Preparing Hypergraphics for Different Displays

Normally, when it saves a bitmap in .SHG format, Hotspot Editor records the display resolution (EGA, VGA, or 8514) in the .SHG file based on the resoultion of the computer it’s running on and ignores the resolution information stored in the original bitmap. This can cause problems if you want to display your hypergraphics on different display resolutions. For example, if you have three bitmaps, created on EGA, VGA, and 8514 devices, and you edit them with Hotspot Editor on a VGA system, Hotspot Editor marks all the resulting .SHG files as VGA.

To correct this problem, you can either can save the hypergraphic with the correct resolution information, or you can compile these files with Help’s Multi-Resolution Bitmap Compiler (MRBC). For information about MRBC, see Chapter 12, “Creating Graphics for Different Displays.”

Saving Resolution Information

When creating hypergraphics, you can save the resolution information of the target monitor (not just the monitor on which they are created). This is especially important if you want to create hypergraphics for the Macintosh, because you cannot use Hotspot Editor on a Macintosh computer. Also, if you use this feature, you do not have to compile hypergraphics with MRBC to make them appear correctly on different displays, including Macintosh displays.

To save resolution information in the hypergraphic, you must add a line to your SHED.INI file. The entry tells Hotspot Editor whether you want to save .SHG files with the resolution information of a monitor other than the one on which they were authored. The monitor type actually saved depends upon the first letter of the extension, just as when using MRBC.

To save resolution information, add the following line to your SHED.INI file:

[Hotspot Editor]
ResBasedOnExt=1

If the value of ResBasedOnExt equals 1, Hotspot Editor sets the appropriate resolution based on the first letter of the file extension. The following table shows how Hotspot Editor interprets the extensions.

For example, if you create a hypergraphic to be displayed on a Macintosh, you can specify the MAC extension M and the hypergraphic will look good on a Macintosh display, without using MRBC.