Description

MacAnim Viewer 1.0.4 displays GL, FLI, FLC, DL, GIF, and PCX/PIC files, and automatically unzips PKUNZIP 2.04g-compatible .zip archives in search of the same.  Please note that MacAnim Viewer was built presupposing a 68020 and 32-bit QuickDraw, and that it works best with an 8-bit color monitor set to display 256 colors.

02OCT94       Martin Fong (mwfong@std.sri.com)

Menus

–File

•  Open…   (Command-0)
Allows you to open and view GL, FLI, FLC, DL, GIF, PIC/PCX, and ZIP files.  Holding the option key down while selecting this menu item allows you to open any file.

•  Open Startup File
Allows you to open and view the next document that was dragged-and-dropped to start MacAnim Viewer.  This is inactive if all startup documents have been opened or if none were specified.

•  Close   (Command-W)
Closes frontmost image document.

•  Close All
Closes all image document.  This is equivalent to pressing the Option key while dismissing the frontmost document window.

•  Save as GL…   (Command-S)
Saves frontmost image document as a GL archive with GIF images.

•  Play   (Command-P)
Plays or displays frontmost image document.  Press Command-. (period) or Esc to terminate.

•  Quit   (Command-Q)
Exits application.

–Options

•  Animation Settings…   (Command-= (equals))

GL, FLI, and DL Time Scale rescales the playback speeds relative to an animation’s default; however, the values must be non-negative.

Expand FLI files in memory expands individual FLI and FLC frames into in-memory PICTs when an FLI or FLC file is read, trading memory space against animation rendering time.

Rescale DL color maps increases the dynamic range of DL color maps.

•  Loop FLI Animations   (Command-L)
Allows you to indefinitely play FLI and FLC animations.

•  Scale Images…   (Command-E)
Allows you to scale all animations and images to fit within a pre-defined area by powers of two.  Note that when default scaling is selected, Scale To fit is deactivated.

• Theater View   (Command-T)
Displays image documents centered against a black background.

•  Select Unzip Folder…
Allows you to select a folder into which unzipped files are extracted.  The default is MacAnim Viewer's folder.

•  Unzip File…
Allows you to unzip a selected .zip file.  However, MacAnim Viewer will not look for animation files in the archive.

•  Diagnostics…   (Command-D)

Small Video C converts 640 x 200 PIC bitmaps into 320 x 240 grayscale images when a GL animation is read.  If this is not selected, video C images are scaled to 640 x 400.

Image Loop displays individual images within an animation document when the document is displayed.  Single click in the window displays next image, option-click displays previous image.  On extended keyboards, you can also use the home/page/arrow keys to navigate through the images.

Show Directory, Show Text, Print Codes, Quiet, Verbose, and Image Verbose are used to obtain diagnostic information during the processing of animation files.  With the exception of Quiet, most of these options will reduce animation frame rates by writing fairly cryptic messages to the console window.

–Window

•  console
Shows or hides the console window (which contains diagnostic and debugging information).  Please note that you must  hide the console window to display an image document or quit the application.

•  <Image Name>
Allows you to bring the specified image document frontmost.

–Scripts

This menu is only active for GL archives that contain more than one script.  It allows you to select a specific script for playback. 

“Hidden” Feature

If MacAnim Viewer doesn’t display a particular file in the open file dialog, hold down the Option key when selecting “Open…” from the File menu.  This will cause MacAnim Viewer to display all files regardless of their file types.

Credits

The GRASP part of this work is derived from Patrick J. Naughton’s xgrasp distribution, copyright (c) 1991.  The FLI decoding software is from Ron Schnell's <ronnie@sos.com> xflick distribution.  The GIF decoding software is from the Net.  The DL decoding software is originally from George Phillips <phillips@cs.ubc.ca> dltogl.c code.  UnZip software is from the UnZip 5.x distribution from Info-ZIP (info-zip@wkuvx1.bitnet).  FLI/FLC/DL debug hints and enhancements are from Mark Podlipec's <podlipec@wellfleet.com> xanim 2.6x distributions. This help dialog is based upon James W. Walker’s <76367.2271@compuserve.com> show_help code.

Finally, thanks to the beta testers, particularly Brian Pine of Cal Poly, who was extremely active, dedicated, and rigorous in his testing.