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-
- FAQ and hints for bit
-
- Q. How can I display a series of images ? I loaded a bunch of images using
- the load button, then click ready, but nothing happens.
- -----------------------------
- A. Bit by default puts "loaded" files into a list, you need to
- click Leftmouse in the main window (or SPACE) to view next image on
- the list; Rightmouse (or P key) to view the previous image and middlemouse
- (or C key) to view currently displayed again(for whatever reason).
-
- The quickest way to display a series of images is
-
- bit -NI file1 file2 file3 ....
-
- bit by default will insert all files specified on the command line
- into the list and display the first one upon startup. Better still,
- use the following command line
-
- bit -N -s60 file1 file2 file3 ....
-
- here -s instructs bit to do a slides show, that is, display each
- image file specified on the command line automatically with a sleep
- of 60 seconds between images. Of course, if you click any mouse
- buttons before the 60 seconds elapsed, bit will display the next/prev
- image. If the image is larger than screen/window, it will be panned.
-
- To see all the different styles of display, add -d100 to the command line.
-
- Also bit -NI combines the functionality of ipaste, gifpaste, jpaste
- and whatever-paste and their look and feel.
-
- Q. How can I animate a series of images, like movie(1) ?
- ------------------------------------------------------
- A. Bit is not intended to be used for animation, but it can do it in a
- limited way:
-
- bit -Nirs0.05 file1 file2 file3 ...
-
- the command line option specifies, 1. not to refresh screen between
- frames (-r), and 2. use minimal pause between frames (-s0.05),
- 3. Do not show any control panels (-N) and finally -i to force
- the initial window size to be that of the first image.
-
- When all files specified are exhausted, bit will loop. To stop looping,
- type s or use Setup to turn SlideShow mode off.
-
- If your images are large, either use -F flag or use the
- ~/.bitrc/SetUp.opt to turn panning off.
-
- If you do animations a lot, it might be better to change the
- Setup.opt to make these flags the default (maybe leave out the slide
- show flag).
-
- One additional flag, -F, may be useful, which specifies to run
- bit fullscreen.
-
- Q. After I placed text strings into image in deferred mode, can I edit them ?
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- A. No, you can't, at least in all versions released so far.
- It will be implemented, I hope, in later versions. For the time being,
- write the image out in ASCII PPM format, then use a text editor
- or sed, awk, head/tail whatever to manipulate the texts, which
- are attached at the end of the PPM file. Similar trick can
- be used to edit marks.
-
- Also note that if you plan to generate hardcopies of the annotated
- images via PostScript, place text and marks LAST and in DEFERRED
- mode.
-
- Q. bit sometimes core dumps on me when I run it remotely
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
- A. For some reason unclear to me, bit can't be run reliably
- from remote machines. I have feedbacks that say bit runs fine
- remotely and lots of reports of "it can't". I am unable to test/fix
- this problem since I do not have access to any SGI machines
- that run IRIX > 3.3.
-
- Can someone from SGI shed some light on this ?
-
- Q. Some of the control panels do not have the title bar, which makes
- moving them a pain, how can I make all panels have a bar ?
- -------------------------------------------------------------------
- A. Turn option, AlwaysUserBorder, on to make bit add a title bar
- to all panels. You can set the flag thru Setup dialog or
- by editing $HOME/Setup.opt directly.
-
- *************************************************************************
- Hints and helpful info:
- *************************************************************************
-
- How to access the online help:
-
- Online help is activated either thru the pop-up menu entry HELP,
- or by clicking the mouse on the empty region of control panels.
-
- It is strongly recommanded that after playing with bit for a while,
- skim the man page at least once (I know the man page is pretty bad,
- but it might save you some time).
-
- Some useful aliases
- -----------------------
- alias spaste bit -NI #super-"paste": gifpaste, ipaste, jpaste
- alias animate bit -NIs0.05 #try to do an amimation
-