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»Where have all the pictures gone...
The picture displayer SHOW by Alain Renard
Even if the Amiga has lots of picture display programs there is another, that is introduced to you. On one hand, because it is a CyberGraphX-only picture displayer, on the other hand, because there are some other features in addition to the ability to display pictures on the monitor. So SHOW can also be used as a slideshow viewer or as a mini picture editing program.
This explains and justifies the enormous program size of approx. 500 KByte.
Here the user has to forego for an installation script and do it manually. In a mini text the necessary steps are listed by the program author. Because there are just some files to be copied this shouldn'b be a problem even for beginners. The program package includes the picture displayer SHOW as well as the program RANDOMFILES in a 68000 version as well as in a 68040 version. In addition some libraries (gtlayout.library, ixemul.library and reqtools.library) are included and have to be copied to LIBS:, if necessary.
It always opens a 16 or 24 bit CyberGraphX screen for displaying the pictures.
When starting SHOW first you get an error message about a missing Show.prefs file in the ENV: directory. But you shouldn't get scared from this message and click boldly on OK. Now SHOW offers a screenmode requester, which allows to select the 16 or 24 bit screen you wish.
If this is done you can select one or more pictures to be displayed using a file requester.
If SHOW displayed the picture(s) it is recommended to save the most important program parameters, that are saved in ENV:Show.prefs and put the error message on startup into history.
SHOW can also be started via Workbench as well as via the CLI. Without problems SHOW can be used from programs like DOpus. In addition to just displaying the pictures the program offers a number of options for additional manipulation of the displayed pictures. So you can scroll too large pictures with a good speed, in addition you can zoom in or out in any intensity. In addition you can scale the picture by pressing a button to the half or the double size or put it back to its original size. In addition to showing the pictures SHOW offers a rudimentary picture editing and offers these functions:
Of course, the picture, that have been changed that way can be saved, which also allows the scrambling of the pictures using the XPK package.
Another special feature is the possibility to composite various pictures to another picture. But the possibilities to be creative are restricted in the mode.
If you'd like to show your picture collection as a slide show to an interested audience - this is no problem with SHOW. With a quickly written script you can decide whether to run an endless loop or to run it once. In addition the program author offers the program RANDOMFILES, which doesn't only work with SHOW, but with programs like CyberShow. RANDOMFILES can be controlled via the CLI. It creates a script for SHOW from the picture collection. The included, slim documentation is a good help for the user.
SHOW is more than just a CyberGraphX picture displayer, it can be used for small corrections of existing pictures. But even if the program author insists on being no programmer the current revision of SHOW runs quite stable and show a large number of functionality for a picture displayer.
Unfortunately the current revision of SHOW doesn't support datatypes. This restricts the universal usage to partly hard limits.
In addition the creation of a script file for a SHOW slideshow is not very intuitive. But: SHOW is freeware and worth a look!
The current version (1.14) of SHOW can be found in the Aminet under
Contacting the program author:
eMail: al.renard@infoboard.be
Uwe Pannecke
Uwe.Pannecke@t-online.de«
