MacFormat España 27

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ MacFormat España 27 / MacFormat n. 27 (Spain) / Mac Format 26.bin / Shareware / Comunicaciones / GifScan 2.1 ƒ / Read Me with Web Browser! < prev

Wrap

Text File | 1997-02-16 | 19.0 KB | 407 lines

<HTML>  <HEAD> <TITLE>GifScan 2.1 Read Me</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY TEXT="#000000" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <H1><IMG SRC="images/gsicon.gif" ALT="gsicon.gif (378bytes)" HEIGHT=35 WIDTH=35 BORDER=0 ALIGN=BOTTOM> GifScan 2.1 Read Me</H1> <H3>Contents</H3> <OL TYPE=1 START="1"> <LI><A HREF="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</A> <LI><A HREF="#WHATSNEW">What's new in 2.1?</A> <LI><A HREF="#USAGE">Using GifScan</A> <LI><A HREF="#MENUS">Application Menus</A> <LI><A HREF="#PREFS">Application Preferences</A> <LI><A HREF="#COST">Cost</A> <LI><A HREF="#HISTORY">Development History</A> <LI><A HREF="#PLANS">Future Plans</A> <LI><A HREF="#AUTHOR">About the author</A> <LI><A HREF="#DOWNLOAD">Download GifScan 2.1</A> </OL> <HR WIDTH="75%"> <A NAME="INTRODUCTION"></A> <H3>Introduction?</H3> GifScan is an application that can assist you in writing HTML code. It generates the necessary IMG tags to display images, including the HEIGHT and WIDTH part, and generates HREF tags for all other files. For example, it can be a great timesaver when you create an index of a directory or just when you have many images in a document. You can drag all the files onto the GifScan icon and everything will be copied to the clipboard so you can easily paste it into your document. The other side of GifScan is that it can give you extensive information about GIF files without actually viewing it. For this you double click it like any other application. Complete user information is available <A HREF="#USAGE">further</A> on in this document. <A NAME="WHATSNEW"></A> <H3>What's new in 2.1?</H3> <UL> <LI>The order within IMG tags is now completely customisable and includes support for items like HSPACE and VSPACE and whatever custom tags you want in there. I personally don't think the order and such are all that important but people have asked for it. There you go, what great customer support. <LI>GifScan now also generates IMG SRC tags for PNG files, including the HEIGHT and WIDTH parts. This does not use the PNG library but reads the dimensions directly, so this could break in the future. <LI>Behaviour when dealing with drags from the window is now correct (no longer zooms back to a rectangle...) <LI>Recognises the number of times an image loops when the NETSCAPE extension is present in a GIF file. <LI>Change in my address since I have moved, again... <LI>And perhaps most important of all, better error handling and memory checking! </UL> <A NAME="USAGE"></A> <H3>How to use it?</H3> Before you dive in, try playing around with the Preference settings to create tags exactly the way you want. When you have done this, you can forget about these. Most users will probably be most comfortable using it as you would use any Drag and Drop application. Just drag the selected files onto the GifScan icon and it will generate an appropriate HTML tag for all files, placing the result on the Clipboard. If you hold down the option key (<IMG SRC="images/optkey.gif" ALT="optkey.gif (72bytes)" HEIGHT=15 WIDTH=15 BORDER=0 ALIGN=BOTTOM>) while dragging files onto the application, you will be prompted to save a text file (including any header and footer set in the Prefs), after processing the files. If you open the application by double clicking it, you will be presented with a regular text window. You can drag files into this window and tags will be generated, shown in the window, and copied to the Clipboard. (You can turn this option off if you like). A possible result is shown here: <CENTER> <IMG SRC="images/gsophref.gif" ALT="gsophref.gif (7k)" HEIGHT=225 WIDTH=541 BORDER=0> </CENTER> Alternatively, if you want extensive information about a particular GIF, you can hold down the <IMG SRC="images/cmdkey.gif" ALT="cmdkey.gif (67bytes)" HEIGHT=11 WIDTH=11 BORDER=0 ALIGN=BOTTOM> key or set the Prefs to do this all the time. You will be presented with information similar to this: <CENTER> <IMG SRC="images/gsopall.gif" ALT="gsopall.gif (8k)" HEIGHT=342 WIDTH=568 BORDER=0> </CENTER> If this stuff doesn't mean anything to you then it is probably of no use to you. Some highlights of what is shown in this window: the image width and height, the number of colours and whether the GIF is interlaced or not. The transparent colour in this example is colour number 0 which is FFFFFF, white in hexadecimal. If you like, you can copy output from this application to paste in elsewhere, or you can drag parts out of the window if you have System 7.5 or Drag and Drop. <A NAME="MENUS"></A> <H3>The Menus</H3> Under the File menu: <UL> <LI>Open... : Open a file through the standard file selection dialog. <LI>Hide /Show : Hides or shows the window. <LI>Save As... : Save output to text file. <LI>Preferences : Here you can set if your preferences, please refer to the <A HREF="#PREFS">next section</A>. <LI>Quit : Guess what... </UL> Under the Edit menu: <UL> <LI>Standard stuff, undo doesn't work and would not be very useful, I think. </UL> <A NAME="PREFS"></A> <H3>The Preferences</H3> <CENTER> <IMG SRC="images/gsprmenu.gif" ALT="gsprmenu.gif (1588bytes)" HEIGHT=117 WIDTH=258 BORDER=0> </CENTER> Starting with this version, the Preferences are divided into 3 parts. The first part is the General preferences. This is where you set general application behaviour. The Preferences window is shown here (with the default settings): <CENTER> <IMG SRC="images/gsprefs.gif" ALT="gsprefs.gif (10k)" HEIGHT=329 WIDTH=504 BORDER=0> </CENTER> Items in this window: <UL> <LI>Copy HTML Tag to Clipboard automatically Automatically copies the determined HTML tags to the Clipboard. <LI>Quit after processing files This option only works if files are dragged on the application and if the application was not already running. It just processes all files dropped on it, copying all HTML tags to the clipboard and then quits. <LI>Just show HTML info and forget the rest You can opt to only show the HTML stuff in the window and forget about the extensive info. <LI>Prompt to save text files at close If this is checked, you get the option to save the data to a text file. Choose the TEXT file creator with the Popup menu. <LI>Edit Brings up the dialog to edit the header and footer discussed previously. <LI>Generate HTML HREF for non-GIF files If this is checked, a HTML tag will be generated for non-GIF files. The form is then <A HREF="NameOfFile>NameOfFile</A>. This will also be copied to the clipboard, if the topmost option is checked. <LI>Use nothing in front of filename If you select this, the HTML stuff will only show the filename. You can also choose to use full path names, the enclosing folder or something that you want (this can be useful if you design pages for use on other systems where all pictures are placed in one directory). <LI>Use filename in ALT="" and Include file size. If the file is an image files, the generated tags will have the name of the file and the size included, otherwise you will just get an empty ALT="". The ALT is added so Lynx users (like I used to be) don't get the word [IMAGE] all over their screen. <LI>Put and/or after HTML tag Gives you the option to set a line feed or paragraph break after the generated HTML specification. <LI>Order in tag. Sets the order within the HTML tag. There are 4 options to choose from. <LI>Show info for all colours (Hexadecimal, Decimal, Percentages) If you have this option turned on, you will get a table showing all available colours in the GIF file in hexadecimal, decimal or percentages RGB. If you turn this off, you get all the info without the colour table. <LI>The font and size popup menus are used to set the font and size to use in the main window. The help symbol at the bottom can be used to turn on Balloon Help which is available for every item in the window. <LI>If you click the 'Defaults' button, the TEXT creator, font name and size will be taken from Internet Config if you have it installed. If not, it will be set to my defaults, just as the rest. </UL> <UL> <LI>The second part of the Preferences menu is the Edit Header & Footer... item. This is where you can type in a header and footer text which will be inserted in the file when you choose Save File from the File menu (if you have set the Prefs to do this!). It brings up this dialog: </UL> <CENTER> <IMG SRC="images/gsfhprefs.gif" ALT="gsfhprefs.gif (5k)" HEIGHT=315 WIDTH=488 BORDER=0> </CENTER> When you save a file, the tokens ^1, ^2 and ^3 will be converted to your name, the date and your email address. The name and email only work when you have Internet Config 1.2 or greater installed! <UL> <LI>The third and last part of the Preferences menu is the Edit IMG Tag order item. Here you can customise the appearance of any IMG tag that will be generated. It brings up this dialog: </UL> <CENTER> <IMG SRC="images/gstags.gif" ALT="gstags.gif (5k)" HEIGHT=261 WIDTH=468 BORDER=0> </CENTER> <A NAME="COST"></A> <H3>What does it cost me?</H3> Absolutely nothing if you don't use it to make money with! If you do use it in professional Web page design, I would appreciate the modest amount of $10 (or £5, if you prefer to pay in UK currency) for each copy that is used in your organisation. Alternatively, if you have more than 5 machines in your organisation, the fee is a flat $50 (or £25) I have seen designers charging anywhere between $25 and $300 per page in addition to an hourly charge, so I think it is only fair that you pay me for the many hours I put into developing GifScan, if you use it regularly. Just wrap a note in an envelope and send it to me. Users in the UK can send me a check for the amount if they like. Please understand however, that I, the author, can not be held responsible for any damages that are a result of using this application. I have done my best to make it as stable as possible but, as in most software, there are probably some bugs left. If you find one, please tell me about it. Tell me what system you are running, which (non-Apple) extensions and control panels etc. A "It doesn't work on my machine" leaves me with very little to say to you. <A NAME="HISTORY"></A> <H3>Version History</H3> <TABLE BORDER=0> <TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=RIGHT> <TD>1.0</TD> <TD><UL> <LI>Initial release, very basic. </UL></TD> </TR> <TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=RIGHT> <TD>1.01</TD> <TD><UL> <LI>Added the HTML specification so all HTML authors can easily paste this in your HTML IMG specification. <LI>You can now hold down the command key to show the colour codes if you have turned this feature off in the Preferences. </UL></TD> </TR> <TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=RIGHT> <TD>1.5</TD> <TD><UL> <LI>Doesn't use the SIOUX window anymore, Drag and Drop aware. <LI>Changed command key down behaviour to toggle between show codes and not, depending on the preference settings. </UL></TD> </TR> <TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=RIGHT> <TD>1.6</TD> <TD><UL> <LI>Added option to show only the filename, instead of the full path name, in the HTML tag. <LI>You can change the default font. <LI>Added the option to save the HTML tag to the Clipboard by default. <LI>Apparently, 1.5 did not run on systems that did not have Drag and Drop installed. Now fixed, I hope. </UL></TD> </TR> <TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=RIGHT> <TD>1.7</TD> <TD><UL> <LI>Now HTML tags for all files dropped on the application are copied instead of the last one alphabetically. <LI>GifScan now gives you any present GIF comments and the transparent colour, if present in the file. <LI>GifScan now optionally creates HREFs for all files dropped on it, even non GIF files. <LI>You can set the option of putting and/or after the generated HTML tags. <LI>You can set it to use WIDTH - HEIGHT or HEIGHT - WIDTH. This way you will not make a mistake when you want to do things in Photoshop when generating a new file. <LI>More bug fixes and options for the output. <LI>Source code is no longer included in the archive to keep the size down and not too many people needed it anyway. </UL></TD> </TR> <TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=RIGHT> <TD>1.8</TD> <TD><UL> <LI>Rewrote the main part of the application to make it a real Mac application, it does not use the ANSI libraries any more. This saved about 20k in the final version. <LI>Now also handles JPEG files but only if the file has a Macintosh type of 'JPEG' or 'JFIF' and, of course the colours cannot be shown for these files. <LI>Redesigned the Preferences dialog, it not only looks better, it should be more logical as well. Added some options: you can now generate HTML tags with the enclosing folder name added to it automatically. <LI>HTML tags are now copied to the clipboard for all files that are dragged into the main window. Except when the application is in the background, this is a limitation of MacOS. <LI>Rewrote the About box and extended the credits, I left some out earlier... </UL></TD> </TR> <TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=RIGHT> <TD>1.9</TD> <TD><UL> <LI>No longer crashes big on multi-image files when all information is requested... Sorry about that, I never had a good multi-image GIF files to test it with. It now works correctly and gives you information on all images in the multi-image GIF. If you want to build these multi-image files, check out <A HREF="http://iawww.epfl.ch/Staff/Yves.Piguet/"> Yves Piguet's</A> excellent clip2gif and GifBuilder. Thanks to <A HREF="http://members.aol.com/royalef">Royal Frazier</A> for alerting me. <LI>Now gives you the option of putting the name and the file size of the image in the ALT part of the tag. I myself find the file size a good option now that I have to access the Internet by modem and by default I have 'Load Images' turned off. <LI>Updated my e-mail address and web URL now that I have moved to the United Kingdom. </UL></TD> </TR> <TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=RIGHT> <TD>2.0</TD> <TD><UL> <LI>Add the option to insert a header and footer text when you save a file, this way you can easily generate indices of directories as a HTML file. <LI>You can now set the option to include a BORDER in the HREF, with different sizes. <LI>GifScan is now Internet Config aware, it takes the default TEXT file creator and font name and size from IC. Also, you can go directly to the GifScan homepage by clicking the URL in the About box, e.g. to download the most recent version. <LI>GifScan can now convert Netscape Bookmark clippings to full HTML tags. You can't drag the clippings directly to the window yet. Drag the clippings to a folder first, select all the items in the folder and drag it to the GifScan window and they will be converted to regular HTML HREFs. <LI>GifScan recognises the Netscape looping extension and reports it. <LI>Changed the defaults and added a Default button in the Preferences. <LI>All dialogs are now movable modal and the menus should work correct in all of them. </UL></TD> </TR> <TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=RIGHT> <TD>2.1</TD> <TD><UL> <LI>See the <A HREF="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</A>. </UL></TD> </TR> </TABLE> Thanks to all of you that have sent me e-mail to improve this application. It is really appreciated! <A NAME="PLANS"></A> <H3>Future plans</H3> What more would you like to see in this application? Please send suggestions if you have them. On my improvements list are: <UL> <LI>Support for dragging processing entire folders. Drag a folder into the main window and it will generate HREFs for all files in it. This shouldn't be too difficult in theory, but I couldn't solve the problems I came across. <LI>Better AppleScript support, it's been requested by a few people, but as of now, I don't really have a clue on how to implement it... With this come perhaps such cool things as menu sharing when you use <A HREF="http://www.scripting.com/frontier/"> Frontier</A>. </UL> <A NAME="PROBLEMS"></A> <H3>Known Problems</H3> <UL> <LI>The clipboard cannot be changed while the application is in the background, this is why you can't put the application in the background while processing files from a Finder drag and drop. I still haven't found a way around this. <LI>If you have a GIF that it doesn't work on, tell me where to find it and I will try to fix it. Any other problems or requests, please let me know. <LI>There are probably some more bugs but I couldn't find one that was reproducible. If you find problems and want to tell me about it, please tell me not only the System version and machine you are running but also what extensions and control panels you have installed. I can't do much for you if all you tell me is that you get a type 11 error on a PowerMac 8500 running System 7.5.5. </UL> <A NAME="AUTHOR"></A> <H3>About the author</H3> For questions and bug reports, you can send e-mail to: <A HREF="mailto:marcb@dircon.co.uk">marcb@dircon.co.uk</A> Send postcards and money (yeah right...) to my regular mail address: Marc Boon Flat 5, Stedman House 270 Station Road Addlestone Surrey KT15 2PY United Kingdom Thanks for your attention, not many people get this far! Marc <HR WIDTH="75%"> <A NAME="DOWNLOAD"></A> <H2>Download GifScan 2.1</H2> <UL> <LI><A HREF="http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~marcb/gifscan-21.sit.bin">Application and Read Me</A>. (101k) <LI>You can also download the source code, but you must send me email first. I would like to know where the code is going, just out of interest. Alternatively, you can fill out <A HREF="http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~marcb/dlform.html">this form</A>. After you have done this, I will get back to you as soon as possible and tell you where you to get it. I will not email the code to anyone, I will just give you an address and you can download it yourself. </UL> <HR> <TABLE> <TR> <TD ALIGN=LEFT> <A HREF="http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~marcb/index.html">Go to Marc's homepage</A>. Last Updated: 16-February-1997 ©1996 Marc Boon - <A HREF="mailto:marcb@dircon.co.uk">marcb@dircon.co.uk</A> </TD> <TD ALIGN=RIGHT WIDTH=200> <IMG SRC="images/macmade.gif" ALT="macmade.gif (1474bytes)" HEIGHT=29 WIDTH=86 BORDER=0 ALIGH=CENTER> </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </BODY> </HTML>