A kindwordware drag-and-drop applet by Sam Bushell.
What is To JPEG?
To JPEG is a one-drag, one-drop applet for converting picture files into JPEG files.
It's designed to be easy and fast to use: drag some picture files onto its icon, wait a few moments, and you'll find JPEG-compressed versions right next to them.
It's also designed to be configurable: open To JPEG and choose Preferences..., and you can control how picture files will be compressed and saved.
It's also free! Actually, it's kindwordware; if you appreciate it, please send me a kind word.
What kinds of picture files can To JPEG convert?
To JPEG can always convert:
• standard Macintosh PICT files,
• picture clipping files, and
• any pictures that you have copied to the clipboard.
If QuickTime 2.5 is installed, then this list grows even bigger. QuickTime 2.5 introduced software components called "graphics importers", each of which knows how to read one particular kind of picture file. To JPEG will use any graphics importers that are available. Graphics importers for the following file types are built into QuickTime 2.5:
• GIF files,
• MacPaint files,
• SGI image files,
• PhotoShop files,
• QuickTime Image Files, and
• JPEG files.
(If a file is already compressed as a JPEG file, then recompressing it will make the picture quality worse. To JPEG will warn you if you're about to do that, although you can turn the warning off.)
You're not restricted to the graphics importers built into QuickTime, either. Third parties are starting to write graphics importers. For instance, I've written one for Portable Network Graphics (PNG) files; it's available from my web pages.
What system requirements does To JPEG have?
You need System 7.0 or later to run To JPEG. You'll want to have the Thread Manager installed, however, because then To JPEG will be able to convert pictures in the background, while you're doing other things. As noted above, if you have QuickTime 2.5 installed, To JPEG can convert more kinds of picture files. (Note: the Thread Manager is built into MacOS 7.5 and later, and QuickTime 2.5 is part of MacOS 7.6. Both components are also available from Apple's web sites.)
If Internet Config 1.1 or later is installed, To JPEG consults it to find out the preferred file type and creator for ".jpeg" files. If not, they're saved with file type JPEG and creator JADE, because Eric Shieh's Jade is my current JPEG viewer of whim.
To JPEG will not run on Macintoshes which do not have Colour QuickDraw.
To JPEG is a "fat binary", running at full speed on both 68K and PowerPC-based Macintoshes.
What do all the settings in the Preferences box mean?
Read the balloon help! More technical explanations can be found in "About Compression Settings".
What made you do this?
I wrote To JPEG partly because of my frustration at having to go through a tedious Open/Save cycle to convert pictures into JPEGs, and partly because of feedback I got for Progressify, a similar applet which converts between sequential-display and progressive-display JPEG files without loss. I'd like to thank all the people who sent me kind words for Progressify.
Acknowledgements
To JPEG uses a free JPEG library written by the Independent JPEG Group; it's essentially a Macintosh port of the cjpeg program included in that library. Here, let me say it again: “this software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group. Permission for use of this software is granted only if the user accepts full responsibility for any undesirable consequences; the authors accept NO LIABILITY for damages of any kind.”
To JPEG is also based on DropShell 2.0 by Leonard Rosenthol, Marshall Clow and Stephan Somogyi.
