v# 🖌️ Quick Paint (QuickBasic 4.5)

A retro paint program written in QuickBasic 4.5, designed for DOS and compatible VGA environments.
Developed by Jonathan Gallegos (JG) — a modern revival of classic DOS creativity tools.

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✨ Overview

Quick Paint is a complete paint environment for DOS, using SCREEN 12 (640×480, 16 colors).
It features a windowed interface, menus, dialogs, and a full suite of drawing tools inspired by MS Paint — but entirely coded in QuickBasic 4.5.

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📦 Downloads

• Quick Paint for FreeDOS — get the latest ZIP from the Releases page.
• Checksums (SHA-256) will be attached as assets per release.

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🧱 Project Structure

QUICKPT4.BAS   → Main program: UI core, menu system, tool dispatcher, and initialization.
TOOLS.BAS      → Drawing tools (Pencil, Brush, AirBrush, Line, Rectangle, Ellipse, RoundedBox, Polygon, Curve, Fill, Dropper, Eraser, Text).
GUI.BAS        → Windowing, menu bar, buttons, dialogs, mouse helpers, and QFont text routines.
MENUITEM.BAS   → Menu actions (New, Open, Save, Undo, Invert Colors, Clear Image, Exit).
OD1B.BAS       → File Open Dialog (INT 21h FindFirst/FindNext) with file/folder icons.

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🧰 Features

🎨 Drawing Tools

Each tool is mouse-driven, with left/right buttons for Foreground/Background colors:

• Pencil
• Brush
• AirBrush
• Line
• Rectangle
• Ellipse
• RoundedBox
• Polygon
• Curve (Bezier routine)
• Fill
• Dropper
• Eraser
• Text

🪟 Interface

• Custom windowed GUI with title bar, menu bar, and status bar.
• Menus: File, Edit, View, Image, Colors, Help.
• File Dialog: DOS-style Open/Save using directory traversal and icons.
• Undo: Single-level undo with temp files (.RED, .GRN, .BLU, .INT).

💾 Image I/O

• Open / Save / Save As: reads and writes .BMP with VGA-compatible palettes.
• Clear Image, Invert Colors, and Undo supported.

🔤 QFont Rendering

• Uses external .FNT raster font files (lucidabl.fnt, verdana.fnt, etc.).
• Font rendering via QFont (by Josh Heaton).
• Supports basic inline formatting toggles.

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📁 Package Contents

The official release archive QPAINT040.ZIP includes:

QPAINT040.ZIP
 ├─ QPAINT.COM / QPAINT.EXE
 ├─ README.TXT
 ├─ LICENSE.TXT
 ├─ FILE_ID.DIZ
 ├─ CREDITS.TXT
 ├─ DOCS/
 │   └─ README.md
 ├─ FONTS/     ← includes default QFont `.FNT` files
 └─ BMP/       ← demo BMP files for testing Open/Save

🚀 Getting Started (DOSBox + QuickBasic 4.5)

Requirements

• MS-DOS or FreeDOS (works perfectly under DOSBox)
• QuickBasic 4.5
• Mouse driver (INT 33h)
• QB.BI and QB.QLB from your QB installation

Steps

1. Place all .BAS files in a single folder. The official package already includes the FONTS/ folder with .FNT fonts and BMP/ demos.
2. Adjust the font path in TOOLS.BAS → SUB Tool.Text:

   ActualFont$ = "C:\YOUR\FONTS\PATH\lucidabl.fnt"
   ' or:
   ActualFont$ = TheFontPath$ + "lucidabl.fnt"

3. Launch QuickBasic:

   QB.EXE /L QB.QLB QUICKPT4.BAS
   

4. Add the other .BAS files: TOOLS.BAS, GUI.BAS, MENUITEM.BAS, OD1B.BAS.
5. Run with Shift+F5 or build with Alt+F, M.

Command-line build

BC.EXE QUICKPT4.BAS+TOOLS.BAS+GUI.BAS+MENUITEM.BAS+OD1B.BAS /O;
LINK.EXE QUICKPT4+TOOLS+GUI+MENUITEM+OD1B,,NUL, QB.LIB;

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🖱️ How to Use

Action	Description
Left Click	Draw with Foreground color
Right Click	Draw with Background color
Toolbox (left)	Select drawing tool
Menu bar	Access File / Edit / Image / Color actions
Text Tool	Drag a box, type, and press Enter
Undo	Single-level (temporary buffer)
Invert Colors	Swap palette entries for artistic effects

Canvas is clipped to defined boundaries (PAX1%, PAY1%, PAX2%, PAY2%) to avoid overwriting UI.

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💾 File Format

• Saves standard BMP 8-bit headers with a 16-color VGA palette.
• Undo uses intermediate memory files (memscr.*).
• Open Dialog (OD1B) uses DOS interrupts for directory reading.

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⚠️ Known Limitations

• VGA SCREEN 12 only.
• Single Undo level.
• Zoom and advanced Image Settings not yet implemented.
• Some paths are hardcoded (font directory, temp files).
• Text tool requires manual font configuration.

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🤝 Credits

Component	Author
QFont Engine	Josh Heaton
SaveBMP Routine	Aaron Zabudsky
Bezier Curve	Jim Emptage
Project Lead	Jonathan Gallegos (JG)
Contact	linuxloader815@gmail.com

Original source headers: “By JG — Quick Paint Project.”

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🧭 Roadmap

• Multi-level Undo / Redo
• Zoom and Pan
• PNG Export
• Palette Editor
• Brush Patterns / Dithering
• Clipboard Copy & Paste
• Modern QB64 port

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📜 License

Released under the MIT License.
See LICENSE for details.

MIT License © 2025 Jonathan Gallegos
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software...

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🏁 Quick Demo Checklist

1. New File → Draw shapes and text
2. Save As → test.bmp
3. Undo, then Invert Colors
4. Save again
5. Reopen to verify persistence

🎨 Enjoy painting on FreeDOS!
If you’d like to see Quick Paint included officially, consider opening a FreeDOS Program Proposal referencing this repository.

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