SLIDES SHOWER INTRODUCTION The multimedia screen saver for Windows. FEATURES -------- * Performs slide shows with background music, transitional effects. * Slide show invokable from the Windows' Screen Saver. * Prints hardcopy of images to any Windows-supported printer. Slides Shower displays all images files in any directory you select. The software is capable of recognizing over 40 image file formats including BMP, JPEG, Kodak Photo CD, TIFF, Windows Metafile, PCX, DCX, CALS Raster, MacPaint, GEM Image, Microsoft Paint, Macintosh PICT, LEAD CMP, etc. Photo albums created by Images Control (another graphics software package written by me) can also be used in Slides Shower screen savers. From the Windows Control panel, simply choose "Slides Shower" as your screen saver and select your favorite album for the slide show. You can obtain a hardcopy of any image you like during the slide show simply by pressing the "P" key. A print preview window will appear to let you position and resize the image before printing. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SHAREWARE AND REGISTERED VERSIONS? ---------------------------------------------------------- Shareware: * Recognizes Windows BMP, WMF, and OS/2 BMP. * Play audio CD in the background. * Performs 29 transitional special effects. Registered: * Recognizes over 40 different image formats. * Play audio CD in the background. * Performs 29 transitional special effects. * Prints hardcopy of images during slide show. HARDWARE/SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS ------------------------------ Hardware Requirements: * Windows-based PCs (386 or better). * Standard VGA (or Windows-accelerated card). * A mouse or trackball. * TWAIN-compliant scanners or digital cameras (optional). * Windows supported-printers (optional). * Sound blaster card or compatible (optional). Software Requirements: * Microsoft Windows 3.1/3.11/95/NT workstation. Slides Shower was designed and tested under Microsoft Windows 95 on a 100 MHz PCI Pentium-based computer with 16 MB of RAM, a 1 MB PCI Diamond Stealth SE. Slides Shower was also tested under Windows 3.1/95/NT workstastion on: 1) 150 MHz PCI Pentium-based computer with 32 MB of RAM, 2 MB PCI Diamond Stealth VRAM (S3-968). 2) IBM P5-133 with 32 MB or RAM, 1MB PCI Diamond Stealth DRAM (S3-764). 3) AST Bravo LC 4/33s with 8MB of RAM, 512K ATI video card. OPERATION --------- Once the slide show screen saver started, you can have it interrupted by the movement of your mouse, a keypress, or both. This can be set under "Options" on the menu. During the slides show, any other keys will stop the slide show, except these 3 keys: * Press "C" to access the configuration screen. * Press "P" to print the current image. * Press "A" to verify the version number. If you select the "Play audio CD" box, don't forget to put an audio CD in the drive so when the screen saver activates, the CD will be played automatically. The default time delay between slide show is 2 seconds, you can set this to a faster or longer interval by clicking "Show Inerval" under "Options". The "Display image properties" is useful for scanning through a directory and display all known images along with their properties such as file size, resolution, and color depths. This caption can be turned off by checking off the "Display image properties" box. You can either use the default random wipe pattern or have Slides Shower sequentially cycle through all 29 transitional effects. Those of you purchased the Images Control suite (a photo album builder and image processing/enhancement package), you can use the photo albums you built for the slide show. Be sure to select the "Images Control photo album" in the "Image Source" section, then click on the file dialog icon to select the album you want. If you have problem printing in the registered version, you may want to bypass the "Colors Optimization" box in the print preview menu. SUPPORTED IMAGE FILE FORMATS ---------------------------- Slides Shower was developed using LEAD Technologies LEADTOOLS VBX Professional. Below is the list of image file formats which Slides Shower supports: LEAD. This is the LEAD CMP compressed format for grayscale and color images. JFIF. This is a JPEG File Interchange Format with full color spacing (YUV 4:4:4). LEAD1JFIF. This is a JPEG File Interchange Format with YUV 4:1:1 color spacing, to produce a smaller JFIF file. LEAD2JFIF. This is a JPEG File Interchange Format with YUV 4:2:2 color spacing, to produce the smallest JFIF file. JTIF. This is a JPEG Tagged Interchange Format with full color spacing (YUV 4:4:4). LEAD1JTIF. This is a JPEG Tagged Interchange Format with YUV 4:1:1 color spacing, to produce a smaller JTIF file. LEAD2JTIF. This is a JPEG Tagged Interchange Format with YUV 4:2:2 color spacing, to produce the smallest JTIF file. TIFF. This is a tag-based file format designed to promote universal interchanges of digital image data. Because TIFF files do not have a single way to store image data, there are many versions of TIFF. Slides Shower supports the most common TIFF formats. MPT. This is a multipage TIFF format that enables a file to contain more than one image. It is handled the same as a regular TIFF file, except for the multipage feature. TIFF LZW. These files use the Tagged Image File Format with LZW compression. TIFF CCITT. These are compressed TIFF files that are commonly used for FAX transmission and document imaging. TIFF CCITT Group 3. These are TIFF CCITT files in a format that is more advanced and more compressed than TIFF CCITT. TIFF CCITT Group 4. These are TIFF CCITT files in a format that is more advanced and more compressed than TIFF CCITT Group 3. IOCA (ICA). This is the Image Object Content Architecture developed by IBM. WinFax Group 3. This is a FAX format created by Delrina for Group 3 support. WinFax Group 4. This is a FAX format created by Delrina for Group 4 support. FAX Group 3. This is a raw FAX format (without a header) for Group 3 support. FAX Group 4. This is a raw FAX format (without a header) for Group 4 support. Truevision TGA (TARGA). This is a file format created by Truevision Inc. PNG (Portable Network Graphics). This is a replacement for the GIF format. It is a full-featured (non-LZW) compressed format intended for widespread use without legal restraints. Photoshop 3.0 (PSD). This is the format produced by the Adobe Photoshop graphics editor. Windows Bitmap (BMP). This is a file format created by Microsoft. Some BMP images are compressed with an RLE type compression. Windows Metafile (WMF). These files are not bitmap based images. A Windows metafile consists of a collection of device independent functions that represents an image. When a program loads a metafile, these functions are executed to obtain the image. PCX. This is a file format created by ZSoft. This format compresses its image data with the RLE type compression. DCX. This is a multipage PCX format that enables a file to contain more than one image. It is handled the same as a regular PCX file, except for the multipage feature. PostScript Raster (Encapsulated PostScript). These files are used primarily on PostScript printers. These printers usually offer more variety of fonts and higher resolution than standard laser printers. EPS files will work on any PostScript compatible printer and any end user application that supports placement of EPS files in its work space. OS/2 Bitmap (OS/2 BMP). These are files created on an OS/2 operating system. CALS Raster. These are 1-bit CCITT Group 4 CALS raster files. CALS is a U.S. government standard. MacPaint (MAC). These Macintosh Paint files are commonly used for monochrome clip art. GEM Image (IMG). These files are native to the Graphical Environment Manager developed by Digital Research. Microsoft Paint (MSP). These files from early versions of Windows are used for black- and-white drawings and clip art. WordPerfect (WPG). These are WordPerfect raster files. SUN Raster (RAS). These files are native to Sun UNIX platforms. Macintosh Pict (PCT). These files, produced using Macintosh QuickDraw, are used in desktop publishing and imaging applications. LEAD 1BIT. These are 1-bit LEAD compressed files. PCD. These are Kodak PhotoCD files. These read-only files can contain multiple resolutions. You can specify which of the resolutions to read. NOTE: Because of the battle between Unisys and many software developers over the GIF format royalty fees, Slides Shower will not support GIF. Instead, Slides Shower supports a new rising star that's supposed to be a much better replacement for GIF called PNG (Portable Network Graphics). CompuServe has adopted PNG and has been shifting their support for GIF to PNG. REGISTRATION ------------ The registration fee is $14. As of this writing, I only accept money orders, cashiers checks, bank checks, or personal checks. Please fill in the registration form in the REGISTER.TXT file and mail it along with your payment to: Chris Doan 4891 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., #401 San Diego, CA 92117 For my bookkeeping purposes, please refrain from sending cash. But if you must send cash, please also include a written order so I can keep track of my users. For quick activation, registered users will receive a temporary license file through internet e-mail (uuencoded or MIME-encoded). The license file will recognize you as a registered user and allow you full access to all Slides Shower features. Your permanent license file registered in your name (or your company name) and the latest version of Slides Shower will be in the mail the next business day. Those of you have access to CompuServe can register Slides Shower on line and receive the registered version within 24 hours (SWREG #11126). International users may transfer $US 19 directly to my Bank of America account. There will be an additional processing fee of $10 because that's how much my bank charges my account for Money Transfer Service. You will have to contact me by e-mail to obtain my account number for this type of payment. A site license is required by a corporation, company, educational institution, or governmental agency for use of Slides Shower software on the total number of computers that will use the software. Thank you for your interest in Slides Shower. Chris Doan doanc@netcom.com 102425.1613@compuserve.com San Diego, California July 1996