#GIF Data Type?
9 messages in this thread
Steve,
I just updated my 3000T to DOS 3.1, so I am a bit new to Data Types.
Do you know if there is a data type available to permit Multiview to show
GIFs? And how do you create a data type anyway?
All advice appreciated.
Thanks.
Regards,
Bob Carter
Quilters' Fancy, Toronto
I believe there's a GIF datatype in the AmigaArts Forum libraries. The only
doc that I know of to create datatypes is in the Orlando Devcon Notes.
Thanx Steve.. I found the files. Works okay even though some GIFs get a
bit stretched.
Regards,
Bob Carter
Quilters' Fancy, Toronto
Hi Robert,
Some GIFs comes out weird sizes because that's what the BestModeID()
function tells me to use. It appears that either the BestModeID function is
buggy or I'm calling it wrongly. The latest GIF and JPEG datatypes (which I
never released) allow the mode to be set up manually if you don't like the one
the datatype picks, but I don't think it's very user-friendly.
Steve the G. [BEDFORDSHIRE, UK]
Steve..
Thank you for creating and distributing the GIF datatype. It makes
multiview more useful to me. Do you plan to release the version which can
be manually set? Is there a book or article which would show one how to
write a datatype?
Regards,
Bob Carter
Quilters' Fancy, Toronto
Hi Robert,
Well, I wrote GIF quite a long time ago, and there are other GIF datatypes
out now that are MUCH faster. I write in C and use the OS routines, but you can
get ones written in asm that bypass the OS routines. Obviously, us OS-legal
programmers cannot really hope to get even close in speed to these techniques,
and so I moved on to other things. I *could* release the manual mode id set
version of the datatype, but there isn't really an elegant way of doing it. The
approach I used is to supply the images I wanted to change with an icon, and
then to use the icon tooltypes to specify a mode id. It has to be said though,
that this is less than user-friendly, as the mode ids are hex numbers, and you
have to know which number corresponds to which mode.
To answer your other question, I don't know of any articles/books on writing
datatypes. They are just special types of Amiga library, and really quite easy.
What I have done with other people is to send them a copy of the source code of
V39.1. Much of the shell code is reusable. The only downer here is that I wrote
GIF before I really *understood* what they were, and so the code is
unecessarily complicated. Steve the G. [BEDFORDSHIRE, UK]
>> Do you know if there is a data type available to permit Multiview to
>> show GIFs?
*** AmigaArts Forum Library 14: Graphic Utilities
*** File Name: GIFDT.LZH Size: 5333
*** GIF Datatype for WB3.0+, Ver.39.3 by Steve Goddard
C'ya,
Brian
Kickin' back an enjoyin' the view
with AutoPilot engaged.
Yep, that GIF datatype is one of the very view datatypes I found working
without crashing. Still, the datatype has a bug and doesn't show all GIF
images correctly. The problem seems to be with all interlaced GIF's. The
Mac and PCX datatypes I have tried are real buggy…. Using JPEG datatypes
is sort of nonsense as datatypes don't support 24 bit and thus quality is
limited. Unless you don't mind, you're better of with other solutions
here.
— Wolf Faust, Am Dorfgarten 10, 60435 Frankfurt, Germany —
Thanx Brian. I found the file — I can now check GIFs along with non
GIFs using Multiview.
Regards,
Bob Carter
Quilters' Fancy, Toronto