@database FastView.guide @author "John Hendrikx" @(c) "Copyright 1995 John Hendrikx" @$VER: FastView.guide 2.0 (24.10.95) @node Main "FastView Help" @{b}FastView 2.0@{ub} Copyright 1994, 1995, John Hendrikx All rights reserved Release date 24 October 1995 SHAREWARE User Manual @{" Introduction " link Introduction} What can I do with FastView? @{" Feature List " link Features} What features does FastView have? @{" Requirements " link Requirements} Will it run on my system? @{" Installation " link Install} How do I install FastView? @{" Registration " link Registration} How should I register FastView? @{" Usage from the Shell " link UsageCLI} How do I use FastView from the Shell? @{" Usage from Workbench " link UsageWB} How do I use FastView from Workbench? @{" Keyboard control " link Keyboard} How to control FastView with the keyboard. @{" Configuring FastView " link Config} Creating a config-file for FastView. @{" Common problems " link Problems} Common questions and their answers. @{" Future " link Future} What the future will bring... @{" Known bugs " link Bugs} Things I should know... @{" How to reach me " link About} How can I reach the author? @{" Acknowledgements " link Ack} Who does the author want to thank? @{" History " link History} What's new in this version? @endnode @node Introduction "FastView: Introduction" FastView is a program which shows IFF, GIF, BMP, PCX and JPEG (*) pictures on your screen. Of course many programs exist for this task, but this one is special because it is very fast and was designed with both OCS/ECS and AGA users in mind. For example: FastView can show HAM8 and IFF 24-bit pictures on OCS/ECS machines in HAM which was one of the things I missed in all the other viewing programs I've seen. This is also the ideal viewer when you've got large collections of pictures which need to be sorted out. FastView allows you to delete pictures while viewing them and you can even define your own command to for example copy a picture to your RAM disk at the touch of a button. (*) JPEG pictures are shown using the Tower JPEG Codec Class by Christoph Feck. @{b}COPYRIGHT NOTICE@{ub} FastView software and documentation are Copyright (C) 1995 by John Hendrikx. All rights reserved. The JPEG codec is Copyright (C) 1994 Christoph Feck, TowerSystems. All Rights Reserved. It is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group. @{b}DISCLAIMER@{ub} FastView has proven to be stable in everyday use. @{"The author" link About} is not responsible for any loss of data, damages to software or hardware that may result directly or indirectly from the use of this program. The author reserves the right to make changes to the software or documentation without notice. The JPEG codec is provided "AS-IS" and subject to change without prior notice; no warranties are made. All use is at your own risk. No liability or responsibility is assumed. @{b}PREFACE@{ub} This program is shareware, it is *not* public domain. This means that if you use this program longer than a period of two weeks you'll have to send @{"The author" link About} 20 DM, HFL 20, 10 UK Pounds or 15 US Dollars to become a registered user. See @{"Registration" link Registration} for more details. None of the files of the FastView package may be modified or left out without permission of the author. Crunching or archiving is allowed only if none of the FastView files get modified by it. FastView may be distributed freely in public domain collections such as Fred Fish's Amiga Library. You may charge a fee to recover distribution costs. The fee for diskette distribution may not be more than the cost to obtain a public domain diskette from Fred Fish. @endnode @node Features "FastView: Features" - FastView can display most types of IFF ILBM, GIF, PCX, JPEG and BMP pictures. Pictures which normally can't directly be displayed on your Amiga will be converted to HAM or optionally to a Gray-scale picture. - AmigaDOS patterns (wildcards) fully supported. - Runs from the @{"Shell" link UsageCLI} and @{"Workbench" link UsageWB}. - FastView can optionally @{"dither" link Dither} your pictures to improve their quality. - If multiple pictures were selected FastView will optionally load and decode the next picture(s) while you're still viewing the first one. The number of pictures which FastView can pre-load and decode is only limited by available memory (this also works with Virtual memory programs like VMM and GigaMem). - Optional (down) @{"scaling" link Scale} of pictures to fit screen. This works for all types of pictures, but it may produce ugly results when applied to HAM pictures. - On OCS/ECS machines FastView tries to recognize pictures with a Black & White palette and will display these in a normal mode instead of using HAM. - FastView has the ability to pick an ideal set of colors for pictures rendered to HAM6 or HAM8. It can store these colors in the picture's comment so they can be used next time you view the same picture to get very high quality pictures (especially when used in conjunction with the @{"DITHER" link Dither} option). - Fast conversion to HAM/HAM8. - FastView can save your pictures as IFF files (press 'S' while viewing a picture). - Uses its own BestModeID code which tries to pick the best mode for each picture. The behaviour of this function can be fully controlled using the @{"SCREENMODE" link ScreenMode} option. - Can be used for a simple slideshow. - @{"Keyboard" link Keyboard} can be used to scroll picture (or the mouse of course). - Programmed in highly optimized Assembler (less than 25K in size!). @endnode @node Requirements "FastView: System requirements" FastView should run on any Amiga system with at least 512K RAM and Kickstart 2.04 or higher. FastView is Kickstart 3.0 compatible and aware. It will use some V39 functions when available. Should you have any trouble running FastView on your machine, please @{"contact me" link About} with the full specifications of your machine, that is Kickstart version, model, expansion boards etc... Don't forget to mention which version of FastView you were using at the time. @endnode @node Registration "Registration: How to register FastView" This program is shareware, it is *not* public domain. This means that if you use this program longer than a period of two weeks you'll have to send @{"The author" link About} 20 DM, HFL 20, 10 UK Pounds or 15 US Dollars to become a registered user. Please only send cash, eurocheques or postal money orders. When sending cash only use bank-notes (no coins!) and put it between two blank pieces of paper to avoid it from being detected on the way. This is probably the easiest and cheapest way. Eurocheques and postal money orders should be in Dutch Guilders (HFL) only, since otherwise I won't be able to cash them without paying a considerable fee to the bank (and that is the last thing we'd want). You can send the registration fee to the following address: Until 31 April 1996: John Hendrikx Figarostraat 36 3208 PD Spijkenisse The Netherlands After 31 April 1996: John Hendrikx Maasboulevard 74 3207 RC Spijkenisse The Netherlands @endnode @node About "FastView: About the author and the program" FastView has been created using the Devpac Assembler and CygnusED on an Amiga 2000 with a 68030/22 and 7 MB of memory. The source code (in 100% Assembler) for FastView is now over 150K in size. If you have suggestions or remarks about this program, or if you find any bugs, please let me know. When sending in bug reports, please state exactly under what circumstances the bug occurred, what equipment was used and what happened. If possible also try to give me enough information to reproduce the bug (like the picture file which caused the bug). It is very difficult to find bugs when you don't know exactly what happened. Don't forget to mention which version of FastView you were using at the time. Write to one of the following addresses: UUCP : john.hendrikx@grafix.xs4all.nl Fido : 2:286/407.8 AmigaNet : 39:153/201.8 NLA Net : 14:101/200.8 Snail Mail until 31 April 1996: John Hendrikx Figarostraat 36 3208 PD Spijkenisse The Netherlands Snail Mail after 31 April 1996: John Hendrikx Maasboulevard 74 3207 RC Spijkenisse The Netherlands I will also try to put the latest available version of FastView on the following BBS (this may change without further notice): Grafix Attack (Kees Huizer, Vlaardingen) Tel. +31104745816 (MT 14K4) +31104741062 (ZyXEL 19K2) +31104744682 (Tron 28K8) Fido Node 2:286/407 AmyNet 39:153/201 NLA Node 14:101/200 @endnode @node UsageWB "FastView: Usage from Workbench" There are 3 ways to use FastView from the Workbench: 1) Simply double-click on the FastView icon and it will come up with a File requester which allows you to select the pictures you want to view. You may select multiple pictures by holding down shift during selection. If you don't select any pictures then FastView will assume you want to view the entire dir. 2) You can view pictures by using extended selection: Select the FastView icon and select, while holding down the shift key, the pictures you want to view. Double-click (while still holding down shift) on the last picture you want to view to start FastView. 3) You may use FastView as the Default Tool for your pictures. To set the Default Tool to FastView for a picture, simply select the picture's icon and choose Information from the Icons menu in Workbench. Set the Default Tool field to 'FastView' (make sure it is located in your search path!) and save this setting. Now you can simply double-click on the picture to view it with FastView. Selecting multiple pictures is also possible, as long as the last picture you've selected has the Default Tool set to FastView. The FastView icon can have several Tool Types which control the way FastView operates. Most of these Tool Types work similar compared with their Shell counterparts. Here are the available Tool Types which also are available in the Shell plus a short description: @{"COMMAND" link Command} The command FastView will execute when the Tab key is pressed @{"DITHER" link Dither} Uses dithering to increase the picture quality @{"FORCEAGA" link ForceAGA} Makes FastView think you have AGA (handy for Retina) @{"INFO" link Info} Line with name and size of the picture at top of screen @{"LEAVEMEM" link LeaveMem} The number of kilobytes of memory FastView should leave free @{"MAKECOMMENT" link MakeComment} Creates a special comment to enhance picture quality @{"NOLACE" link NoLace} Avoids interlaced screens @{"POINTER" link Pointer} Pointer won't be blanked when picture is complete @{"PUBSCREEN" link PubScreen} Specifies on which Public Screen file requesters appear @{"ROM" link Rom} Uses WritePixelLine8() in ROM for graphics card support @{"SCALE" link Scale} Scales the picture down to fit it on the screen @{"SCREENMODE" link ScreenMode} Allows accurate control of what screen modes to use @{"SLOWSWITCH" link SlowSwitch} Smoother transitions for slideshows @{"USECHIP" link UseChip} Allows FastView to use Chip RAM for pre-loading pictures @{"WAITFORPIC" link WaitForPic} Waits until a picture is fully decoded There is also one Workbench specific Tool Type: DEFAULTDIR This Tool Type allows you to set the directory which FastView will list in the File Requester when you start FastView by simply double-clicking on it (Method 1, see above). @endnode @node UsageCLI "FastView: Usage from the Shell" There is nothing to it really. Just start it from the Shell or install it in your favourite directory utility. The command line looks like this: @{"FILES/M" link Files},@{"DITHER/S" link Dither},@{"NOLACE/S" link NoLace},@{"SCALE/S" link Scale},@{"DELAY/K/N" link Delay},@{"INFO/S" link Info},@{"WAITFORPIC/S" link WaitForPic}, @{"ROM/S" link Rom},@{"MAKECOMMENT/S" link MakeComment},@{"POINTER/S" link Pointer},@{"DEBUG/S" link Debug},@{"SM=SCREENMODE/K" link ScreenMode}, @{"LEAVEMEM/K/N" link LeaveMem},@{"USECHIP/S" link UseChip},@{"PUBSCREEN/K" link PubScreen},@{"FORCEAGA/S" link ForceAGA},@{"GRAY=GREY/S" link Gray}, @{"COMMAND/K" link Command},@{"SLOWSWITCH/S" link SlowSwitch} or alternatively: [[FILES[=]]] [DITHER] [NOLACE] [SCALE] [DELAY[=]] [INFO] [WAITFORPIC] [ROM] [MAKECOMMENT] [POINTER] [DEBUG] [(SM/SCREENMODE)[=]] [LEAVEMEM[=]] [USECHIP] [PUBSCREEN[=]] [FORCEAGA] [(GRAY/GREY)] [COMMAND[=]] [SLOWSWITCH] @endnode @node Files "FILES/M" FILES/M This argument is not required. If you don't specify any files FastView will pop up a file requester where you can select which pictures you want to view. You can use AmigaDOS patterns (wildcards) to make viewing multiple pictures easier. You can add as many names/patterns on the command line as you want, and all pictures will be viewed in the order you specified. (Note: Patterns matching multiple pictures will be shown in a somewhat random order). In case you're viewing multiple pictures the right mouse button will act as an abort function, thus it will enable you to exit FastView completely at any time. Left mouse button will continue to the next picture. @endnode @node Dither "DITHER/S" DITHER/S Specify this on the command line if you want to add a simple form of dithering to the (rerendered) pictures. This will slow down FastView by about 50%. @endnode @node NoLace "NOLACE/S" NOLACE/S Specify this to make sure FastView doesn't use interlaced displays. @endnode @node Scale "SCALE/S" SCALE/S When you specify this on the command line FastView will scale down pictures so they will fit on your screen, while keeping the aspect ratio intact. This works for all kinds of pictures, but may produce ugly results when used on HAM pictures. @endnode @node Delay "DELAY/K/N" DELAY/K/N Using this option you can turn FastView into a slideshow. It allows you to set the number of seconds each picture will be displayed. Note that FastView will automatically load the next picture in the background while you're still viewing the current picture, which makes slideshows look much better. @endnode @node Info "INFO/S" INFO/S Add this to the command line if you want the filename, size and depth of the picture you're viewing to be displayed at the top of the display. @endnode @node WaitForPic "WAITFORPIC/S" WAITFORPIC/S When used in conjunction with the DELAY keyword WAITFORPIC will ensure that the picture being decoded in the background is fully decoded before FastView switches to the next picture. This should make slideshows look a bit better. @endnode @node Rom "ROM/S" ROM/S This will make FastView use ROM functions (WritePixelLine8) to draw the pictures instead of poking directly into the screen's bitmap. Comments from graphics card users on this function are welcomed! In the future I will probably use the RtgMaster.library system to provide support for a large amount of graphics cards. @endnode @node MakeComment "MAKECOMMENT/S" MAKECOMMENT/S If you specify this keyword FastView will automatically calculate the optimal palette for the pictures you're viewing and store this palette in the comment of those pictures. Next time you view the picture FastView will use the palette stored in the comment which should ensure you get a bit higher quality pictures. This only works for pictures which are displayed in either HAM6 or HAM8. @endnode @node Pointer "POINTER/S" POINTER/S Specify this on the command line if you don't want FastView to blank the mouse pointer after decoding the pictures. @endnode @node Debug "DEBUG/S" DEBUG/S If you have problems with FastView picking the wrong screen mode you might want to set this option and post me the results. Using this option you get a list of all screen modes FastView considers to be good enough to display your picture. The final line contains the screen mode FastView found to be the best available. @endnode @node ScreenMode "SM=SCREENMODE/K" SCREENMODE/K or SM/K People owning VGA monitors or owners of graphics cards may want to tell FastView which screen modes it is allowed to choose from when looking for the best screen mode to display a certain picture. You can do this with the SCREENMODE option. It accepts a string which specifies which screen mode(s) FastView may choose from. This string may contain AmigaDOS patterns (wildcards) for maximum flexibility. Examples: SCREENMODE=DBL#? This will allow FastView only to pick DBLPAL or DBLNTSC modes (in other words screen modes that start with 'DBL'.) SCREENMODE=~(#?low#?) Using this screen mode string FastView will never select any screen modes that contain the word 'low'. This means modes like "PAL:Low Res" and "MULTISCAN:Extra-Low Res" won't be picked. SCREENMODE=(PAL:|SUPER72:|DBLPAL:)#? This screen mode string will make sure FastView only selects PAL, DBLPAL or SUPER72 screen modes. @endnode @node PubScreen "PUBSCREEN/K" PUBSCREEN/K Using this you can tell FastView on which Public Screen it should open its file requesters. For example, if you want FastView to open its file requesters on Directory Opus you can specify PUBSCREEN=DOPUS.1 @endnode @node LeaveMem "LEAVEMEM/K/N" LEAVEMEM/K/N This allows you to tell FastView how much RAM it is NOT allowed to use for storing pictures which are being decoded while another picture is being displayed. Specifying LEAVEMEM=1000 will ensure that there is always 1000K of RAM left. The @{"USECHIP" link UseChip} option determines if this 1000K also includes Chip RAM. If you want to disable FastView's ability to preload and decode pictures just set this value to a value higher then the total amount of RAM in your system. @endnode @node UseChip "USECHIP/S" USECHIP/S Using this keyword you can tell FastView that it is okay to use Chip RAM for storing pictures which are being decoded while another picture is being displayed. Since Chip RAM is essential for displaying pictures it is not wise to allow FastView to eat up available Chip RAM, but it might come in handy on machines with little or no Fast RAM. If you intend to use this option be sure to take a look at the @{"LEAVEMEM" link LeaveMem} option as well. @endnode @node Command "COMMAND/K" COMMAND/K This allows you to control exactly what FastView will do when the Tab key is pressed. If for example you want FastView to make a copy of the picture you are currently viewing to your RAM disk each time the Tab key is pressed then you could tell FastView this like this: COMMAND="Copy %s to RAM:" %s will automatically get replaced by the filename of the picture you are currently viewing. Now each time you press the Tab key FastView will copy the picture to your Ram Disk. This could for example come in handy when you want to select a view pictures from a CD-ROM. @endnode @node ForceAGA "FORCEAGA/S" FORCEAGA/S This is a special keyword most people will never need. It makes FastView think that the machine it is running on is an AGA machine without checking to see if that actually is true. This can come in handy for people who own a graphics card (Retina for example) which are able to display the HAM8 mode found in AGA. Note: This keyword has not yet been properly implemented yet, use at your own risk! @endnode @node Gray "GRAY=GREY/S" GRAY=GREY/S Using this you can force FastView to render pictures normally rendered in HAM or HAM8 to be rendered in gray-scales. This can result in more detailed pictures and a lot faster rendering. This option can also be used in conjunction with the @{"DITHER" link Dither} option to increase the quality of the gray-scale rendering. Note: Only pictures which normally cannot be displayed directly on your system will be converted to grayscale pictures, all other pictures will still be in color. @endnode @node Gray "SLOWSWITCH/S" SLOWSWITCH/S This option is handy for slideshows. It will tell FastView to first decode the next picture on a screen in the background before displaying it. This gives smoother transistions between pictures. @endnode @node Config "FastView: How to configure it" From version 2.0 FastView allows you to specify default options in a config file. The structure of such a config file is the same as what you normally would enter on the commandline in the Shell. If for example you would like FastView to always dither and scale your pictures then your configfile could look like this: "DITHER SCALE". There are three places where FastView looks for a config file. First it checks for and environment variable called FastView (in other words FastView looks into the "ENV:" directory for the file "FastView"), if that fails it checks the directory FastView is located in for the file "FastView.prefs" and if that fails as well it will check "S:FastView.prefs". To set or change the environment variable FastView you can use the SetEnv command in the Shell. For example to set the FastView environment variable to dithering and scaling you should enter: SetEnv FastView "CONFIG SCALE" and to make the change permanent you then should type: Copy ENV:FastView ENVARC: If you don't want to use an environment variable then you can create a file called "FastView.prefs" similar to the environment variable. You should put this file either in the directory FastView is located in (PROGDIR:) or in the S: directory. @endnode @node Keyboard "FastView: Keyboard control while viewing pictures" FastView provides some simple keyboard shortcuts while viewing pictures so you are able to scroll the screen and skip to the next picture without using the mouse. You can use the cursor keys or the numeric keypad to scroll the picture. FastView normally uses steps of 16 pixels to scroll the picture, but by holding down the Alt key or the Shift key will cause FastView to use four times as small or as large steps respectively. The other keys are: Space, Return or Enter - Proceed to next picture. Esc - Exit FastView completely. S - Pops up a Save requester which allows you to save the screen as an IFF file. Shift-Del - Deletes the picture you are viewing and proceeds to the next picture. Tab - Execute the command which you can specify with the @{"COMMAND" link Command} option. @endnode @node Future "FastView: Future" Here is a list of things I want to add to FastView later: - Support for the IFF PBM format produced by DPaint 2 enhanced (pc version) - Support for the new PNG format - Using a file with a list of pictures as input If you have suggestions for new features which you think would be nice to have in FastView, don't hesitate to contact me. @endnode @node Bugs "FastView: Known bugs" While you're viewing a picture and you switch back to another screen the FastView screen/window will get deactivated which will break the Delay function. This is because FastView won't receive IntuiTicks messages from Intuition while its window is deactivated, and so can't tell when the Delay time is over. @endnode @node History "FastView: History" Aug 20 1994 - V0.90 - Added GIF decoding Aug 24 1994 - V0.91 - Speeded up HAM conversion routine by almost 20%; Speeded GIF conversion by about 5%; LMB now also exits the viewer when displaying a GIF Aug 25 1994 - V0.92 - Handles interlaced GIFs; Uses LoRes HAM if picture is smaller than 320x256; Displays B&W pictures in Hires 16 colors instead of HAM Aug 26 1994 - V0.93 - Almost doubled IFF displaying speed thanks to the BackFill-Hooks (Other picture types will also benefit from this) Aug 27 1994 - V0.94 - Displays uncompressed IFFs Aug 31 1994 - V0.95 - Finally figured out how to convert HAM8 to 24Bit (it turned out IFF-HAM8 has its control-bits as bit 6 and 7...); Added Dithering for pictures which are converted to HAM or B&W V0.96 - Now outputs info about the picture; Possible to specify multiple pictures on command line and RMB now exits completely when viewing multiple pictures; Uses BusyPtr while decoding; Blanks mouse after decoding V0.97 - Added IFF 24bit decoding using fixed HAM palette; Also added NOINTERLACE command line option Sep 5 1994 - V0.98 - Added variable (down) scaling; Now centers picture if it is too small (this avoids the trash at the right-edge due to Hardware limitations) Sep 8 1994 - V0.99 - No longer crashes when a BadCode is encountered in a GIF file Sep 16 1994 - V0.99 - Fixed color-selecting algorithm -- it now does very good color-selecting Sep 17 1994 - V1.00 - Added AGA support (hopefully) and made it Kick2.04 compatible Sep 18 1994 - V1.01 - Added intelligent ViewMode selection if CAMG chunk is missing from an IFF file Sep 19 1994 - V1.02 - Fixed small bug which caused uncompressed HAM8 pictures not to be displayed Sep 20 1994 - V1.03 - Fixed problem with IFF pictures which weren't exactly the same width as the screen; Added rendering to HAM8 for AGA machines Sep 25 1994 - V1.04 - Fixed Enforcer hit when no palette was found in picture; Added Wildcard support Sep 29 1994 - V1.05 - Fixed LoadRGB4 code; Fixed bugs in Wildcard support which caused memory freed twice errors; Fixed HAM8 support Oct 3 1994 - V1.06 - Added simple local-colormap handling code to GIF decoder; When initial codesize was too small or too big GIF decoder crashed, bug fixed Oct 4 1994 - V1.07 - Added Delay keyword; Added keyboard support while viewing/decoding picture Oct 12 1994 - V1.08 - FastView now automatically loads and decodes the next picture in the background for nicer slideshows and faster viewing; Fixed small bugs which caused small uncompressed IFF files to be displayed incorrectly Oct 14 1994 - V1.09 - Finally IFF24->HAM8 works; Removed some more bugs Oct 20 1994 - V1.10 - Added file requester Nov 14 1994 - V1.11 - Fixed enforcer hit (reported by: Richard Hartmann) Nov 24 1994 - V1.13 - RGB to HAM/HAM8 conversion now 10% faster Nov 25 1994 - V1.14 - Sometimes crashed when running low on Chip RAM when viewing large pictures -- fixed V1.15 - Uses BestModeID under V39+ to pick the best display type; Added INFO switch on command line which will print the name of the picture at the top of screen V1.16 - Separate 68000 and 68020 versions available Nov 28 1994 - V1.17 - Fixed bug causing excessive HAM-fringing effects while viewing HAM8 pictures (reported by: Edmund Vermeulen) Dec 1 1994 - V1.18 - Fixed bug causing excessive HAM-fringing effects on Kickstart 2.0 (reported by: Remco van Hooff); Fixed bug with ASL requester causing the CurrentDir of the Shell it was started from to be modified (reported by: Jan van den Baard); Fixed bug causing interlaced-GIF's to be screwed up while using the INFO switch (reported by: Martijn Hoogesteger); Fixed INFO-text color-pick bug V1.19 - DELAY was ignored when there was no memory for the 2nd screen -- fixed (reported by: Arthur Pijpers) Dec 6 1994 - V1.20 - Fixed bug in IFF decoder when multiple FORM's are encountered in an IFF file (reported by: Jan van den Baard) V1.21 - Added 'WaitForPic' option. When using the delay option to create a slideshow, WaitForPic will make sure the picture in the background is ready before switching to that picture (requested by: Arthur Pijpers) Dec 8 1994 - V1.22 - Fixed bug with GIF's containing a local colormap. This bug crept in in V1.13 (reported by: Arthur Pijpers) Dec 22 1994 - V1.23 - Fixed bug which a division by zero by BestModeIDA(). V1.24 - FastView now correctly skips the masking bitplane sometimes found in IFF files. Dec 31 1994 - V1.25 - Small bug fixed created by 1.24, FastView accidentaly treated pictures with a transparent color as pictures with a mask. Jan 4 1995 - V1.26 - Fixed aspect ratio when using BestModeID(). Jan 9 1995 - V1.27 - Added JPEG support using the Tower JPEG Codec Class by Christoph Feck. Jan 22 1995 - V1.28 - Added a command line switch to disable BestModeID. Also fixed a problem with WShell. Names which are too long to display above the picture are shortened. V1.29 - Significantly improved quality of pictures rendered in HAM6 and HAM8. Jan 23 1995 - V1.30 - Added GrayScale support for JPEG pictures. Feb 28 1995 - V1.31 - FastView can now store color information of the picture in the comment. The 2nd time the same picture is viewed it will look better due to the precalculated colors Mar 2 1995 - V1.32 - ASL requester now uses a bit more normal values for its initial window-size (requested by: Edmund Vermeulen); FastView now checks if the user specified a path, and copies this in the path field of the requester (requested by: Edmund Vermeulen); Added an option to not blank the mouse Mar 5 1995 - V1.33 - Hopefully improved BestModeID code a bit; Added a IFF saving routine (requested by: Benbuck Nason) Mar 16 1995 - V1.34 - FastView now has an icon (thanks to Edmund Vermeulen) and can be started from Workbench. Several Tool Types are supported to help control FastView from the Workbench Apr 14 1995 - V1.35 - Multiselecting FastView plus some pictures will now cause FastView to display the selected pictures (requested by: Edmund Vermeulen); FastView now has an install script (thanks to Edmund Vermeulen) V1.36 - FastView now pops up the file requester again after viewing some pictures (requested by: Edmund Vermeulen) V1.37 - When using the ROM option FastView now uses WritePixelLine8() instead of WritePixel() Apr 16 1995 - V1.38 - Fixed several sneaky bugs which could cause trash at the right-border of a picture Apr 18 1995 - V1.39 - FastView now supports 2, 16 and 256 color (uncompressed) BMP pictures as well as 24-bit BMP pictures V1.40 - FastView now supports EGA and VGA PCX files; Fixed small bug causing B&W JPEG pictures to be trashed on AGA Apr 21 1995 - V1.41 - Added ROM and WAITFORPIC Tool Types; Fixed bug which caused a crash when a picture is too big to display; When using Delay and WaitForPic FastView didn't exit after showing you the last picture May 2 1995 - V1.42 - Some pictures weren't saved correctly under AGA, fixed; Fixed enforcer hit when passing NULL as the path for the ASL requester under V40 (works fine for V39 and earlier) May 4 1995 - V1.43 - Added DEBUG option; When you select no files in the ASL requester FastView assumes you want to view the entire directory May 5 1995 - V1.44 - Specifying MULTISAVE on the commandline together with SAVE will save all pictures viewed as IFF pictures using the name you specified after SAVE as the extension May 18 1995 - V1.45 - Removed a bug in the 68000 version of FastView which caused some GIF pictures to be trashed; FastView no longers specifies Workbench as the public screen to pop-up on V1.46 - FastView now uses a custom routine to replace BestModeID. This routine will hopefully work correct with graphics cards and/or Kick 2.0; Added SCREENMODE keyword which allows you to specify the name of the monitor you wish to use (supports AmigaDOS patterns) May 19 1995 - V1.47 - Fixed some problems with my new BestModeID code, and added a SCREENMODE Tool Type; Added DEFAULTDIR Tool Type May 25 1995 - V1.48 - Fixed stupid bug causing an enforcer hit May 26 1995 - V1.49 - Fixed bug causing crashes when exiting FastView which was started from Workbench; Fastview now checks for Ctrl-C and exits when it receives one May 30 1995 - V1.50 - Fixed bug, ROM Tool Type now works; Fixed bug which caused some pictures to be saved wrong; Fixed bug which caused pictures to be saved with wrong palette Jun 3 1995 - V1.51 - No longer picks graphics card screen modes for HAM pictures; FastView now will run without monitor drivers (previously you had to use the NBMI option) Jun 5 1995 - V1.52 - POINTER option crashed on Kick2.0 machines because it used a V39 function, fixed Jun 16 1995 - V1.53 - Fixed a bug in the BMP code Aug 7 1995 - V1.90 - FastView now correctly handles GIF pictures without a global color-palette Aug 31 1995 - V1.91 - If screen couldn't be closed (because some utility has opened a window on it) then FastView will wait until the window removes itself before closing the screen; FastView now supports a config file or ENV: variable; Added FORCEAGA keyword for use with some graphics cards (Retina in particular). It will make FastView think you have an AGA machine and will make it utilize modes like HAM8 and 256 colors Sep 1 1995 - V1.92 - Added GRAY/GREY option to tell FastView to render the picture in gray-scale instead of HAM Sep 2 1995 - V1.93 - Added COMMAND option which allows you to define an action to perform on a picture-file when you press the TAB key while viewing the picture; Pressing Shift + DEL will delete the picture you're currently viewing; Numeric keypad now also allows you to scroll diagonally Sep 8 1995 - V1.94 - Deleting the last file you wanted to view now works correctly; The correct path is now used when deleting files; CloseScreen() crashes under Kick 3.0 when closing a screen just 1 pixel high, as a work-around FastView never opens screens less than 8 pixels high; Improved COMMAND option allowing for very long and complex command-strings Sep 19 1995 - V1.95 - Gray-scale JPEGs work correctly on AGA and ECS again; Added SLOWSWITCH keyword Oct 10 1995 - V1.96 - Improved PCX support and removed some bugs from the PCX EGA palette code; Scaling has become 20% faster Oct 17 1995 - V1.97 - GREY option now works correctly for JPEGs on AGA; Environment variable was not correctly parsed, fixed Oct 24 1995 - V2.0 Public release @endnode @node Ack "FastView: Acknowledgments" Thanks to all who registered so far: Folkert de Gans yvind Falch Dennis Eijs Vincent Zee Glenn J. Shutts Harald Schilling Martijn Hoogesteger Bill Bennett Bob Johnson R. Veenman Stephan Lichtendahl Rick Yeomans Tom de Ruyter Robert Guezen Torsten Jung Henk Siemer Romen Patzner Jen Allen Jon B. Peterson Luca Saturno Michael Luck Thanks to Michael Zucchi for creating ZGif which inspired me to write this program! Thanks to Edmund Vermeulen for the installer script and the FastView icon. Thanks to Romen Patzner for creating a nice MagicWB icon for FastView. Thanks to Jan van den Baard, Paul Dossett, Richard Hartmann, Remco van Hooff, Martijn Hoogesteger, Jim McKinney, Benbuck Nason, Raymond Penners, Arthur Pijpers, Romen Patzner, Maarten Ploeg, Edmund Vermeulen, Richard de Vos and Vincent Zee for bug reports and suggestions! Thanks to Christoph Feck for creating the Tower JPEG Codec Class which made it very easy for me to add JPEG support in FastView! _ _ // Thanks to \\X/ Amiga for being the best computer ever! @endnode @node Problems "FastView: Frequently asked questions and their answers" Problem: FastView sometimes screws up the screen (screen starts jumping or becomes black) but when I exit FastView everything returns to normal. Cause: FastView tries to pick the best screen mode for displaying each picture. It checks all screen modes available to find the best one and uses that. If you happen to have some monitor drivers installed which are not suited for your system then FastView will sometimes not display the picture correctly when it chooses a monitor which your computer or monitor can't handle. Solution: Remove all monitor drivers which your system can't handle from the DEVS:Monitors directory. Another solution is to use the SCREENMODE keyword to make sure FastView never picks monitors which your system can't display. I wouldn't recommend this last solution, you shouldn't have monitors in the DEVS:Monitors directory which your system can't handle, period. Problem: FastView won't show JPEG pictures. Cause: The JPEG codec class was not installed properly on your system. Solution: Use the installer script to install FastView again, or install the JPEG codec class manually. See @{"installation" link Install}. @endnode @node Install "FastView: Installation" To install FastView simply double-click the Install icon in the FastView drawer. If you want to install FastView manually then follow these steps: 1) Copy FastView and its icon to a directory in your path. SYS:Utilities is a good place to put it. Make sure that you pick the version of FastView best suited for your machine. The 68020 version of FastView can sometimes be significantly faster on 68020+ equipped machines. The next five steps are optional, and only needed if you also want to use FastView to view JPEG pictures. 2) Copy "Libs/tower.library" to your LIBS: directory. 3) Copy "Classes/codec.class" to your SYS:Classes directory, or to your LIBS: directory. If you're not using a standard C= installed Startup-sequence then make sure that SYS:Classes is part of the LIBS: assign. 4) Make a new directory "Codecs" in SYS:Classes or in the LIBS: directory. 5) Copy "Classes/Codecs/jpeg.codec" to the SYS:Classes/Codecs directory, or to the LIBS:Codecs directory (depending on where you create the Codecs directory). 6) Copy "Classes/Codecs/picture.codec" to the SYS:Classes/Codecs directory or to the LIBS:Codecs directory (depending on where you create the Codecs directory). Done, you can now use FastView! @endnode