kortink@utrcu1.UUCP (Kortink John) (02/02/91)
Hello folks,
All of you who reacted to my grumpy request for comments on Translator
6.29, thanks. I'll trip over them one by one :
banksie@ono.isor.vuw.ac.nz (Philip Banks) writes :
1) You must load translator first instead of being able to double click
This was left out from the start because, personally, I don't like this in
an application. And because I have no harddisk yet (yes, you read that
correctly!), so I always load from a different floppy anyway. I will be
putting it in soon however.
2) Only one picture can be open at a time ...... The best approach for a
basic program to do this is to wimplslot itself to the minimum size for
itself and just its variables. Then extend you wimplslot slightly and
build a heap just above himem ......
Translator already does allocate store for it's pic and buffers that way.
I have tried handling more than one pic in 1 copy of Translator. It was
*hell*, and after a few hours I gave up on it because of the total mess the
program became. Suddenly you have to have arrays for all kinds of things, or
store all these (a hundred or so) pic-related vars in a heap block, which makes
for very inconvenient access. Also unloading pictures gives the good old heap
fragmentation problem unless Translator can relocate pics properly. Better
start up more Translators (I never have more than 2, to compare pictures at
most).
3) The last missing thing is it would be nice to display amiga IFF
animation files. Presumably using the system you have for displaying
more than 1 GIF pic in a file would be a good way of handling it.
Selection of 1 picture from a bunch would be no problem. I will need a
description of the format and a few example files however. Full animation
is another thing. I have, at one time, played with the idea though, to replay
animations made with my home-made video digitiser podule and animation
software. Instead I made that a seperate app, as it should be.
P.S. how did you get the decompressions so fast? I have written a couple of
Atari decompressors but I was little cackhanded with em and they
take about 30secs a pic....
Well, I've been a 'hard-core' freak (as one of my friends calls it) since the
Acorn Atom (remember that one ? the one that came with 512 bytes RAM). I always
use machinecode, and I'm never satisfied until it is optimal (not even then
usually!) in terms of speed. However, LZW decompression (as in GIF) can be
done somewhat faster (albeit using *large* lumps of memory to store speedup
tables). It would not matter much in terms of percentual speed increase looking
at the whole unpacking process.
ecc_jim@ecc.tased.oz.au (Jim Palfreyman) writes :
On line 659 of Docs.Guide you mention !MakeGIF and !MakeTIFF. Are these
products you mentioned in the hope that someone might write them or do they
actually exist?
I wrote these a long time ago. They're up to version 2.05 now, and have been
posted a few months ago. More !MakeEm's are in the pipeline. No !MakeAIM
however, as some people ask, as you can make a b/w Clear file scaled to
256x256 and simply cut off the header (wow, a one-liner)!
rkl@and.cs.liv.ac.uk (Richard K. Lloyd) writes :
* You can't double-click on an image file (which should load Translator and
then display the image) until Translator's been installed on the icon
bar first.
* You can't display 2 or more pictures when running a single copy of
Translator.
See above.
* You allow 2 or more Translators to be run (am I the only one who shuts
down old copies when new ones are run ? Is this against Acorn
guidelines ?).
Obviously you would never be able to view more than 1 pic simultaneously if
this was disallowed.
* The use of the LEFT button to bring up a menu is a little fishy to me
and certainly against Acorn guidelines.
Sorry about that. There's hardly another way when there's no picture on-screen
yet (so you can use the menu button on the image window). Any suggestions ?
* You ship Translator with "Auto mode" option enabled, which I find
infuriating because I view most pictures in MODE 15. Yes, I know you can
change and save the options, but a lot of lazy people (me included ?)
won't bother.
Personally, I never switch this off. I usually have the multisync mode set
enabled. If I disable auto mode by default, undoubtedly the others (like me!)
will complain.
hughesmp@vax1.tcd.ie (Merlin) writes :
Ok, one suggestion... Tell me if a file is too short, or not quite right;
..... Could it just pop up a window saying 'hi, this is a bit wrong isn't
it?', and display what it gets from it also...
Translator does go as far as possible, and if the bottom part of your picture
is black, then that's exactly where your file ends ! I could display an error
box, but maybe an error beep would do too. Noted.
johny@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Lord Yak Da Hairy) writes :
Is there any chance of support for Macintosh PICT files in the next release?
We have a scanner here which likes giving things in PICT format...
If anyone wants picture formats added, I *have* to have a description of
the format, and several example pictures. If these criteria are met, you can
be almost certain that it will soon be added to the current formats.
On a different note : lots of people suddenly say that mail to me bounces.
I don't understand this really, as I have had 1 additional reply by mail. I
will have to look into this.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback, y'all.
John Kortink
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Student of Informatics at the University of Twente, The Netherlands
MAIL : kortink@utrcu1.uucp
DISCLAIMER : you know .... "If language were liquid
it would be rushing in
Instead here we are
Suzanne Vega (Solitude standing) in a silence more eloquent
than any word could ever be"
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