BorayLetter File Types and Extensions

.bl - Boray Letter

A letter. This is in fact a lha archive containing the letter data and all external files used.

.blc - Boray Letter (graphics) Copy

A graphics brush. This is a special graphics format. Use the BLC program to convert IFF brushes to .blc! You can load and save .blc files from the "brush" menu in BL make mode. Only 2,4,8,16 and 32 colors are supported. If BLC is installed correctly (in C:), you can load IFF pictures directly from the Brush menu in BL!

.col - Color File

Contains a color palette (and some additional info about screenmode etc.). This file is generated by the BLC program (no color info is contained in .blc files). You can load and save .col files from the "color" menu in make mode, or from "Load & Read" in the main menu.

.blam - Boray Letter AniM file list

This is a plain text file containing the paths of all brushes (.blc) used in an animation. You can save and load .blam files from the "brush" menu. You can also write one in an ordinary text editor. Just be sure to write the whole path to the files.

.bld - Boray Letter Data

This file contains the actual letter data. Inside a .bl file there is (at least) one .bld file: "LetterData.bld". You can save .bld files from the main menu using "Save Letter Data Only".

THIS IS FOR ADVANCED USE ONLY!

Be careful and save only to the directory that the requester displays. If you save outside of this directory, then any external files used may not be found when this .bld file is loaded. (If you use full path filenames, they will be found.) Note: This is the old BL5.x file format.

When making advanced letters with a lot of letters calling each other, (like the "amazing frog adventure"), then this file format is preferred when making the letter. And then when it's ready, save a ".bl" and all the used .bld files will be included. But for this to work, you have to work in a certain way:

Start from shell! First make a dir for your letter... 

        makedir work:advanced_letter1
Then cd (change directory) to this dir: 
        cd work:advanced_Letter1
Then start BL: 
        bl
Now, when you work, you must follow these rules:

  • Only save in this workdir!
  • Only save .bld files (Letter Data Only). If you save a .bl, then the internal workdir is changed.
  • Only load .bld files. If you load .bl then the workdir is changed.

    When your work is ready, and you want to share this advanced letter with others, first load the start .bld file and then save a .bl. Then all used files will be included in the .bl file.

    Note: It IS possible to change the internal "workdir" back after saving or loading a .bl. Just load a .bld file and the workdir will be changed to the dir where this .bld file is! So if you have an advanced letter ready (or half ready), you don't have to cd to your workdir and start BL from shell. Just load one of the .bld's and the dir is changed automatically.

    What happens when you load or save a .bl is that the workdir is changed to a temporary dir in RAM: and the "LetterData.bld" file is loaded from this directory. So if you like, you can load the LetterData.bld from this temporary directory in RAM: from BL's main menu . Then you can continue to make an advanced letter with more .bld files in this dir. Or you can just extract the files from a .bl file (lha) into a dir on your hard disk and then load the LetterData.bld in this directory.

    Just remember that the workdir is changed every time you load and save a .bl to a temporary dir in RAM: and when you load a .bld file, the dir is changed to the directory containing this file. If you remember this, you will have no problems.

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