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The home of
Version 5.0ß prerelease

The development of a spare time project should be fun, and I was getting tired of only working on C-Side, so for some time I have been working on other projects, and some none computer projects.

Now I'm back, and I have been working a lot on C-side V.5.0 lately.

The program is in a late development state, some new functions has been hidden as they still are too buggy !

Please observe : As this is a work in progress I cannot guarantee that the final version 5.0 will be able to read v.5.0ß files. I will do my best but you never knows !

Kim Foder

Index

What is C-Side

C-Side is a native OS/2 WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) CD-cover and label editor, capable of color text and graphics design, and print.

C-Side has been developed in my spare time in most of the year 1999, it was originally planned as a private 'my eyes only' project, partly because i needed this sort of program, partly as a way to learn how to manipulate fonts,graphics and printers under OS/2.

C-Side has been developed in SpeedSoft's Sibyl-Pascal for OS/2, and even though it is a great development tool, it still has some weird problems now and then. In an attempt to solve some of these problems i turned to the 'Speedpascal/2  Mailing list' where i got a lot of help (thanks guys, when I truly needed the help, you was there - the true living OS/2 spirit !). In my plea for help I had to describe my problems, and in doing so, I mentioned what my project was all about, this caused Tony White to contact me, and request a commercial release of my project.

OK, Tony here you have it !

Tony has come up with a lot of good ideas, most of which has been implemented, helping develop the program from very primitive, to quite usable !

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Description of C-Side functionality

C-Side has a lot of functionality packed in a fairly small package, most functions are easy to understand and use. In the following I will give you a rough introduction to a few functions, to let you get a feeling for the idea behind the program.

C-Side has three parts, called 'CD', 'Front' and 'Back' (selectable by the tabs in the bottom of the window), each representing a part of the CD/cover layout. 

With the buttons to the right, you can insert new images (OS/2 and M$ W****** BMP and GIF) and texts, this can also be done via Tools on the menu bar, more about this later.

This page represents the CD-label, by default it is transparent (ie. no color is printed).

By using the 'Edit' menu, you can define a background color, and the position of the label on the page when printing. 

You can have up to four labels on one sheet (you probably couldn't but you can define their position on the sheet, if you could !). 

This page represents the front cover of the crystal box, just like the CD-label, this page is transparent, but a background color can be set, as well as some printing properties. 

Everything you can place on a page is called an 'object', you can get a list of all objects on a page, by clicking on the 'Object' menu.

You can get the settings of an object by right-clicking on the object, or via the 'Edit' menu.

You can move an object by moving the cursor over the object until the cursor changes to a 'arrow-cross', then hold down the left mouse button, and drag, where ever you releases the mouse button the object will be positioned.

This page represents the back cover of the crystal box, as with the two previous pages it defaults to transparent, but you can set background color, and some printing properties. 

If you would like to re size an object, move the mouse cursor over the object until it becomes an double-arrow, hold down the left mouse button, and drag, wherever you releases the mouse button, will define the size of the object.

To delete an object, click (once) on the object with the left mouse button, and press delete, or select 'Edit' and 'Delete object' from the menu bar

When you inserts an image, you'll get a window asking you to select the image file, that's all. you can not change this selection when it has been accepted (you'll have to delete the object and insert a new one), this may come one day. 

Inserting a text is somewhat more complex. To the left you see the text settings page. You can always recall this page by right clicking on an text object

At the top of the page you edit the text, below you see the text with the currently selected attributes.

Further down you can select the font, color and evt. background color of the text.

Further down yet, and to the left, you select the alignment of the text, and to the right you can change the direction of the text

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New functions in version 4.01.
  • Capability for using a text file as text area. File are loaded during load of the cd layout, or when selecting a new file.
  • The code of the text area have been cleaned somewhat up.
  • An error freezing the desktop while printing printing the CD-cover from a previously saved cd-layout has been corrected.
  • If you load a layout containing fonts not installed on the system, the load process is no longer aborted, the missing font is substituted by the default font.
  • The value for height of back cover insert, was not saved (was always 121 mm )
  • Some new templates has been added.
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Requirements

This one is easy, C-Side does not require much :

  • OS/2 Warp (may be able to run on older systems, has not been tested !). 
  • About 16 MB memory (may be able to run on less). 
  • About 1 MB hard disk space. 
  • A printer (color would be preferred). 
  • A CD-writer would be nice. 
  • Some CD-writer software would be nice too ;-) 
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Limitations and known problems

The following limitations and problems are known :

  • There is a minor vertical displacement of texts, when printing, this can show as missing 'below the line' parts of some characters, I do not know how to correct this problem, but I'm working on it ! (may be corrected in version 3.0)
  • For some reason (probably M$ W****** compatibility in Sibyl) the '&' character will now and then be converted to '~' (always when recalling the text settings)
For more see read.me.

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Coming features

I have a long list of ideas, some of them are :

  • Support for more graphics formats - TIFF, TARGA ... you name it. 
  • Basic geometric forms - circle, rectangle, triangle - filled and outline. 
  • Print preview. 
  • and so on. 
  • Any ideas you might have, please tell me !
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How to get it

You can download the latest shareware version (4.01 of 20-May-2001) here, this is the unregistered version, with some limitations, if you already have a registered version of C-Side then this is the upgrade !

If you have downloaded the shareware version, and would like to register for the full version, you can register online at BMT-micro, they will send you an temporary registration key (they may insist the version is 3, but don't panic, the registration is valid for any version !), and within one to two weeks you will receive the final key from me.

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How to enter the registration

To register go to the about menu and click on 'Register', here you can enter name and registration number. For the temporary registration code, your name is not required, but when you receive your full registration, you will find a registration- name and code to enter exactly as written in your registration mail.

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Links
SpeedSoft Makers of the only true Borland Delphi look alike for OS/2
RSJ If you need a CD-writer program, I can warmly recommend this product, even though they are becoming a competitor ;o)
OS/2 Warp This you ought to know
OS/2 World
The great guys who is the sponsor of this page

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