PCjs Machines
Home of the original IBM PC emulator for browsers.
PC-SIG Diskette Library (Disk #2600)
[PCjs Machine "ibm5170"]
Waiting for machine "ibm5170" to load....
CROPGIF.DOC
GIF FILE CROPPER 1.1
__________________________________________________________________
If you like this program, please do one of the following:
Go down to your local bookstore and buy a copy of "Coven: A
Novel", by Steven William Rimmer, published by Ballantine Books.
In Canada, try Coles... they usually have it. Read the book and
tell your friends about it if you like it. Send us some comments
about the book or a photocopy of the cover and we'll consider you
a registered user of this program.
Alternately, send us $25.00, the normal user fee for this
software. (The book is $3.95 or $5.50 in Canada: considerably
cheaper than cash.)
Registered users of this software are entitled to phone support,
notification of upgrades and good karma. Our address can be found
at the end of this file.
__________________________________________________________________
Thanks for checking out CROPGIF.
This program will allow you to crop fragments from existing GIF
files. The fragments will be written to new... smaller... GIF
files.
Unlike other GIF cropping programs, this one doesn't involve the
use of any tricky measurements. It works like the cut and paste
functions of a paint program. It requires that a Microsoft
compatible mouse driver be present before it will work, as the
mouse does all the work.
In order to make the program work reasonably fast and in a
decent amount of memory, the image you'll get to work with
will not be a full colour one. Instead, CROPGIF will show you a
dithered monochrome version of your source GIF file. However, the
destination file will have the same colours as the source file
did.
Because the CROPGIF display works with monochrome graphics, it
can be used with pretty well any display card. It supports:
- CGA (ugh!)
- EGA
- VGA
- Hercules monochrome
and, of course, anything which can emulate these modes. It should
automatically sense your display card type.
Here's how the beast works. Let's assume that you have a GIF file
called ANGELA.GIF, from which you wish to crop a fragment to be
called FACE.GIF. We'll allow that the fragment will probably
contain Angela's face, although the program itself probably won't
care.
Note that FACE.GIF, the destination file, will be created by
CROPGIF. ANGELA.GIF, the source file, will not be modified in any
way.
Making sure that you have previously loaded your mouse driver...
and that, prior to doing so you have indeed remembered to buy a
mouse... you would type the following:
CROPGIF ANGELA.GIF FACE.GIF
In fact, you can leave off the .GIF extensions, as CROPGIF
assumes these. You will see a beg notice... please don't merely
ignore this... with the program status below it. CROPGIF will
begin by loading ANGELA.GIF. It will then proceed to dither
ANGELA.GIF, that is, to create a temporary black and white
version of it. When this is complete, your screen will pop into
graphics mode and you'll see the dithered image.
The dithered image probably won't look too great, but don't worry
about this. It's only used to help you decide what to crop out,
and has no effect on the final image.
Move the mouse cursor to the upper left corner of the part of the
image you want to crop out. Hold down the left mouse button and
drag your mouse until the bounding rectangle encloses everything
you want to crop into FACE.GIF. Release the mouse button.
If you discover that you've selected the wrong bit of the picture
you can click your mouse to erase the bounding rectangle and try
again.
When you've got the right part of the picture enclosed, hit the
End key and your screen will return to text mode. The beg notice
will return... once again, please don't ignore this... and you'll
see a line at the bottom of your screen informing you that your
fragment is being written to FACE.GIF.
When this is done, you'll return to the DOS prompt.
If you change your mind and decide you don't want to crop a
fragment once you're in graphics mode, just hit Esc to return to
DOS.
Note that if you attempt to crop a fragment in which either
dimension is less than eight pixels, CROPGIF will assume you've
made a mistake and abort.
Also note that the cropped fragment will include everything
within the bounding rectangle and the pixels under the lines of
the rectangle.
OTHER DETAILS
_____________
CROPGIF uses a fair bit of memory, especially for large GIF
files. It might refuse to function on machines with restricted
memory, or on computers which have a lot of resident stuff
already loaded.
Some of the more voluminous GIF files around might be larger than
your screen. This probably won't occur if you use a VGA card...
which will show you up to 640 by 480 pixels in monochrome mode...
but it could happen on an EGA or Herc system. In this case, you
can make the picture scroll around by simply moving the mouse
cursor to the edge of your screen.
If your computer refuses to go into graphics mode, chances are
you have a multimode card which is confusing CROPGIF. In this
case, you can manually force the screen mode by adding a third
command line argument. For example, this would make CROPGIF use
Hercules graphics.
CROPGIF ANGELA.GIF FACE.GIF /HER
The following are the mode switches which CROPGIF recognizes.
/CGA - CGA card
/EGA - EGA card
/VGA - VGA card in 640 by 480 monochrome mode
/HER - Hercules card in 720 by 438 monochrome mode
Some low rent Microsoft compatible mice seem to have a problem in
some graphics modes, in that their cursors will refuse to move
more than about halfway down the screen, flash on and off, vanish
and so on. The Agiler mouse, for example, is a problem. This
doesnt happen with real Microsoft mice, or with the better
compatibles, such as the LogiTech mice.
Some versions of the ATI EGA Wonder card refuse to go into the
Hercules graphics mode under CROPGIF. The EGA graphics mode works
fine. We're looking into this.
ROLL YOUR OWN
_____________
This is another book plug. If you're interested in writing
programs which use graphics, you'll find everything you need to
know in "The Book of Bitmapped Graphics", also by Steven William
Rimmer. It's published by TAB books, (TAB book 3558) and should
be available in August 1990. It features code to pack and unpack
MacPaint, IMG, PCX, GIF and TIFF files, as well as chapters on
screen drivers, dithering and printing.
MORAL DOGMA
___________
If you like this program and find it useful, you are requested to
support it either by buying the book mentioned at the top of this
file or by sending us $25.00. We'd rather you bought the book.
This will entitle you to telephone support, notification of
updates and other good things like that. More to the point,
though, it'll make you feel good. We've not infested the program
with excessive beg notices, crippled it or had it verbally insult
you after ten days. We trust you to support this program if
you like it.
Oh yes, should you fail to support this program and
continue to use it, a leather winged demon of the night will tear
itself, shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the
nether world, hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for
blood on its slavering fangs and search the very threads of time
for the throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to
know that.
We are
Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
P.O. Box 500
Beeton, Ontario
L0G 1A0
Canada
Other programs we've done that you might like include:
Scoop - MacPaint, GEM/IMG and PC Paintbrush file readers,
with Epson FX-80, LaserJet and PostScript printer
support. Drives CGA, EGA, VGA and Hercules cards.
Source code in Turbo C and Microsoft MASM is
included for this program.
HP_Slash - Make LaserJet soft fonts smaller by selectively excising
those characters you'll never use.
Calendar - Slick perpetual calendar that tells you when the
equinoxes happen, what day Michaelmas fell on in 1705
and so on.
gemCAP - Capture graphics screen in GEM/IMG paint format,
suitable for inhalation into Ventura.
CPM2DOS - Read CP/M formatted disks on your PC.
IMGCUT - Crop GEM/IMG paint files into smaller files.
ADDRESS - Memory resident envelope addresser with graphics.
VFM - Ventura soft font manager deluxe with a side of fries.
Adds new fonts and creates width tables with menu
driven simplicity.
MCOPY - Copying program which packs as many files as possible
onto a floppy, pauses when the current floppy is
full and asks for another one.
TCAP - A text screen capture program which generates GEM/IMG
graphics that look like your text, all ready for inhalation
into Ventura.
GRAFCAT - Prints a visual catalog of your image files, with
sixteen pictures to a page. Drives all LaserJet and
PostScript laser printers, and works with any mixture
of GIF, PCX, MAC and IMG files.
GRAPHIC
WORKSHOP - This is the last word in image programs. It converts,
prints, views, dithers and halftones MacPaint,
GEM/Ventura IMG, PCX, GIF, TIFF and EPS files. It
drives CGA, Hercules, EGA, VGA, Paradise and ATI VGA
Wonder cards. It features batch processing, extended
and expanded memory support, an intuitive user
interface and easy to follow menus. It allows you to
convert colour image files into superb black and
white clip art for desktop publishing, among other
things.
If you can't find them in the public domain, they're available
from us for $25.00 each, except Graphic Workshop, which is
$35.00.
REVISION HISTORY
________________
Version 1.1 - Now supports monochrome GIF files.
LEGAL DOGMA
___________
The author assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss
caused by the use of these programs, however it comes down. If
you can think of a way a picture program can cause you damage
or loss you've a sneakier mind than mine.
All the trademarks used herein are registered to whoever it is
that owns them. This notification is given in lieu of any
specific list of trademarks and their owners, which would not be
as inclusive and would probably take a lot longer to type.
That's it...
FILE2600.TXT
Disk No: 2600
Disk Title: GRAPHIC WORKSHOP,GRAFCAT,CROPGIF #2
PC-SIG Version: S5.1
Program Title: Graphic Workshop
Author Version: 5.1
Author Registration: $35.00
Special Requirements: None.
Need to convert .GIF or .PCX files for inclusion as halftoned art in
desktop publishing, or use MACPAINT pictures for WORDPERFECT? Then try
this program -- the last word in image programs.
It converts, prints, views, dithers, transforms and halftones:
MACPAINT, GEM/VENTURA, .IMG, .GIG, .TIFF, .WPG, .MSP, and .ESP files.
Batch processing is featured if you need to convert many files.
Extended and expanded memory are supported. It has an intuitive user
interface and easy-to-follow menus. With GRAPHIC WORKSHOP, you can
even convert color image files into superb black and white clip art for
desktop publishing.
Other features:
~ Rotate image files in 90 increments.
~ Flip image files horizontally and vertically.
~ Print to most laser and dot matrix printers.
~ Support for .IFF/.LBM files allows pictures which originate in Amiga
and Deluxe Paint files to be converted into more common PC formats.
PC-SIG
1030D East Duane Avenue
Sunnyvale Ca. 94086
(408) 730-9291
(c) Copyright 1989 PC-SIG, Inc.
GO.TXT
╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ <<<< PC-SIG Disk #2600 (2of2) GRAPHIC WORKSHOP, GRAFCAT, CROPGIF >>>> ║
╠═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ To view instructions on how to unzip all three programs, type: ║
║ TYPE READ.ME (press Enter) ║
║ ║
║ To print out the documentation of each of the three programs after ║
║ unzipping them, type: COPY <respective program filename>.DOC PRN ║
║ (press Enter) ║
╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
(c) Copyright 1991, PC-SIG Inc.
GRAFCAT.DOC
GRAFCAT 2.3
Graphics cataloging program deluxe:
Requires a laser printer... LaserJet Plus compatible or
a Postcript printer... and some graphics to catalog. Works
with any mixture of MacPaint, GEM/IMG, PC Paintbrush PCX,
TIFF, Microsoft Paint MSP, Deluxe Paint IFF/LBM, EPS
files with previews and GIF files.
__________________________________________________________________
If you like this program, please do one of the following:
Go down to your local bookstore and buy a copy of "Coven:
A Novel", by Steven William Rimmer, published by
Ballantine Books. Read the book and tell your friends
about it if you like it. Send us some comments about the
book or a photocopy of the cover and we'll consider you a
registered user of this program.
If your local bookstore doesn't have Coven, ask them to
order it for you.
Alternately, send us $35.00, the normal user fee for this
software. (The book is $3.95 or $5.50 in Canada:
considerably cheaper than cash.)
Registered users of this software are entitled to phone
support, notification of upgrades and good karma. Please
tell us the version number of your copy of Grafcat when
you register... we'll send you the most recent one
immediately if it's newer than yours. Our address can be
found at the end of this file.
NOTE: If you're searching for Coven and having trouble finding
it, you can mail order it from the following book store:
Christies of Cookstown, P.O. Box 392, Cookstown, Ontario L0L 1L0,
Canada, (705) 458-1562. The cost is $6.50, which includes
the postage. The author would like to thank everyone who's thus
far chased it down (or tried).
__________________________________________________________________
New features as of version 2.3
______________________________
- Added PIC support
- Added image scaling and BMP support
- Largely rewrote the beast using the file handling code
from Graphic Workshop. It now works with virtually all
the popular PC based image files, handles all 256 colour
files correctly and so on.
What it Does and Why
____________________
We have seven hundred and sixteen image files in a subdirectory
called \GEMART. They occupy almost twenty megabytes. We use 'em a
lot... they're all public domain graphics and we can pop them
into desktop publishing documents when we want to dress up a page
quickly or just throw in a nude for effect.
You know, it's damn hard to remember what three hundred and
seventy five picture files contain. In addition, I think that
late at night after we've gone away the little mothers breed in
there.
In order to help figure out what all those file names are, we
wrote GRAFCAT. It creates a visual catalog of picture files which
makes it easy to check out a whole collection of pictures and
find the one you want. The pictures can be any mixture of image
files you like.
The program prints sixteen files to a page. Said pages come out
of a laser printer... you'll need one of these or GRAFCAT won't
be much use. The pictures are printed at three hundred dots to
the inch, so they come out readable but pretty small... which is
how so many make it onto a page.
The printer must be connected to LPT1 on your computer. You'll
need at least a megabyte of memory in the printer.
GRAFCAT will print pictures up to 576 by 720 pixels in their
entirety. This is the size of a MacPaint file. Confronted with
files bigger than this, it will print the middle part of the
image.
GRAFCAT can print a mixture of image types at once. Thus, if you
just tell it to print *.*, it will sort out the file types it
knows how to handle and print them, ignoring anything else.
It assumes that the file extensions reflect the file types
properly. The default extensions are as follows.
- MAC: MacPaint files
- IMG: GEM/IMG files
- PCX: PC Paintbrush files
- GIF: GIF files
- TIF: TIFF files
- EPS: EPS files
- WPG: WordPerfect graphic files
- MSP: Microsoft Windows Paint files.
- LBM: IFF files (Deluxe Paint and others)
- BMP: Windows 3 wallpaper files
- PIC: PC Paint/Pictor/Grasp PIC files.
You can change any of them if you like.
How to use GRAFCAT
__________________
Well, it's pretty heavy stuff. Type GRAFCAT followed by any wild
card file specification that points to some image files of the
types discussed. Examples are:
GRAFCAT D:\*.PCX
GRAFCAT \GEMART\*.IMG
GRAFCAT *.MAC
GRAFCAT *.*
GRAFCAT A*.GIF
GRAFCAT @LISTFILE
Make sure there's lots of paper in your printer and that you have
some time to kill. GRAFCAT takes a while, especially on slower
laser printers.
If you want to print selected pages of a large collection of
images, you can use GRAFCAT's command line options, to wit,
/Sn for the page to start printing with
/En for the page to stop printing after
To print pages 10, 11 and 12 of a catalog of images, you would do
this:
GRAFCAT *.IMG /S10 /E12
If you want to work out which images these would be, you can do
so as follows. First off, use a sorted directory utility to look
at the image file names. GRAFCAT prints them in alphabetical
order. Page 10 would start 160 files from the beginning of the
directory, as there are sixteen images to a page.
If you create a text file with the names of all the files you
want cataloged, to you can make GRAFCAT print those files by
passing the name of the text file as the file parameter with an
"@" in front of it, for example:
GRAFCAT @LISTFILE
Where LISTFILE is the name of a plain text file with one file
name per line. LISTFILE must be in the subdirectory where the
files you want to print reside.
Files which are too large for GrafCat to print in their entirety
are usually cropped so you see the centre of the image. You can
optionally have GrafCat scale files which are too big so the
whole image will fit in its frame. This means that you'll lose
some detail, but you'll see the whole pictures.
Scaling also takes longer than loading and cropping.
To enable the scaling option, add /F... fit to frame... to your
GrafCat command line. For example
GRAFCAT *.IMG /F
Black and white images which have been dithered from colour
images do not scale well... very often you will not be able to
make any sense of an image which is first dithered and the
scaled. In these cases, it's probably better to have the pictures
cropped and not see the whole thing.
If you use Graphic Workshop to dither files, the names of the
dithered files will always start with "D_" if you add /D to your
GrafCat command line when /F is also optional, GrafCat will scale
all oversize files except for those which are monochrome and have
file names starting with "D_". In effect, this combination of
switches will scale everything which is too big to print except
large dithered monochrome files.
It's all so simple a politician could use it... probably.
Printer Selection
GRAFCAT defaults to printing to a PostScript printer, but you can
use it with a LaserJet printer if that's what you have. If you
have a printer which can do both emulations, be advised that
LaserJet printing is a great deal faster than PostScript printing
is... at least so far as GrafCat is concerned.
You can set the default printer GrafCat will print to with the
installer, as discussed below. You can override the default
printer by using the command line switches:
/P - PostScript printer
/H - Hewlett Packard LaserJet Plus compatible printer
Note that if you print PostScript data to a LaserJet you'll get
many pages of fairly meaningless PostScript code and if you print
LaserJet data to a PostScript printer you'll probably hang it,
necessitating a reboot.
Installing GrafCat
__________________
The GCTINSTL program allows you to configure GrafCat if you don't
like the defaults as they stand. To use it, GrafCat must be named
GRAFCAT.EXE and reside in the same subdirectory as GCTINSTL. Run
GCTINSTL and a screen should appear with the configurable
options.
The things you might want to change are the default printer and
perhaps the file name extensions. Hit Esc to abort the changes or
F10 to save them. You can run GCTINSTL as often as you like.
Notes about PIC files
---------------------
The structure of sixteen colour PIC files is a bit troublesome
for GrafCat, requiring that the entire file be buffered before it
can be printed. As such, unlike as for the other formats which
GrafCat supports, printing a large PIC file requires that there
be a lot of memory around.
Secondly, you'll find that if you have the /F switch active,
there will be an inordinately long pause at the end of any
picture which gets scaled.
Roll Your Own
_____________
This is another book plug. If you're interested in writing
programs which use graphics, you'll find everything you need to
know in "The Book of Bitmapped Graphics", also by Steven William
Rimmer. It's published by TAB books, (TAB book 3558) and should
be available in August 1990. It features code to pack and unpack
MacPaint, IMG, PCX, GIF and TIFF files, as well as chapters on
screen drivers, dithering and printing. It also includes the
source code for a simplified version of this program.
Moral dogma
___________
If you like this program and find it useful, you are requested to
support it either by buying the book mentioned at the top of this
file or by sending us $35.00. We'd rather you bought the book.
This will entitle you to telephone support, notification of
updates and other good things like that. More to the point,
though, it'll make you feel good. We've not infested the program
with excessive beg notices, crippled it or had it verbally insult
you after ten days. We trust you to support GrafCat if you like
it.
Oh yes, and if you fail to support this program and continue to
use it, a leather winged demon of the night will tear itself,
shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the nether
world, hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for blood on
its slavering fangs and search the very threads of time for the
throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to know
that.
We are
Alchemy Mindworks Inc.
P.O. Box 500
Beeton, Ontario
L0G 1A0
Canada
Other programs we've done that you might like include:
GRAPHIC
WORKSHOP - This is the last word in image programs. It converts,
prints, views, dithers, transforms, scales and
halftones MacPaint, GEM/Ventura IMG, PCX, GIF, TIFF,
WPG, MSP, IFF/LBM, BMP, PIC and EPS files. It drives
CGA, Hercules, EGA, VGA, Paradise, Video 7, Trident,
Hercules Graphics Station and ATI VGA Wonder cards.
It features batch processing, extended and expanded
memory support, an intuitive user interface and easy
to follow menus. It allows you to convert colour
image files into superb black and white clip art for
desktop publishing, among other things.
VFM - Ventura soft font manager deluxe with a side of fries.
Adds new fonts and creates width tables with menu
driven simplicity.
CROPGIF - allows you to crop smaller fragments out of your GIF
files. Use graphic Workshop, above, to convert other
formats into GIF files for cropping. This program
uses a simple mouse interface to make cropping image
fragments no more complicated than using a paint
program. Requires a Microsoft compatible mouse.
FI - File Information... this is a small utiltity which
will examine mystery image files and tell you what
they are and some details of what's inside them.
GIFINFO - Creates catalog files from your GIF collection,
allowing you to store fifty or more miniature full
colour representations of GIF files on a single quad
floppy.
STORYTELLER -
A hypertext program with a mouse driven graphical
user interface which will allow you to create
reports, manuals and interactive fiction, among other
things, which has a tree stucture. Each page of a
storyteller document can lead to related sub-pages,
which can in turn have their own sub-sub pages, and
so on. It looks slick and is exceedingly user
friendly.
If you can't find them in the public domain, they're available
from us for $35.00 each.
Legal dogma
-----------
The author assumes no responsibility for any damage or loss
caused by the use of these programs, however it comes down. If
you can think of a way a picture program can cause you damage
or loss you've a sneakier mind than mine.
All the trademarks used herein are registered to whoever it is
that owns them. This notification is given in lieu of any
specific list of trademarks and their owners, which would not be
as inclusive and would probably take a lot longer to type.
That's it...
Directory of PC-SIG Library Disk #2600
Volume in drive A has no label
Directory of A:\
CRPGIF11 ZIP 33474 4-16-90 9:43a
GO BAT 38 3-26-91 3:31p
FILE2600 TXT 2739 3-28-91 9:39a
GRAFCT23 ZIP 55915 9-22-90 9:55a
PKZ EXE 21440 7-21-89 1:01a
READ ME 359 3-26-91 3:38p
GO TXT 804 3-28-91 1:03a
7 file(s) 114769 bytes
43520 bytes free