SuperView, An IFF display program. by David Grothe V 3.1 Release Date 02-21-91 * * Copyright 1989, 1990, 1991 by David Grothe * All rights reserved. * * This program is Shareware, if you use this program * you must send $10 to: * * David Grothe * 13000 Springcreek CT * Okla City, OK 73170 * * If you have sent in the shareware on version 2.x, or 3.0, then you * need not send in shareware for this version.. And thank you! * * You may pass the program around as long as this Doc file * remains a part of it. * * If you would like to distribute this program with your * software, you must contact me first. * SuperView is a program that will display IFF pictures of all types on the Amiga. The program supports the following features: Multiple files on one command line. WorkBench (icons) are supported. All display modes supported. Auto Overscan Color Cycle ( DPaint and GraphiCraft types) CRNG CCRT AmigaBasic ACBM type image files Author and Announcement chunks supported Display Animations. (Type 5 - DPaintIII, VideoScape2.0) Displays the first cell in an ANIM file Written in Assembly, PURE code that can be resident under 1.3 and up * NEW * for 3.1 Version 3.1 is a complete rewrite of some of the loading code that SuperView used. The reason for this was to be a little more flexible with the new ANIM types that are coming out. Many bugs have popped up with version 3.0, most dealing with the Animations and others with the new Workbench 2.0. I think I have gotten almost all of the bugs out before the release this time.. Here is a list of all of the new things for 3.1: More controls have been added to help you control SuperView after the picture is loaded. These include: P Turns the pointer on or off. I Displays Information screen. A Displays Author test. (Also ANNO Text) F1 Speed up Animation F2 Slow down Animation Up, Down, Left, Right Arrows move the screen offset around. Displays SHAM and SLOP (optimized SHAM) pictures. Supports the ANNO chunk the same as the AUTH chunk. Supports a color map change for each frame of an animation. Allows you to enter options in the pictures' file comment. These options will be used when displaying the picture. For example, if you want a certain picture not to color cycle, put a -c in the file note. When SuperView finds the option, it won't cycle the picture. This can also be used to position certain pictures on the screen the way you like. The -d option is no longer used. SuperView will automatically see that you are trying to show a directory. i.e. SuperView PIC: Display options include the following: -c Suppress Color Cycling -f Read a text file for picture names -h Change the display height of a picture -j Force Jiffies between frames -m Select view modes. -n No ANIM, show picture only -o Override the Auto Overscan -p Disables Pointer Clearing -r Repeat command line -s Display picture for n seconds -v Stop Animation after one time through. -w Change the display width -x Change the position of the display area x -y Change the position of the display area y Controls: Left Mouse Button Scrolls around in a picture Right Mouse Button Continues to next picture TAB Starts and stops the color cycling ESC Aborts the command line SpaceBar Starts and stops animations Return Step through animation * NEW CONTROLS * P Turns the pointer on or off. I Displays Information screen. A Displays Author test. (Also ANNO Text) F1 Speed up Animation F2 Slow down Animation Up, Down, Left, Right Arrows move the screen offset around. Using SuperView from WorkBench. SuperView has a complete WorkBench (Icon) interface built in. To use SuperView from WorkBench, you must have an icon for your picture. Most all paint programs build icons for you as you save a picture, so this should not be a problem. There are two ways to view pictures at this point. The easy way is to click once on the picture icon, hold down the shift key, and then double click the SuperView icon. You can reverse this and click once on the SuperView icon and double click your picture icon. To view more that one picture, you hold down the shift key and click each picture that you want to show and the SuperView icon. You don't have to select the icons in any kind of order as long as you double click the last icon you select. The pictures will be displayed in the order that you select them. You can also make the picture icon itself run SuperView by putting SuperView in the default tool of the icon. This way you can just double click the picture icon to view it. For a detailed description of how this is done, see the article in Ami Exchange Mag V1.4. After the picture is loaded from workbench, you can stop and start the color cycling with the TAB key, hold down the left mouse button to scroll around in a large bitmap picture, press the right mouse button to go to the next picture, or press the ESC key to abort. Pressing the ESC key will remove the current picture and cancel out any pictures that you had selected that you have not viewed yet. Using SuperView from the CLI Here is where the real power of SuperView comes out. From the CLI, you can choose many display options that allow you to view a picture in different ways. The command line from the CLI is 1> SuperView [option[...]] [[option[...]] ].... You can use up to 255 characters on the command line. Here is a list of the options and how to use them. -c Suppress Color Cycling This option will prevent the picture from color cycling. If you use this option, the spacebar will not start color cycling. Example: 1> SuperView -c -f Read a text file for picture names This option will read a text file and use it as a script to display pictures. The format of the file is the same as the format of each picture on the command line. Example: -s10 MyPicture -s10 -c df0: GreatPic -x200 -y100 BigPic Each picture in the file can have its own options. When all of the files have been displayed, SuperView will continue with the rest of the command line. Example: 1> SuperView -f MyScript 1> SuperView -f MyScript -r 1> SuperView -f MyScript -s10 -h Change the display height of a picture -w Change the display width These two options change the display size of a picture. You can use one or both of them on a picture. These options change the display size of the picture, not the size of the picture. If you tell it to use a smaller display size than the picture is, you will be able to scroll around in the smaller display area. The best way to under stand this may be to try it. Example: 1> SuperView -w320 -h200 1> SuperView -w320 -h200 -m 1> SuperView -w200 -h100 -x60 -y50 -j Force Number of Jiffies between frames When displaying an animation, this will allow you to change the playback speed. A Jiffy is 1/60th of a second, so the greater the number, the slower the animation is. Example: 1> SuperView -j6 Cry -m Select view modes h = HAM r = HiRes l =Lace b = HalfBrite This will allow you to change any display modes that you want. The display modes that are supported are, Hi-Res (640 display), Lace (interlace), HAM (Hold And Modify), and Extra-HalfBrite. If you just select -m option without any letters following it, all modes will be cleared. If the modes are clear, you will get a standard lo-res screen. This is good for taking a Hi-Res, Lace picture and making it Lo-Res. Example: 1> SuperView -w320 -h200 -m 1> SuperView -w320 -h200 -ml This will give you a 320 X 200 picture of that you can scroll around in. -n No Animation. Use this flag to prevent SuperView from playing an animation. SuperView will go ahead and load the first frame and treat it as a normal picture. -o Override the Auto Overscan This will cause SuperView to display the picture exactly like the IFF file said to. No attempt to size or place the picture is made. Example: 1> SuperView -o -p Disables Pointer Clearing If you don't want your pointer to disappear when showing the picture, then use this option. Example: 1> SuperView -p -r Repeat command line This will cause SuperView to repeat the command line in a loop. With this option, the -s and -d or -f options, you can make a slide show. This is the only option that you put after everything else and everything past the -r is ignored. The only way to stop this is to hit the ESC key. Example: 1> SuperView -r 1> SuperView -s10 -s5 -r -s Display picture for n seconds This option will remove the picture after n seconds. You can still continue by pressing the right mouse button or ESC key. Example: 1> SuperView -s10 1> SuperView -s10 df1: -vPlay once only. This option will cause SuperView to play through an Animation only one time. Some Animations do not loop and need this flag to display correctly. -x Change the position of the display area x -y Change the position of the display area y The -x and -y options are used to position the display area on the screen. For overscan, you need to shift the picture to the left and up from the normal 0x 0y so you use -x-16 to shift left and -y-8 to shift up. Also, if you want to change the display size with the -w and -h options, you can center the smaller screen with these options. Example: 1> SuperView -x20 -y10 1> SuperView -w200 -h100 -x60 -y50 About the animation. SuperView will now display type 5 animations. Type 5 animations are the ones use by DPaintIII and VideoScape2.0 All of the other options will still function with the animation. To stop an animation, press the spacebar. After the animation is stopped, you can step through it using the return key. ColorCycling remains in active during the animation unless you press the TAB key or use the -c option. Due to the size of animation files, when you move from an animation to the next picture/animation the animation will stop while the next is loaded. Before loading the next picture/animation, SuperView will free all of the animation data, free the second bitmap (double-buffer), and leave the last frame still showing like a normal picture while loading the next. Fixed in 3.0 Overscan now works correctly. You can now start the color cycling even it you use the -c option. The delay function now waits for the correct time between two pictures even if you press the right mouse button. If you have any problems with the program, you can leave me a message on Amy Source BBS at (405) 793-1097.... On more thing for 3.1. It now return error codes for different reasons. The following is a list of the error codes returned. 20 Picture is a RGB file. 21 Memory allocation failure for AUTH chunk 22 Memory Allocation failure for Color cycling chunk 23 Memory Allocation failure for Color map 24 Unknown compression type 25 Unable to allocate main structure 26 Unable to open the file 27 Read error 28 Memory allocation for Misc chunks error. 29 Unknown file type. (Not IFF) 30 Could not allocate a bitmap. 31 Could not open the timer device 32 Memory allocation failure for CCRT chunk. 33 Dynamic Ham or Hi-res picture 34 Memory allocation failure for Main Animation structure 35 Memory allocation failure for an Animation frame node. 36 Invalid ANIM format 37 Two DLTA chunks in one FORM ILBM section. 38 Misc Memory allocation error. 39 Could not lock the file There is a program called GetError and a script file that I have supplied that will allow SuperView to dump off Dynamic Pictures to Dyna-Show If you are using Workbench 2.0 then you won't need the GetError and there is another script for 2.0.