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Text File | 1996-01-12 | 9KB | 190 lines

PhotoGIFv1.1.4 General Documentation

Contents

1:     Known Bugs
2:     Revision History



Known bugs

None. Nada. Not a single one. Please tell us if you find one that needs to
be stepped on. We'll sqish it flatter than.... (Damn, where'e a metaphore
when you need it?)



Revision history

1/12/95 PhotoGIFv1.1.4
Implimented image stats to show GIF data size of saved files and made the
progress bars a darn sight faster.

11/20/95 PhotoGIFv1.1.3
Corrected the mysterious scrambled dialog that plauged a handfull of users and
caused an out and out conflict with WorldScript II and Toner Tuner extentions.

10/23/95 PhotoGIFv1.1.2
Put in the shareware dialogs for the general release. Additional error checking
added to writing routines to make them as robust as the reading routines.
Changed a few compiler settings to prevent string constants from showing up as
random text in the dialog under odd memory conditions. Fixed that damn typo ;)

10/20/21 PhotoGIFv1.1Pr1 (registered users only)
This update adds significantly more (to the point of overkill) error handling
to PhotoGIF's file reading routines. If an error is encountered by PhotoGIF it
will display an alert indicating the location of the error before returning.
(hopefully with grace)

This update also makes minor changes to the preferences routine to ensure that
the preferences file is closed each time PhotoGIF opens it in the course of
execution.

Also, minor changes have been made to the user interface code to ensure that
all global variables used in screen drawing are initialized to zero before they
are set by the drawing functions.

10/19/95 v1.1P (registered users only)
First, and most prominent is the departure from the Photoshop 2.5.1 file
format module plug-in interface to the Photoshop 3.0 interface PhotoGIFv1.1P
requires Photoshop 3.0 or higher. Note, that we are still planning to continue
support for Photoshop 2.5.1 with a 2.5.1 specific version to come soon.

The second most substantial enhancement is a tremendous speed
improvement over previous versions of PhotoGIF, including the ability to
choose which progress bars you want to see if any. The progress bar
routines (both Photoshop╒s and our own) cause a great deal of overhead,
which when it really comes down to it, just isn╒t absolutely necessary.

New features and improvements are:
1: Use of a preferences file to retain user╒s preferred default settings
    a: default control settings for the save-as options dialog
        1: GIF version
        2: Interlacing
        3: Transparency method
        4: Default remap color for the alpha method
        5: Default palette sorting for the color method
    b: dialog independent settings (power options)
        a: User control over creating an alpha on open
        c: User control of all progress bars (reading, analysis & writing.
2: When toggling between control settings they are no longer reset to
   default values - they are reset to the last value
3: Current remap color is now set with RGB slider controls instead of
   numerical entries.
4: The palette can be views sorted by popularity, RGB values or in the
   original order of colors (unused colors in the original palette order
   are masked and not available for selection).
5: Option clicking on a color in the palette will zoom the color to the
   full size of the palette rect and show the RGB value of the color that
   was option clicked and a button to set it to the current color.
   (clicking anywhere in the palette besides the set button at that point
   will unzoom the color)
6: The current color value is displayed in RGB and Hexadecimal values now.
7: The image height and width are displayed.
8: The bit-depth and number of used colors are displayed.
9: The progress bars are of our own making now and not the standard
   Photoshop progress bar. They properly display the GIF version when
   reading and writing and, also, provide appropriate messages when
   analyzing the document before presenting the options dialog.

Changes in behavior:
1: If the alpha channel that PhotoGIF creates when opening a GIF file is
   deleted the transparency method is now set to color for subsequent saves
   instead of none. Also, if create alpha is turned off in the power options
   settings transparent GIF files that are opened will be saved using the
   color method - they will still be transparent.

2: There is no longer a selection for the alpha channel to use as the
   transparency mask. PhotoGIF will always use the first alpha in the
   working image if the alpha method is selected in the options dialog. If
   more than one alpha is present in the working image PhotoGIF will not be
   an available option in the list of file formats available.


NOTE: The 'Display image stats' feature is not implemented at this point
although the check box for it appears in the power options settings.

8/28/95 v1.0b8
Fixed bug that could possibly cause the least used color in a gray scale image
remap to black. Fixed a bug that could cause PhotoGIF to crash the system if
less than 183 bytes of RAM was available when its code was called for the first
time. - Neither of these two bugs were ever reported by anyone. Added a PiPl
resource to control loading order in Photoshop 3.x. PhotoGIF is now the default
method for opening GIF files in Photoshop 3.x. Wrote much more detailed and
complete documentation. Implemented serialization scheme so we will be sending
registration numbers instead of disks from now on. Please see the "Cost &
Registering Instructions" document for complete details on this.

NOTE: This isn't a bug but it's worthy of being mentioned in the release history.
The PhotoGIF homepage has moved to http://www.aris.com/boxtop/PhotoGIF and we have
an FTP server that works with Netscape now. The home page is new and there is an
online PhotoGIF manual now.

Also, now you can pay your registration fees with Cash, Check, Visa, Mastercard,
American Express, First Virtual, or Invoice. We are now using Kagi Shareware for
payment processing. Please make sure to read the "Cost & Registering Instructions"
document for complete details.

8/16/95 v1.0b7c (only distributed to registered users)
Added interlaced support for GIF87a files. Added control over the color that
PhotoGIF remaps the transparent area to if the alpha channel method is used.
Changed save options dialog to make in more compact and add new controls.

8/2/95 v1.0b5
Fixed bug introduced in version 1.0b4 which caused non-transparent interlaced
images to fail to load in Mosaic and Netscape, although they read correctly in
other applications. This turned out to be caused by a compiler error introduced when a
compiler optimization feature was enabled in the final compile, and not a problem
with the code itself. The compiler error caused an if/else statement to evaluate
incorrectly which resulted in incorrect data being written into the graphics control
extension in the GIF header information.

8/5/95 v1.0b6
Fixed bug which caused the least common color in images with exactly 256 used
colors to be remapped incorrectly to the first color in the palette in some cases.
Reported possible bugs with using "Save a Copy As" in Photoshop 3.x could not be
duplicated. "Save a Copy As" seems to work as it should but if anyone else has
had a problem using this command please let us know.

7/31/95 v1.0b4
Added support for saving bit-mapped mode images. Changed non-standard radio button
behavior in transparency controls to standard radio button behavior. Fixed bug in
'saving' images without 'saving as' first, which caused black to be set to
transparent in some instances. Saving should work correctly in all cases now -
except possibly using the "Save a Copy As" menu option in Photoshop 3.0. There has
been a report of a possible bug in v1.0b3 with "Save a Copy As" today that we have
not had the opportunity to test for in v1.0b4 yet.

7/26/95 v1.0b3
Added support for saving gray-scale mode images. Fixed incompatibility with
DeBabelizer caused by the 'sort palette' bit in the GIF header information.
Fixed problems with Graphic Converter and GIFConverter displaying error messages
when they read the file correctly.

7/22/95 v1.0b2
Temporary patch to disable user's ability to save gray-scale mode and
bit-mapped mode images with PhotoGIF, while a complete fix is made
for the problems occurring when images in these modes are saved with
PhotoGIF.

7/18/95 v1.0b1
Corrected problem in PiMI resource field, which caused Photoshop 3x to
disable the PhotoGIF plug-in in the 'save as' dialog box if an alpha
channel was present in the file to be saved.

Note that Adobe 3x will still disable the PhotoGIF plug-in in the
'save as' dialog box if the image to be saved has more than two
channels in it.

This problem was never present with Photoshop 2.5.1 because of differences
in the way that 2.5.1 and 3.x interpret the data in the plugin's PiMI
resource. Photoshop 2.5.1 will simply notify users that alpha channels
can not be saved and give the option to cancel the process if the image
being saved has more than the allowed number of 2 channels.

7/17/95
Original beta release.