DISPLAY The Display program plays animations. It understands several formats, including: ANIM opt 3, ANIM opt 4, ANIM opt 5, HASH, and IFF animations. All resolutions are supported, including HAM and PAL. It is extremely versatile, and useful. Double-click the "video display" icon to start the Display program or run it from the CLI. A requester lets you select the animation that you want ot play. To exit the Display program, click the CANCEL gadget in the requester. To select an animation, click on the filename, then click the LOAD gadget. It could take as much as several minutes to load, depending on the size of the animation being loaded. You can abort the LOAD process at anytime by pressing the key on the keyboard. If the animation is packed using the HASH format, the first two frames appear while the animation is loading, otherwise a "Patience Loading..." message will appear. After the animation is loaded, it will begin playing. If there is not enough memory for the entire animation, then only as much as can be loaded will play. HASH packed animations will "BOUNCE", meaning they play from beginning to end and back, continuously. ANIM format animations "LOOP", meaning they cycle from beginning to end, then start over. Some ANIM format animations have a special mode called "continuous"' which has the first and second frames of the animation at the end for smoother looping in high resolutions. The function keys through on the keyboard, control the playing speed. Some animations will play at faster speed. This depends on the amount of changes between each frame, the resolution, and whether or not the Amiga has an accelerator card. KEY Frames per Second ===== =================== 30 (if achievable) 20 (if achievable) 15 (if achievable) 12 (default) 10 8 6 5 4 The keys on the keyboard also adjust the playing speed. KEY FUNCTION ===== ========== Increase by 1 frame per second Decrease by 1 frame per second The keys can change the animations direction in HASH animation format ONLY. KEY FUNCTION ===== ========== Animation plays forward Animation plays backward Other KEYS are defined as follows: KEY FUNCTION ===== ========== or Toggle looping (HASH mode only) or Toggle "One Shot" or Toggle continuous (ANIM mode only) or Toggle mouse control Quit Playing, or Abort Loading Toggle Frame Numbers To run the Display program fromthe CLI, use the following format: (Display is NOT multitasking) Display - FLAG DEFINITION ====== ============ C/c Continuous L/l Looping F/f Frame Rate followed by a decimal number indicating the frames per second. O/o One Shot M/m Multiple Files (HASH format ONLY) EXAMPLE: Display -LF12 frames:anim/animationtest.PAC The above command states that a HASH format animation is to be loaded and played in looping mode at 12 frames per second. Since Display is being run from the CLI, no Load Animation requester will appear, (unless you specify the "-M" for multiple files). HASH format animations are identified by a ".PAC" suffix on the directory name. IFF format animations are identified by a ".IFF" suffix on the directory name. All other filenames are considered to ne in ANIM format. LOADING MULTIPLE DISK ANIMATIONS When you run Display from the CLI, you can specify multiple filenames to be run all together as one animation, (even if they are on different disks), for the HASH format ONLY. Each animation must start with the last two frames of the previous one. After the first file is loaded, the LOAD ANIMATION requester will appear again. You select another filename and it loads onto the first one. Again the requester will appear. You can combine as many files as you have memory for. CLick the CANCEL gadget to start playing the combined animation. IFF ANIMATIONS The IFF animations format consists of a directory, (which is the animation name), under which is a series of IFF pictures numbered consecutively: "1", "2" "3", "4", ... The Display program recognizes IFF animations because of the ".IFF" suffix on the animation name. When you select an IFF format animation filename, a second LOAD ANIMATION requester will appear with the filenames "1", "2", etc. Click on the frame you want to see, then click the load gadget, the frame will be displayed. Subsequent clicks of the left mouse button will show successive frames. CLicking the right mouse button will return you to the requester so that you can select another frame. Click the CANCEL gadget to exit the IFF format. VIEWING SINGLE IFF PICTURES If you click on a filename that is a single IFF picture, the display program thinks is is an ANIM format animation, but it will still load it anyway. The IFF picture will appear. Press the key to exit. A "Trouble Loading ANIM" requester will appear; simply click the "CONTINUE" gadget. The Display utility is Copyrighted (c) by Martin D. Hash and Kenneth A. Baer. Hash Enterprises 2800 East Evergreen, Vancouver, WA 98661 - (206) 693-7443