this is a pointless thing i'm writing in javascript which i've called doodler. it's basically a rubbish drawing program/app/thing. (well it will be, it's not even that good yet) it's an exercise in programming rather than an exercise in producing a good drawing program. (if i wanted to do that i wouldn't be using javascript would i?) at the moment you can only change the colours, ignore the brush sizes, they're not implemented yet. if i don't get bored of the whole thing it may eventually feature different tools, and even the ability to save your work (in cookies!), albeit only in a method which can viewed using a specially written viewer.
due to the way it works it may take as long a few seconds or more to initiate. (on a 1.2ghz amd athlon t'bird running win xp and ie6 it takes ~12 seconds. amusingly with the same system and mozilla 1.1 it takes only ~3 seconds. i looked into another method, but the result requires a file of over 400k to be downloaded so for dial up modems at least this current method is quicker)
WARNING:
this has only been tested on windows using internet explorer 6 and mozilla 1.1. it will not work with versions of netscape below 6 or opera (might investigate opera if i can be bothered).
depending on how good your system is there is a small possibility this may crash your browser. if your browser isn't responding after about a minute it's prolly dead so you'll need to kill it. it you're using windows nt/2k/xp (memory fails me re 95/98/me) hit ctrl-alt-del and use the task manager, if you're on a mac force quit it with apple-alt-esc, if you're using a unix varient you prolly don't need me to tell you such things.
-=CLICK HERE=-
BLAH WAH BLAH
despite the fact that mozilla initates this thing 4 times faster than ie, this is looking like it may be an ie only thing. why? well if you can have different pen sizes then you want to be able to see what area of the canvas the current pen size is going to affect right? so you have to show this some how. two methods: 1) the neat method. use css to specify a cusomised cursor for the <div>s which make up the paper. if i create a different cursor for each pen size then use css/dhtml to alter it when the pen size changes then bingo, great solution. BUT - only ie accepts the css declaration "cursor:url('filename.cur')", because it ain't part of the css standard. 2) the messy method. have a div which represents the pen. this can easily be made to follow the mouse around, and it's size altered with dhtml, although the default cursor will still be present. BUT - it only works right in ie. i can right something which makes a div whiz around the screen chasing the cursor which works great in ie and mozilla, but in this instance in mozilla the div only moves to the position of the cursor when it stops moving. why? well as far as i can tell the problem is there sheer number of elements that are present in the document - over 2500. i don't think mozilla can actually reference the div fast enough. if i take out the paper, and just leave the pen sizes and pallete, then everything's ok. add the paper in and it does a go slow. which is a bit of a downer