Paint. It served us well, and set the stage for other programs ahead in enlightening us in the amazing things our paint program could do once it added an ARexx hook or two to the program. Well, the folks at NovaDesigns have not missed a single command, and there is NOTHING that ImageFX can do, that is not available via ARexx. This creates some wonderful automation possibilities, and if you'll look on Appendix A-2 and 3, you'll see all the wonderful things that are just a keystroke away. But what if you want to add something to the already exhaustive list?

One of the things I do frequently in any paint program is adding subtle drop shadows behind my brushes for added dimension. Being an ImageFX user, I would trudge through the menus, clicking this, sliding that, so my drop shadows would be faint and feathered. Then after stamping it down a few times, I'd have to return to those same menus and restore the fill, edge, and drawmode options to their normal settings.

You know, if you find yourself doing *anything* of a repititious nature in ImageFX, it's time to stop and do a little homework, because IFX can surely do it for you, saving time along the way.

Using this specific example, let's set up a hotkey to define all of our shadow settings.

The easiest way to modify the hotkeys in ImageFX is just to press Shift + Help. The phrase 'Key Programming is now ON' appears on IFX's menu bar, and is awaiting for you to press any key to bring up the existing hotkey commands for that key. (if only NewTek could give us something so configurable and simple for TPaint and CG). The only problem with this method is that your changes are only temporary, and lost once you re-boot the computer. To make these changes permanent, we must use Ed, and load up the file ImageFX2/Default.keys and make some modifications.

I noticed that the Backspace key was not assigned any hotkey values, so I began there. Move the cursor about halfway down the screen to the line with 'b'. Put the cursor on the 'b' and hit Enter to give us a free line. Now, type 'BS' (without quotes) to indicate the Backspace key, and after entering a space, enter the following string of text:

DrawMode Darken 85; Blend80; EdgeMode FeatherIn 15

then move the cursor one line up to the Del key definition, and modify the line to read:

EdgeMode Normal; Blend 100; Transparency Include 0 Exclude 0; DrawMode Normal (All these settings are already there, but we must move the DrawMode to the end of the line, or ImageFx won't play nice. Bug? who knows; it works like this).

To save this, simply click on the close gadget, and type 'y'. If you have ImageFX loaded, quit and re-load, since the program loads up all the hotkey definitions on startup. Now, with an image in your active buffer, load up a brush, and simply tap backspace, and faster than you can say "ARexx Rocks!" you'll notice the "%DE" comments pop up above the Scanner Button, notifying you that Blend, Darken, and Edge modes are now active! Go stamp your brush down against a light colored background and ooh and ahh as you very quickly see a shadow appear in the brushes shape on screen.

How do we get back to our starting point so we can now stamp our brush down? By simply pressing the Del key, you will undo any settings you may have made for fills, transparencies or DrawModes. This is the same as hitting the Tab key in ToasterPaint. Now we can effortlessly, and (more importantly), instantly toggle between a brush in drop-shadow mode and normal mode!

There is nothing at all mystical about ImageFX's ARexx command language. If you would like to set up your own keys for something repetitive, you can find the specific wordage needed by pressing Help, which brings up ImageFX's extremely thorough AmigaGuide help documents. Once in the main panel, click on the Index button at the top, and then scroll down to the Help System button, and from there choose menu item 10, Arexx Docs. Then click on ImageFX Commands. This gives you the exact language needed for every possible command in ImageFX (try 246 separate things that can be remotely performed through ARexx!)

Play around with the settings until they meet your tastes, and the next time you need to stamp down a shadow, stamp out wasted mousing at the same time!

Paul Lara, owner of VDO Productions, is a Flyer Phreak and jpeg junkie. He's awaiting any graphics job you may have in store at vdo@vvm.com. Do your part to lower the nation's crime rate and keep him busy.

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