Chip 1997 June/CHIP Turkiye Haziran 1997.iso/inet/gifcon/gifcon32.exe/FAQ.TXT

Text File | 1997-03-23 | 57.1 KB | 1,312 lines

GIF Construction Set
Frequently Asked Questions

March 14, 1997

Copyright (c) 1996 Alchemy Mindworks Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced
by any means without the written permission of Alchemy Mindworks
Inc. No fur-bearing animals were harmed during the creation of
this document. Allergy alert: may contain nutmeg, but we doubt
it. Return for refund where applicable. Not recommended for
persons with sugar-restricted diets. Batteries are included --
best of luck finding them. Proud sponsor of the 1934 penguin
olympic games at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. May cause
irritability, sleeplessness or warts after prolonged use.
Contents under pressure. BHT added to preserve freshness.
Caution: this product has caused some laboratory rats to rip
through their cages, fly across the room and brutally murder
hundreds of innocent people. Shake well before using. No vacuum
tubes or other user-serviceable parts inside. Not to be combined
with other radioisotopes except under the advice of a physician.
Avoid prolonged exposure to ultraviolet light. The truth is out
there. Use no hooks. Not intended for use by children or liberals
under the age of five. Printed on unrecycled endangered dead
trees and we're proud of it.





This document contains the following sections:

SECTION 1: Downloading, Installation and Shareware
SECTION 2: Technical Support
SECTION 3: Running GIF Construction Set




SECTION 1: Downloading, Installation and Shareware
--------------------------------------------------

Q: Is there a Macintosh version of GIF Construction Set?
A: Not as yet. One is in the works, but no release date has been
assigned to it at this time. Macintosh development is relatively
slow and confusing, something they don't tell you when you buy
one of the damn things.


Q: I've been trying to download the current version of GIF
Construction Set for days but your server is always busy. Can you
e-mail me a copy?
A: Sorry, we are unable to e-mail large binary files over our
present mail server. Our main server has been the recipient of
an ongoing program of expansion, but each time we increase its
capacity, the demand seems to increase to match it. It's usually
more readily accessible before noon, EST. We do have a number of
mirrors around the world, accessible through the Mirrors link at
the top of each of our web pages. The Coast to Coast mirrors are
especially useful.


Q: I've downloaded GIF Construction Set but it will not install -
- it tells me that I must run it under Windows, even when I do.
What's wrong?
A: You have a damaged download. Download it again.


Q: I have downloaded GIF Construction Set, but when I try to
install it, it tells me I have a damaged archive. What should I
do?
A: Here are some things to check.

- Compare your downloaded file size to the file size listed at
the web page or FTP site you downloaded it from. If they're not
the same, you really do have a damaged download and you need to
download it again.

- Make sure you have at least five megabytes of free hard drive
space.

- Make sure you're not trying to install the 32-bit version on a
sixteen-bit system.

- Make sure you are installing through Start->Run, not Add/Remove
Programs or Explorer.

- Reboot your system and try the installation again with nothing
else running.


Q: I have a web page. Can I have a free registered copy of GIF
Construction Set in exchange for advertising your software at my
page?
A: 'fraid not. Most of the civilized world has a web page, and
were to swap software for links, we'd quickly have no money and
lots of links. At such time as we're able to barter some of these
links for groceries, we'll reconsider this policy.


Q: Does using an unregistered copy of GIF Construction Set to
create a few graphics for my web page constitute a fair use of
the shareware?
A: In our opinion it does not. The shareware release of GIF
Construction Set is provided for you to evaluate. If you find it
to be good enough to create GIF files for use on a web page, we
feel that it is good enough to register. If you don't agree --
that is, if you find it to be unsuitable for your needs and as
such not worth registering -- please delete it and accept our
thanks for trying it out.


Q: Should I install GIF Construction Set in Windows 95 or NT
through Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel?
A: Absolutely not. Use the Run item of the Start menu.


Q: Can the 32-bit version of GIF Construction Set run under
Windows 3.1 or Windows 3.11 if I have WIN32S installed?
A: No, it uses several DLLs not supplied with WIN32S. Use the
sixteen-bit build.


Q: What are the functional differences between the sixteen- and
32-bit builds of GIF Construction Set?
A: Not much. The 32-bit build supports long file names,
while the sixteen-bit build does not. The 32-bit build is
somewhat faster under 95 and NT. The 32-bit build can create wide
palette GIF files, discussed elsewhere in this document.
Otherwise, they're identical.

You're probably wondering about now if Windows 95 might not have
just been a really sneaky way to sell everyone 32-bit versions of
perfectly good sixteen-bit applications.


Q: What files does the GIF Construction Set installer add to my
\WINDOWS and \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directories, and what changes does
it make to my registry?
A: None. We feel that shareware should not mess with your system
files, and none of ours does. Everything the installer writes to
your hard drive goes in GIF Construction Set's private directory,
and no system files are altered.


Q: How can I uninstall GIF Construction Set.
A: Simply delete its private directory and everything in it.


Q: If I register GIF Construction Set by phone, can I get a
registration code immediately?
A: We will e-mail one to you if provide your e-mail address with
your order. This usually takes about 72 hours. Please note,
that's actually three business days -- weekends don't count. This
can take longer still if we get swamped.


Q: How can I register GIF Construction Set?
A: You can pay by Visa, Mastercard, American Express or by a
cheque drawn on an international bank having the address of a
North American clearing office and a bank transit number printed
on it. Cheques must be in US dollars -- no other currency can be
accepted. Please do not send us Eurocheques -- they cannot be
cleared outside Europe.

Our present bank cannot accept payments by wire transfer.

We ask that you use the order form provided with every copy of
GIF Construction Set to place your order. It's stored in a file
called ORDER.WRI in the GIF Construction Set directory, which can
be opened with Windows Write or WordPad.

You can register over CompuServe at GO SWREG. The registration
code for the sixteen-bit version is 10595. The registration
code for the 32-bit version is 13375.

You can FAX the order form to 1-905-936-9502, e-mail it to
[e-mail] or snail-mail it to Alchemy Mindworks
Inc., P.O. Box 500, Beeton, Ontario L0G 1A0 CANADA.

For the fastest service, please call our order desk at 1-800-263-
1138 or 1-905-936-9500. If you're in Great Britain, call toll
free 0800-89-7355. If you're in Australia, call toll free 1-800-
554-082. We take Visa, Mastercard and American Express, and the
order desk is available 24 hours a day.

We are unable to send you GIF Construction Set COD. We cannot
provide you with a pro-forma invoice in advance of purchase.


Q: Can I pay for GIF Construction Set by purchase order?
A: No. If you want to buy 100 or more copies, please get in touch
with us and we'll consider it. Sadly, the purchase order system
has seen considerable abuse in recent years -- while few
institutions issuing purchase orders flat-out refuse to honour
them, we have found that many purchase orders are accompanied by
extensive documentation requirements, lengthy waits for payment
and the need to follow up and beg for money multiple times before
a cheque actually gets cut. This probably makes sense if the
purchase order has been issued to pay for a Cray supercomputer or
a couple of B1 bombers -- it's not workable for a $20.00
shareware registration.


Q: How long does it take to get a registered copy of GIF
Construction Set?
A: Barring unforeseen delays -- post office strikes, mice in the
disk copying machine, an unscheduled apocalypse -- we will ship
your software within 72 hours of receiving your registration
order. Note that it usually takes two to three weeks for a
package to get from Canada to the United States, and at least
three weeks for one to get from Canada to overseas destinations.
We have no control over this.

The only other shipping option we can offer at present is Federal
Express. As of this writing, this costs $28.00 (US) to the United
States and $45.00 (US) to other parts of the world. We cannot
ship by UPS, Airborne, DHL or other couriers at this time.


Q: I already have the shareware version of GIF Construction Set.
Can you just e-mail me the registration code and not charge me
shipping.
A: We certainly can. Just be sure to state that you'd like this
done when you register. You'll get no disks by snail-mail, and
we'll deduct the $5.00 shipping charge.

Please note that you must state that you want your registration
code e-mailed to you at the time you order. We are unable to
locate and amend your order after it has been received.

We are unable to provide this option to users who register
through GOSWREG on CompuServe.


Q: GIF Construction Set used to be bookware. Can I still register
it by buying and reading The Order, by Steven William Rimmer?
A: GIF Construction Set is no longer bookware. While we are still
happy to honour the bookware offer if you wish, this will get you
a registered version of GIF Construction Set 1.0G, a sixteen-bit
build with relatively few features. Alternately, you can order a
registered copy of the current release of GIF Construction Set.
This version includes better animation support, Animation Wizard
to make creating animations easier, better palette options, block
management, Netscape sanity checking and numerous other features.
It costs $20.00 (US) plus $5.00 shipping.


Q: I'm writing a book and I'd like to include GIF Construction
Set with it. Can I do this?
A: We grant permission to include our software with books on a
project by project basis. We require a signed agreement for each
book. Please see the web page at:

http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/bookdisk.html

for more information.


Q: Do you offer an educational discount for GIF Construction Set?
A: No, we don't. We feel that the fairest price is one which
applies to everyone equally.


Q: Does the registered version of GIF Construction Set come with
a printed manual?
A: No, it comes with complete documentation on disk which can be
printed out if you require a paper reference. A paper manual
would have about tripled the cost of the package -- we feel that
software should be affordable, and this extra cost didn't seem to
make sense for an application as simple as GIF Construction Set.


Q: Are you guys in league with the devil?
A: Don't laugh -- we get asked this one frequently.

Some of the people who work at Alchemy Mindworks have pagan
beliefs, and some vaguely pagan iconography has appeared in some
of our literature and example graphics. The most overtly pagan
images arguably turn up in the "click me" advertisements for
Steven William Rimmer's novels, which are themselves fairly
pagan.

This document being about GIF Construction Set rather than
about comparative theology, we won't get into the distinction
between that which is pagan and that which is occult or satanic,
save to note that there is a really huge difference between them.

We have been surprised -- or perhaps more correctly, disturbed --
to find that some fundamentalist christians seem to equate pagan
traditions with worship of the christian devil. Our reply to this
is "not even close" -- and their reply to our reply is very often
"that's just what I'd expect the devil to say."

Well, we aren't. If we were, we'd no doubt have a much more
convincing rebuttal.

Should the pagan graphics trouble you, you can convert the
distribution version of GIF Construction Set into a politically
correct, culturally neutral GIF Construction Set. Delete the
"click me" advertisements and this bit of the Frequently Asked
Questions document.


Q: If I register GIF Construction Set and the leather-winged
demon of the night comes by to rip out my heart before the
registration key arrives, what can I do?
A: Running away isn't an altogether bad idea. Painting its nose
with Keen's extra hot mustard has been known to work as well.
Keep in mind that the leather winged demon of the night has been
lunching down those still-beating hearts in record numbers of
late, and is getting a bit porky. It can't move like it used to.
Do not attempt to use high explosives or small tactical nuclear
weapons against leather-winged demons of the night, as this just
irritates them.


Q: I received a message from Alchemy Mindworks saying that I have
a GIF file created by an unregistered copy of GIF Construction
Set on my web page, and asking me to register the software. I
only created the one GIF file while I was evaluating the
shareware version -- don't you people think that coming after me
this way is somewhat unreasonable?
A: A considerable pontification follows -- this is not
recommended for anyone with a short attention span. See the
question following this one as well.

We receive a number of messages each week from registered
users of GIF Construction Set which say, in effect "I paid for
the software. I've found a GIF file which was obviously created
by someone who didn't. Can't you do something about this?"

In one light, this ignores the reality that shareware developers
are ultimately powerless to stop users of their software who are
determined not to pay for it -- we can't call in the shareware
police, and as should be obvious, we wouldn't even if we could.

We're also unable to ascertain how long someone has been
evaluating an unregistered copy of GIF Construction Set, of
course.

At another level, however, we feel that this is a reasonable
concern. Users who have supported the shareware they use should
feel a bit abused when they see others who do not. We don't
believe that shareware which seeks to compel its users to
register it -- with 30-day timers and other restrictions -- is
really in keeping with the spirit of shareware. However, getting
in touch with the owners of the web pages in question and
mentioning that they've used GIF Construction Set without paying
for it doesn't seem unreasonable.

The messages we send to the owners of web pages which include GIF
files created by unregistered copies of GIF Construction Set seem
to evoke one of three responses. Some of them are ignored -- this
is especially true of messages sent to large corporations and
branches of the government. The White House web page, for
example, had two GIF files of a waving American flag on it for a
long time which were created by an unregistered copy of GIF
Construction Set, ignoring several messages from us.

Some of the people we contact actually register GIF Construction
Set, which is, of course, very heartening.

Finally, a few of the replies we receive express howling, lethal
outrage at our having contacted their senders. These seem to be
from younger users of the Internet, or possibly from people who
feel that a good strong offense is the best defense. These
replies usually include sentiments such as "you have no idea how
shareware is supposed to work", "I only used the software once",
"you have some nerve demanding that I register your shareware",
"you're spamming my e-mail", "I'm just evaluating it and haven't
decided whether I like it" and "I'm so offended that I'll never
use your software again, and I'll tell all my friends what
bastards you are".

This latter point is a somewhat hollow threat -- users who had no
intention of paying for GIF Construction Set in the first place
can't very well threaten not to do so in the future. As to our
"demanding" payment, the most coercive line in the message we
send to unregistered users of the software is "we would like to
ask that you register GIF Construction Set..." -- not exactly a
leg-breaker.

We feel that software should be regarded as you would any other
tool -- for example, a hammer or a power drill. If you only
needed to drill one hole, you'd still have to pay for a power
drill -- the price of the tool isn't predicated on the number of
times you intend to use it. Admittedly, this precludes users who
would buy the drill, use it for the one hole they needed drilled
and then return it, claiming they didn't like it -- a practice at
least as unethical as using unregistered shareware.

The distinction between GIF Construction Set and a power drill is
that the people who sell power drills have pretty tight control
over the number of people who use them versus the number of
people who pay for them. Shareware developers must, by nature, be
resigned to a level of abuse that the manufacturers of more
conventional tools need not concern themselves with. Some users
of shareware might regard this as a degree of license to abuse
the software they download.

Our perception of shareware -- albeit from the point of view of
shareware developers -- is that shareware which is being
evaluated should not be used to do productive work, and that
shareware which is doing productive work is no longer being
evaluated. In the case of GIF Construction Set, "productive work"
would be creating GIF files which wind up on a web page. If it's
good enough to create images for your web page, it's worth paying
for.

License to evaluate shareware should not be regarded as the
opportunity to get as much productive work done during the
evaluation period as possible, and then to "decide" that the
software isn't worth registering. If there's a distinction
between this and the aforementioned example of returning a tool
to the shop where you bought it after you're done with it, it
eludes us.

In conclusion, then, we don't feel that our messages asking
unregistered users of our software to pay for it are unreasonable
or out of keeping with the spirit of shareware. They're certainly
less so than the level of crippling we see in other shareware
packages. Parties who use shareware and don't pay for it make it
more expensive for the ones who do -- doubly so for the users who
don't pay for it but call our technical support line anyway. (You
know who you are.) Users who claim to have only used GIF
Construction Set once can take heart -- we're only asking you to
pay for it once.


Q: I received a message about an animated GIF file on my web page
having been created by an unregistered version of GIF
Construction Set. I found that GIF file on another page -- do I
have to do anything about it?
A: This is the Internet -- you don't HAVE to do anything.

We feel that using an unregistered shareware application to do
productive work is software piracy, no less so than using an
unpaid-for copy of a commercial application. Someone used a
pirated copy of our software to create the GIF file in question,
even if it wasn't you or anyone you know.

You might want to consider whether you wish to support software
piracy by using the product of a pirated application.

Secondly, you might want to consider whether you want people who
browse your web pages to know that pirated software was used in
part to create them. They certainly won't know where your
animated GIF file came from.

Ulimately, it's your decision whether you want to remove the GIF
file in question from your page, register GIF Construction Set to
make it legal or just pretend we're extraterrestials and wait for
us to beam up and go away. To phrase it another way, you're free
to decide whether you see yourself as being part of a lawless
Internet, wherein everyone does as he or she pleases --
presumably doing it to you one day soon -- or whether you feel
that the Internet has a conscience and a sense of ethics, of
which you are part.

If you're not prepared to register GIF Construction Set, we would
certainly prefer to see you remove any GIF files created by
unregistered copies of it from your web page, however they got
there. However, as was noted earlier, this is the Internet -- no
one is going to force you to do so.


Q: Can I bundle GIF Construction Set with my commercial product.
A: Possibly, but please read the Shareware Distribution document
that accompanies GIF Construction Set first, and then get in
touch with us before you proceed.


Q: How much do upgrades for a registered copy of GIF Construction
Set cost?
A: Upgrades in the 1.0 series are free -- just download the
current shareware release and install it on a system with a
registered copy. It will find your registration code and become a
registered copy. We have no current plans to amend this situation
in the foreseeable future, although we reserve the right to do so
if we change our minds.


Q: I registered GIF Construction Set for Windows 3.1, but I've
upgraded to Windows 95 or NT. How much will the 32-bit version
cost me?
A: Nothing. We sell functionality, not platforms. You can
download it from our web page. The same registration code works
in both versions.

Hands up all Windows users who consider Windows 95 to be an
"upgrade".


Q: I live outside North America -- how much more must I add for
shipping?
A: Nothing. The $5.00 (US) shipping charge for GIF Construction
Set will get it anywhere on earth by air mail -- prices for the
Martian colonies are slightly higher.


Q: Why does the downloadable shareware version of GIF
Construction Set 32 not come with an installation function with a
blue gradient background and an uninstaller?
A: Many 32-bit applications are installed using a package called
InstallSheild. While a very well-executed installer, having it
install GIF Construction Set would have about doubled the size of
its download. In addition, Install Sheild makes changes to the
system files and registry of the system it runs on -- among other
things to enable its uninstaller. We feel that shareware
shouldn't mess with your system, and our installer does not. See
the question elsewhere in this document about uninstalling GIF
Construction Set.


Q: What is the Unisys GIF tax and does this mean that I must pay
a royalty on GIF files I create?
A: The GIF format was originally created by CompuServe. The image
compression algorithm used by GIF files is called LZW. At the
time GIF was created, back in 1987, CompuServe appears to have
assumed that LZW was a public domain entity -- at least, there's
no indication that they did a patent search to find out whether
LZW was owned by anyone. CompuServe announced the GIF format in
1987 with the following grant of rights to developers:

"While this document is copyrighted, the information contained
within is made available for use in computer software without
royalties, or licensing restrictions."

As it happens, CompuServe didn't actually have these rights
to grant -- LZW is a patented entity which is currently owned by
the Unisys Corporation.

Unisys actually acquired the LZW patent in 1985. They didn't make
much noise about it until December of 1994, however, leaving
sufficient time for GIF to be widely adopted as a graphic file
format. Among other things, it became the defacto standard for
lossless graphics on the web.

At the end of 1994, Unisys announced that it would be demanding
royalties from any developer who created for-profit software
which can read or write graphic files using LZW compression --
for practical purposes, this includes GIF and some TIFF files.

Our understanding of this situation, as explained to us by our
trademark and patent attorneys, is that Unisys can demand a
royalty for software which uses its patented algorithm to read or
write GIF files, but not for the data the algorithm creates. As
such, while we must pay Unisys a royalty on each copy of GIF
Construction Set registered, you're safe in using GIF files
without any interference from Unisys.

Our attorneys have also recommended that we not say what we think
about Unisys' conduct in this situation, so we'll leave it to
your imagination. Note that Unisys would now like to sell us all
Internet-based services and hardware. Ya, right...


Q: Can I use some of the images at the Alchemy Mindworks web page
on my own page?
A: If you are a registered user of GIF Construction Set, you are
welcome to use the animated moving red ball graphic and the
animated spinning compact disk graphic on your page. There are
two conditions to this:

1. Your page must include a link back to ours, and credit for the
source of the images.

2. You must download these files from our page and reference
copies of them on your server, rather than referencing the files
on our page. From time to time we change the links and the file
names for frequently "borrowed" files, replacing them with
something else entirely. You probably don't want to see what
"something else" looks like.

If you'd like a graphic to use for a link to our page, please
check the link at the bottom of our main page to download one.


Q: If I have a registered copy of GIF Construction Set, do I have
to pay a royalty to Alchemy Mindworks if I sell the animations I
create?
A: No. Your intellectual property is yours to do with as you
like. You also don't have to acknowledge the software you used to
create 'em, although you're welcome to do so if you like, with
our thanks.


Q: I've tried to enter my registration name and code into the
Setup dialog of GIF Construction Set, but the Accept button
remains inactive. What can I do?
A: This is caused by a bug in version 1.0N of GIF Construction
Set. You can work around it by reinstalling the software. Make
sure GIF Construction Set is not running. Delete the file
\WINDOWS\GIFCON.INI. Re-install GIF Construction Set from the
archive and enter your registration code and name in the
installer screen that prompts you for them.


SECTION 2: Technical Support
----------------------------

Q: Can I get technical support for GIF Construction Set even if
I'm not a registered user yet?
A: We will, at our discretion, provide limited technical support
to unregistered users to help you evaluate the software. Please
note that we reserve the right to discontinue technical support
to specific unregistered users if we feel that your requests on
our technical support facilities are excessive, or if your
questions are answered in the GIF Construction Set documentation.


Q: Is there a limit to the amount of technical support I'm
entitled to as a registered user?
A: We would like your use of GIF Construction Set to be as
effortless and productive as possible. As such, we do not impose
specific limits on technical support -- if you're genuinely
having a lot of problems, we're here to get you through them.
However, technical support is not a talking manual. We reserve
the right to refuse to provide technical support to users with
questions which are answered in this document, or in the GIF
Construction Set documentation.

If you're really new to computers, to Windows or to the net, you
might need to read up on these areas before we can assist you
with specific problems in GIF Construction Set. We consider that
the question "which one of the plastic things on my desk is the
mouse?" is a good indication that you have some way to go before
you need to talk to us.

We will usually not be able to help you with applications from
other developers, even if you're using their files with GIF
Construction Set, or GIF Construction Set's files with them. We
cannot direct you to books to read or places on the web to find
out about things other than our software.

We cannot provide technical support in languages other than
English. That's contemporary English, by the way, rather than,
say, Chaucerian English. Neither jive nor val-speak constitute
English for the purposes of this discussion. Inserting the word
"blimey" into another language at regular intervals doesn't
qualify as English either.

Finally, we will hang up on, shred or delete requests for
technical support from users who are rude or abusive.


Q: How can I contact the technical support desk for GIF
Construction Set?
A: You can get technical support by e-mail at
[e-mail] -- questions sent to this e-mail address
are usually answered within 48 hours, and often within two or
three hours.

You can also call us at 1-905-936-9501 between 10:00am and 5:00pm
EST, most working days. If you get the voice-mail machine, all
our lines are busy. We will not under any circumstances return
calls for technical support. Please do not call the 800 number
for technical support -- this connects to our order desk, which
knows nothing about software. They cannot transfer you to someone
who does.

Please read this document in its entirety and the Documentation
file for GIF Construction Set before you call technical support.


Q: What's the best time to call the technical support desk.
A: Before noon EST is usually somewhat quieter, as the west coast
hasn't come on line as yet. Noon to one EST is dodgy, as it's
lunch time. Afternoons can get fairly busy. Friday is
particularly heavy, as Sprint gives some of its customers free
long distance calling on Fridays. Some of them call us just to
chat. Thanks, Sprint...

We are often able to provide technical support on weekends and
after hours -- if anyone is working here during this period,
they'll be happy to assist you as best they can. Note that after-
hours technical support cannot help you with questions about
order status or software registration codes. If you call after
hours and get voice mail, there's no one about.


Q: Is there any way to call technical support without my paying
for the call?
A: Aside from relocating to beautiful Adjala township in central
Ontario to raise potatoes and drink warm, flat beer, no. Unlike
many software developers, we do not impose a per-call fee on
technical support, nor will you find yourself on hold for fifteen
minutes listening to elevator music if you call us. However, the
only way we could provide toll-free technical support would be to
increase the price of our shareware to cover the phone costs.
This would, in effect, impose the cost of technical support on
everyone who uses Alchemy Mindworks' software, even though only a
few users would actually be calling for technical support.

We feel strongly that people shouldn't be required to pay for
services they don't actually get. We believe that this would be
fundamentally wrong. We further feel that if our various
governments felt the same way, our various economies wouldn't be
melting down as you read this.


Q: What information should I provide if I wish to report a
problem?
A: This varies to some extent with the nature of the problem --
some common sense is called for. If the problem you have
described is not addressed in this document, please tell us:

- Which build and version of GIF Construction Set are you using?
This can be found in the lower right corner of the application
window for unregistered copies, and in the About dialog for
registered ones. An example of this information would be "Version
1.0N, 32-bit build".

- Which version of Windows are you using? This might be Windows
3.1, Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows NT 3.51 or Windows NT
4.0.

- How much memory is in your system?

- Were any other applications running at the time the problem
occured, or had any other applications run earlier in your
current session? What were their names? This includes alternate
task managers.

- What exactly had you done prior to the appearance of the
problem?

- What error message appeared?

- Do you play the oboe?

As a rule, problems which cannot be reproduced in house can't be
fixed. Please don't quote the sea of numbers that Windows
provides when an application terminates unexpectedly -- they're
not much use nailing down these sorts of problems.


Q: I'm having difficulties with a GIF file. Can I e-mail it to
you so you can see what's happening?
A: Please query first -- your problem may be something we've
heard of, and we'll be able to recommend a solution for it
immediately. Under no circumstances should you e-mail us a GIF
file which is over 50K in length. Our mail server automatically
deletes files bigger than this, as well as the messages they're
attached to.

If you do e-mail us a GIF file, please send it as a MIME-encoded
attachment. Do not uuencode it, or try sending the binary file as
a text message.


Q: What is the longest recorded flight of a chicken?
A: Thirteen seconds.


SECTION 3: Running GIF Construction Set
---------------------------------------

Q: When I click on View to see an animated GIF file, nothing
happens -- all I see is the first image. What's wrong?
A: This is a bug which appeared in the 1.0J 32-bit version, and
again in the 1.0M 32-bit version. It only affects machines
running certain builds of Windows 95 and NT with a 16- or 256-
colour screen driver installed. It's permanently fixed in version
1.0N -- using the sixteen-bit version or installing a 32,768-
colour or better Windows screen driver will work around the
problem in earlier versions.


Q: My animated GIF files looked fine in GIF Construction Set, but
they appear tiny on my web page. What's wrong?
A: This seems to happen when pages are built with a number of
popular web page creation packages, including FrontPage, HotDog
and Netscape Gold. We do not use these packages in house, and
cannot confirm that there's a problem with them. However, it
appears that they install WIDTH= and HEIGHT= elements into the
HTML coding which references the anaimated GIF files in question,
and that these values are incorrect when animated GIF files are
used. You can remedy this situation by opening your HTML document
in a text editor, such as Windows Notepad, locating the reference
to the GIF files in question, and deleteing the WIDTH= and
HEIGHT= elements.


Q: Some of my GIF files with transparent backgrounds exhibit an
irregular coloured aura around the non-transparent elements. Is
this due to bad karma, or is something amiss?
A: Something's amiss. These are usually pixels which have a
colour similar to that of your transparent colour, but are
actually being drawn in a different palette colour.

Here's how this can happen. Imagine a figure against a white
background. The background is solid white, and as such if white
is assigned as the transparent colour, it will drop out
correctly. If there are a few very light grey pixels at the edges
of the figure, you might not have noticed them when the figure
was against a white background, but when the background becomes
transparent, they'll become quite visible, as they'll be almost
white but not transparent.

You can fix this by editing your image with a paint package and
replacing the slightly off-colour pixels with pixels which are
the same as those of your intended transparent colour. This can
be a bit fiddly.

Keep in mind that there can only be one transparent colour per
image in a GIF file, and that the transparent "colour" is really
a transparent palette index number. As such, if you were to
assign colour 255 as the transparent colour, colour 254 would not
be transparent, even if colour 254 and colour 255 are in fact
the same visible colour.


Q: Sometimes I attempt to import source image files into GIF
Construction Set and they report as corrupt, even through I know
they're good. What's wrong.
A: This was a really obscure bug -- after a long and troublesome
life, we're pretty sure it has gone done in defeat in version
1.0P, available at our web page. Barring this, we recommend that
you use the sixteen-bit version of GIF Construction Set. In a
pinch, the Merge feature gets around it.


Q: How can I create buttons that wait for a user to click on them
with GIF Construction Set?
A: You can't -- the Wait for User Input flag is not implemented
in Netscape.


Q: My animations view fine in GIF Construction Set, but only
display once in Netscape. What's Wrong?
A: This can be caused by one of several things. Check the disk
cache value in Netscape. It should be at least five megabytes, or
5000 kilobytes. Also, check your Netscape version -- the 3.0 beta
releases have exhibited various problems like this.


Q: Can I create a GIF file with a small animated image moving
over a larger background frame?
A: Maybe, sometimes, not really. There are several problems
inherent in this. First off, a GIF Loop block always loops the
whole file, which means that your background frame will
periodically repaint itself. This is quite noticeable on slower
machines. Secondly, as of this writing Remove by Previous Image
does not work in Netscape, so animated images moving over a
background frame may leave bits of themselves behind. This
feature does appear to work in Microsoft Explorer 3.0, but not
everyone uses Explorer.

If your animated tile won't actually move around relative to your
background frame, you can usually get away with this.


Q: The animations I create in GIF Construction Set play at the
wrong speed in Netscape. Can this be fixed?
A: Not really. Netscape's animation drivers have a somewhat
variable playback speed as of this writing. It depends to a
considerable extent on your machine speed, available system
resources, whether your mouse is moving and the size and colour
depth of your animated image. Whether or not you own a cat and
feed it enough cheese probably enters into the problem as well.
While you can adjust the playback speed for a specific speed on
your system by changing the Delay values in the Control blocks
for your animated GIF file, this will only guarantee the
"correct" playback speed on your system. It will probably vary on
other machines. This is a characteristic of Netscape we're all
stuck with at present.


Q: How do I create a transparent GIF file with GIF Construction
Set?
A: Here's the procedure, step by step:

1. Open a GIF file. You should have a Header block and and Image
block visible in GIF Construction Set.

2. Click on the Header block once.

3. Click on Insert.

4. Click on Control. You should now have a Header, a Control and
an Image block.

5. Double-click on the Control block to edit it.

6. Enable Transparent colour.

7. Click on the eyedropper tool and use it to select the colour
in your image that you want to be transparent.

8. Click on OK and save the file.


Q: Does GIF Construction Set run under Windows NT
A: Yes, it does -- but only the recent versions have been fully
NT compatible. Versions prior to 1.0M are not recommended for use
under NT.


Q: The GIF files I create with GIF Construction Set push all the
text on my page way down the screen, leaving a large blank area
around the image. Have my GIF files somehow inadvertently
offended my text by being politically incorrect or having
unsightly warts, or is there something wrong?
A: Begin by checking your GIF files for political correctness --
if they include graphics of women smiling, kids playing with toy
guns or North American cars, you have your answer.

Barring this, you're probably using an older version of GIF
Construction Set. It's caused by having the Screen Width and
Screen Depth fields of the Header block of your GIF file set too
large. The current version of GIF Construction Set will set them
for you automatically when you save a GIF file. Older versions
left them at their default values of 640 by 480 pixels.

If you have an older version of the software, edit these fields
so they're the same size as the pixel dimensions of your images.
Alternately, get the latest version of GIF Construction Set from
our web page.

Note that the Adjust Header on Save option in the Setup dialog
must be enabled in the current version of GIF Construction Set
for this feature to work.


Q: When I downloaded GIF Construction Set, there was text
scrolling across the status bar of my web browser. Was this an
animated GIF, and if so, how can I do this on my own page?
A: Actually, that's a Java script. Download one of the pages that
has it to a local HTML file and swipe the <SCRIPT> </SCRIPT> part
at the top, as well as the <BODY> tag immediately after it.
There's an alternate one in the Fiction section of our web page
that's kind of slick too.


Q: I created transparent GIF files in another application and
imported them into GIF Construction Set. The images imported
fine, but they're no longer transparent. What's wrong?
A: GIF Construction Set's Insert Image and Animation Wizard
features only import images -- not Control blocks. You can either
use Merge to preserve the Control blocks of your source images or
add new Control blocks as required and set the transparency
values therein after using Insert Image or Animation Wizard.

The Manage function of the Block menu is handy for doing this for
a whole GIF file at once.


Q: I get coloured speckles in the background of my images, or
the images themselves look crunchy and of poor quality once
they've been imported into GIF Construction Set. What am I doing
wrong?
A: It sounds like you're dithering twice -- once to get your
images into GIF files and a second time to get your GIF files
into GIF Construction Set. How you deal with this problem will be
determined to some extent by the nature of your images.

If you can get your source images into GIF files which you're
happy with -- such as by exporting them from your paint
application to GIF -- use the Animation Wizard with its Match to
First Palette option to build your animated GIF file. This will
prevent GIF Construction Set from dithering your images, and all
should be well. You need version 1.0P or better to access this
option.

If you wish to build your GIF file by hand, rather than through
Animation Wizard, open the first of your source GIF files in GIF
Construction Set and use Insert Image to insert the remaining
files into it. If the palette dialog appears, select Remap to
Global Palette. Use the Manage function to insert Control blocks
into your file when your images are imported, and save the
resulting graphics to a new file name with Save As.

Read the next few questions and answers for further discussion
about this issue.


Q: The background of my GIF file can't be made wholly transparent
because it has dots of other colours in it. What's wrong?
A: It's dithered. If your source images are essentially drawn,
the best way to get around this is to rebuild your GIF file using
one of the drawn image options in Wizard, or using Remap to
Global Palette in Insert Image.


Q: How can I avoid completely having GIF Construction Set or
Netscape dither images I create in an imaging package, such as
PhotoShop?
A: Create your image such that all the colours in your source
image are drawn from the Netscape 216-colour palette. See the
next question in this document if you don't have the Netscape
216-colour palette available.

How you create your images to use this palette is up to you and
your image creation software.

Having created suitable images, export them to a format that GIF
Construction Set will read -- because they must, by their nature,
have no more than 256 colours, you can even use the GIF format.

If you're using the Animation Wizard feature of GIF Construction
Set, be sure to choose the Draw Images option and tell it that
you'll be creating animated GIF files for use on a web page. If
you're using Insert Image, set the default palette in Setup to
the Netscape 216-colour option. Insert your images and select
Remap to Global Palette from the Palette dialog when it appears.

These options tell GIF Construction Set to remap your images,
rather than dither them. Because both your source images and the
GIF file GIF Construction Set is building for you have the same
palette -- the Netscape 216-colour palette -- all the source
colours will remap exactly to colours in the final palette, and
no colour shifts will occur.

This is the safest way to create photographic animated GIF files
with transparent backgrounds if your photographic images are
starting out in a package like Photoshop.


Q: What is the Netscape 216-colour palette, also called the
Netscape "safe" palette? How can I use it in my imaging software?
A: When it's running on a system with a 256-colour screen driver,
Netscape remaps all its graphics to a fixed palette having 216
colours. If you create graphics which use this palette, you can
be assured that no colour shifts or dithering will occur in
Netscape, even if they're viewed on a machine with limited colour
depth.

GIF Construction Set has the Netscape 216-colour palette as one
of its default palette options. If you need this palette, open
the Setup dialog of GIF Construction Set and make sure that the
Default Palette combo box is set to the Netscape 216-Colour
option. Having done so, create a new GIF file by selecting New
from the File menu. Insert an image into it -- the nature of the
image itself doesn't matter, as all you want is the palette. Save
this file.

You can now open this temporary GIF file into your imaging
software -- PhotoShop, PhotoPaint or whatever you like the look
of -- and extract its palette. Use this palette when you create
new files or convert 24-bit images to 256 colours for export to a
GIF file. Save the palette so you can use it again at a later
date without having to repeat the foregoing procedure.


Q: What are the THN files created by GIF Construction Set, and do
I need to keep them?
A: THN files store the GIF Construction Set thumbnails, and are
only used by GIF Construction Set and other Alchemy Mindworks
applications. You can delete them if you wish. Open Setup and
turn off Write Thumbnails to prevent their being created in the
future.


Q: Is it true that interlaced GIF files download to a web page
faster?
A: No, the opposite is usually true. They take a bit more time to
display under most web browsers, and because interlacing can
break up consecutive pixel runs at the ends of lines, interlacing
can actually make your GIF files larger in pathological cases.


Q: How did you create the moving bullet graphic, the spinning
compact disc graphic and the slide show graphic at the Alchemy
Mindworks web page?
A: They were all created with GIF Construction Set. The moving
bullet graphic is a single small GIF image repeated multiple
times, with each iteration being moved right by a few pixels. The
Manage function in the Block menu of GIF Construction Set makes
it easy to do this.

The spinning compact disc graphic was created by rotating the
image of a compact disc several times in Graphic Wprkshop for
Windows and then assembling the frames in GIF Construction Set.

The slide show is just an animated GIF file with a different
picture for each frame.


Q: Can GIF Construction Set add sound to my animated GIF files?
A: No, the GIF specification does not include facilities for
sampled audio at present.


Q: Can I get more than 256 colours in a GIF file image?
A: No, the GIF specification does not support images with more
than 256 colours at present. This situation is likely to remain
for the foreseeable future.

Actually, this is almost completely true. See the next question
and answer for further discussion about this subject.


Q: What are Wide Palette GIF Files, and do they really allow a
GIF file to store more than 256 colours?
A: Wide palette GIF files let a GIF file store images having more
than 256 colours, but they do so in a very peculiar way. It's
important to understand what they're up to. This feature appears
in the release version of GIF Construction Set 1.0N and later
versions. It's only available in the 32-bit build.

A GIF image can only store a maximum of 256 colours. However, a
GIF file can store any number of images. If each image has its
own local palette, it's possible to have more than 256 different
colours stored in the file.

This is what wide palette GIF files do. If the source image you
wished to store in one had 510 distinct colours, GIF Construction
Set would create a GIF file with two Image blocks. The first
Image block would have a local palette with the first 255 colours
of your source image in it. The second Image block would have a
local palette with the second 255 colours from your source image.
Each palette would also have one colour that did not appear
anywhere in your source image, to be used as a transparent
colour. When such a GIF file is displayed, the multiple images
will merge on your screen to create a complete picture having
more than 256 distinct colours.

Wide palette GIF files allow you to enjoy lossless images having
lots of colours in a format which is compatible with existing web
browsers. However, they embody some important catches. They tend
to be kind of large. They display properly in most web browsers
and in GIF Construction Set, but practically nowhere else. If one
is displayed on a system with a 256-colour screen driver, it will
look ugly enough to mutate bacteria.

There's more complete information about wide palette GIF files in
the documentation and Help section of GIF Construction Set.


Q: Can I break an animated GIF file apart into its individual
frames so I can edit them?
A: Yes -- the Extract function in the Block menu can be used to
do this.


Q: After I use the Export function on my animated GIF files, they
don't animate any more. What's wrong?
A: This is not what Export is intended for -- you should have
just saved your animated GIF files. Export combines all the
elements in a multiple-image GIF file into a new single-image GIF
file, to allow complex graphics like the EXAMPLE.GIF file that
accompanies GIF Construction Set to be imported into applications
which can only read single-image files.


Q: I get all the way to the end of Animation Wizard, select a
file and it will not allow me to go any further. What's wrong?
A: Animation Wizard requires that you specify two or more files
to create an animation.


Q: Do you have somewhere I can download some animated GIF files
to use at my page?
A: No, we don't offer any sort of on-line image libraries. There
numerous such pages on the web, however. Search Yahoo or Lycos
for the words "animation" and "gif" to turn them up.


Q: Can I import a number of source images at once into GIF
Construction Set, or must I select them individually?
A: The Insert Image function allows you to select multiple images
at once. Click on Insert and select Image. When the file dialog
appears, you can:

- Hold down the Ctrl key and select more than one file name by
clicking on it.

- Hold down the Shift key and click on the beginning and then the
end of a range of file names to select.

- Hold and drag your mouse over a range of file names to select
them.

Once you have finished selecting images, click on OK. When the
palette dialog appears, enable the Use for Subsequent Images
option to process all the images without the Palette dialog
appearing again.

Animation Wizard also allows for multiple file selection using
the same controls. This option does not appear in versions older
than the 1.0N release.


Q: I created a GIF file which includes Plain Text blocks. They
display correctly in GIF Construction Set, but the text doesn't
appear on my web page. What's wrong?
A: As of this writing, not all the popular web browsers support
Plain Text blocks. You should not use this feature of GIF files in
creating GIF files for use with a web page.


Q:I'm trying to create a GIF file with a 32-colour palette, (or a
64- or 128-colour palette) but GIF Construction Set keeps
promoting it to 256 colours. What's wrong?
A: There are two things happening here. In some cases, GIF
Construction Set 1.0N and earlier will display the colour depth
of image blocks incorrectly in its block list. Anything between
32 and 256 colours displays as 256 colours. If you open a 32-
colour GIF file, for example, GIF Constrction Set will tell you
it's has 256-colour images, even though it does not. This is a
cosmetic problem, and can be ignored, as the images are handled
internally at their correct colour depths.

If you import images into GIF Construction Set though Animation
Wizard, Insert Image or Merge, they'll be promoted to the next
hightest legal Windows bitmap colour depth, that is two, sixteen
or 256 colours.


Q: When I import or open some two-colour GIF files, the colours
are changed to black and white, or black and white images are
reversed. Have I been staring at a cheap monitor from Sears too
long, or is this a bug?
A: Actually, it's a bug. It's fixed in version 1.0N.


Q: When I have an animated GIF file on my web page, Netscape's
Stop button never disables entirely. Is this a problem, and does
it mean that the file is continuously reading from the server?
A: This is Netscape's usual behavior for animated GIF files, and
is nothing to be worried about. Once an animated GIF file has
been downloaded, Netscape will read it from the local cache on
your hard drive. In practice, this means that it's really reading
it from your in-memory disk cache. Just ignore the flashing Stop
button.


Q: I've created animated GIF files which display perfectly in GIF
Construction Set, but which exhibit a flash, hiccup or momentary
blank area at the end of a loop when I see them as part of a web
page under Netscape. What's wrong?
A: This appears to be a problem with the way Netscape displays
animated GIF files. While you can't elimiate it entirely, here
are some of the things that seem to make it more noticeable.

- Animated images having large pixel dimensions, or GIF files
which have large screen dimensions.

- Animated images having local palettes.

- Animated images having global palettes which are radically
different from the Netscape 216-colour palette if they're
displayed by Netscape running on a 256-colour system. Actually,
this problem always seems to get at least a bit worse if you view
your GIF files through Netscape on a 256-colour system.

- Netscape running on a slow machine -- the problem gets a lot
worse on a '486-based box.

- Netscape running in restricted memory or with restricted
graphic resources, such as on a system with lots of other
applications running.


Q: I've created an animated GIF file with transparent elements.
When the GIF file plays, parts of the previous frames linger on
the screen in the transparent areas. How can I fix this?
A: This is caused by the presence of transient intra-dimensional
life forces caught in the rift between parallel universes caused
by an extraterrestrial spacecraft which crashed at Roswell, New
Mexico in 1947.

Actually, that's not entirely true -- it's caused by having the
Remove By fields in your Control blocks set to Nothing when they
should be set to Background for animated GIF files with
transparency. Change these fields in each of your Control blocks
-- or use the Manage feature of the Block menu to do them all at
once -- and your animations will play correctly.


Q: I've created transparent GIF files with GIF Construction Set
which display correctly under Netscape running on a PC, but lose
their transparency when my pages are displayed by Netscape
running on a Macintosh. What's wrong?
A: This is caused by a bug in the Macintosh version of Netscape
as of this writing. There's no way around it until Netscape
releases a fixed build.


Q: When I try to run GIF Construction Set, I see a message from
Windows which says "The AVIFIL32.DLL file is linked to missing
export NTDLL.DLL:memmove", or Windows complains that it can't
locate or can't load AVIFIL32.DLL or DCIMAN32.DLL. Did liberals
steal my DLL file, or is the problem more serious still?
A: Always blame liberals, even if they're not at fault. It makes
up for all the things they get away with.

You have an old or incorrect version of AVIFIL32.DLL or
DCIMAN32.DLL on your system, or it's missing all together. Check
to see if this file exists anywhere on your hard drive other than
in \WINDOWS\SYSTEM, and reload it from your Windows 95 master
disk or CD-ROM if necessary. Having done so, delete any other
copies of AVIFIL32.DLL or DCIMAN32.DLL on your system.

This can also happen if you have two versions of Windows on your
hard drive -- say 95 and NT -- and both SYSTEM directories are on
your command path.


                          - THAT'S IT -