GIFLIST A general purpose GIF (tm) management utility

Version 1.0 Copyright (C) James Hamilton 88-12-31













o Summary of Features

o Introduction

o Legal Mumbo-Jumbo

o What the Heck is a GIF ?

o Program Requirements

o Program Operation

o Using DOS Redirection

o Future Enhancements

o Licensing Arrangements













Documentation written by Andrew J. Lusher on December 31, 1988

No portions of this document may be reproduced without express
permission from the author.


GIFLIST 1.0 Copyright (C) 1988, James Hamilton Page 2



SUMMARY OF FEATURES




GIFLIST is a utility to assist in the management of GIF files.

GIFLIST should perform the following:


o Display help screen if called with "?" or "/?" parameter.


o Display working disk \ directory pathname.


o Alphabetically list all GIFs in the current directory, or

in the optionally supplied pathname.


o Display creation date and size information for each GIF.


o Show resolution and number of colors from the GIF header.


o Produce formatted BBS listing with the "/BBS" option.


o Allow optional sort by date ascending /DA, descending /DD.


o Allow optional sort by resolution /RES.


o Provide Terse list when called with "/T" option


o Respect standard DOS conventions for redirection & piping.


o Outputs to a file or printer using standard redirection.


o Display disk volume label, system date and time



--- GIF is the COMPUSERVE (tm) Graphic Interchange Format. ---

GIFLIST 1.0 Copyright (C) 1988, James Hamilton Page 3



INTRODUCTION - by Andy Lusher




Jim Hamilton handed me a disk in 1982 that changed my life forever.
The media contained a copy of Tom Jenning's Fido (tm) BBS software
and I promptly put it to use. Ever since that event, I've been the
sysop of a bulletin board, and I still blame him!


On the other hand, Jim has been programming in Assembler, and now
in 'C'. He's written too many good utilities that I have urged him
to release. Some programs that he wrote as early as 1983 are still
in my path, and I have found no equal for them to this date. Jim's
only problems are that he is modest, and a perfectionist (His home
is full of "unfinished" paintings that people would pay to see).
I'd like to believe that I played a part by pushing him into the
release of this utility (or was it the other way around)?


As a first "release" effort, I found uses for the GIFLIST program
immediately. I have a large number of GIFs (tm) on my BBS system,
and get quite a few uploaded by my users. I had problems managing
these because the resolution and number of colors are not apparent.
Most of the programs out there that "tell" you the resolution are
large and cumbersome because they provide viewing capabilities too.
Jim came to my rescue with this utility.


Jim is a GIF(tm) collector. He has limited space on his hard disk,
and stores these offline on diskettes. Unfortunately, most programs
that index your files do not provide enough information to be useful
so he had a need for this also, which is why it was written.

Remember that this is a first effort, and only a beginning. There
are many planned enhancements for this program if your support is
there.

If you collect GIFs (tm), you may find that GIFLIST can help you.


GIFLIST 1.0 Copyright (C) 1988, James Hamilton Page 4



LEGAL MUMBO JUMBO




The common SHAREWARE rules apply. In case you've forgotten they go
something like this:

This program is guaranteed to do nothing but take up disk space.

No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied is offered.

The author assumes no responsibility whatsoever, for any damages
you may incur, either directly or indirectly as a result of the
use of this program.

All code and documentation is the property of the author, and may
not be changed, modified, copied, de-compiled or reverse-engineered
by any method or for any reason whatsoever.

You may freely copy and distribute this program under the following
terms and conditions:

This program may be distributed to individuals, organizations and
groups on a trial basis only. It may be posted on bulletin boards
or copied to disk as long as no direct fee is charged for the
program.

The program may only be distributed in its original form, with the
GIFLIST.EXE program and GIFLIST.DOC documentation.

After a reasonable trial period of thirty (30) days, a contribution
of ten dollars ($10) should be sent to the author for each terminal,
computer or workstation accessing the program. Otherwise the program
must be permanently erased or removed.

It is understood that all contributions sent in appreciation of this
work will cover the cost of support, development and future versions
of this and other shareware products.

In order to recieve support and update information for GIFLIST, you
must be a registered user of the program. Program registration also
includes access to the Code Conjurers Opus system.


GIFLIST 1.0 Copyright (C) 1988, James Hamilton Page 5



WHAT THE HECK IS A GIF???





Personal computers today have good-to-excellent graphics capabilities.
With the advent of VGA on IBM compatibles, the Amiga and Atari users
can no-longer thumb their noses and laugh at us. Compuserve (tm), the
biggest BBS I know of, proposed a standard that would allow for the
exchange of graphic images between many different kinds of computers.
Better yet, they offered this standard to the public domain, and the
GIF (tm) was born. GIF is the Compuserve Graphic Interchange Format.
It offers a high degree of machine independance, compression to save
disk space, and much more. Many thousands of graphics, digitized
images, prize winning works of art and utilities support this format,
which is very quickly becoming the most popular on this planet.



PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS




COMPUTER

You must have a computer to run this progam. No other way to do it.
This software was been written for IBM or BIOS-compatible PCs only.
It has been tested on PCs, XTs, ATs, and an extremely fussy 3-Com
network. Chances are very good that it will work on your system if
it fits into any one of these categories.

MEMORY

If you can view a GIF, you should have enough memory to run this.

DISK SPACE

This program will take up roughly 14k of disk space.

OPERATING SYSTEM

This program has been tested under all PC and MS-DOS versions
that begin with the number 3.



GIFLIST 1.0 Copyright (C) 1988, James Hamilton Page 6



PROGRAM OPERATION




USAGE: GIFLIST [d:\path] [?|/?] [/t|/bbs] [/res|/da/dd]

d:\path Drive and path to search.
?, /? or -? Calls the GIFLIST help screen.
/t or -t Terse -name (less ext.) & resolution only.
/bbs or -bbs Format listing for "FILES.BBS" file.
/res or -res Sort by resolution - highest to lowest.
/da or -da Sort by date - ascending.
/dd or -dd Sort by date - descending.

You may combine Terse or BBS with resolution or date options.
You may also use (dash) - instead of (slash) / for all options.
If you have GIFs in the current directory, simply type:

GIFLIST (and press the ENTER key)

You should see:

GIF Listing Utility 1.0 Copyright (C) 1989 James Hamilton
Distributed by the Code Conjurers OPUS: (613) 224-4480

Volume ... CONSOLE1 12/31/88 - 18:09:51
Path ..... C:\TEMP

ROBOT.GIF 11264 88-12-25 320 x 200 x 32
ZOE2.GIF 285607 88-11-25 640 x 480 x 256

Total .GIF files found: 2

Optionally, you may provide a path like this:

GIFLIST K:\GIF\TEMP (ENTER)

You should see:

GIF Listing Utility 1.0 Copyright (C) 1989 James Hamilton
Distributed by the Code Conjurers OPUS: (613) 224-4480

Volume ... CONSOLE1 12/31/88 - 18:09:51
Path ..... K:\GIF\TEMP

ZOE1.GIF 69000 88-11-29 320 x 200 x 256

Total .GIF files found: 1

In both cases, GIFLIST displays FILENAME, SIZE, DATE and RESOLUTION.

GIFLIST 1.0 Copyright (C) 1988, James Hamilton Page 7



PROGRAM OPERATION (continuation)



BBS OPTIONS

GIFLIST provides some options to allow you to format a FILES.BBS
listing for Opus (no tm) by Wynn Wagner, and some other (tm)
Bulletin Board Systems. The /BBS option may be combined with the
/Date or /RESolution options to allow for greater flexibility.

GIFLIST /BBS will display the following:

GIF Listing Utility 1.0 Copyright (C) 1989 James Hamilton
Distributed by the Code Conjurers OPUS: (613) 224-4480

Volume ... [NO LABEL] 01/01/89 - 20:28:49
Path ..... K:\GIF\640X400

BREAST.GIF 640 x 400 x 256 ** No Description **
EMILYA.GIF 512 x 400 x 256 ** No Description **
FANTASIA.GIF 640 x 400 x 16 ** No Description **
INDIA1.GIF 512 x 400 x 256 ** No Description **
PIRATE.GIF 640 x 400 x 16 ** No Description **
SHARRY.GIF 512 x 400 x 256 ** No Description **
SHAWNA.GIF 640 x 400 x 16 ** No Description **

Total .GIF files found: 7

Note that GIFLIST drops the SIZE and DATE fields, as these are
usually handled by the BBS software, and displays RESOLUTION
and a temporary "NO DESCRIPTION" field for you.

Now, if you are like me, you'll shelve the documentation, and
promptly forget what you need to know. Like many programs, you
can get help by typing:

GIFLIST ? -or- GIFLIST /?

GIFLIST will display a help screen to remind you how to use it.

Also you may get tired of typing GIFLIST all the time. I have
renamed it to GL, and you may wish to do the same.

REN GIFLIST.EXE GL.EXE

GIFLIST will know that you have renamed it, and adjust the help
screen accordingly.

GIFLIST 1.0 Copyright (C) 1988, James Hamilton Page 8



DOS REDIRECTION




What we've covered so far displays on the screen only, but suppose
we need to create a file? DOS provides some useful tools for doing
this, and your DOS manual is the best place to start. Here are some
examples of Standard DOS Redirection that you may find useful.


GIFLIST > FOO.LST Creates a new file called FOO.LST

GIFLIST >> FOO.LST Creates a new file called FOO.LST,
or adds to the end, if the file
already exists.

GIFLIST K:\GIF > C:\GIF.CAT Creates a new file called GIF.CAT that
contains a list of GIFs in K:\GIF
directory...

GIFLIST K:\GIF | MORE Pauses each time screen fills up.


DOS REDIRECTION



GIFLIST is a simple utility, but really has a lot of functionality.
The sample below adds to the existing FILES.BBS in C:\GFX a list of
GIFs sorted by resolution. All you must do is add a description for
each file, and you're away. You may combine /BBS with the /DA or /DD
options if you prefer. Although the date field is not shown, the
order will be correct.

GIFLIST C:\GFX /BBS /RES >> C:\GFX\FILES.BBS

The Program Identification notice that appears when you run GIFLIST
will appear on your screen only, and not in the target file. Also,
the Volume, Path and Total labels do NOT appear in column 1, and
will not show as MISSING files when listed on your BBS.

If you wish to run your directory updates from a batchfile, note
that GIFLIST will exit with an ERRORLEVEL of 0 in normal situations
or ERRORLEVEL 1 if it detects an error.


=================================================================
G I F L I S T R E G I S T R A T I O N F O R M
=================================================================

To become a registered user of this program, be eligible for
support and an account on the Code Conjurers Opus BBS, please
complete this form and send to :

JAMES HAMILTON
48 CHATHAM GARDENS
NEPEAN, ONTARIO, CANADA
K2J 3M4

Government agencies and departments *must* register this product.
Please note also that site licenses are available. Please contact
the author for more information.

=================================================================
USER INFORMATION
=================================================================

Full Name of User : _____________________________________________

Street Address : _____________________________________________

City, Province : _____________________________________________

Postal or ZIP : _____________________________________________

Number of copies ( ) @ $10. each = ( ) remittance.


=================================================================
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
=================================================================


Version Number displayed when software is run : _________________

Desired password on the support BBS system : _________________
15 chars / no spaces

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COMMENTS / THINGS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE...
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