A Simple Coloring Book

 

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I am working on a children's coloring book program for Shockwave. How can I set this up?

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There are a number of ways to go about making a coloring book.  The easiest is probably to use the Draw Xtra from Tabuleiro.  If you want the non-Xtra approach there are still a number of options.  The basic idea is to set up each area as a vector shape, shape, or 1-bit bitmap sprite.  Then you change the color of each when the user clicks on it.   Lets start with our color swatches.  When the use clicks a swatch we want to assign that color as the default for filling the coloring book elements.  For shape sprites and bitmap sprites we can easily get the foreColor property as a palette index number.  It is important to use 1 bit bitmap images and change the colors with lingo, using any higher bit depths can be unpredictable in its results.  If we are using vector shapes for the swatches, we will need to convert the RGB value returned for the fillColor to a palette index.  This can be done with the color lingo in Director 7.  Any color object can be polled to find the closest palette index match using the paletteIndex property of the color object.  For example... colorObject = color(#rgb, 0,0,255) put colorObject.paletteIndex -- 3 To convert back to RGB we can make a paletteIndex color object and poll the Red, Green, and Blue values to derive an RGB object... colorObject = color(#paletteIndex, 3) newObject = color(#rgb, colorObject.red, colorObject.green, colorObject.blue) put newObject -- rgb( 0, 0, 255 ) Using this we can swap back and forth to intermix vector shapes with bitmaps and shape objects for our coloring book.  By polling the swatches for their colors and then setting this as a global variable we can then simply apply that color to the coloring book elements.  To add a little flare to it we can also set the cursor to an eye dropper or fill bucket and package all of this into one, easy-to-use behavior.   The code is below. --Copyright 1999 Chuck Neal --chuck@mediamacros.com --If you find this code helpful, send me an e-mail and let me know. :-) property spriteNum, whichPart, whatType, setColor global gColoringBookColor on getPropertyDescriptionList me   p_list = [:]   if ([#shape, #vectorShape, #bitMap]).getOne(sprite(the currentSpriteNum).member.type) <> 0 then     p_list.addProp(#whichPart, [#format : #symbol, #comment : "Which Part", #default : #Swatch, #range : [#Swatch, #ColorArea]])     if sprite(the currentSpriteNum).member.type = #vectorShape then       whatColor = sprite(the currentSpriteNum).member.fillColor.paletteIndex     else       whatColor = sprite(the currentSpriteNum).forecolor     end if     p_list.addProp(#setColor, [#format : #integer, #comment : "What color", #default : whatColor])   else     if the currentSpriteNum > 0 then       alert "This behavior is only for shapes, bitmaps, and vector shapes."     end if   end if   return p_list end on beginSprite me   whatType = sprite(spriteNum).member.type   if whatType = #vectorShape then     theColor = paletteIndex(setColor)     myFillColor = color(#rgb, theColor.red, theColor.green, theColor.blue)     sprite(spriteNum).member.fillColor = myFillColor   else     sprite(spriteNum).forecolor = setColor   end if   case whichPart of     #swatch :       if whatType = #vectorShape then         if gColoringBookColor = void then           gColoringBookColor = sprite(spriteNum).member.fillColor.paletteIndex         end if       else if whatType = #shape or whatType = #bitmap then         if gColoringBookColor = void then           gColoringBookColor = sprite(spriteNum).forecolor         end if       end if       sprite(spriteNum).cursor = 281 --dropper     #ColorArea :       sprite(spriteNum).cursor = 259 --bucket   end case end on mouseUp me   case whichPart of     #swatch :       if whatType = #vectorShape then         gColoringBookColor = sprite(spriteNum).member.fillColor       else if whatType = #shape or whatType = #bitmap then         gColoringBookColor = sprite(spriteNum).foreColor       end if     #ColorArea :       if whatType = #vectorShape then         theColor = paletteIndex(gColoringBookColor)         myFillColor = color(#rgb, theColor.red, theColor.green, theColor.blue)         sprite(spriteNum).member.fillColor = myFillColor       else if whatType = #shape or whatType = #bitmap then         sprite(spriteNum).foreColor = gColoringBookColor       end if   end case end on getBehaviorDescription me   describe = "This behavior works on vector shapes, shapes, and bitmaps to create both color swatches as well as coloring book elements." & return   describe = describe & "Create 1 bit bitmaps, shapes or vector shapes for swatches and elements for the coloring book and drop this behavior on each. Choose a default color and start the project running for a fully playable coloring book."   return describe end Want to make it a little fancier?  Try adding a display to show the currently selected color.  What about exporting a list of each sprites values to save the "picture" and then read them back in to reassign those colors to the page.   Give it a try and see what you come up with.