PicView 1.3
An Picture Viewer
Copyright 1989,1990 by Greg Thomas & Brad Mettee









































What is PicView?

PicView is an picture viewer that offers features not found in
other viewers. This is not the end all program (yet). Other viewers
do offers some features that PicView does not, such as graphic
conversion. Some of the 'deficiencies' of PicView will be added to
later releases.

Currently PicView will read and display GIF, Colorix and MAC
formats. We are currently working on implementing more formats,
notably compressed RIX files, PCX and Deluxe Paint LBM files. Other
formats are being looked into, and will be implemented as we accrue
information on them.





What makes PicView different than these other viewers?

Ahh glad you asked that question (you did ask that, didn't
you?) Well, for starters, our biggest pride with this product is the
superb ADJUSTABLE palette animation. A picture can be animated
through the entire palette, a portion of the palette, and through a
range of colors in the palette. The effects of the animation must be
seen to be truly appreciated.


It also sports a very easy to use window interface that if not
for the complex animation capabilities, would preclude the need for
docs at all. It uses very easy pop-down windows for all parameter
setting and selection very similar to the environments used in
Borland's Language's (Guess will have to look out for the look and
feel police.)


PicView supports ATI, Tseng, Trident, Video7, Paradise, C&T,
Everex, Cirrus, and Ahead A & B chipsets. It will auto detect if
these adapters are installed, and adjust the mode selections (screen
size) accordingly. Also, for you True Blue users, a special
360x480x256 mode is implemented for you to get almost SVGA perfor-
mance out of your motherboard VGA. This will also work on all
register compatible VGA cards. PicView currently does not (and most
likely won't ever) support standards less then VGA. There are several
viewers on the market that support EGA and below, so it seemed rather
pointless since PicView's animation abilities are best done on VGA.








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Files contained in PicView.zip
PV.EXE PicView executable file

PVDOC.TXT PicView documentation

REGISTER.TXT PicView registration form

REVHIST.TXT Revision History

PICVIEW.GIF PicView.gif is a gif file which
demonstrates the viability of partial
palette animation. Using the random
palette (any palette will do, but works
best with random or plasma) set starting
register to 92, and end register to 112.

DATA.PIX Data for laserline opening credits.

WAVE1A.GIF Wave1a.gif, boxesa.gif, and tunnela.gif have
BOXESA.GIF continuous smooth palettes making
TUNNELA.GIF experimentation of the default palette's
possible settings.

DEMO.BAT Batch file which creates and demonstrates
PicView's Slideshow abilities.


In the Works
Some of the features that PicView will be incorporating in
future releases are:
A script language for slideshow presentations.
Support for more file formats i.e. PCX, LBM, etc.
Mode lockout.



Getting Started with PicView


You can start PicView by either typing PV at the DOS prompt to
get into menu mode, or you can specify a filename or listfile from
the command line to immediately display a file or slideshow.

When starting PicView in menu mode, a credit screen will pop
up. By default, PicView starts in 50 line mode. If you prefer, you
can start it with the command line option -25 or /25 to have it
default to 25 line mode. Strike a key, and you will be in the file
selection window. From the main menu, you have 4 choices, detailed
here.

Note: If you get tired of viewing the laserline, you can delete the
data.pix file and it will no longer display.







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Info

Pops up the opening credit screen. (In case you get bored, or
want to know who wrote this contraption.)


File

Pops up a sub menu used for file selection.



Options

Brings up a sub menu to select PicView's options.


Exit

Exits the program. (That's a hard one to figure out, eh?)


Submenus have a varying number of selections that either pop up an
additional submenu, prompt you for data, or display a selected file.
Submenu options will be detailed here.


File

Select File(s)

This selection pops up a file selection window which allows
you to select the file to be viewed. The window sports a scroll
bar to give you an indication of how far along you are in the
list of files. There is a real file limit of 16,384 files that
can be read into the directory (assuming you have a 640k
machine). You can use first character selection to speed you
through your files. Hitting 'T' once will take you to the first
file beginning with T. Hitting it again will take you to the
next and so on. The list can be scrolled beyond the end or
beginning if scrolling in reverse. When you find the file you
want to display, Hit the 'ENTER' key and it will be displayed.
If viewing a MAC file, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn, up & down arrow
keys will scroll the picture. After the file has been
displayed, strike any key to return to the file selection
window. When you return, you will have the last file displayed
still highlighted.


File Type

This selection will pop up a little window that allows you
to select which type of file you wish to have in the selection
window above. Currently your choices are, GIF, RIX, and MAC.



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Options

Screen

This will pop up a submenu allowing you to select which
screen mode you want the picture displayed in. Depending on
your video adapter, you may not be able to select all of the
choices. The Auto select option will let the program select the
best video mode for the picture to fit in.

Note: You can hot-key into this window with the F3 key.


Animate

This will pop up a window prompting you for data to control
the animation facilities of PicView. The first data item you
are prompted for is whether or not you want animation on. If
you select 'N', the window is dropped, and you are returned to
the next level up menu. If you select 'Y', you are then
prompted for the direction, palette, starting and ending
registers, and depending on the palette selected, starting and
ending color data. More detail will be covered on this topic
later.

Note: You can hot-key into this window with the F4 key.

Exit

This selection returns you to DOS. Optionally, you can hit the
escape key at any top level menu to return to dos as well.


Hot Keys

Hot key access to menus are as follows:

F3 - Pops up screen size selection window.
F4 - Pops up animate window.
F5 - Brings up PalView for selected file.
F6 - Displays the dimensions of the highlighted file.
Alt D - Deletes the highlighted file from your drive.

The 'A' key while viewing a picture will cause animate to start
using the defaults, or the selections made when you last turned
animate on.


To start PicView with a filename, simply type PV filename.
Extensions are optional, but if omitted, GIF is assumed. Filename can
consist of a filename and optional path of up to 80 characters.
PicView will then display the file and wait for a keypress (or an 'A'
key to begin animating the pic). If you also specify a /r or -r on
the command line, PicView will display the image and exit leaving the
graphics mode intact. This is useful for calling PicView from other
programs to display a graphic image. When started with this option,
PicView will not animate.

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To start PicView with a listfile, simply type PV @listfile.
PicView will then read filenames from the listfile and display them in
a round robin fashion, in a continuous cycle (or until aborted with
the esc key). Filenames in the listfile with no extension are assumed
to be GIF. A list file can be generated as simply as typing, DIR >
LISTFILE. No editing of the dir output is neccesary as anything not
valid is ignored. The next release of PicView will have a more robust
script language to control delays and animation.


What is PalView?

PalView is a handy utility that will display on screen the
contents of all you palette registers. For PalView to work, you
must have the file selection window open with a file
highlighted. Then, hit the F5 key and your screen will change
to display the palette. If animate is turned on, it will
animate the palette display. Any key will return you to the
file selection window. (This is useful for determining the
ranges of any smooth palette blends you may see in a picture.)


OK, Let me go into some details on the animation options, as
some of it can be a bit confusing.


After selecting 'Y' to the animate prompt, your next prompt will
be for the direction to animate. View both, as the different
directions can have an entirely different effect. The direction is
relative, and can/will be different from file to file (dependent on
how the palette registers were laid out at the time the file was
created).


The next prompt after selecting the direction, will be for you
to select the palette. You have 3 choices here, a random palette,
the default palette, and a plasma palette (based loosely on the demo
plasma). Use experimentation here, as different images work better
with different palette selections. The random palette will look
pretty good for just about any image (note: images with smooth
palette ranges animate the best). If the default palette is laid out
well without many 'holes', this one works well too. Although, I have
viewed some images that DO have 'holes' which enhanced the animation
effect. The plasma palette is based on a smooth transition of red,
green and blue and restricts the animation to the first 180 or so
registers (again, based loosely on the images created by the demo
plasma).


If you select the Default palette, a window will pop up
prompting your for starting and ending color. This will be discussed
in the next section as it is related to registers, but only applies to
the default palette.





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OK, I trust you've kept up with me so far. Here's where it can
get confusing. Your next prompt is for the starting and ending
register. If you've selected either the Random or Plasma palette,
this will tell the program which color register to start the animation
at, and which to stop it at. This gives you the ability to animate a
portion of the image, instead of the entire image. This works VERY
well for images that use a smooth palette range in a portion of the
picture.


Now, if you've selected the Default palette, your start and end
registers take on additional meaning in conjunction with the start and
end color window that popped up after you selected DEFAULT. To give
you a better understanding, picture your image like this. Every pixel
gets its color from one of 256 palette registers. The start and end
registers are exactly that, PHYSICAL registers in the machine. The
start and end colors are the color data contained in those registers.
When you select your start and end register, you are selecting the
physical registers that are scrolled. When you select the start and
end color, you are selecting the range of color data that you want
scrolled through those registers. If you select a color range smaller
than the palette range, the number of colors you selected will
determine the number of registers scrolled. However, if you select a
smaller range of registers than colors, then the registers will scroll
through the entire range of colors you selected



OK, are you thoroughly confused? I thought so, but experiment a
little after reading the docs (preferably with the images that came
with the PicView file since they have smooth palette ranges, it makes
it clear sooner what exactly is going on).



Command Line Option Summary

-25 or /25 Start menu mode in 25 line mode.
filespec Bypass menus and display single file.
/r When single file specified, exit PV with graphics
intact.
@listfile Display filenames in list file continuously.


Hot keys

F3 - Pops up screen size selection window.
F4 - Pops up animate window.
F5 - Brings up PalView for selected file.
F6 - Displays the dimensions of the highlighted file.
Alt D - Deletes the highlighted file from your drive.

The 'A' key while viewing a picture will cause animate to start
using the defaults, or the last selections made when you last
turned animate on.




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SHAREWARE


PicView is a shareware product. You are granted a limited 15 day
noncommercial use of this product. At the end of this period, if you
are still using PicView, you may license PicView for noncommercial use
on one machine by sending $15.00 to:

Greg Thomas & Brad Mettee
c/o Greg Thomas
P.O. Box 5244
Balto., Md. 21224-0244

PicView may be licensed for commercial use on up to 5 computers for
$50.00. A commercial site is defined as, but not limited to, a
business or individual seeking to make a profit by distributing
PicView as part of a package, either hardware or software, use of
PicView as demo to sell hardware or software. If PicView is
distributed as part of a package, notice MUST be given to the
purchaser that they are not a licensed user.

Commercial site's requiring more copies, may contact the authors for
special pricing arrangements.

All rights are reserved.

PicView may not be changed, modified or reverse engineered in any way
except by the authors. PicView may be freely distributed as long as
it remains in its complete form. Regardless of how the copy is
obtained, all users are required to comply with the licensing
agreement.

All warranties are disclaimed, including damage to hardware and/or
software from use of this product. In no event will the authors be
liable for any damages, including lost profits, lost savings or other
incidental or consequential damages due to your use or inability to
use the program, or any other claim by any other party.

Any suggestions or comments can be mailed directly to me, emailed to
me on CIS (user 73047,57) or left on my BBS:

Jolly Roger
(301)675-2566
3/12/2400 baud

GIF and Graphics Interchange Format are trademarks of Compuserve, a
H+R Block Co.












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