ImagePro User Guide BETA 2

ImagePro Setup

The first time you run ImagePro on your computer, it displays the ImagePro Setup window. This window lists all of the image translators that are installed on your system, and the mime-types of the images they handle. If you want ImagePro to be the Preferred Application for an image-type, click the check-box for that type.

If you install a new image translator, the next time you run ImagePro it will display the ImagePro Setup window and ask you if you want to set ImagePro as the Preferred Application for the mime-type handled by the new image translator.

You can display the ImagePro Setup window at any time by running "ImagePro --setup" from a Terminal window. If you no longer want ImagePro to be the Preferred Application for a mime-type, run the BeOS FilePrefs application from the Preferences menu in BeOS.

Image Translator: This is a small program which decodes image files into raw bitmaps which can be displayed on your screen. ImagePro itself doesn't understand any image formats but uses a translator to decode the image. Translators for common image types (for example jpeg) are included with BeOS, but you can also install translators yourself for more unusual image formats, for example wavelet-encoded images. You also need to install your own translator for GIF images. Be does not include a GIF translator because the GIF format is patented and Be would need to pay a license fee. Image Translators can also encode raw bitmaps for saving on disk. This means you can use ImagePro to convert images between different formats, for example save a PNG (Portable Network Graphics) image as a jpeg image. You can even use ImagePro to reduce the size of jpeg images by saving them with a lower quality! See the section on Saving Images for more details.
MIME Type: Every single file on a BeOS has (or rather, should have) a MIME type. Jpeg-encoded images have a mime-type of image/jpeg, GIF images have a mime-type of image/gif, etc. MIME is a new concept and lots of mime-types don't follow the standard properly, which is why you see things like image/png, image/x-png, etc.
Preferred Application: The Preferred Application for any particular mime-type is the application which BeOS opens a file with when you double-click on a file with that mime-type. If there is no Preferred Application for a mime-type, BeOS uses the Preferred Application for the mime-type's supertype. All images belong to the image/* supertype. If the supertype has no Preferred Application, BeOS will ask you which application you want to open the file with.

Zooming

Draw a rectangle in an image with the mouse, and the image zooms into the rectangle. If you hold down the Shift key while drawing the rectangle, the zoomed image will be opened in a new window.

More Mouse Functions

If the image is too large to fit in the window, you can scroll the image by holding down the Control key when you drag the mouse.

You can create a Bitmap Clipping if you hold down both Control and Shift when you drag the mouse. See the section below for more details about Bitmap Clippings.

Popup Menu

Click the right (or secondary) button on your mouse anywhere in an image to display the ImagePro Popup Menu.

Revert: This displays the image in its original size. This option is available if you have changed the size of the image.
Zoom Out: This zooms out of the image, thus displaying more of the image. This option is available if you have zoomed into an image.
Scale Image when Resizing Window: If this option is turned on, the image will be scaled to follow the size of the window when you change the size of the window.
Don't Scale Image when Resizing Window: If this option is turned on, the image will stay the same size if you change the size of the window. This means only part of the image will be displayed if the window is smaller than the image.
TIP!!!: You cannot make a window bigger than the screen itself without a lot of hassle. To create an image bigger than the screen, select "Don't Scale Image when Resizing Window", reduce the size of the window so that only part of the image is displayed, then select "Scale Image when Resizing Window" and increase the size of the window again. The image will be scaled along with the window, so that eventually it will be bigger than the entire screen!
Maintain Aspect when Scaling: If this is turned on, the proportion of the height to the width of the image is preserved.
Stretch Image when Scaling: If this is turned on, the image's height-to-width proportion is not preserved, so the image will be stretched or squashed when the window is resized.
Use Scrollbars if Required: If this is turned on, you will be able to use scroll-bars to scroll the image around if it doesn't fit entirely in the window.
Never Use Scrollbars: This will not use up valuable image-display area if the image is bigger than the window. You will need to scroll the image by holding down the Control key while you press the mouse button and move the mouse.
Open...: This displays an Open File dialogue. See "Opening Image Files" for more details.
Save...: This allows you to save the image, for example if you have scaled it. See "Saving Image Files" for more details.
About...: This displays the About Box for ImagePro, where you can REGISTER the application.

Opening ImageFiles

ImagePro's "Open" dialogue lists files with any image/* mime-type. If a file isn't in the list and you think it should be, it's probably because it doesn't have a mime-type. It's usually enough to right-click on the file in Tracker and select Identify, or just double-click on the file. If this doesn't work, the file probably has a mime-type which is incorrect. You fix this by right-clicking on the file in Tracker, selecting Open With / FileTypes, and then setting the correct mime-type of the file.

Preview Images: If this is turned on, ImagePro will display each image file as soon as it is selected in the Open dialogue. You might want to turn this off if the image files in your folder are very large and previewing them slows down the responsiveness of the dialogue.
Leave This Panel Open: If this is turned on the Open dialogue will not go away after you open an image. This is useful if you are browsing through lots of images.

Saving Image Files

Leave This Panel Open

If this is turned on the Save dialogue will not go away after you save an image. This is useful if you are saving the same image in different formats or you are changing the settings of a translator.

Format

Select the format you want to save the image under.

Settings...

Pressing this will display the Settings dialogue for the translator you have selected to save the image with.

The JWIC wavelet translator (available on BeBits) is a good BeOS citizen: it updates its settings as soon as you change them, so you can click Settings, change the image quality, click Save, change the image quality, change the filename and click Save again and compare the results. The jpeg translator is not such a good BeOS citizen (even though it's provided by Be!) because you need to close its Settings window for the settings to take effect. To compare different qualities of images, you need to press Settings, set the quality in the Settings dialogue, close the Settings dialogue, press Save, then press Settings to change the quality again, and close the Settings dialogue again before saving.

Bitmap Clippings

A "Clipping" is a piece of data that can be dragged between different applications in BeOS. A Bitmap Clipping can be saved as a file in Tracker, or dragged between image-display or image-editing applications IF they support the Bitmap Clipping protocol. You create a Bitmap Clipping in ImagePro by selecting "Create Clipping on Click and Drag" in the ImagePro popup menu, then selecting part of the image with the mouse. Then you click inside the clipping and drag it to another application while holding down the mouse button. If you drop the clipping in a Tracker window or on the Desktop, the clipping will be saved as a new image file. If you use the right (or secondary) mouse-button to drag the clipping, when you drop it a menu will be displayed so you can select what format to save the image under. If you drop a clipping on ImagePro it opens the clipping in a new window.

Please note: The BeOS default image viewer, ShowImage, SEEMS to support the Bitmap Clipping protocol, but it doesn't. You can only drag clippings between different windows of ShowImage itself, and not other applications. At the time of writing I am not aware of any applications besides ImagePro which support the Bitmap Clipping protocol.

Registering ImagePro

To register ImagePro, select About... from the ImagePro popup menu, and press the Register button. Registration is performed by the Kagi registration service. Please send any emails or cheques to Kagi, not to me. It is safe to send credit card details to Kagi by email so long as you use the supplied program to register ImagePro.

After Kagi has notified me that you have registered ImagePro, I will email you a copy of the Registered Distribution of ImagePro. At this stage I haven't set up a page where you can download a registered version of ImagePro as soon as you have payed. There will be a delay between you paying Kagi, Kagi notifying me, and me downloading my email (I only have a dial-up connection) and sending you the registered version.

Once you have a registered copy of ImagePro, you will be allowed to make backup copies. Indeed I encourage you to back it up so you don't have to ask me for another copy if you trash it. You will be allowed to install it on more than one computer ONLY IF YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON WHO USES THOSE COMPUTERS. Multiple people are allowed to use the registered version of ImagePro only if it is installed on one single computer.

The current version of ImagePro is beta. Naturally, you will be sent a registered copy of ImagePro when the beta phase is over if you register now.

Distribution of ImagePro

You are allowed, and encouraged, to distribute the unregistered version of ImagePro in its original distribution file, i.e. the zip file or Software Valet package that you download from BeWare or BeBits. If you are including ImagePro on a CD-Rom distribution please check one of these sites for the latest, OFFICIAL, distribution of ImagePro. You are NOT authorised to distribute ImagePro in any way unless it is in its original distribution file. Distribution of the registered version of ImagePro by anyone not authorised by me is ILLEGAL in all countries that I know of.

Contacting the Author

Click on Send Email in the About box.

Bug reports will be highly appreciated.

Feature requests are also encouraged. Your requests will be taken much more seriously if you have registered. Keep in mind that ImagePro is an image-VIEWING program. I do not intend to turn it into a paint package.

Bugs

- It is possible that a translator may not be able to open a valid image file, or maybe even crash. If ImagePro crashes repeatedly on the same image file, try opening the file with a different image-viewing program (use ShowImage supplied by BeOS). If this program also crashes, the problem is with the translator and has nothing to do with ImagePro.

- If you display too many images at once your system can run out of memory and stop functioning. ImagePro detects when it has run out of memory, but BeOS itself does not handle out-of-memory conditions very well and you may have to reboot your system if it stops responding.