Graphics Plus/Graphics Plus.iso/msdos/viewers/cinema10/cinema.doc

Text File | 1990-07-05 | 13KB | 348 lines

CINEMA 1.0
__________________________________________________________________

If you like this program, please do one of the following:

    Go down to your local bookstore and buy a copy of "Coven:
    A Novel", by Steven William Rimmer, published by Ballantine
    Books. In Canada, try Coles... they usually have it. Read the
    book and tell your friends about it if you like it. Send us
    some comments about the book or a photocopy of the cover and
    we'll consider you a registered user of this program.

    If your local bookstore doesn't have Coven, ask them to order
    it for you.

    Alternately, send us $35.00, the normal user fee for this
    software. (The book is $3.95 or $5.50 in Canada: considerably
    cheaper than cash.)

    Registered users of this software are entitled to phone
    support, notification of upgrades and good karma. When you
    register Cinema we'll send you a copy of the latest version
    of the software, as well as several other graphic related
    programs we do. Please tell us the version number of your
    copy of Cinema when you register. Our address can be found at
    the end of this file.
__________________________________________________________________


Cinema is a slide show program for image files. It allows you to
set up complex sequences of images by creating script files in a
very simple programming language. Having created such a script
file, you can feed it to Cinema and it will show you some
pictures

You can use any combination of the following image file types in
a Cinema program.

- MacPaint files
- PC Paintbrush files with up to 256 colours
- GEM/IMG files of the sort used by Ventura Publisher
- GIF files of any size and up to 256 colours
- TIFF files (with some restrictions)
- WordPerfect graphic (WPG) files.
- Microsoft Windows Paint (MSP) files.
- IFF/LBM/CE files (from Deluxe Paint, among others)

Cinema can be used with any display card and monitor, as one of
the things you must do in a Cinema program is to tell it what
sort of screen driver to use. A number of screen drivers for the
popular display cards have been included with Cinema.

The file CINEDRVR.DOC outlines the available drivers.

A Cinema program must begin be opening a driver. You should then
specify the time you want each picture to appear on the screen.
Having done this, you can create a sequence of images. Each image
will display and while it's on the screen the following image
will load and wait for its turn. When the first image has been on
for the time you set, it will be replaced with the second image.

The programming language of Cinema... if you want to stretch a
point and call it that... allows you to create complex Cinema
programs by looping and calling subroutines.

This is a sample Cinema program. Note that all the image files in
this program exist in the indicated subdirectories on our hard
drive... you would change them to reflect the files you have and
where you have them stored.

____[ PROGRAM START ]_____________________________________________


Rem This is an example Cinema program

Rem We'll start by loading a graphics driver
OpenDriver GrafDrv.Drv

Rem Next we'll define how long the pictures will stay on the screen
SetWait 3

Rem This tells CINEMA to jump to the next picture if a key is hit
SetKeybreak ON

Rem This is a label, the start of the main infinite loop
:myLoop

    REM This is a WHILE statement, and sets the start of a loop
    while 4
        REM This is a call to a subroutine
        Call mySubroutine

        while 3
            REM This actually loads an image
            OpenImage bodefrag.pcx
            OpenImage zoe.pcx

        REM This is a WEND, the end of a loop
        wend
        OpenImage frogg.pcx
        Call mySubroutine
    wend

    OpenImage nagel2.Img
GoTo myLoop
Quit

:mySubroutine
    REM Start of my subroutine
    OpenImage e:\gif\mouse.gif
    OpenImage e:\gif\parrot.gif
    Call mySecondSubroutine
    Return

:mySecondSubroutine
    REM Start of my second subroutine
    OpenImage d:\gemart\kelly.img
    Call myThirdSubroutine
    OpenImage d:\gemart\cheetah.img
    Return

:myThirdSubroutine
    REM Start of my third subroutine
    while 2
        OpenImage e:\gif\pigs.gif
        OpenImage d:\gemart\hkGirl.Img
    wend
    Return

____[ END OF PROGRAM ]__________________________________________

A Cinema program can be written with any text editor or a word
processor in its non-document mode. Each line can be up to 128
characters long, and a Cinema program can contain up to 32,767
lines.

You can indent lines to make your listings easier to read, but
Cinema ignore all indenting. Cinema also ignores blank lines.

Non-blank lines in a Cinema program can either be commands or
labels. A label always starts with a semicolon. Labels can be up
to 128 characters long.

Cinema commands and labels are all case insensitive. It doesn't
matter what mixture of upper and lower case you use.

You can break out of a Cinema program by holding down the Ctrl
key and hitting Break several times.

The following commands are recognized by Cinema. Some commands
have arguments, that is, parameters after the command itself.

REM        Remark. The rest of the line is ignored.

QUIT        Return to text mode and exit Cinema.

OPENDRIVER     Load the specified graphics driver. The argument
                must be the complete path and name of a valid
                Alchemy graphics driver.

CLOSEDRIVER    Unload the current graphics driver and return
                immediately to text mode. Normally you would not
                do this in a Cinema program as it looks messy.
                This command is useful if you wish to change
                drivers in the middle of a program.

OPENIMAGE    Load an image into memory and tell Cinema to
                display it as soon as the current image times out
                or is interrupted. The argument must be the
                complete path and name of any image file of a
                type supported by Cinema.

SETWAIT        Set the number of seconds to leave each picture
                on the screen. The argument must be a number
                between zero and 32,767. If you make this value
                very small the pictures will essentially load up
                and change as fast as they can be read from the
                disk.

SETKEYBREAK    Set a flag to determine whether pressing a key
                while an image is on the screen will cause it
                immediately be replaced by the next image in the
                program. The argument for this command must be
                either ON or OFF.

GOTO        Stop executing the program with the current line
                and resume executing it one line after the label
                specified by the argument to this command. The
                argument must be the name of a label in your
                program. Make sure you do not include the label's
                colon in the argument to a GOTO command.

WHILE        Starts an iterative loop. The argument must be a
                number between zero and 32,767 representing the
                number of times you want the commands inside the
                loop to execute before Cinema goes on to whatever
                comes after the loop. WHILE loops are terminated
                by WEND commands. You can nest WHILE loops. Note
                that the maximum number of nested WHILE loops and
                currently pending subroutine CALLs cannot exceed
                128.

WEND        Ends an iterative loop.

CALL        Calls a subroutine. A Cinema subroutine can
                contain any legal Cinema commands, including
                WHILE loops and CALLs to further subroutines. A
                subroutine must end with the command RETURN,
                which will cause the current Cinema program to
                resume execution at the line just after the one
                which contained the CALL.

RETURN        Ends a subroutine.


In using WHILE WEND loops and subroutines, pay attention that you
do not inadvertently use the GOTO command to break out of loops
or sneak past the RETURN ending your subroutine. Executing such
code multiple times will cause Cinema's internal stack to
overflow in time, returning you unceremoniously to DOS.

Cinema deals with most errors by returning you to DOS with a beg
notice and an error message.

Once you have a Cinema program file written, you can run it by
simply passing a path to it to CINEMA.EXE. If you wanted to run
the program CINEMA.CIN, you would type the following at the DOS
prompt.

CINEMA CINEMA.CIN

By convention, Cinema program files are given the extension .CIN,
but CINEMA.EXE doesn't actually care what you call them.

Note that Cinema figures out what sort of image files you're
passing it by looking at the file extensions. This is what it
expects to see.

MAC: MacPaint files
IMG: GEM/IMG files
PCX: PC Paintbrush files
GIF: GIF files
TIF: TIFF files
WPG: WordPerfect graphic files
MSP: Microsoft Windows Paint files.
LBM: IFF files


COMING NEXT VERSION
___________________

The next version of Cinema will include an installer to allow you
to change the default file extensions to suit your requirements.
It will also have a selection of special effects to add to your
slide shows.


ROLL YOUR OWN
_____________

This is yet another book plug. If you're interested in writing
programs which use graphics, you'll find everything you need to
know in "The Book of Bitmapped Graphics", also by Steven William
Rimmer. It's published by TAB books, (TAB book 3558) and should
be available in August 1990. It features code to pack and unpack
MacPaint, IMG, PCX, GIF and TIFF files, as well as chapters on
screen drivers, dithering and printing.


MORAL DOGMA
___________

If you like this program and find it useful, you are requested to
support it either by buying the book mentioned at the top of this
file or by sending us $35.00. We'd rather you bought the book.
This will entitle you to telephone support, notification of
updates, a free copy of the latest version of Cinema and other
good things like that. More to the point, though, it'll make you
feel good. We've not infested the program with excessive beg
notices, crippled it or had it verbally insult you after ten
days. We trust you to support Cinema if you like it.
    Oh yes, should you fail to support this program and
continue to use it, a leather winged demon of the night will tear
itself, shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the
nether world, hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for
blood on its slavering fangs and search the very threads of time
for the throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to
know that.

We are
                      Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
                          P.O. Box 500
                        Beeton, Ontario
                             L0G 1A0
                             Canada

Other programs we've done that you might like include:

GRAPHIC
 WORKSHOP - This is the last word in image programs. It converts,
            prints, views, dithers, transforms, scales and
            halftones MacPaint, GEM/Ventura IMG, PCX, GIF, TIFF,
            WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM and EPS files. It drives CGA,
            Hercules, EGA, VGA, Paradise, Video 7, Trident and
            ATI VGA Wonder cards. It features batch processing,
            extended and expanded memory support, an intuitive
            user interface and easy to follow menus. It allows
            you to convert colour image files into superb black
            and white clip art for desktop publishing, among
            other things.

VFM      -  Ventura soft font manager deluxe with a side of fries.
            Adds new fonts and creates width tables with menu
            driven simplicity.

GRAFCAT  -  Prints a visual catalog of your image files, with
            sixteen pictures to a page. Drives all LaserJet and
            PostScript laser printers, and works with any mixture
            of GIF, PCX, MacPaint, TIFF, WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM, EPS
        and IMG files.

CROPGIF   - allows you to crop smaller fragments out of your GIF
            files. Use graphic Workshop, above, to convert other
            formats into GIF files for cropping. This program
            uses a simple mouse interface to make cropping image
            fragments no more complicated than using a paint
            program. Requires a Microsoft compatible mouse.

If you can't find them in the public domain, they're available
from us for $35.00 each.


LEGAL DOGMA
___________

The author assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss
caused by the use of these programs, however it comes down. If
you can think of a way a picture program can cause you damage
or loss you've a sneakier mind than mine.

All the trademarks used herein are registered to whoever it is
that owns them. This notification is given in lieu of any
specific list of trademarks and their owners, which would not be
as inclusive and would probably take a lot longer to type.

That's it...