W i n P l a y Workbench Animation Player Version 1.0 Release 2 * * * Thank you for trying out WinPlay. This little program will allow playback of standard IFF/ILBM anims in a window on a workbench screen. The animations must be compatible with the DPaint 3 format. WinPlay uses long delta (type 2) compression and does not include any palette changes. This software is shareware. That means that if you decide to keep it you need to register this copy with the author and pay a shareware fee of US $7.00 to those who register I will send an AGA version of the software, which supports palettes of up to 256 colors. This version is not crippled in any way. It should still run on all Amigas including AGA machines. This version of the archive is freely distributable. You may distribute it in any way you want, as long as no files are altered, and all the files in this archive are included in your distribution. I do not take any responsibilies for any sort of damages resulting from using this software. Use this software at your own risk. RELEASE 2 Few bugs were fixed and some features added since the first, bad luck driven release of this program. First WinPlay had several minor, but nevertheless annoying bugs with a few major ones that pretty much crippled the use of the program on any larger scale. I.e. WinPlay would alter Workbench's palette and never fix it when quitting. In general things fixed: - file requester tuned to stay within last selected directory - no more crashes when out of chip RAM or wrong file selected - above error checking can turn "ON" and "OFF" by a user - improved handling of palettes' conflict - finally, restores Workbench palette upon exit REQUIREMENTS WinPlay should run on all Amigas. Hopefully, even on the ones with graphics cards (PicassoII has been confirmed). It only requires that thinpaz.font, size 8, be present in your FONTS: drawer. It will also need topaz 8, but since all systems come with topaz 8, it was not included in the archive. INSTALLATION Copy thinpaz.font and its drawer to FONTS: directory. Also, make sure that topaz.font, size 8, is also available. INSTRUCTIONS Functions of most menus and gadgets should rather self-explanatory. Anyway, here is a quick overview of all the functions. CONTROL: -------- LOAD - Load anim into memory for playback CLEAR - Delete current anim from the queue PREV - Jump back to previous animation in a queue NEXT - Jump to next animation in a queue PLAY - Play current animation REWIND - Jump to very first frame STOP - Hold (stop) playback PALETTE - Allows to manipulate palettes: ALL ANIM - Make anim's palette become WB's palette ALL WB - Restore WB palette in its entirety MERGE ANIM - Copy pens from anim's palette to the current palette MERGE WB - Restore lower WB palette's pens ABOUT - WinPlay information QUIT - Exit WinPlay EXTRA: ------ PLAYBACK COUNTER - If "ON" it will display current frame number during playback. Included as an option because slow down it causes on slower machines is somewhat noticable. MERGE PENS - Number of pens (0 - 7 registers only) restored when using MERGE ANIM and MERGE WB from PALETTE menu. VERIFY ANIMATION - Error detection can be switched "ON" or "OFF" CHECK FREE MEMORY - Same as above. Look below for more information about error checking. ERROR DETECTION This is my first program that deals with animations. I understand that there is a great possibility that WinPlay will not recognize some of the anim file formats. To play, an animation has to be standard DPaint 3 compatible. If after trying to load an animation, WinPlay keeps saying "Anim not recognized" and you're confident that it should have been, turn error checking off and try again. The same idea is behind checking if there is enough chip memory to hold an animation before loading it. Machine will crash if it runs out of RAM while loading an anim. This feature was added for greater flexibility. KEYBOARD CONTROLS ARROWS UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT Scroll currently displayed bitmap in corresponding direction. There is no bitmap boundaries checking so it may lead to some interesting results. Useful if animation's size is greater than the 320x200 window. RETURN Restores anim's bitmap original position. = increase scroll speed. - decrease scroll speed. \ restore original speed. Be careful with scrolling on machines with little RAM. Scrolling too far can cause the machine to crash. Please, don't forget to register if you like this program and decide to keep it. I will send you an AGA version of the software (or non-AGA capable of operating on palettes of more than 64 colors), and offer a great deal on next upgrade of WinPlay, when it is ready. If you have any comments, suggestions, or critiques, please, contact me by email. They are more than welcome. To register, please send US $7.00 to the address below. This address is valid until the beginning of September, 1995. After that time (roughly around September 4th, 1995), please, contact me by email beforehand. I hope you'll enjoy WinPlay. Take care! Maciej Gorny 45 Center Street, Apt.#3 Highlands, NJ 07732 USA e-mail addresses: gorny@saturn.rowan.edu or gorny@elvis.rowan.edu WinPlay (c) 1995 Maciej R. Gorny