Part III in Visual Studio .NET

Maker Denso QR Bar Code in Visual Studio .NET Part III

uch of what makes a custom browser unique is the graphical elements you choose to use Components such as a browser s border, background, and toolbar display graphics that you can create with a paint program In Part III, you discover how to create these graphical elements, using Paint Shop Pro, one of the best paint programs out there The best news is that a trial version of Paint Shop Pro is included on this book s CD so that you can dive right into the creation of custom browser graphics

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ne of the most important elements of your custom browser is the graphics Although this book s CD-ROM includes many themes that you can use for your custom-browser projects, sooner or later, you re going to want to create your own From a mechanical point of view, this task is fairly easy, but, of course, the end result depends on your artistic skill and the skill with which you use your graphical software tools I can t help you with the former, but I can get you started with the latter In this chapter, I introduce you to Paint Shop Pro, a program you can use to create custom graphics for your Web browsers

This book s CD-ROM includes a free trial version of Paint Shop Pro 81 Hurray! Before can use Paint Shop Pro, though, it must be installed onto your system Nothing is ever simple, eh Perform the following steps to get Paint Shop Pro up and running: 1 Find and double-click the psp810entrexe file in the Paint Shop Pro folder of this book s CD-ROM The Paint Shop Pro 8 InstallShield Wizard appears on your screen (see Figure 10-1) 2 Click Next The program extracts the setup files The Welcome dialog box, shown in Figure 10-2, appears

3 Click Next The software s license agreement appears on your screen (see Figure 10-3) 4 Select the I accept option and then click Next The Customer Information dialog box appears (see Figure 10-4)

5 Type your name in the User Name box and click Next You can also choose whether to install the software for just yourself or for everyone using the computer The Custom Setup dialog box, shown in Figure 10-5, appears

6 Leave all options set to their defaults and click Next The Ready To Install dialog box appears 7 Click the Install button The program installs Paint Shop Pro onto your system, after which the User Options dialog box appears (see Figure 10-6)

8 Leave the options set to their defaults and click Next The Jasc Software Electronic Registration dialog box appears, as seen in Figure 10-7

9 Click Next The registration form appears, as shown in Figure 10-8

10 Type the required information and then click Next The registration confirmation screen appears, as shown in Figure 10-9

11 Scroll down to the bottom of the information and click Next The thank-you box appears, as shown in Figure 10-10

12 Make sure that you re connected to the Internet and then click Send The program sends your registration information to Jasc Software, after which the InstallShield Wizard Complete screen appears 13 Click Finish to finalize the installation

When you installed Paint Shop Pro, an icon for the program should have appeared on your desktop You can run Paint Shop Pro by double-clicking this icon You can also run Paint Shop Pro by choosing it from your Start menu Choose Start Programs Jasc Software Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 When Paint Shop Pro appears on-screen, click the Start button in the splash window, which shows you information about a program while the program is loading Then close the File Format Associations dialog box and the Learning Center dialog box by clicking the X in each window s upper-right corner You then have a screen that looks like Figure 10-11 Even after dismissing it from the screen, you can access the Learning Center at any time from the Paint Shop Pro Help menu You can access the file associations by choosing File Preferences The large gray area in the center of the window is where you work on your images To create a new image, choose File New The New Image dialog box appears, in which you can set the basic attributes for the new image The new image appears as a window in the gray area of Paint Shop Pro s screen You can have several image windows open at once You can even cut and paste between the different windows To work on images, you need graphical tools If you look on the left side of Paint Shop Pro s screen, you see the toolbox, from which you can access the tools Starting from the top of the toolbox, the tools are as follows: Pan tool: Drags image view into new positions, as well as provides access to zooming and sizing functions Deform tool: Twists, turns, and warps an image Crop tool: Crops images (cuts out a portion of an image, throwing away everything else) Move tool: Moves elements of an image Also provides access to zooming and sizing functions Selection tool: Selects rectangular or irregular shaped areas of an image Dropper: Selects colors or replaces one color with another