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1992-01-22
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340 lines
GIFtest 4.0ß
CopyRight 1991 by Dave Navarro, Jr.
History File
Note that many changes are occuring in GIFtest, I think up dimented
stuff to do to it all the time. If you can think of anything let me
know. At present, the DOCs aren't even close to being finished and
the utilities mentioned in ORDER.FRM aren't out of the alpha stages
yet, but all seem to work, though they're buggy. All "official"
beta testers will recieve a free registered copy of GIFtest. Thanks
for you help.
Note: An incorrect price of $30 was listed in earlier betas. The
correct price for GIFtest 4.0 is $15 plus shipping. This is to
accomodate smaller BBS's which cannot afford high priced utilities
for their BBSs.
New!: If you are using GIFtest with ZipLab, you can register
GIFtest for only $10! "Jeez Dave, how do we take advantage of the
great offer?" Well, I'm glad you asked that.. It's simple, send in
the ORDER form with your check/money order for $10 along with your
BBS number and the serial number from your registered ZipLab and
I'll leave a message on my BBS with your serial number to 'BRAND'
GIFtest with! Note: This does not include any of the extra
utilities that come with GIFtest like GIFbrand, to get those you
MUST pay the $15 registration fee.
Version 5.0:
As soon as 4.0 is out the door, I will start taking suggestions for
the next version. Already on the list is the ability to read
resolutions from .JPG files created with GIF2JPG. Much thanks to
that author for providing me with the appropriate information.
Version 4.0:
Beta [01/22/92]: Thing I've got it! That pesky $DOOR.NAM problem
should be fixed now.
Beta [01/19/92]: Had a problem reading the new ProDoor $DOOR.NAM
format. Should be corrected.
Beta [01/17/92]: Well, we can thank Sam Smith for the latest beta..
Fortunately, before I got GIFtest out the door as a final product,
he got around to changing the file format for the description files
in ProDoor 3.44 dated after 12/31/91. So, with this beta I have
added support for /B:3 which tells GIFtest that you are running
ProDoor dated after 12/31/91. What's taking so long is that I had
decided to convert the majority of GIFtest over to assembler to make
it smaller and faster (and take up less memory), and I didn't expect
to have to make a change of this magnitude this soon. It's affected
GIFtest and GIFBRAND which were both converted.. This beta should
cover the necessary changes in GIFtest, but I'll need at least
another week and a half to make the changes in GIFBRAND. Sorry, and
I'm just as anxious as all of you to get this version out and
finished with so I can get on to the stuff in version 5. Once last
note.. I'd like to thank Steve Catmull of CDC for his idea for an
option in GIFtest 5.0 of a way to reject untasteful GIFs... I am
thinking about some way to add a "GIF critic" option, but it may be
impossible.. I'll sure give it a try though <grin>. For all of you
who have registered GIFtest (many thanks), I have printed out
postcards for all of you with your serial number and branding
information so that you'll at least have something until I get the
disks in the mail. And last, but not least.. I need some ideas on
GIFLab.. My original intention was to just add ANSI color to
GIFtest to make it more colorful (GIFtest already supports the COM
port).. But what do you want? Do you want it as garish as ZipLab?
Let me know.. ** Please Read GIFTEST.CRC **
Beta [01/01/92]: Sigh.. It looks like all the bugs weren't
completely out. GIFtest was not opening the GIFLOG file in file
sharing mode so that was causing a number of problems. That has now
been fixed. Note, however, that you MUST have SHARE.COM or an
equivelant loaded for this to work. Also, a number of people
reported some odd behavior under different situations. I finally
tracked it all down to places where I was using integers when I
should have been using long integers. If you are a beta
tester/registered user, GIFSTAT 1.0ß is available for downloading on
The Bard's Lair. This util is for registered users and approved
beta testers only. Do NOT distribute it. GIFBRAND 1.0ß is also
available for beta testing. When you call the system, leave a
message to the sysop to get the password to download these utils.
Beta [12/07/91]: Final Beta! Fixed "/R:3" option to place
description as the last line by itself. Fixed problem where 1 out
of every 7000 GIFs wouldn't pass because of an "illegal block". Some
program somwhere is writing a block with a header number of zero,
which is not defined in either the GIF87 or GIF89 standard. VPIC and
CSHOW apprently just ignore this block and continue on processing,
so the GIF views perfectly, but GIFtest would report it as a bad
GIF. If you use VPIC to "regif" the image, VPIC rewrites it without
the offending block, which would get you around the problem. If
anyone knows what block type zero is, I'd appreciate it they'd let
me know.. It doesn't seem to be part of the image. I added the /Z
option which display's debug info as GIFtest is operating. If your
having a problem, add /Z to the command line to help you to see
exactly what GIFtest is doing as it processes the file. I am gonna
give this last beta 7 days, and if there are no more reports of
problems, I'm gonna remove all the debugging code and release it as
final. When that happens I'll start mailing disks to all of you who
have already registered GIFtest (if you have registered it and I
have NOT called you or your BBS to give you your serial number,
please send me a note or call my BBS.)
Beta [11/23/91]: Added /A option to force upload descriptions to
private (put a "/" in front of them). It's gotten to the point on
my BBS where idiots (you know who they are) upload adult GIFs in my
main board public area for minors to download.. The only way around
it is to either stop letting people upload GIFs, force all uploads
private (a major pain), or have GIFtest force all GIFs to be private
uploads. Add /P:n routine where 'n' is the com port number.. This
will have GIFtest send all it's display information to the specified
COM port if carrier is detected. GIFtest reads the port speed from
the com port (only supports COM1: through COM4: with standard port
configurations), so should work with any BBS software. Fixed
resolution insertion problem where GIFtest wasn't putting the rez on
the last line by itself if position is set to 3. Fixed GTSETUP.COM
to reflect the changes in GIFtest 4.0 beta.
[Note: Can someone who is running GIFtest on PCB or ProDoor and not]
[ using 4DOS please upload their PCBTEST/PROUT1 file(s) ]
Beta [11/17/91]: Fixed GTSETUP to use GIFTEST.CNF as the default
config filename as opposed to GIFTEST.CFG.
Beta [11/14/91]: Added the /F:filename option for PCBoard 14.5a
sysops. PCBoard 14.5a will pass the location of the UPDESC[.n] file
on the command line to PCBTEST.BAT as variable %3. This, so you can
now use /F:%3 on the command line to tell GIFtest the location of
your description file. You can then delete all the remaining lines
in your GIFtest.CNF file which did contain the various names and
locations of your UPDESC file. (See sample PCBTEST.BAT file)
Beta [11/07/91]: Finally fixed ALL problems with resolution
insertion on PCB systems. Rewrote the whole thing from scratch and
tested it for 2 hours. A number of PCB sysops have called me and
asked where the heck the UPDESC file(s) can be found. When a user
types in a description of a file before they u