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Text File | 1993-05-17 | 17.9 KB | 396 lines

Welcome to SUPER-SHOW Version 1.00-S Shareware, feel free to copy and distribute as long as all files (SS.EXE, SS.DOC & FILE_ID.DIZ) remain intact and unchanged. Copyright 1993, Jeff Napier & Another Company What Super-Show Does This is the best and easiest-to-use program ever written to display .PCX and .GIF graphics image files. Create disk-based presentations within minutes. Use it to display single files, or chain presentations together in which end users can go forward or backward, or can use Automode, in which each picture is displayed in sequence, over and over again. Additionally, you can use SUPER-SHOW to display every .PCX or .GIF file on a disk or in a directory, without having to type those filenames. SUPER-SHOW can display up to 700 pictures in a presentation, and will instantly and automatically select the proper video mode for each picture. It is fast, simple, and small (approx 20k bytes). You can use SUPER-SHOW from the DOS prompt, or call it from within batch files or programs. How To Display An Individual Picture Type SS, followed by a space, then the name of the .GIF or .PCX file you want to display. Press any key or click a mouse button when done viewing the picture. How To Display A Group Of Pictures There are two ways to display groups of picture files: Find Mode Simply type SS and press [Enter]. All of the .GIF or .PCX files in the current file will be displayed, one after another, as you press [N], [Enter] or the left mouse button. To view a previous picture, press [P] or the right mouse button. Press [Esc] when done. This will display up to 700 pictures in a single disk or directory. To view the files on another disk, or in another directory, type SS, then a space, then the disk or directory name. This is called a path. The path must end in *, :, \, .GIF or .PCX so that SUPER-SHOW does not think you are looking for an individual file. Here are some functional examples: SS a: SS c:\mystuff\ SS e:\paint\animals\*.GIF SS c:\Fred\*.* Controlled Mode Make an ordinary ASCII text file with your favorite text editing or word processing program. On the first line of the file, type the filename of the first picture in your presentation. On the second line, type the filename of the second picture. Continue entering one filename per line until you have typed the names of all the picture files you want to present. You can save this text file using any DOS-legal name as long as it does not end with .PCX or .GIF. Then at the DOS prompt, or from within a batch file or program, call SUPER-SHOW, followed by a space, then the name of the text file you have created. Here's an example: Let's say you have 6 kitty cat pictures, and you want to make a text file called KITTY.CAT to list these pictures. In the file, KITTY.CAT you type the names of your cat files like this: SIAMESE.PCX CALICO.GIF CALICO2.GIF PERSIAN.GIF MAINE.PCX MANX.PCX Then, you might want to create a batch file called BEGIN.BAT, which contains a single line: SUPER-SHOW KITTY.CAT When an end user types BEGIN, SUPER-SHOW will present the kitty pictures. To Run SUPER-SHOW If you have a mouse, press the left mouse button to see each next picture. Press the right button to view previous pictures. Press [Esc] when done. Whether or not you have a mouse, you can press the down arrow, [N] or [Enter] to view each next picture or the up arrow or [P] to view previous pictures. Press [Esc] when done. If you reach the last picture in the presentation, continuing to press [Enter], [N] or the left mouse button will have no effect, and if you return to the beginning, pressing [P] or the right mouse button is also ineffective. Automode You can make your presentation run in an unattended mode. This is good for retail, faire, convention or kiosk displays. Simply press any number key from [1] through [9] and Automode will start. It will display each picture for a preset amount of time. When it comes to the last picture in the presentation, it starts over again with the first picture. This will continue until any non-number key is pressed, or until a mouse button is clicked. If you want a fool-proof presentation, where users may inadvertently end the presentation by messing around with the keyboard, simply disconnect the keyboard from the computer once Automode is started. The following chart shows approximate time delays between each picture, based on which number key is pressed. These times are machine independent, meaning they will be the same whether you have an XT-compatible or a Pentium ('586): key time === ============================== [9] 1/2 second [8] 1 second [7] 2 seconds [6] 4 seconds [5] 8 seconds [4] 16 seconds [3] 32 seconds (approx 1/2 minute) [2] 64 seconds (approx 1 minute) [1] 128 seconds (approx 2 minutes) Displaying Filenames You can press the [spacebar] to toggle display of filenames. The first time you press it, the name of each file will be displayed in the lower left corner in white. If you press it again, the filenames will be displayed in black. A third press causes filenames to appear in blue, and a fourth press turns off the filename display. These four options repeat if you press the spacebar repeatedly. The filename colors may vary if the pictures you are displaying have changed the color palette (quite common). Help For a quick review of the functions, press [F1]. Video Modes SUPER-SHOW automatically figures out which video mode is required for each picture in a presentation and automatically switches to accommodate. If you try to display a picture which is created for a video mode that your computer does not support, for instance a VGA picture on an CGA computer, SUPER-SHOW will harmless quit and return to DOS. Super-VGA SUPER-SHOW is capable of most Super-VGA modes, and most Super-VGA cards. Because of the great variety of Super-VGA card manufacturers and models, and lack of industry standardization, you may find a combination of video card and SVGA picture file which will not work. One case we have noted is that some ATI Wonder cards will not run SUPER-SHOW in a Super-VGA mode from within Microsoft Windows. Some Trident cards may also produce wacky results with Super-VGA pictures. No Problems! If there is something wrong with your text file listing of picture files, or if there is a problem with a picture file, SUPER-SHOW will usually manage to harmlessly return to DOS. If you have blank spaces between the left hand edge and the filenames, or if you leave blank lines between filenames, SUPER-SHOW will accommodate automatically. Programmers Programmers take note: This is a great way to present images in your programs without having to write time-consuming or disk-space intensive code. Simply exec or spawn() SUPER-SHOW.EXE. SUPER-SHOW uses only 2k stack space, 6k heap space and 18k of disk space. Shareware SUPER-SHOW is shareware. You may copy and distribute it as long as all files remain intact and unchanged. The registration price of $18 includes royalty-free right to distribute an unlimited number of copies of SUPER-SHOW.EXE with your products. Also included: Free worldwide postage. If you use SUPER-SHOW beyond 30 days you must register this product by sending $20 to: ANOTHER COMPANY P.O. Box 3429 Ashland, OR 97520 USA Voice phone 503-482-3611 CompuServe: 71022,175 America On-Line: Another Co Please specify if you need 3.5" disk size. Overseas, please send US funds drawn on a US bank. Telephone Or you can phone in a credit card number to 503-482-3611. Or you can register VIA CompuServe: GO SWREG. If you telephone your order, you can request special coded information which will eliminate all advertising screens so you can use SUPER-SHOW in finished products immediately. Related A program called SLIDES (SLIDES.EXE) is closely related to SUPER-SHOW. In fact, SLIDES is its predecessor. SLIDES has capacity for only 200 pictures and displays single files or presentations in Controlled Mode only (not Find Mode). SLIDES cannot display filenames. SLIDES is a bit smaller, and requies a bit less RAM space, and costs only $18 to register. Both SLIDES and SUPER-SHOW are products of Another Company. End Of Instructions, Now Here's Something Amazing... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Would You Like To Know About Media Magic, The $29.95 Multimedia Creation Program? CREATE YOUR OWN: * COMPUTER-BASED TRAINING * TECHNICAL PRESENTATIONS * EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS * DISK-BASED BOOKS & SHOWS * GRAPHIC DATABASES * CATALOGS * RETAIL SOFTWARE & SHAREWARE ******* $29.95! ******* Incorporate Pictures, Text, Speech, Sound Effects, Music, Animation, and User Interaction in simple or complex presentations which run on any standard IBM compatible computer. Built-in features include: complete drawing program, simple word processor to create text in any font and any color, sound effects library, music composition and optional synthesized speech through the ordinary PC speaker, Sound Blaster and other sound card support, resolutions from 2-Color CGA through 256-color VGA, .PCX file display and creation, store up to 100 pictures on a single 360k floppy, special effects such as curtains, granular fades, and swipes, grid and coordinate display for precice drawing creation, super-imposing, layering, combining files, hook executable programs and batch files into multimedia presentations, display text files of unlimited size within graphics windows or full screen, more, more, more! And, with an option, you can create full multimedia multiple-choice tests. Media Magic comes with a royalty-free, multi-faceted run-time program called MSHOW.EXE, with which end users can view your presentation screen by screen, forward, backward or randomly, and even search for any word or phrase within your presentation, or via hyperlinks, in which users can point to anything on screen with mouse-driven or arrow-key driven pointer and be taken to any location within your presentation. How can we do it all for $29.95? Here are the answers: Media Magic is advertised via shareware, so our advertising cost is low and therefore the price to you is low. Media Magic is an efficient, fully self-contained package, with a complete disk-based owner's manual. Finally, we ship everything immediately via first class mail, so no cost is wasted in excess warehousing/order processing. Just like Henry Ford did with his model Ts, when the product is selling like crazy, we lower the price and sell even more! Because it is easy-to-use, you can start making professional products with Media Magic the first day you own it. To get your copy, send $29.95 in US funds to: Another Company P.O. Box 3429 Ashland, OR 97520 USA or phone 503-482-3611 (Credit Cards Accepted) CompuServe: 71022,175 America On-Line: ANOTHER CO or order via CompuServe (GO SWREG) Postage is free, anywhere in the world! Please specify if you need 3.5" disk size. Media Magic - Technical Specifications: (subject to change) Media Magic requires CGA, Hercules, EGA or VGA graphics, and 512k RAM. Supported but NOT required are mouse, hard disk, sound card and color monitor. Media Magic works fine on laptop computers. Main Creation program: MM.EXE, size: 286136 bytes Runtime program: MSHOW.EXE, size: 44131 bytes Video modes: 320 x 480 x 256 XGA, 640 x 480 x 16 VGA, 320 x 200 x 256 VGA, 640 x 350 x 16 EGA, 720 x 348 x 2 Herc, 640 x 200 x 16 EGA 640 x 200 x 2 CGA, 320 x 200 x 4 CGA Fonts provided: 10 (total with option: 40) PC speaker support: 2 digitized speech systems, melody composition, custom sounds, sound effects library. Sound Card Support: All brands File Encryption: (yes - option) Incorporate external EXE, BAT & COM programs: yes Multiple-choice & true/false test creation (yes - option (incl encrypted results file on disk!) Special features: Hyper-Link - which presents an on-screen arrow, movable with mouse or arrow/number keys, that the user can move to anything in picture (icon, text, etc) and be taken to any place in your presentation; Live Text - Any standard ASCII text file can be displayed within any picture in any font or color, and it will scroll with mouse or arrow keys, including search, print and auto-scroll functions; ASCII-Vector-Graphics - You can edit exact locations of objects within your pictures, or the pitch and duration of sounds, or modify animations, etc; Presentation Mode - which gives the end user a menu bar from which to advance to next screen, or back up, or GOTO, or search for specific word or phrase, or AUTOMODE, for unattended, self-running presentations. Help And Documentation: On-line help with [F1] key, 227k of text files on disk callable from within main program. Complete "Electronic Owner's manual." Images: Import or create .PCX in all graphics modes, .GIF in 16 and 256-color modes, ASCII-Vector-Graphics in all modes. OPTIONS (each available at $29.95): 30 additional fonts 4 megabytes of speech/sound effects ASCII-Vector-Graphics line editor File Encryption Multiple-choice and True/False test creation (full multimedia) with on-disk encrypted scores file for each student, allows honest, unattended study. Thanks, Jeff Napier d.b.a. Another Company May 14, 1993 _____________________________________________________________ end of file.