Some tips for using Gizmo are as follows: • This help dialog, used throughout Gizmo, works best if System 5.0 or later is available and if the Geneva 9 point font is installed. •• Gizmo Quick Start: Gizmo is simple to use, just launch your communications software and then open Gizmo (DA or application). Gizmo is shipped configured for the most popular communications products, but you should double check the Presets window to make sure your software is listed. Next, connect to a on-line service and download a GIF file! Gizmo will look for any file with a ".GIF" file name extension and automatically open and convert it. You can also open any GIF file that is being downloaded or has already been downloaded with the Open GIF item. While downloading, you can use the hand-grabber to move the picture about the window while the picture continues to download and convert! Refer to the help sections in the respective areas and the documentation for more information. Once a picture is converted, it can be saved in PICT format with the Save PICT item. If your display is in color mode and the picture is displayed in color, Gizmo will save the picture in PICT2 (color) format. Otherwise Gizmo will save it as a regular PICT (black and white) picture. The picture can also be copied to the clipboard with the Copy item in the Edit menu. •• Gizmo Tips: • The registration will print best if the Times® 12 point font is installed. If printing to a ImageWriter, print in Fast or Best mode, not Draft. • Gizmo's window can be re-sized with the "pop-and-size-box". Moving the pointer to the lower right-hand corner of Gizmo's window will pop-up the size box. Clicking and dragging at this time will re-size the window. • The Command-key will toggle between the Turbo Hand Grabber and the Normal Hand Grabber. • Hitting the Space-bar will toggle between the current picture or the status display. The status display shows the current image number being converted, the size of the current image, a "thermometer" showing the progress of the current image, and Notes about the current picture at the bottom of the display. This is useful for hiding the picture when someone walks into the room who shouldn't see the content of a particular picture. • Hitting Command-Space-bar will toggle the status display between its normal brief state and the diagnostic state. When in diagnostic state, many different things about the current picture are displayed, such as the size of the entire GIF picture, the number of colors it has, the name of the disk/volume it's being downloaded to (or it was opened from), the amount of free space remaining on the disk/volume, how fast Gizmo is converting the picture, and other miscellaneous things. • While a picture is being converted, Gizmo checks to see how much disk space is available on the disk/volume containing the picture. If the free space should fall below 50K, Gizmo will warn you. Therefore, if you are downloading the picture, you should have plenty of time to make room available for the rest of the picture (most good GIF pictures run around 50-100K or more). This warning will only occur once for each picture downloaded. • If you are using Gizmo App to view color pictures with MultiFinder active, it may be necessary to increase the memory size of Gizmo to view large pictures (640 x 400). The minimum memory size is 200K with the default set to 390K. To set a different memory size, select (highlight) the Gizmo application on the desktop and choose the Get Info menu item from the File menu. At the bottom of the info window is the Application Memory Size setting. A value of 700K should work fine for most large pictures. NOTE: The application must be closed before performing this procedure. • You may notice Gizmo's window moving a little to the left or right after re-sizing or zooming it. Gizmo does this to align the window on memory boundaries. Let's just say it makes drawing to the screen faster! If you are using the Gizmo application, the window will also be adjusted after moving it from one location to another. The Desk Accessory version doesn't do this because of display updating problems under MultiFinder. • We highly recommend that you use the application version of Gizmo under MultiFinder for several reasons: DA's that use large amounts of memory can cause problems in other parts of the system, especially when using color; DA's that use lots of memory are also discouraged by Apple; using the DA version will expand your "System" memory partition, thus decreasing available memory for other applications; the DA relies on MultiFinder "temporary memory", which may be in short supply; the DA version may cause minor screen updating problems; and the DA version may not work with System 7.0 or beyond. Using the application version overcomes all of these problems. • When Gizmo is locked (in demo mode), the following obstacles are in effect: • Pictures are randomly inverted, so they may look like film negatives. • Pictures are obscured with the message "Gizmo" centered on them. • If the picture is not inverted, vertical bars are drawn on the image when saved or copied to the clipboard. • Gizmo reminds you that it is locked every time you Open, Save or Copy. •• GIF89a Notes: The following explains how Gizmo handles the new GIF89a specification, which was released on August 1, 1990. • To display GIF 89a text blocks correctly, make sure you have the Courier 10, 12, 18 and 24 point sizes installed in your System or the Monaco 9, 12, 18 and 24 point sizes. The GIF Comments display requires the Courier 9 point font. • Text is either drawn as black on a white background or white text on a black background. Transparent text is drawn in outline mode with no background (so you can read it when overlayed on the dithered image). If you have a color display, text is drawn in the specified colors (without using outline mode). • If Gizmo beeps once while converting a GIF picture, it is expecting your response before it continues. To continue decoding the image, hit any key that Gizmo does not recognize (i.e. don't hit the space-bar). Note: It is standard procedure for a time delay to be specified with the user input flag, so decoding will continue when the timer expires or you hit a key, which ever occurs first. It is also possible to have a delay without your response, therefore decoding will continue after the timer has expired (which you cannot interrupt). However, while these timers are ticking, you can still move the image around with the hand-grabber and processing in the background continues. If Gizmo encounters a timer delay while in the background, Gizmo will handle it as normal and all other processes continue to run. • Restore to Previous restores the image to the state it was before displaying the current image. If there is not enough memory available, the image is Restored to Background. • Transparency is fully supported. With non-GIF89a viewers, you will see borders (or "transparency mask") around objects that should not be there. When transparency is handled properly, you will not see the borders. • Currently, Gizmo ignores the Aspect Ratio feature of the new specification. Please refer to the documentation for more information about any of these features. The documentation is provided when you register.