README.TXT for LWHIZ FREEWARE Graphic Viewer for DOS and Win95 Version 1.32 September 97 The Little Viewer for BIG Images (*** See Section 1 ***) Now with Slide Show Capabilities Contents of README.TXT ====================== ( 0 ) !!! Help Needed! ( 1 ) ... What is LWHIZ? (IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT MAGNIFYING GLASS) ( 2 ) ... Who are Refco (Scotland)? ( 3 ) ... Current and forthcoming Products ( 4 ) ... Will LWHIZ run on my PC? ( 5 ) ... What file formats does LWHIZ read? ( 6 ) ... Installation Instructions ( 7 ) ... Contents of LWHIZ.ZIP ( 8 ) ... Commands for LWHIZ ( 9 ) ... How do I use LWHIZ in DOS? ( 10 ) ... How do I use LWHIZ in Windows 95? ( 11 ) ... How do I use LWHIZ in Windows 3.X? ( 12 ) ... How do I use LWHIZ in OS/2? ( 13 ) ... What problems might I get running LWHIZ? ( 14 ) ... How do I contact you with suggestions, criticisms etc? ( Drop us a line! ) ( 15 ) ... What's this about LWHIZ being written in 100% Machine Code? ( 16 ) ... How do I order and pay for the Source Code Package for LWHIZ? ( 17 ) ... Acknowledgements ( 18 ) ... Disclaimer ( 19 ) ... Important Notice to Potential Purchasers of Source Code ( 0 ) !!! Help Needed! We are committed to producing LWHIZ, a free TrueColor viewer, to as high a standard as time and patience will allow us, but we need your help. If you can use LWHIZ just fine and have suggestions for its improvement, either to its functioning or documentation then let us know. Even if you don't have any suggestions just give us the thumbs up and let us know what graphic card, Operating system, Video Drivers, etc. you have. Even more importantly, however, do let us know if LWHIZ doesn't agree with your system. If this is the case then we would like to know the following: Any error messages returned by the program. The type of video card and the amount of video memory it has. The names of any video drivers and memory managers you are using (A copy of your autoexec.bat and config.sys would be very useful). The operating system you are running it under and any other information you feel is relevant. We know that we're asking a lot but would appreciate your help. To make life a bit easier we've included a separate text file called BUGS.TXT which you may find easier to send in. Thanks! ( 1 ) ... What is LWHIZ? LWHIZ is a FREEWARE Graphic Viewer, written in 100% 32-bit Protected mode machine code by Refco (Scotland) for your PC using DOS, OS/2 or Windows 95. If your machine can handle it, LWHIZ will allow you to view images up to a resolution of 1280x1024 in TrueColor ie 16.7 Million Colors ( Essential for Photographic Quality Images ) and will read ANY image size of a supported graphic format! Of course, LWHIZ will still let you view your favourite 256 color GIF and PCX files etc. Because of the way LWHIZ is designed, it is not restricted to your current Windows 95 Screen Mode as most Win95 Graphics Viewers are. For example, if you only have a 1Mb Graphics card, and you have set your system to 800x600 then, unless you use LWHIZ you will not be able to see TrueColor Pictures in TrueColor! With LWHIZ you can access different TrueColor Screen modes with the press of a key. To enhance your enjoyment of your favourite picture files we have added an easy-to-use "Screen Magnifying-Glass" feature! **** IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THE MAGNIFYING GLASS **** This feature, if used correctly, will add enormously to your enjoyment of LWHIZ. To understand what it can do, it is important to know a little about graphics and the PC. Let us explain. Many graphic image files, relatively speaking, are very large. For example, a scanned image of a photograph could easily take up 30Mb or more. One reason for this is that each pixel or colored dot takes up 3 bytes of memory (16 Million Colors) when accurate and true to life images are wanted. Of course, it is possible to scan so that only one byte per pixel is needed but this produces, at best, only 256 colors throughout the whole picture and the effect looks flat and lifeless. Of course when you've got Megabytes of memory in your PC, three bytes doesn't seem a lot but BIG Images are made up of Millions of pixels. A 3000x2000 truecolor image needs 18 million bytes to store its graphical information. Unfortunately, to see the whole of the 3000x2000 picture on your PC would need a video card which had enough memory to store this 18 Mb of information. Most Video Cards used on PCs have nowhere near this amount of memory. One or Two Mb is most common. Please don't confuse the amount of memory your video card has with the amount of memory your PC has. The memory on your PC will, typically, be much more than that of your video card! This means that if you are using a 32Mb PC with a one Mb Graphics card and attempt to load the above picture, your PC can store it OK but your graphic card can only display at most 1 MB of it! This means that if you want to see the whole picture and not just a tiny part of it, you are losing 17 Mb of vital graphics information in the inevitable image down-sizing that has to take place. That's a lot of information to lose! LWHIZ gets it back for you! How! By using the magnifying glass which, unlike earlier versions of LWHIZ, uses the image stored in the memory of your PC and not the lesser memory of your video card. The magnifying glass allows you to zoom in, or out, of those parts of the picture which interest you most while still being able to view the rest of the image. For small images, which have lost little or no information when being sized to fit on the screen, the effect is interesting but even LWHIZ can't conjure up information that wasn't there in the first place. Now, for BIG images the effect becomes dramatic and, for many, visually stimulating. This is because LWHIZ can now recover that lost, but vitally important, detail which was discarded by the down-sizing process. It's doing nothing clever but it looks good! LWHIZ uses your more abundant PC RAM to make up for the shortage of your video card RAM. We want you to enjoy LWHIZ. To do that you need to try it with bigger images than you are possibly used to. If you have access to a scanner then try using on your favourite snaps. Remember to choose the millions of colors option on your scanner software if you want the best effect. The excellent PhotoCD format with its potential for large images is an obvious choice. Unfortunately, this version of LWHIZ can only read the 768x512 image inside a PhotoCD file. If you do have PhotoCD images then, for best results, use any of the excellent photoprocessing software packages on the market to convert them, at highest resolution, to an LWHIZ supported format. ( 2 ) ... Who are Refco (Scotland)? We are a small company based about 30 miles North of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and are involved primarily with the programming of AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, Access and Graphic Utilities using C++, AutoLisp, Visual Basic and 32-bit Assembler, for the home and workplace user. We also are very strongly committed to the production of quality material and resources which will accelerate the process of gaining the knowledge and skills needed by potential or existing software developers. To this end, we are making available the full source code of LWHIZ! More details about this later. ( 3 ) ... Current and forthcoming Products WHIZ: A shareware Graphics Viewer with a difference. WHIZSCAN for Network and Disk Graphic-Management. Shareware and Freeware AutoCAD, Access and AutoCAD LT tools. ( 4 ) ... Will LWHIZ run on my PC? You will need at least a 386 with a minimum of 2 Mb RAM equipped with a VESA compatible Graphic Card that supports TrueColor at a minimum resolution of 640x480 that means you must have a 1Mb Graphic Card at least. Don't let that last bit worry you, most PC's will run LWHIZ just fine but ... if you do have problems, then let us know! Thanks. ( 5 ) ... What file formats does LWHIZ read? Most popular file formats, including PhotoCD ( 768x512 ), JPEG, GIF, TIF, PCX, TGA, PNM, WPG, LBM, ICO and BMP. Please note that some graphic file formats have countless ( or so it seems! ) variations and LWHIZ is guaranteed NOT to read them all. LWHIZ is pretty fast at reading most image types but with some formats we know we still have to optimise our code further! There's plenty of highly optimised C code out there for that task but because we wanted to do it ALL in machine-code we had to do everything ourselves. Every last bit and byte!!!! Unlike most graphic viewers it will attempt to parse ( make sense of! ) any file it is asked to do, i.e. it will ignore the file extension. Many commercial programs try to disguise the type of file format they use to store graphics by changing the extension. This will not fool LWHIZ! ( 6 ) ... Installation Instructions If you are reading this document you probably have used PKUNZIP already, but here we go... Make a folder or sub-directory, go into it and use PKUNZIP or WinZip to extract the files which make up the LWHIZ package eg: PKUNZIP LWHIZ.ZIP or PKUNZIP C:\DOWNLOAD\LWHIZ.ZIP If you want to use LWHIZ from anywhere on your drives or network then add its path into your autoexec.bat file. Note that LWHIZ.EXE needs certain support files to be in its directory. That means if you move or delete these files LWHIZ will not function correctly. If you wish to uninstall LWHIZ simply delete the files in its directory. Unlike most Windows Programs LWHIZ leaves no trace behind in INI files etc! ( 7 ) ... Contents of LWHIZ.ZIP FILE_ID.DIZ ... ZIP description README.TXT ... This document BUGS.TXT ... Bug report form LWHIZ.EXE ... The program itself MOUSE.RAW ... Graphic information needed for the mouse pointer CHARS.RAW ... The graphics for the text characters REFCO.BMP ... A wee picture to look at before your picture is loaded! ORDER.TXT ... Only of interest to Programmers or Potential Programmers Please Note that ORDER.TXT is only needed if you decide to purchase the LWHIZ Source Code Package - Remember LWHIZ itself is Totally FREE to use as often as you want! Feel free to distribute copies of LWHIZ to your family, friends and colleagues; they may find it useful. Whether you like LWHIZ or you hate LWHIZ, we'll still be pleased to hear from you. ( 8 ) ... Commands for LWHIZ Command Line Switches: Video Modes ( 16.7M Colors ): /R1 = 640x480 /R2=800x600 /R3 = 1024x768 /R4=1280x1024 If you leave out this switch, LWHIZ will default to the highest screen resolution supported by your Graphics Card. Viewing Options: /P = Hide Filename /M = Hide Mouse Cursor /L = Don't display LOADING text and progress indicator /E = Don't display error messages /Dn = Delay n tenths of a second between images /C = Infinitely cycle through viewing of images Keyboard Commands (Runtime Only): Video Modes ( 16.7M Colors ) - Runtime Only 1 = 640x480 2 = 800x600 3 = 1024x768 4 = 1280x1024 Viewing Options P = Toggle viewing of path name on/off (not when zoom is active) M = Toggle Mouse Cursor on/off (not when zoom is active) L = Toggle display of LOADING text and progress indicator on/off E = Toggle display of error when reading a faulty image on/off R = Repaint the screen [Space] = Start loading next image [Enter] = Start loading next image Exit Program [Esc] = Exit program and any key to exit the closedown screen Zoom Options + = Increase zoom lens magnification factor - = Decrease zoom lens magnification factor 0 = Change magnification to show maximum resolution B = Toggle zoom lens border on/off Mouse: Screen Magnifying Glass - Runtime Only Use the left mouse button to turn the zoom magnifier on and off. When zoom is activated any delay requested on the command line is ignored for this image only, and Space or Enter must be pressed to continue to the next image. ( 9 ) ... How do I use LWHIZ in DOS? Please load your standard mouse driver before running LWHIZ if it's not already loaded. Then run LWHIZ from the DOS prompt ( eg C:\LWHIZ> ) adding command line switches as needed eg: LWHIZ REFCO.BMP This would show the file refco.bmp, in the current directory, at the highest TrueColor resolution your PC is capable of. Both the Mouse Pointer and Filename would be displayed. LWHIZ C:\IMAGES\*.* This would display all the recognised image files in C:\IMAGES LWHIZ D:\SNAPS\LESLIE.JPG /R2 /P This would show the picture leslie.jpg, in the snaps subdirectory of the D drive at a resolution of 800x600, without showing its Filename. NOTE: The maximum TrueColor resolution possible with a 1Mb Graphics Card is 640x480. LWHIZ C:\JIMBO.PCD /M /P This would display jimbo.pcd, without showing the Mouse Pointer or Filename at the highest TrueColor Resolution your PC can handle. LWHIZ C:\IMAGES\*.BMP C:\IMAGES\*.GIF /C /D50 This would display all the BMP and GIF files in the C:\IMAGES directory, waiting for 5 seconds between images, and recycling back to the first image when all images have been displayed. ( 10 ) ... How do I use LWHIZ in Windows 95? A very easy way to use LWHIZ is to create a shortcut on your desktop. Then simply Drag and Drop a graphic ( or suspected graphic! ) file onto the LWHIZ shortcut icon. If LWHIZ can read the file, it will display it in TRUECOLOR. Don't forget to try the keyboard and mouse commands ( See Above ). Note that LWHIZ needs to run full screen in Win95. If you need to set this, right-click the LWHIZ shortcut icon, Choose Properties, Click the screen tab and then choose the full-screen option. You won't be able to see the task bar while LWHIZ is running but ALT+TAB will still give you the chance to switch to the desktop or other applications, if it is enabled. You may wish to use the associate-file feature offered by Windows 95 for different graphic types eg PCD, JPG etc. Doing this means that when a graphic file or icon is double-clicked it will run LWHIZ automatically and display your picture in full screen at the appropriate resolution. Use the Windows Help system and search for "associate", if you don't know how to do this. Because LWHIZ is much smaller than typical Windows Image viewers, it loads pretty quickly. HINT: Use the Find Feature from the Start button on the taskbar and set the multiple "Named" option such as *.JPG,*.PCD,*.GIF before you click the "Find Now" button. Once Windows-Find has done its job, Drag and Drop files from the search window onto the LWHIZ shortcut, if you have made one. ( 11 ) ... How do I use LWHIZ in Windows 3.X? Depending on your system set-up, LWHIZ may or may not work, although it won't do any harm to your PC if it doesn't. SOLUTION : Use DOS ( Not the DOS Prompt in Main, however ) to run LWHIZ. Better still move to 95 or better! ( 12 ) ... How do I use LWHIZ in OS/2? In order to utilize the flexibility of LWHIZ where 16M colors are available the options are: (a) ... Open a DOS full-screen window and initiate LWHIZ from the command prompt as in DOS (b) ... From within a REXX batch file ( .cmd ) use eg: START "/FS /DOS D:\PATH\LWHIZ [/Switches] LESLIE.JPG" N.B. Please do not include the square brackets (c) ... Create a program object, open SETTINGS, under SESSION click DOS full-screen, close SETTINGS. LWHIZ will now run when you click on the program icon. The same hardware limitations apply as with DOS and Win95. ( 13 ) ... What problems might I get running LWHIZ? Currently we don't have access to NT so the jury is still out on that platform! Please note that LWHIZ is designed to shrink any size of picture to fit the screen. For example should you wish to view a 20 Mb image but only have a 1 Mb Graphics Card, then LWHIZ can only use 1 Mb of the Graphic information contained in the source file. This means, logically, that 19 Mb of information has to be discarded. Most times the picture looks just fine but, at other times, your image may appear patchy! If this is the case, please, please, please don't delete the file concerned. When you get a copy of LWHIZ's Big Brother WHIZ, you'll be delighted you didn't. If you are using a Memory Manager such as EMM386 you will notice that LWHIZ will take longer to start up than without it, particularly on a PC with a lot of RAM. However, it is very unlikely that many people will still be needing to use EMM386, so this should not be too much cause for concern! Perhaps you should consider removing EMM386 from your config.sys, doing so may give a marked improvement when using other applications as well. Remember please, that LWHIZ will not read all the variants of some types of graphic files eg compressed TIFF files. Let us know if you have any problems, and we'll look into them. ( 14 ) ... How do I contact you with suggestions, criticisms etc? (drop us a line!) If you use LWHIZ and find it useful, or if you can offer suggestions for its improvement, or even if you just want to say hello then ... Please drop us a line. ( Roy Fisher - scorefco@aol.com ) ( 15 ) ... What's this about LWHIZ being written in 100% Machine Code? One of the reasons we picked 32-bit Assembler to write LWHIZ was to give us the in-depth knowledge and understanding of low-level PC Graphics, which higher-level languages like C frequently hide from the programmer. This approach has paved the way for the top-end, high performance graphic utilities and programs that we're planning AND producing for the future. At times we regretted our choice of language. Writing and debugging TrueColor graphic applications in 100% machine code, without any of the assistance offered by C, BASIC or PASCAL, is painful. We even had to create our own character sets! ... Very Painful! Now we've done it, we have no regrets. Most of the graphic functions and routines we will ever need are now done. Thanks to this and the debugging tools we were forced to develop, new applications are far less painful and much quicker to write. With LWHIZ source acting as a core for our new 32-bit Protected Mode programs, we have OUR Springboard for the future! We would like to offer YOU, OUR Springboard by giving the opportunity to purchase the LWHIZ Source-Code Package. This Package contains the COMPLETE Source Code and Resources along with the Instructions, Documentation and Support files that WE used to make LWHIZ! Anyone who decides to purchase the LWHIZ Source Code Package has freedom ( ** But Please See Note 19 Below ** ) to use any, or all of it for their own/corporate program development or learning purpose! If you wish to modify, improve or add to the code then ... thats the right we give you. If you should decide to take up this offer, you will be supplied free- of-charge with the updated source-code of all future versions of LWHIZ. Furthermore, you will be entitled to generous discounts on all our range of future products. PS ... Even if you do purchase the LWHIZ Source Code Package please understand that this does not mean you will get an easy ride into the exciting, frequently frustrating but hopefully lucrative, world of computer graphic programming! Having a complete application like LWHIZ to guide you, will certainly ease the pain of, and reduce the time taken to become a graphics Guru. You need commitment, discipline and above all a hunger to succeed to do this. Plus a lot of time. If you think you can meet these requirements then fine, go ahead and purchase the source code package, otherwise please save your money! ( 16 ) ... How do I order and pay for the Source Code Package? *** If you plan only to use LWHIZ as a viewer, please ignore this section! See ORDER.TXT (But please read Note 19 before finalising your decision) Overseas customers please allow up to 28 days for delivery following receipt of your order. UK customers allow 10-14 days. Please note that we can process your order more speedily and efficiently, if you e-mail us first ( Roy Fisher - scorefco@aol.com ) ( 17 ) ... Acknowledgements Thanks are due to many only some of whom are listed here. TRAN ( Thomas Pytel ) for his excellent PMODE header, and Ron Kirkpatrick for his valuable suggestions. ( 18 ) ... Disclaimer Please note that LWHIZ is a graphics viewer only and that Refco ( Scotland ) cannot be held responsible for the content of the material viewed with this program! ( 19 ) ... Important Notice to Potential Purchasers of Source Code *** If you plan only to use LWHIZ as a viewer, please ignore this section! We MUST make two stipulations to purchasers of the LWHIZ Source Code Package. (ONE) ... is that you don't offer the source code of LWHIZ to others for gain or otherwise. We are prepared, however, to consider relaxation of this requirement in certain cases! The areas most likely to be considered would include work done within : Schools, Colleges, Higher Education, Authors, Student Theses or Organisations involved with commercial work for clients where source code ownership by the customer is a necessary or contractual obligation. If in doubt then ask us! We are not concerned at all with the bona-fide majority but rather with the unscrupulous minority. Anyway we'd like to hear what you do with the code, perhaps we could provide assistance; additional to that provided by the package. (TWO) ... LWHIZ is the complete demonstration of what the source code does. We omit nothing that we used to make it ourselves, you get it ALL. We cannot guarantee it to be bug-free although if bugs are detected you will be notified as soon as reasonably possible. REFCO ( Scotland ) or any of its future agents will NOT be held responsible for any loss, damage or injury, consequential or otherwise, resulting from your usage of any part of the package and its contents thereof. **** Please Make Sure You Have Read and Understood the above conditions **** By ordering the LWHIZ Source Code Package you will be agreeing **** to acceptance of these stipulations. DO NOT USE VIDEO MODES THAT YOUR MONITOR CANNOT HANDLE. EXCLUDE THESE MODES FROM USE BY SPECIFYING INPUT PARAMETERS WHEN USING LWHIZ. ALL PRODUCT NAMES MENTIONED IN THIS SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENT ARE TRADEMARKS OR REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. THE GRAPHICS INTERCHANGE FORMAT(c) IS THE COPYRIGHT PROPERTY OF COMPUSERVE INCORPORATED. GIF(sm) IS A SERVICE MARK PROPERTY OF COMPUSERVE INCORPORATED. THIS PRODUCT MAY BE DISTRIBUTED FREELY IN UNMODIFIED FORM