Startup <---                 Back                 ---> Concept

First steps

Wildfire`s Windows and Menu

After initialization Wildfire opens it's Main-Window on a screen of your choice. This is the default public screen for the startup.

You can change this inside the MUI preferences. Just select the MUI settings from inside menu. There you can define a own public screen with your personal screen depth. We recommend 24 bit if this is possible on your configuration. 32 colors works o.k if you have no GFX-Card, but 24 bit is recommended because it`s faster for your previews. (Wildfire calculates all the effects in 24 Bit and so it has nothing to render down when displaying the preview)

        How to change the MUI settings (Example: select an own screen)

From the main window you can select three pages and choose some other parts from Wildfire`s menu.

The 3 Pages

• Project
  Here you can set up your project (Session) including input, output, the kind of effects and the preview type you want to use. Furtheron you can specify special ranges of the so called session that should be processed.
  And here you start the whole thing, using the `Single image` or the `Convert` button you generate one single image or a complete image sequence/animation.
• Effects
  On this page you select the effects which will be inserted between the input and the output of the project. It is possible to turn off the effects, too. So the images will be passed directly from the input to the output. (e.g. if you want to simply convert one anim into another format)
  Depending on the kind of Effects selected on the Project page (No / Linear / Non Linear) this effect page changes it`s outlook.
• Options
  The options for the current project (Session) may be set on this page. Do not mix it up with the preferences of Wildfire. The preferences contain settings for the whole program, this options are just for the current so-called session you are working on.

The Window titel

Inside the window title some informations are displayed. Between the brackets the current so-called session you are working on is shown.

Example:
Wildfire7\PPC - ©1996-98 by WK-Artworks (SequenceRollFade.session )
This means that I currently work on the SequenceRollFade.session.

Online Help

All buttons and all sub-windows of Wildfire have their own online-help (mui-bubbles) where you can get informations about their functions. Inside the MUI settings you can select the time you have to stop the mouse pointer until the bubbles will be displayed.

If you want to know what a effect or a window is used for then make sure that the window you want to get informations about is selected and your mouse pointer is situated in front of his window (not over a gadget). After some seconds a helpt text is displayed and tells you what you can do inside this window.

If your mousepointer is located over a gadget then the help text from this gadget is displayed.

Window size

Inside the right corner of all the different windows there are three gadgets, the left one is used to iconify the window or save the current window dimensions or start the MUI preferences progam. The other two gadgets are standard Amiga gadgets. If you want to fix the size of your current window then select the third gadget and choose Snapshot.

The Menu

From inside the menu (just press the right mousebutton) you can reach some other functions and program parts.

• Project Menu
  • New ... Start a new Session. This means that the effect script and all the variables will be cleared.
    Afterwards select your input, choose the output and the type of effects and give the new Session a name using the Save As function of the menu.
    Then you are ready for playing with the effects.
  • Open ... Open a saved Wildfire Session. All parameters from the 3 Wildfire pages are saved in a session. Inside the e:/wf/Sessions/ drawer there are a lots of prepared Sessions which were used to create the Animations which are on the CD.
    This session drawer has the same structure like the Animations drawer on the CD. So have a look at the Anims and if you find something useful then simply load the corresponding session and have a look how it is done.
  • Save ... Save a session using the current filename. You see the current filename inside the titel line of Wildfire`s window. If you have set Expertmode=off inside the preferences then Wildfire will ask you if you really want to replace your old saved session file.
  • Save As ... Save a session using a new filename. You will get a filerequester where you can choose the name. This name will be extended automatically with .session
    If you have set Expertmode=off inside the preferences and if you select a session which was already there then Wildfire will ask you if you really want to delete the old file.
  • Help ... Open the Help file which you are currently reading. This is possible using the `HELP` key, too!
  • About WF ... Display some informations about Wildfire
  • About MUI ... Get some informations about MUI, which is used as graphical user interface.
  • Preferences ... Open the preferences window where you can adjust the settings for the whole program.
    If you search for the settings for the current project like color depth and so on the go to the option page inside Wildfire`s window and not to the preferences window.
  • MUI Settings ... Here you can start the MUI preferences program from where you can adjust the different graphical parameters. If you have an unregistered version of MUI then some parameters can not b saved/changed.
  • Quit ... Quit Wildfire and free it`s memory.
• Windows Menu
  • Logfile ... Open the Logfile window. Here are all things logged which may be of some kind of interest to you.
  • Clipboard ... Open the clipboard window. As Wildfire supports lots of different types of objects (images, colors, texts ...) we created an own clipboard where not only one but a list of this object can be placed and so used inside the different program parts using drag`n`drop.
  • Player ... Open the (YAFA) animation player where you can adjust the options which are used while playing (YAFA) anims and where you can play all kind of animations directly.
  • Plugins ... Open the window where you can control the supplied general PlugIns which add some other functions as Screen grabbing and so on to Wildfire.
  • Savers ... Select the used saver for 24 bit images.
• Plugins Menu
  • TMaker ... This starts Wildfire`s transition maker where you can create transitions between two inputs in a very easy way.
  • ??? ... Here you can insert your own general Plugins. You have to select the menu checkmark inside the General Plugins window.

Startup <---                 Back                 ---> Concept

©1998 WK-Artworks