BASIC and using it as you wish, perhaps a template for a complex user interface screen, or saving the picture as a resource to be used in your compiled program. It is possible to create dialogs with pictures in them to really wow those “C” programmers who consider BASIC a “toy” language.

Fig. 1 Draw PICT created from Basic

{1}
REM LISTING 1
REM THIS PROGRAM IS USABLE IN ALL MICROSOFT BASIC’S 
 VERSION 2.0 OR REM GREATER
REM try to create a macdraw PICT file
REM Tech Note # 27 specifies the PICT file structure 
 that is expected by MacDraw

    DIM Grey%(3)
    RESTORE PatternData
    FOR j% = 0 TO 3 : READ Grey%(j%) : NEXT

    PatternData:
        DATA -21931,-21931,-21931,-21931

REM define some objects that will be used for this       demonstration
REM read in the data that define the rectangle and 
 circle

DIM rect%(3),aCircle%(3)
RESTORE ObjectData
  READ rect%(0)
  READ rect%(1)
  READ rect%(2)
  READ rect%(3)
  READ aCircle%(0)
  READ aCircle%(1)
  READ aCircle%(2)
  READ aCircle%(3)

    ObjectData:
      DATA 10,10,110,150,100,100,200,200
      
     X.Offset = 0        
‘offset to be used in saving the picture in MacDraw
     Y.Offset = 0        
‘ if offsets not zero picture will have an upper 
‘ right corner at the location (X.Offset,Y.Offset)
  
    REM record first picture with pen on 
    PICTURE ON
     CALL SHOWPEN
     CALL PENSIZE(3,1)
     CALL FRAMERECT(VARPTR(rect%(0)))
     CALL PENNORMAL
     CALL PENPAT(VARPTR(Grey%(0)))
     CALL PAINTOVAL(VARPTR(aCircle%(0)))
     CALL PENSIZE(3,3)
     FOR indx% = 0 TO 3 : aCircle%(indx%) = aCircle%(indx%) + 50 : NEXT
         
     CALL FRAMEOVAL(VARPTR(aCircle%(0)))
     CALL PENNORMAL  
     CALL MOVETO  (10,10)
     CALL LINETO (100,200)
         
    PICTURE OFF
    pict1$ = PICTURE$
    
    REM now start the second picture
    PICTURE ON
        CALL MOVETO(100,100)
        FOR indx% = 1 TO 20
            CALL LINE(indx%,10*SIN(indx%))
        NEXT
    PICTURE OFF
    pict2$ = PICTURE$

REM we must now group all of the separate pictures as a REM single picture 
before they can be outputted to TRM the PICT file

    CALL HIDEPEN
    PICTURE ON
        PICTURE (X.Offset,Y.Offset), pict1$
‘use any valid offset you wish
        PICTURE (X.Offset,Y.Offset), pict2$
‘use same offset to get relationship right
    PICTURE OFF
    Pict$ = PICTURE$

    File.Pict$ = FILES$(0,”Name for this Picture ?”)
‘get the name of the file
    IF LEN(File.Pict$) <  5 THEN END
‘if no file name then quit

OPEN File.Pict$ FOR OUTPUT AS #1
FOR indx% = 1 TO 512 
 PRINT  #1,CHR$(0); 
 NEXT    ‘print out the header for the PICT file

PRINT  #1,Pict$;   ‘ Print out the picture to the file
CLOSE #1
NAME File.Pict$ AS File.Pict$,”PICT”     
‘type the file as PICT so can open from inside MacDraw™
{2}
REM This is listing 2 and is usable in MS BASIC 3.0 or greater
REM create a macdraw PICT file
REM Tech Note # 27 specifies the PICT file structure that is expected 
by MacDraw

LIBRARY “MSTools”

    DIM Grey%(3)
    RESTORE PatternData
    FOR j% = 0 TO 3 : READ Grey%(j%) : NEXT

    PatternData:
        DATA -21931,-21931,-21931,-21931

REM define some objects that will be used for this       demonstration
REM read in the data that define the rectangle and 
 circle

DIM rect%(3),aCircle%(3)
RESTORE ObjectData
  READ rect%(0)
  READ rect%(1)
  READ rect%(2)
  READ rect%(3)
  READ aCircle%(0)
  READ aCircle%(1)
  READ aCircle%(2)
  READ aCircle%(3)

    ObjectData:
      DATA 10,10,110,150,100,100,200,200
      
     X.Offset = 0        
‘offset to be used in saving the picture in MacDraw
     Y.Offset = 0        
‘ if offsets are not zero the picture will have an 
 upper right corner at that location
  
    REM record first picture with pen on 
     PICTURE ON
     CALL SHOWPEN
         CALL PENSIZE(3,1)
         CALL FRAMERECT(VARPTR(rect%(0)))
         CALL PENNORMAL
         
         CALL PENPAT(VARPTR(Grey%(0)))
         CALL PAINTOVAL(VARPTR(aCircle%(0)))

        CALL PENSIZE(3,3)
         FOR indx% = 0 TO 3 : aCircle%(indx%) = aCircle%(indx%) + 50 
: NEXT
         
         CALL FRAMEOVAL(VARPTR(aCircle%(0)))
         CALL PENNORMAL
         
         CALL MOVETO  (10,10)
         CALL LINETO (100,200)
         
    PICTURE OFF
    pict1$ = PICTURE$
    
    REM now start the second picture as polygon
    PGon! = 0
    openPGon PGon!
        CALL MOVETO(100,100)
        FOR indx% = 1 TO 20
            CALL LINE(indx%,10*SIN(indx%))
        NEXT
    CLOSEPGon
    
    PICTURE ON
    FramePgon PGon!
    PICTURE OFF
    pict2$ = PICTURE$

REM we must group all of the separate pictures as a 
 single picture
REM before they can be outputted to the MacDraw™ PICT 
 file
    CALL HIDEPEN
    PICTURE ON
        PICTURE (X.Offset,Y.Offset), pict1$
‘use any valid offset you wish
        PICTURE (X.Offset,Y.Offset), pict2$
‘use same offset to get relationship right
    PICTURE OFF
    Pict$ = PICTURE$

    File.Pict$ = FILES$(0,”Name for this Picture ?”)  ‘get the name of 
the file
    IF LEN(File.Pict$) <  5 THEN END
‘if no file name then quit

OPEN File.Pict$ FOR OUTPUT AS #1
FOR indx% = 1 TO 512     
 ‘print out the header for the PICT file
    PRINT  #1,CHR$(0); 
 ‘ note use of ; to prevent chr$(13)
NEXT 
PRINT  #1,Pict$;
‘ Print out the picture to the file
CLOSE #1
NAME File.Pict$ AS File.Pict$,”PICT”
 ‘type the file as PICT so can open  ‘from inside MacDraw™
Setcreate File.Pict$ , “MDRW”
{3}
‘ listing 3  
‘ This small routine reads MacDraw PICT FILES AND 
‘ displays the PICTURE

    
    File.Pict$ = FILES$(1,”PICT”)
 ‘Get the FileName
    IF LEN(File.Pict$) < 5 THEN END
 ‘if no file name then quit

    OPEN File.Pict$ FOR INPUT AS #1
 ‘ open the file for input
    FOR indx% = 1 TO 512   
 ‘read the the first 512 byte header
        tmp$ = INPUT$(1,#1) 
    NEXT       
    PICT$ = INPUT$(LOF(1)-512,#1)    
 ‘ read the rest of the file into a string
    CLOSE #1
 ‘  close the file
    CLS
 ‘ clear the screen and display the picture
    PICTURE , PICT$
 

Community Search:
MacTech Search:

Software Updates via MacUpdate

Latest Forum Discussions

See All

Six fantastic ways to spend National Vid...
As if anyone needed an excuse to play games today, I am about to give you one: it is National Video Games Day. A day for us to play games, like we no doubt do every day. Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, feast your eyes on this... | Read more »
Old School RuneScape players turn out in...
The sheer leap in technological advancements in our lifetime has been mind-blowing. We went from Commodore 64s to VR glasses in what feels like a heartbeat, but more importantly, the internet. It can be a dark mess, but it also brought hundreds of... | Read more »
Today's Best Mobile Game Discounts...
Every day, we pick out a curated list of the best mobile discounts on the App Store and post them here. This list won't be comprehensive, but it every game on it is recommended. Feel free to check out the coverage we did on them in the links below... | Read more »
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company's...
Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that Nintendo has been locked in an epic battle with Pocketpair, creator of the obvious Pokémon rip-off Palworld. Nintendo often resorts to legal retaliation at the drop of a hat, but it seems this... | Read more »
Apple exclusive mobile games don’t make...
If you are a gamer on phones, no doubt you have been as distressed as I am on one huge sticking point: exclusivity. For years, Xbox and PlayStation have done battle, and before this was the Sega Genesis and the Nintendo NES. On console, it makes... | Read more »
Regionally exclusive events make no sens...
Last week, over on our sister site AppSpy, I babbled excitedly about the Pokémon GO Safari Days event. You can get nine Eevees with an explorer hat per day. Or, can you? Specifically, you, reader. Do you have the time or funds to possibly fly for... | Read more »
As Jon Bellamy defends his choice to can...
Back in March, Jagex announced the appointment of a new CEO, Jon Bellamy. Mr Bellamy then decided to almost immediately paint a huge target on his back by cancelling the Runescapes Pride event. This led to widespread condemnation about his perceived... | Read more »
Marvel Contest of Champions adds two mor...
When I saw the latest two Marvel Contest of Champions characters, I scoffed. Mr Knight and Silver Samurai, thought I, they are running out of good choices. Then I realised no, I was being far too cynical. This is one of the things that games do best... | Read more »
Grass is green, and water is wet: Pokémo...
It must be a day that ends in Y, because Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has kicked off its Zoroark Drop Event. Here you can get a promo version of another card, and look forward to the next Wonder Pick Event and the next Mass Outbreak that will be... | Read more »
Enter the Gungeon review
It took me a minute to get around to reviewing this game for a couple of very good reasons. The first is that Enter the Gungeon's style of roguelike bullet-hell action is teetering on the edge of being straight-up malicious, which made getting... | Read more »

Price Scanner via MacPrices.net

Take $150 off every Apple 11-inch M3 iPad Air
Amazon is offering a $150 discount on 11-inch M3 WiFi iPad Airs right now. Shipping is free: – 11″ 128GB M3 WiFi iPad Air: $449, $150 off – 11″ 256GB M3 WiFi iPad Air: $549, $150 off – 11″ 512GB M3... Read more
Apple iPad minis back on sale for $100 off MS...
Amazon is offering $100 discounts (up to 20% off) on Apple’s newest 2024 WiFi iPad minis, each with free shipping. These are the lowest prices available for new minis among the Apple retailers we... Read more
Apple’s 16-inch M4 Max MacBook Pros are on sa...
Amazon has 16-inch M4 Max MacBook Pros (Silver and Black colors) on sale for up to $410 off Apple’s MSRP right now. Shipping is free. Be sure to select Amazon as the seller, rather than a third-party... Read more
Red Pocket Mobile is offering a $150 rebate o...
Red Pocket Mobile has new Apple iPhone 17’s on sale for $150 off MSRP when you switch and open up a new line of service. Red Pocket Mobile is a nationwide MVNO using all the major wireless carrier... Read more
Switch to Verizon, and get any iPhone 16 for...
With yesterday’s introduction of the new iPhone 17 models, Verizon responded by running “on us” promos across much of the iPhone 16 lineup: iPhone 16 and 16 Plus show as $0/mo for 36 months with bill... Read more
Here is a summary of the new features in Appl...
Apple’s September 2025 event introduced major updates across its most popular product lines, focusing on health, performance, and design breakthroughs. The AirPods Pro 3 now feature best-in-class... Read more
Apple’s Smartphone Lineup Could Use A Touch o...
COMMENTARY – Whatever happened to the old adage, “less is more”? Apple’s smartphone lineup. — which is due for its annual refresh either this month or next (possibly at an Apple Event on September 9... Read more
Take $50 off every 11th-generation A16 WiFi i...
Amazon has Apple’s 11th-generation A16 WiFi iPads in stock on sale for $50 off MSRP right now. Shipping is free: – 11″ 11th-generation 128GB WiFi iPads: $299 $50 off MSRP – 11″ 11th-generation 256GB... Read more
Sunday Sale: 14-inch M4 MacBook Pros for up t...
Don’t pay full price! Amazon has Apple’s 14-inch M4 MacBook Pros (Silver and Black colors) on sale for up to $220 off MSRP right now. Shipping is free. Be sure to select Amazon as the seller, rather... Read more
Mac mini with M4 Pro CPU back on sale for $12...
B&H Photo has Apple’s Mac mini with the M4 Pro CPU back on sale for $1259, $140 off MSRP. B&H offers free 1-2 day shipping to most US addresses: – Mac mini M4 Pro CPU (24GB/512GB): $1259, $... Read more

Jobs Board

All contents are Copyright 1984-2011 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.