SketchPad is a VectaSketch drawing program.
Download vsketc14.zip
VectaSketch is not to be confused with Vecta3d tm and or Shockwave/Flash tm. It can
do some of the things they do but VectSketch was not meant to compete with them.
Why use VectaSketch? It's inexpensive and may do all you need, plus it's only 33K in size making for less
WAIT TIME for the user. The VectaSketch scripts are very small and editable with a text editor, and
VectaSketch is way easier than coding effects in JAVA, no compiling. The same "vsketch.class"
is used over and over so a new Java class doesn't have to be transmitted over the phone line for every
effect your browser just grabs it out of it's cache. With just 2 or 3K of VectaSketch script you can do
what a animated GIF would take tens of thousands of bytes to do. VectaSketch can load GIFs and JPGs and
grab pieces of them, move them around stretch and shrink them. VectaSketch has random commands for
making things look different every time. It can even branch randomly on mouseovers or clicks, it's
a pretty cool tool for webmasters. Although you only see one screen at a time in VectSketch it actually has 6 screens.
You can use these extra screens for smoothing animations or storing images for animation. It also allows you to define
as many utility screens and clips of them as you like. You can do short cartoons with VectSketch or Web page effects
or really flashy eye grabbing banners. Since VectaSektch was based on the original
"Instant Graphics" (description)
program from 1985 it is designed for very low bandwidth, back then modems weren't 56K (57334) baud
they were 2.4k (2400) baud (24 times slower!!!), even at that rate I could pull up fancy menus and screens
in 10 to 20 seconds!
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