Microsoft KB Archive/45424

= SCREEN 9; 16 Foreground and Background Colors Simultaneously =

Article ID: 45424

Article Last Modified on 11/21/2006

-

APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft QuickBasic 4.0
 * Microsoft QuickBASIC 4.0b
 * Microsoft QuickBasic 4.5 for MS-DOS
 * Microsoft BASIC Compiler 6.0
 * Microsoft BASIC Compiler 6.0b
 * Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System 7.0
 * Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System 7.1

-



This article was previously published under Q45424



SUMMARY
Microsoft QuickBasic versions 4.0, 4.0b, and 4.5, Microsoft Basic Compiler versions 6.0 and 6.0b for MS-DOS, and Microsoft Basic Professional Development System (PDS) versions 7.0 and 7.1 for MS-DOS support up to SCREEN 13, depending on the video card installed in your machine. Using the COLOR statement, in all color modes you can simultaneously display all foreground colors available in that particular mode.

However, simultaneously displaying multiple background colors is supported only in SCREEN mode 0 (zero) (character mode). SCREEN 0 is the only SCREEN mode that supports displaying all 16 foreground colors and all eight background colors simultaneously. When you invoke the COLOR statement with a background color argument in any SCREEN mode other than 0, you get only one background color, and the entire screen background is affected.

The QuickBasic program below contains routines that, if used in place of PRINT and COLOR when in SCREEN 9, provide the ability to display 16 foreground colors and 16 &quot;background&quot; colors simultaneously. This program uses foreground colors with bit masking to draw inverse-video characters with multiple background colors simultaneously on the screen in graphics mode. The routines could easily be modified to support SCREEN 12. The support module, without any modification, can be converted into a .LIB library or left as an .OBJ object file and linked into your program.

This support module operates correctly if compiled using QuickBasic versions 4.0, 4.0b, or 4.5, Microsoft Basic Compiler version 6.0 or 6.0b for MS-DOS, or Microsoft Basic PDS versions 7.0 and 7.1 for MS-DOS.



MORE INFORMATION
For information on a similar technique for Hercules SCREEN 3, query on the following word:

INVERSEPRINT

The module below contains two SUBprograms that can be CALLed in the same way as the PRINT or COLOR statements when the following $INCLUDE file is included, or can be used with the CALL statement. The INCLUDE file contains the DECLARE statements for the S9COLOR and S9PRINT and CONST declarations for all 16 colors so the colors can be referenced by name. The two routines are as follows:

  S9COLOR: Takes two parameters: foreground color and background color, respectively. Unlike the COLOR statement, the parameters are not optional. If you want to change only the foreground color, both parameters must be provided. The COLOR statement can still be used, but it will not affect strings printed using S9PRINT. The following is an example: S9COLOR Green, BrRed CALL S9COLOR (BrBlue, Cyan)   S9PRINT: Takes only one parameter, the STRING to be printed. The parameter can be a simple STRING literal or a STRING expression. No special formatting characters are supported, but they could easily be added. Placing a pipe character (|) at the end of the STRING causes a carriage return-linefeed to be executed after the STRING is printed. The following is an example: S9PRINT &quot;This is the text to be printed&quot; S9PRINT A$+B$ S9PRINT STRING$(50,&quot;X&quot;) S9PRINT &quot;The PIPE causes a CRLF|&quot; 'the PIPE is not printed CALL S9PRINT &quot;CALL statement used&quot; 

Code ($INCLUDE File S9LIB.BI)
DECLARE SUB S9COLOR (fcolor%, bcolor%) DECLARE SUB S9PRINT (text$) CONST Black = 0, Blue = 1, Green = 2, Cyan = 3, Red = 4, Magenta = 5 CONST Brown = 6, White = 7, Gray = 8, BrBlue = 9, BrGreen = 10 CONST BrCyan = 11, BrRed = 12, Pink = 13, Yellow = 14, BrWhite = 15

Code (Support Module S9LIB.BAS)
'* Module level code: Shared variables between SUBprograms DIM SHARED bgblock%(2242) DIM SHARED fcolor%, bcolor%

'* S9COLOR: Simply stores the color values passed to the routine '*          in bcolor% and fcolor%, which are used in S9PRINT. SUB S9COLOR (nfcolor%, nbcolor%) bcolor% = nbcolor% fcolor% = nfcolor% END SUB

'********************************************************************* 'S9PRINT: This routine will not wrap around if the string exceeds 'column 80. It truncates whatever text is being printed at column 80. 'The string length in pixels is first calculated. A LINE statement with 'the BF option (Box Fill) using the desired background color is 'executed. The resulting block of color is saved with a GET statement. 'The string is then printed in the background color. The saved block of 'background color is then PUT over the string. The resulting block of 'text, which is a black foreground with the desired background color, 'is then saved using another GET statement. The string is then 'reprinted in the desired foreground color, and the block save with the 'last GET statement is PUT over the text, resulting in the text printed 'with the desired foreground and background colors, without affecting 'the rest of the screen. The PUT statements are all executed using the 'XOR action verb. '********************************************************************** SUB s9print (text$) tx% = POS(0) ty% = CSRLIN col% = (tx% - 1) * 8 row% = (ty% - 1) * 14 maxpix% = 639 - col% maxlength% = 81 - tx% IF RIGHT$(text$, 1) = &quot;|&quot; THEN CR% = 1 tlength% = (LEN(text$) - 1) text$ = LEFT$(text$, tlength%) tlength% = tlength% * 8 - 1 ELSE CR% = 0 tlength% = LEN(text$) * 8 - 1 END IF IF tlength% > maxpix% THEN text$ = LEFT$(text$, maxlength%) tlength% = maxpix% END IF LINE (col%, row%)-STEP(tlength%, 13), bcolor%, BF  GET (col%, row%)-STEP(tlength%, 13), bgblock%(0) COLOR bcolor% PRINT text$; LOCATE ty%, tx% PUT (col%, row%), bgblock%(0), XOR GET (col%, row%)-STEP(tlength%, 13), bgblock%(0) COLOR fcolor% PRINT text$; PUT (col%, row%), bgblock%(0), XOR IF CR% = 1 THEN PRINT END SUB

Code (Example of Main Program)
The program below demonstrates the use of the S9COLOR and S9PRINT routines. It simultaneously displays all the possible combinations of foreground and background colors.

To compile the program, do the following:

  To create S9LIB.OBJ, issue the following command: BC S9LIB; To create S9LIB.LIB, issue the following command: LIB S9LIB S9LIB.OBJ;   If using S9LIB.OBJ, issue the following command: BC S9DEMO; LINK S9DEMO S9LIB; If using S9LIB.LIB, issue the following command: BC S9DEMO; LINK S9DEMO,,,S9LIB 

S9DEMO.BAS
'* S9DEMO.BAS    Demo for S9LIB.BAS  * '$INCLUDE: 'S9LIB.BI' DIM colornames$(15) FOR I% = 0 TO 14 READ colornames$(I%) NEXT I% SCREEN 9 CLS FOR bc% = 0 TO 15 LOCATE, 2 FOR fc% = 0 TO 14 S9COLOR fc% + 1, bc% S9PRINT colornames$(fc%) NEXT PRINT NEXT S9COLOR black, brred a$ = &quot;PRESS ANY KEY|&quot; LOCATE 23, 40 - (LEN(a$) \ 2) S9PRINT a$ SLEEP END DATA Blue,Green,Cyan,Red,Magenta,Brown,White,Gray DATA BrBlue,BrGreen,BrCyan,BrRed,Pink,Yellow,BrWhite

Additional query words: QuickBas BasicCom 4.00 4.00b 4.50 6.00 6.00b 7.00 7.10

Keywords: KB45424

-

[mailto:TECHNET@MICROSOFT.COM Send feedback to Microsoft]

© Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.