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IMAGE GALLERY 1.0
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If you like this program, please:
Send us $40.00, the normal user fee for this software.
Registered users of this software are entitled to phone support,
notification of upgrades and good karma. When you register Image
Gallery we'll send you a copy of the latest version. Please tell
us the version number of your copy of Image Gallery when you
register. Our address can be found at the end of this file.
Complete details of registration can be found later in this
document in the section on registration.
NOTE: German users of Image Gallery should contact our German
distributor, PD-SERVICE-LAGE, Postfach 1743, D-4937 Lage, West
Germany. A German language version of the package is available
from them as well.
NOTE: Australian users of Image Gallery should contact our
Australian distributor, Budgetware, P.O. Box 496 Newtown NSW
2042. Phone (02) 519-4233 FAX (02) 516-4236.
NOTE: We now have a bulletin board system. See the section on
contacting Alchemy Mindworks for more information.
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CONTENTS
███████████████████
Introduction
Hardware and software
Starting Image Gallery
File formats
Macpaint
GEM/IMG
PC Paintbrush PCX
CompuServe GIF
TIFF
WordPerfect Graphics WPG
Deluxe Paint/Amiga IFF/LBM
PC Paint Pictor PIC
Truevision Targa
Windows 3 BMP
Microsoft Paint MSP
Encapsulated PostScript EPS
Halo CUT
Image Gallery's menus
Desk menu
About...
Save Screen
File menu
Open
Close
New
Set files
Add
Add many
Sort
Print
Volume name
Quit
Edit
Details
Find
Statistics
Kill
Merge
Extract
Configuration
Runtime editing
A word about mice
A word about resources
If you encounter a problem
Contacting Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
Shareware registration
Bundling Image Gallery
Source code and books
Shareware distributors
Revision history
Other Alchemy Mindworks Shareware
Legal dogma
INTRODUCTION
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Image Gallery is a tool to help you keep track of a large
collection of bitmapped image files. It's a visual database which
will catalog files, allowing you to add comments and key words to
each entry. Having created an Image Gallery database... a
gallery... you will be able to search it either visually...
looking through the images by eye... or by key words. Here are
examples of search keys that you might use to search a large
gallery.
- Find all the files with the keyword "girl".
- Find all the files with the keyword "girl" or the keyword
"frog".
- Find all the files with the keyword "girl" and the keyword
"frog".
Each entry in a gallery also contains a small thumbnail of the
original image. These thumbnails can be stored in either
landscape or portrait orientation, and as monochrome or grey
scale images. Note that these thumbnail images are intended to be
representations of the original images... they are, of necessity,
quite a bit lower in resolution.
In essence, Image Gallery is an electronic photograph album. It
allows you to attach notes to all your pictures, and to find any
picture or group of pictures you want quickly... something you
can rarely do with a real photograph album. Invariably, everyone
will want to look at the embarrassing ones, slowing your
progress.
In addition to searching through a gallery, you can print
entries which correspond to a keyword search. You can also
extract entries by keyword to another gallery and merge galleries
together. A gallery can contain up to 65534 entries... although
at about five kilobytes per entry, such a gallery would be fairly
enormous.
Image Gallery uses a conventional graphical user interface with
pull down menus and dialogs.
You should have received the following files in the Image Gallery
package:
- GAL.EXE - The Image Gallery program itself.
- GAL.RES - The Image Gallery resource file.
- GAL.DOC - Yes, you're reading it now.
- GALINSTL.EXE - The Image Gallery configuration utility.
- RMOVER.EXE - A general resource manager.
- EXAMPLE.GAL - An example gallery
- ORDER.FRM - A registration order form
The best way to really understand Image Gallery is to boot it up
and play with it.
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE
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Image Gallery requires a VGA card to operate. It will not work if
your system has a different type of display card, such as a CGA,
EGA or Hercules card. It requires a Microsoft compatible mouse.
It will not operate if a suitable mouse driver has not been
loaded. Finally, it requires at least 384 kilobytes of memory in
your system... a full 640 kilobytes is preferable.
Plan to have a fair bit of hard drive space available too...
gallery files can get pretty big.
Image Gallery will run under DOS 2.0 or better, although we
recommend that you use at least version 3.3. It should behave
itself under Windows as a non-Windows application.
Image Gallery does not require any extended or expanded memory,
and wouldn't know what to do with it if it found any.
STARTING IMAGE GALLERY
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Before you use Image Gallery, you should configure it, as is
discussed later in this document. Having said this, if you want
to have a peek at it first, you can just run it with its defaults
for the moment.
You can start Image Gallery from the DOS prompt by typing GAL.
The screen will turn grey, a unicorn will appear in the middle of
it... no foolin'... and Image Gallery will be all set to go. You
can open a file by selecting the Open item from the File menu.
If you'd like to start by looking at the example gallery file
that's included with this package, you can start Image Gallery
with a gallery file from the DOS prompt like this:
GAL EXAMPLE.GAL
This will load up Image Gallery and open the EXAMPLE.GAL gallery
file. A white box will appear in the centre of the screen... no
unicorn this time, sadly... and twenty little pictures will
appear in it.
At the bottom of the screen you'll find four buttons. From right
to left, these are:
- Move to the first page
- Move to the previous page
- Move to the next page
- Move to the last page
The example gallery has two pages in it. Click on one of the
two rightmost buttons to see the second page.
You can also change pages by clicking in the white box between
the two sets of buttons, changing the number therein to that of
the page you want to go to and then clicking in this box again.
This isn't all that useful in a two page gallery, but it will be
if you create larger ones.
If you click within one of the pictures in a gallery, it will be
selected. If you subsequently select the Details function from
the Edit menu... or just hit Alt D... a window will appear which
lets you read and edit the details about the selected picture.
More will be said about details and how they're used later in
this document.
You can get back to DOS by selecting the Quit item from the File
menu or by hitting Alt Q.
IMAGE GALLERY'S MENUS
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The easiest way to become familiar with the functions of Image
Gallery is arguably to have a quick look at what its menu items
do.
If you've read this far, you're to be commended. Most people
don't bother with instructions for software that has menus.
DESK MENU
────────────────
About...
--------------
The About function will tell you the version of Image Gallery
you're using, tell you how much free conventional memory is
available and let you see our unicorn, should you have missed it
on the way in.
Save Screen
-----------------
The Save Screen function will capture the current screen to an
image file. The image file type is set using GALINSTL, as
discussed later in this document. It defaults to PCX. Unless
you're writing a review of Image Gallery or otherwise documenting
it, you probably won't need this feature. Note that you can
capture the screen from anywhere in the program by hitting Alt 1.
FILE MENU
────────────────
Open
----------
The Open function will open a gallery file. Seems fairly obvious,
this. Hitting Alt O also accesses this function. The Open
function only works if there is no gallery open at the moment.
Close
-----------
The Close function will close the current gallery file and allow
you to open a different one. Hitting Alt Z will also close the
current gallery.
New
---------
The New function will create a new gallery file. It will prompt
you to select the type of file you want to create. There are four
types of gallery files... portrait and landscape orientation in
either two or sixteen colours, the latter being shades of grey.
Hitting Alt N will also create a New gallery if there isn't one
open at the present.
The two colour options are good for galleries which will contain
primarily monochrome images. The sixteen colour grey scale modes
are good for galleries which will contain primarily colour
images... they'll be displayed as grey scale images in Image
Gallery. You can, of course, have colour source images in two
colour galleryies and two colour images in sixteen colour
galleries.
Set files
---------------
The Set Files function will allow you to temporarily exclude
specific file types from the Add and Add many directory searches.
Click on the ones you don't want to include to disable them.
Add
---------
The Add function will allow you to add a file to the current
gallery. Hitting Alt A will also add a file.
Add many
--------------
The Add many function will allow you to add multiple files to the
current gallery with one command. When the file selector box
comes up, click on the names you want to add... an arrow will
appear beside each one you've selected. Clicking on a previously
selected name will unselect it. Click on Ok when you're done.
Sort
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The Sort function will allow you to sort your current gallery
into a new gallery. You can sort by name, by file size, by the
date the files in the gallery were created and by the date when
you last modified their entries in the current gallery. Your
sorted entries will be written to a new gallery file. Alt S will
also call up the Sort dialog.
Note that the Sort function creates a temporary index file while
it's sorting. By default, this will be written to your current
drive and directory. However, you can direct it to somewhere else
by including the following line in your environment, for example:
SET TEMP=H:\
This will cause the temporary file to be written to the root
directory of drive H:. You can, of course, specify any path you
like. If drive H: is a RAM drive, this will speed up the sorting
of large galleries considerably.
You cannot sort a gallery to itself.
Print
-----------
The Print function will print all or part of your current gallery
to your choice of laser printers. Each entry will be printed as a
thumbnail image, the entry details and your description of the
image's contents. Grey scale images are halftoned... the
PostScript halftoning is quite a bit better than the LaserJet
halftones at the moment.
Hitting Alt P will also print.
The Print function will select entries to print using the same
search keys as the Find function, discussed below. If you don't
enter any search keys, it will print the entire gallery.
In answer to the obvious question, Image Gallery does not support
dot matrix printers at the moment. If enough people who register
it express an interest in dot matrix support, we'll have a look
at adding it.
Volume name
-----------------
The Volume name function will add or change the volume names on a
series of floppy disks so they represent sequential numbers. As
Image Gallery maintains a record of the volume names of the disks
it find files on, you can use these to keep track of image files
stored on floppies. The volume name you use to start with should
consist of some characters with digits at the end, such as
VOLUME_001. Each time you click on Ok, the volume name will be
written to the floppy drive you've selected and the digits will
be incremented.
Quit
----------
The Quit function will get you back to DOS. Alt Q also works.
EDIT
───────────
Details
-------------
The Details function will allow you to see the dimensions, colour
depth, creation date, volume and other particulars of an entry in
your current gallery. It always works on the currently selected
entry, and will not work if there is no entry selected. The
Details box will also allow you to enter and edit comments and
key words for each entry in a gallery. The comments should be any
description you want to attach to the entry, such as what the
picture is of, who took it or drew it, where or how it was
created and so on. The key words should be single words which
you'll be able to use to search through your gallery.
For example, if you entered the word "girl" into the key word
field of every entry in a gallery which represents a picture of a
girl, you'd be able to subsequently find all the girls in the
gallery by searching for this key word. More will be said about
the search facilities in the section on the Find function.
Each of the comments and the key word fields can hold up to 256
characters. To enter text into one, click in it. A text entry
cursor will appear. The following keys will move the cursor
around.
- Home - Moves the cursor to the start of the field
- End - moves the cursor to the end of the field
- Cursor Left - moves the cursor left one character
- Cursor Right - moves the cursor right one character
- Backspace - deletes the character to the left of the cursor.
- Del - deletes the character to the right of the cursor
- Esc - deletes the entire field
Note that the keywords are case insensitive... it doesn't matter
if you enter them in upper or lower case.
Hitting Alt D will also get you to the Details box. Note that you
must have an entry selected to use the Details function.
Find
----------
The Find function will locate entries based on the key words you
enter into its text editing box. This box works just like the key
words box in the Details function.
When you enter more than one key word into the Find text entry
field, the current gallery will be search based on the status of
the Or and And switches in the Find box. If the Or option is
enabled, all the entries in gallery with any one or more keywords
that match the ones you've entered in the Find box will be found.
With the And option enabled, only those entries which have all
the keywords you've entered into the text entry field will be
found.
When an entry is found that matches your search key, it will be
displayed in a Details box. Note that you cannot edit the
comments or key words when an entry is displayed by the Find
function.
Hitting Alt F will also get you to the Find box.
Statistics
----------------
The Statistics function will tell you how your current gallery is
structured. It will also allow you to edit the comments for the
current gallery. Note that this has nothing to do with the entry
comments, as discussed in the Details section. The gallery
comments are printed at the bottom of each page when you use the
Print function. They're also useful as a place to keep notes
about what a particular gallery contains in general. The gallery
comments can be up to 56 characters long.
Kill
----------
The Kill function will delete the currently selected entry from
the current gallery. It will be replaced by the last entry in the
gallery, and the gallery will be shortened by one entry. In fact,
the file itself will not get any smaller... the last entry will
be freed up for use the next time you add an image to the
gallery.
If you have the prompt before kill option enabled, you will be
asked if you want to kill an entry before Image Gallery does away
with it. Once an entry is dead, it's unrecoverable.
Hitting Alt K will also kill the current entry. Note that you
must have an entry selected for the Kill function to work.
Merge
-----------
The Merge function will combine the contents of another gallery
with your current gallery. Both galleries must be of the same
type. For example, if your current gallery is a grey scale,
landscape orientation gallery, any gallery you merge into it must
be as well.
Extract
-------------
The Extract function will extract entries from your current
gallery based on a search key and write them out to another
gallery. If you select a destination gallery which exists and
is of the same type as your current gallery, the extracted
entries will be added to it. If you give the Extract function a
new name, it will create a gallery for you. The Extract function
finds entries just like the Search function does.
FILE FORMATS
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Image Gallery works exclusively with bitmapped image files. This
is as opposed to vector or line art files. Vector files include
DXF, GEM, CDR, Harvard Graphics, Lotus PIC and CGM files, among
others. Image Gallery does not support vector files, nor is it
likely to in the immediate future.
In most cases, the specifications for image files are pretty
standardized, and Image Gallery will reliably read files in its
supported formats without difficulty. There are a few exceptions
to this, as will be discussed in detail throughout this section.
MACPAINT FILES
─────────────────────
These can come in two flavours. The most common one is straight
ported MacPaint files, that is, files having the "MacBinary"
header. The other is "headerless" files, these being the ones
used with PFS:First Publisher. Image Gallery reads both types.
All MacPaint files have the dimensions 576 by 720 pixels.
GEM/IMG FILES
────────────────────
There are actually quite a few variations on IMG files... they
handle monochrome and grey level images. The primary application
for IMG files is as the bitmapped image file format of Ventura
Publisher. Image Gallery supports files with up to 256 levels of
grey.
PCX FILES
────────────────
These are the files used to hold images for Z-Soft's PC
Paintbrush package. These can range from monochrome to 24-bit
images. All the various formats are supported by Image Gallery.
GIF FILES
────────────────
These can range from monochrome to 256-colour images in any size
you can find 'em. Image Gallery supports both the 87a and 89a versions
of the GIF standard. It will read the first image of GIF files
having multiple images.
TIFF FILES
─────────────────
Image Gallery supports monochrome, colour and grey scale TIFF files.
Note that due to the wide variations among the programs which
produce TIFF files, Image Gallery would be lying rather badly if it
claimed to be able to read all TIFF files. Specifically, it does
not read Huffman or LZW compressed TIFF files as yet, as we
haven't devised code to do this in a reasonable amount of space.
Colour TIFF files are another area in which Image Gallery only handles
files from some sources.
If you have Graphic Workshop, you'll find its F4 details function
helpful in identifying problems which might crop up in reading
TIFF files with Image Gallery.
WPG FILES
────────────────
These are the native import graphic files for WordPerfect. These
files can contain both bitmaps and line art, or vector graphics.
Image Gallery can only deal with the bitmapped parts of them. If you
attempt to print a WPG file containing both bitmapped and vector
elements, the vector elements will be discarded.
WPG files which refuse to read with Image Gallery are usually those
which contain only vector elements and no bitmaps.
Image Gallery will deal with WPG files having one, four or eight bits
of colour information, that is, monochrome files, sixteen-colour
files and 256-colour files.
The WPG specification allows for 256-colour files. As of this
writing, WordPerfect itself would not read them.
MSP FILES
────────────────
These are the image files used by the paint program which came
with Microsoft Windows version 2. Don't confuse these with PCX
files... some versions of Windows 2 came with a Windows
implementation of PC Paintbrush from ZSoft as well. The two
programs... and the two file formats... are not compatible. MSP
files are monochrome only.
IFF/LBM FILES
────────────────────
These started out on the Amiga. The IFF file standard is
extremely flexible, and allows all sorts of things besides images
to be stored in IFF files. IFF files are found on the PC having
been ported from Amiga systems. They are also created on the PC
by several applications such as Electronic Arts' Deluxe Paint
package and Digital Vision's Computer Eyes video scanner board.
In the first case they are given the extension LBM. In the second
they are given the extension CE. The basic file structure is the
same, however.
Note that Image Gallery only reads "pure" IFF files, and will not
handle the countless variations on the format which have appeared
on the Amiga. Specifically, it does not read hold and modify, or
HAM, files.
BMP FILES
────────────────
These are the files which are used as "wallpaper" under Windows
3. They can be created using the version of Paint supplied with
Windows.
PIC FILES
────────────────
These should not be confused with Lotus 1-2-3 PIC drawing files.
PIC files are created by PC Paint (not PC Paintbrush) and are
used by Grasp, among other things. They come in many flavours.
Image Gallery has been tested with the most common ones. In theory it
should support them all, but that's only a theory.
PIC files are structured exceedingly weirdly, especially in their
sixteen-colour manifestations. For this reason, it's necessary
for Image Gallery to create a temporary scratch file while it's
packing or unpacking a sixteen-colour PIC file. You will note
that upon beginning to read or write one, the bar graph will
appear to pause for a few seconds before it starts to move.
By default, the temporary file will be written to the current
directory. However, you can direct it to somewhere else by
including the following line in your environment, for example:
SET TEMP=H:\
This will cause the temporary file to be written to the root
directory of drive H:. You can, of course, specify any path you
like. If drive H: is a RAM drive, this will speed up the packing
and unpacking of sixteen-colour PIC files considerably.
TGA FILES
────────────────
The Truevision Targa format is used by several high end paint
programs and things like ray tracing packages. It can handle
images with up to sixteen million unique colours.
There are a lot of variations on TGA files, and Image Gallery
does not handle them all as yet. Specifically, it only handles
uncompressed and run length compressed files. It ignores all
alpha channel information.
EPS FILES
────────────────
The EPS format... encapsulated PostScript... isn't really a
bitmapped format at all. However, it may contain bitmapped data.
PostScript cannot be interpreted directly by most PC
applications. As such, an EPS file which is to be imported into
an application such as Ventura Publisher or PageMaker also
includes a "preview". A preview is a small black and white TIFF
image which will show you a rough idea of what the EPS file will
look like.
If you import an EPS file into Ventura, for example, the screen
image you see will be the preview but the data printed to your
printer will be the PostScript data itself.
If you attempt to read an EPS file with Image Gallery, you will
see the preview image, not the actual PostScript data.
Note also that if you attempt to read an EPS file without a
preview, Image Gallery will tell you that it has encountered a
file read error. The EPS file itself may be fine... Image
Gallery, however, can only read previews.
HALO CUT FILES
─────────────────────
The CUT format is exceedingly awkward, and Image Gallery makes a
few assumptions about how CUT files will be used in order to make
it workable. To begin with, CUT files don't know how many colours
they have in them. They rely on a second file, called a PAL file,
to define their colours.
Image Gallery looks for a PAL file to decide whether a CUT file
has two bits or eight bits of colour. If it doesn't find a PAL
file with the same name as your CUT file, it assumes that the CUT
file in question only has two bits of colour. Otherwise, it
assumes that there are 256 colours in the file.
If you're using CUT files and have any suggestions to improve
Image Gallery's handling of them, or if you encounter problems
with its CUT files, please get in touch with us. The CUT format,
while occasionally requested, turned out to be very weird.
A WORD ABOUT MICE
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Image Gallery calls the driver of a Microsoft or Microsoft-
compatible mouse. The driver itself is what makes the arrow
cursor appear.
Most Microsoft-compatible mice, such as the Logitech mice, have
complete implementations of the driver and will not prove to be a
problem with Image Gallery. Some very economical mice do not
implement the graphic cursor. In these cases, Image Gallery will
appear to function but the cursor will not be visible.
If this happens to you, you will probably find that getting a
copy of the real Microsoft MOUSE.COM mouse driver and replacing
the one for your mouse with it will solve the problem, and will
make anything else you use your mouse with work a bit better as
well. There are a very few clone mice which are sufficiently
peculiar as to be unrecognizable by the Microsoft mouse driver.
These mice will not work with Image Gallery.
You can usually find the latest version of the Microsoft mouse
driver on bulletin boards.
A WORD ABOUT RESOURCES
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The GAL.RES file is a list of resources. Resources are unrelated
bits of data and code which Image Gallery might need. These could
have been kept as separate files, but keeping them all in GAL.RES
makes them easier to manage, requires less space on your hard
drive and allows Image Gallery to get at them more rapidly.
Among the things in GAL.RES are all the code to handle specific
file formats and numerous small code and data objects which
Image Gallery uses.
You should have no cause to meddle with the resources in GAL.RES.
You should, however, keep RMOVER on hand, as it may be called for
if you attempt to apply a bug fix or patch supplied by Alchemy
Mindworks to your copy of Image Gallery.
A detailed description of RMOVER can be found in the
documentation for Graphic Workshop, should you be exceedingly
curious about these things. The complete source code for working
with resources... and that of RMOVER itself... can be found in
the book PC Graphical User Interfaces, as discussed in the
section on books later in this document.
IF YOU ENCOUNTER A PROBLEM
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While we have tested Image Gallery thoroughly, it's possible that
you may encounter a situation we hadn't anticipated, and perhaps
a file which will not read. If this happens, we would be
interested in knowing about it so we can deal with it in the next
release of Image Gallery. Here's how to report a problem to us.
Problems should be reported using a 5 1/4 inch disk. We can't
accept 3 1/2 inch microfloppies for problem reports. Alternately,
upload the relevant files to our bulletin board. The bulletin
board is discussed in the section on contacting Alchemy
Mindworks.
Copy your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files onto a floppy.
Include a screen dump of the screen of GALINSTL as it was set up
when the problem occurred. Alternately, write down the settings.
Copy the image files or the gallery which resulted in the problem
and provide a description of what you did and what happened.
If we can't recreate it, we probably won't be able to fix it.
Before you contact us with a problem in Image Gallery, please
make sure you've read this document thoroughly and that you
understand how the software should work. Many problem reports
which receive aren't problems with the software at all.
CONFIGURATION
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Making permanent changes to the modifiable features of Image
Gallery involves using the installer, GALINSTL.EXE. The
configuration of Image Gallery is handled by a separate program
in order to keep GAL.EXE as small as possible, leaving lots of
memory for putting graphics in.
The GALINSTL program actually modifies GAL.EXE. In order for it
to work, GAL.EXE and GALINSTL.EXE must be in the same directory
and must be so named. Both programs must be of the same version.
Be aware that as it directly modifies GAL.EXE, there is the
outside chance that a bug in the installer might crop up and kill
GAL.EXE beyond repair. Make sure you have a virgin copy of
GAL.EXE somewhere before you use the installer.
Place GALINSTL.EXE and GAL.EXE in the same directory and type
GALINSTL. A screen will appear which will let you edit the
runtime settings. You can use the up and down arrow keys
and the Home and End keys to move through the items of this
screen. Hitting Enter when the cursor is over an item which toggles
will change its state. Hitting Enter when the cursor is over an
editable field will allow you to type in a new data.
Note that you can run GALINSTL and select this screen as often as
you want to adjust the settings of its various parameters.
When you're done changing things, hit F10 to save your changes or
F9 to abandon them.
Printer port
------------------
This item selects which parallel printer port to print images to.
Note that you can only select LP1, LPT2 or LPT3.
Default printer type
--------------------------
This can be either PostScript or LaserJet Plus. If you have a
printer which can be set up to emulate both protocols, note that
all other things being equal, it takes Image Gallery longer to
print to a PostScript printer. However, PostScript printers allow
you to have true halftones, which a LaserJet will not. You must
have at least one megabyte of memory in a LaserJet for it to work
with Image Gallery. The LaserJet driver will also drive LaserJet
II and III series printers.
Page eject delay:
-----------------------
Some laser printers dislike having a lot of data blasted at them
while they're spitting out a page. This field sets a delay in
seconds during which Image Gallery will do nothing after issuing
a form feed. Set it to zero to disable the delay.
Prompt before delete
--------------------------
If this item is set to YES, Image Gallery will prompt you to
confirm that you want to delete an entry before going ahead and
snuffing it.
Beep when done
--------------------
If this item is set to YES, Image Gallery will beep when it has
completed a long procedure, like searching or printing.
Gallery extension
-----------------------
This is the extension used for gallery files. The default is GAL.
Drive map:
----------------
This should be a string with a capital letter representing each
of the valid drives in your system, starting with A.
Image Gallery path
------------------------
This should be a complete path to the subdirectory and drive
where GAL.EXE and GAL.RES live. For example:
C:\GRAPHICS\
When this item is set correctly, you will be able to run Image Gallery
from anywhere on your hard drive if its location is in your DOS
path.
CONTACTING ALCHEMY MINDWORKS INC.
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We hope you'll contact us to register Image Gallery... see the
section about registering Image Gallery elsewhere in this
document.
You can contact us by mail by writing to us at:
Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
P.O. Box 500
Beeton, Ontario
L0G 1A0
Canada
We will attempt to answer questions from unregistered users who
write to us to the extent that their answers are needed for you
to fully determine whether Image Gallery will suit your
requirements.
We can also be reached through the Alchemy Mindworks bulletin
board. It's available twenty-four hours a day at (416) 729-4609.
As of this writing, the protocol was 300, 1200 or 2400 baud, or
9600 baud v.32bis, eight data bits, no parity and one stop bit.
The bulletin board always has the most recent versions of all our
shareware on it, plus bug fixes, drivers and other relevant
information. It only exists to support Alchemy Mindworks'
shareware... it does not have a general file area.
If you encounter problems with a file or a gallery, you're
welcome to upload the errant file to our bulletin board.
Actually, you can upload any picture files you like to the
board... we enjoy getting pictures.
If you have a question about Image Gallery, feel free to leave it
on the bulletin board. We try to answer all questions within
twenty-four hours. Note that you must call back to retrieve your
answer... please don't ask us to phone you or to leave the answer
on another bulletin board.
Registered users of Image Gallery will receive our voice and FAX
numbers for immediate technical support. The voice number is only
available for use from 10:00am to 5:00pm EST. If you call and get
our answering machine... it does happen... please leave us a
message or call back later. We are only able to return long
distance calls if we can call you collect. In this regard, please
note that as of this writing Canada has a very peculiar
electronic voice mail collect call system... if the phone
company's computer starts talking when you pick up the phone,
it's probably us returning your call.
We ask that in contacting us you appreciate that we are a small
company with limited resources. If you have not registered Image
Gallery we will not tell you to go to hell, but please don't ask
us for half an hour of free technical support.
REGISTRATION
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If you like this program and find it useful, you are requested to
support it by sending us $40.00. This will entitle you to
telephone support, notification of updates, a free copy of the
latest version of Image Gallery and other worthwhile things. More
to the point, though, it'll make you feel good. We've not
infested the program with excessive beg notices, crippled it or
had it verbally insult you after ten days. We trust you to
support Image Gallery if you like it.
If you want to see additional features in Image Gallery, register
your software. If we had an Arcturian mega-dollar for everyone
who has said they'd most certainly register their copy if we'd
add just one more thing to it, we could buy ourselves a universe
and retire.
Oh yes, should you fail to support this program and continue to
use it, a leather winged demon of the night will tear itself,
shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the nether
world, hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for blood on
its slavering fangs and search the very threads of time for the
throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to know
that.
Our address is:
Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
P.O. Box 500
Beeton, Ontario
L0G 1A0
Canada
If you have previously registered Image Gallery, you can update
your copy to the current revision for $20.
If you have a FAX number, please include it in your registration.
We're hoping to be able to handle notification of future updates
of Image Gallery by FAX where we can. This is both considerably
faster and a lot cheaper than mail.
CANADIAN USERS
─────────────────────
The registration fee for Image Gallery is $40.00 (CDN) plus seven
percent GST, or $42.80. If you live in Ontario, please add eight
percent PST to this, for a total of $45.80. We sincerely regret
collecting this tax on behalf of several levels of government
which will only squander it. If you sincerely regret having to
pay it, we urge you to express your regret by voting in the next
federal and provincial elections.
AMERICAN USERS
─────────────────────
The registration fee for Image Gallery is $40.00 (US). The
exchange on US funds pretty well covers the extra postage to the
States.
OTHER USERS
──────────────────
The registration fee for Image Gallery is $40.00 (US). If you pay
us by cheque, please make sure that it's a cheque drawn on an
international bank, and that it will be negotiable in Canada. If
there's no bank clearance number along the bottom of the cheque,
it will not clear. Please don't send us Eurocheques... they are
not accepted outside Europe.
PAYING BY CREDIT CARD
────────────────────────────
We can accept payment by Visa only. We need your Visa card number
and expiry date and the name which appears on your card. We also
need written authorization to debit your Visa account for the
specific amount you're sending us.
We cannot accept MasterCard, American Express or other credit
cards.
SOURCE CODE AVAILABILITY AND BOOKS
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It isn't.
After considerable meditation and several bad experiences, we
have decided not to release the source code for Image Gallery. We
do license parts of it for specific applications... if you want
more information about using some of the functions of Image
Gallery in your software, please contact us.
If you're interested in writing programs which use graphics,
you'll find everything you need to know in "Bitmapped Graphics",
by Steven William Rimmer. It's published by TAB Books, (TAB book
3558). It features code to pack and unpack MacPaint, IMG, PCX,
GIF and TIFF files, as well as chapters on screen drivers,
dithering and printing.
An additional book on this subject, "Supercharged Bitmapped
Graphics", (TAB Book 4102), will be available in mid-1992. It
discusses the GIF 89a, WordPerfect, BMP, IFF/LBM, TGA, MSP, 24-
bit PCX and colour TIFF file formats, as well as such subjects as
colour dithering and colour printing.
If you'd like to write applications which use menus, icons,
windows and all the other paraphernalia of a graphical user
interface, you might find the book "PC Graphical User Interfaces"
handy. It's published by TAB Books (TAB Book 3875). It includes
the C source for a complete graphical user interface library,
related code to manage fonts and bitmaps and a tiny paint
program. The library is a monochrome version of the one Image
Gallery is based in.
If your local bookstore doesn't have these books, they can be
mail or phone ordered from Christies of Cookstown, P.O. Box 392,
Cookstown, Ontario L0L 1L0, Canada. Their phone number is (705)
458-1562. It has a FAX machine on it after hours. As of this
writing, they're open seven days a week.
BUNDLING IMAGE GALLERY
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If you'd like to include Image Gallery with your product, please
get in touch with us. We have several ways to help you do this so
your users get the most out of Image Gallery and we don't have to
set our leather winged demon of the night on 'em.
SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTORS
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We receive numerous requests for copies of our software from
shareware distributors and we don't have the facilities to send
out disks in response to all of them.
We can provide you with a disk containing copies of our larger
shareware applications for $10.00 (US). Alternately, you can
download the current versions of our applications from
CompuServe in the GRAPHSUPPORT forum or from our bulletin board
at (416) 729-4609. You can also order them from one of the larger
distributors we use, such as Public Brand Software, 3750 Kentucky
Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46241. They always have the current
versions of our programs.
If you obtain current copies of our shareware, you have our
permission to distribute it under the following terms.
- That nothing be added to, deleted from or changed in the
archive files which contain our packages. This includes adding
ZIP file comments to them.
- That our shareware is not included in or bundled with other
hardware or software without our written permission.
- That no printed documentation regarding our shareware is
included with the package without our written permission.
- That hard copy explaining that our packages are shareware is
included with the disks.
You do have our permission to copy the ZIP files from our quad
density disk to multiple lower density disks for distribution.
REVISION HISTORY
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Version 1.0b - Fixed a bug that caused the Add Many function to
abort if it encountered a bad file. Now it just skips 'em. Fixed
numerous file format bugs... see the Graphic Workshop revision
history for the complete list. Added a trap to prevent people
from sorting galleries to themselves.
OTHER ALCHEMY MINDWORKS SHAREWARE
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The following are the other shareware packages we have available
as of this writing. Our newsletter, available for the asking,
will list all the current ones.
GRAPHIC WORKSHOP
───────────────────────
This is the last word in image programs. It converts, prints,
views, dithers, transforms, flips, rotates, scales, crops, colour
adjusts, scans, quantizes and wreaks special effects on MacPaint,
GEM/Ventura IMG, PCX, GIF, TIFF, WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM, BMP, Halo
CUT, Targa and EPS files. It drives CGA, Hercules, EGA, VGA and
pretty well all super VGA cards. It will drive PostScript and
LaserJet Plus laser printers, colour PostScript printers, colour
inkjets and most dot matrix printers. It features batch
processing, extended and expanded memory support, an intuitive
user interface and easy to follow menus. It allows you to convert
colour image files into superb black and white clip art for
desktop publishing, among other things.
DESKTOP PAINT 256
────────────────────────
Desktop Paint 256 is a powerful super-VGA paint program. Desktop
Paint 256 will let you create and edit pictures stored as PCX,
GIF, TIFF and IFF/LBM files. It features a rich selection of
drawing and image manipulation tools, XMS and EMS support to work
on large images and a user friendly interface. Looking very much
like monochrome Desktop Paint in colour, it's a powerful
application which will be equally useful for picture collectors,
artists and desktop publishing users... it makes a quick and easy
to use editor for grey scale TIFF files, too. It supports
Paradise (and compatibles), Headland Video 7, Tseng Labs 4000
series cards, Trident cards which use 8900 series chips and ATI
VGA Wonder cards. Note that you must have one of these super-VGA
cards to use Desktop Paint 256... it does not run in the standard
320 by 200 pixel "standard" VGA mode. Desktop Paint 256 requires
a Microsoft-compatible mouse.
DESKTOP PAINT
─────────────────────
Desktop Paint is a powerful monochrome paint package fine tuned
for use with desktop publishing applications. It will read and
write MacPaint, Ventura IMG, PCX, WordPerfect WPG and TIFF image
files. It has EMS and XMS support to handle images of virtually
any size, an intuitive user interface and a wide selection of
image creation and manipulation tools. Desktop Paint can utilize
fonts from many other sources, including Ventura Publisher,
Macintosh FONT and NFNT resources and Windows FNT files. Desktop
Paint 256 requires a Microsoft-compatible mouse.
GRAFCAT RELEASE THREE
────────────────────────────
GrafCat prints a visual catalog of your image files, with
fifteen or sixteen pictures to a page, depending on the image
orientation you choose. It supports all the file types that
Graphic Workshop handles, and will drive any PostScript or
LaserJet Plus compatible laser printer, including LaserJet II and
LaserJet III series printers. This is a complete re-write of
GrafCat... it now supports a file finder screen like the one in
Graphic Workshop and numerous print options.
CINEMA
─────────────
Cinema display a continuous "slide show" of image files. You can
set up the images to be displayed using a simple script language.
Cinema works with most super VGA cards, using the same drivers as
Graphic Workshop, and with CGA, EGA and Hercules cards. It works
with any mixture of GIF, PCX, MacPaint, TIFF, WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM,
EPS and IMG files.
GIFINFO
──────────────
GifInfo creates catalog files from your GIF collection, allowing
you to store fifty or more miniature full colour representations
of GIF files on a single quad floppy.
STORYTELLER
──────────────────
Storyteller is a hypertext program with a mouse driven graphical
user interface which will allow you to create reports, manuals
and interactive fiction, among other things, which has a tree
structure. Each page of a Storyteller document can lead to
related sub-pages, which can in turn have their own sub-sub
pages, and so on. It looks slick and is exceedingly user
friendly. Storyteller requires a Microsoft-compatible mouse.
If you can't obtain them from the usual sources of shareware,
they're available from us for $40.00 each preregisterd. They're
also all available for downloading from our bulletin board at
(416) 729-4609.
LEGAL DOGMA
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The author assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss
caused by the use of these programs, however it comes down. If
you can think of a way a picture program can cause you damage
or loss you've a sneakier mind than mine.
All the registered trademarks used herein are registered to
whoever it is that owns them. This notification is given in lieu
of any specific list of trademarks and their owners, which would
not be as inclusive and would probably take a lot longer to type.
Image Gallery is a trademark of Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
That's it...