PPShow 4.0 User Manual Feb 17, 1994 Preface ======= The programs and files in this distribution are freely distributable, but are also copyright (c) Nico Fran ois. They may be freely distributed as long as no more than a nominal fee is charged to cover time and copying costs. No commercial usage is permitted without written permission from the author. Everything in this distribution must be kept together, in original unmodified form. The above is generally known as freeware. If you have suggestions or remarks about this program, or if you find any bugs, please let me know. Contacting the author: FidoNet: 2:292/603.10 (Nico Francois) Internet: nico@augfl.be Mail: Nico Fran Corbielaan 13 B-3060 Bertem BELGIUM If you can please use e-mail. That way you'll stand a much better chance of getting a reply quickly. PPShow 4.0 requires AmigaDOS Release 2 (Kickstart & Workbench 2.0) or higher to run. 24-bit to HAM8/HAM6 rendering routines and IFF24 parsing and decoding written by Rafael D'Halleweyn. Chunky to planar routine based on a routine by Chris Green (who based his routine on one of Richard Addison). This software is based in part on the work of the Independant JPEG Group. Contents ======== 1. An introduction 2. Usage 3. Features 4. Note on crunching 1. An introduction ================== PPShow was written to complement one of my other utilities, PowerPacker (a command and data cruncher). It is used to show normal IFF ILBM files or ILBM files crunched with PowerPacker. The decrunching is done automatically so the user doesn't have to know if a file is crunched or not. From version 3.0 PPShow will now also play standard Opcode 5 animations. The ANIM Opcode 5 format is used by most ANIM generating programs, including DPaint IV. From version 4.0 on PPShow also plays ANIM Opcode 7 and ANIM Opcode 8 animations. It will also show GIF, JPEG and IFF24 bit pictures. If your Amiga doesn't have the color capability to display a GIF (ECS machines) PPShow will show the GIF in 16 grayscales. JPEGs and IFF24 pictures will be shown in HAM8 or in HAM6 (if your Amiga doesn't support HAM8). PPShow uses 'powerpacker.library' and 'reqtools.library', so make sure these are present in your Libs: directory. Double-click 'Install_libs' for an automatic installation. 2. Usage ======== PPShow can be used in several different ways. - First of all via the CLI: If you enter 'PPShow ?' you will get a standard AmigaDOS usage template, enter 'PPShow ??' for more information. You use PPShow like this: PPShow {||-c} [ALL] [LO] [HI] [SHI] [PROD] [L=LACE] [NL=NOLACE] [HAM] [TIME s] [CYCLE] [NO=NOOVERSCAN] [NOMOUSE] [A2024 [15Hz]] [PAL] [NTSC] [VGA] [SUPER72] [LOOP] [NOFLICKER] [MO=MAXOSCAN] [J=JIFFIES n] [T=TIMES n] [R=REPEAT] [NOANIM] The program will by default load the specified ILBM file or ANIM file and display/play it. If the file was crunched using PowerPacker 2.0 or higher PPShow will first decrunch it for you. If the file was encrypted you will be prompted for the password. You may specify more than one file on the command line and you may even use wildcards, PPShow will show all files one at a time, double buffering the display. If you specify "-c" as a filename ('PPShow -c') PPShow will show you the contents of the clipboard (if it contains an ILBM). ANIM files will not be played from the clipboard. If you enter PPShow without options, you will be presented with a file requester. Entering PPShow with a directory instead of a file as an argument will also get you a requester, but it will be positioned in the directory you specified. There are several command line options: ALL : Enter subdirectories, show all pictures/animations. LO : Force screen to open in LORES mode. HI : '' '' '' '' HIRES '' SHI : '' '' '' '' SUPERHIRES '' PROD : '' '' '' '' PRODUCTIVITY '' LACE : Force interlace on. NOLACE : Force interlace off. HAM : This switch is used to select HAM mode when no CAMG chunk is found. If you don't specify this switch PPShow will assume a 6 plane screen is extra-halfbrite. Note that this switch does not force HAM mode, it merely instruct PPShow to use HAM mode in case of doubt. TIME s : Display pictures for 's' seconds. CYCLE : Start cycling automatically. NOOVERSCAN : Disable overscan. NOMOUSE : No mouse pointer. LOOP : Display all pictures in a loop, press CTRL-D to abort. PAL : Use 'pal.monitor'. NTSC : Use 'ntsc.monitor'. VGA : Use 'multiscan.monitor'. Please note that when using VGA, LO puts the screen in EXTRALORES, HI in LORES and SHI in PRODUCTIVITY (same as PROD). SUPER72 : Use 'Super72.monitor'. A2024 : Use 'a2024.monitor'. 15Hz : Put A2024 monitor into 15Hz, rather than 10Hz. NOFLICKER : Kickstart 3.0 only. If possible use a non-interlaced monitor mode ('DoublePAL.monitor' or 'DoubleNTSC.monitor'). MAXOSCAN : Use VIDEO_OSCAN instead of MAX_OSCAN. Video overscan offers the maximum possible overscan, but is not as system friendly. JIFFIES n : Set a delay between frames in jiffies. A jiffie is 1/50s (PAL) or 1/60s (NTSC). During animation playback you may press F1 to F10 to control animation playback speed. Press Return to use the default speed. TIMES n : Set number of times to play the animation. REPEAT : Select repeat mode instead of loop mode (see below). NOANIM : Don't play animations, just display the first frame. DATATYPES : Always use datatypes. The difference between loop mode and repeat mode is the following: in loop mode PPShow expects the last two frames of the animation to be the same as the first two frames, this makes looping easy and above all fast (DPaint saves animations like this). Some animations are not like this however and if you want these to loop correctly you must select repeat mode (REPEAT), PPShow will then simply restart the animation when it finishes (note that there may be a small hickup when the animation repeats because the first frame takes longer to draw than the rest). PPShow can be made resident so it doesn't have to be loaded every time you use it, use the c: Resident command for this. You can't make PPShow resident when it is crunched!! The file is supplied as an uncrunched command file with the pure bit set. PPShow is reentrant as well, so you can run it from several CLI's at the same time. (Not that this is very useful, but it's possible :-) Examples: o PPShow dh0:pics/HAMpicWithoutCAMG.pic HAM o PPShow dir/#?.pic TIME 5 LOOP Show all files in directory 'dir' with a '.pic' suffix for 5 seconds and loop until user presses CTRL-D. o PPShow PICS:~(#?.info) NOOVERSCAN Show all files on 'PICS:' NOT ending in '.info'. Disable overscan. - Via the WorkBench: There are three different ways of using PPShow via the workbench: you can set the default tool of the (crunched) ILBM/ANIM file to 'PPShow', you can single click the PPShow icon and then extend-select one or more icons (use shift click, double-clicking the last one) or you can double-click the PPShow icon and specify a filename using the file requester. You set the default tool by single clicking the icon of the picture and selecting 'Information' from the 'Icons' menu. You will get a window with several gadgets in it, click in the string gadget where it says 'Default tool' and enter ':ppshow'. PPShow should be in the root directory of your disk for this to work, if e.g. it's in the system directory you should enter ':system/ppshow'. Last of all select the 'Save' gadget. Following tooltypes are recognized by PPShow (in the pictures' icon, not PPShow's icon): HAM : See CLI option. TIME=s : Display picture for 's' seconds. CYCLE : Start cycling automatically. NOOVERSCAN : Disable overscan. NOMOUSE : No mouse pointer. LORES : Force screen to open in LORES mode. HIRES : '' '' '' '' HIRES '' SUPERHIRES : '' '' '' '' SUPERHIRES '' PROD : '' '' '' '' PRODUCTIVITY '' LACE : Force interlace on. NOLACE : Force interlace off. PAL : Use 'pal.monitor'. NTSC : Use 'ntsc.monitor'. VGA : Use 'multiscan.monitor'. Please note that when using VGA, LO puts the screen in EXTRALORES, HI in LORES and SHI in PRODUCTIVITY (same as PROD). SUPER72 : Use 'Super72.monitor'. NOFLICKER : Kickstart 3.0 only. If possible use a non-interlaced monitor mode. MAXOSCAN : Use VIDEO_OSCAN instead of MAX_OSCAN. Video overscan offers the maximum possible overscan, but is not as system friendly. JIFFIES=n : Set a delay between frames in jiffies. A jiffie is 1/50s (PAL) or 1/60s (NTSC). During animation playback you may press F1 to F10 to control animation playback speed. Press Return to use the default speed. TIMES=n : Set number of times to play the animation. REPEAT : Select repeat mode instead of loop mode (see below). NOTE: - Follow these steps to make a simple slideshow that runs by double- clicking an icon: Make a script file containing something like the following line: 'PPShow #?.pic TIME 10 LOOP'. Set this script's default tool to 'c:IconX' and enter 'WINDOW=CON://///AUTO' in its tooltypes. Put the script in a directory containing pictures (all ending in '.pic'!). If you now double-click this scripts icon the slideshow will start, press ESC or CTRL-D to end. - PPShow will add '.pp' to the filename when the file wasn't found. This is very useful in the Workbench enviroment: you can make an icon for 'house.pic' but name the file 'house.pic.pp'. Now the WorkBench will show an icon with 'house.pic' as name, but if you doubleclick it 'house.pic.pp' will be displayed. (As long as there is no 'house.pic' file in the directory!) - Drag as many monitor icons to the WbStartup or Monitors drawer as your monitor allows. For example: if you have a multiscan monitor drag pal, ntsc and multiscan.monitor to your Monitors drawer. If you do this you will have maximum ease of use of PPShow. 3. Features =========== - PPShow fully supports the 16.8 million colors and HAM8 mode of the AGA (AA) chip set of the Amiga 4000 and Amiga 1200. - Uses asynchronous I/O for very fast viewing, even from floppy or CD-ROM. - Abort PPShow by pressing 'Q', CTRL-C or the right mouse button. Press CTRL-D to abort everything and to break a script. - PPShow offers full overscan and monitor support: PAL, NTSC, VGA, SUPER72 and A2024. - Big pictures are opened on an autoscroll screen. Simply run the mouse pointer off the edge of the screen to scroll around. - PPShow can be used as a simple slideshow tool. It supports wildcards and an ALL switch to simplify this. - Deluxe Paint color cycling is supported, press to (de)activate. Up to 8 cycles are supported. - Press 'M' to toggle the mouse pointer on/off. - Plays ANIM Opcode 5, Opcode 7 and Opcode 8 animations. - Supports a change of the color palette during the animation. Special care has been taken to eliminate color-flashing as seen in many other animation players (including the now obsolete PPAnim :-). - Press 'S' or the left mouse button to start/stop the animation. Press 'N' to advance a frame (when stopped). - Reads the 'DPAN' IFF chunk DPaint saves with animations to find the rate at which to play the animation. Note that user options override this rate (JIFFIES=n). - Supports datatypes (Workbench 3.0 or higher). 4. Note on crunching ==================== A lot of IFF ILBM files are already crunched with the standard ByteRun1 compression. PowerPacker will crunch these files even further (most of the time) but will not crunch them as well as uncrunched ILBM files. So save IFF files uncrunched (if you can, e.g. with PixMate) before crunching them, this way you will get the best crunching results. As always, I hope you find this program useful! "Sometimes people can be oh so dense" - The Pixies (c) 1991-1994 Nico Fran // Thanks to \X/ Amiga for being the best computer ever!