home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Graphics Plus
/
Graphics Plus.iso
/
msdos
/
scrnsvrs
/
explogo
/
im.doc
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-10-23
|
7KB
|
140 lines
IMAGE MAKER - GIF SCREEN CAPTURE UTILITY - VERSION 1.0
Reidar Gresseth and Chris Hook
P.O. Box 3013
Vancouver, B.C.
V6B 3X5 Canada
Image Maker copyright (c) Reidar Gresseth & Chris Hook 1992. Image
maker (im.exe) is a shareware program and is not free. You may use
this software for a limited period not to exceed one month after which
time you must register the program. Also, all files created by this
software package are copyright (c) Reidar Gresseth & Chris Hook 1992.
Programs produced by Image Maker may be used after the Image Maker
evaluation period only by registering for this software package.
These programs will be known collectively as explosiv logo.
If you continue to use this package or any program derived from this
package then a payment of $20.00 US is expected. This package is
distributed as-is with no restriction on its use or functionality.
Registration allows you to legally continue using the software and
all software derived from this package after the evaluation period.
All payments and/or enquires for this program should be sent to :
Hook and Gresseth
P.O. Box 3013
Vancouver, B.C.
V6B 3X5 Canada
GIF and "Graphics Interchange Format" are trademarks (tm) of
Compuserve Incorporated, an H\&R Block Company. Thanks to Steven A
Bennett and Steve Wilhite for providing a useful LZW decoder for
GIF files.
IMPORTANT: This program will only work on EGA or VGA monitors. The images
used by the Image Maker are 16 color GIF images. If you have 256 color
GIF images that you wish to use in the Image Maker, then we recomend that
you purchase or download an image processing package that allows such images
to be properly converted from 256 to 16 colors. A good image processing
package will typically also be able to read in graphic images in most other
PC formats (e.g., TIFF, TARGA, BMP, etc.) and faithfully convert those images
to 16 color GIF images.
Finally, you may wish to rescale your image in the image processing
package so as to take full advantage of the Image Maker's screen capturing
ability.
USING IMAGER MAKER
Image maker is a package that will let you create your own screen
savers. All you need is your favourite GIF images and a EGA or
VGA monitor. Simply specify which part of the image you wish to
capture and Image Maker does the rest. A screen saver will be
created which will display your image without flicker, regardless
of the size of the image.
To start up Image Maker simply run the command
C> im [-c|-m] [directory]
where -c specifies that the interface should force colour mode
while the -m option specifies that the interface should force
monochrome mode. Image Maker will read the specified directory,
if given, for files, otherwise the program will search the
current directory. To exit Image Maker press the Escape key.
When the program is run a full screen interface appears with
three windows. The first window contain a list of files in the
specified directory. This list is alphabetized with a cursor
appearing on the topmost line. To select a file move the
cursor with the following keys: Home, End, Page Up, Page Down,
Cursor Up and Cursor Down. You can also select files by
pressing the first letter of the file name.
The second window is the help window. This gives online
information about how to use the program as well as indicating
which display parameters have been selected. The monitor type
can be either EGA or VGA. If you have a VGA monitor you can
select one or the other while if you have an EGA monitor you may
only select EGA display mode. This parameter can be toggled by
pressing the F1 key. The second parameter, called adjust colors,
lets you change the displayed colors. For example, if the
background colour is nonblack then potentially the image may not
be display properly as a screen saver. Set this option to On
to fix this problem, this parameter is toggled using the F2 key.
The last window is the error window. This window displays any
problems that have occurred, either in displaying the image
or in capturing the image to a screen saver. The error message
disappears as soon as you press a key.
Once the image is selected, press enter to display the image.
Image maker is only designed to show images with more than 16
colours properly. If the image has more than 16 colors a message
will be displayed asking you whether you wish to continue or
not. If you press enter to continue you may find that the image
is displayed with an unsuitable color set. There are several
programs which will convert 256 color images to 16 colors.
Once the image is displayed, a box will appear on the screen.
This rectangle is the area that will be captured into the screen
saver. You can use the cursor keys to move the box to any portion
of the screen. If you hold the control key, then you can use the
cursor keys to resize the box. Note that Image Maker will not let
you move the box outside of the screen image and it will not let
you select an area which is beyond a certain size. This is
particularly important since the larger the image the greater the
amount of memory that will be used by the subsequent screen saver.
Once the image is selected, press enter to save the image. If you
have set adjust colors to on then this may take a few seconds,
if adjust colors is off then the program should return almost
instantly. The cursor will be positioned on the new program that
has been created. Press enter to run the new executable. This
lets you demo the new screen saver without exiting Image Maker
first.
If you have a VGA monitor and you save an image in the EGA display
mode then you may have to use the "jerky" option of explosiv logo
to produce smoothly moving image, that is, if the image motion is
not smooth then "jerky" must be specified to correct the problem.
This option is not available in the Image Maker interface so you
will have to exit Image Maker first to display this new screen
saver properly, simply run
C> [explogo] jerky
where explogo is the screen saver name that you have created.
To make the new screen saver resident refer to the explogo.doc file
for full details. If you are anxious to try the new program you
can type
C> explogo m1
to have the screen saver activate after one minute of inactivity.