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1993-05-26
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This file describes `Mostra' 1.09, a shareware IFF utility featuring
real-time unpacking scroll, dozens of options, "smart" analysis of any
IFF file (FORMs, LISTs,... also nested ILBM!), total control over
display modes, simple slideshow processing, pattern matching,
multipalette, double buffering, fast decompression, color cycling,
TeXdocs, startup files for easy custom configurations and complete WB
support.
Introduction
*************
`Mostra' is an IFF ILBM viewer that can process *any* IFF ILBM file;
this means not only IFF ILBM FORMs, but also nested ILBM, FTXT, FORMs,
CATs, LISTs and PROPs. It has become reknown in the Amiga community for
both its robustness and its flexibility.
Any design requires tradeoffs: `Mostra' tries to give you a good
balance of program size (less than 15K), speed (optimized assembler
decompression routines) and features. It tries to be enough smart to
have always reasonable defaults, but also lets you force any aspect of
the display, such as resolution and video flags. While it is not
possible to foresee every possible race condition, `Mostra' should be
able to cope with any reasonable ILBM file.
`Mostra' currently relies on ARP v39 in order to work. Thus, the
`arp.library' file has to be in your `libs:' directory if you want to
run `Mostra'. Otherwise, a message will be displayed, and `Mostra' will
refuse to run. (Without ARP's powerful functions, `Mostra' would have
never been released.) However, `Mostra' 2.0 will work only under
Release 2 and will not need ARP.
One of the major features in this release is support for
multi-palette pictures, i.e., pictures with the new PCHG chunk which
should substitute the old CTBL and SHAM chunks. See the `Changes.doc'
file for additional informations. SHAM is still supported, but the
support of CTBL pictures via external call has been dropped since it
was shown to be unreliable.
The other major improvement is complete support for the AGA chip set.
Syntax
*******
`Mostra' can be called both from the CLI and from the Workbench. It is
also a pure program, i.e., it can be made resident.
Command Line Usage
===================
To get the command line syntax in AmigaDOS style, type:
M ?
This will produce the input template:
Files/...,A=All/S,R=Repeat/S,Q=Quiet/S,NoFastDraw/S,
C=Center/S,B=BlackBackground/S,W=Width/K,H=Height/K,Cycle/S,
Secs/K,Fade/K,NO=NoStartup/S,Batch/K,LockPic/S,
N=NoMouse/S,F=FreeMouse/S,LockKeys/S,NA=NoActivate/S,DB=DoubleBuffering/S,
Hires/S,Lace/S,Lores/S,NoLace/S,HAM/S,Halfbrite/S
If you ask for more help by typing `?' again, you will see:
Mostra 1.09 (C) 1990,1991,1992 Sebastiano Vigna
Usage: M <wildcards [...] | !> [All] [Repeat] [Quiet] [NoFastDraw]
[Center] [BlackBackground] [Width n] [Height n] [Cycle]
[Secs time] [Fade speed] [NoStartup] [Batch file] [LockPic]
[NoMouse] [FreeMouse] [LockKeys] [NoActivate] [DoubleBuffering]
[Hires | Lores] [Lace | NoLace] [HAM | Halfbrite]
The same help is displayed if you call `Mostra' with no arguments.
`Mostra''s first argument is a list of patterns (or file names) as
long as you want; you will get every picture whose name matches one of
the patterns.
Alternatively, you can type only the `!' character, and `Mostra'
will display the ARP file requester, allowing you to search for the
picture you want to show.
Workbench Usage
================
When `Mostra' is called from Workbench without any argument icon, it
will pop the file requester and will allow you to select pictures to
show until you select `Cancel' or close the file requester window.
Alternatively, you can SHIFT-select multiple icons together with
`Mostra''s one, or you can change the default tool of your pictures.
For details about this, see Startup Tool Types. Note that if you select
an IFF CAT or LIST you will have an automatic little slideshow.
Keyboard Usage
===============
Once you are looking at the picture you selected, you can exit by
moving the mouse pointer to the very top of the screen and pressing the
right button (you can also press the RETURN, SPACE or ESCAPE keys). You
can drag or depth arrange the screen with the left mouse button (the
gadget(s) are invisible, but they really are there!). TAB will toggle
on/off color cycling. To stop pattern matching or IFF scanning use
`CTRL-C' at any moment.
If the screen size is less than the size of the picture, you can
move around with cursor keys alone (moving by 8 pixels) or in
combination with the SHIFT (a screenful minus 16 pixels), ALT (which
brings you to the borders), or CTRL (16 pixels) keys. A noteworthy
feature of `Mostra' is that the picture is *not* decrunched all at one
time in a very large chunk of memory; instead, a fast LM routine
decrunches the file in real-time every time you move (the routine could
be faster, but it has lots of controls to get rid of damaged IFF BODY
chunks; safety always first). This is not as fast as the memory-eating
method, but I think it's *much* better. Very large pictures (like
800x900) will be shown in a full screen (generated on the fly at
Workbench size) which you can move around. Overscan pictures will
retain their size of it's not greater than 362x283 lo-res pixels
(362x241 on a NTSC Amiga). For hi-res pictures, there is also a 704
pixel width limit due to Intuition (724 under Release 2). Small brushes
will be shown in a minimum 256x128 pixel screen. Of course, moving
vertically with multi-palette pictures involves a high system overhead,
since Copper lists are continuously built and deleted.
A weird effect of this method is that you can see pictures that
can't even be *loaded* into your Amiga. Let's suppose you have a really
crunched picture; the BODY chunk and a 256x256 lo-res screen could take
much less space than the decrunched picture, so you could create
pictures that only `Mostra' could let you see in all of their parts.
Why you would want to do this, well, that's another matter.
Options
========
This list describes all the options available in `Mostra'. The
letters between parentheses denote availability of a shortening.
Options can be put anywhere on the command line, or in Tool Types (see
Startup Tool Types).
`All (A)'
forces a recursive scan of all of the subdirectories during the
wildcard search.
`Repeat (R)'
will endlessly restart from the first pattern when it has finished
with the last; if you used the `!' line arguments, the file
requester will pop up after every picture until you `Cancel' or
close.
`Quiet (Q)'
turns off all messages except in case of error.
`NoFastDraw'
leaves the program at priority 0; by default, `Mostra' will
surround the BODY decrunching operations with a `SetTaskPri(1)'.
This will not lock the system, but in a multitasking situation
`Mostra' will perform quickly when needed.
`Center (C)'
will force the screen to be centered (640x200 pictures on PAL
screens look so ugly...) and will use overscan if necessary. Note
that if you move the screen, and you are not under Release 2, the
centering will go away.
`BlackBackground (B)'
will create a 0-bitplane black screen that will stay until you saw
the last picture. This is for aesthetic purposes only (note that
no Chip memory will be used).
`Width (W)'
`Height (H)'
want an argument that specifies a dimension of the viewing screen.
However, `Mostra' is an intelligent program, and will almost always
find the correct screen by itself. *Warning*: dimensions allowed
are from 64 to 1024, at your own risk. Your Amiga won't crash, but
weird things can happen...
`Cycle'
will automatically activate color cycling on every picture.
Usually this happens only by request, through TAB.
`Secs'
must be followed by a number between 0 and 1000 (the zero delay
was a request from a BIXen). `Mostra' will display each picture
for the number of seconds specified, but you can skip using the
mouse or the keyboard as usual (see Keyboard Usage) or stop the
show with `CTRL-C'. Cursor keys are disabled. Greatly r