SuperView, A IFF display program. by David Grothe V 3.0
Release Date 09-20-89
*
* Copyright 1989 by David Grothe
* All rights reserved.
*
* This program is Shareware, if you use this program
* please send $10 to:
*
* David Grothe
* 20 SW 39th
* Okla City, OK 73109
*
* If you have sent in the shareware on version 2x, then you
* need not send in anymore money.
*
* 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 files
Author chunk is supported
Displays the first cell in a ANIM file
Written in Assembly, PURE code that can be resident under 1.3
*NEW* Display Animations. (Type 5 - DPaintIII, VideoScape2.0)
Display options include the following:
-a Suppress Author Text
-c Suppress Color Cycling
-d <dir> Display all pictures in a directory
-f <file> Read a text file for picture names
-h<n> Change the display height of a picture
*NEW* -j<n> Force <n> Jiffies between frames
-l List picture information
-m<x> Select view modes.
*NEW* -n No ANIM, show picture only
-o Override the Auto Overscan
-p Disables Pointer Clearing
-r Repeat command line
-s<n> Display picture for n seconds
-t[<n>] Double buffer pictures
-u Dual Playfield
-v Stop Animation after one time through.
-w<n> Change the display width
-x<n> Change the position of the display area x
-y<n> Change the position of the display area y
Overscan sizing and positioning has also been improved.
Controls:
Left Mouse Button Scrolls around in a picture
Right Mouse Button Continues to next picture
*NEW* TAB Starts and stops the color cycling
ESC Aborts the command line
*NEW* SpaceBar Starts and stops animations
*NEW* Return Step through animation
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[...]] <fileName> [[option[...]] <fileName>]....
You can use up to 255 characters on the command line.
Here is a list of the options and how to use them.
-a Suppress Author Text
If you use this option, no Author text will be displayed from the AUTH
chunk in the IFF file.
Example:
1> SuperView -a <Picture>
-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 <Picture>
-d <dir> Display all pictures in a directory
The -d option will take the name of a directory instead of a picture
name and display every picture that if finds in that directory.
SuperView will overlook files that are not pictures, so you wont have
to worry about having non-picture files in the directory. Any options
that you select before the directory name will stay in effect for each
picture in the directory. After the directory has been displayed,
SuperView will continue on with the rest of the command line. This
option works well with the -s option.
Example:
1> SuperView -d df0:
1> SuperView -s10 -c -d df0:
1> SuperView -s10 -d -a df1: -r
To display the Parent directory, use the / as the directory name. If
you want to show the pictures in your current directory you will need to
use /<directory> This takes you to parent and back into the current. So
if you wanted to show all of the pictures in your current directory, and
that directory was dh0:pics/lo-res/mine, you would use a this line:
1> SuperView -d /mine ;show directory mine
If your current directory was dh0:pics/lo-res, then you could use this
line:
1> SuperView -d mine ;show directory mine
You could type in the complete path name if you like.
-f <file> 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:
-a <Picture>
-s10 MyPicture
-d -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 <Picture>
-h<n> Change the display height of a picture
-w<n> 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 <Picture>
1> SuperView -w320 -h200 -m <Picture>
1> SuperView -w200 -h100 -x60 -y50 <Picture>
*NEW* -j<n> Force <n> Number of Jiffies between frames
When displaying an animation, this will allow you to change the
playback speed. A Jiffiy is 1/60th of a second, so the greater the
number, the slower the animation is.
Example:
1> SuperView -j6 Cry
-l List picture information
If you want to know the size of a picture, or if it is HAM or HalfBrite,
then this is your option. This will list out the size of the display
area, the size of the picture, what type of file it is (ILBM, ACBM,
ANIM), any display modes, number of colors and bit planes.
Example:
1> SuperView -l <Picture>
1> SuperView -l -s10 <Picture>
1> SuperView -l -w400 <Picture>
If you want to save this information to disk or printer, you may
redirect the output:
1> SuperView >Prt: -d -l df1:
This line will show each picture on drive df1: and list the information
to the printer.
-m<x> 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 <Picture>
1> SuperView -w320 -h200 -ml <Picture>
This will give you a 320 X 200 picture of <Picture> that you can scroll
around in.
*NEW* -n No Animation.
Use this flag to prevent SuperView from playing an animation. SuperView
will go ahead and load the frist 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 <Picture>
-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 <Picture>
-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 <Picture> <Picture> -r
1> SuperView -s10 <Picture> -s5 <Picture> -r
-s<n> 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. This option
and the -d option work well together.
Example:
1> SuperView -s10 <Picture>
1> SuperView -s10 -d df1:
-t[<n>] Double Buffer
This option will take two (default) or more pictures and cycle them to the
front as fast as possiable. This may not seem useful, but there are some
reasons for including it. Double Buffering is mostly used to hide the area
that you are drawing in until it is ready to be displayed. Most of the
time it is a animation. Durring some test with Double Buffering I found
that if you swap complete screens, you can also change the colors.
Try this, load up a paint program, make a red (filled) box in the middle
of the screen. Now save this as pic1. Next change the box to blue and
save as pic2. Then type the following line
1> SuperView -t pic1 pic2
Notice that the box is now a different color. This is real useful in
smoothing out pictures and you can make it look like you have more than
32 colors on the screen at once. More info on how to use this option
will be made available on the AmigaLine BBS at (405) 354-8061 including
a way to make Hi-Res 4096 color photos from the amiga.
If you want to buffer more than two pictures, supply the number of
pictures after the -t option like
1> SuperView -t4 pic1 pic2 pic3 pic4
-u Dual Playfield
Did you ever wonder what dual playfield was like. Well with this option,
you can take any two pictures that are three bit planes (or less) and
display them in dual playfield mode. After the picture is displayed,
you can scroll around in each picture (if the picture is larger than the
screen). To do this, hold down the left mouse button and slide the mouse
around. The back ground picture will scroll, now release the button and
hold it down again, this time the front picture will scroll. Each time
you press the left button the scrolling picture will change. To use this
option, type in the fore ground picture first and then the back ground
picture like
1> SuperView -u pic1 pic2
-v Play 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<n> Change the position of the display area x
-y<n> 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 <Picture>
1> SuperView -w200 -h100 -x60 -y50 <Picture>
*NEW*
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 execpt -t and -u 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 durring 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.
I hope to add the Byte-by-Byte type animations as soon as I can find
the specs for them.
Also 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 AmigaLine BBS at (405) 324-8061....
