@DATABASE "GIFComposer" @$VER: GIFComposer.guide 0.10 (3.10.97) @(C) "Copyright © 1997 Tomas Åkesson" @AUTHOR "Tomas Åkesson" @INDEX "myindex" @NODE Main "Users guide for GIFComposer version 0.10 beta" Welcome to GIFComposer, the GIF-animation creator made by Tomas Åkesson This is a beta version of GIFComposer, the Muified animation-creator. The reason why it is called "beta" is that the program is not fully finished yet as I need to include more features, but it is usable and do not include any bugs (I hope). Please read this documentation through, or if you are impatient and want to try GIFComposer directly, do it, because it's not that hard to use. @{" Disclaimer & copyrights " link disclaimer } @{" Introduction " link introduction } @{" Features " link features } @{" Installation " link install } @{" Usage " link window } @{" Tutorial " link tut } @{" ARexx interface " link arexx } @{" Info about animation-viewers " link usefulinfo } @{" Bugs, limitations and future " link bugs } @{" History " link changes } @{" Changes to documentation " link changes.readme/main } @{" Author " link author } @{" Thank you... " link thanks } @{i}Written by Tomas Åkesson 3 October 1997@{ui} @ENDNODE @NODE disclaimer "Disclaimer" @SMARTWRAP @{b}Disclaimer@{ub} The program GIFComposer is distributed "as is" and the author will not be responsible for any damage on either you, your computer or any data. This program is used entirely on YOUR own risk. @{b}Copyrights@{ub} GIFComposer and this manual is Copyright © 1997 by Tomas Åkesson. GIFComposer needs WhirlGIF 2.02 (not included), Copyright © 1995,1996 by Kevin Kadow. @{b}Distribution@{ub} GIFComposer is released as Freeware. It may be copied and spread as long as you want. If you include GIFComposer in a program collection or such, like on a coverdisk for a magazine or a CD-rom collection, you should get my permission first. Aminet and Fred Fish are hereby allowed to include GIFComposer in their collections. @ENDNODE @NODE introduction "Introduction" @SMARTWRAP Are you creating Web-sites and do you like those little animations made from GIF-pictures? Or are you just making GIF-animations for fun? In any case. Are you using WhirlGIF or GIFMerge and goes crazy over the commandline usage? This is the solution then. @{" MUI " link mui } is used to create a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (a window) to compose GIF-animations. Requirements: AmigaWorkbench 3.0 (Might work on WB 2.0 too. Haven't tested yet.) MUI 3.8 @{" Information " link mui } WhirlGIF 2.02 @{" Information " link whirlgif } An animation-viewer (optionally) @{" Information " link win 42 } A picture-viewer (optionally) @{" Information " link win 51 } Enough! Take a look at the @{" Installation " link install } section now. @ENDNODE @NODE install "Installation" @SMARTWRAP @{B}How to install GIFComposer@{UB} ·Use the supplied installationprogram. or ·Copy GIFComposer (and it's icon) to wherever you want. ·Copy GIFComposer.guide to your "Locale:Help" directory. ·Copy the preferred language-files to your Locale:catalogs directory. ·If you haven't got WhirlGIF, then read @{" this. " link whirlgif} If you have, then copy it to wherever you want, but I suggest you to put it in the C: directory or in the same directory as GIFComposer. ·If you want to use an Animation-viewing program with GIFComposer then read @{" this. " link usefulinfo}. ·Start GIFComposer and configure GIFComposers @{" Program settings " link prefs_prog } Then get on with the @{" Usage section. " link window } and read the @{" Quick Tutorial " link tut } if you want some leading. @ENDNODE @NODE window "Usage" @{b}Configuration@{ub} The configuration of GIFComposer is divided in three parts. ·@{" Program settings " link prefs_prog } is made from the menuitem with the same name. Do this first, before you start using the program. ·@{" Global animation settings " link prefs_anim } is made from the menuitem with the same name. ·@{" Individual picture settings " link prefs_picture } is not availiable in this version. @{b}Main window@{ub} Note that "bubble-help" is availible for all gadgets. Just hold the mouse-pointer above the gadget you want info about and a help-bubble will show up. Amigaguide online-help is also availiable, press the "Help" key on your keyboard to bring up this doc. This is the main window of GIFComposer. It consists of several parts and looks something like this(!?): ____________________________________________ | @{"Pictures in animation" link win } | | _________________________________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |________________________________________| | | @{" Add " link win }@{" Up " link win }@{" Duplicate " link win } | | @{" Remove " link win }@{" Down " link win }@{" Options " link win } | | | | Output file: @{" " link win }@{" " link win } | | | | @{" Make Anim " link win }@{" View Anim " link win }@{" View Picture " link win } | |____________________________________________| The Project menu: @{BG SHINE} Project @{BG BACKGROUND} @{BG SHINE} About @{BG BACKGROUND} - Opens an info-window about GifComposer @{BG SHINE} About MUI @{BG BACKGROUND} - Opens an info-window about MUI @{BG SHINE} ------------- @{BG BACKGROUND} @{BG SHINE} Quit @{BG BACKGROUND} - Quits GIFComposer The Edit menu: @{BG SHINE} Edit @{BG BACKGROUND} @{BG SHINE} Clear @{BG BACKGROUND} - Clears the "Pictures.." list The Settings menu: @{BG SHINE} Settings @{BG BACKGROUND} @{" Program settings " link prefs_prog } @{" Global animation settings " link prefs_anim } @{" Local picture settings " link prefs_picture } @{" MUI settings " link menu_muiprefs } @{BG SHINE} --------------------------- @{BG BACKGROUND} @{" Save Program settings " link saveprgsettings } @ENDNODE @NODE arexx "ARexx interface" GifComposer's arexx-port has got the name gifcomposer.x where x represents a number. This is 1 if only one Gifcomposer is running. (I'm not very good at explaining this as I'm not an Arexx-expert, if you are, you'll understand what I mean.) Usually it should be 1. @{b}Arexx-commands availiable@{ub} @{b}Command Template Description@{ub} addtolist FILE/A Adds FILE to the pictures-list clearlist Clears the picture-list isgif FILE/A Checks if FILE is a GIF-file. Returns 1 for success and 0 for fail. makeanim Same as the "Make Anim"-button viewanim Same as the "View Anim"-button moveup Same as the "Move Up"-button movedown Same as the "Move Down"-button duplicate Same as the "Duplicate"-button remove Same as the "Remove"-button setactive NUMBER/A Sets which entry in the list that should be active and therefore get affected by the above commands (moveup - remove). The number 0 deactivates the list. @ENDNODE @NODE menu_muiprefs @SMARTWRAP Opens the MUI configuration so you may set some individual MUI-preferences for GIFComposer. This controls how the window should look and behave and other things. See the @{"MUI documentation" link mui:docs/english/mui.guide/main} for more information. (If this link doesn't lead you nowhere you'll have to find the MUI-documentation by yourself, but it should work if you have installed MUI properly, with the english documentation.) @ENDNODE @NODE saveprgsettings @SMARTWRAP This gadget/menuitem will save the paths and commands you have entered into the @{" Program settings " link prefs_prog} window. The settings will be saved into a file in the ENVARC:MUI/ directory and they are read at the startup by GIFComposer. @ENDNODE @NODE win "Main Window" @{B}Gadgets in the Main window@{UB} @{B}Pictures in animation@{UB} This is the main part of GIFComposers interface. The pictures in this list are the parts of your animation. You may add, delete and duplicate pictures as well as move them up and down with the buttons below the list. The selected picture may also be viewed vith a press on the "View Picture" button. @{B}Add@{UB} Opens up a file-requester which lets you choose one or more GIF-picture(s). It will be added to the picture list. @{B}Up@{UB} Moves the selected picture in the list up one step. @{B}Duplicate@{UB} Copies the selected picture and places the copy below all the others in the list. @{B}Remove@{UB} Removes the selected picture from the list. @{B}Down@{UB} Moves the selected picture in the list down one step. @{B}Options@{UB} -->NOT IMPLEMENTED YET<-- @{B}Output file@{UB} Opens a filerequester and lets you choose the name your finished animation should have. @{B}Make Anim@{UB} Creates the animation using the pictures in the pictures- list in the same order they appear, and saves it as a GIF- animation file. @{B}View Anim@{UB} To use this feature, you must have an external viewer program that will show GIF-animations, XAnim is good for this purpose. You can find XAnim on Aminet. If you have got Workbench 3.1+, you could (maybe) use Multiview to view animations. To configure GIFComposer for this, check the @{" Preferences " link prefs_prog } section of this documentation. Read also @{" this " link usefulinfo} for further info about animation-viewers. @{B}View Picture@{UB} Just like "view anim", this function uses an external viewer program. Use Multiview or similar picture viewer for this purpose. To configure GIFComposer for this, check the @{" Preferences " link prefs_prog } section of this documentation. @ENDNODE @NODE prefs_prog "Program settings" @{B}Program settings@{UB} ·Filerequester path: This is the drawer where GIFComposer should start to look for pictures and other stuff when a filerequester is opened. ·View picture command: The command to execute when the button "View Picture" is pressed. A pictureviewer should be started with the selected picture as argument. The argument (picture) is substituted with a %f and it usually sits at the end. For example, if you are using Multiview: sys:utilities/multiview %f ·View animation command: Just like the above but this command is executed when the button "View Animation" is pressed. ·WhirlGIF location: As GIFComposer uses @{" WhirlGIF " link whirlgif } to create the anim, you must tell GIFComposer where WhirlGIF is. If you put it in C: you should type "c:whirlgif" here. ·Stack: The two boxes named stack is used to set the stack usage for the View picture respective View Animation commands. In most cases you can type 4000 here. If the program used to view is crashing when started from GifComposer, try to raise this value (8000 maybe). One exception I know is XAnim which you might want to view anims with It craves a stack of 20000. The button "Save" saves these settings and "Last saved" restores them from the last time you saved, in case you screwed something up. @ENDNODE @NODE prefs_anim "Animation settings" @{B}Global Animation settings@{UB} These options affects how the entire animation should look like and behave. The options: ·Loop, Loopcount Set the netscape 'loop' extension, with an optional number, 'Loopcount', which will set the number of times to repeat the sequence. A zero means that it will loop in infinity. Current Netscape versions ignore the count and always repeat infinite times. ·Transparency, Value This can either be a number 0-255 signifying the colormap index to set transparent, or a RGB color specification in the format #RRGGBB to set the first color matching the given value to be the transparent color. For example: '#ffff00' will cause the first yellow color to be transparent (ffff00 means yellow in RGB-language). ·Delay Set the delay time between frames a value between 0 and 65536 giving the time to sleep in 1/100s of a second. Some example times and approximate frame rates: ·5 = 20 frames per second ·10 = 10 fps ·20 = 5 fps ·100 = 1 fps ·Disposal method This determines how the program displaying the image should treat the image after being displayed. There are currently four possible options: ·none No disposal specified. The default. ·not Do not dispose. The next image will overlay this one. ·back Restore to background color. Fill the image's space with the previous background color. May cause flicker. ·prev Restore to previous. Restores the previous frame's data. @ENDNODE @NODE prefs_picture "Picture settings" -->NOT IMPLEMENTED YET<-- @ENDNODE @NODE tut "A little tutorial" @SMARTWRAP @{b}How to compose a GIF animation@{ub} First of all you need some pictures. This program takes several GIF-pictures and merges them together so it looks like a moving picture. You should compose theese pictures in a suitable program like Deluxe Paint or similar which have animation support. This kind of program is only a help with the animation-part, you could use IconEdit or anything if you want to but it's harder. You could also use a 3d modelling program like Real3D or Imagine which also have the ability to create animations. NOTE! Save the stuff as different pictures and not as an IFF-animation. These pictures are then needed to be converted to GIF format or, if your paint-program supports it, save them as GIF's. (Personal Paint can save GIF-pictures but not Deluxe Paint.) Now when you have several GIF-pictures, you may start GIFComposer. First press the button labeled "Add". A filerequester opens and asks you to choose the pictures you have created. Select them all (hold the Shift-key and click on the names to choose more than one) and press OK. The names of the pictures will show up in the listview "Pictures in animation" Now you could edit the order in which they will be played with the buttons "Up" and "Down" or drag them with the mouse. You may also delete them from the list or duplicate them if you want some to show many times. Next step is to give the created animation a name. Enter it in the "Output file" field or press the button rightmost of it and select a filename. You may set some options with the menuchoice @{" Global Animation settings " link prefs_anim } or the button named @{" Options " link prefs_picture } if you want too. Now you are finished and all that is left is to create the anim. Simply press "Make Anim" and a progress window is opened. When the window says "Processed xx files" (or similar) your animation is finished. Press "View Anim" and enjoy. To view the animation, you need an external viewer. Read more about that in the @{" Program settings section " link prefs_prog } ,in the section about the button @{" View Anim " link bt_viewanim } or @{" here. " link usefulinfo} @ENDNODE @NODE bugs "Bugs, limitations and future" No special bugs are implemented by the moment (okay there might be some but I don't know anything about it). One bug actually exists, but it's not my fault :-) WhirlGIF 2.01 is unable to create an animation which uses the disposalmethods (although it should). That means that if you want to create an animation with transparent background, the pictures should be erased after they have been displayed. To do this you should use the disposemethod "background" but this is where WhirlGIF fails. This has been solved with an updated version of WhirlGIF. It has the versionnumber 2.02 and is availiable at Aminet. You can also find it on the GIFComposer website at: www.amigaworld.com/support/gifcomposer/ (click on 'Download') @{b}Future enhancements@{ub} (no special priority-order) ·Maybe IFF-anim (and picture) conversion. ·Better ARexx support. ·Better Amigaguide online-help. ·Settings for an individual picture (currently a limitation in WhirlGIF). ·Built-in picture and animation viewers (maybe but not likely). ·Finish this guide. ·Documentation in HTML-format (Soon availiable at the support website of GIFComposer). ·I need improving my english grammar :-) @ENDNODE @NODE author "Who's responsible" @{b}The author@{ub} The creator of GIFComposer and it's manual is me, and my name is Tomas Åkesson. You can contact me if you like GIFComposer, or if you don't like it, or if you have found any bugs or just for any reason at all. My e-mail(s) are: thomas.akesson.nv95@kagg.gy-edu.kalmar.se (until summer 1998) icaros@death-star.com (forever I think) tomas@amigaworld.com Snail-mail should go here: Tomas Åkesson Adelgatan 6 39350 Kalmar Sweden Flames should go here: >NIL: Check my website for info about GIFComposer and my other projects. http://www.toptown.com/office/tomas/index.htm Visit the official GifComposer website for online information and updates. http://www.amigaworld.com/support/gifcomposer/index.html @ENDNODE @NODE thanks "Thank you..." I would like to thank the following people: ·First of all thanx to Kevin Kadow for the original version and Lars Eilebrecht for the Amiga version of the program WhirlGIF which GIFComposer would be useless without. ·Dietmar Eilert, author of GoldED should have some credits because I use GoldED to write and compile GifComposer, to write this documentation and to create my website. A better and more all-round editor has not seen the light of the sun. ·Stefan Stuntz for @{" MUI. " link mui } ·Alain, for bugtesting and encouragement. ·Michael Lünse, for the german translation. @ENDNODE @NODE mui "About MUI" This application uses MUI - MagicUserInterface (c) Copyright 1992-97 by Stefan Stuntz MUI is a system to generate and maintain graphical user interfaces. With the aid of a preferences program, the user of an application has the ability to customize the outfit according to his personal taste. MUI is distributed as shareware. To obtain a complete package containing lots of examples and more information about registration please look for a file called "muiXXusr.lha" (XX means the latest version number) on your local bulletin boards or on public domain disks. If you want to register directly, feel free to send DM 30.- or US$ 20.- to Stefan Stuntz Eduard-Spranger-Straße 7 80935 München GERMANY Support and online registration is available at http://www.sasg.com/ @ENDNODE @NODE whirlgif "About WhirlGIF" WhirlGIF is a PD-program made by Kevin Kadow (Amiga version by Lars Eilebrecht). It is a shell-based program used to create GIF- animations and I have decided to make a GUI for it. It supports transparency, 4 different disposal methods, Netscape- looping and adjustable framerate. GIFComposer uses WhirlGIF 2.02 to create animations, all the options WhirlGIF uses are supported by GIFComposer. WhirlGIF is made by Kevin Kadow kadokev@msg.net Amiga version available from ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/gfx/conv/ or the GIFComposer supportsite, www.amigaworld.com/support/gifcomposer WhirlGIF is based on 'txtmerge' written by: Mark Podlipec podlipec@wellfleet.com @ENDNODE @NODE usefulinfo "Some useful(or less) information" @{B}Animation viewing@{UB} If you are planning to view your animations from within GIFComposer, you have to get an animation-viewer. You can use IBrowse if you want to but it might not be so handy. The only program I know able to show GIF- animations is XAnim. It's availiable at Aminet in the directory gfx/show/. There are several versions of XAnim (atleast two). I am using the one that comes in an archive called XAnim8.lha. It should have the version number 2.69.7.8. I havent tested any other. One problem with XAnim is that it needs a stack that is bigger than (or same as) 20000 bytes. All you have to do is open GifComposers "Program settings" window and enter 20000 in the stack gadget sitting after the "View animation" gadget. I know that Multiview cannot show GIF-animations although it can show IFF-anims (strange), that is with the standard animation.datatype (WB 3.1+) and ZGIF-datatype, but someone might know better than me in this case (I might have missed some new GIF or animation datatypes). Contact me in that case or if you know anything about other programs able to show GIF- anims. @ENDNODE @NODE changes "History" ------------ Version 0.10.5, released october 1997 ·Severe bug that created software-failures (80000004 or ..3) when error-requesters were opened is now fixed. ·Added filerequester-popup-buttons (complicated word huh!) in the Program-settings window so you don't have to enter the paths yourself. ·The arexx-command 'setactive' works okay. ·The "Settings" gadget is disabled so you wont press it and get dissapointed when nothing happens. ·All remaining strings added to swedish catalog-file. ·German catalog added. ·An installscript is availiable now. ------------ Version 0.9.4, released august 1997 ·I fixed the "long paths in list" problem. Just imagine if you have some pics which lies in the drawer: Work:Programs/Grafix/Real3d/projects/pictures/vehicles/cars/chevys/camaro_67's_with_big_tires/ You might see the names of the pictures if you enlarge the window and if you're very lucky, but I (personally) don't like it. (Who would?) I fixed that using two columns with the filename of the picture in one column and the entire path in the other. The other column is not visible for the user. I'm planning on doing the same for the picture-specific preferences but this'll have to wait because of limitations in WhirlGIF. ·I got a report that it wasn't possible to make animations in the Ram disk (thanks Alain!). This was because I forgot that a filename may include spaces and never took any notice about it. (The Ram disk has spaces in it's name.) Actually I even tested on my own Ram disk and it went OK. That was because I had renamed my Ram disk a time ago to avoid problems like this, and I never use spaces in filenames so I had never noticed it myself. This is fixed! You can now use as many spaces you want in any filenames. ·Ability to change stack of animation/picture-viewing commands. That means that you could put the xxanim-script, that I bundled with previous versions, in the trashcan. It's not neccesary anymore. ·Changed version numbers (0.9.X instead of 0.09) and compilation-date string according to the Amiga styleguide. ·GifComposer is now localized! I am creating a swedish translation myself and I've got a german translator as well, so soon you'll be able to understand what buttons to push and stuff (if you're swedish or german-speaking). ·Drag'n drop listview. Now you may click on a picture in the list and drag it to the desired position instead of pressing the up and down-buttons. ·ARexx support. If you want to interface GifComposer with DPaint5, ImageFX or any other programs with arexxports (to convert grafix or something) it will soon be possible. I have implemented some arexx-commands but i will add more, and maybe some useable ones too. :-) I planned on writing some rx-scripts myself but I haven't got any good grafix-programs so I think I'll let other people do that. Interested? Write! ------------ Version 0.08, never released. ------------ Version 0.07, released august 1997: ·Help-bubbles is now availiable for all gadgets. ·A settings-menu with some new items, such as: ·A window to edit the program-settings from within the program instead of messing with the Tooltypes. ·A new logo (nicer or uglier, who knows? I'm no artist :-). Anyway, the old logo was stolen from the Newicons-package and I don't wanna be a thief, so I draw (image-processed) one myself. (Artists are welcome with logo-suggestions.) ·Cleaned-up and better organized windows and gadgets. ·The program has grown about 5 kilobytes. (It's about time to start optimizing 'cause this is not a very complicated program so it don't have to be >27000 bytes.) ·Better icons (I hope). ·Bugfixes in the documentation(!) ·In the 0.06-documentation I wrote in the "Useful info about animation viewers" part of this documentation that you should type "execute PROGDIR:xxanim %f" to show an animation. That doesn't work! The directory PROGDIR: may only be used inside a program so I have fixed that. ·I also wrote that you could configure GifComposer through a window called "Program settings". That window wasn't added until version 0.07 so it may have caused some frustration. Sorry. @ENDNODE @NODE myindex @{" A little tutorial " link tut} @{" About MUI " link mui} @{" About the author " link author} @{" About WhirlGIF " link whirlgif} @{" Bugs, limitations and future " link bugs} @{" Disclaimer " link disclaimer} @{" History " link changes} @{" Installation " link install} @{" Introduction " link introduction} @{" Mainpage " link Main} @{" Some information about animation viewers " link usefulinfo} @{B}Usage of program@{UB} @{" Usage " link window} @{" Gadgets in main window " link win} @{B}Settings@{UB} @{" Program settings " link prefs_prog} @{" Animation settings " link prefs_anim} @{" Picture settings " link prefs_picture} @ENDNODE