ShoeString's PictureDicerTM for Windows 

Version 0.39                 1998-01-17

1998 ShoeString Projects, IRL Bill Phillips (shoestring@usa.net) All
Rights Reserved.
________________________________________________________________________

DISCLAIMER:

You are getting this program for FREE. I accept NO RESPONSIBILITY
WHATSOEVER for what you do with it, or what it does to you, your
computer, or the contents thereof. If you spot a bug, I will try to fix
it, but there are ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES of any kind.
________________________________________________________________________

Now that that's out of the way...

Version 0.39 replaces the file open dialogs that have been causing
problems all along. A few minor cosmetic changes have been made as well.
No further updates are planned, except for bug fixes as necessary. Check
back on the web page at:

http://www.ziplink.net/~shoestring/dicer01.htm
or
http://members.tripod.com/~ShoeStringProjects/dicer01.htm

from time to time for tips and possible updates, as well as news on the
upcoming shareware product, ShoeString's PictureDicer Pro.

Thank you for trying this version of PictureDicer. Please follow the
installation instructions near the end of this document.

PictureDicer is a Freeware tool that chops any image file into several
smaller images, suitable for creating mouseover effects and
pseudo-imagemaps on Web pages. It also generates the HTML for a table to
contain the partial images and display them so they appear as the
original uncut image. 

Dicer accepts and outputs the following file formats: .BMP, .DIB, .GIF,
.JPG, .PCX, .TGA and .TIF. 

NOTE 1: If you start with an existing .JPG, there will be some
degradation of image quality in the resulting output. This is
unavoidable, so it's recommended that you never start from a .JPG, but
save the output of your picture editor in .BMP, .TGA or .TIF format. 

NOTE 2: If you attempt to output .GIF files from an image with a
>256-color palette, the program will appear to hang. However, it will
still respond to Menu clicks. Palette reduction is not supported in the
Freeware version.

NOTE 3: There is a problem with greyscale JPEG files. JPEGIO.DLL does
not support them. In any case, the ones I've seen (a very small sample)
seem to be considerably larger than the same images stored as normal 24-
bit JPEGs, so I wonder why anyone would use them. There is no fix for
this, so if you have a greyscale JPEG to dice, convert it to a TIFF
first. I will try to address the issue in a later release of
PictureDicer Pro. Note that the in-memory copy of JPEGIO.DLL become
corrupted if you try to read one of these files, and you will have to
either remove it from memory with a DLL utility, or restart Windows.

PictureDicer is Freeware. There is no charge, and no strings attached.
However, if you would like to support the development of this handy
tool, email me at shoestring@usa.net for my postal address. All
contributions gratefully accepted! 

PictureDicer Pro, the Shareware version, is now in Beta testing, with
several useful enhancements, and more in the works. So far, the
following features have been added:

* Greatly improved error handling

* Better status reporting

* Pixel rulers

* Numeric control of cut positions

* Optional floating numeric entry pad

* SHIFT swaps left/right mouse buttons (especially useful with graphics
  tablets)

* External Help file

* Cosmetic improvements

* Scrolling 

* Removal of interior cut segments

Coming up are:

* Insertion of user-written JavaScript and/or HTML

* Palette reduction and compression

* Installation program

... and more.


If you want to be a beta tester, email me. Send all comments and
suggestions to shoestring@usa.net . And thank you!


(Oh, yes: the Freeware version will remain available. The current
version is, barring necessary bug fixes, the final one. All new features
will appear in the Shareware version.)

________________________________________________________________________

USAGE: 

PictureDicer is so simple to use that Help easily fits on a single
screen. Here are the (approximate) contents of the Help screen: 

1. Open an image file from the File menu. After opening the file, select
the Output Format from the menu, if different from the one you started
with. If you are outputting .JPG images, a Quality slider will appear at
the bottom of the screen. Please note that if you are saving as .GIFs,
the input file must have a palette of 256 or fewer colors or the program
will hang!

2. Use the mouse to divide the picture into cells: (a) Hold down the
left button to make a vertical cut, and the right button to make a
horizontal cut. (b) Move the mouse to position the cut where you want
it, then release the button. (c) Repeat as necessary. The order in which
you make the cuts doesn't matter. 

NOTE: You can erase horizontal or vertical cuts (including those loaded
from a .GRD file) by clicking on the blue and red markers above and on
the left side of the image window. The cursor changes to a "NO" symbol
to remind you this will delete the cut. 

3. When all your cuts are made, select Process Image from the File menu.
The program will create a .GRD file representing your cuts, some number
of image files in the output format you selected, and an HTML file
containing a table to display the cells in their original form. 

4. To create Mouseover effects, you will need a second copy of your
image file, suitably altered. It must have the same dimensions as the
original. 

[IMPORTANT: Be sure to change the filename somewhere in the first 4
characters, or you will overwrite your first set of images.] 

5. Open the second file, but instead of drawing cuts, Load the grid
created for the original image from the File menu. Process the new image
as above. You now have a corresponding set of images for your rollovers.

NOTE: If you wish, you can add to or delete cuts loaded from a grid
file. 

USAGE NOTES: 

1. The HTML file emitted provides line breaks between the IMG tag and
the SRC attribute, to deal with well-known quirks of certain browsers.
The custom tags <DICERTAGS> and <DICERTAGSEND> are provided at the
locations where you might want to put anchors, mouseover code, etc.
These tags should be ignored by all browsers (like the custom tags
generated by a number of other applications), so can be left in or
deleted as you wish. They are there solely as placeholders for your own
code, depending on how you want to use the image table. 

2. I plan to enhance the HTML output in the Shareware version to
incorporate user-supplied code. The capability of removing interior cuts
is now in beta testing. If you need to create this kind of image table
with the freeware version, you might leave out the cuts that will be
interrupted when you first dice your image, then reopen the image and
load the grid, add the omitted cuts, and dice again. Be sure to change
the basename! You'll end up with all the subimages you need (plus
extras, of course), but you're on your own modifying the tables! 

3. Another intended feature is support for progressive JPEG. I have been
working on a Windows front-end for the "official" JPEG conversion
programs for DOS. This does support progressive JPEG, and I hope to
incorporate this into a future Shareware version of Dicer. However, as
soon as I have a beta version of the front-end program ready, I'll post
it to my website, currently: 

http://www.ziplink.net/~shoestring/dicer01.htm 

or:

http://www.tripod.net/~ShoeStringProjects/dicer01.htm 
________________________________________________________________________

TO INSTALL DICER: 

1. Create a new directory (folder) and copy DICER.EXE into it. Add
DICER.EXE to the program group of your choice, if you wish, and/or make
desktop or taskbar shortcuts (email me if you don't know how). 

2. Copy VBRUN300.DLL and CMDIALOG.VBX into your System directory
(usually \WINDOWS\SYSTEM), if they are not already there OR if the dates
of the supplied versions are newer. 

3. Copy IMK.DLL, JPEGIO.DLL and KNIFE.VBX into your System directory
(usually \WINDOWS\SYSTEM), if they are not already there OR if the dates
of the supplied versions are newer. 

4. Copy STATUS.DLL, MHRUN300.DLL and MHSL200.VBX into your System
directory (usually \WINDOWS\SYSTEM), if they are not already there OR if
the dates of the supplied versions are newer. 

