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Text File | 1994-03-30 | 14.4 KB | 375 lines

Viewtek 1.04 - Another Picture/Animation Viewer Written by Thomas Krehbiel Updated March 1993 (See the end of this document for changes since the previous version.) INTRODUCTION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Some of you may remember an ILBM/ANIM viewer program I wrote a while back called "TIV". Some would say that "Viewtek" is TIV 2.0, but I consider it a totally different and much improved program (no part of TIV is in Viewtek; it is all rewritten from scratch). (If you're using TIV now under 2.0 I *strongly* suggest you dump it in favor of Viewtek.) Viewtek was written with a few objectives in mind. I wanted a program that first and foremost was totally 2.0 (and 3.0) compatible. I wanted it to take advantage of 3.0 and the AGA chips wherever possible. I wanted it to show ANIMs as good or better than TIV did, with support for any and all display modes. I also wanted to be able to render decent (if not spectacular) representations of 24-bit ILBMs, GIFs, and JPEGs. And I wanted to keep the program internally modular enough to support 3rd party display devices fairly easily (just in case). The result you have before you. FEATURES ~~~~~~~~ o Requires Workbench 2.04 or greater. o Shows most ILBM's (including 24-bit ILBM's). o Shows most Compuserve GIF format images. o Shows most JFIF format JPEG images. o Shows most ANIM Op5/Op7 format animations, with support for different palettes for each frame. o Supports SHAM, CTBL, and PCHG images. o Full support of ECS/AGA display modes (ie. show 256 color GIF's directly, show 800x600xHAM animations, etc.). o Supports viewing contents of clipboard. o Iconifies to a Workbench AppIcon. o Includes a version written for GVP's Impact Vision 24, to support true 24-bit display. o And even includes a stripped-down version that doesn't show GIF's or JPEG's for those who don't need it. NOTE ~~~~ I have no intention of supporting ANIM8 as long as there is an infinitely superior ANIM7 format around. You, the animation user, would be wise to petition those who would use ANIM8 to use ANIM7 instead. Unless you *want* a less efficient animation format. 'Nuff said. The included utility MakeAnim7 can be used to convert existing animations (5's or 8's) into the ANIM7 format. I have also included the documentation I received that describes the ANIM7 format. To the best of my knowledge, there are no limitations on its distribution. DISTRIBUTION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Viewtek is being distributed as Freeware. It may be freely distributed to any bulletin board service, network, or public domain collection, so long as no fees (beyond reasonable media fees) are charged for such distribution. I'm not asking for donations on this one, but feel free to drop me a note (preferably e-mail) or something if you want. Note, however, that Viewtek is NOT public domain. The author retains all rights to the program. OOPS! ~~~~~ Previous versions of the Viewtek documentation left out a very important statement: This software is based in part on the work of the Independant JPEG Group. I'd just like to apologize to the Independant JPEG Group for not having included this, they deserve full credit for their work in bringing this popular compression format to the computer world at large. INSTALLATION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Viewtek requires no special libraries or fonts or anything to run. Simply drag the Viewtek icon to wherever you wish to install it. It may be run from a Shell, Workbench, or even your favorite dirutil. The IV-24 version of Viewtek, however, requires that you have a copy of GVP's "fye.library" in your LIBS: directory. (If you have an IV-24, chances are pretty good you have this installed already.) DISABILITIES ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Okay, what *doesn't* it do? - No color cycling (yet?). Why? I have exactly one picture that color cycles out of hundreds of images and I never look at it anyway, so it wasn't a high priority. - Some CTBL images may not quite show properly, more than likely due to more palette changes per line than can be shown properly with the copper. Same may be true for SHAM pictures. I probably will not fix this because I don't really see much value in these types of pictures anyway. It may help to force the images to be shown in NTSC/PAL on an A4000, or move the picture to the right (with control arrow keys). With better displays becoming more widely available, this is also not a priority to work on. - Does not (yet?) support a non-existant first-frame BODY as specified for ANIM7 animations. (Personally, I think this is a bad thing anyway.) - Known incompatibility: VT doesn't interact well with the Commodore mouse blanker supplied with 3.0 when showing animations. When you move the mouse after it has been blanked (eg. after hitting some keys during the animation), the screen goes black. USEAGE FROM SHELL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Files/M One or more files/directories/patterns. Standard AmigaDOS wildcards are supported. Delay/N Time in seconds to show each file before moving on. Default is to wait for user to click a button. LowMem/S Do not double-buffer pictures, saves some chip memory. Repeat/N Number of times to repeat showing the pictures. Hide/S Hide the process of reading the pictures; by default you can watch as VT scans in the image. Note that for large GIF's and IFF24's, scanning in the image can take a while, so hiding the process can cause some confusion. Also note that when viewing on the IV24, hide is automatically enabled (due to the nature of the IV24). All/S Recursively enter subdirectories to show pictures. Iconify/S Launch VT in iconified mode (handy for putting VT in your WBStartup drawer). Forever/S Repeat showing the pictures forever and ever and ever. Clip/S Show contents of clipboard instead of a file. Unit/N Select clipboard unit number, default is 0. Loop/N Number of times to loop animation before proceeding, default is to loop forever. Speed/N Animation playback speed, in jiffies/frame. Cont/S Force animations to be considered "continuous", that is, the animations are assumed to have 2 looping frames built onto the end. Normally, VT will only play an animation in continuous mode if a DPAN chunk is found (DPaint animations are always continuous). There is no other way that I know of to tell if an animation is continuous or not. Lores/S Force an image or animation into lores. Hires/S Force an image or animation into hires. NoLace/S Force an image or animation into non-interlace. Lace/S Force an image or animation into interlace. NoBusy/S Normally, VT displays a busy pointer as it reads in images. This option disables that busy pointer. Default/S Force images to use Default monitor (useful for forcing NTSC stuff to promote to scan-doubled on an AGA machine). NTSC/S Force images to use NTSC monitor. PAL/S Force images to use PAL monitor. ILBM/S Force VT to look for FORM ILBM's, regardless of what the file actually is. Can be used to show the first frame of an ANIM as a static picture. NoScroll/S Force VT not to make picture screens autoscroll. For some reason, making a Super72 or SuperHires screen autoscroll shifts it way over to the left (at least on my machine), so here is the somewhat kludgy solution until I figure out what gives here. Save/K After looking at Steve Hines' "QuickGrab" program (an excellent utility, BTW), I realized that it could be useful to save the resulting images that VT renders of GIF's and JPEG's for posterity. So, this option (which must be followed by a filename) will save the screen that VT produces to a standard ILBM file. Just keep in mind that the images VT renders aren't nearly as good as can be done with a dedicated renderer (like, say, ImageFX or Rend24 :). Super72/S Force images to use the Super72 monitor. SuperHires/S Force an image or animation into super hires. ScreenMode/K Gives you ultimate control over the display mode that pictures are shown in. This lets you enter a screenmode by name so that all pictures are forced into this mode. The name must be given exactly (except for case). A list of mode names can be found in the ScreenMode prefs program. Paused/S When playing animations, they will come paused on the first frame. FPS/N Directs VT to play an animation at the rate specified, given as frames per second. This is different frame the SPEED option, which is in jiffies/frame. EXAMPLES ~~~~~~~~ 1> VT picdir Show all files in the "picdir" directory. 1> VT picdir ALL Show all files in "picdir", including subdirectories. 1> VT picdir SUPER72 SUPERHIRES LACE Show all files in "picdir", forcing them into Super72 800x600 mode. 1> VT myjpeg SAVE ram:mypic Show "mpjpeg", and save the resulting screen to "ram:mypic". 1> VT picdir HIDE Show all files in "picdir", but don't show each picture until it is fully read into memory. 1> VT picdir FOREVER DELAY 2 Show each file in "picdir" for 2 seconds, repeat forever. 1> VT picdir SCREENMODE "MULTISCAN:Productivity" Show all files in "picdir", forcing each one into Productivity mode. USEAGE FROM WORKBENCH ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All of the options above may be used (except Files/M) as a tool type. The following additional tool type may be set: DEFAULTDIR Choose default directory where file requester opens. VIEWING COMMANDS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ESCAPE Abort viewing immediately. BACKSPACE Abort viewing current directory (when using 'ALL'). LMB/RMB Go to next picture. SPACE Will hold on the current picture, when using DELAY. CTRL+Arrows Move image/anim around on the display (overscan position). Up Arrow (Anim Only) Return to beginning of the animation. Right Arrow (Anim Only) Pause/single step animation. Down Arrow (Anim Only) Resume playing animation after paused. C (Anim Only) Toggle "continuous" mode. F1 (Anim Only) Play animation as fast as possible. F2 (Anim Only) Play animation at 60fps. F3 (Anim Only) Play animation at 30fps. F4 (Anim Only) Play animation at 24fps. F5 (Anim Only) Play animation at 15fps. F6 (Anim Only) Play animation at 12fps. F7 (Anim Only) Play animation at 10fps. F8 (Anim Only) Play animation at 5fps. F9 (Anim Only) Play animation at 1fps. F10 (Anim Only) Play animation at rate specified in ANIM file. THE AUTHOR ~~~~~~~~~~ I can be reached on BIX as "tkrehbiel" if you want to email me about something (like, say, bugs). BIX is now connected to the Internet, so my Internet address is "tkrehbiel@bix.com". You can also reach me on the Late Nite BBS (804-262-9944) as Tom Krehbiel (user #13). As a last resort my U.S. Mail address is: Thomas Krehbiel 10747 Surry Road Chester, VA 23831 (Don't expect quick mail response.) SHAMELESS PLUG ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Buy ImageFX. You won't regret it. Honest. :) REVISION HISTORY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1.04 2/20/93 Supports ANIM7 (short & longword) animations. Supports ANIM brushes. Now uses the latest version of Tom Lane's JPEG code. Fixed SAVE option (CMAP specifically) under < V39. Added SUPER72, SUPERHIRES, and SCREENMODE keywords. Changed the way it picks JPEG viewmodes. Tells you how many frames are in the anims it plays. Now uses new graphics double buffering under V39. Added PAUSED option for animations. Added a FPS option to set frame rate in fps. 1.03b 1/10/93 Now allows showing directories via. file requester. Shows >= 800x600 GIF's in Super72 mode if available. More robust error messages on display open fail. Now uses BestModeID to show undisplayable modes. Doesn't close screen on first click of LMB after inactivity. 1.03a 12/15/92 Fixed unbelievably stupid bug in AppIcon stuff. 1.03 12/10/92 Fixed hanging locks when used as AppIcon. Added LORES,NOLACE,ILBM options. Always sets autoscroll now, and still centers 'em. Added NOSCROLL option to disable autoscroll. Added SAVE option to save rendered pictures. Handles animation playback a bit better. 1.02a 11/25/92 More accurate overscan calculation. (Maybe not) 1.02 11/24/92 Stock version renders to HAM8 mode if available. Oops, fixed so you can select just one file from ASL freq. Fixed problem with VT's abort "sticking". Fixed problems with centering AGA animations. Added NTSC/PAL/DEFAULT options. Now examines DPAN chunks for frame rates. Fixed problems with 'odd' sized anims on AGA. Defers allocating ASL struct until needed. More generalized copper stuff. 1.01 11/10/92 Now more intelligent about picking JPEG viewmodes. Handles ANIMs with masking planes. Now able to respect ANIM's reltime by pressing F10. Added busy pointer while loading images. 1.00 11/4/92 Initial version.