htetris documentation

#
User Manual For htetris Version 1.0
Henrik Sandin 1999

Main page

## The brick editor

htetris includes a brick editor where the user can create his/hers own bricks and include them when playing the game. A brick consists of squares, or tiles, which is the basic unit of measurement for a brick. A brick must be at least one square and at most ten by ten squares in size. Any rectangular format in between is allowed.
The editor interface consists of an area where bricks are edited, a menu bar with three menus and two buttons as shown below.
To fill a square on the edit pane, the user points the mouse at that square and clicks the left mouse button. The right mouse button is used to erase a filled square. Only one color per brick can be used.
The upper left corner of the currently edited brick resides in the upper left corner of the edit pane. It is not possible to fill a square outside the bounds of the current brick. There is a grid which shows the bounds when it is shown. The grid can be switched on and off by pressing the Toggle grid button on the interface. The Clear button clears whatever filled squares there are but does not affect the grid. A brick can take on any shape, even unconnected regions in the same brick.
A brick can be saved to file and previously saved bricks can be opened and re-edited. All features are described in detail below.

## Menu items and features

- The File menu
  - New
    Lets the user start editing a new brick of the chosen size and color. A brick must be at least one by one and at most ten by ten in size.
    Valid colors are: yellow, red, blue, green, orange, magenta, cyan and brown.
    When the user clicks Okay in the dialog box, an empty grid of the given size shows up on the edit pane.
  - Open
    If Open is selected, a dialog appears which prompts the user for the filename of a previously saved brick. Brick files always have the extension .brk but this is not necessary to include, although it is perfectly alright to do so.
    If the file is valid and could be opened successfully, the editor resets itself to the measurements and color of the loaded brick and the brick appears with the grid on.
  - Save
    The user enters a filename in the shown dialog box and the brick is saved under that name. If the extension .brk is not added to the name, the editor automaticly adds it before saving. If the user enter a name with characters after .brk, those are discarded. Saving can not be performed if there are no filled squares. If not all rows and columns are used for the brick to be saved, the brick is stripped of such empty rows and columns before it is saved. This does not apply to empty rows and columns between filled squares, only "edge" rows and columns are stripped off.
  - Quit
    This closes the brick editor and returns focus to the htetris application.
- The Brick menu
  - Change color
    This changes the color of the currently edited brick in place. From now on, this color is used to fill squares unless color is changed again, a brick is loaded from file or a new brick is started.
    The same colors as mentioned above under New are valid.
- The Help menu
  - How to edit
    This option basicly displays the same information as the first section of this document.
  - Menus
    This option basicly displays the same information as the this section of this document.