GifScan 2.0 Read Me

Introduction
Using GifScan
Application Menus
Application Preferences
About the source code
Cost
Development History
Future Plans
About the author
Download GifScan 2.0

Introduction?

A while ago now, I was looking for an application that could give me quick information about GIF files without viewing each one. (The image itself is sometimes not important...) Information such as such as size, whether it is interlaced and such. The GIF format is still the preferred format when using images in Netscape or Mosaic. The only problem was that I could not find a suitable application for the Macintosh. Fortunately, I found some code on the Net that did most of what I was looking for. Unfortunately, this was written for command line systems. Fortunately again, I was not completely new to Macintosh programming and I decided to build some interface around it. This is the result of my efforts. If I have a need for something like this, there must be more people that could use it, especially if you are like me and like to make up your pages in a text editor instead of some full blown wysiwyg application. So, I decided to release it. I have been working on it for a while now and since the first version many things have changed. I should rename the application to something more appropriate such as HTML Helper or something, but I guess that name has already been claimed by someone. It not only generates HTML SRC tags for GIF files but also for JPEGs and it generates HTML HREF tags for any other file dropped on it and therefore it can also be used to generate quick indexes of all files in a certain folder (or directory...). Since the previous version (1.9), this is new:

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.
You can now set the option to include a BORDER in the HREF, with different sizes.
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. More about IC and GifScan later in this document.
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.
GifScan recognises the Netscape looping extension and reports it.
Changed the defaults and added a Default button in the Preferences.
All dialogs are now movable modal and the menus work correct in all of them.

How to use it?

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 appropiate HTML tag for all, placing the result on the Clipboard. If you hold down the option key (

) while dragging files onto the application, you will be prompted to save a text file (including any header and footer) after processing the files.

If you open the application by double clicking it, you will be presented with a regular text window. You can also 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 it you like). A possible result is shown here:

Alternatively, if you want extensive information about a particular GIF, you can hold down the
key or set the Prefs to do this all the time. You will be presented with information similar to this:

The official GIF specs are available on the Apprentice 2 CD, probably on Compu$erve and at Royal Frazier's page. 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.

The Menus

Under the File menu:

Open... : Open a file through the standard file selection dialog.
Hide /Show : Hides or shows the window.
Save As... : Save output to text file.
Preferences... : Here you can set if your preferences, please refer to the next section.
Quit : Do I really have to say what you can do with this?

Under the Edit menu:

Mostly standard stuff, undo doesn't work and would not be very useful, I think.
Also in there is a 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:

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!

The Preferences

The Preferences window is shown here (with the default settings):

Copy HTML Tag to Clipboard automatically Automatically copies the determined HTML tags to the Clipboard.
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.
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.
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.
Edit Brings up the dialog to edit the header and footer discussed previously.
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.
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 pathnames, 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).
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.
Put <BR> and/or <P> after HTML tag Gives you the option to set a line feed or paragraph break after the generated HTML specification.
Order in tag. Sets the order within the HTML tag. There are 4 options to choose from.
Use border tag. Select if you want (or don't want) a BORDER with your image tags. Choose the width from the Popup menu, 0 is no border.
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.

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. (Thanks to Peter Lewis' Perl script, this is not very difficult at all!).
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.

About the source code

I assembled the original version using DropUnix 1.1. DropUnix 1.2 is available now. (Drop Unix is essentially DropShell 2.0 by Leonard Rosenthal et. al., adapted to easily port command line applications to Macintosh, by Ryan Davis) and the source code gifscan.c, written by James D. Murray (in 1989 I think!). Over time, I have added a lot more features, I have used Aaron Giles' JPEG Library (can't find the source on Internet anymore...) and a whole lot of other fine examples, see the about box for more credits if you are interested. I wrote it using MetroWerks 9 (C Compiler version 1.5) on a Macintosh Quadra 630 and a Powerbook 5300. My access to different machines is limited, so if you have a machine or System that it doesn't work on, I apologise in advance.

What does it cost me?

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.

Version History

1.0

Initial release, very basic.

1.01

Added the HTML specification so all HTML authors can easily paste this in your HTML IMG specification.
You can now hold down the command key to show the colour codes if you have turned this feature off in the Preferences.

1.5

Doesn't use the SIOUX window anymore, Drag and Drop aware.
Changed command key down behaviour to toggle between show codes and not, depending on the preference settings.

1.6

Added option to show only the filename, instead of the full pathname, in the HTML tag.
You can change the default font.
Added the option to save the HTML tag to the Clipboard by default.
Apparently, 1.5 did not run on systems that did not have Drag and Drop installed. Now fixed, I hope.

1.7

Now HTML tags for all files dropped on the application are copied instead of the last one alphabetically.
GifScan now gives you any present GIF comments and the transparent colour, if present in the file.
GifScan now optionally creates HREFs for all files dropped on it, even non GIF files.
You can set the option of putting <BR> and/or <P> after the generated HTML tags.
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.
More bug fixes and options for the output.
Source code is no longer included in the archive to keep the size down and not too many people needed it anyway.

1.8

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.
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.
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.
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.
Rewrote the About box and extended the credits, I left some out earlier...

1.9

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. These are becoming more and more popular now Netscape 2.0 displays them correctly. If you want to build these multi-image files, check out Yves Piguet's excellent clip2gif and GifBuilder. Thanks to Royal Frazier for alerting me.
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.
Updated my e-mail address and web URL now that I have moved to the United Kingdom.

2.0

See the Introduction.

Thanks to all of you that have sent me e-mail to improve this application. It is really appreciated!

Future plans

What more would you like to see in this application? Please send suggestions if you have them. Due to a hard system crash a while ago I have lost a few messages. If you were one of them, I apologise for not answering your mail. On my improvements list are:

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.
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...

Known Problems

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.
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.
There are probably some more bugs but I couldn't find one that was reproducible.

About the author

For questions and bug reports, you can send e-mail to: marcb@dircon.co.uk

Send postcards and money to my regular mail address:

Marc Boon
7 Williams Close
Addlestone
Surrey KT15 1UR
United Kingdom

Thanks for your attention, not many people get this far!

Marc Boon

Download GifScan 2.0

Application and Read Me. (96k)
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 this form. 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.

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