VG_PARA

Syntax

VG_PARA col, xsize, ysize, angle, qlibm, italic, bold

Location

BGI

The use of the command VG_PARA is easier than the large parameter list may suggest. VG_PARA specifies how text should look when printed with VG_PRINT. The colour col does not allow strips and textures, col may only range from 0 to 7, other values are modulated appropriately. xsize and ysize determine the size of the font (not in pixels!), they can be freely chosen from any non-negative values, but sizes smaller than three are usually not readable.

Angle is the angle (0..359º) by which the text should be rotated. This is different from italics because the angle parameter rotates the text around the origin point of the text whilst italics slopes each character. The effect of italics is not linear, values between -10 and 10 give all kinds of slope; negative italics slope to the left and positive to the right.

The effect of bold on the other hand is easily described: bold refers to the thickness of the characters’ lines which are bold+1 pixels.

Qlibm is a switch: any non-negative value will make VG_PRINT try to find the character which matches best to the one given in the text to be printed; this works for IBM fonts only, see VG_PRINT for further explanation of this point. The default setting is VG_PARA 7,8,8,0,0,0,0 ie. white colour, 8x8 size, no italics, bold, rotation or conversion.

Examples

Both examples assume a BGI font loaded to font number 0 and the default VG_WIND settings (VG_WIND 0,511,0,255). The screen should be emptied with:

WIPE

or:

WINDOW 512,256,0,0: CLS
100 FOR size=1 TO 25
110   bold = (size=25)
120   VG_PARA 5.5*size/25,size,size,0,0,-3,bold
130   VG_PRINT 70-2*size,150-size,0,"Sinclair QL"
140 END FOR size
100 FOR angle=0 TO 3000 STEP 12
110   xsize=4*SIN(RAD(angle))+8
120   VG_PARA 7,xsize,10,angle,0,0,0
130   VG_PRINT 200,120,0,"Yippie"
140   VG_PARA RND(0 TO 2),xsize,10,angle,0,0,0
150   VG_PRINT 200,120,0,"Yippie"
160 END FOR angle

WARNING

A negative bold parameter will cause VG_PRINT to fall into an infinite loop. This hangs the job which called VG_PRINT indefinitely.

NOTE

Negative sizes lead to strange output but do no harm. BGI fonts come in different sizes so that the size settings of VG_PARA do not necessarily reflect the actual size that text will be; check with VG_HOCH for every font.

CROSS-REFERENCE

VG_HOCH is a function which returns the text sizes.