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Text File | 1993-10-11 | 55KB | 1,090 lines

*** **** **** When you register you will receive a free Keyboard Template **** **** **** ***************************************************************************** * * * Please read the GIFREED.DOC for complete instructions on GIF-REED. * * * * To PRINT the documentation file, run the batch file called "PRINTDOC" * * at the DOS Prompt like so: C>PRINTDOC <RETURN> * * * ***************************************************************************** ******************* [ Important..... Please Read........] ****************** You should ALWAYS delete your: GIFV.CFG, GIFV.CAT, GIFV.PRN files before loading any New version of GIF-REED in case the formats for the configuration files differs from your old one. Once in the program, reset all the switches the way you want them. Then use ALT-U to save out your NEW configurations. It's NOT that big of a deal to do, so just do it to it! Otherwise your system may LOCK-UP upon loading GIF-REED! **************************************************************************** GIF-REED History of changes: NEW this 5.01 version 9/10/93: Released to CompuServe. Official Shareware Release! Much improved documentation file. Shareware version is now faster & smaller. Added support for the Cirrus LapTop chip set Added support for the Toshiba LapTop 4500 Easier input for database input (ALT-Y at main file list menu). Use can use up & down arrow keys to edit fields. Made Color Adjusting For Windows 3.x operation ("A" while viewing) many times faster. On my 486 machine, the time went from 20 seconds down to about 2 seconds! Improved script language. Added script file viewer/editor that is really super cooool!! Just press CTRL-S at the main file list menu! It even has a Syntax checker to check for invalid commands (F9). You can cut/paste and more... Plus it has a fuel gauge on the right side of the screen so that you can see how far down into the script file you are. It has built in context sensitive help. It's now a snap to create, view, edit and run script files. The script editor has many of the SAME control keys as Word-Star, Turbo Basic and EDIT that comes with DOS. They are as follows: CTRL-G Delete Character CTRL-Y Delete Line CTRL-R Page Up CTRL-C Page Dn CTRL-S Left one character CTRL-D Right one character CTRL-E Up one line CTRL-X Dn one line Made GIFV2.HLP. It contains the script viewer/editor's help information. Fixed bug when using the WRITE command in a script file and the file to rewrite back out already exists is READ/ONLY. It would have appeared to lock-up. In reality, it would get unlocked several minutes later. NEW this 4.17 version 8/10/93: Bug Fix: If you used the pixel editor to change the dot colors in the picture and selected to change the definition of a color in the color map and then decided you didn't want to accept the changes, the palette would be restored to that of the original palette. This means that if you had increased the RED in the picture, then edited the picture and then edited a color in the color palette and decided to abort the changes the RED that you had added to the picture would be gone. This is now fixed. New Feature: GIF-REED had & still has the ability to increase and decrease the amount of RED, GREEN and BLUE in an image. It adds the color over the entire picture evenly. The new color changing features are the ability to increase/decrease the RED, GREEN and BLUE colors in the picture based on color level. In otherwords, if there is a lot of RED in a certain part of the picture then this area will become much more RED than the other parts of the picture when you select to increase the RED level. These color editing options provide EXCELLENT results when changing the hue of flesh tones etc... CTRL-F1 through CTRL-F6 control these new features. The old method of increasing/decreasing RED/GREEN/BLUE has changed from CTRL-F1 through CTRL-F6 to SHIFT-F1 through SHIFT-F6. We also changed how CONTRAST and BRIGHTNESS controls work. You can now increase the brightness 20 times then reduce the brightness 20 times and the picture will look IDENTICAL to when you started! The contrast also works MUCH MUCH BETTER! New feature: If you made changes to a picture (trim/enlarge/edit) and then accidentally pressed ESCAPE or PgUp or PgDn GIF-REED would take you to the next picture thus losing ALL the changes you made to your picture. GIF-REED will NOW ask if you want to go to the next picture or to keep the current picture loaded so that you may save it out! Took out the ability to get the help screen by clicking the left mouse button in the upper left hand corner of the screen while viewing a picture. This is because sometimes you might want to make a box around part of the image and if you started in the upper part of the screen you would get a help screen pop-up instead of starting to make a box. This was sort of annoying. It's now set up so that you must press F1 in order to get a help screen. (Such is life!) Changed SHAREWARE version so that up to 50 files instead of 25 files can be loaded without a nagging screen saying you should register! Updated GIF-REED.DOC to include a seperate section for slide shows and converting files from one format to another. Improved Catalog operations: If you tagged some files in a catalog to be copied and then pressed ALT-C to copy the files, you couldn't abort out of the copy. You can now press ESCAPE if you desire to NOT do the copy. Added script commands: SLIDE-TYPE-EXPAND SLIDE-TYPE-MERGE SLIDE-TYPE-ZEBRA SLIDE-TYPE-RANDOM MORE-REDDER Like SHIFT-F1 LESS-REDDER Like SHIFT-F2 MORE-GREENER Like SHIFT-F3 LESS-GREENER Like SHIFT-F4 MORE-BLUER Like SHIFT-F5 LESS-BLUER Like SHIFT-F6 Improved Slide Show operations: Changed the way the slide show options appear on the screen (F10) Slide Show options, Expand, Merge, Zebra & Random have been added to FadeIn & Blinds. If doing a slide show: Instead of pressing ESCape, you can click on the middle mouse button to quit the slide show. Instead of pressing RETURN, you can click on the left or right mouse button to go to the next image to bypass the delay time between images. If pressing RETURN to get to the NEXT image quicker, it was possible that the screen could go BLANK for a few seconds if you interrupted the loading of the next image. It's NOW set up to bypass the delay and go immediately to the next image as quickly as possible!(Bug ,sort of, fix!) Improved MYCAT_01.GIF and MYCAT_02.GIF. Using smaller letters for the filenames. Now detects if QEMM or 386MAX is wrongly shadowing or stealthing your video ROM. If so you are warned to exclude your video ROM, otherwise only 320x200 resolution can be used! Made GIFV1.HLP larger to contain many different help screens that GIF-REED uses. This leaves more RAM available for use by GIF-REED to do various operations. Fixed tiny bug in the F9 function at the main menu to delete a resolution from the list of available resolutions. Most people would have never noticed it, but under certain circumstances the resolution wouldn't delete on the first try, but on subsequent tries it would work. NEW this 4.16 version 8/02/93: ******************************************************************** * * * NEW OEM VERSION OF GIF-REED * * * ******************************************************************** Created an "OEM" version of GIF-REED that CD-ROM manufacturers can license for use on their CD-ROM discs. This OEM version will NOT have the SHAREWARE logon screens that require you to type certain words before the program starts. The OEM version also allowS GIF-REED to fully utilize the catalogs created by GIF-REED, without having to use the DOS ASSIGN command or to be forced to create multiple directories of the SAME catalog images. In other words the catalog images will automatically KNOW to look on the CD-ROM for the images to load and display! This special OEM version can be used after a special licensing agreement has been signed. Better Catalog file picking capability. If you create catalogs from your hard drive and put the catalogs on a CD-ROM drive. GIF-REED will now attempt to read from the CD-ROM to get the original picture file, if an error is detected when trying to read the picture file from where the information in the catalog said it should have been. ******************************************************************** * * * END OF OEM VERSION FEATURES * * * ******************************************************************** Made a file called GIFV1.HLP that contains the main file list menu help screens! Improved CATALOGing yet again. A smaller font is now used to title each image in a catalog so that you can fit the resolution along with the file name with each image. Included SUZIE1.GIF, a scanned picture that I took myself! Changed PRO version to be able to load up to 1500 files in the file list menu. Changed SYSOP version to be able to load up to 4000 files in the file list menu. Included PRINTDOC.BAT which allows you to print the documentation file to your printer! Increased the speed of scanning the files for information that is needed to be able to sort the file list. Added ability to increase the available DOS RAM for GIF-REED. Just press F8 at the main file list menu. Changed Report options from F8 to ALT-P at main menu. Fixed little bug. If you (were playing Puzzle-Fun in GIF-REED) or (had just made a catalog) or (HAD used the RESTORE image "R" command while viewing an image) or (had WRITTEN out a BMP file) or (had just USED a CATALOG image to select a smaller image to enlarge), then it was possible that you could NOT later COPY a file that was READ/ONLY. GIF- REED would incorrectly report that the file was NOT found! This has NOW been fixed! Improved SlideShow speed! If you had picked to do a slide show, all of the files' information had to be read in BEFORE it would start the slide show. So if you had a LOT of files in the list, it could have taken some time to do this before the slide show would start. It is NOW setup to ignore reading all of the files' information BEFORE starting the slide show! This makes it MUCH quicker especially on CD-ROMS with lots of files on a SLOW drive! If you sort on other than Filename/Filedate/Filesize, GIF-REED has to have read in all of the files' information. If at the time you select to sort and all of the files' information hasn't been read in, you will get a message saying "Please wait while reading file info...". If you have more than a couple hundred files in your list, that could take some time. Possibly even minutes! You are NOW given an option to ABORT out of the "Please wait" message. If you do so the file list will NOT be sorted by what you wanted! It will be sorted by FILENAME! At least this way you can save yourself some TIME if you don't care about how the list is sorted! Enhanced main file list menu to show what file number you are pointing at. If you have less than 80 files it probably won't do anything for you. BUT, if you have hundreds of files in the file list, it can really be nice to know just how far in the list you are! It also shows you what sort type you currently have selected. If also shows you how far along in the scanning of the files it is! The scanning is used to retrieve information about each file such as resolution, colors and category. You can NOT sort on resolution, colors or category until ALL the file(s)' information has been read in. A color bar highlights each file as it's information is being read in. Add ability to go to next and previous catalog by clicking with left or right mouse button while the mouse is NOT on an image in the catalog. This makes it easier to go through the catalogs without having to use the keyboard to press PgUp or PgDn to go to the next catalog! Added a check in the program to make it so that if any images are tagged in the catalog, you won't be able to go to a different picture, unless you say it's ok! This eliminates the frustration of having spent time tagging files in a catalog image and then accidentally pressing escape or hitting PgDn or PgUp! Added ALT-L to file list menu to change the status line. It toggles between size/path and date/category! The rest of the data on the status line remains the same. Added capability to re-load file list from defaults. This reads the file called GIFV.DIR that contains all of the default file paths to display on the file list menu! Just press CTRL-L from the main file list menu. Improved loading file list speed by a factor of about 5-10 times faster. If you have less than 300 files in the file you may NOT notice much speed improvement. However you will notice a HUGE difference if you load large amounts of files, especially more than 1000. For example: It takes about 4.5 seconds to load 3000 files on a 50MHZ 486. Also less memory is used by the file list on lists larger than 1000 files! For example: 52K of RAM is saved(in comparision to versions prior to 4.16) if you load 3000 files! GIF-REED operation change: ALT-G from the main files menu searched ALL drives starting with drive A: for image(picture) files! It has been enhanced to allow you to pick a SPECIFIC drive to search. If you just press RETURN then ALL drives will be searched starting with drive C: Fixed small bug. If you didn't have enough DOS RAM, GIF-REED would give an error message indicating NOT ENOUGH DISK SPACE! It would then say NOT ENOUGH DOS RAM. It's been fixed to just say NOT ENOUGH DOS RAM! Fixed small bug. If you tried to load an INVALID PIC file more than 20 or 30 times, GIF-REED would get in a mode in which it couldn't open files that are valid! This was a file handle problem. It's now fixed! NEW this 4.15 version (Never released!) GIF-REED operation change: When trying to OVERWRITE a file that is read/only, you will now receive an error message to that effect instead of just not saving the file and not telling the user why! GIF-REED operation change: When pressing ALT-C to copy selected files from the catalog, the default path will be the LAST path you entered. This way you won't have to keep typing in a different path if you don't want to copy to A:\ GIF-REED operation change: The /C command line parameter, that indicates you want to catalog a directory, has been enhanced. You can NOW specify /RESX, /RESY, /SIZE, /DATE and /COLORS to filter out files you DON'T want in the catalogs. For example: C>GIFV D:\PICS\*.GIF /C:CATNUM /RESX:640 /COLORS:256 /DATE:07/04/93 The /RESX:640 indicates that if a picture file ready to be inserted into the catalog is less than 640 dots wide, then the image is skipped. Likewise if an image has less than 256 colors in it, such as B&W or 16 color pictures, then they are bypassed too! In addition only files of date 07/04/93 and later will be added to the catalog. Of course you could have further limited what's to be in the catalog by using the /SIZE and /RESY commands. NOTE: IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE that the /DATE: format is MM/DD/YY If the month or day is a single digit, it MUST be preceded by a zero (like in the example above). GIF-REED operation change: If you thought the cataloging process was excellent with 4.12, then you will like this new feature. While at the main menu you can press CTRL-C to get to the Catalog Configuration screen. You can NOW catalog the files that are TAGGED. This way you don't have to catalog every file in a directory! Fixed small bug. If you had more than 70 files(more files than will fit in the screen at the main menu), and viewed a file at one end of the list and then pressed PgUp while viewing the file to get to the previous file repeatedly until you reached the 1st file in the list, then GIF-REED would abort. This is a pretty rare kind of thing to do, but I fixed it! GIF-REED operation change: While in pixel edit mode, if you had pressed RETURN instead of ESCAPE to exit the pixel edit mode, it would have taken you out of pixel edit mode without asking if that's what you wanted to do. It's now setup to where you HAVE to press escape to get out of pixel edit mode. Fixed a small annoyance for PS/2 mouse users. It appears that the PS/2 mouse initialization sequence takes about 1 second. Everytime you load a new picture or exit the program the mouse port gets initialized. If you had a PS/2 style mouse it would look like the system waits for about 1 second before continuing on. I now initialize the mouse port only ONCE. So now the delays between pictures should be eliminated! GIF-REED operation change: It used to be that whenever you copied or moved files around, the destination path would be ADDED to the files path list. This was so that you could still see all of your files on the main menu. I've decided that this actually can be confusing. GIF-REED is now setup so that the ONLY way a new path can be added to the files list is by the user pressing ALT-F at the main menu and typing in additional paths to look for picture files! NEW this 4.14 version 7/17/93: *********************************************************************** * * * BETTER CD-ROM SUPPORT * * * *********************************************************************** * If you have picture files that are READ/ONLY and try to delete or * * rewrite them or move them, GIF-REED would simply blow up. Since more* * and more people are getting CD-ROMS and transfering the BEST images * * to their hard drive more and more people are having files that are * * READ/ONLY. GIF-REED now properly handles the situation by turning * * OFF the READ/ONLY status on the file before deleting or rewriting * * the file(s). * * * * If GIF-REED is loaded from a READ/ONLY drive such as a CD-ROM, it * * will automatically set the TEMP area to the C: drive unless other- * * wise specified. This eliminates problems encountered when GIF-REED * * attempts to create & use temporary files created in the PATH set * * by the TEMP environment variable! * * * *********************************************************************** Now supports QBBS, SPITFIRE and better better for WILDCAT Added Video Support for the Cirrus Logic chip set directly! GIFVTEMP.$$$ and $$$$$$$$.$$$ are new temp files that can be deleted if found in your TEMP directory after GIF-REED has exited. You can move you original images into a DIFFERENT directory than what is kept in the catalog files and as long as you keep the catalog files AND the original picture files in the SAME directory you are set. Added feature in script language to ADD a comment to a GIF file automatically. This is great for adding the SAME comment to a group of GIF images! You can now remove ALL comments from a group of files. You can now ADD to the comments currently in a group of files. And finally you can now INSERT comments into a group of GIF files. See the section on the manual that describes the "WRITE" script command. If the file that contains the comments has a .ADD extension then these comments are ADDED to any comments currently in the GIF file you write out. If .INS extension is used then the comments in the comment file are inserted BEFORE any comments that may already be in the GIF file. If you don't use the .ADD or .INS extension, then any comments that were in the file will be ignored. The comments file MUST reside in the GIF-REED directory! Example script line: WRITE G COMMENTS.ADD or WRITE G COMMENTS.INS or WRITE G COMMENTS Enhanced /L command. Added ability to load a picture to your screen in VGA mode. You can specify a mode or you can let GIF-REED determine the best mode to fit the picture on the screen. You can even specify a time delay to leave the image on the screen. For example: C>GIFV /L1:0:SAMPLE.GIF {0 Second delay, 1st resolution} C>GIFV /L1:9:SAMPLE.GIF {9 Second delay, 2nd resolution} C>GIFV /L0:*:SAMPLE.GIF {Delay until keypress, Best resolution} Better VESA Support. Enhanced Troubleshooting section. Included some sample catalog files created by GIF-REED MYCAT_01.GIF MYCAT_02.GIF Improved quality of Color cataloging(tiny bit)! Improved GRAY scale catalog images. They now look perfectly sharp. There is NO dithered(fuzzyness) effect at all. Fixed bug in the path lists processing. If you ended a path in a "\" then that path WOULDN'T get loaded or displayed. This could happen when you move or copy files. Now it properly displays the files even if you end a directory path with a "\". Fixed bug if printing image from within a SCRIPT file(It just aborted)! Fixed bug in AUTOMATIC video detection unit. It could indicate that you had more resolutions available than you actually had. It now properly determines the available resolutions on your video board. Fixed bug when creating catalog files. After a few catalogs (depending) on how many FILES=XX you have in your CONFIG.SYS, the program would abort out because certain files weren't being closed and the program was running out of file handles. This bug would also come up if you were writting GIF files that had comments in them and you wanted to retain the old comments. Again it would only happen after about 10 files were written. Fixed BUG if you pressed SHIFT-TAB to resize a picture and the picture was ALREADY in the correct size in relation to the screen. The program used to kick out with a memory error! Now it works! NEW this 4.13 version 2/25/93: Sorry, there never was a 4.13! NEW this 4.12 version 2/17/93: Fixed printing to HP LASER in "dither only" quality mode. Fixed the WRITE G command in the script language! Official release of Shareware version to CompuServe! NEW this 4.11 version 2/15/93: Fixed Runtime Error 200, after pressing P to print! If your environment variable TEMP or TMP is set to an invalid directory then GIF-REED will tell you as it starts to run. Made ALT-G so that if a directory contained more than ONE type of image file only ONE entry is made in the PATH list as *.? instead of 4 separate entries of *.GIF *.BMP *.PCX *.PIC. This saves on the PATH list. You can now break out of an ALT-G operation by pressing the ESCAPE key. Just in case you realize you didn't want to do it or if you decide it would take too long to complete. If you move or copy files into the SAME directory over and over, you get a build up of the same entry in the PATH list. It's now changed so that if it appears that a new entry in the PATH list would duplicate one that is already there then the new entry is NOT added. The drive choices that appear are scanned for only once. This way if you have a SLOW drive (CD-ROM, etc...), you won't be slowed down each time you switch to a new directory. NEW this 4.10 version 2/12/93: Added 24 pin support for EPSON LQ type printers and compatibles. Along with the 24 pin support, you of course have more resolutions to pick from. Added default support for printers. For example: When you choose HP Laser, the default settings become HALFTONE-B and 300x300. If you choose EPSON FX, the default settings become DITHER ONLY and 240x72. This is so that if you don't want the play around with the different possible combinations of resolutions and quality options, the defaults picked are pretty much the optimum settings for best looking output. Of course after you have selected a printer, you can go back and change the quality type and printer resolution! NEW this 4.06 version 2/08/93: Nothing, Just changed the version number. New ShareWare release. Sent to CompuServe and everywhere else! NEW this 4.05 version 2/08/93: Fixed keyboard bug. It was possible to press the 5 on the NUMERIC key pad and lock the program up. It appeared that this was the only keystroke that would lock the program up. It also would lock up ONLY if the NUM-LOCK key light was OFF. This was a rare occurance since the 5 on the numeric keypad does NOTHING if the num-lock light is OFF. After fixing the bug, I could see how other wierd(non-standard) keystroke entries could have locked it up. The lock up was a non-dest- ructive lock-up. No data loss would have occured!!!!!!!!!! Added new capability to print function: You can now send the printer your very own customized printer initialization codes. These codes will be sent to your printer BEFORE any printing has started. This way you can control your printer fully. Also we added the ability to send the printer customized printer codes AFTER the image is printed. The way you build the customized codes is easy. There are TWO files to create: 1. GIFVINIT.PRN (Codes to send BEFORE print starts) 2. GIFVPOST.PRN (Codes to send AFTER image prints) If either of these files exist in the GIF-REED directory at the time of printing, they will be scanned for printer codes to send to the printer. For example: If you wanted to send to the printer an ESCAPE, then an uppercase A and then a return; You would put in the GIFVINIT.PRN file the following: 27,"A",13 The 27 is the ASCII code for ESCAPE. The 13 is the ASCII code for return(ENTER). The "A" will be sent to the printer directly. In fact ANYTHING inside QUOTES will be sent to the printer WITHOUT translation. So for example, you could send: "This is a cool IMAGE!",13,13 This would send the title "This is a cool IMAGE!" (without the quotes of course) to the printer! Then 2(two) line feeds will be sent. NOTE: This capability is NOT for most people. Only use it if you need to and know what ASCII codes to send to the printer!!!! NOTE: ANY line in the GIFVINIT.PRN or GIFVPOST.PRN files that start with a ";"(semicolon) will be ignored. This is so that you may put comments in these files without actually sending the comments to your printer! NEW this 4.04 version 2/03/93: Allow for 3072 files in the PRO and SYSOP version of GIF-REED! Made program need MORE memory: 1. NON-REGISTERED 390K minimum 456K maximum 2. REGISTERED 334K minimum 400K maximum 3. PRO GIF-REED 390K minimum 614K maximum 4. SYSOP GIF-REED 390K minimum 614K maximum Fixed minor bug when moving files. The files would move but sometimes the screen wouldn't appear properly afterwords. It now displays properly after doing file moves within GIF-REED. NEW this 4.03 version 1/28/93: Added support for making catalogs with a WHITE background. This is good for people who print their catalogs and don't want to wast a bunch of toner! Now Supports HP Laser Jet and Epson Dot Matrix printers Much better control over the printed output and the printed output is FAR SUPERIOR to any other print program. If you think you have a program that produces BETTER output than GIF-REED, call me and please let me know which program it is!!!!!!! Pro GIF-REED has complete printer control. Registered GIF-REED can do everything but set margins NON-REGISTERED GIF-REED can only print within a 4 inch square NEW this 4.02 version 1/20/93: Added ENTERTAINMENT mode. When viewing a picture just press ALT-E to enter entertainment mode. In entertainment mode, you can select from one of three games. You can pick SLIDEIT, JIGSAWIT or GUESSIT. If you pick SlideIt Then your picture will become a puzzle. Its up to you to move the squares around on the screen with the Up/Down/Left and Right arrow keys to solve the puzzle. In order to MIX up the pixture press the "J" key to jumble it up. If you want to see what the original picture looked like, press the "V" key to view the original image. If you want to see what order the squares belong in press the "O" key to show the order of the squares. The squares are number from 1 to 16 starting with the top row as being 1 thru 4. In actuallity since the upper left square is blanked out that square is considered a -1 and NOT a 1. If you decide you are not smart enough to un scramble the picture you can press "C" for cheat. This will unscramble the picture. If you just want to cheat a little bit, press "S" to swap two squares that are next to each other! When you are done with the entertainment mode just press ESCAPE and you will be brought back into the NORMAL viewing mode of your ORIGINAL picture. NOTE: There are 3 levels of play. 1. Easy 2. Hard 3. Expert The easy mode doesn't have the SWAP feature because it's so easy you will not need to use it. The EXPERT mode also doesn't have the SWAP feature because if you are an EXPERT you shouldn't have to rely on cheating features to solve the puzzle. If you pick JigSawIt, the picture is scambled much the same as the SlideIt game. This game is a little easier in that all you have to do is to use the arrow keys to pick a square then press return. Now the square is selected. Now move the selection box to where you want the selected square to go. Then press return again. Now the two squares will be swapped with each other. If you pick GuessIt, the picture is scambled much the same as the JigSawIt game. This game is a little harder because the screen starts out as being blank. Use the arrow keys to move the selection box, then press return. The square will reveal the portion on the image that is in the box. Now move the selection box to where you think the box should go. Press return again. Now if you picked the correct spot the image will remain displayed. If you guessed wrong, then the square will be blanked out. Once you have all of the squares in their correct spot then you will have won. SCORING: Everytime you use the View or Order functions, 50 points will be deducted. Every second it takes you to solve the puzzle will deduct 4 points. Everytime you use the Swap function, 100 points will be deducted. If you are playing GuessIt and make a wrong choice, 50 points will be deducted. Since your score starts at 5000, it would be impossible to achive a score greater than 5000! Updated the GIFVWIN.EXE program to offer better selections. Easier to use. More support for video 7 cards (1024x768 is now supported!) Now works better with the S3 type of VGA Boards such as the Orchid 1280! Now works with the EVEREX 678 & 673 cards Fixed a little bug where you you couldn't specify a subdirectory with a path that had a "." in it. For example: "F:\GIFS\MY.GIF" this would result in GIF-REED thinking the path was actually a filename because of the period. GIF-REED now properly recognizes the fact that this is a directory if it truely is a directory. Made SYSOP version! This version supports the insertion of titles into picture catalogs being created by GIF-REED. Sysop version also supports the DIR files created & used by PCBOARD 14.5 & Up. It also supports the creating of a TEXT file used by WildCat to import descriptions into the WildCat directory listings. Use the following format: C>GIFV path /C:catname /T:title /BBS:{PCBOARD,PCBOARDL,WILDCAT} /DIR:filename The path indicates where the images are that are to be cataloged. The catname is the name of the resulting catalog. The title is the name of an image file that is to be used as a TITLE to your catalogs. The /BBS: command indicates what type of BBS support you want. So far the BBS's supported are PCBOARD and WILDCAT. The PCBOARDL is used if you want the description file to contain a longer(detailed) description of the files that are contained in the catalog files. The /DIR: command tells where the resulting description file is to go! With this in mind you could to the following command. C>GIFV F:\GIFS /C:NEW /T:YOURS.GIF /BBS:PCBOARD /DIR:F:\PCB\NODE1\DIR99 This command would take all images in F:\GIFS and catalog them up. The catalogs will be called NEW___00.GIF, NEW___01.GIF, NEW___02.GIF and so on. They will be stored in the GIF-REED program directory. These catalogs will also have your BRAND on it by placing a title at the TOP of the catalogs. The image used to create the title is read from a file called YOURS.GIF stored in the GIF-REED program directory. The resulting catalogs will have complete filenames & descriptions stored in PCBOARD format using the SHORT form in the file called F:\PCB\NODE1\DIR99. If any entries are currently in the DIR99 file, they will remain. This should facilitate the posting of NEW gifs via the catalog method! This is a GIF's SYSOPS dream(hopefully)! Made saving files & Rotate & Shrink & other operations that require temp files MUCH faster! Even writing GIF, BMP, PCX and PIC files are much faster! Added Support for Gray Catalog images. Saves space! And MUCHO FasterO! Added support to KEEP old GIF comments when re-saving a GIF file! Fixed bug in DOS/BOSS (ALT-F2) key. When you got to the DOS prompt the mouse was STILL operative! This was WRONG. It is now disabled! As you are tagging (right button click) images from the catalog you can NOW VIEW images from within the catalog by clicking on them without worrying about losing the tagged files list. Fixed small bug where if the image on the screen was smaller than 12 dots wide and you did an operation that would cause the screen to be saved out, the screen wouldn't be restored properly. Most people would have NEVER noticed this, but it's fixed now FYI. Now works with OS/2 BMP files. Fixed Writing of 256 color PCX files. Now other programs can properly view them too! NEW this 3.09c version 1/1/93: NON-REGISTERED can't do >640x480 and 3 Rows! No auto-cat feature either REGISTERED can't do >800x600 and 5 Rows! Added support to select & copy files from the catalog! Use the Right Button to mark & Un-Mark files. Then when done marking, just press ALT-C to copy the files to a destination drive! When you MARK a file a THICK RED box will surround the image you are marking. When you UN-MARK a picture the image will be surrounded by a THICK BLUE box. This way you can tell if you had PREVIOUSLY marked an image. When copying the files (ALT-C), any files that didn't copy properly(DISK FULL, Etc...) will remain marked so that you can put in a new floppy or whatever and then press ALT-C again. All files that did copy properly will be UN-MARKED with the THICK GREEN box around the image. Again this is so that you can tell what files you have already copied so that you don't accidently waste time copying the SAME files. Added support for BOX FILL-IN and BOX DRAWING to extend beyond the current dimensions of the image. This in effect makes the image wider or taller so that the BOX can fit in the image! Added support for 24 Bit BMP files!(Thanks Bruce!) Added command line control for Catalog Titles. For Example: C>GIFV F:\GIFS /C:CARS__ /T:TITLE.BMP /T:T- The /T:T{+,-} parameter determines where the title will go if you are using a title for your catalogs! You can use either T+ or T- where T+ means put at the TOP and T- means put Title at the BOTTOM of the catalog file! NEW this 3.09b version 12/20/93: Added support for MAC GIF files. Files ported to the IBM PC from the Apple Macintosh world. Added command line control for Catalogs! For example: C>GIFV /C:CARS__ This would take whatever images are found in the current directory and create a catalog of ALL images in the directory using a catalog name of CARS__##.GIF C>GIFV /C:BIRDS_ This would take whatever images are found in the current directory and create a catalog of ALL images in the directory using a catalog name of BIRDS_##.GIF NOTE: All catalog files are saved in the GIF-REED program directory. If you want to force the catalog(s) to be saved into some other area of your system, you MUST specify a FULL Drive & Path to the catalog directory. For example: C>GIFV /C:D:\PICTURES\CAT___ This would save all catalog images into D:\PICTURES with a filename of CAT___##.GIF NOTE: If you want to catalog a directory that is NOT in the current directory, you can specify a path on the command line. For example: C>GIFV d:\pictures\*.gifs /C:MYGIFS This would take all GIF files in the D:\PICTURES directory and create catalog images of the name MYGIFS##.GIF and place the catalog images in the GIF-REED program directory! NOTE: You MUST specify a catalog name! NOTE: There is an OPTIONAL parameter for specifying a Title to the catalog. This title file MUST be a .GIF file! The title(header) file that you specify will be placed at the TOP of the Catalog (Sort of like an advertisement). If you don't specify a Title file then NO title will be placed at the TOP of the catalog file! The format for using the Title file is like this: C>GIFV F:\IMAGES\GIFS /C:MYGIFS /T:TITLE in the case above, the directory of F:\IMAGES\GIFS will get cataloged into a catalog by the name of MYGIFS##.GIF in the GIF-REED directory. The catalogs produced will have a header on the TOP of them merged in from the file called TITLE.GIF NOTE: Making catalogs using the command line options will overwrite any catalogs that exist by the SAME name. This is so that you can re-run a catalog without having to delete the older catalog files first. This is different than the MANUAL mode of making catalogs from the files list menu. In manual mode, the older files are NOT overwritten. CTRL-C Brings up the catalog menu. From this menu you can select two customization features. (1) You can select the Catalog Images Size, (2) You can select the size of the matrix. A 5x5 would be 5 by 5. This is 5 columns by 5 rows. A 3x3 would look a lot like a TicTacToe board. And a 8x8 would look similar to a checker board. Once you have selected the customization features you can start the process by placing the cursor on top of the 1st file you want to catalog. Then press CTRL-C and then just press RETURN. The files produced are called CAT___##.GIF where the "##" is a 2 digit number. The catalog files are placed in the SAME directory as GIF-REED. You can select a SINGLE catalog starting from the currently selected file or you can issue a COMPLETE cataloging session. A complete cataloging session may take QUITE some time to finish. I suggest you do this before going to BED or LUNCH! NOTE: You should SAVE your cataloging configuration. You can do this with the ALT-U command from the files list menu. This way you don't have to set it up each time you run GIF-REED before you do cataloging. NOTE: The larger the matrix (ie:8x8) the poorer the quality of the final catalog file! It seems that 4x4, 5x5 and 6x6 seem to produce very good results. 7x7 and 8x8 are still very good, but not AS good as a 5x5. Play with the different sizes to suit your quality tastes. NOTE: Once you start the cataloging process you can abort out by pressing any key while the pictures are being collected up. NOTE: Beware that since the new catalog files will NOT overwrite existing catalog files, the number of the catalog produced may NOT be what you expected. If you already have: CAT___00, CAT___01, CAT___03, then the NEW catalog files produced will use the filenames of CAT___02, CAT___04, CAT___05 and so on... The simplest approach is to just delete the older catalog files when done with them. NOTE: GIFV.CAT keeps the custom cataloging information. The following are temporary files and can be deleted if found on your hard disk in the GIF-REED directory! GIFV.PAL is a temporary catalog palette file. GIFV.DTH is a temporary catalog file. GIFVCxxx.CAT is a temporary catalog file. GIFV.TIT is a temporary Title file. NOTE: Make sure you have at least 3 to 6 megs free in your TEMP area. If you want to know exactly how much space will be needed, take the size of your Catalog Image and multiply times 3. For example: if your Catalog size is 800x600 then the BASE space needed would be 800 x 600 x 3 = 1440000 bytes. Or about 1.5 megs. In addition to this BASE amount, you will also need enough disk space to hold the LARGEST image (times 3). For example if the largest image in the Catalog was a 1024x768, then the additional overhead would be 1024 x 768 x 3 = 2359296 bytes. Or roughly 2.4 megs. This would mean that you would need about 1.5 + 2.4 = 3.9 megs of FREE disk space in your TEMP drive. The MOST common catalog size is 800x600 and the most common image size is 640x480. This would require 2361600 bytes or about 2.5 megs of disk space! When viewing a catalog, you can click on a image (even if the picture is NOT centered on the screen). You can move the catalog picture all around your screen and you can still click on a picture and that picture will load from the SOURCE image that MADE the catalog! When done viewing this image pressing ESC, PG-UP, PG-DN or quick clicking of the mouse will get you BACK to the catalog file! If you quick click on a part of the catalog that is in between the images then you will hear a BEEP and NO image will be brought up for display! Fixed tiny bug where if you had MULTIPLE file paths loaded it was possible that GIF-REED wouldn't properly determine the files X and Y and COLOR on the files list. It also meant that when you deleted, re- named or copied or moved files it could have thought that the file didn't exist! This would NOT destroy any data but could make the user think strange things were happening! This is now FIXED! NEW this 3.08 version 12/16/92: Improved printed order form. Fixed mouse button operation of "Yes No". If you were in the Pixel editing window and had edited some dots, then moved(panned) the image the Question "You have made DOT changes" appears. This is proper, but the program would think you wanted to KEEP the changes because your left mouse button was held down because you were panning. Now, you MUST lift off the mouse button, then click the mouse button to indicate that your answer was YES! Fixed yet another memory allocation bug in the ENLARGING MODE 2. This would only happen if the WIDTH of the box that you marked HAPPENED to be an even multiple of 16 minus 1 (such as 15, 31, 63). Fixed another memory allocation bug in the PIXEL editor! If the size of the image you are pixel editing than the SIZE of the pixel edit window it would not work properly. It now works even if the width of the image is 1 dot wide! NEW this 3.07 version 12/15/92: First MAJOR release to CompuServe! ****************************************************************************** S H A R E W A R E - C O N C E P T =================================== GIF-REED is copyrighted software. However, you are encouraged to copy and share the NON-REGISTERED version with anybody with the following in mind: The NON-REGISTEREED version of GIF-REED may be copied freely and given to others, as long as NO charge or renumeration of ANY sort is required. If must be copied in its entirety with NO alterations to the programs or DOC files. It may be distributed by modem, as long as all files in the package are ZIPPED(or some equivalent) into one file. GIF-REED is NOT "FREE" software. If you use it past 30 days, you are required to pay for it by registering it. Of course you can register it earlier. ********** Reasons To Register Today ********** When you received this copy of GIF-REED, no monies were paid to us. In order for us to keep working on this product to make it better with more features, we request that you register the program by paying for it. The registration charge is very nominal $25 (The cost of ONE evenings entertainment!). If you wish to order PRO GIF-REED the cost is $49.95 (The cost of ONE deluxe evenings entertainment!). If you are a SYSOP and want the SYSOP GIF-REED then the cost is $89.95. Please read the GIFREED.DOC file for information about the 3 versions. When you register GIF-REED you will also receive a free keyboard template for common function key references. ****************************************************************************** GIF-REED Version x.x (C)opyright 1992, Software Matters INC. (317) 253-8088 Contact: Davie Lee Reed Software Matters INC. 6352 N. Guilford Ave. Indpls, IN 46220 Any question or comments please call me at 1-800-25-FLASH and ask for: Davie Lee Reed. P.S. Thanks you trying this new program out and possibly helping me improve it. Gif REED is a GIF viewer for up to 256K colors only. Currently the only automatically supported super vga boards supported are: Orchid Pro Designer IIS board Paradise VGA ATI XL Trident Old Trident New Cardinal Orchid Farhenheit 1280 ATI/Wonder Video New Video Old Ahead Oak VGA Cirrus Logic Cirrus Logic Lap Top LCD Genoa TSENG 4000 VESA All compatibles of the above! There are a bunch more that are supported through direct hardware control, but you have to set the GIFREED environment variable to indicate what board you have. If the GIFREED variable is set to a board that is not hardware directly supported by this program then the BIOS mode will be used for that board. The BIOS mode is MUCH slower that hardware direct. GIF-REED automatically looks for a VESA driver. This driver makes VGA graphics handling a lot more compatible. If a VESA driver is found, it will be used, even if your hardware is directly supported from the list above! If you find that your VESA driver is BUGGY or doesn't seem to work, then try setting: GIFREED=NOVESA This forces GIF-REED to NOT look at the VESA driver. Also if you want to force support for one of the following, you can set GIFREED to one of the following: CARDINAL VGA700/732 TRI-OLD TRIDENT STB STB4000 EVEREX EVEREX678 AHEAD ATI/WONDER ATI/PRISM CHIPTECH DEFINICON GENOA-A GENOA-B HEADLAND ZYMOS IMTEC LOGIX MAXXON NORTHGATGE ORCHF1280 ORCH-1 S3 TS3000 TS4000 TS4000HI VIDEO7FAST VIDEO7VRAM VIDEO7 PARADISE CIRRUS-A CIRRUS-LAPTOP WD90C Some of the above allow for direct hardware control with his program. The others of course will default to using the BIOS, which is slow! NOTE: TRIDENT Users; If resolutions of 800x600 or higher seem to give you a checkered or plaid type of display, try using the SET GIFREED command and pick SET GIFREED=TRI-OLD and then SET GIFREED=TRIDENT and see which setting gives you the desired results! If you have a VESA driver for your VGA board, then GIF REED should work perfectly fine with it. If your board is NOT listed above and you do NOT have a VESA driver for it, call the VGA manufacturer and request the VESA driver for it. MOST Manufacturers provide a VESA driver nowadays. By support- ing VESA a very broad base of VGA boards may now use this program. If order to run GIF REED, just type the following: C>GIFV path1 path2 path3 path4 path5 For example: C>GIFV F:\GIFS\GOOD\*.* C>GIFV F:\GIFS\GOOD\*.? Once in the program you can press F1 for help on using the program. Once you are actually viewing a picture, you can press F1 to see help on how to manipulate the picture. Any question or comments please call me at 1-800-25-FLASH and ask for: Davie Lee Reed. Thanks you trying this new program out and possibly helping me improve it.