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Southern Beauties 2
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Southern Beauties - Volume 2.iso
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1995-10-30
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Major revisions internally to accommodate dithering for color reduction
and JPEG compression/decompression.
Added in ver 6.2:
* Fixed a problem with LZW compressed TIF files using strips.
* Added dithering for color reduction. Makes 16 or 256 color pics look
really good. Alt V toggles dithering on/off, and there is a ░ in the
upper right corner to indicate when dithering will be used for color
reduction. Dithering is not used for weathermap animation (for speed)
and transparent color images in GIF89a files in 16 color mode because of
techincal difficulties.
* The maximum number of colors available for hi-color viewing at the
current resolution is now shown in the middle of the top line in the
menu. Alt F5/F6 are used to decrease/increase the locked hi-color mode
(only if you have a hi-color card). The modes are 0=auto, 1=256, 2=32K,
3=64K, 4=16 Million colors. Thus, even though your card will do 24 bit
(16 M colors) at 640x480, you can lock 32K colors to see how it looks at
this color resolution, or 256 colors to color reduce so you can save it
as a GIF, or any other 256 color file format (PCX, BMP, etc).
* Added Alt F3 (Settings) to show/change VPIC settings. Changed mode info
from Alt F6 to part of Alt F3 (Settings); since F3 is picture info, Alt
F3 being VPIC info is a logical extension. Alt F3 gives most settings
for VPIC, and allows you to change them using the mouse or keyboard.
Toggles are done by just clicking somewhere on the field, and things
that require keyboard entry (margins and pathes) go to edit mode when
clicked. In edit mode:
a. The Insert key toggles insert (large cursor) and overwrite (underline
cursor) edit modes.
b. The left/right cursor keys move the cursor.
c. Backspace and delete do their normal function.
d. If the first key pressed is alphanumeric, the old value is erased and
you type in the new entry.
e. Enter terminates the entry, and Esc aborts it.
For keyboard entry, Tab goes to the next field, Shift Tab goes to the
previous field, and any key (except Esc and Enter) changes toggles.
Enter or Esc, or clicking on the first (Settings) line go back to the
menu.
* Added environment variable VPICDISK to specify which disks VPIC should
access; example: set vpicdisk=abce would allow VPIC to only look at
drives a:, b:, c:, and e: with Alt F9. If environment variable absent,
VPIC checks for all drives thru DOS by trying to read the current
directory, which can slow startup if you have additional floppies.
* Added environment variable VPICSAVE to specify where VPIC should save
all files that it creates; should include drive and directory.
* Added mode lock specifier from command line in addition to /mn. The new
form is /m:aaaxbbbxccc where aaa & bbb are the horizontal & vertical
resolution, ccc is the number of colors (16, 256, 32K, 64K or 16M), and
x is the seperator (ie, /m:800x600x32K locks 800x600x32K colors). If the
mode specified doesn't exist, VPIC reverts to normal operation and
ignores the /m.
* Changed where VPIC saves files, and added checks for if the location is
writeable. The location precedense is as follows:
1. If /dt on command line, use current (this) directory if writeable.
If /dp on command line use picture directory if writeable.
2. If environment variable VPICSAVE exists, use location if writeable.
3. Use picture directory if writeable.
4. Use the current directory if writeable.
5. Use C:\
In general, if a drive is not writeable, VPIC goes to the next lower
precedence. Thus, it will not try to write to CDs.
Added in ver 7.0:
* Added JPEG capability. Added JPEG viewing, conversion, color reduction.
J converts to JPG while viewing. Hint: If your video card supports
hi-color modes, they are faster than color reducing to 256 colors. If
your card does 800x600x32K or 64K colors, use one of these modes with
'reduce to screen size (Alt G)' to view 1024x768 JPGs.
* Increased files in menu to 10,000 and no limit on tagged files. Tagging
is from cursor on.
* Added a memory manager which uses Extended, Expanded, or Disk for
virtual memory. Now you can view slide shows which snap on the screen
of all all picture sizes. At least 2M of expanded memory, with EMM386 or
the equivalent, speeds VPIC up tremendously, especially for quality
color reduction of 24 bit JPGs. If you're running Windows, you can run
VPIC's memory manager.
* /i minimizes the palette by eliminating redundant colors in palette so
multiple images can add some more colors. Alt I toggles this switch from
the menu.
* /q (for Quality) optimizes the palette for color reduction to 256
colors. Normally VPIC uses a standard palette, and maps each hi-color
pixel to the closest palette color (with dithering) to maximize speed.
With the Q switch set, VPIC first goes thru the picture to make a
histogram of the actual colors used, and then divides this into the best
256 color palette. Then it goes thru the picture again and maps the
actual pixel colors to the best palette color (with dithering). This
takes more time, but gives a better quality picture. VPIC always uses
/q for viewing hi-color pictures in 16 color modes, since there is no
standard 16 color palette which looks good for all pictures. Alt Q
toggles this switch from the menu.
* Added /snap to snap files onto screen instead of painting while
decoding.
* Added for marked files in menu:
1. ENTER/Alt_ENTER or Right/Left Arrows show next/previous picture.
2. ESC or Alt Q quits back to menu.
3. Spacebar tags current picture for further action back in menu.
4. When back in menu, Alt U untags the pictures you just viewed, and
tags any pictures for which you pressed Spacebar while viewing. You
may then View (ENTER), Copy (Alt C), Move (Alt M), or Delete (Alt X)
these files.
* Added /t command line switch to tag all files and show 1st. ENTER or
RightArrow shows next, and Alt ENTER or LeftArrow shows previous. ESC or
Alt Q quits to DOS. Spacebar does not tag files for further action while
viewing in this mode.
* Added /single command line switch to do a slideshow (using vpic /@name)
where:
1. ENTER/Alt_ENTER or Right/Left Arrows show next/previous picture.
2. ESC or Alt Q quits to DOS.
NEW STUFF NOT IN THE MANUAL
* Holding the / arrow keys makes the slides go forward/backward.
* With /t (tag & show) option, or tagged files in the menu, the / keys
goto the next/previous picture. They also abort the present decode and
start the next, so you can quickly skip over pictures you don't want to
see.
* Show filename defaults to off. Turn on with /z or Alt Z (in menu).