GEMini Atari/GEMini_Atari_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1993.iso/files/demo/img_catj.txt

Text File | 1989-10-22 | 41KB | 743 lines

IMAGE CAT    (IMG CAT)  Copyright 1989  Chet Walters

****  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED  ****

LEGALESE.....
This program is *-NOT-* public domain and is intended for donators
only!  Thank you for your donation. Make it worth your while and keep
this in YOUR library. I have asked for a mere $10 donation for this
program and the final product represents many hours of hard work and
many more hours spent in learning the system and many dollars spent on
equipment.  Please respect not only my lawful rights of copyright, but
also my investment of time and money to make things convenient for you.
You are guilty of international crime if you make a copy of this
program for other than your own personal use.  You have, by the
purchase of this program, the rights to make as many copies of it for
your own personal use as you wish, but no other copies are authorized
nor permitted.  Back this disk up in case of floods or hurricanes and
save the original.  For free updates, you'll need to send back the
original.  Use the back up!

LEGALESS......
Use of this program is the owner's responsibility (that's you).  If you
want to put 700 image files in one folder on your harddrive and fry
your printer, that's up to you, it's not my responsibility.  However,
to safeguard against that, IMG CAT will only print up to 150 images at
each punch of the CATALOGUE button. Period.  That's the limit.  You can
select and print as many paths as you please during any one session
(thousands of files if you want to), but you can't access more than 150
image files from any one path.  It's recommended that you limit any
path to less than 100 images and then print several paths which gives
the printer time to rest and cool.  Don't tax your printer.  Those
babies wear out quick enough.  Make sure your ribbon has enough ink to
keep the pins lubricated.  If you have an HP Deskjet, no sweat, but
those carts are a bit on the expensive side, no? Laser printer?  Well,
I don't have one to test with IMG CAT, but I bet they can get pretty
hot after a long session.  Keep an eye on your printer!

BRAGGING.....
With the advent of Touch Up, scanners, Dr. Bob's MVG and the like, many
folks have opted to store their bit graphics in DRI IMG format.  This
is nice.  It makes it possible to store graphics in compressed form and
let's one work with images larger than the actual display screen. Ideal
for DTP applications.  However, up 'til now, there has been a real
vacuum in the Atari community.  That is, a way to effectively catalogue
and easily reference those very bit images.  There are currently no
real slide shows which will let you quickly page through a set of IMG's
so you know what's there (though Dr. Bob's MVG comes real close with
it's QWIKKIES feature).  It was really up to your failing memory (grey
type) to know whether that XMAS01.IMG file was the one of the wreath or
the one of the Christmas tree ...  or was it the one of the Courier and
Ives winter scene that you liked so well???  Yeah, yeah, I know, you
have it all in a database somewhere.  But, geez, in the data base it
says 'winter scene' but which one?  I had three...  Was this the
sleigh? Or the mountain?  or ???  A picture is worth a thousand words
they say....

Well, wonder no more. IMG CAT to the rescue.  Before IMG CAT, if you
wanted a hardcopy of a set of IMG files, you were forced to drag out
Easy Draw, PageStream, Calamus or other DTP packages and laboriously
lay out a page of IMG's, name them, title them and then print them.  A
tough and time consuming job.  After you finished the job, you were
likely pretty sick of DTP for a while anyway.  No longer!  IMG CAT will
print in various configurations page after page of IMG files nicely
laid out in alphabetical order with sizes and names ready for your
perusal.  Next time you're stuck for a nice graphic to go with that
newsletter article about Christmas, just pull out your catalogue and
look under 'W' for winter.  Since you can put up to 15 images per page,
you might even find one that suit's your needs better than the one you
were looking for in the first place.  And it's all without any hard
work on your part.  Just run IMG CAT, smack the return key, select a
path, and smack the return key again. While your catalogue prints,
you're free to pursue other interests (a candlelight dinner with that
'special someone' might be nice here).

I've done all the work for you.  I have painstakingly written IMG CAT
in assembly language so that it's extremely compact.  GDOS, the
printer driver, the fonts, and those HUGE IMG files require lots of
RAM.  I've made IMG CAT tiny to accommodate this.  I've been able to
print 15 image files per page at 300 DPI with only 700K free at the
desktop!  Now that's efficiency!  And with that efficiency comes speed.
Your part in the use of this program is very small (the printing takes
the time).  I meant it that way.  IMG CAT is a breeze to use and it's
flexible to suit your tastes (more on this later).

REQUIREMENTS....
Well, now that the chest beating is out of the way, there is one other
thing before we get to the real good stuff. You should know that IMG
CAT requires GDOS (Atari) or G+PLUS (CodeHeads) and a suitable printer
driver with at least one printer font that has 10 point and 12 point
typefaces.  That's 'easy'.  Migraph (Easy Draw, Touch Up, Super
Charger) makes an excellent one for Epson and a terrific one for the HP
Deskjet plus several others.  NeoCept (of Word Up fame) has a good
collection of drivers for GDOS too. There are drivers available for
most any printer.  If you need more info on GDOS, there are several
sources and we won't expound on it here.  If you work with IMG files,
you likely know about GDOS already.  If you haven't a clue about GDOS,
write CodeHead Software about their excellent and FAST G+PLUS system
for GDOS compatibility.  The folks there are mighty helpful.

CATALOGUING.....
I think that's how you spell it.  Anyway...  You should go through a
little preparation before using IMG CAT.  IMG CAT will print only the
image files found within one path on your diskettes or harddrive.  It
will not dig into any folders other than the one you open with the
fileselector.  What you see is what you get, no more, no less.  This is
not a real limitation.  Most folks don't keep more than 150 IMG's in
one directory on the hard drive and floppies can hold only so many.
Too, as mentioned, this will keep you from turning your printhead into
scrap iron or taking a fire hose after your laser all the while
swearing at me for letting you do it.  So, with that in mind, if you
don't already have your images 'organized' do it first.  You might even
want to make a first run with IMG CAT then go through and sort your
images into catagories for a final run (there's a draft feature for HP
owners described later for just that).  Think about it? Was this
possible before IMG CAT?  Nope, it was a hard job to get.... wait, this
ain't the bragging section.....

RUNNING IMG CAT
Put IMG CAT anywhere you like on your harddrive or floppy. Double click
on the IMG_CAT.PRG name from the desktop.  It's not recommended that
you run this program from within other programs which have the PEXEC
feature (like Flash or the like).  We tweak the system a bit to get the
job done and though we follow ALL the rules, there's no guarantee that
you won't see some of those explosive beasties if you run this from
within.  Besides, we need the memory for IMG files and fonts.  Programs
like NeoDesk from GRIBNIF and HotWire! from the CodeHeads (ie specially
designed as shells) and Dr. Bob's Menu Helper should work ok if you
have the RAM (Dr. Bob's is ideal here since it is VERY small).  As a
point of interest, this program was written on a Mega 4 with CodeHead's
HotWire residing peacefully and always in memory using many of the work
saving features of HotWire!  Highly recommended.

BUTTONS, BUTTONS, WHO'S GOT THE BUTTONS?
When IMG CAT is initialized, you'll see lots of buttons.  Unless you've
never heard of a mouse, you don't need to be told what to do with them.
The button defaulted is the SET PATH button.  That's what you should do
first.  Just hit RETURN or punch that button and the fileselector will
appear.  Dig around until you have the IMG files you want to print
before your very eyes then click on OK or hit RETURN again (you don't
need to select an individual filename).  The path you chose will be in
the TITLE box and CATALOGUE will then become the default button.  If
you wish to have a special title for this (perhaps you have a
collection of animals on a floppy labeled ANIMALS but the title of A:\
for this section of your catalogue would be a bit less than
informative) you can edit the title line up to 40 characters (press ESC
and type ANIMALS DISK ONE for instance).  Make sure your printer is on
and there's plenty of paper then smack the RETURN key again.  Your work
is done!  IMG CAT will do the rest.  See, that wasn't so hard!  Go have
that dinner!  Once you're done with dinner (or whatever the dinner
might have lead to) then come on back.  You'll see that SET PATH is
once again defaulted and the kitty is waiting for you to select another
path to print!

SETTINGS and FLEXIBILITY
This would be a very poor program indeed if I foisted my preferences on
you.  Oh, yes, I do have preferences, and you'll see them when you
first run IMG CAT plain as the whiskers on the kitty.  But they're not
etched in stone.  We'll discuss each in turn and then tell you a way of
saving YOUR preferences so you don't have to click the mouse ninety
times (like some other programs which I won't mention here) to have it
your way every time you run IMG CAT.

...PAGE STYLE
You have three choices.  If you've got a 300 DPI printer and like lots
of information at your fingertips, then style 15 is your baby.  It
prints 15 images per page with each image 2 inches by 2 and the names
printed sideways (only place they'll fit!).  If you've got a 9 pin
printer or like more white space on your pages, then style 12 is for
you.  This gives 12 images per page with upright titles and some white
stuff for easy on the eyes viewing.  Style six prints (you guessed it!)
only 6 images per page and is more or less for those with limited
memory.  Style six is also a good one for those HUGE scanned images,
halftones, and quick looks at a small set of IMG files too.  Just click
on the icon of your choice.

...ASPECT RATIO
You can elect to preserve or ignore the aspect ratio of the images on
the page.  Unlike Degas, TNY or NEO pics, IMG files have widely varying
sizes.  Some may be long and skinny or short and fat or wide and
narrow.  Each image on the page is printed within a fixed area (ie 2 x
2 on style 15 pages).  If you elect to PRESERVE aspect, then we look at
the longest side of the image, shrink that to exactly fit the box, then
we shrink the short side a corresponding amount which may or may not be
the size of the box.  This way, we preserve the overall 'look', or
aspect of the picture.  If you choose to IGNORE aspect, the we look at
the longest side, shrink or enlarge that to fit and go on to enlarge
the short side so the image fills the box entirely. This often has a
'fun house mirror' effect on the picture and I can't fathom why anyone
would elect to ignore aspect, but you're not locked to my preferences.

...IMAGE SIZES
IMG CAT will print the pixel sizes in WIDTH x HEIGHT above or beside
(depending on page style) and just after the name of the image.  This
is to give you a rough idea of the actual size of the image.  If you
have a 300 DPI printer, then a 450 x 300 image will be an inch and a
half by one inch pixel for bit.  Since all images regardless of size
print strikingly well through IMG CAT, you might not know the actual
extent of the image by just looking at the picture.  SHOW the size.  If
it's 1200 x 890 then you know that it's a pretty darn big image. You
can then easily surmise if a particular image is a good choice to
import 30 times on a page in your DTP application for making labels
(the big ones don't do this well).  If you don't want sizes printed,
then HIDE them.

...PAGE BINDING
This somewhat 'cryptic' option is for the style of the overall
catalogue rather than individual page design.  If you choose NONE then
the page titles on all pages will be printed flush right on the page.
If you choose CONT, then odd numbered page titles will be printed flush
right while even numbered ones are set flush left for a 'book' effect.
The CONT means continuous which further means that the titles will be
swapped book style, but there will be no pause between pages.  You can
then punch and collate with 'page protector' plastic covers for a nice
book. SING means single sheet which further means that the titles will
be swapped and IMG CAT will wait for you to respond to an alert box
between each page. It's not recommended that you print on both sides of
a sheet of paper unless it's at least 60lb since heavy graphics tend to
bleed through to the other side spoiling the whole thing (lasers won't
bleed, but they will double warp the paper and the toner on the second
side will be a tad 'flaky').  But, the option is here for you if that's
what you want to do.  This feature is there for those who have single
sheet printers too.

...BOX STYLE
Personally, as you can see, I like dotted boxes around my images.  This
gives an impression of the aspect of the image, doesn't clutter the
page, and keeps the names and sizes relative to the particular image
for easy reference.  If you like images sans boxes or solid lines for
the surround, then take your pick.

SCAT!
Here's a feature that I wish more programs had (which is why I included
it).  IMG CAT is easy to use.  The learning curve is flat as a pancake
(or is that steep as Everest? I can't bring to mind right now which
means easy). Anyway, the only time you're asked for confirmation when
doing anything is when you hit one of the print buttons.  You'll see an
alert asking if your printer is on.  Click the appropriate button: AYE!
for "go ahead," NAY! for "wait, not just now."  There is a third button
named SCAT!  If you click that button, you will never again see that
particular alert box for the rest of the session. Kitty will just
quietly go about his business when you punch a print button. You'll
find that once you catch on to IMG CAT, you'll be grateful for the
SCAT! button.  You're welcome....

SAVING PREFERENCES
All of the preferences mentioned above can be saved for ensuing
sessions with IMG CAT. In addition to STYLE, ASPECT, SIZES, BINDING and
BOXES, the ASPECT, PLACEMENT, and ENLARGEMENT of single printing
(discussed later) and the SHIFT KEY condition of printer checks are
also saved.  Just click on the kitty's nose at the main dialog and
insert your working program disk into the drive from which it was run
(fixed media hard drive owners need not worry about this).  Your
preferences are saved directly to the IMG_CAT program so there's no
other file besides the PRG floating around for you to worry about.  If
you have a harddrive, this will happen so fast you won't think it
worked!  But, next time you run IMG CAT, you'll see that it did indeed
'take.' NOTE: if the file named IMG_CAT.PRG is not found, IMG CAT will
ask you to help it find itself on disk with the fileselector.  When and
if that happens, you should search through your folders to find your
working IMG_CAT.PRG then double click it.  This should only happen if
you have run IMG CAT from a floppy which is no longer in the drive.

********* CAUTION ********
There are safeguards to ensure that you can't inadvertently spoil
another program file when saving defaults, but you can screw that up
royally by poking around in the IMG CAT program file with a sector
editor.  DON'T and there will be no problems.  No guarantees otherwise.

FONTS
As noted, IMG CAT requires GODS and fonts for your printer.  Check
other sources for information on GDOS and it's foibles.  IMG CAT allows
you to choose from up to six fonts maximum during any one session.
Note, however, that GDOS requires that ALL fonts listed in the
ASSIGN.SYS file be loaded all at once.  If your ASSIGN.SYS lists more
than six fonts, the excess is just wasted memory.  Along these same
lines, IMG CAT uses ONLY point sizes 10 and 12.  Other point sizes are
wasted space too.  You might want to write a special ASSIGN.SYS for
just IMG CAT which has only the 10 point and 12 point fonts of your
favorite six fonts.  G+PLUS from the CodeHeads offers a great
alternative by allowing you to load ANY ASSIGN.SYS with any program run
automatically and this is a boon to IMG CAT.  Highly recommended (it
dramatically reduced the development time on this program, I can assure
you).  Note, that if you have limited memory, you should load only one
or two fonts.  If you're having the problem of 'missing' images on a
page (the last two or three are blank boxes) then you have simply run
out of memory (RAM type).  Set up an ASSIGN.SYS with only SWISS in 10
and 12 points and this problem should go away. Use fonts designed for
your printer.  Limiting your fonts to 10 and 12 points will also make
IMG CAT load and run more quickly.

If your text does not seem to be the correct size, then IMG CAT can't
find the font it's looking for.  IMG CAT attempts to print page titles
in 12 point and image names and sizes in 10 point.   If the chosen font
does not have these size designations, then IMG CAT will try to print
with the nearest point size BELOW the requested one. If there is no
point size BELOW the requested one, then the next HIGHER point size
will be used.  You can use this little 'fact' to your advantage if you
wish.  If you have listed, say, only SWISS 7 point in your assign.sys,
then when you print with SWISS, all text will print in 7 point SWISS
(it's a clean tiny font at 300DPI for those who like tiny text).  If
you want larger, then you can have only, say, DUTCH 18 point listed in
your assign.sys for DUTCH.  When you print with DUTCH, you will get 18
point text. Note, however, that using larger point sizes will cause the
numbers for the sizes of images to overlap the names so it's best to
HIDE sizes here.

DEVICE DRIVERS
Presently, IMG CAT references only Device #21 or Device #23 as printer
devices.  This is the norm (as far as I know) and should present no
problems.  Make sure your printer driver in your ASSIGN.SYS file has
one of these designations.  Device #21 is the default for most drivers
(EPSON), but the Migraph HP DeskJet driver installs as device #23 for
300 DPI and device #21 for 150 DPI (as they came from Migraph).  If you
have Migraph's driver and have these devices listed as such, then IMG
CAT will detect it and default to device #23 for 300 DPI if you're
using the original ASSIGN.SYS.  Otherwise, it will install device #21.
If you have another printer (LQ, SLM) then edit your ASSIGN.SYS file to
specify either device #21 or device #23 for compatibility.

***** HIDDEN FEATURE *****
If you have a DeskJet and Migraph's driver for it, then you CAN bypass
this automatic #23 install for draft printouts if need be.  Merely
press and hold the SHIFT key when you double click on the IMG_CAT.PRG
and keep it pressed until the choice box appears.  You can then choose
DEV #21 for preliminary 'sorting' printouts (if you've followed
Migraph's lead and have DJET150.SYS as 21 and DJET300.SYS as 23).  This
nifty hidden feature is useful as well if you only have one floppy
drive.  You can boot with a disk which has GDOS and which installs the
ASSIGN.SYS file.  You can then remove that disk from the drive and
insert the disk with IMG_CAT.PRG.  Hold down the SHIFT key and double
click the PRG. Keep holding down the SHIFT key until IMG CAT loads and
gives you an alert.  Remove the disk with IMG CAT and re-insert the
GDOS disk with all the fonts and drivers. Click on the device desired
and off you go!  Thanks to Frank Tomecek for thinking up this little
feature.

NECESSITIES
IMG CAT needs no GDOS screen fonts, no screen drivers and no META
driver.  It needs only the printer driver for your printer and at least
one printer font in both 10 and 12 point designations.  Below is a
sample of the MINIMUM ASSIGN.SYS configuration required for Epson 9
pin:
;your path goes below
PATH = D:\EASYDRAW\EPSYS\
00p screen.sys
; --START OF SCREEN FONTS--
01p screen.sys
02p screen.sys
03p screen.sys
04p screen.sys
; --END OF SCREEN FONTS --
;PRINTER DRIVER
21 FX80.SYS
;--START OF PRINTER FONTS--
; SWISS
ATSS10EP.FNT
ATSS12EP.FNT
;up to five additional fonts here...

Yours may vary depending on driver and fonts, but you must have device
#21 or #23 as the device number before your printer sys file. If you
have an SLM 804 then you should enter:

21 SLM804.SYS

in place of the 21 FX80.SYS above and:

ATSS10LS.FNT
ATSS12LS.FNT
;up to five additional fonts here...

for the fonts.  DJet owners with Migraph's drivers should have:

23 DJET300.SYS
ATSS10LS.FNT
ATSS12LS.FNT
;up to five additional fonts...
...
21 DJET150.SYS
ATSS10DJ.FNT
ATSS12DJ.FNT
;up to five additional fonts...
...

to take full advantage of IMG CAT's HPDJ 'shift into draft' printing
feature detailed above.

***** PLEASE NOTE:  If you run with a minimum ASSIGN.SYS file such as
this one, subsequent programs requiring GDOS drivers and fonts may not
work properly.  Subsequent programs may need the META.SYS or the screen
fonts and they will not be installed.  Using G+PLUS from the CodeHeads
eliminates this ASSIGN.SYS headache and allows easy GDOS configuration
for individual programs.  If you normally boot from a floppy, then by
all means write an ASSIGN.SYS file like this one and boot with it to
run IMG CAT.  Reset your system when you're done with IMG CAT so that
the 'short' sys gets cleared out of memory.  If you have a harddrive
then you should get G+PLUS to handle this for you.

PRINTING SINGLE IMAGES
Click on the PRINT SINGLE button (logical... no?) and you will be
greeted with a new dialog. Your installed device and DPI rating (though
mileage may vary depending on use) will be shown (though only shown,
not selectable).  When you first visit, the CHOOSE FILE button is your
first choice and is the default if you press RETURN. Select an
individual IMG file to print (yes, Virginia, you MUST select an
individual IMG file here).  The file will be read and its size will be
noted in the pixel boxes.  You can choose the PLACEMENT on the page,
the ENLARGEMENT factor and the preservation or ignoration of the ASPECT
(discussed above) of the printout before you punch the print button.
Note, that if you choose to IGNORE ASPECT, the image will always print
exactly SQUARE per the longest side of the image unless it won't fit on
the page that way. If you choose an enlargement factor that causes the
finished product to be larger than an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet (the only
page size that IMG CAT is aware of, by the way) then the image will
print FIT TO PAGE.  Click the filename button (under the kitty) to
choose another image, or just change the placement or enlargement of
the current image for a reprint.  When done, click EXIT to return to
the main catalogue dialog(ue??).

CAVEATS
First, if you have an HP DJ printer, then some of the features of the
program will not be available to you on a strict basis.  Due to the
peculiarities of the DJ, if the printer is turned on when the computer
is booted, then it detects as ALWAYS ready whether it is or not.
Conversely, if it's switched off with an AB switch when the computer is
booted then it detects as always OFF and you must reboot with the
printer on to get back the ability to print.  It also gives odd timeout
signals which makes things difficult too. There's a complicated fix for
this little (and painful) oddity, but it involves inserting a
transistor into the centronics plug and I won't detail it here.  Bear
in mind, if you have a DJ, you are responsible to make sure the printer
is on and ready when you press the CATALOGUE or PRINT buttons.  Even if
you make a mistake here, you have about 30 seconds to right it by
turning it on (you should have the GRAPHICS DIP switch 2 set to
300DPI).  Also, I've had to eliminate some of the 'hey, is the printer
there?' checks within the program for that very reason.  The DJ is very
TIMEOUT prone so I've had to go to other means described in the next
paragraph. IF YOU HAVE A DJ, THEN BY ALL MEANS CHOOSE SHIFT FROM THE
ALERT AT SAVE DEFS.  OTHERWISE, YOU MAY BE THINKING YOUR CATALOGUE US
PRINTING AWAY (the DJ's quiet you know) WHILE THERE'S AN ABORT? ALERT
SITTING THERE WAITING FOR A CLICK.

If you have an Atari laser hooked up to the DMA port, then by all means
set the printer checks to SHIFT and not TIMEOUT since there will be
nothing hooked up to the parallel/serial port.  This also holds true
for folks whose printers hook to the serial port since the program
checks only the parallel port or the serial port (according to what you
have installed with the desktop control panel accessory) for timeouts.

Since IMG CAT explores and exploits some of the very dark regions on
the back roads of TOS, there is no easy way to abort a print once it's
begun.  Once you see the 'page 1 of ?' prompt, the system has taken
over and the kitty no longer has control.  Just about the only way to
abort the print is to shut off the printer.  In about 30 seconds, TOS
will (smartly) realize that there is no printer and will give control
back to the kitty.  At that time, if you're only printing one page or a
single image, then no sweat, just pick up where you left off.  If,
however, you're in the process of printing 2 or more pages, the kitty
will just keep on trucking unless he detects that a SHIFT key is
pressed.  It would be nice to just check at the end of each page to see
if the printer is on or not, but some printers give timeout signals
when they shouldn't.  If there was a check like this at the end of each
page printed it would cause some printers to ALWAYS pause at the end of
each page. Certainly not desirable.  The SHIFT solution is the only
workaround for this, and that is the way IMG CAT comes in its out-of-
the-box condition.  But, I don't lock you into this. You can change way
IMG CAT asks for abort. To do this, you must save your defaults. At
that time, you will be asked what method to use.  If you're having
timeout troubles at the end of each page, then choose SHIFT like the DJ
folks and the Atari Laser DMA folks.  If you've chosen SHIFT from the
ALERT when saving defs, then to abort a multiple page print, shut off
the printer then count 'oneMississippi twoMississippi three...' until
you get to about 15 then press and hold the SHIFT key until kitty asks
you if you want to quit.  If you've chosen TIMEOUT from the ALERT at
save defs, then the kitty will ask you if he discovers that the printer
is off (at the parallel port) at the end of the page without this baby
sitting.  This 'kloodgie' aspect of the program I apologize for, but
that's a necessity for some cantankerous printers.

Scanned photographs and halftone pictures will take on a crossed hatch
appearance when they are enlarged or reduced.  IMG CAT works great with
line art (scanned cartoons, drawings etc) but with these other types,
the going gets rough at times.  They also use lots of ink!  If you need
to print several of these, then use PageStream, which has a 'screening'
feature to eliminate this freak of nature.

The dialogs used here were designed to look really terrific on a
monochrome screen.  The buttons in the single print dialog, however,
might look a little crowded and somewhat off-center on a color monitor.
IMG CAT runs in hi and med rez only.  Since most folks who fool with
bit images use the monochrome, this should not pose a problem. Also,
color users will have no 'progress' reports since the icons are
elongated in med rez.

Since IMG CAT keeps a channel open to your printer the ENTIRE time it's
running it requires that your printer be turned on when you exit the
program.  No big deal really, and when you consider that this
eliminates the need to load the fonts for each path you print, you'll
agree that it's a small price.  If the printer is off when you want to
exit, then IMG CAT will tell you what you need to do. If you have an
Atari Laser then you'll probably see a quick box flash on the screen
each time you quit, but pay no heed.

IMG CAT sorts the image names on only the first four characters for
extra speed.  If you have a series of IMG's named CAT1, CAT2, CAT3 then
they will sort correctly.  However, if they are named KITTY1, KITTY2,
KITTY3 then they will all be together in the printout, but not
necessarily in that order.

For speed I use the blitter for the kitty (not to be confused with
litter for the kitty).  If you have a blitter then you get 300 kitties
on the screen when you run.  If no blitter you only get 100 kitties
(300 takes too long).  Anyway, this caused me much headaches with the
first release of the demo.  I hope you appreciate the consideration
(and I apologize for the inconvenience if you downloaded a demo that
did nothing more than lock up on you).

Every effort was made to ensure that the program would run on any size
monitor or screen.  I don't have a Viking to test it on.  The only
thing I had was a PD program called BIGSCRN which fooled GEM into
thinking that the screen is bigger than the standard monitor.  But
that's all it does, fool GEM. It's buggy. My stuff looked ok as long as
the screen was 640 pixels wide and 800 long, but wider it looked funny
even though my checksums worked out to the right values.  I think
that's the fault of BIGSCRN and not IMG CAT.  If you have a big
monitor, then please let me know. (I'll return the favor by letting you
in on a back-door feature).

************* DEMO ***************
If you're reading this doc and working only with the DEMO of IMG CAT,
then you'll quickly realize the limitations of the demo.  It will give
you a good idea of what the full blown version will do.  Support ATARI
ST ShareWare authors.  Don't make us feel like beggars.  Send in a
donation of only $10 for a full version.  You'll like it I'm sure!

                Chet Walters
                P.O. Box 45
                Girard, OH  44420

Folks outside the continental United States must send an international
money order for $12 in US FUNDS or $12 in US currency (postage is
expensive).  I live in a backwoods area of the US and currency exchange
houses are difficult to come by.  Allow six weeks for delivery.

**********************************

If you've donated and are reading this doc then I thank you very kindly
for your consideration.  I will strive to continue to put out useful
and bug free ShareWare.  The latest version of FujiDesk is on the disk
and if you like working with bit images, you'll want to get Dr. Bob's
MVG, a demo of which is on this disk too.....

***********************************

If you have not donated and are reading this doc and are using IMG CAT
regularly then you and your friend are guilty of international
violation of copyright law.  Besides that, you are a slug who lives
under the slimiest dirty rock on the dung covered floor of a hostelry.

***********************************

For the curious, DEVPAC from HiSoft through Michtron was used to write
this program.  WERCS from the same was used for the dialogs.  If any of
you read my plea for a recommendation on a new language to use for
writing programs on the ST in the stead of GFA, then know that this is
the one.  Highly recommended.  Many thanks go to Mr. W.D. Parks for his
kind assistance and motivation.  Thanks also goes to Craig Daymon
(Manual Maker) for his 'public' suggestion of exploring the
possibilities of using the system to print images. And thanks to the
folks on GEnie and CHQ BBS [phone] for their help in debugging.

If you're a telecommunicator (is that a word?) then join us on GEnie in
the ST Roundtable Category 7 Topic 13 for comments and suggestions.

************************************

You can bet if a company or product was named herein, then it bears a
trademark or copyright.  Here's a semi complete list of things you'll
want to check out if you really want quality stuff....

G+PLUS    (****) [four stars if you wondered]
HOTWIRE!  (****)
Codehead Software
P.O. Box 74090
Los Angeles, CA 91607
[phone]

NOTE:  Due to the complexity and 'one time only at boot' nature of
Atari's original GDOS, the idea of IMG CAT would probably have stayed
forever buried deep in the fissure of Sylvius were it not for the
advent of G+PLUS by the CodeHeads.  G+PLUS made IMG CAT a viable
ShareWare item and brought it to the fore.  G+PLUS also cut development
time on this product considerably.  By all means, get it!


EASY DRAW  (****)
TOUCH UP   (***)
various printer drivers (****)
Migraph
200 S. 333rd St.
Federal Way, WA  98003

************* UPDATE INFO *************
(proof that ShareWare authors are very responsive to the public)

9/25/89 1.02
Thanks to Dr. Bob (Mr. W. D. Parks) and his GLU_RSRC routine, there is
no longer a separate resource file tagging along with IMG_CAT.PRG.
Now, since IMG CAT saves defaults directly to the program file and has
pasted right into it a 'GLUed' resource, you have only one file to
worry about when moving IMG CAT from directory to directory.  Store it
anywhere!  Even on disks full of images!  It's only 27K!  You should
not rename it though, since this will make you step through the
fileselector every time you want to save defaults.  Leave it named
IMG_CAT.PRG.

9/26/89 1.03
At the suggestion of Mr. Bob Rakocy, the 1/2 size button was added to
the ENLARGEMENT dialog.  You can now take those _HUGE_ scanned images
and pare them down to half size for printing singly. Added was
compatibility with LGSLELECT by Charles Johnson thanks to an
incongruity discovered by Mr. Bill Rhebock. As it turns out, this
problem existed as well with the system selector in any version of TOS
prior to TOS 1.4.

9/27/89 1.04
As it was, if you chose CATALOGUE before SET PATH, only a 'No images
found' alert would ensue.  Now, at the suggestion of Frank Tomecek, if
you choose CATALOGUE in this case, it is treated as if you had punched
SET PATH.  You are given the fileselector and asked to choose path.
Punch CATALOGUE again to print. Fixed was a cosmetic bug discovered by
Mr. Rakocy.  If there were an even number of images for the page style
chosen (ie 24 images for style 12), the 'Page ? of ?' dialog would turn
up incorrect. It is now correct.

9/28/89 1.05
A few cosmetic changes and some optimizations for speed. Nothing to get
excited about.

10/12/89
It was discovered at this time that the print drivers which come with
TimeWorks Publisher and other early drivers limit the number of IMG's
one can print on a single page (this was first thought to be a memory
problem but it's not).  So, as a result, if you're using one of the
TimeWorks or an early release driver from another source then you can
print with only page style six no matter how much memory you have in
your machine!  This is a serious deficiency of the driver and not the
fault of IMG CAT.  If you're using those drivers, you should try to
obtain a driver for your printer from Migraph (or from Atari if you
can) which allows 15 images per page or more. (To print 15 images per
page you need at least 600K free at the desktop before running IMG cat
with these new drivers.)

10/19/89 1.06
Due to some optimization and the fact that the loss of images per page
first thought to be a memory deficiency problem turned out to be a
driver deficiency problem (see above), the 150 IMG per path limit is
now raised to 500 IMG's per path.  Bear in mind, that most
fileselectors will handle only 300 to 350 filenames per path.  IMG CAT
will allow 500 names to be printed, but the FSEL may crash when trying
to access a directory with that many names (some do some don't). This
is not a fault of IMG CAT, but of the fileselector.  UIS_II and
LGSELECT give you an alert if you're over limit, but go ahead and click
the OK button as the limit of these FSEL's only affects the FSEL itself
and IMG CAT will process ALL the names up to 500 just fine. The new TOS
1.4 selector handles that many names alright, but the old system
selector may crash. Other third party selectors have not been tested.
You should also be aware that having that many names within a directory
will slow GEMDOS file access down considerably (even with TOS 1.4) and
those directories become more and more difficult to manage as they grow
(300 names is not too unreasonable a limit). Also, you can burn up a
dot matrix printer by printing that many files in succession. CAUTION!

10/21/89 1.07
IMG INDX is now included on distribution disks with the advent of IMG
CAT 1.07.  See IMG_INDX.TXT for details on using it.  IMG CAT now has
the ability to print only the ODD pages, EVEN pages or ALL pages of the
catalogue.  This feature facilitates easy two sided printing.  It's
recommended that you only use this feature if you have a laser printer
since graphics prints on a dot matrix or HPDJ will sometimes bleed
through to the other side spoiling the prints.  You can do this, but
you should use 60 lb. paper at the minimum.

To access the feature, press and hold the SHIFT key when you click on
the CATALOGUE button.  You should print first the ODD numbered pages on
blank pieces of heavy paper so click on ODD in the alert (the initial
default).  Then, once the ODD run is done, you'll be greeted with the
ODD EVEN alert again with EVEN as the default. Turn the paper over and
insert it into your printer so that the first page to be printed next
will fall onto the back of page number one and subsequent pages will
print in the proper order on the backs of pages 3, 5 etc. Click then on
EVEN or press RETURN.  It's not that difficult to do and the results
(from a laser printer at least) are excellent.  By the way, when you
opt to use the ODD/EVEN print feature and don't have CONT set for PAGE
BINDING, the CONT button under the PAGE BINDING box will be
automatically set as the default (ie swap titles with continuous feed)
and REMAINS as such until YOU change it.  If you plan to use this
feature, it might be a good idea to leave the PRINTER READY? alert
active (don't click on SCAT during this session).

10/22/89 1.10
An obscure bug was found in both IMG CAT and then VDI.  IMG CAT had a
forty character limit on pathnames due merely to an oversight on the
part of this programmer.  Sorry, that's fixed now. However, there was
found to be still a limit on the length of this parameter. Current VDI
drivers will accept a drive\path\filespec only up to 68 characters in
length so there was a 68 character limit imposed such as the samples
below:

C:\MAXIMUM1.123\MAXIMUM2.123\MAXIMUM3.123\MAXIMUM4.123\FILENAME.IMG

or alternately

C:\MAXIMUM1.1\MAXIMUM2.2\MAXIMUM3.3\MAXIMUM4.4\MAXIMUM5.5\FNAME.IMG

or alternately

C:\MAXIM1\MAXIM2\MAXIM3\MAXIM4\MAXIM5\MAXIM6\MAXIM7\MAXIM8\NAME.IMG

Note that some early drivers might have crashed even below this limit,
I have tested only a few and don't know whether the limit is imposed by
the driver, GDOS or VDI itself, but I suspect the driver. TOS (at least
1.4, older versions of TOS were documented to have a 64 character limit
on path names) will allow nesting of folders to eight deep (as in our
last sample and up to 104 characters), but I cannot get the GDOS VDI to
accept any more than 68 characters regardless of the nesting (for the
curious, Migraph's Outprint crashes miserably on this very same limit).
IMG CAT now checks for filespecs that are too long and will do a little
workaround trick to get these super long paths to print without
crashing the machine.  With version 1.10 of IMG CAT you can print paths
up to TOS 1.4 GEMDOS limits rather than the short early TOS and VDI
limits.  However, note that coincidently there is only room for about
68 characters for the page title across the top of the page when
printing style 6 or 12.  If you count the page numbers, then you must
subtract six or seven from this as well. If your pathspec is longer
than about 60 characters (like our samples above) then they will be
truncated to 40 characters in the title box on the screen and to
roughly 60 characters on the page.  If you print with the CONT or SING
button set then the page numbers will be lost on even numbered pages.
Keep your path names short or edit the title line before you print the
catalogue.