The author makes NO WARRANTY or representation, either express or implied, with respect to this software, its quality, accuracy, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose. This software is provided "AS IS", and you, its user, assume the entire risk as to its quality and accuracy. Here is SGIF v1.7, the GIF viewer that lets you look at the current GIF in a slide show while decoding the next one to XMS or EMS memory. When you hit the ENTER or SPACE key, it (almost) immediately displays the pre-decoded gif, and automatically decodes the next one in the slide show. This way, you don't have to wait. The first gif in the show is sent to the screen while it's being decoded. It can also look for the gifs in multiple directories that you specify on the command line. SGIF requires a 286 or better CPU, 768K free EMS or XMS memory, and one of the following video boards: Tseng Labs ET4000 (Diamond, Orchid, STB, Simga, etc.) ATI VgaWonder Paradise SVGA Diamond Speedstar 24X It will read GIF87a or GIF89a files, but it cannot do the fancy GIF89 stuff. SGIF is not public domain. You can freely distribute it, but if you like it and use it often, please send an appreciation of $15 to: Bailey Brown 188 Morris Rd Toney, Alabama 35773 USA e-mail: 73020,3442 (CompuServe) New SGIF 1.7 Added option 'S' to Diamond Speedstar 24X switch '/X' to enable snow checking. This only applies to the 1024x768x256 mode when decoding the first image in a slideshow to the screen, one scanline at a time. The snow checking is optional, because it slows the display down some (only in the above mentioned instance) and the snow isn't always visible without it. The entire option for a 24X to check for snow is '/XS' and to not check for snow '/X' (case does not matter). Added support for the 132x25 and 132x44 text modes for the 24X. I am not sure if these will also work with the Paradise or not. New SGIF 1.6: Paradise support really works now, or rather, it works on the Diamond Speedstar 24X, which is supposed to be backward compatible with the Paradise SVGA. Diamond Speedstar 24X is now supported. For now, only the 256 color modes are supported, up to and including 1024x768x256. Version 2.0 will support the 640x480x24bit and 800x600x32K modes and also read 24bit unmapped TARGA files and JPEG files. SGIF 2.0 may be called something else, and it will be shareware. This release, 1.6, will be the last feature enhancement release to the free SGIF. Since the code I have cannot distinguish between a Paradise SVGA and the SS24X, use the /X option to indicate that you have a 24X. New SGIF 1.5: Added Paradise SVGA support (640x400x256 and 640x480x256 modes only). SGIF now has an option, /U, which causes it to "touch" the dates of files as they are viewed in a slideshow picked from the selection screen, but not from the command line or in preview mode. This way, if you sort your directory listing by time, the gifs that appear last will be the ones you haven't looked at in a while, which you may want to delete. New SGIF 1.4: Fixed a bug that prevented SGIF from working with gifs in root directories. New SGIF 1.3: SGIF now stores fully expanded pathnames to each directory. This eliminates a source of confusion that was causing problems with earlier versions. New SGIF 1.2: Allows you to insert new choices into the middle of your selection list. Just go to the selected filename that you want to come after the new selection, press the "insert" key, and then select the new file in the regular fashion. While you are in "insert mode", an 'I' will appear in the upper-right corner of the screen. There is a new command line option /C, which displays filenames in different colors corresponding to the directories they are in so you can see which ones are in the same directory Added a "shell to dos" command alt+s. It works only from the selection screen. The info command now displays "GL" if the file has been compressed by giflite and has the giflite header. Fixed some bugs with switching resolutions and with interlaced gifs that were larger than the screen. New SGIF 1.1: It will allow you to display info on a GIF file, and it also allows you to delete a file. 'i' = info control+d = delete SGIF 1.0: One neat feature is that it allows you to specify multiple paths on the command line, so that you can browse through all of your gifs at once, even if they are split among several directories. It has a very good interactive slideshow capability. You can return to the previous gif, reverse direction, remove files from the slideshow, have an automatic slideshow and specify the delay between pictures, pause an automatic slideshow, and preview a gif without clearing your current slideshow selections. Your can switch resolutions on the fly. In this case, the gif is copied from the screen to XMS/EMS, then the mode is switched, then the gif is displayed, saving you the decoding time. It will use the higher text modes (80x50, 132x25, 132x44) if they are needed to display all of the files on the screen. The maximum is 484 files in 132 cols x 44 lines mode. Before you go any farther, I want to make it clear that I wrote this viewer for my system. It requires 768K free XMS or EMS memory, and that you have a Tseng Labs ET4000-type SVGA card (STB, Orchid ProII, Sigma, SpeedStar, etc.) or an ATI VGA Wonder compatible card (it's been tested extenively with Tseng ET4000, and only casually with VGA Wonder). It handles the 16-color modes poorly because I don't care about them. If you like SGIF and would like to run it on a sysem with an unsupported video card, send me a $15 appreciation and I will port it to your new type of card. A more complete description of the features follows. COMMAND LINE OPTIONS (not case sensitive) ========================================= * means default /X[S] Tells SGIF you have a Diamond Speestar 24X. This switch is neccessary because SGIF will detect a 24X as a Paradise SVGA. It will still work in this case, but you will not be able to use the 24X's extended modes. The 'S' option tells SGIF to check for snow in 1024x768x256 mode when decoding the first image in a slideshow to the screen, one scanline at a time. Snow checking is never needed otherwise. /V[:]x default Video mode (colon is optional) where x is one of the following: *default (no /v option given) is to use automode, meaning lowest mode that will show whole picture is used. letter horizontal vertical colors G 640 350 16 M 640 480 16 L 320 200 256 R 640 400 256 (ATI &PARADISE) S 640 480 256 T 800 600 256 (TSENG & ATI) X 1024 768 256 (TSENG & ATI) 1 next higher resolution than the one that the image will fit in, eg 800x600 for 640x480 gifs and 1024x768 for 800x600 gifs. /B[d|n] Background color *none use background color specified in the gif header (not necessarily color 0 from the color map, which most gif viewers do). D find darkest color in colormap and use it for the background n where n is a number. Use color n in the color map for the background. n must be in the range [0-nn] where nn is one less than the number of colors in the image (usually 15 or 255). examples: sgif will use color from gif header sgif /bd will use darkest color possible sgif /b0 will use color 0 (usually black) sgif /b255 will use color 255 (usually white) /Dpath1;path2;..;pathn specify Directories to look for gifs. Does not assume current directory. example: sgif /d.;c:\pix\people;c:\pix\places;c:\pix\things;..\morepix will allow you to select gifs from the current directory and the directories c:\pix;people, c:\pix\places, c:\pix\things, and ..\morepix. /K don't wait for Keypress between pictures (auto slideshow). /Wn Wait time. Sets pause time to n 100ths of a second. Useful with auto slideshow. /R Return to DOS after displaying picture. /E Leave picture on screen after exiting (don't clear screen). Useful with /R option. /M[x|e] Memory *X use XMS memory E use EMS memory /C Display filenames in colors corresponding to the directories they are in so you can see which ones are in the same directory. SELECTION KEYS (not case sensitive): ==================================== ENTER show selected image(s). SPACE mark image for slideshow. PAGE UP move to top of screen. PAGE DN move to bottom of screen. HOME move to first column. END move to last column. ^HOME move to tope left corner. ^END move to bottom right corner. INSERT allows you to insert new choices into the middle of your selection list. Just go to the selected filename that you want to come after the new selection, press the "insert" key, and then select the new file in the regular fashion. While "insert" mode is activated, an 'I' will appear in the upper-right corner of the screen. 'f' type 'f' followed by any char to move highlight to first filename on screen that starts with that char. Good for moving around quickly. 'p' preview image (show image witout clearing slideshow list). '+' 'z' make next higher resolution default (starts with 640x480x256). '-' 'x' make next lowere resolution default. 'i' display info on file (path, resolution, colors, size) ^D delete file after prompting alt+s shell out to dos. Type 'exit' and 'enter' to return to sgif. toggles: 'a' use auto resolution. '1' use next higher than auto resolution, eg. 800x600 for 640x480 gif. 'd' use darkest color in images as background. 'k' (don't) wait for keypress. ESC quit. INTERACTIVE KEYS (while viewing images) ======================================= '+' 'z' change to next higher resolution. '-' 'x' change to next lower resolution. 'u' unselect image, ie. remove it from slideshow. 'i' display info on file (path, resolution, colors, size) ^D delete file after prompting BACKSPACE go back to previous image 'r' reverse direction of slideshow. ESC stop decoding/viewing and return to selection menu. toggles: 'a' use auto resolution. '1' use next higher than auto resolution, eg. 800x600 for 640x480 gif. 'd' use darkest color in images as background. 'k' (don't) wait for keypress.