PixView v2.2 a GIF/JPEG/BMP viewer for DOS. (C) Copyright 1993-96, All Rights Reserved by Davide Rossi Vicolo Zanella 55B 31100 Treviso, Italy E-mail: rossi@cs.unibo.it Description: ------------ PixView is a smart viewer for BMP, GIF and JPEG files. It needs a VGA or SVGA VBE (VESA BIOS Extension) compliant adapter and 450K or so of free memory. The VBE can be embedded in your adapter's ROM or loaded using a TSR program that should be supplied by the adapter's vendor. If you are not able to find this driver you can try to give a look to the PixBase package that contains many VBE drivers. Using PixView, while in the graphics screen, you can change on the fly the display resolution, pan the image across the screen (even using the mouse), and shrink the image to the actual screen size. This program is freeware. A shareware version, called PixView Pro, is also available for $ 20. The pro version allows the use as command line utility, has true color support, load-while-display feature for slide show and optimized compilation. Read the file pixview.pro for further information. Anyway I'd really appreciate a postcard if you use PixView freeware version, thanks! The file scroll list: --------------------- A list of the files in the current directory is displayed in the middle of the screen. The directories are in upper case. To change the selected item use the cursor keys, page up and down, home and end. To change the current directory to the selected one hit the return. To display the selected picture file hit the return key. To tag the selected file use the INS key or the spacebar. To tag all the files use the + key. To untag all the files use the - key. To change the current drive hit F10. All of the operations above can be done using the mouse. To emulate the return key just use a left button double click. Some option is also displayed on the bottom-bar and can be activated with a mouse click. The graphics screen: -------------------- While in the graphics screen you can use the + and - keys to change the display's resolution. If the image is smaller than the actual screen size the program will show it in the middle of the screen. If the image is bigger than the actual screen size you can pan across it using the arrow keys or moving the mouse. If you want to examine a detail of the picture you can set the minimum resolution (320 x 200) and pan the image to find the detail you want to look at. If you want to shrink the whole picture to the current display size use the 's' key. If you want to load the next or previous image file, without returning to the file scroll list, you can use the space or backspace key respectively. The slide show: --------------- Use F2 to start a slide show with the tagged files. The option menu: ---------------- Use F9 to invoke the option menu. Hereunder are explained the options you can change. Slide show: Auto shrink to fit (yes/no): the image in automatically shrinked if larger than the screen resolution. Untag once loaded (yes/no) Loop (yes/no) Delay (sec.) (0..60): if 0 is set then the slide show will wait until a key (or a mouse button) is pressed. Confirmations: Ask before exit (yes/no) Ask before delete (yes/no) JPEG: FS quantization (one pass/two pass): one pass: a fixed palette is used to display a JPEG image in 256 colors modes. two pass: an optimized palette is used to display a JPEG image in 256 colors modes (Higher quality but slow). Show as (stored/grayscale): stored: JPEG pictures are displayed as stored (color or grayscale) grayscale: JPEG pictures are displayed in grayscale (Useful for fast preview). Dithering (none/FS/ordered): none: no dithering is used when a JPEG picture is displayed in 256 colors mode (The image looks quite bad...) FS: an error-diffusion dithering (known as Floyd-Steinberg) is used when a JPEG picture is displayed in 256 colors mode (Higher quality but slow). ordered: an error-addiction dithering (known as ordered) is used when a JPEG picture is displayed in 256 colors mode (Fast and dirthy). Mode selection policy: (force 256/hi->256/force hi) if a "force" policy is set only that mode will be used. If a "->" mode is set the first mode is used only if the maximum mode resolution is big enough to display the whole picture, else the following mode is used. Pro version only: the followin options are available: force 256/hi->256/force hi/true->hi/true->hi->256/ force true Use hicolor dithering (yes/no): this option allows you to use a dithering algorithm for hicolor modes that gives a quality near to true color. Mask (*.*/*.gif/*.jpg/*.bmp/*.gif;*.jpg;*.bmp). Sort (no/by name/by extension/by size). Beep once loaded (yes/no). Load image in memory (yes/no): You have to load the image in memory in order to use panning, zooming, etc... Video mode (256 colors modes/15 bits hicolor modes/16 bits hicolor modes/Truecolor modes) use video mode if availalbe: this option allows you to exclude some video mode if you don't like it (640x400x256 if quite bad) or if your card can set that mode but your monitor can't display it. Pro version only: Color order (under Truecolor modes) BGR/RGB set video card color ordering. Supported graphics file formats: -------------------------------- GIF87 files. There is no support for GIF89 and I don't plan to ever add it. Almost all JFIF JPEG files. 1,4 and 8 bit planes (1, 16, 256 colors) BMP. Acknowledgements & credits: --------------------------- The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of CompuServe Incorporated. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the properties of their respective holders. The JPEG decoder is based on the Independent JPEG Group's software, Copyright (C) 1994 Tomas G. Lane. The GIF decoder is loosely based on a work done by Steven A. Bennett and Steve Wilhite. This program is compiled using djgpp v2. A great tool for developing DOS-based 32bit application. Disclaimer: ----------- This software is provided as is without any guarantees or warranty. Although the author has attempted to find and correct any bugs in the program, he is not responsible for any damage or losses of any kind caused by the use or misuse of the program. Have fun!!!