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GIF-REED Version 3.07 The Image Viewer and Converter Program By Software Matters Inc. (C)opyright 1992, 6352 N. Guilford Ave. Indpls, IN 46220 1-800-25-FLASH Table Of Contents Introduction 1 Credits 2 Shareware Concept 3 Reasons To Register Today 3 Reasons To Get PRO GIF-REED Today 5 Purpose 6 GIF REED Program Features 6 Getting Started 14 Other Ways Of Loading GIF-REED 16 Loading Image Onto Screen Then Exit 17 Using The Script Language 17 System Requirements 18 Files Needed/Used/Created By GIF-REED 20 Files Needed By GIF-REED 20 Files Created & Used By GIF-REED 20 Temporary Files Created By GIF-REED 20 Files Created By YOU 21 TEMP Areas & Picture Buffer 22 What is a Color Map (Palette) 23 Keyboard Mouse Simulator 24 Path Lists (What good are they?) 25 Main File Menu Operation 28 Main File List Screen Layout 35 File List Menu Area 35 Status Area 35 Misc Info Area 35 Bottom Line Area 35 Mouse Operation At File List 37 Viewing Options 38 Color/Brightness Controls 38 Picture Movement 38 General Program Operation 40 File Operations 40 Image Control 41 Pixel Editor Screen Layout 41 Color Map Functions 42 Edit Screen Functions 42 Viewing Window Movement 43 Color Adjusting Function 43 Mouse Operation While Viewing 47 TRIM/CROP 47 ENLARGE 1 47 ENLARGE 2 47 ERASE BOX 48 BOX/LINE 48 Special Program Considerations 49 Using GIF-REED Under Windows 3.0 50 Error Messages 52 Script Language Overview 55 Appendix A 55 Commands That Control Script Logic 56 Commands That Set & Display Variables & Messages 57 Command To Point To A Path 57 Commands To Do File Operations 57 Commands To Load Pictures 57 Commands To Control Slide Show Effects 57 Commands Used While Image Is Displayed 57 Commands To Control Printing 58 Commands To Control Mouse Operations 58 Commands To Control Debugging 58 General Purpose Commands 58 Commands That Change The NEXT Images Resolution 59 Complete Script Language Description 59 Commands That Control Script Logic 59 Commands That Set & Display Variables & Messages 61 System variables List 62 Command To Point To A Path 63 Commands To Do File Operations 64 Commands To Load Pictures 65 Commands To Control Slide Show Effects 65 Commands Used While Image Is Displayed 66 Commands To Control Printing 68 Commands To Control Mouse Operations 68 Commands To Control Debugging 69 General Purpose Commands 69 Commands That Change The NEXT Images Resolution 69 Trouble Shooting / Questions & Problems 72 Appendix B 72 GIF-REED 1 _______________________________________________________________________________ Introduction Even though GIF-REED is easy to use and needs practically NO instructions at all, the following documentation should be helpful in clearing up any operations in the program that you are unsure of. This documentation also has some helpful hints on how to best use the program. The best way to fully explain the use of GIF-REED is to start by telling why GIF-REED was developed. GIF-REED was developed because all of the other GIF viewers had certain limitations that rendered them incapable of performing all of the task that I wanted to achieve. In other words I actually used 3 different programs on a regular basis. Out of all of the viewers only one of them loaded the pictures FAST. So naturally I used this one to display the pictures and do slide shows. Another viewer had poor display features but had superior printing capability. So naturally when I needed to print a picture I used that program. The last program I used on a frequent basis was one that actually shrunk the picture to fit the resolution of your video card. This was nice since (at that time) my video card had a maximum resolution of 640x400. That feature allowed me to view a 1024x768 picture with my 640x400 VGA card. This program although had bugs in it that caused some of the GIF89a extensions to crash the system. I liked the program so much, I called to register it. They sent me the registered version and wallah, it still crashed. I called them back and found that the programmer doesn't spend much time on the program. So now I had a program that was unstable. Keeping various viewers around was a pain and learning each programs keystrokes was even more of an inconvenience. So I set out to write a viewer that encompassed all of the best features from the various viewers that I had seen. I of course added some new features too. This way you only need to have ONE viewer and you can discard all you your other viewers. I would like to take this time here to thank a few people for the development of this program. Both in the user interface area and in just plain debugging of this program. _______________________________________________________________________________ 2 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Credits Davie Reed: Did a great job programming all of the cool ideas presented by the picture viewing group. Carl Andrews: Offered great interface ideas, and simple debugging. He is a world class magician whose magic has been converted to software though his software publishing company called MoJo Software. His magic software can be purchased by calling (317) 257-8749 Mike Lawler: Offered advanced debugging, and attention to detail. Wendy Forrest: Offered user interface ideas as well as Documentation editing. Mike Bianco: Offered user beta testing and some pretty cool ideas as well. Such as adding comments to GIF files via the GIF89a specification! _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 3 _______________________________________________________________________________ Shareware Concept ======================================= | | | S H A R E W A R E - C O N C E P T | | | ======================================= GIF-REED is copyrighted software. However, you are encouraged to copy and share the NON-REGISTERED version with anybody with the following in mind: The NON-REGISTERED version of GIF-REED may be copied freely and given to others, as long as NO charge or compensation of ANY sort is required. If must be copied in its entirety with NO alterations to the programs or DOC files. It may be distributed by modem, as long as all files in the package are ZIPPED(or some equivalent) into one file. GIF-REED is NOT "FREE" software. If you use it past 30 days, you are required to pay for it by registering it. Of course you can register it earlier. ********** Reasons To Register Today ********** When you received this copy of GIF-REED, no monies were paid to us. In order for us to keep working on this product to make it better with more features, we request that you register the program by paying for it. The registration charge is very nominal $25 (The cost of ONE evenings entertainment!). Please print the ORDER.FRM file to register. Of course the REGISTERED version has some enhancements. Below is a list of the extra features you receive with the REGISTERED version of GIF-REED: * You can use XMS memory for the Picture Buffer area. This makes GIF-REED faster for loading and displaying images. If you are currently using EMS memory for the Picture Buffer, XMS is about the SAME speed. But XMS is MUCH faster than using DISK space as the Picture Buffer. * You can save the following configuration items to a setup file for setting defaults: Display while loading or after loading EMS, XMS or DISK space for the Picture Buffer RESTORE Picture status SlideShow delay time SlideShow looping status SlideShow Fade In/Out status _______________________________________________________________________________ 4 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ SlideShow Venetian Blind status Resolution Locking Status GIF Comments Display Status Video Hardware Setup Video resolutions available You can also save your directory paths. If you save your directory paths, the next time GIF-REED is loaded, the saved paths will be loaded again. This saves you time from having to type in all of the directory paths that you want loaded. After saving your video configuration, you will NOT need the environment variable GIFREED if you were previously using it. * You can MIRROR image the pictures * You can FLIP the image from top to bottom(upside down) * You can ROTATE the pictures in a clockwise direction in 90 degree increments. * You can use the DOS/BOSS key to shell out to a REAL DOS prompt at any time or if the BOSS comes in. * You can print to an HP laser jet printer. * You can create your own personalized slide shows through our ROBUST slide show script language. You can have multiple slide show setups for multiple slide show presentations that are setup before giving the presentation. The NON-REGISTERED version of GIF-REED only supports a limited command set in the script language! You get more script language commands. The extra commands you get in addition to the NON-REGISTERED version are: 1. PRINTER-ON 2. PRINTER-OFF 3. PRINTER-FF 4. IF-EXIST 5. SLIDE-TYPE-BLIND 6. SLIDE-TYPE-NORMAL 7. SLIDE-TYPE-FADE 8. MIRROR 9. FLIP 10. ROTATE 11. CENTER * You can have up to 512 files in the files list to choose from instead of 256 files. * The time consuming registration screens are removed. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 5 _______________________________________________________________________________ ********** Reasons To Get PRO GIF-REED Today ********** We also offer a PRO version of GIF-REED. This version has all of the features of the REGISTERED version plus a bunch more. The order fee is small $49.95 (The cost of ONE evenings deluxe entertainment!). Please print the ORDER.FRM file to ORDER. Below is a list of the extra features you receive with the PRO version of GIF-REED: * You can actually edit your images. You can change each dot in the image to whatever color you like. You can even change the look of a particular color. In other words you could make blue in the image appear RED. * You get the FULL script language command set. The extra commands you get in addition to the REGISTERED version are: 1. SYSTEM 2. GOSUB 3. ECHO 4. FILE-COPY 5. FILE-MOVE 6. FILE-RENAME 7. FILE-DELETE 8. SORT-COLORS 9. EGA-MODE 10. VGA-MODE 11. EGA-COLOR-ADJUST 12. KEEP-SCREEN-SIZE 13. WRITE 14. PRINT 15. ADJUST-FOR-WINDOWS * You can make boxes of any color & thickness. * You can fill in boxes with any color * You can draw lines that are vertical or horizontal * You can load up to 2048 files in the file list to choose from. * You can load & edit images up to 8192 dots wide instead of 2048 dots wide. * If your VGA card supports more than 1024 dots wide PRO GIF- REED can take advantage of up to 2048 dots wide. * You can have up to 20 input directory paths Any question or comments please call me at 1-800-25-FLASH and ask for Davie Lee Reed. **************************************************************** _______________________________________________________________________________ 6 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Purpose GIF-REED is designed to be a picture viewer for GIF, BMP, PIC and PCX files. In addition to being a viewer, GIF-REED can also create GIF, BMP, PIC and PCX files. In other words you can manipulate a picture and then save it out as a BMP, GIF, PIC or PCX file. This is great for trimming(cropping) stuff from a picture that you don't want in the picture anymore. Of course slide shows and picture printing are main aspects of the program too. Mouse users should find that the mouse support offered in GIF-REED is excellent. You can use the mouse to select files from the files menu. You can also use the mouse to trim parts of the picture away while you are viewing the picture. Now that you understand why GIF-REED was written and what the main purpose of the program is, you should continue reading to fully understand how to use all of the capabilities of the program. But before we show you HOW to use the program, let us LIST all of the features found in GIF-REED. Along with each feature, the action to invoke the feature is listed. GIF REED Program Features * Pictures of up to 1024 x 768 in up to 256 colors can be displayed and manipulated. PRO GIF-REED supports higher resolutions if your VGA card can support it. * Images up to 2048 dots wide are supported. PRO GIF-REED supports up to 8192 dots wide. * VGA and EGA are both supported. * Loads & Displays Pictures (GIF/BMP/PCX/PIC) as fast or FASTER than other viewers. * Support Windows BMP files of 2,16 and 256 color! Compressed BMP files are NOT supported. In fact pictures that are NOT simple drawings are usually BIGGER when stored as compressed BMP files. * Supports PC-Paint/Pictor Paint PIC files of 2,16, 256 colors! You can also write out 2,16 & 256 color PIC files. * Supports ZSoft PCX files of 2,16, 256 and 24BIT color! You can also write out 2,16 & 256 color PCX files. * You can add text to your images! (Press ALT-T while viewing) _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 7 _______________________________________________________________________________ * You can add BOXES and LINES to your images! (Press B after marking a box) * You can mark a BOX and fill it in with any color you select. (Press DEL after marking a box) * You can change the order of your color map while in the pixel editing mode.. (Press E while viewing) * You can change a color in the entire image to another color in the color map. (Press C while pixel editing) * You can sort the image's color-map by frequency of use in the image. (Press S while viewing) * You can make the images Windows compatible by getting RID of the TOP 16 colors(of the 256) in the color map. Then save the image back out! (Press A while viewing) * You can EDIT your images with the pixel editor! You can change the DOT colors and the color map easily! (Press E while viewing) * GIF89a aware and supports ALL of the GIF89a specifications features that the 89a standard offers in a GIF file including comments, multiple images & transparencies. * You can add comments to you GIF files. (See W command while viewing image) * Only requires 384K of memory to run (and will view any size picture!). * Can load & display a picture and exit with the picture still on the screen. (See loading options.) * Operations that CHANGE the picture such as Enlarging / Shrinking will automatically save a copy of the original to a TEMP area. This is so that you may restore the picture back if the operation didn't achieve what you wanted. Unlimited levels of UNDO are supported. Unless of course you run out of TEMP space. _______________________________________________________________________________ 8 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ * Press R while viewing a picture and the last operation on the picture to CHANGE the picture will be UN-DONE. You can press R as many times as you wish to keep UN- DOING what you've done! If you've done MANY operations on the picture and you just want to get back to the ORIGINAL picture, just press ALT-R (While viewing of course) * You can select NOT to have this UNDO feature to speed up operations on the picture. (Press F4 at the main menu.) * You can select either EMS memory, XMS Memory, or DISK space for the TEMP picture buffer area. Since disk space isn't terribly fast you should use the ENVIRONMENT variable TEMP to re-direct the TEMP disk space to the fastest drive you have, preferably a RAM DISK. See the section on TEMP Areas and the Picture Buffer. (Press F3 at the main menu.) * You can choose between viewing the picture as it loads or waiting until the picture is read in before displaying it. (Press F2 at the main menu.) * The resolution of the screen is automatically determined. * You can override this AUTO mode so that the resolution you pick is LOCKED on. This way no matter what size picture is loaded, the resolution that you picked will be used to display the picture. (Press F5-F6 and F7 at the main menu/or while viewing.) * You can TAG (mark) files for viewing for a slide show effect. (Press space BAR to tag/untag files at the main menu.) * You can have a slide show that fades out the current picture before showing the next picture. (Press F10 at the main menu.) * You can have a slide show that has a venetian Blinds effect for loading the pictures! (Press F10 at the main menu.) * You can specify a time for each slide to stay on the screen. (Press F10 to change the time.) _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 9 _______________________________________________________________________________ * You can choose between an endless slide show that keeps looping back to the start when finished, or to just run through the slides once. (Pressing F10 switches between endless & one pass.) * While in slide show mode, you may press the SPACE bar and you will be stopped at that picture. You can then move it around or whatever you wish. When you want to start the slide show again, press the PgDn key. * You can delete tagged files. (Press ALT-D to delete tagged files.) * You can rename tagged files. (Press ALT-R to rename tagged files.) * You can MOVE tagged files. (Press ALT-M to MOVE tagged files.) * You can COPY tagged files. (Press ALT-C to COPY tagged files.) * You can have the directory sorted by many different choices. (Press ALT-S to change the sort mode.) * You can change what path(s) are to be looked at for loading pictures. (Press ALT-F to change the File paths.) * You can search ALL drives for GIF, BMP, PIC and PCX files. (Press ALT-G at the main menu.) * You can select if you want GIF comments to be displayed if the GIF file has comments built into it. (Press ALT-F10 to change this option.) * You can delete a file as you are viewing it. (Press ALT-D while in view mode.) * You can change the RED/GREEN/BLUE intensities. (Press CTRL-F1 through CTRL-F6 while viewing.) * You can change the CONTRAST/BRIGHTNESS of pictures too. (Press CTRL-F8 through CTRL-F10 while viewing.) * You can RESTORE the colors after you have played with the above color modification functions. (Press ALT-F10 while viewing.) _______________________________________________________________________________ 10 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ * You can force the picture to a GRAY scale picture. (Press G while viewing.) * You can invert(reverse) the colors so that a negative effect is displayed. (Press I while viewing.) * Palette Animate. This changes the colors of the screen in a sequential method that makes the picture look like it's alive! (Press ALT-F9 while viewing) * You can flip the picture sideways for a Mirror image effect. (Press M while viewing.) * You can flip the picture upside down for an upside down effect. (Press F while viewing.) * You can rotate the picture clockwise for a sideways view. (Press > while viewing.) * You can center the picture or place it on the upper left. (Press C or O while viewing.) * You can enlarge/shrink the picture to fit the screen. (Press TAB or SHIFT-TAB while viewing.) * You can change the resolution while viewing with the +- keys. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 11 _______________________________________________________________________________ * You can use the arrow keys or the mouse to move the picture around on your screen. * Pressing PgDn/PgUp or Left/Right mouse buttons, while viewing takes you to the next picture. * You can use the mouse to pick files from the files list. * You can mark a BOX on the screen with the mouse to be BLOWN up in one of two different methods. The BOX can also be used to trim the picture. * You can print what is on your screen to a HP laser printer. (Press P while viewing.) * You can WRITE out the screen to a Windows .GIF, .BMP, .PIC or PCX file. (Press W while viewing.) * DOS/BOSS key. Pressing ALT-F2 at ANY (almost) time will cause the screen to clear and a shell copy of DOS to come up. After typing EXIT to get out of the DOS Shell, your system will appear to be locked up. Now Press ALT- F2 again and your screen will re-appear (even graphics screens). (Press ALT-F2 at any time, even while viewing!) * Savable configuration options. Such as current settings and currently selected paths! (Press ALT-U at main menu) * ALT-U Allows you to save your video configuration. This is so that the program will load quicker! Beware that if you do then if you change VIDEO HARDWARE, you must RE-DO your video setup! You CAN'T OVERRIDE your default VIDEO configuration by using the "GIFREED=xxxxx" environment variable. If your video setup is incorrect, then simply select option 6 from the ALT-U menu. If you can't get this far into the program(because) of the incorrect video selection, the just delete the configuration file called GIFV.CFG! * Automatic Video configuration. * Personal Scoring System (or category system!). You can assign a number from 1-9 to a file. Then you can sort by SCORES. Then you can also do a slide show of a particular SCORE! This feature also allows you to give _______________________________________________________________________________ 12 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ each a GIF file a COMMENT description and a list of keywords that associate with the file! You can also do a slide show for pictures that MATCH certain keywords. You can also do a slide show by CATEGORY. (Press ALT-Y at main menu to assign SCORE (category)) _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 13 _______________________________________________________________________________ * F8 now gives you New Report features. You can generate reports by 1. FILENAME resolution, size, score, keywords 2. FILENAME resolution, category, Comments * Mouse control while at file selection menu. Left button loads picture to screen. Right button tags(selects) file. Middle button is like pressing ESCAPE,(even while viewing a picture!) * Deletion of any resolution mode. (Press F9 at main menu) _______________________________________________________________________________ 14 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Getting Started If the GIF-REED package you have is in a ZIPped format, you must first UN-ZIP it in its own directory. For example: C>CD\ C>MD GIFV C>PKUNZIP GIFV32 C:\GIFV This procedure will create a subdirectory on drive C: called GIFV. It then unzips the GIFVxx.ZIP file into the newly created directory. Once the files are unzipped, you may then use the program. NOTE: It doesn't matter what name you give the subdirectory to hold the GIF-REED files. To run GIF-REED, type the following: C>GIFV This runs the GIF-REED program. If you are running it for the first time, you may need to configure it for your particular video card. If GIF-REED can't automatically detect what kind of video card you have, you are given the opportunity to tell GIF- REED to try to figure out what kind of video card you have. If your video card is supported by GIF-REED, you will be shown a list of one or more video cards to select from. Make sure that the one you pick has the most amount of Resolutions supported and has the (FAST) indicator by it. The (FAST) indicator, tells you that this setting will be very fast(hardware direct). Otherwise if you select one that has the (SLOW) indicator, this means that GIF-REED will use BIOS functions to perform all screen writing. This method is VERY SLOW! If by chance you are NOT shown a list to pick from, then you are truly out of luck. At this point you have three options to choose from. (One), you can call us at 1-800-25-FLASH and ask us to support your video card. (Two), you can try loading a VESA driver that is designed for your video card. In fact a VESA driver may have come on a disk with your board. (Three), continue to run GIF-REED, but with only 320x200 VGA support. NOTE: If it appears that your system locks up, please call us at 1-800-25-FLASH and let us know what kind of video card you have and we will work to get GIF-REED to work for you! When you load GIF-REED, you may hear a BEEP. This beep indicates that you have NOT YET setup up your video configuration. This is just a reminder. You don't have to setup it up, but the program _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 15 _______________________________________________________________________________ loads faster if you do. Also, upon loading you will see the Software Matters INC logo! NOTE: If you want to disable the use of your VESA driver by GIF- REED you can use the following statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or at the DOS Prompt: C>SET GIFREED=NOVESA You can also force GIFREED to use a specific hardware setup by using the GIFREED environment variable. For example: C>SET GIFREED=TS4000 This will make GIF-REED think that it is operating on a system with a TS4000 VGA board. _______________________________________________________________________________ 16 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Other Ways Of Loading GIF-REED NOTE: You should read the section on Path Lists to fully understand what happens when you select a directory to display pictures from. GIF-REED can also be loaded by type the following: C>GIFV C:\GIFS\CARS C:\GIFS\BIRDS This loads GIF-REED and indicates that TWO subdirectories should be loaded at the same time (using ALL files that are supported by GIF-REED). In fact you can specify up to 20 directories on the command line. If NO directories are specified, the default directory will be loaded (using .GIF, .BMP, .PIC and .PCX files). If you were to type: C>GIFV C:\GIFS\CARS C:\GIFS\BIRDS\*.* The *.* indicates to override the default of the NORMAL image file format extensions of .GIF, .BMP, .PCX and .PIC. Every file in the directory will be looked at to see if it is a GIF, BMP, PIC or PCX file. Even if the picture has NO extension GIF-REED is smart enough to determine which files are GIF, BMP, PIC and PCX. This can be used as a SECRET(Wife, Girlfriend) mode. This way you can rename all of your GIF files to *. which indicates NO extension. Then when you load GIF-REED use the *. or *.* parameter. This will then show you all of your picture files. You can also specify *.? to indicate ALL picture formats that GIF-REED supports. For example: C>GIFV C:\IMAGES\*.? This would load all GIF, BMP, PCX and PIC files using just one file path specification. This is the BEST way to load a directory since it searches automatically for ALL image formats that GIF- REED supports. You can change what directories are displayed within the program using the ALT-F key at the file menu. If you just type the following: C>GIFV then the current directory is searched for GIF, BMP, PIC and PCX files, unless you had SAVED your directory paths by using the ALT-U function. If you had saved your paths, then those directories saved would be the ones searched upon loading GIF- _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 17 _______________________________________________________________________________ REED. This makes it easy to run GIF-REED and still have a slew of directories pre-loaded into your file list menu without having to type in the directory names each time you load the program. Loading Image Onto Screen Then Exit You can also tell GIF-REED to load a picture and exit with the picture still on the screen. For example: C>GIFV /L1:F:\DSF333.GIF This tells GIF-REED to load the file "F:\DSF333.GIF" and then display it and then EXIT. The "1" tells GIF-REED to use resolution mode "1". ALL Vga adapters use 320x200 as resolution mode 1. The file list menu shows ALL of the resolution modes you can pick from. If you hear a BEEP when using the /L option, it's probably because you picked a resolution number too high and GIF-REED is telling you it's defaulting to the highest resolution number available. Using The Script Language You can also tell GIF-REED to execute a script file by using the /P:x command. For example: C>GIFV /P:S This executes the GIFV.SLS script file. C>GIFV /P:B F:\CAT\*.GIF D:\CAT\*.BMP This executes the GIFV.SLB script file. It also passes along two parameters. If the script file is set up to operate on a user supplied directory, then the two directories that are passed can be used by the script file's "CHANGE-PATH" command. This way the script files can be very flexible. You can set up a batch file to go through many subdirectories on your hard drive without having to set up multiple script files! _______________________________________________________________________________ 18 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ System Requirements You need to have at least EGA capability. VGA capability is highly recommended since the image quality is DRASTICALLY reduced by EGA viewing modes. The NON-REGISTERED version requires a minimum of 344K of DOS RAM to run. And a maximum of 408K needed for FULL capacity. The REGISTERED version requires a minimum of 292K of DOS RAM to run. And a maximum of 356K needed for FULL capacity. The PRO GIF-REED version requires a minimum of 348K of DOS RAM to run. And a maximum of 508K needed for FULL capacity. You should (don't have to) have at least 1 meg of EMS or XMS memory for the picture buffer that's used by GIF-REED. You can also use disk space if no EMS or XMS memory is present. Disk space is MUCH MUCH MUCH slower than EMS or XMS memory. If you plan to use DISK space for the picture buffer, you might want to cache you hard drive. (See the section that describes the PICTURE BUFFER) NOTE: EMS memory support is for EMS memory that supports version 4.0 EMS specification or higher. EMS 3.2 specification is NOT supported by this program! A mouse is optional for most functions in the program, but it makes the program a lot easier to use. In fact if you want to do editing of pictures you MUST have a mouse installed. A printer is needed only is you plan on printing reports of pictures! Currently, if you want to print a picture you must have an HP compatible Laser Printer! GIF-REED has a feature that saves picture information everytime you make a change to it like TRIM/SHRINK/ENLARGE. If you have the RESTORE (See F4 function key description) option set ON/TRUE then you could possible run out of disk space if you did a lot of TRIMming. The disk space is used so that you can undo your changes. Make sure that you have set the environment variable TEMP or TMP to point to a drive that is FAST and has at least 2 MEGS of free disk space available on it. When GIF-REED exits, the temporary files created by it are deleted. This way GIF-REED won't EAT up your disk space. You should have a statement in your CONFIG.SYS file that says FILES=20 or higher. For example, a good CONFIG.SYS could look like this: BUFFERS=20 FILES=20 DOS=HIGH _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 19 _______________________________________________________________________________ DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS An example of a bad CONFIG.SYS could look like this: FILES=10 BUFFERS=40 DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS NOTE: You can use EDLIN or just about any word processor to change your CONFIG.SYS. The CONFIG.SYS file is located in C:\ in about 99% of ALL machines. _______________________________________________________________________________ 20 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Files Needed/Used/Created By GIF-REED Files Needed By GIF-REED READ.ME Read me file GIFV.EXE Program GIFV.GIF Initial screen SAMPLE.GIF Sample GIF file created by GIF-REED's Text capabilities and pixel editing features! GIFVWIN.EXE Customize GIFV.PIF for Windows GIFV.ICO Window's ICON for GIF-REED GIFV.PIF Window's PIF file for GIF-REED MONEY.DOC Shows how you can make money from GIF-REED! DESC.BBS Description file for GIF-REED for uploading the NON-REGISTERED version of GIF-REED to other BBSs. Do NOT give the REGISTERED version of GIF-REED anywhere! GIFREED.DOC Documentation ORDER.FRM Order form OFFER.DOC Special program offers from Software Matters MAKEROM.BAT Program to produce a copy of your video ROM DEBUG.TXT Used by MAKEROM.BAT GIFV.SLA-SLV Used by the script language interpreter These files are contained in the distribution set for GIF-REED. If these files are NOT ALL contained in the distribution set you received, call us at 1-800-25-FLASH to receive your full set. Files Created & Used By GIF-REED GIFV.CFG Configuration file GIFV.DIR Default directories to load GIFV.GRD Scores, categories, keywords and comments GIFV.DAT Used by GIF-REED These files are created along the way after you start using GIF- REED. They keep track of what kind of default settings you wish to use. The .GRD file is special in that it's like a database. It keeps track of all comments, scores, categories and keywords for your picture files. Temporary Files Created By GIF-REED GIFV.$$$ Used for GIF89a files GIFV.1-999 Used for the UNDO feature GIFV.TMP Used to NON-Interlace GIF file GIFV.CMT Used for displaying comments _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 21 _______________________________________________________________________________ If you see any of the above temporary files left around AFTER you have exited GIF-REED you may delete them. They are NOT needed when GIF-REED loads. Files Created By YOU GIFV.SLx Text files used for the personalized slide show. These are called script files. "x" is between "A" and "Z". This means you can have up to 26 different slide show script files. NOTE: These files MUST reside in the SAME directory as the other GIF-REED files. _______________________________________________________________________________ 22 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ TEMP Areas & Picture Buffer There are many references to TEMP area and TEMP Drive and Picture buffer. In fact on the main file menu screen you can see that F3 allows you to change the area to EMS, DISK or XMS. This selection indicates where you want the picture buffer to be stored. In other words when a picture is loaded, it isn't just loaded into the video cards memory. It's also loaded into (EMS/DISK or XMS) memory as well. This way you can scroll(PAN) around the picture and do neat things like MIRROR image and ROTATE etc... The choice of EMS/DISK/XMS should be in order of speed: 1. EMS 2. XMS 3. DISK Space If you don't have EMS or XMS memory available, go ahead and use DISK space for the picture buffer. This is the slowest of them all but what the heck at least the program will function. It is wisest to set the environment variable TEMP or TMP to point to a RAM DISK. If you don't have a RAM DISK now, set one up. See your DOS Manual on how to set one up. Make sure the RAM DISK is at least 1 or 2 Megs in size (the larger the better). This is because other things are stored there as well (such as the undo save area). Let's say that you have a RAM DISK as drive G: Just put the following statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file: SET TEMP=G:\ This tells GIF-REED to store it's DISK picture buffer into the RAM DISK (if the TEMP area was set to DISK). It also tells GIF- REED to do all of it's temporary disk accesses on the RAM DISK. Everytime you alter a picture and the RESTORE option is turned on, a copy of the picture is made onto the RAM DISK. These TEMP files also use the "TEMP" environment variable to see where to place the TEMP files. NOTE: Even though you specify EMS or XMS memory to store the picture buffer, the TEMP files created by GIF-REED will STILL go to the TEMP Drive indicated by the "TEMP" environment variable. NOTE: GIF-REED will also look at the "TMP" environment variable as well as the "TEMP". _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 23 _______________________________________________________________________________ What is a Color Map (Palette) A color map is what's used in picture files to create the image. Imagine a picture of the U.S. flag. This picture would require only 3 colors. RED, WHITE and BLUE of course. You would assign each color a number. For example: Red would be 1, White would be 2 and Blue would be 3. The file on the disk would contain a bunch of numbers in it. For example, if a picture was 10 dots wide and 5 dots tall, the sequence of numbers might be: 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 3333333333333333333 3333333333333333333 This image when loaded would look like a Red box to the left of a White box. It would also have a thick Blue line on the bottom. This picture file would also contain information as to what the 1,2 and 3 should translate into(colorwise). This extra information is called a color palette. In this manual we refer to it as a color map or color table. Most high quality pictures have 256 color entries in the color map. Some have slightly less but most are at 256. If your image uses the TOP 16 entries in the list (241-256) then it WON'T be Windows compatible. This is because Windows reuses the last 16 entries in the color map to look like other colors that the Windows system needs. This means that if a picture was viewed in Windows, the picture would have parts of the image with the WRONG colors in it. It all depends on the frequency of usage of the colors that Windows grabs away. If your picture only used color #256 only once in the picture then when Windows views it, the picture may look ok. In order to GUARANTEE Windows compatibility, the image must NOT use ANY of the top 16 colors in the color map(241 through 256). GIF-REED is setup to automatically take an image and adjust the image so that the top 16 colors are NOT need or used by the picture anymore. We take the top 16 colors and remap them to the closest color match available in the lower part of the color map(1 through 240). This way your picture stays looking good. You can do this adjustment while viewing the image by pressing A while viewing the picture. Of course you would have to save the picture back out to disk before attempting to have Windows display it. You can also do this through our script language system with the ADJUST-FOR-WINDOWS command. Again you would have to WRITE the file back out. _______________________________________________________________________________ 24 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Keyboard Mouse Simulator We have a built in MOUSE simulator if you don't have a mouse hooked into your system. You can use this FAKE mouse by using your keyboard. In order to tell your keyboard that you are doing FAKE mouse activity, you must have the SCROLL-LOCK light ON. You can now perform all of the functions of a two button mouse. Below is a list of the mouse functions supported and what keys need to be pressed to achieve them: Mouse Function Keyboard Action Left Mouse Button: Press Left Shift Key Right Mouse Button: Press Right Shift Key Move Mouse Right: Press GRAY Right Arrow Move Mouse Left: Press GRAY Left Arrow Move Mouse Up: Press GRAY Up Arrow Move Mouse Down: Press GRAY Down Arrow NOTE: To turn off the keyboard mouse simulator, just turn OFF the SCROLL-LOCK light. While the keyboard is in mouse simulation mode, you will hear a buzz coming from the speaker to let you know what mode the keyboard is in. NOTE: The Arrow keys used above for the mouse actions MUST MUST MUST be the ones that are GRAY sitting in between the numeric keypad and the rest of the keyboard. NOTE: When using the SHIFT-ARROW keys to actually MOVE the picture around(a NON Mouse function), you MUST MUST MUST use the arrows on the NUMERIC KEYPAD! NOTE: The keyboard mouse simulator has built in accelerators so that it won't take you too long to get the mouse cursor across the screen. The accelerator is activated by holding the arrow key down. The longer you hold it down the faster the mouse moves. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 25 _______________________________________________________________________________ Path Lists (What good are they?) GIF-REED has the ability to display files from more than one directory. In fact it can show up to 6 different path selections and the PRO GIF-REED can show up to 20 input directory paths. See ALT-F below in the Main File Menu Operation section. When you load GIF-REED you can specify multiple directories. For example: C>GIFV C:\GIFS C:\PICTURES\*.BMP This example specifies two paths. The first path will load all of the image files from the path called C:\GIFS. The second path will load all of the .BMP files from the directory called C:\PICTURES. NOTE: You can use a special indicator of *.? to load all images that GIF-REED supports. In otherwords you can say: C>GIFV F:\PICTURES\*.? This loads all of the files that are of a format that GIF-REED supports. Currently GIF, BMP, PCX and PIC are the supported formats. NOTE: If you do not specify a wildcard such as *.BMP or *.PCX etc... then GIF-REED assumes that you want *.? The first path specified is used to display subdirectory names along with the files that are in that directory. The subdirectory names appear in []. For example: The files menu list might contain the following: [ .. ] [ NICE ] [ CHARTS ] 1 PRETTY GIF 1 GIRL GIF 2 BRICKS BMP 2 CARS BMP 2 LOGO BMP The files PRETTY.GIF and GIRL.GIF have a one(1) next to them to indicate that they were retrieved from the 1st path in the path list. The files BRICKS.BMP, CARS.BMP and LOGO.BMP have a two(2) next to them to indicate that they were loaded from the 2nd path in the path list. The names "..", "NICE" and "CHARTS" were obtained from the 1st path in the path list. In otherwords they are all subdirectories underneath the path of C:\GIFS which is the 1st entry in the path list. _______________________________________________________________________________ 26 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ NOTE: Subdirectory names do NOT have a number to the left of them. Instead they are indicated by []. If you were to select CHARTS then the files list could look like the following: [ .. ] 1 CHART1 GIF 1 CHART2 GIF 1 GRAPH1 BMP 1 GRAPH2 BMP 1 123 EXE 1 123 DAT 1 GAME COM 2 BRICKS BMP 2 CARS BMP 2 LOGO BMP As you can see, the files list changes to reflect the fact that you are now displaying the directory of CHARTS that was underneath the path of C:\GIFS. So the directory displayed is C:\GIFS\CHARTS\*.*. Since selecting a subdirectory forces the wildcard file specification to *.*, the files displayed are NOT necessarily picture files. As you can see there are .EXE and .COM files in the list. Of course if you try to load one of these you will NOT see any picture. You will also notice that the BRICKS.BMP, CARS.BMP and LOGO.BMP are still displayed too. This is because you still have two(2) paths in the path list for displaying. NOTE: If the subdirectory is [ .. ], then it is an indicator that when selected you will be placed into the previous directory (that is the parent of the current directory). So by selecting [ .. ] you will be right back where you started from. NOTE: You will also see a list of available drive letters to choose from. Just point and shoot, it's that easy! HINT: If you want GIF-REED to remember a list of frequently used paths, you can enter the paths into the path list with the ALT-F key. Then you can save this list out with the ALT-U key. Then the next time GIF-REED loads, your popular paths will be loaded into the path list. If you just want to display one(1) path at a time but still be able to switch between your popular paths (without having to type in the path names), we suggest that you enter your paths with a ";" in front of the path name. For example: ;C:\GIF ;C:\BMPS\*.BMP ;C:\PEOPLE\NICE\*.* _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 27 _______________________________________________________________________________ Since the ";" makes the path specification invalid, no files will load from these paths in the path list. If you want to display C:\BMPS\*.BMP, then press ALT-F and remove the ";" from the name and wala, that directory will load and display. Although this may seem clever, we made no program changes to account for this. We let DOS do all of the work in deciding if a valid directory was specified or not. You can change the path list by pressing ALT-F at the main file list menu. _______________________________________________________________________________ 28 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Main File Menu Operation Once you have loaded GIF-REED, you should see a list of files displayed on the screen. If NO files appear in the list, you should press ALT-F to select a directory that has GIFs, BMPs, PICs or PCX files in it. Now that you have a list of files to choose from, the fun begins. At this point you have a lot of options. F1 will bring up a help screen that shows you what the various function keys do. F2 will change how a picture is loaded. Normally a picture is displayed as it's being loaded. The F2 key can switch this so that the picture is NOT displayed until it is completely loaded. This makes for a different(quicker) effect. Choose a setting that you most desire. F3 allows you to change the picture buffer area. You can pick between EMS Expanded memory, XMS memory or DISK space. EMS memory is faster than XMS memory and XMS memory is faster than using DISK space. Some systems don't have Expanded memory, in this case use XMS memory. Some systems don't have either EMS or XMS memory. In this case use DISK space. To get a clearer idea of the speed differences, below is a benchmark of various screen related functions that make frequent and common access to the picture buffer: EMS Memory 2.6 Seconds XMS Memory 3.0 Seconds RAM DISK 3.17 Seconds HARD DRIVE 3.17 Seconds (Caching with FLASH) HARD DRIVE 15.5 Seconds (NO Disk Caching, Normal) This should give you a clearer idea of just how much faster the different types of memory are compared to a standard hard drive. If you do have Expanded memory, make sure you have enough. We suggest that you have at least 1024K of Expanded memory available at the time you run GIF-REED. If you don't have Expanded memory or don't want to create any, then use XMS memory of the same amount (about 1024K should be enough). If you don't have any XMS memory, use DISK space. Now, it may not be obvious, but a RAM DISK is much faster than a floppy or a hard drive. If you do select DISK space, direct the DISK space area to a RAM DISK. This will make the _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 29 _______________________________________________________________________________ video operations go much faster. Of course you have to know how to make a RAM DISK and you have to have about 1024K (1MEG) of RAM to spare to create this RAM DISK. If you can create the RAM DISK, direct the TEMP DISK space area to it like so: C>SET TEMP=G:\ or C>SET TMP=G:\ This example assumes that your RAM DISK was drive G: Of course you would substitute in your RAM DISK drive letter here. The SET statement is a DOS command that can be done at the DOS prompt or even from within the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If you don't have Expanded memory AND don't have XMS memory and don't have the luxury of creating a RAM DISK, you a disk cache. This will speed things up quite a bit. In fact, if the disk cache has delayed writes / background writes / lazy writes, then use that option as well. This makes GIF-REED go even faster. If you don't have a disk cache or your disk cache doesn't support delayed writes, call us at 1-800-25- FLASH and we will sell you our disk cache called FLASH at a reduced price. FLASH won PC Magazines Editor's Choice award. It is a top notch disk cache. F4 allows you to specify if you want UNDO capability. Let's say that you load a picture and then crop it so that only a portion of the original picture is now displayed. At this point you can RESTORE the picture by pressing the R key. Any operation that ALTERS the actual picture image can be restored by pressing the R key. In fact you can alter the image multiple times and then restore the image multiple times. You are only limited by disk space. By selecting NO restore capability, operations that alter the image are done faster because the image doesn't have to be saved out first. F5 Increases the locking resolution. Every time you press the F5 key you will notice that the resolution highlighted moves to the right towards a higher resolution. Doing this alone doesn't accomplish anything. But when used together with F7 and F9 you can do some nifty things. F6 Decreases the locking resolution. Every time you press the F6 key you will notice that the resolution highlighted moves to the left towards a lower resolution. As with F5, F6 doesn't do anything useful except move the highlighted resolution. _______________________________________________________________________________ 30 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ F7 Locks/UnLocks the resolution highlighted. You can actually lock in on a resolution. For example: You could lock in on a resolution of 1024x768 by pressing the F6 key a few times, the press the F7 key. Once locked, every picture loaded from then on will be displayed in the 1024x768 mode, even if the picture is a much smaller picture. You can of course unlock the resolution by pressing the F7 key again. F8 Report generation. Pressing F8 allows you to print two different types of reports. (1) You can list all of your files along with any comments, scores, keywords or categories that you may have assigned. GIF-REED allows you to assign scores and categories and keywords to picture files. Press ALT-Y to assign information such as a score to a file. F8 allows you to print a list of your files along with the associated information. If a printer error occurs while printing, an error message will appear and the printing will abort. NOTE: You can indicate that ALL printer output is to go to a disk file of your choice! NOTE: In order to produce a report you may notice that the program says "Please wait while reading file Info". This is because certain information about each file needs to be read in before the report can start. Once the information is read in, you can report without waiting. This information only needs to be read in ONCE!. As an extra added feature this information is read in while you are doing other things in the program. So you may never get this message, unless you load a huge file list and request a report right away. F9 Resolution deletion. After you have highlighted the proper resolution with the F5 and F6 keys, you can press the F9 key to delete that resolution from the list. You might wonder why you would want to do this. Well let's say that you have a cheap monitor hooked up to a good video card. It is quite possible that a mode of 800x600 might not work on your monitor, but that the other modes of 320x200, 640x480 and 1024x768 work just fine with your monitor. By deleting a resolution that you monitor can't handle, you eliminate the possibility of using that mode which doesn't work. One way to test all of the modes with your monitor is to lock in on every mode and view the same picture. If a mode produces squished lines or quickly scrolling lines, then it's a safe bet that that mode isn't supported by your monitor and thus should be deleted from the supported list. You can think of this feature as a way to make GIF-REED work with POOR equipment. Please beware that you would have to do this everytime you loaded GIF-REED unless you save your video setup with the ALT-U key. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 31 _______________________________________________________________________________ NOTE: In EGA mode the resolution deletion does NOT function. We know of NO monitors that WON'T work in all of the EGA modes that we support, therefore it is unneeded! F10 Starts a slide show and can change some of the attributes of a slide show. Once you press F10, you can press return to do a slide show of all selected files. You select files by pressing the SPACE BAR when the file is highlighted. After pressing F10, you can also change the time delay between pictures. You can also specify whether the slide show should be continuous(looping) or just a one time through. You can even have the Pictures in the slide show fade in/out before the next picture is loaded and displayed. You can also set the Venetian Blind switch for yet another cool slide show effect. If you select FADE IN/OUT then the Blind status is set to OFF. And vise versa if you set the Blind status ON, then the Fade IN/OUT status will go OFF! These switches are mutually exclusive (only one can be turned ON at a time). You can also specify to do a slide show of a selected category, score, or even by keywords that you may have associated with files. (See ALT-Y) You can even run a personalized slide show. If you select a personalized slide show, pick a letter between "A" and "Z". This gives you 26 different slide shows that can be saved out for later viewing. The actual slide show script file on disk is called "GIFV.SLx" where "x" is the letter "A" through "Z". The format of the slide show script language is describe in Appendix A:. In actuality the script file could be setup to do things other than slide shows. They can be used to automatically perform a set of commands on image files. For example: You could set up a script to take ALL GIF files and reformat them to BMP files and then delete all the old GIF files so that you are left only with the BMP files! (See GIFV.SLH) NOTE: If you select to slide show by score, category, keyword, your file list will be tagged to show what the slide show used. ALT-C will copy all tagged files to a new destination. If no files are tagged, then the file highlighted will be copied. It also places the destination directory in the list of directories searched for loading the files list. _______________________________________________________________________________ 32 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ ALT-D will delete all tagged files. If no files are tagged, then the file highlighted will be deleted. ALT-F allows you to change what directories are displayed in the file list. You can enter up to 20 directories. You can use the normal editing keys. A special CTRL-Y editing key is used to delete an entire line. An example directory could be: C:\GIFSTUFF\CARS\*.GIF or C:\WIN31\*.BMP These are both valid directories for GIF-REED to try to read and display. When finished editing the file directory list, press return to load up the new list. Otherwise press ESCAPE to abort any changes made. If you find yourself constantly typing in the SAME directories everytime you load the program, you might consider saving out the directory paths configuration. You can do this with ALT-U. ALT-G searches all of your drives and adds to the directory list all of the directories that contain GIF, BMP, PIC or PCX files. If more than 20 directories contain GIF, BMP, PIC or PCX files, then the first 20 will be used. If more than 2048 files are found then only the first 2048 files will be displayed. ALT-I inverts the tagged file list. This function may seem useless but in fact is very powerful. Let's say that you have a list of 40 files. Let's also say that you want to copy all but 2 files. Instead of tagging 38 files. Just tag the 2 files you DON'T want to copy, the press ALT-I to reverse(invert) the tagged list and then wallah, all the files you want tagged are tagged and the ones you don't want tagged are NOT tagged. ALT-M will move files to a new directory. It also places the destination directory in the list of directories searched for loading the file list. If no files are tagged, then the highlighted file will be moved. ALT-R renames files. If no files are tagged, then the highlighted file will be renamed. ALT-S allows you to pick a new sort criteria. You can sort by name, size, date/time, resolution, score, path, category and number of colors in the image. If you sort by path you will notice that all of the files in a directory are grouped together. Next to each filename is a number from 1 to 20. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 33 _______________________________________________________________________________ This is the directory number that corresponds to the 20 directories that can be loaded. NOTE: In order to sort on anything OTHER than Name, Date, Size, Path you may notice that the program says "Please wait while reading file Info". This is because certain information about each file needs to be read in before the sort can start. Once the information is read in, you can sort by any criteria. This information only needs to be read in ONCE!. As an extra added feature this information is read in while you are doing other things in the program. So you may never get this message, unless you load a huge file list and request sorting right away. ALT-T clears the tagged list. ALT-U allows you to save your user configuration. You can save your user settings: Display while loading or after loading EMS, XMS or DISK space for the Picture Buffer RESTORE Picture status SlideShow delay time SlideShow looping status SlideShow Fade In/Out status SlideShow Venetian Blind status Resolution Locking Status GIF Comments Display Status Video Hardware Setup Video resolutions available You can also save your directory paths. You can also save your video setup. You can also UNDO your video setup. You can also UNDO your directory paths. If you save your directory paths, the next time GIF-REED is loaded, the saved paths will be loaded again. This saves you time from having to type in all of the directory paths that you want loaded. After saving your video configuration, you will NOT need the environment variable GIFREED if you were previously using it. In fact, it will be IGNORED! If you change your video card you might want to undo the video setup then exit GIF- REED and then re-do the video setup configuration. ALT-Y allows you to assign information to a file. You can give a highlighted file a Score (0-9), category, description and keywords. ALT-F7 Allows you to toggle between EGA and VGA modes. If your system only supports EGA then you won't be able to toggle to VGA modes. The EGA and VGA modes can each have their own _______________________________________________________________________________ 34 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ resolution to lock into if resolution locking is true.(See F7). ALT-F10 Allows you to toggle on/off the displaying of GIF comments. If a GIF file has comments built into it GIF-REED will display the comments to you AFTER you have viewed the picture. If you toggle this option off, then the comments will NOT be shown to you. ALT-F2 is the DOS/BOSS key. If the BOSS walks in you can press the ALT-F2 key and you will be placed at a DOS prompt. Thus making it appear that you are doing work, NOT PLAY. When the BOSS leaves, type EXIT to get out of the DOS shell. Then press ALT-F2 to get back into the GIF-REED program. SPACE BAR will tag a file for slide show, copy, move, delete or rename operations. See ALT-C, ALT-M, ALT-D, ALT-R and F10. ESCAPE will exit the program. ENTER will load a picture onto the screen. After the picture is loaded you can do many things with it. If there is an error in loading the picture, an error message will be displayed on the screen. NOTE: If you press ENTER on a subdirectory then you will be switched into that directory. The 1st file path of the 6-20 file paths available will change to reflect the NEW directory that you chose. You can see this for yourself by pressing ALT-F after changing to a different subdirectory. The subdirectories are indicated by a name inside of "[]". For example "[ GIFS ]" would indicate that you could switch to a directory called "GIFS". NOTE: If you are currently in a subdirectory, then you will see [.. ] as a choice. This is a special subdirectory name. It indicates that you want to go back up one directory(to the parent directory). NOTE: If you have specified more that one(1) file path then each time you press return to load up a different subdirectory, you will STILL see the files from the 2nd, 3rd and so on paths in ADDITION to the files in the new path you have just chosen. NOTE: It should also be noted that all of the available drives in your system will be displayed as the first entries in the file list. This way you can switch to a different drive easily. Just point and shoot. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 35 _______________________________________________________________________________ Main File List Screen Layout The main file list menu is easy to understand. It is broken into 4 parts. (1) File list Area (2) Status Area (3) Misc Info Area (4) Bottom Line Area File List Menu Area The file list area consists of multiple columns of filenames. Next to each filename is a number from (0-9). This number represents which directory in the list of directories that that file belongs to. It can also contain subdirectory names from which you can switch to. These optional subdirectory entries are obtained from the 1st path in the path lists. (See Path Lists) Status Area The status area shows the current settings of the GIF-REED program. This area is on the bottom part of the screen. It shows what VGA/EGA modes are available and which one is selected to be locked if resolution locking is true (See F7). To the left of the modes you will see "VGA:" or "EGA:". This indicates what mode the pictures will be viewed in. Misc Info Area The Misc area is in the middle of the screen. It shows what resolution is highlighted. It shows the current file width, height, number of colors then score. It also shows the file size and the directory path from where it came from. Between the file size and path is a special indicator. This indicator will contain a "[ ]" or "[I]" or "[C]". The "I" indicates that the currently selected file is a GIF Interlaced file. The "C" indicates that the currently selected file is a BMP Compressed file. This area also show the total number of files in the file list. It shows the total number of files tagged. If also shows the total size of all tagged files added up. Bottom Line Area _______________________________________________________________________________ 36 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ The very bottom line on the screen has a "MENU" activator. If you click on this with the mouse, you will get a pop-up menu from which to choose items. On the right hand side on the bottom line, you will see things such as "GO:NL: F:NB:4" or "GO: L:NF: B:2". This is the status of your slide show controls. There are 5 sections. 1. The word "GO" can be clicked on to start the slide show with the files that have been tagged/selected. This is simpler than going through the F10 menu. 2. The " L" or "NL" indicates if the slide show is in looping or NON-looping status. 3. The " F" or "NF" indicates if you are in fade in/out mode. If so you would see " F" otherwise "NF" which stands for NON-Fade in/out mode. 4. The " B" or "NB" shows the status of the venetian blind switch. If ON then you would see " B" otherwise you would see "NB". The venetian blind and fade in/out switches are mutually exclusive. This means that ONLY ONE of these can be turned on at a time. 5. The last item is the number of seconds of delay between slides. Just click on it and it will increment to the next higher value until a maximum of 9 seconds is reached at which point it will flip back to 0 (zero) second delay. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 37 _______________________________________________________________________________ Mouse Operation At File List The mouse can be used in the file list menu easily. Just move the mouse cursor to a file and press the left button and wallah, the picture is loaded. If you were to press the right button, the file would become tagged. If you were to press the middle button, you would EXIT the program. Now let's say that you have more files than would fit on a screen. In order for the mouse to indicate that you would like the files to scroll to the left or right, you would simply place the mouse in the left or right margins of the screen and Click! If the filename that you click on happens to be a subdirectory name then you will be switched into that directory. Subdirectory names are enclosed in "[]". For example: "[ GIFS ]". If the name you click on happens to be a drive letter then you will be switched into that drive! You can also click on the "VGA:" or "EGA:" title that is to the left of the available resolution modes. By clicking on EGA: you change it to VGA:. If it said "VGA:" then it will change to "EGA:". It's like a toggle switch.(See ALT-F7) You can also click on the function keys at the bottom of the screen on the status area. You can also click on the bottom line where it shows "MENU", and a menu of operations will pop-up. You can then click on the operation that you want to do, or you can press ESC or click the middle button to abort. If you click on the bottom line where the slide show controls are displayed, you can change these options with the mouse without having to use the keyboard driven menus to change the options. Just place the mouse on the option to change and then click on it. NOTE: When the program asks for (Y)es or (N)o input, you can click the Left and Right buttons to simulate the keyboard responses! Also the middle button acts like the ESCAPE key in this case. _______________________________________________________________________________ 38 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Viewing Options Once you are viewing a picture, you can do many things. There are many keys and function keys that perform various operations. The following is a list of all keystroke operations categorized: Color/Brightness Controls CTRL-F1/F2 allows you to increase or decrease the amount of RED intensity of the picture. CTRL-F3/F4 allows you to increase or decrease the amount of GREEN intensity of the picture. CTRL-F5/F6 allows you to increase or decrease the amount of BLUE intensity of the picture. CTRL-F7/F8 allows you to increase or decrease the contrast of the picture. CTRL-F9/F10 allows you to increase or decrease the brightness of the picture. I allows you to invert(reverse) the colors. It makes pictures look as though they are a negative. G allows you to force the picture into a GRAY (Black & White) picture. ALT-F9 allows you to animate the color palette. In other words all of the colors in the picture change rapidly. It almost makes the picture look like it's moving. It's great for fractal images. ALT-F10 allows you to restore the coloring of the picture after you have played with the color changing operations above. Picture Movement C centers the picture on the screen. O Orients the picture into the upper left hand corner of your screen. Arrow Keys move the picture around the screen up, down, left and right in case you can't view the entire pictures on your screen at once. If you hold down on the SHIFT key while using the numeric keypad arrow keys, the picture will move in larger _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 39 _______________________________________________________________________________ increments. This allows you to move faster to a specific spot in the picture. _______________________________________________________________________________ 40 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ General Program Operation F1 will bring up the help screens. ALT-F2 is the DOS/BOSS key. It shells you out to a DOS prompt. At this point you can do any DOS commands and even run small programs. Once finished with the DOS Shell, type EXIT at the DOS prompt and you will be asked to enter a password. Press ALT-F2 at this time. You will then be placed back into the picture on your screen. ESC quits out of view mode and places you back at the file list menu. PgUp/PgDn allows you to view the Previous/Next picture in the file list without having to go back to the file list menu. File Operations P prints the screen to an HP laser jet printer ALT-D will delete the picture you are looking at. W writes the current screen to a GIF, BMP, PIC or PCX file of your choice. If you write a file, then upon returning to the main file menu, ALL files will be re-read from the disk to build the file list menu. This is so that the NEW file you just created will appear in the list. NOTE: If you had any selected files in the list of files, you will be given the opportunity to NOT reload the list. This preserves your selections! NOTE: GIF and BMP files save in the 256 color mode. The PCX and PIC file format allows you to select 2,16 or 256 colors before writing out the new PCX or PIC file. NOTE: When creating a GIF file you can add comments to your GIF file. If you choose to add comments the GIF file will be written out as a GIF89a file instead of a GIF87a file This means that some OLDER viewers may not be able to read it. If your screen is in 320x200 mode then your comments can only be 35 characters wide, otherwise you can type up to 75 characters per line of _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 41 _______________________________________________________________________________ comment. When done adding comments just press RETURN when the comment line is prompted. ALT-F displays information about the picture file, such as filename, size, resolution, score and category and number of colors in image. Image Control E Edits the picture. You can edit the picture's colors. You can even change the look of specified colors(you could change bright red to appear as a dark red). You can also change the order of the colors in the color map! Pixel Editor Screen Layout The edit screen is broken into 4 parts. 1. Color Map 2. Pixel Editing Window 3. Viewing Window 4. Color Adjusting Window The Color map is displayed on the top half of the screen. You can select colors from this color map to change individual DOTS(pixels) in the image. The color map shows 256 colors. Some images don't use all 256 color entries. If a color entry is NOT used by the image, the color entry will have a WHITE dot in the middle of the color surrounded by a BLACK box which is surrounded by the color that is NOT used by the image. The pixel editing window is in the lower right portion of the screen. This window is an enlargement of 26 DOTS wide and 26 DOTS high. These DOTS can have their colors changed easily! The Viewing Window shows a reduced portion of the entire image. You can move around the image by using this viewing window and your mouse. This window is in the lower left portion of the screen. The viewing window is bordered by the default foreground color. This border is bordered by the default background color. This is so that you can see the foreground and background colors at a glance. _______________________________________________________________________________ 42 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ The Color adjusting window allows you to make a GLOBAL change to ANY color in the image. In other words you can make the color RED become BLUE throughout the ENTIRE picture. The color adjusting window is located in the same spot as the Viewing window. Color Map Functions In order to pick a color you must move the mouse over the color in the color map that you want to select and then press the LEFT or RIGHT button depending if you want to change the default color of the foreground or background colors. If you move the mouse into the color map and press DEL, the color under the mouse will be deleted. You can then move the mouse to the point where you want to insert it back in the color map. Then press INSert and wala the color map will move to adjust. Also ALL colors used in the picture will be updated so that you image doesn't get distorted (wrong) colors being displayed. If you press "C" while the mouse is on top of a color in the color map, you can convert a color in the image into a NEW color. After pressing "C" after the mouse is on top of the color you want to convert, move the mouse to the NEW color in the color map and then click the mouse button. This will take every part of the picture that had the OLD color in it and replace it with the NEW color specified by the click of the mouse. This is great for translating colors. Once you have performed this operation, the OLD color in the color map is now UNUSED! If you choose, you can use it for what you like! Once you have clicked on the NEW color. The image is then displayed for you to see if you like it. Press any key to quit the preview display. It will then ask if you want to save the changes. Respond properly. Edit Screen Functions If you click the left button on one of the colors in the color map, then the default foreground color changes to this color. If you click the right button on one of the colors in the color map, then the default background color changes to this color. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 43 _______________________________________________________________________________ If you place the mouse cursor into the pixel editing window(lower right portion of the screen), then clicking the left button changes the current color to the default foreground color. Clicking the right button changes the current DOT(pixel) to the default background color. If you hold the button down and move the mouse around you will be changing a lot of dots until you lift off the mouse button. If you press "F" or "B" while the mouse is in the pixel editing window, the FOREground/BACKground colors will change to the color the mouse is sitting on top of in the pixel editing window. If you press "U" while in the pixel editing window you can undo the last change you made. In fact it remembers the last 600 DOT changes you made to the picture. Everytime you pan(move) the picture and accept/abort the changes the UN-DO buffer gets reset to zero. If you press "V" you can view the entire image on the screen. This is so that you can see what the changes you have made have done to the picture. Pressing any key to gets back to editing. Viewing Window Movement If you press on any mouse button while the mouse cursor is NOT in the color map or pixel editing window, the picture will move(pan) in the direction you move the mouse until you lift up off the mouse button. If you have changed ANY dots in the pixel editing window, you will be asked if you want to save the changes before panning. Color Adjusting Function If you press the SPACE-BAR while the mouse is in the color map OR in the pixel editing window, the color that the mouse is sitting on will be Graphed out in the lower left hand portion of the screen into the Color Adjusting Window. This graph is broken into 3 parts the Top bar shows how much RED is in the color, the Middle bar shows how much GREEN and the bottom bar shows how much BLUE is in the color. If you place the mouse over one of the 3 bars you can increase or decrease the amount of RED, GREEN or BLUE that makes up the color that _______________________________________________________________________________ 44 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ you chose. Press ESCAPE if you don't like the changes otherwise press RETURN. If you press "V" you can see the entire image to see just how the color change that you made effects the picture. Pressing any key resumes color adjusting! This feature allows you to make GLOBAL changes to a color. Everywhere the color that your are changing exists in the image also gets changed! This is great for changing the background colors etc... When Done When finished making changes press ESCAPE. NOTE: You can press F1 for help while editing DOTS. You can also press F1 for additional help while in the Color Adjusting Window. F flips the picture top to bottom. Think of this as an upside down function. M mirror images the picture. Think of this as a sideways operation. > rotates the picture clockwise. S This allows you to sort the image's color-map. It sorts the color map with the most frequently used colors at the front of the color map. This is great for images being displayed in Windows, because Windows GRABS the TOP 16 colors(if you're using a 256 color driver for Windows) in every image's color map for display purposes. This produces FUNNY looking pictures if the picture used a lot of a particular color that Windows took over and changed to its own liking! By sorting the color map, the least used colors are placed at the top. In fact a lot of images don't use the full 256 colors available in the color map. This means that most images wouldn't be disturbed by Windows(after sorting is done) because the colors used by Windows would be colors in the color map that weren't even used by the image! If you edit the picture using the "E" command, the colors in the color map that aren't used by the picture are displayed with a white dot surrounded by a black box surrounded by the color. Here is a cheap looking example of a color in the color map. CCCCCCCCCCCC CCCCCCCCCCCC _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 45 _______________________________________________________________________________ CCCCCBBBCCCC CCCCCBWBCCCC CCCCCBBBCCCC CCCCCCCCCCCC CCCCCCCCCCCC The "C" represents the color of the color. The "B" represents BLACK color. And the "W" represents WHITE color. Once you have sorted the colors you should update the image colors. The programs asks if you wish this to happen. If you don't do this, then the image will look rather strange but might be interesting to do on fractal images or images other than photographic type images. A Pressing A while viewing a picture allows you to ADJUST the colors in the picture for use within Windows. The TOP 16 colors are removed from the picture, while trying to keep the parts of the image that used those deleted colors using colors that closely matched what were in the original image! This way, if you SAVE the picture back to disk and use it in Windows, the picture will be displayed without ANY disturbing of the colors by Windows. ALT-T Adds text to the picture. You can select between 3 different text styles. You can choose between 5 different text sizes. You can also select the foreground and background colors of the text. You can choose between straight text or transparent text. Once you have chosen the text features you want then the actual text is placed in the upper left hand corner of your screen. You can place the text anywhere on the screen by using the mouse. When placed where you want it, just click a mouse button. NOTE: If you want the text to be upside down or sideways, just rotate the picture first and then add the text! Pretty clever? TAB resizes the picture to fit the screen if the picture needs to be enlarged or shrunk to fit within the current screen size. The method of enlarging or shrinking is a standard method and is quite fast. _______________________________________________________________________________ 46 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ SHIFT-TAB resizes the picture to fit the screen if the picture needs to be enlarged or shrunk to fit within the current screen size. The method of enlarging or shrinking is special to GIF-REED and produces a better image than the standard method and is slower too. R restores the picture back from an image altering function such as a trim or resize. ALT-R restores the picture back to its original look. It's like pressing R many times or pressing ESC to get back to the main file menu and then pressing return to reload the picture. As you can see this saves keystrokes. But more important than saving ONE keystroke, it's FASTER! + increases the screen resolution. The images will appear to get smaller as you increase the resolution. - decreases the screen resolution. The images will appear to get larger as you decrease the resolution. F7 locks/unlocks the resolution to whatever screen resolution you happen to be in. This way the next picture that gets loaded will be loaded in that resolution too. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 47 _______________________________________________________________________________ Mouse Operation While Viewing After a picture is loaded, you will NOT see the mouse cursor. This is so that the picture in its entirety is displayed without an annoying mouse cursor smack in the middle of the screen. Once you MOVE the mouse around, the mouse cursor will appear. NOTE: When the program asks for (Y)es or (N)o input, you can click the Left and Right buttons to simulate the keyboard responses! Also the middle button acts like the ESCAPE key in this case. You can click the Middle mouse button and it will act as though you pressed ESC to get you back to the main file list menu. If you click the right button it will act as though you pressed the PgDn key to load the next picture. If you click the left button it will act as though you pressed the PgUp key to load the previous picture. If you hold down on the left button and then move it around you will see the picture move around too. This is called picture panning. If you click a mouse button while the mouse cursor is at the top of the screen, a help screen will appear. If you hold down on the right mouse button, you will be able to draw a box by moving the mouse around. You can see the width and height of the box displayed in the upper left hand corner of your screen. If you let go of the right button, the screen will refresh and act as though you did nothing useful. This is handy if you decide to draw a box in a different spot. If you move the mouse all the way to the edge of the screen, the picture will move over(pan) so that you have an opportunity to make a bigger box. This is great if you want to mark a box that is BIGGER than what your screen is. Once you have the box the way you want it, hold down on the left button. This freezes the box on the screen. Now you have 5 choices: (1) TRIM/CROP you can click on the outside of the box and the picture will be trimmed so that everything outside the box is erased. (2) ENLARGE 1 you can click the right button while the mouse cursor is INSIDE the box and the image inside the box will be enlarged to fill the screen using the enlarging mode-1. (3) ENLARGE 2 you can click the left button while the mouse is inside the box to enlarge the image using _______________________________________________________________________________ 48 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ enlarging mode-2. Enlarging mode-1 is the standard way. It's fast and pretty good. Enlarging mode-2 is our special way. It's slower and much better results, especially in the higher resolution modes. (4) ERASE BOX You can press the DELete key and the entire box will be filled in with a color of your choice. You can either select the default BackGround color or you can choose a color from the color map. This allows you to make cool looking boxes and borders. (5) BOX/LINE You can press "B" to indicate that you want to make a box. You will be asked what color you want to make the box and also how thick to make the box. NOTE: If you this BOX making procedure to make a BOX very narrow you can see that you can actually create LINES as well! _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 49 _______________________________________________________________________________ Special Program Considerations Line Input Editing There are many places in the program in which you are allowed to type in a line of information. For example: If you press ALT-F at the main file menu, you can type in up to 20 directory paths. When typing in a line of input you can use the Home, End, Left, Right keys for ease of editing. You can also use the Insert and Delete keys as well. In addition, you can use the backspace key for deleting backwards. If you want to delete the entire line, just press CTRL-Y. _______________________________________________________________________________ 50 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Using GIF-REED Under Windows 3.0 If you plan to use GIF-REED while inside of Windows, you should make sure that you are familiar with DOS subdirectories and the Windows PIF Editor. If NOT, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the Windows PIF editor. The PIF editor is really quite easy to use. Automatic Installation Of GIF-REED For Windows 3.0 Run GIFVWIN.EXE at the DOS prompt like so: C>GIFVWIN This program will automatically update the GIFV.PIF file to indicate what subdirectory you have placed GIF-REED. This program will also COPY the GIFV.PIF file into your Windows directory. The next step is to add GIF-REED to the Program Managers' list of programs to run. The section "Creating A Windows Menu Item With ICON" discusses how to do this. Manual Installation Of GIF-REED For Windows 3.0 The first thing you'll want to do is to Copy the GIFV.PIF file into the Windows directory. For example: If you've stored GIF- REED in a directory called D:\GIFREED then you would type: D>COPY D:\GIFREED\GIFV.PIF E:\WIN31 This of course assumes that your Windows 3.x directory is located in "E:\WIN31". If not, replace "E:\WIN31" with your Windows 3.x subdirectory. The next step would be to Customize the GIFV.PIF file for use with Windows. Make sure you load Windows first. Then follow these steps carefully, if you are a Windows novice: (1) Put yourself at the Program Manager. (2) Select WINDOW (3) Select MAIN (4) RUN PIF-EDITOR (5) Select FILE (6) Select OPEN (7) Pick GIFV.PIF as file to edit. (8) Enter proper path and program name. This would be path & filename. For example: If GIF-REED was stored in D:\GIFREED then enter "D:GIFREED\GIFV.EXE" without the quotes of course. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 51 _______________________________________________________________________________ (9) Enter the Start-Up directory. This would be the SAME as the GIF-REED directory. For Example: "D:\GIFREED" without the quotes of course. (10) Select FILE (11) Select SAVE (12) Select FILE (13) Select EXIT. This concludes the updating of the PIF file with the PIF Editor. Easy? The next step is to add GIF-REED to the Program Managers' list of programs to run. The next section discusses how to do this. Creating A Windows Menu Item With ICON This step actually puts an entry in your Windows menu selection area. Of course you will have to decide where (what window) to put GIF-REED. I would suggest that you place it in either the NON Windows Applications or Windows Applications. Just follow these simple steps: (1) Put yourself in the Program Manager (2) Select WINDOW (3) Select Non-Windows Applications or Windows Applications (4) Select FILE (5) Select NEW (6) Select Program Item (7) Enter "GIF-REED" for program description. Enter "GIFV.PIF" for command line. (8) Select CHANGE ICON (9). Skip error message by clicking on OK. (10) Enter path and "GIFV.ICO" for icon name. For example if GIF-REED was stored in "D:\GIFREED" then you would type "D:\GIFREED\GIFV.ICO" then return. Only one icon should appear. Select this icon (it looks like mountains). (11) Select OK until back at Program Manager. You should now see a GIF-REED Icon that you can run. Once you have GIF-REED as a Windows ICON. You can double-click on it to run it. While it's running you can switch back to Windows by pressing ALT-ENTER. This puts GIF-REED on hold so that you may do other Windows functions. When ready to get back to GIF-REED just double-click on the GIF-REED ICON and then press ALT-ENTER to put you into FULL screen mode. It's that simple to do. NOTE: If using GIF-REED under Windows, you should still try to use EMS memory for the picture buffer. Otherwise use XMS. And as mentioned before if you cannot, then use DISK. _______________________________________________________________________________ 52 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Error Messages There are but a few error messages that will occur in the GIF- REED program. Most of them are easy to understand and the solutions are obvious. But below are some of the less obvious error messages that may appear during the use of GIF-REED. Error in loading DOS SHELL! This error occurs when you press the ALT-F2 key to activate the DOS/BOSS function. After attempting to load a secondary DOS Shell this message appears if there isn't enough memory or command.com can't be found. Make sure that COMSPEC points to command.com. Also make sure you have at least 400K of free memory before running GIF-REED. Error in GIF Resolution: filename Error:## in GIF Descriptor: filename Not a GIF87a or GIF89a file, or header read error. Press any key Error in GIF file! These error messages are indicators that the GIF file you are trying to load is corrupted or is not even a REAL GIF file. Error opening temp file! When doing an operation that changes the picture such as a shrink or enlargement a TEMP file is created. If you run out of disk space in the TEMP drive, you'll get this error. Make sure that you have enough space in the TEMP drive area. NOT Enough EMS, or DISK Space, or Invalid TEMP Directory, or Too Many TSRS! This error message appears after you try to load a picture file. If you had selected EMS memory for the TEMP picture buffer and you don't have enough EMS memory to hold the ENTIRE picture this error will occur. Also if you had selected DISK as the TEMP picture buffer and you run out of disk space you will get this message. Also if you had selected DISK as the TEMP picture buffer and have TOO many TSRs then this error will occur. Try to make sure that you have at least 400K of free DOS RAM before running GIF-REED. Error opening file "filename" _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 53 _______________________________________________________________________________ This error occurs if the file you are trying to load can't be opened to read in. This could indicate a network error or a damaged FAT! This should NEVER occur. Premature EOF in File! Some GIF picture makers don't properly produce a GIF picture file. The GIF format expects certain codes to be at the END of the GIF picture. If it can't find these CODES then you will see this error message. This picture will stay on the screen though for your viewing enjoyment. Error in temporary file:## When loading a GIF file, if an error occurs in the TEMP area (EMS or DISK) you will see the error here. This should NEVER occur. You should call us at 1-317-253-8088 if it does. Error in nolacing file! If you are viewing a picture that is stored in a INTERLACED GIF format, the picture file is converted to a NON-Interlaced format internally for viewing purposes only. If there was an error in the TEMP file used to do this you will see this message. Error Saving Picture:## If you are doing an operation that changes the picture like a TRIM/SHRINK/ENLARGEMENT or ROTATE, the picture is first saved to the TEMP drive. If the TEMP drive fills up you will get this error! Error Restoring Picture! If you are restoring a picture to its original look and the TEMP drive has an error, you will see this error appear. This should NEVER occur! Error Enlarging Picture! Error Resizing Picture! Error Rotating Picture! These errors appear if the TEMP drive fills up during the operation indicated. Also if the TEMP picture buffer has an error in it you will also get these error messages. _______________________________________________________________________________ 54 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Error in Saving DIR Paths! If the drive that GIF-REED is stored on is full when you try to SAVE your search DIRECTORies you will see this error message. Free up some disk space and try saving again. Error saving Options! If the drive that GIF-REED is stored on is full when you try to SAVE your configuration options you will see this error message. Free up some disk space and try saving again. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 55 _______________________________________________________________________________ Script Language Overview Appendix A This section describes the script language that goes into the making of the slide show script files. The slide show script files are called "GIFV.SLx" where the "x" is between "A" and "Z". For example: If you chose personalized slide show and selected "F" then the file GIFV.SLF would be read and processed by our slide show script language. Using the script language you can create personalized slide shows that show specific images in specific order with customized delays. You can even create a MOUSE operated slide show. This use of the script language makes it a glorified slide show viewer. However there are more important task that can be accomplished via the script language. You can perform automated processes on your images. For example, you can create a script file that would go through all of your GIF and/or BMP and/or PCX and/or PIC files and rotate them clockwise and then turn them into a gray scale color image. This can be handy if you have an image printing program. By making the images gray, the printing program won't have to deal with color optimization. By rotating the image, you won't have to worry about your printing program being able to print landscape. There are unlimited abilities with what you can do with the script language! The script language is REAL time. This means that errors are detected while the script is running. No pre-scanning of the script file is done for syntax errors or missing files. If an error occurs in the processing of the script, that line is ignored and the next line is read. If you find that your script file puts you into an endless loop (never ending), you can exit ANY slide show script by pressing ESCAPE. Any labels that need to be defined because of GOTO :LABEL references should start with a ":". For example: CHANGE-PATH E:\GIFS\*.GIF DELAY 5 :LOOPHERE LOADNEXT :EXIT GOTO :LOOPHERE :EXIT This script file would load all of the .GIF files from the E:\GIFS directory. Each slide image would have a 5 seconds pause before advancing to the next image. Once no more images were found the program script would exit. _______________________________________________________________________________ 56 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ The format of each script line can have spaces preceding the command or label. In fact TABS can be imbedded in the lines too. All TABS and spaces will be ignored during processing. This is so that you can make your script files look pretty with proper indention and such. NOTE: You can exit any script file by pressing ESCape. Any script command line that STARTS with a ";" is considered a comment line that is NOT processed. For example: ; LoadFile G:\CINDY.GIF This script line would NOT load the CINDY.GIF file. Instead it will be treated like a comment line. NOTE: All configurable settings such as Slide show type and res locking settings are NOT altered before running the script files. In otherwords if you want to be sure that the script your create has a slide show that uses the FADE IN/OUT technique, you MUST specify the script command SLIDE-TYPE-FADE. Otherwise the slide show may use the normal mode or the BLIND mode depending on how you have set up your settings. There are many script file commands that can be used. Below is a list of all script file commands grouped in related sections: Commands That Control Script Logic Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T END GIFV.SLN T G GOTO LABEL MOST SCRIPT FILES T IFINT LABEL GIFV.SLD T IF-LAST-FILE LABEL GIFV.SLR T IF>=320X200 LABEL like IF>=640X480 T IF>=640X400 LABEL like IF>=640X480 T IF>=640X480 LABEL GIFV.SLE T IF>=800X600 LABEL GIFV.SLE T IF>=1024X768 LABEL like IF>=640X480 T IFBMP LABEL GIFV.SLQ T IFGIF LABEL GIFV.SLQ T IFPCX LABEL GIFV.SLQ T IFPIC LABEL GIFV.SLQ T G IFEXIST FILENAME LABEL GIFV.SLH T IFBUTTON-L LABEL GIFV.SLN, GIFV.SLM T IFBUTTON-R LABEL GIFV.SLN, GIFV.SLM T IFBUTTON-C LABEL GIFV.SLN, GIFV.SLM T G IF V{1-10}{<,>,=}{###} LABEL GIFV.SLI, GIFV.SLJ T G GOSUB LABEL GIFV.SLJ, GIFV.SLK T G SUB-END GIFV.SLJ _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 57 _______________________________________________________________________________ Commands That Set & Display Variables & Messages Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T G DISPLAY V{1-10} GIFV.SLI, GIFV.SLQ T G ECHO Message Text GIFV.SLI, GIFV.SLU T G SET V{1-10} {###,+,-,system} GIFV.SLI, GIFV.SLJ Command To Point To A Path Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T CHANGE-PATH {Valid Path,%1-%9} GIFV.SLR, GIFV.SLV Commands To Do File Operations Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T FILE-COPY Destination LABEL GIFV.SLR T FILE-MOVE Destination LABEL GIFV.SLR T FILE-DELETE LABEL GIFV.SLR T FILE-RENAME FileName LABEL GIFV.SLR T SUB-CREATE {Valid Path,%1-%9} LABEL GIFV.SLR Commands To Load Pictures Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T LOAD Image FileName GIFV.SLF T LOADNEXT LABEL GIFV.SLC T LOADPREV LABEL GIFV.SLC T SKIPNEXT LABEL GIFV.SLD T SKIPPREV LABEL GIFV.SLN Commands To Control Slide Show Effects Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T SLIDE-TYPE-NORMAL GIFV.SLE T SLIDE-TYPE-BLIND GIFV.SLE T SLIDE-TYPE-FADE GIFV.SLE Commands Used While Image Is Displayed Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- G CENTER GIFV.SLO G FLIP GIFV.SLP G GRAY GIFV.SLB G INVERT SAME AS NEGATIVE G MIRROR GIFV.SLP _______________________________________________________________________________ 58 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ G NEGATIVE Similar to MORE-RED G ROTATE GIFV.SLP G REDRAW Similar to MORE-RED G RES+ GIFV.SLO G RES- GIFV.SLO G PRINT GIFV.SLP G WRITE { ,B,G,P,C} {1,2,3} GIFV.SLB, GIFV.SLD G BRIGHTER Similar to MORE-RED G DARKER Similar to MORE-RED G MORE-CONTRAST Similar to MORE-RED G LESS-CONTRAST Similar to MORE-RED G MORE-RED GIFV.SLG G LESS-RED Similar to MORE-RED G MORE-GREEN GIFV.SLG G LESS-GREEN Similar to MORE-RED G MORE-BLUE GIFV.SLG G LESS-BLUE Similar to MORE-RED G RESET-COLORS GIFV.SLG G SORT-COLORS GIFV.SLS G ADJUST-FOR-WINDOWS GIFV.SLV Commands To Control Printing Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T G PRINTER {Filename} GIFV.SLQ T G PRINTER-ON GIFV.SLQ T G PRINTER-OFF GIFV.SLQ T G PRINTER-FF GIFV.SLQ Commands To Control Mouse Operations Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T G MOUSE-CONTROL-ON GIFV.SLN, GIFV.SLM T G MOUSE-CONTROL-OFF GIFV.SLN, GIFV.SLM Commands To Control Debugging Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T G DEBUG-ON GIFV.SLK T G DEBUG-OFF GIFV.SLK General Purpose Commands Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T G BEEP {###} GIFV.SLC, GIFV.SLG T DELAY {###} GIFV.SLC T G ENTER GIFV.SLQ _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 59 _______________________________________________________________________________ T G SYSTEM {DOS COMMAND} GIFV.SLG, GIFV.SLH T TEXT GIFV.SLG T G WAIT {###} GIFV.SLI, GIFV.SLG Commands That Change The NEXT Images Resolution Modes Command Parameters Sample Script Name ---------------------------------------------------------------- T RES {###} GIFV.SLO T RES-LOCK GIFV.SLO T RES-UNLOCK GIFV.SLO T RES-UP GIFV.SLO T RES-DOWN GIFV.SLO T EGA-MODE GIFV.SLT T VGA-MODE GIFV.SLT T G EGA-COLOR-ADJUST {ON,OFF} GIFV.SLT T G KEEP-SCREEN-SIZE {ON,OFF} GIFV.SLT The "T" indicates that the command can be used while the script is NOT displaying an image. If an image is being displayed at the point in time that a command with ONLY a "T" is encountered, the command is processed and the Image Display Mode will change to FALSE. This means that if a command that can only be used while an image is displayed ("G" ONLY) is encountered, an error message will result. The "G" indicates that the command can be used while the script IS displaying an image. If the command is "G" ONLY, then if Image Display Mode is FALSE then an error message is displayed. Otherwise the command is processed on the picture. If a command has both "T" and "G" then they can be executed at anytime. We have provided a lot of sample script files. They are GIFV.SLA through GIFV.SLV. Most of the scripts provide useful things. Some are just to show how a particular command works in real practice. The parameters field indicates if any parameters are needed for a command. Anything in the "{}" indicates valid values to enter. A "###" indicates a number. LABEL should be supplied. If NO label is supplied on a command that indicates a LABEL that NO branching in the script file will take place. Complete Script Language Description Commands That Control Script Logic END _______________________________________________________________________________ 60 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ The END command HALTS execution of the script file and EXITS. GOTO LABEL The GOTO statement jumps to location where LABEL can be found in the script file. IFINT LABEL IFINT tests to see if the next image to be loaded is a GIF Interlaced file. If so controls jumps to LABEL. IF-LAST-FILE LABEL IF-LAST-FILE tests to see if there are NO MORE files to be processed. If there are no more files in the list then control jumps to LABEL. IF>=320X200 LABEL IF>=320X200 tests the next image size. If the next image is greater than or equal to 320X200 resolution then control jumps to LABEL. IF>=640X400 LABEL IF>=640X480 LABEL IF>=800X600 LABEL IF>=1024X768 LABEL The above tests are similar in nature to the IF>=320X200. If you can't figure out how to use these, you shouldn't be playing with script files to begin with! IFBMP LABEL IFGIF LABEL IFPCX LABEL IFPIC LABEL These tests test for the file extension of the next file to load. If the extension matches then control is jumped to LABEL. IFEXIST Filename LABEL If the filename indicated EXISTS in the currently selected directory then control jumps to LABEL. IFBUTTON-L LABEL If mouse control is ON then IFBUTTON-L detects if the LEFT mouse button was pressed to quit out of a picture. If the LEFT button was pressed then control jumps to LABEL IFBUTTON-R LABEL IFBUTTON-C LABEL These commands are similar to IFBUTTON-L, but testing for the RIGHT and CENTER buttons instead. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 61 _______________________________________________________________________________ IF V{1-10}{<,>,=}{###} LABEL The IF command tests the value of one of the 10 variables allowed. The test can be <(less than) or >(greater than) or =(equal). The ### is a number to test against. LABEL is where control jumps if the test is true. For example: "IF V4>10 :MORE" This statement checks to see if variable 4 is greater than 10. If so control jumps to ":MORE". GOSUB LABEL This allows a procedure(routine, function) with the name LABEL to be executed. Once the routine is finished control transfers back to the statement following the GOSUB LABEL. NOTE: The called procedure must end with a SUB-END statement. SUB-END This statement indicates that the end of the sub-routine is found. Control will transferred back to where the calling GOSUB statement was. Commands That Set & Display Variables & Messages DISPLAY V{1-10} This displays on the screen the current value of any of the 10 variables that you can manipulate. For example: "DISPLAY V2" would cause the contents of V2 to be displayed on the screen. ECHO text message This command allows you to print any text on the screen(much like the DOS ECHO command). Any text can be displayed. For example: "ECHO Have a nice day!" would result in "Have a nice day!" displayed on your screen. The ECHO command also allows for system variables to be displayed in the message. Enclose any system variable within % in the message. For example: ECHO %FILE_NAME% has %IMAGE_COLORS% colors in it! This would display something like: GIRL.GIF has 256 colors in it! The allowable system variables are described below in the SET command. There is 1 additional system variable that the ECHO command can use that the SET command can't. It's the "FILE_NAME" system variable. The reason the SET command can't use it is because it's NOT a number! _______________________________________________________________________________ 62 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ HINT: By using system variables in the ECHO command and using the PRINTER-ON command you can essentially produce reports about your picture files! (See the GIFV.SLU script file for details) SET V{1-10} {###,+,-,system} This command sets the value of any of the 10 variables allowed in the script language to a particular value. For example: "SET V3 100". This would set V3 to 100. You can also increment and decrement variables. For example: "SET V5 +". This would add 1 to the value of V5 and "SET V1 -" would subtract 1 from the value of V1. You can also set your variables to some of the various SYSTEM settings. For example: If you wanted V2 to contain the size of the next file to process then you would say "SET V2 FILE_SIZE". Below is a list of all system variables. System variables List DEBUG_SWITCH If the DEBUG-ON option is turned on then this will be equal to 1 otherwise it will be equal to 0. PRINTER_SWITCH If the PRINTER-ON option is turned on then this will be equal to 1 otherwise it will be equal to 0. RES_LOCK_SWITCH If the RES-LOCK option is turned on then this will be equal to 1 otherwise it will be equal to 0. MOUSE_CONTROL_SWITCH If the MOUSE-CONTROL-ON option is turned on then this will be equal to 1 otherwise it will be equal to 0. RES_X This returns the value of the width of the next image to load. RES_Y This returns the value of the height of the next image to load. FILE_NUMBER This returns the number of files already processed in a particular path. FILE_ERROR _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 63 _______________________________________________________________________________ This returns the error number of the last file operation (File-Copy, File-Move, File-Delete, File-Rename) The meaning of the different values that FILE_ERROR can have are listed below: 0 File operation completed OK 1 Source file can't be found 2 Target area FULL, Subdirectory by same name, or Target NOT a valid drive. 3 Target area doesn't exist or Target drive full 4 Read/Write ERROR on file 5 NOT Enough Memory 6 NOT USED 7 Source and Target are the SAME 8 NOT USED 9 FILE-RENAME used invalid WILDCARDing . LINE_NUMBER This returns the line number in the script file that the set command is on. DELAY This returns the delay time for the slides to wait after showing the image. RESOLUTION This returns what resolution number is currently selected. It's only useful if RES-LOCK is turned on. The numbers range from 1 to ??. Usually there are about 3 to 6 resolutions available depending on your Super VGA capabilities. FILE_SIZE This returns the file size of the next file to be processed. IMAGE_COLORS This returns the number of colors in the file. This would be 2 for black & white pictures, 16 for 16 color files and 256 for 256 color files. V_# Where # is 1 thru 10. This means you can set any variable to the value of any other variable. For example: "SET V2 V_1" This sets variable 2 to the value in variable 1. Command To Point To A Path CHANGE-PATH {PATH, %1-%9) _______________________________________________________________________________ 64 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ This command changes the path to load files from the path indicated by PATH. For example: "CHANGE-PATH *.GIF" would point the file list to the current directory. "CHANGE-PATH F:\PICTURES\*.GIF" would point to the F:\PICTURES directory and only select GIF files. NOTE: You can also use the %1 through %9 instead of a valid path. In this case the path will be taken from the program command line(very powerful!). So for example: C>GIFV /P:R G:\*.* E:\CAT\*.GIF If the script file called GIFV.SLR had a CHANGE-PATH %1 in it then "G:\*.*" would be used instead. If it had a CHANGE- PATH %2 then E:\CAT\*.GIF would be used. You can have up to 9 different selections. NOTE: As in the normal menu operation of GIF-REED, you can use the special wildcard of *.? to specify ALL image formats that GIF-REED recognizes. This is powerful in the fact that it is BETTER than using *.*. This is because *.* will get ALL files including files that aren't image files (.EXE, .COM, etc...). Commands To Do File Operations FILE-COPY Destination LABEL This command allows you to take the next file in the list to be processed and copy it to a new filename or even a new drive and/or path. If there is an error in copying then control jumps to LABEL. See the system variable called FILE_ERROR. FILE-MOVE Destination LABEL This command allows you to take the next file in the list to be processed and move it to a new path or even a new drive and/or path. If there is an error in moving then control jumps to LABEL. See the system variable called FILE_ERROR. FILE-DELETE LABEL This command allows you to delete the next file to be processed. If there is an error in deleting then control jumps to LABEL. See the system variable called FILE_ERROR. FILE-RENAME FileName LABEL This command allows you to rename the next file to be processed. You can specify either a regular filename or you can WILDCARD the filename. See your DOS manual about WILDCARDS in filenames if you are not familiar with the term. For example "FILE-RENAME *.XXX" This would take the next file and rename it to the same filename but .XXX for _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 65 _______________________________________________________________________________ the file extension! "FILE-RENAME X*.*" This would take the next file and rename it so that the 1st letter will be a X and the rest of the file name would remain intact! If there is an error in renaming then control jumps to LABEL. See the system variable called FILE_ERROR. SUB-CREATE {Path,%1-%9} LABEL This command creates a directory with the path specified by PATH. For example: "SUB-CREATE NEWGIFS" would create a subdirectory called NEWGIFS in the current path. You can change paths by issuing the CHANGE-PATH command. "SUB-CREATE E:\CAT :ERROR" This would create a subdirectory called \CAT on the ROOT of drive E:. If there was an error in creating the directory the control jumps to LABEL. NOTE: You can also use the %1 through %9 instead of a valid path. In this case the path will be taken from the program command line(very powerful!). So for example: "GIFV /P:R NEWGIFS E:\CATF" If the script file called GIFV.SLR had a SUB-CREATE %1 in it then "NEWGIFS" would be used to create a directory instead of %1. If it had a SUB-CREATE %2 then E:\CAT would be used. You can have up to 9 different selections. Commands To Load Pictures LOAD filename This command will load a specific picture file onto your screen. LOADNEXT LABEL This command loads the next file from the selected path used by the CHANGE-PATH PATH command. The picture is also displayed. If no more files exist(at end of list) control is transferred to LABEL. LOADPREV LABEL This command is similar to LOADNEXT except that the files are loaded in reverse order. If you try to go too far backwards then control jumps to LABEL. SKIPNEXT LABEL The same as LOADNEXT except that the picture is NOT displayed. The file pointer is merely incremented to point to the next file in the list. SKIPPREV LABEL The same as LOADPREV except the picture is NOT shown. The file pointer is merely decremented. Commands To Control Slide Show Effects _______________________________________________________________________________ 66 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ SLIDE-TYPE-NORMAL This command puts the slide show into normal viewing mode. That is to say NO fade IN/OUT or venetian blinds effects. SLIDE-TYPE-BLIND This command makes the images appear on the screen with a venetian blind effect. SLIDE-TYPE-FADE This command makes the images Fade IN/OUT on the screen. Commands Used While Image Is Displayed CENTER This command centers the image on the screen FLIP This command flips the image on the screen GRAY This command turns the image into a B & W picture INVERT NEGATIVE These commands make the pictures look like a negative. The colors are reversed. MIRROR This command mirror images the picture on the screen. ROTATE This command rotates the image clockwise on your screen. REDRAW This command redraws the image on the screen in case you had echoed some text on the screen and got rid of the picture. RES+ RES- These commands increase and decrease the screen resolution in which the image is being displayed. PRINT This command prints the image to your printer. WRITE { ,B,G,P,C} {1,2,3} This command writes the current image to a file. If NO parameters are given then the current file format is used and the same name is used. If you specify "B" or "G" or "P" _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 67 _______________________________________________________________________________ or "C" then a BMP or GIF or PCX or PIC will then be written out to the same filename. For Example: WRITE B This would cause the current image displayed to be written out as a BMP file. This is great for converting files over to a different format! NOTE: If you select "G" for a GIF file you will NOT be able to write out comments to the GIF file. You can only add comments by manually loading and saving the GIF file. In otherwords you can't put comments if a GIF file through this script language! NOTE: If you select "P" or "C" for PCX or PIC file, a default of 256 color mode will be used to create the file. In order to specify 2 or 16 color mode as you can use the SECOND parameter of a 1,2 or 3. For example: WRITE P 2 This will write out a PCX file in 16 color mode. 1 indicates black and white (2 color mode). 2 indicates 16 color mode and 3 indicates 256 color mode. BRIGHTER DARKER MORE-CONTRAST LESS-CONTRAST MORE-RED LESS-RED MORE-GREEN LESS-GREEN MORE-BLUE LESS-BLUE All of these commands alter the appearance of the image on the screen. You should be able to figure out what each command does. RESET-COLORS If you turned the image into B & W with the GRAY command or used the color alter commands above, you can reset the colors to the ORIGINAL colors with this command. SORT-COLORS SORT-COLORS allows you to sort the image's color-map. It sorts the color map with the most frequently used colors at the front of the color map. This is great for images being displayed in Windows because Windows GRABS the TOP 4-16 colors in every image's color map for display purposes. This _______________________________________________________________________________ 68 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ produces FUNNY looking pictures if the picture used a lot of a particular color that Windows took and changed to its own liking! By sorting the color map the least used colors are placed at the top. In fact a lot of images don't use the full 256 colors available in the color map. This means that most images wouldn't be disturbed by Windows because the colors used by Windows would be colors in the color map that weren't even used by the image! ADJUST-FOR-WINDOWS This command will take the current image(picture) file and strip off the TOP 16 colors in the image's color table. The colors in the image that used the TOP 16 colors in the color table will be substituted with the BEST match in the lower 240 colors in the color table. This produces results that are very close to the original image. A file processed by this command can then be used as a BMP file that Windows can use and display without distorting the image. The distortion that normally occurs when viewing a picture under Windows is because Windows will CHANGE the TOP 16 colors in the color table(map) of the image! By having the image NOT use the TOP 16 colors, the image will NOT be distorted while viewing under Windows! Commands To Control Printing PRINTER Filename The filename given forces all printer output to go to the file instead of the printer. LPT1, LPT2 or PRN can be used as filenames to revert back to printer output. The default directory for the filename is in the current directory. PRINTER-ON This command turns on the printer. Anything that gets displayed on the screen (except images) will be printed to your printer. Things such as debug information, ECHO and DISPLAY items will be printed to your printer as well as being displayed on your screen. PRINTER-OFF This turns off the printer-on command. PRINTER-FF This command forces a Form-Feed on your printer. This means the last page will be ejected from your printer. Commands To Control Mouse Operations MOUSE-CONTROL-ON _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 69 _______________________________________________________________________________ This turns on mouse control. When mouse control is ON, images are left on the screen until you click a mouse button. MOUSE-CONTROL-OFF This turns off the mouse control. Images are finished displaying after the specified time delays are reached. Commands To Control Debugging DEBUG-ON This command turns on the debug mode. Every line in the script is shown on the screen as the script is being executed. Also useful information about your 10 variables are displayed. DEBUG-OFF This command turns OFF the debug mode. General Purpose Commands BEEP ### This command causes a beep to be heard. If you indicate a NUMBER, the you will hear that many beeps. DELAY ### This indicates how many seconds to delay before going to the next picture. ENTER This command forces the user to press ENTER or RETURN. SYSTEM {DOS COMMAND} This command allow you to execute a DOS command. NOTE: If no parameter is specified then you will be SHELLED out to DOS. You will need to type EXIT at the DOS prompt to continue with the script file. TEXT This puts the screen into TEXT mode if it isn't already. WAIT ### This command waits for ### hundredths of a seconds. For example: "WAIT 500" would wait for 5 seconds and "WAIT 50" would wait for 1/2 a second. Commands That Change The NEXT Images Resolution RES ### _______________________________________________________________________________ 70 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ This command indicates the current resolution to be displayed in if res-locking is turned ON. NOTE: If a number larger than the number of possible resolutions is used, then the largest resolution will be selected. RES-LOCK This forces all further images to load with the specified resolution from "RES" to be used. RES-UNLOCK This force res-locking off. This is the default state and all images are displayed with the BEST resolution used. RES-UP This command increments the resolution that would be used for res-locking. RES-DOWN This command decrements the resolution that would be used for res-locking. EGA-MODE This command forces the picture to be loaded in EGA mode. This produces POOR results compared to VGA mode. You probably shouldn't ever use this command unless you plan on converting your 256 color images to 16 color EGA images. VGA-MODE This command forces the picture to be loaded in VGA mode. This is the default, unless you only have EGA capability. EGA-COLOR-ADJUST {ON,OFF} When viewing a picture in EGA mode, the normal process is to convert all of the colors into 16 color selection. This makes the picture viewable in EGA mode even though the picture may be a 256 color image. This is the normal mode of operation. However if you only have EGA capability and wish to perform a script file that manipulates the picture (Gray scale, rotate, mirror, etc...) and then saves it back out, you may NOT want the colors adjusted. In order to preserve the VGA quality of the colors while operating the script on a machine with EGA only capability you may want to use the "EGA-COLOR-ADJUST OFF" statement. This way you can process your files on a EGA system without losing the VGA quality of the picture! KEEP-SCREEN-SIZE {ON,OFF} When using the WRITE command to write out GIF or PCX files the original screen size is overwritten with whatever resolution mode you happen to be displaying the picture in. This means that if you load a picture in a VGA system that _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 71 _______________________________________________________________________________ only supports 320x200 then when you go to write the GIF or PCX file the 320x200 mode information is written to the file to indicate that it is to be displayed in 320x200 mode. This is NOT particularly good since the picture may be a 1024x768 picture. In this case any viewer would set the mode to 320x200 and then display the picture. This means you won't see the whole picture! If you use the "KEEP-SCREEN-SIZE ON" statement, then when the picture is written to a GIF or PCX file the ORIGINAL screen size is kept intact. This means that you can process and convert your images to GIF or PCX files on a VGA system with only 320x200 resolution and NOT have to worry about how the picture will load with image viewers. The same goes for older super VGA cards that only support 640x480. Basically if your card doesn't support the resolution that the picture was INTENDED to be displayed in then you should use the "KEEP-SCREEN-SIZE ON" statement if you plan on writing out GIF or PCX files NOTE: BMP files do NOT have this problem!. This is because BMP files DON'T save the INTENDED RESOLUTION into the file. _______________________________________________________________________________ 72 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Trouble Shooting / Questions & Problems Appendix B Q1. Why doesn't GIF-REED recognize my VGA Video Adapter card type. It says it can only support 320x200. A1. Since most VGA boards are different from one another it is not possible for GIF-REED to be aware of EVERY card that is on the market. We try to support most of the MAJOR brands, but even still you might find a few that we just can't support. Q2. Why does my machine lock-up when GIF-REED is trying to do an automatic video configuration? A2. GIF-REED tries to determine what kind of video adapter card you have by drawing to the screen and then checking to see that what was drawn was what was supposed to be drawn. If it appears that the information was drawn correctly, then it assumes that you have a particular video card. It may be possible for GIF-REED to think you have one card when you may have another. In this case GIF-REED will try to fully manipulate the card. If the card was of the wrong type then your computer may(MAY) lock up. To date I've only seen this happen only ONCE! Q3. Why are RED WHITE and BLUE boxes drawn on the screen during the video configuration? A3. This is how GIF-REED can tell if you video card is supported. This is normal, just let it happen. Q4. What's an Image file or a picture file? A4. Any file that can be displayed to look like a picture on your screen could be considered an image/picture file. The most popular formats are of course GIF, BMP, PCX and PIC. Other formats are used as well such as IFF, TIFF, LBM and MAC. There are probably hundreds more that were are totally unaware of too! Q5. What's a picture buffer? A5. This is the holding area for the picture after it's been read from the file from disk. This holding area should be fast so that moving the picture around on the screen can be fast. This area should be setup in EMS to be the fastest. XMS memory would be the next best choice. And finally DISK would be the LAST choice to pick. See the Chapter on Picture Buffer. _______________________________________________________________________________ GIF-REED 73 _______________________________________________________________________________ Q6. Why would I want to delete a resolution from my available choices using the F9 key at the main menu? A6. If your monitor doesn't support a particular mode of resolution available on your video card, you may get scrambled eggs on your screen that is totally unreadable. In order for GIF- REED to be aware that you don't want this mode available, just press F9 at the main menu and wala, that mode will disappear from the resolution list. You can then save this video configuration out using the ALT-U command. Q7. Why would I want to switch to EGA mode using the ALT-F7 key from the main menu? A7. You DON'T! The only reason EGA support is available on systems that already have VGA is so that you can see what an image would look like in the EGA mode! Q8. Why do I get "Error 2, Bad Gif Descriptor" error message on some of my files? A8. It's possible that certain files may appear to be GIF files when in fact they may just be simple text files that start with GIF8 as the first few letters in the DOC file. Of course you may also have a BAD GIF File! Q9. Why does GIF-REED say it can't open GIFV.GIF when it tries to get loaded? A9. The GIFV.GIF file is the logo screen. GIF-REED loads this picture onto the screen upon loading of the program. If it can't find the logo screen, it tells you about it! Q10. What exactly does the MAKEROM.BAT file do for me? A10. This batch file creates a new file called VIDEO.ROM with the contents of your video ROM in it. This file would be shipped to us (Software Matters Inc.) for diagnostic purposes. This is in case we can't get GIF-REED to properly work with your video card. Q11. Why would I want to register GIF-REED? A11. So that you may have piece of mind!<<GRIN>> _______________________________________________________________________________ 74 GIF-REED _______________________________________________________________________________ Q12. Why is it that when I view files in Windows the image doesn't look all correct? A12. Windows grabs the top 16 colors in the color map of the image. See the section on What is a Color Map for a solution. Q13. Why does my GIF-REED blow up when it tries to run and uses my TRIDENT Vesa driver? A13. The trident vesa driver is BUGGY! Have GIF-REED control your trident video card directly. You can do this with the GIFREED environment variable. Just type: SET GIFREED=TRIDENT at the DOS prompt. You can also put this statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file too. This tells GIF-REED to IGNORE the vesa driver on the Trident video board. Q14. Why does the mouse seem to make the picture go to the next picture when I'm trying to mark a box? A14. You apparently are quickly clicking the mouse button. A quick click means Goto the next picture. If you HOLD DOWN on the mouse button, then you will be able to mark a box! _______________________________________________________________________________