GIF Construction Set Frequently Asked Questions August 25, 1996 Copyright (c) 1996 Alchemy Mindworks Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of Alchemy Mindworks Inc. No fur-bearing animals were harmed during the creation of this document. Allergy alert: may contain nutmeg, but we doubt it. Return for refund where applicable. Not recommended for persons with sugar-restricted diets. Batteries are included -- best of luck finding them. Proud sponsor of the 1934 penguin olympic games at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. May cause irritability, sleeplessness or warts after prolonged use. Contents under pressure. BHT added to preserve freshness. Caution: this product has caused some laboratory rats to rip through their cages, fly across the room and brutally murder hundreds of innocent people. Shake well before using. No vacuum tubes or other user-serviceable parts inside. Not to be combined with other radioisotopes except under the advice of a physician. Avoid prolonged exposure to ultraviolet light. The truth is out there. Use no hooks. Not intended for use by children or liberals under the age of five. Printed on unrecycled dead trees and we're proud of it. This document contains the following sections: SECTION 1: Downloading, Installation and Shareware SECTION 2: Technical Support SECTION 3: Running GIF Construction Set SECTION 1: Downloading, Installation and Shareware -------------------------------------------------- Q: Is there a Macintosh version of GIF Construction Set? A: Not as yet. One is in the works, but no release date has been assigned to it at this time. Macintosh development is relatively slow and confusing, something they don't tell you when you buy one of the damn things. Q: I've been trying to download the current version of GIF Construction Set for days but your server is always busy. Can you e-mail me a copy? A: Sorry, we are unable to e-mail large binary files over our present mail server. Our main server has been the recipient of an ongoing program of expansion, but each time we increase its capacity, the demand seems to increase to match it. It's usually more readily accessible before noon, EST. We do have a number of mirrors around the world, accessible through the Mirrors link at the top of each of our web pages. The SimTel mirrors are especially useful. Q: I've downloaded GIF Construction Set but it will not install - - it tells me that I must run it under Windows, even when I do. What's wrong? A: You have a damaged download. Download it again. Q: Does using an unregistered copy of GIF Construction Set to create a few graphics for my web page constitute a fair use of the shareware? A: In our opinion it does not. The shareware release of GIF Construction Set is provided for you to evaluate. If you find it to be good enough to create GIF files for use on a web page, we feel that it is good enough to register. If you don't agree -- that is, if you find it to be unsuitable for your needs and as such not worth registering -- please delete it and accept our thanks for trying it out. Q: Should I install GIF Construction Set in Windows 95 or NT through Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel? A: Absolutely not. Use the Run item of the Start menu. Q: Can the 32-bit version of GIF Construction Set run under Windows 3.1 or Windows 3.11 if I have WIN32S installed? A: No, it uses several DLLs not supplied with WIN32S. Use the sixteen-bit build. Q: What are the functional differences between the sixteen- and 32-bit builds of GIF Construction Set? A: Not much. The 32-bit build supports long file names, while the sixteen-bit build does not. The 32-bit build is somewhat faster under 95 and NT. The 32-bit build can create wide palette GIF files, discussed elsewhere in this document. Otherwise, they're identical. You're probably wondering about now if Windows 95 might not have just been a really sneaky way to sell everyone 32-bit versions of perfectly good sixteen-bit applications. Q: What files does the GIF Construction Set installer add to my \WINDOWS and \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directories, and what changes does it make to my registry? A: None. We feel that shareware should not mess with your system files, and none of ours does. Everything the installer writes to your hard drive goes in GIF Construction Set's private directory, and no system files are altered. Q: How can I uninstall GIF Construction Set. A: Simply delete its private directory and everything in it. Q: If I register GIF Construction Set by phone, can I get a registration code immediately? A: We can e-mail one to you if you request it. This usually takes about 72 hours. Please note, that's actually three business days -- weekends don't count. Q: How can I register GIF Construction Set? A: You can pay by Visa, Mastercard, American Express or by a cheque drawn on an international bank having the address of a North American clearing office and a bank transit number printed on it. Cheques must be in US dollars -- no other currency can be accepted. Please do not send us Eurocheques -- they cannot be cleared outside Europe. Our present bank cannot accept payments by wire transfer. We ask that you use the order form provided with every copy of GIF Construction Set to place your order. It's stored in a file called ORDER.WRI in the GIF Construction Set directory, which can be opened with Windows Write or WordPad. You can register over CompuServe at GO SWREG. The registration code 10595. You can FAX the order form to 1-905-936-9502, e-mail it to alchemy@mail.north.net or snail-mail it to Alchemy Mindworks Inc., P.O. Box 500, Beeton, Ontario L0G 1A0 CANADA. For the fastest service, please call our order desk at 1-800-263- 1138 or 1-905-936-9500. They take all major plastic, and are open 24 hours a day. We are unable to send you GIF Construction Set COD. Q: Can I pay for GIF Construction Set by purchase order? A: No. If you want to buy 100 or more copies, please get in touch with us and we'll consider it. Sadly, the purchase order system has seen considerable abuse in recent years -- while few institutions issuing purchase orders flat-out refuse to honour them, we have found that many purchase orders are accompanied by extensive documentation requirements, lengthy waits for payment and the need to follow up and beg for money multiple times before a cheque actually gets cut. This probably makes sense if the purchase order has been issued to pay for a Cray supercomputer or a couple of B1 bombers -- it's not workable for a $20.00 shareware registration. Q: How long does it take to get a registered copy of GIF Construction Set? A: Barring unforeseen delays -- post office strikes, mice in the disk copying machine, an unscheduled apocalypse -- we will ship your software within 72 hours of receiving your registration order. Note that it usually takes about two weeks for a package to get from Canada to the United States, and about three weeks for one to get from Canada to overseas destinations. We have no control over this. The only other shipping option we can offer at present is Federal Express. As of this writing, this costs $28.00 (US) to the United States and $45.00 (US) to other parts of the world. We cannot ship by UPS, Airborne, DHL or other couriers at this time. Q: I already have the shareware version of GIF Construction Set. Can you just e-mail me the registration code and not charge me shipping. A: We certainly can. Just be sure to state that you'd like this done when you register. You'll get no disks by snail-mail, and we'll deduct the $5.00 shipping charge. Please note that you must state that you want your registration code e-mailed to you at the time you order. We are unable to locate and amend your order after it has been received. Q: GIF Construction Set used to be bookware. Can I still register it by buying and reading The Order, by Steven William Rimmer? A: GIF Construction Set is no longer bookware. While we are still happy to honour the bookware offer if you wish, this will get you a registered version of GIF Construction Set 1.0G, a sixteen-bit build with relatively few features. Alternately, you can order a registered copy of the current release of GIF Construction Set. This version includes better animation support, Animation Wizard to make creating animations easier, better palette options, block management, Netscape sanity checking and numerous other features. It costs $20.00 (US) plus $5.00 shipping. Q: I'm writing a book and I'd like to include GIF Construction Set with it. Can I do this? A: We grant permission to include our software with books on a project by project basis. We require a signed agreement for each book. Please e-mail your request to alchemy@mail.north.net and provide us with: 1. The name of the book you wish to include our software with. 2. The author of the book. 3. The name, address, phone and FAX number of the publisher. 4. The name or names of the applications in question. 5. A FAX number and contact name to FAX our agreement to. See the Shareware Distribution document which accompanies GIF Construction Set for more information. Please note that due to the high volume of requests we receive to include our shareware with books, we are unable to review, sign and return individual publishers' agreements for permission to use our shareware. The only permission you need is our signed distribution agreement -- and not to put to fine a point on it, that's all we have the resources to provide at the moment. Q: Do you offer an educational discount for GIF Construction Set? A: No, we don't. We feel that the fairest price is one which applies to everyone equally. Q: Does the registered version of GIF Construction Set come with a printed manual? A: No, it comes with complete documentation on disk which can be printed out if you require a paper reference. A paper manual would have about tripled the cost of the package -- we feel that software should be affordable, and this extra cost didn't seem to make sense for an application as simple as GIF Construction Set. Q: Are you guys in league with the devil? A: Don't laugh -- we get asked this one frequently. Some of the people who work at Alchemy Mindworks have pagan beliefs, and some vaguely pagan iconography has appeared in some of our literature and example graphics. The most overtly pagan images arguably turn up in the "click me" advertisements for Steven William Rimmer's novels, which are themselves fairly pagan. This document being about GIF Construction Set rather than about comparative theology, we won't get into the distinction between that which is pagan and that which is occult or satanic, save to note that there is a really huge difference between them. We have been surprised -- or perhaps more correctly, disturbed -- to find that some fundamentalist christians seem to equate pagan traditions with worship of the christian devil. Our reply to this is "not even close" -- and their reply to our reply is very often "that's just what I'd expect the devil to say." Well, we aren't. If we were, we'd no doubt have a much more convincing rebuttal. Should the pagan graphics trouble you, you can convert the distribution version of GIF Construction Set into a politically correct, culturally neutral GIF Construction Set. Delete the two "click me" advertisements and this bit of the Frequently Asked Questions document. Q: If I register GIF Construction Set and the leather-winged demon of the night comes by to rip out my heart before the registration key arrives, what can I do? A: Running away isn't an altogether bad idea. Painting its nose with Keen's extra hot mustard has been known to work as well. Keep in mind that the leather winged demon of the night has been lunching down those still-beating hearts in record numbers of late, and is getting a bit porky. It can't move like it used to. Do not attempt to use high explosives or small tactical nuclear weapons against leather-winged demons of the night, as this just irritates them. Q: I received a message from Alchemy Mindworks saying that I have a GIF file created by an unregistered copy of GIF Construction Set on my web page, and asking me to register the software. I only created the one GIF file while I was evaluating the shareware version -- don't you people think that coming after me this way is somewhat unreasonable? A: A considerable pontification follows -- this is not recommended for anyone with a short attention span. See the question following this one as well. We receive a number of messages each week from registered users of GIF Construction Set which say, in effect "I paid for the software. I've found a GIF file which was obviously created by someone who didn't. Can't you do something about this?" In one light, this ignores the reality that shareware developers are ultimately powerless to stop users of their software who are determined not to pay for it -- we can't call in the shareware police, and as should be obvious, we wouldn't even if we could. We're also unable to ascertain how long someone has been evaluating an unregistered copy of GIF Construction Set, of course. At another level, however, we feel that this is a reasonable concern. Users who have supported the shareware they use should feel a bit abused when they see others who do not. We don't believe that shareware which seeks to compel its users to register it -- with 30-day timers and other restrictions -- is really in keeping with the spirit of shareware. However, getting in touch with the owners of the web pages in question and mentioning that they've used GIF Construction Set without paying for it doesn't seem unreasonable. The messages we send to the owners of web pages which include GIF files created by unregistered copies of GIF Construction Set seem to evoke one of three responses. Some of them are ignored -- this is especially true of messages sent to large corporations and branches of the government. The White House web page, for example, has two GIF files of a waving American flag on it as of this writing which were created by an unregistered copy of GIF Construction Set. Some of the people we contact actually register GIF Construction Set, which is, of course, very heartening. Finally, a few of the replies we receive express howling, lethal outrage at our having contacted their senders. These seem to be from younger users of the Internet, or possibly from people who feel that a good strong offense is the best defense. These replies usually include sentiments such as "you have no idea how shareware is supposed to work", "I only used the software once", "you have some nerve demanding that I register your shareware", "you're spamming my e-mail", "I'm just evaluating it and haven't decided whether I like it" and "I'm so offended that I'll never use your software again, and I'll tell all my friends what bastards you are". This latter point is a somewhat hollow threat -- users who had no intention of paying for GIF Construction Set in the first place can't very well threaten not to do so in the future. As to our "demanding" payment, the most coercive line in the message we send to unregistered users of the software is "we would like to ask that you register GIF Construction Set..." -- not exactly a leg-breaker. We feel that software should be regarded as you would any other tool -- for example, a hammer or a power drill. If you only needed to drill one hole, you'd still have to go out and pay for a power drill -- the price of the tool isn't predicated on the number of times you intend to use it. Admittedly, this precludes users who would buy the drill, use it for the one hole they needed drilled and then return it, claiming they didn't like it - - a practice at least as unethical as using unregistered shareware. The distinction between GIF Construction Set and a power drill is that the people who sell power drills have pretty tight control over the number of people who use them versus the number of people who pay for them. Shareware developers must, by nature, be resigned to a level of abuse that the manufacturers of more conventional tools need not concern themselves with. Some users of shareware might regard this as a degree of license to abuse the software they download. Our perception of shareware -- albeit from the point of view of shareware developers -- is that shareware which is being evaluated should not be used to do productive work, and that shareware which is doing productive work is no longer being evaluated. In the case of GIF Construction Set, "productive work" would be creating GIF files which wind up on a web page. If it's good enough to create images for your web page, it's worth paying for. License to evaluate shareware should not be regarded as the opportunity to get as much productive work done during the evaluation period as possible, and then to "decide" that the software isn't worth registering. If there's a distinction between this and the aforementioned example of returning a tool to the shop where you bought it after you're done with it, it eludes us. In conclusion, then, we don't feel that our messages asking unregistered users of our software to pay for it are unreasonable or out of keeping with the spirit of shareware. They're certainly less so than the level of crippling we see in other shareware packages. Parties who use shareware and don't pay for it make it more expensive for the ones who do -- doubly so for the users who don't pay for it but call our technical support line anyway. (You know who you are.) Users who claim to have only used GIF Construction Set once can take heart -- we're only asking you to pay for it once. Q: I received a message about an animated GIF file on my web page having been created by an unregistered version of GIF Construction Set. I found that GIF file on another page -- do I have to do anything about it? A: This is the Internet -- you don't HAVE to do anything. We feel that using an unregistered shareware application to do productive work is software piracy, no less so than using an unpaid-for copy of a commercial application. Someone used a pirated copy of our software to create the GIF file in question, even if it wasn't you or anyone you know. You might want to consider whether you wish to support software piracy by using the product of a pirated application. Secondly, you might want to consider whether you want people who browse your web pages to know that pirated software was used in part to create them. They certainly won't know where your animated GIF file came from. Ulimately, it's your decision whether you want to remove the GIF file in question from your page, register GIF Construction Set to make it legal or just pretend we're extraterrestials and wait for us to beam up and go away. To phrase it another way, you're free to decide whether you see yourself as being part of a lawless Internet, wherein everyone does as he or she pleases -- presumably doing it to you one day soon -- or whether you feel that the Internet has a conscience and a sense of ethics, of which you are part. If you're not prepared to register GIF Construction Set, we would certainly prefer to see you remove any GIF files created by unregistered copies of it from your web page, however they got there. However, as was noted earlier, this is the Internet -- no one is going to force you to do so. Q: Can I bundle GIF Construction Set with my commercial product. A: Possibly, but please read the Shareware Distribution document that accompanies GIF Construction Set first, and then get in touch with us before you proceed. Q: How much do upgrades for a registered copy of GIF Construction Set cost? A: Upgrades in the 1.0 series are free -- just download the current shareware release and install it on a system with a registered copy. It will find your registration code and become a registered copy. We have no current plans to amend this situation in the foreseeable future, although we reserve the right to do so if we change our minds. Q: I registered GIF Construction Set for Windows 3.1, but I've upgraded to Windows 95. How much will the 32-bit version cost me? A: Nothing. We sell functionality, not platforms. In fact, if you look at the GIF Construction Set disk you received when you registered your shareware, you'll find the 32-bit build is on it. Barring this, you can download it from our web page. The same registration code works in both versions. Hands up all Windows users who consider 95 to be an "upgrade". Q: I live outside North America -- how much more must I add for shipping? A: Nothing. The $5.00 (US) shipping charge for GIF Construction Set will get it anywhere on earth by air mail -- prices for the Martian colonies are slightly higher. Q: What is the Unisys GIF tax and does this mean that I must pay a royalty on GIF files I create? A: The GIF format was originally created by CompuServe. The image compression algorithm used by GIF files is called LZW. At the time GIF was created, back in 1987, CompuServe appears to have assumed that LZW was a public domain entity -- at least, there's no indication that they did a patent search to find out whether LZW was owned by anyone. CompuServe announced the GIF format in 1987 with the following grant of rights to developers: "While this document is copyrighted, the information contained within is made available for use in computer software without royalties, or licensing restrictions." As it happens, CompuServe didn't actually have these rights to grant -- LZW is a patented entity which is currently owned by the Unisys Corporation. Unisys actually acquired the LZW patent in 1985. They didn't make much noise about it until December of 1994, however, leaving sufficient time for GIF to be widely adopted as a graphic file format. Among other things, it became the defacto standard for lossless graphics on the web. At the end of 1994, Unisys announced that it would be demanding royalties from any developer who created for-profit software which can read or write graphic files using LZW compression -- for practical purposes, this includes GIF and some TIFF files. Our understanding of this situation, as explained to us by our trademark and patent attorneys, is that Unisys can demand a royalty for software which uses its patented algorithm to read or write GIF files, but not for the data the algorithm creates. As such, while we must pay Unisys a royalty on each copy of GIF Construction Set registered, you're safe in using GIF files without any interference from Unisys. Our attorneys have also recommended that we not say what we think about Unisys' conduct in this situation, so we'll leave it to your imagination. Note that Unisys would now like to sell us all Internet-based services and hardware. Ya, right... Q: Can I use some of the images at the Alchemy Mindworks web page on my own page? A: If you are a registered user of GIF Construction Set, you are welcome to use the animated moving red ball graphic and the animated spinning compact disk graphic on your page. There are two conditions to this: 1. Your page must include a link back to ours, and credit for the source of the images. 2. You must download these files from our page and reference copies of them on your server, rather than referencing the files on our page. From time to time we change the links and the file names for frequently "borrowed" files, replacing them with something else entirely. You probably don't want to see what "something else" looks like. If you'd like a graphic to use for a link to our page, please check the link at the bottom of our main page to download one. Q: If I have a registered copy of GIF Construction Set, do I have to pay a royalty to Alchemy Mindworks if I sell the animations I create? A: No. Your intellectual property is yours to do with as you like. You also don't have to acknowledge the software you used to create 'em, although you're welcome to do so if you like, with our thanks. SECTION 2: Technical Support ---------------------------- Q: Can I get technical support for GIF Construction Set even if I'm not a registered user yet? A: We will provide limited technical support to unregistered users at our discretion to help you evaluate the software. Please note that we reserve the right to discontinue technical support to specific unregistered users if we feel that your requests on our technical support facilities are excessive, or if your questions are answered in the GIF Construction Set documentation. Q: Is there a limit to the amount of technical support I'm entitled to as a registered user? A: We would like your use of GIF Construction Set to be as effortless and productive as possible. As such, we do not impose specific limits on technical support -- if you're genuinely having a lot of problems, we're here to get you through them. However, technical support is not a talking manual. We reserve the right to refuse to provide technical support to users with questions which are answered in this documentation, or in the GIF Construction Set documentation. If you're really new to computers, to Windows or to the net, you might need to read up on these areas before we can assist you with specific problems in GIF Construction Set. We consider that the question "which one of the plastic things on my desk is the mouse?" is a good indication that you have some way to go before you need to talk to us. We usually will not be able to help you with applications from other developers, even if you're using their files with GIF Construction Set, or GIF Construction Set's files with them. We cannot direct you to books to read or places on the web to find out about things other than our software. We cannot provide technical support in languages other than English. That's contemporary English, by the way, rather than, say, Chaucerian English. Neither jive nor val-speak constitute English for the purposes of this discussion. Inserting the word "blimey" into another language at regular intervals doesn't qualify as English either. Finally, we will hang up on, shred or delete requests for technical support from users who are rude or abusive. Q: How can I contact the technical support desk for GIF Construction Set? A: You can get technical support by e-mail at alchemy@mail.north.net -- questions sent to this e-mail address are usually answered within 48 hours, and often within two or three hours. You can also call us at 1-905-936-9501 between 10:00am and 5:00pm EST, most working days. If you get the voice-mail machine, all our lines are busy. We will not under any circumstances return calls for technical support. Please do not call the 800 number for technical support -- this connects to our order desk, which knows nothing about software. They cannot transfer you to someone who does. Please read this document in its entirety and the Documentation file for GIF Construction Set before you call technical support. Q: What's the best time to call the technical support desk. A: Before noon EST is usually somewhat quieter, as the west coast hasn't come on line as yet. Noon to one EST is dodgy, as it's lunch time. Afternoons can get fairly busy. Friday is particularly heavy, as Sprint gives some of its customers free long distance calling on Fridays. Some of them call us just to chat. Thanks, Sprint... We are often able to provide technical support on weekends and after hours -- if anyone is working here during this period, they'll be happy to assist you as best they can. Note that after- hours technical support cannot help you with questions about order status or software registration codes. If you call after hours and get voice mail, there's no one about. Q: Is there any way to call technical support without my paying for the call? A: Aside from relocating to beautiful Adjala township in central Ontario to raise potatoes and drink warm, flat beer, no. Unlike many software developers, we do not impose a per-call fee on technical support, nor will you find yourself on hold for fifteen minutes listening to elevator music if you call us. However, the only way we could provide toll-free technical support would be to increase the price of our shareware to cover the phone costs. This would, in effect, impose the cost of technical support on everyone who uses Alchemy Mindworks' software, even though only a few users would actually be calling for technical support. We feel strongly that people shouldn't be required to pay for services they don't actually get. We believe that this would be fundamentally wrong. We further feel that if our various governments felt the same way, our various economies wouldn't be melting down as you read this. Q: I'm having difficulties with a GIF file. Can I e-mail it to you so you can see what's happening? A: Please query first -- your problem may be something we've heard of, and we'll be able to recommend a solution for it immediately. Under no circumstances should you e-mail us a GIF file which is over 20K in length. Our mail server automatically deletes files bigger than this, as well as the messages they're attached to. If you do e-mail us a GIF file, please send it as a BinHex- encoded attachment. Do not uuencode it, or try sending the binary file as a text message. Q: What is the longest recorded flight of a chicken? A: Thirteen seconds. SECTION 3: Running GIF Construction Set --------------------------------------- Q: When I click on View to see an animated GIF file, nothing happens -- all I see is the first image. What's wrong? A: This is a bug which appeared in the 1.0J 32-bit version, and again in the 1.0M 32-bit version. It only affects machines running certain builds of Windows 95 and NT with a 16- or 256- colour screen driver installed. It's permanently fixed in version 1.0N -- using the sixteen-bit version or installing a 32,768- colour or better Windows screen driver will work around the problem in earlier versions. Q: My animated GIF files looked fine in GIF Construction Set, but they appear tiny on my web page. What's wrong? A: This seems to happen when pages are built with a number of popular web page creation packages, including FrontPage, HotDog and Netscape Gold. We do not use these packages in house, and cannot confirm that there's a problem with them. However, it appears that they install WIDTH= and HEIGHT= elements into the HTML coding which references the anaimated GIF files in question, and that these values are incorrect when animated GIF files are used. You can remedy this situation by opening your HTML document in a text editor, such as Windows Notepad, locating the reference to the GIF files in question, and deleteing the WIDTH= and HEIGHT= elements. Q: Some of my GIF files with transparent backgrounds exhibit an irregular coloured aura around the non-transparent elements. Is this due to bad karma, or is something amiss? A: Something's amiss. These are usually pixels which have a colour similar to that of your transparent colour, but are actually being drawn in a different palette colour. Here's how this can happen. Imagine a figure against a white background. The background is solid white, and as such if white is assigned as the transparent colour, it will drop out correctly. If there are a few very light grey pixels at the edges of the figure, you might not have noticed them when the figure was against a white background, but when the background becomes transparent, they'll become quite visible, as they'll be almost white but not transparent. You can fix this by editing your image with a paint package and replacing the slightly off-colour pixels with pixels which are the same as those of your intended transparent colour. This can be a bit fiddly. Keep in mind that there can only be one transparent colour per image in a GIF file, and that the transparent "colour" is really a transparent palette index number. As such, if you were to assign colour 255 as the transparent colour, colour 254 would not be transparent, even if colour 254 and colour 255 are in fact the same visible colour. Q: Sometimes I attempt to import source image files into GIF Construction Set and they report as corrupt, even through I know they're good. What's wrong. A: This is a really obscure bug -- we know about it, but we can't reproduce it in house as of this writing. It seems to be dependent on a specific build of Windows 95. We recommend that you use the sixteen-bit version of GIF Construction Set 'til we work out what's amiss. In a pinch, the Merge feature gets around it. Q: How can I create buttons that wait for a user to click on them with GIF Construction Set? A: You can't -- the Wait for User Input flag is not implemented in Netscape. Q: My animations view fine in GIF Construction Set, but only display once in Netscape. What's Wrong? A: This can be caused by one of several things. Check the disk cache value in Netscape. It should be at least two megabytes, or 2000 kilobytes. Also, check your Netscape version -- the 3.0 beta releases have exhibited various problems like this. We recommend that you use release 2.0 for serious work 'til the 3.0 package is out of betas. Q: Can I create a GIF file with a small animated image moving over a larger background frame? A: Maybe, sometimes, not really. There are several problems inherent in this. First off, a GIF Loop block always loops the whole file, which means that your background frame will periodically repaint itself. This is quite noticeable on slower machines. Secondly, as of this writing Remove by Previous Image does not work in Netscape, so animated images moving over a background frame may leave bits of themselves behind. This feature does appear to work in Microsoft Explorer 3.0, but not everyone uses Explorer. If your animated tile won't actually move around relative to your background frame, you can usually get away with this. Q: The animations I create in GIF Construction Set play at the wrong speed in Netscape. Can this be fixed? A: Not really. Netscape's animation drivers have a somewhat variable playback speed as of this writing. It depends to a considerable extent on your machine speed, available system resources and the size and colour depth of your animated image. Whether or not you own a cat and feed it enough cheese probably enters into the problem as well. While you can adjust the playback speed for a specific speed on your system by changing the Delay values in the Control blocks for your animated GIF file, this will only guarantee the "correct" playback speed on your system. It will probably vary on other machines. This is a characteristic of Netscape we're all stuck with at present. Q: How do I create a transparent GIF file with GIF Construction Set? A: Here's the procedure, step by step: 1. Open a GIF file. You should have a Header block and and Image block visible in GIF Construction Set. 2. Click on the Header block once. 3. Click on Insert. 4. Click on Control. You should now have a Header, a Control and an Image block. 5. Double-click on the Control block to edit it. 6. Enable Transparent colour. 7. Click on the eyedropper tool and use it to select the colour in your image that you want to be transparent. 8. Click on OK and save the file. Q: Does GIF Construction Set run under Windows NT A: Yes, it does -- but only the recent versions have been fully NT compatible. Versions prior to 1.0M are not recommended for use under NT. Q: When I create GIF files with GIF Construction Set and reference them in a web page, the image is inset into the upper left corner of a huge blank space that pushes all my other text and graphics down the page. What's wrong? A: This is caused by having the Screen Width and Screen Depth fields of the Header block of your GIF file set too large. The current version of GIF Construction Set will set them for you automatically when you save a GIF file. Older versions left them at their default values of 640 by 480 pixels. If you have an older version of the software, edit these fields so they're the same size as the pixel dimensions of your images. Alternately, get the latest version of GIF Construction Set from our web page. Note that the Adjust Header on Save option in the Setup dialog must be enabled in the current version of GIF Construction Set for this feature to work. Q: When I downloaded GIF Construction Set, there was text scrolling across the status bar of my web browser. Was this an animated GIF, and if so, how can I do this on my own page? A: Actually, that's a Java script. Download one of the pages that has it to a local HTML file and swipe the part at the top, as well as the tag immediately after it. There's an alternate one in the Fiction section of our web page that's kind of slick too. Q: I created transparent GIF files in another application and imported them into GIF Construction Set. The images imported fine, but they're no longer transparent. What's wrong? A: GIF Construction Set's Insert Image and Animation Wizard features only import images -- not Control blocks. You can either use Merge to preserve the Control blocks of your source images or add new Control blocks as required and set the transparency values therein after using Insert Image or Animation Wizard. The Manage function of the Block menu is handy for doing this for a whole GIF file at once. Q: I get coloured speckles in the background of my images, or the images themselves look crunchy and of poor quality once they've been imported into GIF Construction Set. What am I doing wrong? A: It sounds like you're dithering twice -- once to get your images into GIF files and a second time to get your GIF files into GIF Construction Set. Assuming that your source images are coming from a graphics package -- such as Photoshop, for example -- export them to 24-bit files in a format like BMP, PCX or TGA, and import these files into GIF Construction Set. This will eliminate one stage of dithering and eliminate most of the objectionable artifacts. Read the next few questions and answers for further discussion about this issue. Q: The background of my GIF file can't be made wholly transparent because it has dots of other colours in it. What's wrong? A: It's dithered. If your source images are essentially drawn, the best way to get around this is to rebuild your GIF file using one of the drawn image options in Wizard, or using Remap to Global Palette in Insert Image. You can reduce the effects of dithering in photographic images by choosing a pure white background and importing from native 24-bit files, as discussed elsewhere in this document. Q: How can I avoid completely having GIF Construction Set dither images I create in an imaging package, such as PhotoShop? A: Create your image such that all the colours in your source image are drawn from the Netscape 216-colour palette. See the next question in this document if you don't have the Netscape 216-colour palette available. How you create your images to use this palette is up to you and your image creation software. Having created suitable images, export them to a format that GIF Construction Set will read -- because they must, by their nature, have no more than 256 colours, you can even use the GIF format. If you're using the Animation Wizard feature of GIF Construction Set, be sure to choose the Draw Images option and tell it that you'll be creating animated GIF files for use on a web page. If you're using Insert Image, set the default palette in Setup to the Netscape 216-colour option. Insert your images and select Remap to Global Palette from the Palette dialog when it appears. These options tell GIF Construction Set to remap your images, rather than dither them. Because both your source images and the GIF file GIF Construction Set is building for you have the same palette -- the Netscape 216-colour palette -- all the source colours will remap exactly to colours in the final palette, and no colour shifts will occur. This is the safest way to create photographic animated GIF files with transparent backgrounds if your photographic images are starting out in a package like Photoshop. Q: What is the Netscape 216-colour palette, also called the Netscape "safe" palette? How can I use it in my imaging software? A: When it's running on a system with a 256-colour screen driver, Netscape remaps all its graphics to a fixed palette having 216 colours. If you create graphics which use this palette, you can be assured that no colour shifts or dithering will occur in Netscape, even if they're viewed on a machine with limited colour depth. GIF Construction Set has the Netscape 216-colour palette as one of its default palette options. If you need this palette, open the Setup dialog of GIF Construction Set and make sure that the Default Palette combo box is set to the Netscape 216-Colour option. Having done so, create a new GIF file by selecting New from the File menu. Imsert an image into it -- the nature of the image itself doesn't matter, as all you want is the palette. Save this file. You can now open this temporary GIF file into your imaging software -- PhotoShop, PhotoPaint or whatever you like the look of -- and extract its palette. Use this palette when you create new files or convert 24-bit images to 256 colours for export to a GIF file. Save the palette so you can use it again at a later date without having to repeat the foregoing procedure. Q: What are the THN files created by GIF Construction Set, and do I need to keep them? A: THN files store the GIF Construction Set thumbnails, and are only used by GIF Construction Set and other Alchemy Mindworks applications. You can delete them if you wish. Open Setup and turn off Write Thumbnails to prevent their being created in the future. Q: Is it true that interlaced GIF files download to a web page faster? A: No, the opposite is usually true. They take a bit more time to display under most web browsers, and because interlacing can break up consecutive pixel runs at the ends of lines, interlacing can actually make your GIF files larger in pathological cases. Q: How did you create the moving bullet graphic, the spinning compact disc graphic and the slide show graphic at the Alchemy Mindworks web page? A: They were all created with GIF Construction Set. The moving bullet graphic is a single small GIF image repeated multiple times, with each iteration being moved right by a few pixels. The Manage function in the Block menu of GIF Construction Set makes it easy to do this. The spinning compact disc graphic was created by rotating the image of a compact disc several times in Corel PhotoPaint and then assembling the frames in GIF Construction Set. The slide show is just an animated GIF file with a different picture for each frame. Q: Can GIF Construction Set add sound to my animated GIF files? A: No, the GIF specification does not include facilities for sampled audio at present. Q: Can I get more than 256 colours in a GIF file image? A: No, the GIF specification does not support images with more than 256 colours at present. This situation is likely to remain for the foreseeable future. Actually, this is almost completely true. See the next question and answer for further discussion about this subject. Q: What are Wide Palette GIF Files, and do they really allow a GIF file to store more than 256 colours? A: Wide palette GIF files let a GIF file store images having more than 256 colours, but they do so in a very peculiar way. It's important to understand what they're up to. This feature appears in the release version of GIF Construction Set 1.0N and later versions. It's only available in the 32-bit build. A GIF image can only store a maximum of 256 colours. However, a GIF file can store any number of images. If each image has its own local palette, it's possible to have more than 256 different colours stored in the file. This is what wide palette GIF files do. If the source image you wished to store in one had 510 distinct colours, GIF Construction Set would create a GIF file with two Image blocks. The first Image block would have a local palette with the first 255 colours of your source image in it. The second Image block would have a local palette with the second 255 colours from your source image. Each palette would also have one colour that did not appear anywhere in your source image, to be used as a transparent colour. When such a GIF file is displayed, the multiple images will merge on your screen to create a complete picture having more than 256 distinct colours. Wide palette GIF files allow you to enjoy lossless images having lots of colours in a format which is compatible with existing web browsers. However, they embody some important catches. They tend to be kind of large. They display properly in most web browsers and in GIF Construction Set, but practically nowhere else. If one is displayed on a system with a 256-colour screen driver, it will look ugly enough to mutate bacteria. There's more complete information about wide palette GIF files in the documentation and Help section of GIF Construction Set. Q: Can I break an animated GIF file apart into its individual frames, so I can edit them? A: Yes -- the Extract function in the Block menu can be used to do this. Q: After I use the Export function on my animated GIF files, they don't animate any more. What's wrong? A: This is not what Export is intended for -- you should have just saved your animated GIF files. Export combines all the elements in a multiple-image GIF file into a new single-image GIF file, to allow complex graphics like the EXAMPLE.GIF file that accompanies GIF Construction Set to be imported into applications which can only read single-image files. Q: I get all the way to the end of Animation Wizard, select a file and it will not allow me to go any further. What's wrong? A: Animation Wizard requires that you specify two or more files to create an animation. Q: Do you have somewhere I can download some animated GIF files to use at my page? A: No, we don't offer any sort of on-line image libraries. There numerous such pages on the web, however. Search Yahoo or Lycos for the words "animation" and "gif" to turn them up. Q: Can I import a number of source images at once into GIF Construction Set, or must I select them individually? A: The Insert Image function allows you to select multiple images at once. Click on Insert and select Image. When the file dialog appears, you can: - Hold down the Ctrl key and select more than one file name by clicking on it. - Hold down the Shift key and click on the beginning and then the end of a range of file names to select. - Hold and drag your mouse over a range of file names to select them. Once you have finished selecting images, click on OK. When the palette dialog appears, enable the Use for Subsequent Images option to process all the images without the Palette dialog appearing again. Animation Wizard also allows for multiple file selection using the same controls. This option does not appear in versions older than the 1.0N release. Q: When I import or open some two-colour GIF files, the colours are changed to black and white, or black and white images are reversed. Have I been staring at a cheap monitor from Sears too long, or is this a bug? A: Actually, it's a bug. It's fixed in version 1.0N. - THAT'S IT -