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G I F E X E Version 4.4 Mar. 15, 1994 A Self-Displayer and Slideshow Program for Your GIF(tm) Pictures Copyright 1990,1994 Synergrafix Consulting All right reserved. GIFEXE is produced by: Steve Enns Synergrafix Consulting 44 Macdermid Cres. and 44 Macdermid Cres. Saskatoon, Sk. Saskatoon, Sk. Canada S7J 2R2 Canada S7J 2R2 Okay, here's the boring stuff, but don't worry, it's better than chewing tinfoil: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Kudos, thanks, and good karma to John Bridges for the enlightening information and code contained in his VGAKIT package. Trademarks like GIF(tm) and PC(tm) are held by their respective companies. DISCLAIMER The GIFEXE program is provided without warranty of any kind. The user of the GIFEXE assumes complete responsibility for any and all incidental or consequential damages which may occur during normal or abnormal use of the GIFEXE program. Use the GIFEXE program at your own risk. LICENSE The entire GIFEXE package, including the GIFEXE program, documentation, and sample files are Copyright 1990,1994 Synergrafix Consulting. All rights reserved. The unregistered shareware version of the GIFEXE may be freely distributed to others by any means, as long the following (three) conditions are met: 1) GIFEXE is distributed in a "package" containing the following files: GIFEXE.EXE GIFEXE.DOC GE-READ.ME ORDER.FRM FILE_ID.DIZ 2) GIFEXE is not distributed as part of any other product, except with specific written permission from the author, Steve Enns. 3) NO fee of any kind is charged for the GIFEXE package or for the service of providing the package, except Computer Bulletin Board Systems, which may distribute the GIFEXE package even though they may charge a membership or service fee. You can use the "shareware" version for as long as you want, even until you're well into your nineties, but you are of course encouraged to send us lots of money, too. (I'm struggling to pay for my violin lessons, and Dan needs a new fishing rod.) If you send $8.00 U.S. or more to the "Steve Enns" guy above, you will receive a 5.25" disk (3.5" disks are $2.00 extra) with the latest registered version of GIFEXE, which has several additional "special effects" features, and can make slideshows from an unlimited number of GIFs. (See below.) If you send $23.00 U.S. or more, you will also receive registered versions of the following programs: GIFWARP! Warp, bend stretch your GIFs for interesting effects. GIFCLIP Clip/crop your GIFs, add text or your own GIF logo or signature. GIFSIZE Resize all or part of your GIFs. Shrink an entire screen to the size of an icon. HCPLAY/HCMAKE Make 32,768 color (HiColor) FLI-type Animations from a series of Targa images. No more colour limitations in your FLI animations. (These programs are available in licensed SuperVGA versions for $8.00 U.S. each, or get all three, and the latest version of GIFEXE for $23.00 U.S. or more. The registered versions may not be distributed to others, or distributed with, or as part of any other product. HCPLAY/HCMAKE are available for $30.00 U.S. See ORDER.FRM.) REQUIREMENTS GIFEXE requires the following: - PC(tm)/XT(tm)/AT(tm)/386(tm) computer thing - About 280K of free RAM - DOS 3.0-6.0 (others untested) - A VGA or SuperVGA card - Some GIF(tm) pictures. and optionally: - GIFEXE supports modes like 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 with 256 colours on 512K and 1024K SuperVGA cards from ATI, Ahead, Cirrus, Chips and Technologies, Everex, OAK, Paradise, Trident, Tseng, Video7, Compaq, NCR, Genoa and VESA. S3 and other Windows accelerator cards that have a VESA bios or driver are also supported. VESA is required for some of the special effects. INSTALLATION Copy the GIFEXE program (and this helpful document of course!) to any directory that you want - perhaps with your favourite GIF(tm) viewer somewhere in the DOS path. USAGE Syntax for GIFEXE is as follows: GIFEXE [?] infilename[.GIF] [outfilename[.EXE]] /mode=0,1,2.. /autoscale to make a single GIF display program, or GIFEXE [?] @listfile [outfilename[.EXE]] /stopkey=n /cycle=0,1,2,3 to make a slideshow program. See the GIFLIST example list file, and the GIFLIST.BAT batch file. In addition, the following "special effects" options are available in the registered version: /fadein /fadeout /dissolve /delay=secs /noclear /bouncein /bounceout /slidein=c /slideout=c /pass=str Generally, the options may be used with GIFEXE when you are creating an EXE, or with the EXE that you have already created. When using a list file to make an EXE slideshow, the special effects options are placed in the list file. (See TUTORIAL below.) Not all options make sense together - only one of the "entrance" effect, and one "exit" effect are allowed for each image. (Can't fade, bounce and slide out all at once - yet.) The options are as follows: /mode=code /mode=0 Ordinary 320x200 mode /mode=1 Low resolution SVGA 640x400 or 640x350 depending on your card. /mode=2 Medium resolution 640x480 /mode=3 High resolution 800x600 /mode=4 Higher resolution 1024x768 is supported on some 1024K cards. Try a VESA driver!) /mode=5 Higher-still resolution 1280x1024 for VESA. /autoscale When this switch is used, the GIF will be scaled up to fit on the screen if the screen resolution is 2 or more times the resolution of the GIF. (Just try it with a 320x200 GIF and a 640x480 screen mode.) When using a list file to make a slideshow: /cycle=code /cycle=0 Play the slideshow once, forward /cycle=1 Play the slideshow forward, continuously /cycle=2 Play the slideshow backward, continuously /cycle=4 Play the slideshow backward, once /stopkey=code /stopkey=27 Play the show until ESC key (ascii 27) is hit. Default. /stopkey=32 Play until spacebar is hit And the additional "special effects" available in the registered version: /fadein Gradually fade in when displaying the GIF. The screen will start black, and gradually the pictures will appear as the colors brighten. /fadeout After the GIF has been displayed, and the program is going to exit after a keypress, or a delay (see below) the screen will gradually fade to black. /dissolve After the GIF has been displayed, and the program is going to exit, the pixels will randomly turn black until the entire picture is gone. /delay=secs After the GIF has been displayed, wait "secs" seconds before automatically exiting. The program will also exit if a key is pressed before the time has expired. /noclear The screen will not be cleared when the program exits. This is useful if you are using GIFEXE to display an image from a program, and want to leave the image on the screen after the user presses the exit key. /bouncein "Bounce" the image onto its position on the screen. This effect works best with images that are not as tall as the entire screen - a GIF image that is 100 pixels high works well for ordinary VGA 320x200 mode, for example. /bounceout "Bounce" the image off the screen. See /bouncein above. /slidein=c "Slide" the image onto (or off of) the screen. /slideout=c The character "c" is the direction to slide, either "l" for left, or "r" for right. If both options are used for an image (both slidein and slideout), then the slideout will slide in the opposite direction of the slidein. The /slide options currently require a VESA card or driver. /pass=str Display the image only if the user has the correct password. The password is specified on the command line when making the EXE file, and the user is prompted for the password when the image is about to be displayed. If the password is not given, or is incorrect, the image will not be displayed. This allows "secret" pictures in a slideshow, for example. (The password applies to only the current picture. If an entire slideshow is to be protected, then each image will have to specify this option in the list file. See below.) The passwords are NOT case sensitive - "password" is considered equal to "PassWord". When using a list file to make a slideshow, the listfile has the following format: file1[.gif] /fadein /delay=n /fadeout /mode=m /autoscale /pass=steve file2[.gif] ... . . . filen[.gif] ... (One GIF filename with the desired display options on each line of the file. The unregistered version is limited to five images in a list file. The registered version should be able to do several thousand, in case you have the disk space and inclination to make a 100 Megabyte slideshow.) In the registered version, the following keys are valid during the slideshow: PageDown Go to the next image in the slideshow PageUp Go back to the last image Home Go back to the first image End Go to the last image Numbers 1-9 Go to image number 'n'. '1' is the first image, '2' for the second... More sophisticated user controls are being considered for future versions of GIFEXE. For examples of GIFEXE usage, try: C> GIFEXE to see the title screen C> GIFEXE ? to see the help/brag screen C> GIFEXE house to make the .EXE HOUSE.EXE from the file HOUSE.GIF C> GIFEXE house house2 /autoscale /fadein make the .EXE file HOUSE2.EXE, from the GIF(tm) HOUSE.GIF using autoscale and fadein, so that HOUSE2 will fadein and autoscale when run. (/fadein available on registered versions only.) C> GIFEXE house /delay=10 make an EXE, HOUSE.EXE which will display HOUSE.GIF and then wait 10 seconds before exiting. C> GIFEXE @list /cycle=1 /stopkey=32 make an EXE, LIST.EXE of the GIF in the listfile LIST, which will play in a loop until the spacebar (ascii 32) is pressed. The first image will fadein, wait 2 seconds and then continue to the next image. The file LIST contains: gif1 /fadein /delay=2 gif2 gif3 gif4 C> GIFEXE secret.gif /pass=pokey Make SECRET.EXE from SECRET.GIF, using the password "POKEY". TUTORIAL (Nothin' to it!) Try out the following with your favourite GIF(tm) picture: C> GIFEXE picturename GIFEXE will prduce an EXE program with the name "picturename.EXE" That's it! Now just run the program you've just made: C> picturename The picture will be displayed on your screen in VGA, or in SuperVGA if your computer has SuperVGA, and the picture requires it. If you want a small (VGA) picture to be displayed in SuperVGA resolution, try: C> picturename /mode=2 to display the picture in medium SuperVGA resolution. If you have the registered version, you can make an EXE that will "fade in", and "dissolve out": C> GIFEXE picturename /fadein /dissolve Now when you run picturename, C> picturename The picture will "fade in", wait for a keypress, and then "dissolve" and the program will exit. And even if you didn't use some options when you created picturename.EXE, you can still use them later. Try: C> picturename /delay=10 /mode=3 and then the picture will "fade in" using mode 3, wait for 10 seconds or a keypress, and then "dissolve" and exit. To make an automated slideshow, make the following file (GIFSHOW.LST) with your text editor and your own GIF filenames: gifname1 /fadein /delay=2 /fadeout gifname2 /delay=2 gifname3 /delay=2 gifname4 /delay=2 gifname5 /delay=2 /fadeout Now, use the following GIFEXE command: C> GIFEXE @gifshow.lst /cycle=1 The file GIFSHOW.EXE will be produced, which will display the five images in your slideshow, continuously, until the ESC key is pressed: C> gifshow You can play the show backwards, until the spacebar is hit by changing the cycle and stopkey parameters: C> gifshow /cycle=3 /stopkey=32 If you omitted the /delay parameters in the list file, each GIF would be displayed until a key was pressed, or the slideshow was aborted with the ESC or /stopkey. HINTS - The EXEs produced by GIFEXE are handy for startup screens on your computer, or title screens for your programs. - Since version 3.0, self-running slideshows of GIFs may be produced without using batch files. If you are using DOS 5.0, there is an easy way to make a list file for slideshows: C> dir /b *.gif > listfile "listfile" will now contain the names of all the GIFs in the current directory. You can then just add the desired options to each line of the "listfile", and the make the slideshow: C> gifexe @listfile ERRORS - The following self explanatory error messages may be produced by GIFEXE. The errors involving the GIF(tm) files will generally be due to disk errors or faulty image files. Other errors refer to lack of enough free RAM space, or lack of required hardware (VGA). Can't initialize VGA graphics! Unexpected EOF reading GIF! Premature end of GIF! Not GIF file! Invalid GIF format Error writing GIF! Buffer allocation failure! NOTES - GIFEXE reads both GIF87A standard (the original) and new GIF89A pictures, although most of the extensions in the new GIF89A standard like (silly) text windows are ignored. The last image in multi-image GIFs will be the one displayed by GIFEXE. HISTORY - Version 1.0 Completed June.1 1991 - Version 1.2 Completed Sep.15 1991 Some additional cards now supported. 1024x768x256 now supported on some 1024K cards. - Version 2.0 Completed Sep.20 1991 Registered version introduced with /fadein /fadeout /dissolve /delay options. /autoscale option added to both versions. - Version 3.0 Completed Oct.1 1991 Multiple GIF EXE slideshows may now be produced. - Version 3.1 Completed Oct.4 1991 Ahhhhhh!!!! Fixed INCREDIBLY STUPID bug that would cause GIFEXE to abort if the picture was too big for the screen. Fixed bug that wouldn't allow full pathnames for input files on the command line. - Version 3.2 Completed Feb.14 1993 Added /noclear option to registered version. - Version 4.0 Completed May 20 1993 More graphics support for newer graphics hardware. Much better VESA support. (If GIFEXE dosen't want to do high- resolution on your video card, try loading a VESA driver!) S3 and other Windows accelerator cards which support VESA are now supported. New /bouncein, /bounceout and /pass options. - Version 4.1 Completed June 9 1993 Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! Noooooooo!!!! Fixed second INCREDIBLY STUPID bug in the VESA support for modes greater than 640x480. Addition of 1280x1024 support for VESA. - Version 4.2 Completed Feb. 27 1994 Additional VESA compatibility added for really weird video cards... Added checks for blank lines in slideshow list files that were screwing up some people... Getting ready for more special effects options! - Version 4.3 Completed Mar. 7 1994 Added some key controls to slideshows in the registered version. The user can now move backward and foreward through the slideshow. (See the end of the USAGE section.) - Version 4.4 Completed Mar. 15 1994 Added /slidein /slideout effects to registered version (which currently require VESA.)