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***************************************************************************** * * * Please read the GIFREED.DOC for complete instructions on GIF-REED. * * * ***************************************************************************** ******************* [ Important..... Please Read........] ****************** You should ALWAYS delete your: GIFV.CFG, GIFV.CAT, GIFV.PRN files before loading any New version of GIF-REED in case the formats for the configuration files differs from your old one. Once in the program, reset all the switches the way you want them. Then use ALT-U to save out your NEW configurations. It's NOT that big of a deal to do, so just do it to it! Otherwise your system may LOCK-UP upon loading GIF-REED! **************************************************************************** GIF-REED History of changes: NEW this 4.12 version 2/17/93: Fixed printing to HP LASER in "dither only" quality mode. Fixed the WRITE G command in the script language! Official release of Shareware version to CompuServe! NEW this 4.11 version 2/15/93: Fixed Runtime Error 200, after pressing P to print! If your environment variable TEMP or TMP is set to an invalid directory then GIF-REED will tell you as it starts to run. Made ALT-G so that if a directory contained more than ONE type of image file only ONE entry is made in the PATH list as *.? instead of 4 separate entries of *.GIF *.BMP *.PCX *.PIC. This saves on the PATH list. You can now break out of an ALT-G operation by pressing the ESCAPE key. Just in case you realize you didn't want to do it or if you decide it would take too long to complete. If you move or copy files into the SAME directory over and over, you get a build up of the same entry in the PATH list. It's now changed so that if it appears that a new entry in the PATH list would duplicate one that is already there then the new entry is NOT added. The drive choices that appear are scanned for only once. This way if you have a SLOW drive (CD-ROM, etc...), you won't be slowed down each time you switch to a new directory. NEW this 4.10 version 2/12/93: Added 24 pin support for EPSON LQ type printers and compatibles. Along with the 24 pin support, you of course have more resolutions to pick from. Added default support for printers. For example: When you choose HP Laser, the default settings become HALFTONE-B and 300x300. If you choose EPSON FX, the default settings become DITHER ONLY and 240x72. This is so that if you don't want the play around with the different possible combinations of resolutions and quality options, the defaults picked are pretty much the optimum settings for best looking output. Of course after you have selected a printer, you can go back and change the quality type and printer resolution! NEW this 4.06 version 2/08/93: Nothing, Just changed the version number. New ShareWare release. Sent to CompuServe and everywhere else! NEW this 4.05 version 2/08/93: Fixed keyboard bug. It was possible to press the 5 on the NUMERIC key pad and lock the program up. It appeared that this was the only keystroke that would lock the program up. It also would lock up ONLY if the NUM-LOCK key light was OFF. This was a rare occurance since the 5 on the numeric keypad does NOTHING if the num-lock light is OFF. After fixing the bug, I could see how other wierd(non-standard) keystroke entries could have locked it up. The lock up was a non-dest- ructive lock-up. No data loss would have occured!!!!!!!!!! Added new capability to print function: You can now send the printer your very own customized printer initialization codes. These codes will be sent to your printer BEFORE any printing has started. This way you can control your printer fully. Also we added the ability to send the printer customized printer codes AFTER the image is printed. The way you build the customized codes is easy. There are TWO files to create: 1. GIFVINIT.PRN (Codes to send BEFORE print starts) 2. GIFVPOST.PRN (Codes to send AFTER image prints) If either of these files exist in the GIF-REED directory at the time of printing, they will be scanned for printer codes to send to the printer. For example: If you wanted to send to the printer an ESCAPE, then an uppercase A and then a return; You would put in the GIFVINIT.PRN file the following: 27,"A",13 The 27 is the ASCII code for ESCAPE. The 13 is the ASCII code for return(ENTER). The "A" will be sent to the printer directly. In fact ANYTHING inside QUOTES will be sent to the printer WITHOUT translation. So for example, you could send: "This is a cool IMAGE!",13,13 This would send the title "This is a cool IMAGE!" (without the quotes of course) to the printer! Then 2(two) line feeds will be sent. NOTE: This capability is NOT for most people. Only use it if you need to and know what ASCII codes to send to the printer!!!! NOTE: ANY line in the GIFVINIT.PRN or GIFVPOST.PRN files that start with a ";"(semicolon) will be ignored. This is so that you may put comments in these files without actually sending the comments to your printer! NEW this 4.04 version 2/03/93: Allow for 3072 files in the PRO and SYSOP version of GIF-REED! Made program need MORE memory: 1. NON-REGISTERED 390K minimum 456K maximum 2. REGISTERED 334K minimum 400K maximum 3. PRO GIF-REED 390K minimum 614K maximum 4. SYSOP GIF-REED 390K minimum 614K maximum Fixed minor bug when moving files. The files would move but sometimes the screen wouldn't appear properly afterwords. It now displays properly after doing file moves within GIF-REED. NEW this 4.03 version 1/28/93: Added support for making catalogs with a WHITE background. This is good for people who print their catalogs and don't want to wast a bunch of toner! Now Supports HP Laser Jet and Epson Dot Matrix printers Much better control over the printed output and the printed output is FAR SUPERIOR to any other print program. If you think you have a program that produces BETTER output than GIF-REED, call me and please let me know which program it is!!!!!!! Pro GIF-REED has complete printer control. Registered GIF-REED can do everything but set margins NON-REGISTERED GIF-REED can only print within a 4 inch square NEW this 4.02 version 1/20/93: Added ENTERTAINMENT mode. When viewing a picture just press ALT-E to enter entertainment mode. In entertainment mode, you can select from one of three games. You can pick SLIDEIT, JIGSAWIT or GUESSIT. If you pick SlideIt Then your picture will become a puzzle. Its up to you to move the squares around on the screen with the Up/Down/Left and Right arrow keys to solve the puzzle. In order to MIX up the pixture press the "J" key to jumble it up. If you want to see what the original picture looked like, press the "V" key to view the original image. If you want to see what order the squares belong in press the "O" key to show the order of the squares. The squares are number from 1 to 16 starting with the top row as being 1 thru 4. In actuallity since the upper left square is blanked out that square is considered a -1 and NOT a 1. If you decide you are not smart enough to un scramble the picture you can press "C" for cheat. This will unscramble the picture. If you just want to cheat a little bit, press "S" to swap two squares that are next to each other! When you are done with the entertainment mode just press ESCAPE and you will be brought back into the NORMAL viewing mode of your ORIGINAL picture. NOTE: There are 3 levels of play. 1. Easy 2. Hard 3. Expert The easy mode doesn't have the SWAP feature because it's so easy you will not need to use it. The EXPERT mode also doesn't have the SWAP feature because if you are an EXPERT you shouldn't have to rely on cheating features to solve the puzzle. If you pick JigSawIt, the picture is scambled much the same as the SlideIt game. This game is a little easier in that all you have to do is to use the arrow keys to pick a square then press return. Now the square is selected. Now move the selection box to where you want the selected square to go. Then press return again. Now the two squares will be swapped with each other. If you pick GuessIt, the picture is scambled much the same as the JigSawIt game. This game is a little harder because the screen starts out as being blank. Use the arrow keys to move the selection box, then press return. The square will reveal the portion on the image that is in the box. Now move the selection box to where you think the box should go. Press return again. Now if you picked the correct spot the image will remain displayed. If you guessed wrong, then the square will be blanked out. Once you have all of the squares in their correct spot then you will have won. SCORING: Everytime you use the View or Order functions, 50 points will be deducted. Every second it takes you to solve the puzzle will deduct 4 points. Everytime you use the Swap function, 100 points will be deducted. If you are playing GuessIt and make a wrong choice, 50 points will be deducted. Since your score starts at 5000, it would be impossible to achive a score greater than 5000! Updated the GIFVWIN.EXE program to offer better selections. Easier to use. More support for video 7 cards (1024x768 is now supported!) Now works better with the S3 type of VGA Boards such as the Orchid 1280! Now works with the EVEREX 678 & 673 cards Fixed a little bug where you you couldn't specify a subdirectory with a path that had a "." in it. For example: "F:\GIFS\MY.GIF" this would result in GIF-REED thinking the path was actually a filename because of the period. GIF-REED now properly recognizes the fact that this is a directory if it truely is a directory. Made SYSOP version! This version supports the insertion of titles into picture catalogs being created by GIF-REED. Sysop version also supports the DIR files created & used by PCBOARD 14.5 & Up. It also supports the creating of a TEXT file used by WildCat to import descriptions into the WildCat directory listings. Use the following format: C>GIFV path /C:catname /T:title /BBS:{PCBOARD,PCBOARDL,WILDCAT} /DIR:filename The path indicates where the images are that are to be cataloged. The catname is the name of the resulting catalog. The title is the name of an image file that is to be used as a TITLE to your catalogs. The /BBS: command indicates what type of BBS support you want. So far the BBS's supported are PCBOARD and WILDCAT. The PCBOARDL is used if you want the description file to contain a longer(detailed) description of the files that are contained in the catalog files. The /DIR: command tells where the resulting description file is to go! With this in mind you could to the following command. C>GIFV F:\GIFS /C:NEW /T:YOURS.GIF /BBS:PCBOARD /DIR:F:\PCB\NODE1\DIR99 This command would take all images in F:\GIFS and catalog them up. The catalogs will be called NEW___00.GIF, NEW___01.GIF, NEW___02.GIF and so on. They will be stored in the GIF-REED program directory. These catalogs will also have your BRAND on it by placing a title at the TOP of the catalogs. The image used to create the title is read from a file called YOURS.GIF stored in the GIF-REED program directory. The resulting catalogs will have complete filenames & descriptions stored in PCBOARD format using the SHORT form in the file called F:\PCB\NODE1\DIR99. If any entries are currently in the DIR99 file, they will remain. This should facilitate the posting of NEW gifs via the catalog method! This is a GIF's SYSOPS dream(hopefully)! Made saving files & Rotate & Shrink & other operations that require temp files MUCH faster! Even writing GIF, BMP, PCX and PIC files are much faster! Added Support for Gray Catalog images. Saves space! And MUCHO FasterO! Added support to KEEP old GIF comments when re-saving a GIF file! Fixed bug in DOS/BOSS (ALT-F2) key. When you got to the DOS prompt the mouse was STILL operative! This was WRONG. It is now disabled! As you are tagging (right button click) images from the catalog you can NOW VIEW images from within the catalog by clicking on them without worrying about losing the tagged files list. Fixed small bug where if the image on the screen was smaller than 12 dots wide and you did an operation that would cause the screen to be saved out, the screen wouldn't be restored properly. Most people would have NEVER noticed this, but it's fixed now FYI. Now works with OS/2 BMP files. Fixed Writing of 256 color PCX files. Now other programs can properly view them too! NEW this 3.09c version 1/1/93: NON-REGISTERED can't do >640x480 and 3 Rows! No auto-cat feature either REGISTERED can't do >800x600 and 5 Rows! Added support to select & copy files from the catalog! Use the Right Button to mark & Un-Mark files. Then when done marking, just press ALT-C to copy the files to a destination drive! When you MARK a file a THICK RED box will surround the image you are marking. When you UN-MARK a picture the image will be surrounded by a THICK BLUE box. This way you can tell if you had PREVIOUSLY marked an image. When copying the files (ALT-C), any files that didn't copy properly(DISK FULL, Etc...) will remain marked so that you can put in a new floppy or whatever and then press ALT-C again. All files that did copy properly will be UN-MARKED with the THICK GREEN box around the image. Again this is so that you can tell what files you have already copied so that you don't accidently waste time copying the SAME files. Added support for BOX FILL-IN and BOX DRAWING to extend beyond the current dimensions of the image. This in effect makes the image wider or taller so that the BOX can fit in the image! Added support for 24 Bit BMP files!(Thanks Bruce!) Added command line control for Catalog Titles. For Example: C>GIFV F:\GIFS /C:CARS__ /T:TITLE.BMP /T:T- The /T:T{+,-} parameter determines where the title will go if you are using a title for your catalogs! You can use either T+ or T- where T+ means put at the TOP and T- means put Title at the BOTTOM of the catalog file! NEW this 3.09b version 12/20/93: Added support for MAC GIF files. Files ported to the IBM PC from the Apple Macintosh world. Added command line control for Catalogs! For example: C>GIFV /C:CARS__ This would take whatever images are found in the current directory and create a catalog of ALL images in the directory using a catalog name of CARS__##.GIF C>GIFV /C:BIRDS_ This would take whatever images are found in the current directory and create a catalog of ALL images in the directory using a catalog name of BIRDS_##.GIF NOTE: All catalog files are saved in the GIF-REED program directory. If you want to force the catalog(s) to be saved into some other area of your system, you MUST specify a FULL Drive & Path to the catalog directory. For example: C>GIFV /C:D:\PICTURES\CAT___ This would save all catalog images into D:\PICTURES with a filename of CAT___##.GIF NOTE: If you want to catalog a directory that is NOT in the current directory, you can specify a path on the command line. For example: C>GIFV d:\pictures\*.gifs /C:MYGIFS This would take all GIF files in the D:\PICTURES directory and create catalog images of the name MYGIFS##.GIF and place the catalog images in the GIF-REED program directory! NOTE: You MUST specify a catalog name! NOTE: There is an OPTIONAL parameter for specifying a Title to the catalog. This title file MUST be a .GIF file! The title(header) file that you specify will be placed at the TOP of the Catalog (Sort of like an advertisement). If you don't specify a Title file then NO title will be placed at the TOP of the catalog file! The format for using the Title file is like this: C>GIFV F:\IMAGES\GIFS /C:MYGIFS /T:TITLE in the case above, the directory of F:\IMAGES\GIFS will get cataloged into a catalog by the name of MYGIFS##.GIF in the GIF-REED directory. The catalogs produced will have a header on the TOP of them merged in from the file called TITLE.GIF NOTE: Making catalogs using the command line options will overwrite any catalogs that exist by the SAME name. This is so that you can re-run a catalog without having to delete the older catalog files first. This is different than the MANUAL mode of making catalogs from the files list menu. In manual mode, the older files are NOT overwritten. CTRL-C Brings up the catalog menu. From this menu you can select two customization features. (1) You can select the Catalog Images Size, (2) You can select the size of the matrix. A 5x5 would be 5 by 5. This is 5 columns by 5 rows. A 3x3 would look a lot like a TicTacToe board. And a 8x8 would look similar to a checker board. Once you have selected the customization features you can start the process by placing the cursor on top of the 1st file you want to catalog. Then press CTRL-C and then just press RETURN. The files produced are called CAT___##.GIF where the "##" is a 2 digit number. The catalog files are placed in the SAME directory as GIF-REED. You can select a SINGLE catalog starting from the currently selected file or you can issue a COMPLETE cataloging session. A complete cataloging session may take QUITE some time to finish. I suggest you do this before going to BED or LUNCH! NOTE: You should SAVE your cataloging configuration. You can do this with the ALT-U command from the files list menu. This way you don't have to set it up each time you run GIF-REED before you do cataloging. NOTE: The larger the matrix (ie:8x8) the poorer the quality of the final catalog file! It seems that 4x4, 5x5 and 6x6 seem to produce very good results. 7x7 and 8x8 are still very good, but not AS good as a 5x5. Play with the different sizes to suit your quality tastes. NOTE: Once you start the cataloging process you can abort out by pressing any key while the pictures are being collected up. NOTE: Beware that since the new catalog files will NOT overwrite existing catalog files, the number of the catalog produced may NOT be what you expected. If you already have: CAT___00, CAT___01, CAT___03, then the NEW catalog files produced will use the filenames of CAT___02, CAT___04, CAT___05 and so on... The simplest approach is to just delete the older catalog files when done with them. NOTE: GIFV.CAT keeps the custom cataloging information. The following are temporary files and can be deleted if found on your hard disk in the GIF-REED directory! GIFV.PAL is a temporary catalog palette file. GIFV.DTH is a temporary catalog file. GIFVCxxx.CAT is a temporary catalog file. GIFV.TIT is a temporary Title file. NOTE: Make sure you have at least 3 to 6 megs free in your TEMP area. If you want to know exactly how much space will be needed, take the size of your Catalog Image and multiply times 3. For example: if your Catalog size is 800x600 then the BASE space needed would be 800 x 600 x 3 = 1440000 bytes. Or about 1.5 megs. In addition to this BASE amount, you will also need enough disk space to hold the LARGEST image (times 3). For example if the largest image in the Catalog was a 1024x768, then the additional overhead would be 1024 x 768 x 3 = 2359296 bytes. Or roughly 2.4 megs. This would mean that you would need about 1.5 + 2.4 = 3.9 megs of FREE disk space in your TEMP drive. The MOST common catalog size is 800x600 and the most common image size is 640x480. This would require 2361600 bytes or about 2.5 megs of disk space! When viewing a catalog, you can click on a image (even if the picture is NOT centered on the screen). You can move the catalog picture all around your screen and you can still click on a picture and that picture will load from the SOURCE image that MADE the catalog! When done viewing this image pressing ESC, PG-UP, PG-DN or quick clicking of the mouse will get you BACK to the catalog file! If you quick click on a part of the catalog that is in between the images then you will hear a BEEP and NO image will be brought up for display! Fixed tiny bug where if you had MULTIPLE file paths loaded it was possible that GIF-REED wouldn't properly determine the files X and Y and COLOR on the files list. It also meant that when you deleted, re- named or copied or moved files it could have thought that the file didn't exist! This would NOT destroy any data but could make the user think strange things were happening! This is now FIXED! NEW this 3.08 version 12/16/92: Improved printed order form. Fixed mouse button operation of "Yes No". If you were in the Pixel editing window and had edited some dots, then moved(panned) the image the Question "You have made DOT changes" appears. This is proper, but the program would think you wanted to KEEP the changes because your left mouse button was held down because you were panning. Now, you MUST lift off the mouse button, then click the mouse button to indicate that your answer was YES! Fixed yet another memory allocation bug in the ENLARGING MODE 2. This would only happen if the WIDTH of the box that you marked HAPPENED to be an even multiple of 16 minus 1 (such as 15, 31, 63). Fixed another memory allocation bug in the PIXEL editor! If the size of the image you are pixel editing than the SIZE of the pixel edit window it would not work properly. It now works even if the width of the image is 1 dot wide! NEW this 3.07 version 12/15/92: Fixed bug in mouse selection of picture file. If the files list is larger than what will fit on a screen and you point to an invalid area(blank entry) in the files list, the program would attempt to load a file that doesn't exist. It's now fixed to just beep! Changed version number scheme to X.0X instead of X.X! In otherwords instead of version 3.7 it's 3.07. NEW this 3.6 version 12/14/92: Fixed bug in writing files. If the disk was full NO error message was displayed. Now you will get a "Error Saving File!" message! Fixed a RENAME bug where the file would NOT only be renamed but also placed in the different directory! This would occur if the default directory was different from the file you were renaming! NOW the renamed files are NOT moved! Fixed small bug in the mouse operation. In the file menu, if you were to position the mouse just right(on top of a un-highlighted filename) and then you were to move the cursor with the arrow keys to highlight the filename. Then when you moved the mouse away from the filename the OLD un-highlighted character underneath the mouse cursor was what got restored. This now works properly. NEW this 3.5 version 12/08/92: Added mouse support for answering Yes No questions. Click the left button for Yes and the Right button for NO. If you click the middle button it's like pressing ESCAPE! Added the "A" command while viewing a picture. This adjusts the colors in the IMAGE so that it will be loaded with Windows and NOT have the image distorted. See following comment about Windows! The "A" command sorts the colors by usage in the picture. Then it takes the 16 least used colors and replaces them with the closest color match it can find. This way the TOP 16 colors in the color map are NOT used! Added a NEW feature to the PRO GIF-REED which allows you to change a color in the picture to any other color in the color map(256 choices). This way you can force certain colors in the image and also get RID of certain colors. By changing a color in the image you effectively are removing the usage of the OLD color. If you get RID of at least 16 colors in any image, they can be properly displayed in Windows. Of course you would have to sort the color map(S while viewing) first before saving the BMP file out. This is because Windows grabs the top 16 out of the 256 colors of ALL images and makes them unusable. Just press "C" while the mouse is on top of a color in the color map while pixel editing the picture! "C" means change this color to a NEW color! Added support to click on drive letters! Fixed tiny bug where if you tried to write out many files(with the W command while viewing) after a while, the program would bomb out because of NOT enough file handles. This is now fixed!(Most people would have never noticed it!) Added support for *.? Added ADJUST-FOR-WINDOWS to script language! (See above comment about the "A" command! You can use the *.? in the script language with the CHANGE-PATH command! Added support for *.? This allows you to specify ALL pictures in a directory. In other- words, you may have a bunch of BMP and GIF and PCX and PIC files in a SINGLE directory. Instead of specifying MANY(4) directory paths, you can now just use one. For example: C:\PICTURES\*.? This can now be used instead of: C:\PICTURES\*.GIF C:\PICTURES\*.BMP C:\PICTURES\*.PIC C:\PICTURES\*.PCX This way you save on your usage of the paths list. NEW this 3.4b version 12/05/92: Added support for Subdirectory changes through the menu. You can now click on or press RETURN on a subdirectory and you will be shown the new subdirectories list of files. The 1st file path of the 6-20 file paths available will change to reflect the NEW directory that you choose. You can see this for yourself by pressing ALT-F after changing to a different subdirectory. The subdirectories are indicated by a name inside of "[]". For example "[ GIFS ]" would indicate that you could switch to a directory called GIFS. NOTE: If you have specified more that one(1) file path then each time you press return to load up a different subdirectory, you will STILL see the files from the 2nd, 3rd and so on paths in ADDITION to the files in the new path you have just chosen. NEW this 3.4 version 12/03/92: Support for .PIC files Added mouse support to start SLIDE show. Just click on the word "GO:" on the bottom right hand side of the screen! Allow writing GIFS with comments added to it! (GIF 89a) Fixed typos! Allow sorting by DATE/TIME. Much faster sorting!(Noticed when file list grows past 512 items). It's now about 50 times faster! It sorts 2000 files in less than a second! Loads files from the file list faster!(Instantaneously) It reads in the file directory list and displays it to you immediately. Then in the background, it reads in the file info that gets displayed on the screen such as X and Y resolution of the picture, the file score & category. If you tell GIF-REED that you want to do a REPORT(F8) or you want to sort on something other than filename, size, date or path then whatever file information hadn't been read in by that time will be read in at that moment in time. This would be the only time you would have to wait for the file info to be read in. NOTE: Once it's read in you won't have to wait anymore for sorting or printing reports (of course!). Made program need less memory: 1. NON-REGISTERED 344K minimum 408K maximum 2. REGISTERED 292K minimum 356K maximum 3. PRO GIF-REED 348K minimum 508K maximum If you have less than the specified above, the program will STILL load and do things, but if you do an operation that needed more memory then the program will abort out of the process. NEW this 3.3 version 12/01/92: Skipped version because of beta testers! Fixed bug in AUTOMATIC Video Detection Setup(stupid error because of the EGA support I added earlier!) It now works properly!(Sorry!) NEW this 3.2 version 11/30/92: Uploaded to CompuServe! Made it so that if an image has TOO large of a width (X resolution) then it won't load! This prevents lock ups when loading images that are outside the limits of the program! You can now use *.* for global image searches instead *.GIF etc... For example: GIFV D:\PICTURES\*.* This would load EVERYfile from the PICTURES directory. If you have .EXE and .COM files they will be skipped. In fact any file that can NOT be determined will be skipped! Made 3 different versions: 1. NON-REGISTERED version (Free) 256 files 350K Required to run! 2. REGISTERED version ($25) * No annoying screens * Partial(limited) script language * Print images to HP compatible printer. * Saving current default settings to a configuration file. * XMS can be used as the Picture Buffer for faster operations. * Personalized Slide shows via limited script language! * Allows more than 40 entries in the File Description DataBase * DOS/BOSS key to temporarally shell to DOS at ANY TIME! * You can MIRROR, FLIP or ROTATE the images on your screen. * Up to 512 files! * Up to 2048 dot(pixel)width on files * Up to 1024 dot(pixel)width for SCREEN resolution * Up to 6 Directory Paths! * Requires 320K memory to run at full capacity! 3. PRO version ($49.95) * Pixel Editing (Image editing!) * Full Script language (extra commands) 1. System 2. GOSUB 3. ECHO 4. FILE-COPY 5. FILE-MOVE 6. FILE-RENAME 7. FILE-DELETE 8. SORT-COLORS 9. EGA-MODE 10. VGA-MODE 11. EGA-COLOR-ADJUST 12. KEEP-SCREEN-SIZE 13. WRITE 14. PRINT * Box & Lines * Fill BLOCKs out of the image with a selected color * Up to 2048 files! * Up to 8192 width on files * Up to 2048 dot(pixel)width for SCREEN resolution * Up to 20 Directory Paths! * Requires 490K memory to run at full capacity! Added script commands: EGA-MODE VGA-MODE EGA-COLOR-ADJUST KEEP-SCREEN-SIZE Added system variables IMAGE_COLORS FILE_NAME V_# Improved script commands: SET ECHO If you try to run a script file with a command in it that your are NOT registered to use, then the program will pop up a message. Renamed CREDITS.DOC to MONEY.DOC Added GIFV.SLT and GIFV.SLU to package! Added # of color on the file status line in the file list menu next to the files X & Y resolution! Allow mouse clicking on the "VGA:" or "EGA:" title on the resolution modes line. If you ran out of TEMP space on your TEMP drive then instead of getting an error message "Error saving picture" and then EXITING the picture, NOW the program issues the error message and CONTINUES with the viewing of the program. The error NOW indicates that you CAN'T restore to the PREVIOUS picture if the change you make to the picture (trim) is NOT to your liking! Screen display is now faster when moving pictures around on the screen! Fixed temp space full bug. If you ran out of temp space, the temp file created wouldn't be erased. It is now erased because the file wasn't complete anyhow! Fixed EMS bug where if you RAN out of EMS memory or EMS handles the program would(could) do strange things(lock up!). Fixed bug in GIF files that didn't have a global color map(rare case!)! It now works properly. EMS memory support is now better. Instead of allocating multiple 64K blocks to load a picture, we now adjust the size of the current EMS block. This way you won't run out of EMS handles on large images! NEW this 3.1 version 11/15/92: Added EGA support of 320x200 16 colors, 640x200 16 colors, 640x350 16 colors and 640x480 16 colors. The EGA support is NOT as fast as the 256 color (VGA) support. It's just here so that if all you have is EGA you can still make use of the program to do things with your image files (even if it's just using the script language to process you files.) Fixed tiny bug where if you were adding text to a picture it was possi- ble that once you started to move the text where you wanted it the text would just dissappear as though you had pressed ESCAPE to abort the text placement! Fixed tiny bug in BOX making routine where if the picture was located so the left edge of the picture was near the middle of the screen and as you were drawing the box made the left edge of the BOX cross over the left edge of the picture the BOX would leave REMNENTS behind on the picture (nothing was hurt though). Added ability to abort loading BMP Files as well as GIF files by pressing the left or right mouse button or pressing PgUp or PgDn or ESCape! Added PCX file format for Reading and Writing(Very FAST)! The "WRITE P" script command is now activated to write PCX files! ALT-G now searches your drives for PCX files TOO! Added BOX making capability! Just mark a box (like you would do to do a trim) then press "B". Then pick a color, then pick a thickness then wala, the box is now in the image! Added LINE drawing capability. Just mark a very narrow box(1 dot tall) and then finish like the BOX procedure above and then poof a line! Added the ability to see if a color in the color map isn't currently being used in the picture. It shows the color BOX with a little black box inside of it with a white dot in the very middle of it. You can now sort the color map WITHOUT adjusting the image itself! You can now order the colors in the color map to your own liking! (Just go into edit mode {E while viewing} and move the mouse on top of a color in the color map that you want to move. Press DELete. Now move the mouse on top a the color where you want to old color to appear and press INSert!) Fixed little stuff! Updated DOCS. NEW this 3.0 version 11/13/92: Made program faster in general (when operating in graphics mode!) Added SORT-COLORS to the script language so that you may re-write all of your images with a sorted color map with the most used colors at the front of the color map. This is great for images begin displayed in Windows because Windows GRABS the TOP 4-16 colors in every images color map for display purposes. This produces FUNNY looking pictures if the picture used a lot of a particular color that Windows took and changed to its own liking! You can press "S" while viewing a picture to sort the color-map! Full blown pixel editing and color editing. You can now mark a block and fill it in with ANY color available in the color map of the image! Fixed tiny bug where if your box that you are marking started on the TOP line or the LEFT edge of the screen you wouldn't see the entire box being drawn on the screen! Made some routines faster! Fixed tiny bug where it was possible the files would not appear in sorted order(rare!) Updated DOCS! NEW this 2.9 version 11/10/92: Added pixel rudiments of editing capability! NEW this 2.8B version 11/05/92: Updated DOCS with new script commands! ****************************************************************************** S H A R E W A R E - C O N C E P T =================================== GIF-REED is copyrighted software. However, you are encouraged to copy and share the NON-REGISTERED version with anybody with the following in mind: The NON-REGISTEREED version of GIF-REED may be copied freely and given to others, as long as NO charge or renumeration of ANY sort is required. If must be copied in its entirety with NO alterations to the programs or DOC files. It may be distributed by modem, as long as all files in the package are ZIPPED(or some equivalent) into one file. GIF-REED is NOT "FREE" software. If you use it past 30 days, you are required to pay for it by registering it. Of course you can register it earlier. ********** Reasons To Register Today ********** When you received this copy of GIF-REED, no monies were paid to us. In order for us to keep working on this product to make it better with more features, we request that you register the program by paying for it. The registration charge is very nominal $25 (The cost of ONE evenings entertainment!). If you wish to order PRO GIF-REED the cost is $49.95 (The cost of ONE deluxe evenings entertainment!). If you are a SYSOP and want the SYSOP GIF-REED then the cost is $89.95. Please read the GIFREED.DOC file for information about the 3 versions. ****************************************************************************** GIFREED Version x.x (C)opyright 1992, Software Matters INC. (317) 253-8088 Contact: Davie Lee Reed Software Matters INC. 6352 N. Guilford Ave. Indpls, IN 46220 Any question or comments please call me at 1-800-25-FLASH and ask for: Davie Lee Reed. P.S. Thanks you trying this new program out and possibly helping me improve it. P.P.S I have decided to leave in debug code which makes the program about 60K bigger than it normally would be and it also makes it run SLOWER. I have done this to ease in debugging the program. If an error occurs in the program the debug code will spit out some important information such as the program location and what type of error. If a RUNTIME error occurs please report it to me A.S.A.P. along with the location and error code! Gif REED is a GIF viewer for up to 256K colors only. Currently the only automatically supported super vga boards supported are: Orchid Pro Designer IIS board Paradise VGA ATI XL Trident Trident-New Cardinal Orchid Farhenheit 1280 ATI/Wonder Video7 Video7B VESA There are a bunch more that are supported through direct hardware control, but you have to set the GIFREED environment variable to indicate what board you have. If the GIFREED variable is set to a board that is not hardware directly supported by this program then the BIOS mode will be used for that board. The BIOS mode is MUCH slower that hardware direct. GifREED automatically looks for a VESA driver. This driver makes VGA graphics handling a lot more compatible. If a VESA driver is found, it will be used, even if your hardware is directly supported from the list above! If you find that your VESA driver is BUGGY or doesn't seem to work, then try setting: GIFREED=NOVESA This forces GifREED to NOT look at the VESA driver. Also if you want to force support for one of the following, you can set GIFREED to one of the following: TRI-OLD TRIDENT STB STB4000 EVEREX EVEREX678 AHEAD ATI/WONDER ATI/PRISM CHIPTECH DEFINICON GENOA-A GENOA-B HEADLAND ZYMOS IMTEC LOGIX MAXXON NORTHGATGE OAK ORCHF1280 ORCH-1 S3 TS3000 TS4000 TS4000HI VIDEO7FAST VIDEO7VRAM VIDEO7 WD90C Some of the above allow for direct hardware control with his program. The others of course will default to using the BIOS, which is slow! NOTE: TRIDENT Users; If resolutions of 800x600 or higher seem to give you a checkered or plaid type of display, try using the SET GIFREED command and pick SET GIFREED=TRI-OLD and then SET GIFREED=TRIDENT and see which setting gives you the desired results! If you have a VESA driver for your VGA board, then GIF REED should work perfectly fine with it. If your board is NOT listed above and you do NOT have a VESA driver for it, call the VGA manufacturer and request the VESA driver for it. MOST Manufacturers provide a VESA driver nowadays. By support- ing VESA a very broad base of VGA boards may now use this program. If order to run GIF REED, just type the following: C>GIFV path1 path2 path3 path4 path5 For example: C>GIFV F:\GIFS\GOOD\*.GIF F:\GIFS\BAD\*.GIF C>GIFV F:\GIFS\GOOD\*.* C>GIFV F:\GIFS\GOOD\*.? Once in the program you can press F1 for help on using the program. Once you are actually viewing a picture, you can press F1 to see help on how to manipulate the picture.