PROGRAMS USING THE FILES
IBrowse
optional: ImageFX and Personal Paint
MAIN APPLICATION
Using IBrowse web browser, view the image contents all-at-once in thumbnail
view, of a local directory with images.
ADDED NOTES: It is worth noting for web designers, that if you load a local
directory that is a mixture of pictures , html texts, and further drawers you will
note that the html text files and drawers get their boxes too, but there is an error
message since there is no picture. However, these boxes still contain the link
information. If you click a box with html text, you will get that html page on
screen; and if you click a box with a drawer, you will get IBrowse's 'directory'
screen. In the latter case you can run IBrowseCat again to look into this drawer.
!.Thus this is not just a one dimensional picture viewer--you can even navigate
down into drawers and view html documents as well as pictures.
Additional optional scripts:
-- IBrowse2IFX.ifx, is an ImageFX script to be launched from ImageFX, which will
directly load any local image file that is currently showing on the IBrowse screen.
See usage below.
--IBrowse2PP.pprx--as above but for use from Personal Paint
INSTALLATION
Copy IBrowseCat.ibrx anywhere you want to keep IBrowse arexx scripts. Then go
to
the IBrowse 'Preference-General 'window and select 'Rexx' tab. Add the
IBrowseCat.ibrx script to the list, and under 'NAME' enter something like
'View Directory Images'. Click Okay and then select Preferences-SaveSettings to
make it stick.
The optional IBrowse2IFX.ifx and IBrowse2PP.pprx are to be installed in ImageFX
and Personal Paint respectively, and will fetch the current image in IBrowse, after
you have selected it from the thumbnails.
DESCRIPTION
IBrowseCat is designed for viewing local files on your hard drive. Instead of
viewing images only one at a time, IBrowseCat , on-the-fly, creates an html
script called THUMBNAILS.HTML for the selected directory, which is deposited
in Ram: and then automically loaded into IBrowse
(IBrowseCat can be used to create permanent thumbnails for huge images. After the
thumbnail display is created, you can do a screen-grab and make it into a
single-sheet thumbnail file. Or cut it up in a paint program.)
Although the advantage of creating a new THUMBNAIL.HTML every time is that it
will never get outdated, you may want to create permanent thumbnail scripts
for archived (you will not change them) directories. The THUMBNAIL.HTML script
can be saved by dragging it onto the hard drive and renaming it. These html scripts
can be assembled to create thumbnail folders in html format, complete with menus.
In general, because website images and graphics are inherently small, there is
no need for permanently thumbnailing already-small images. Thus straight use of
IBrowseCat is ideal for viewing the content of website image and graphic
directories which normal
The additionally supplied ImageFX and Personal Paint scripts are written for these
respective systems and commands. Install and launch them from these programs. If
there is a local image on the IBrowse screen, it will be loaded.
USAGE
When IBrowseCat.ibrx is run, it will view the contents of the CURRENT
DIRECTORY as visible in the URL line at top. Thus, to begin the browsing you
first have to load the desired directory (and get a directory listing) or load any image
in the desired directory.
IBrowseCat reads the URL, ignoring anything following the last '/', and provides
a path name for AmigaDos and Arexx commands to use to do their work. When a
list of the files has been created, and html text additions made, the resulting
text , called THUMBNAIL.HTML is deposited in Ram. NOTE: if the directory
contains files other than pictures supported by your browser, you will still get a
box, but there will be an error message. These boxes are still clickable. If you click
an html document you will see the document displayed. If you click a drawer you
will get the IBrowse directory page, from which you can launch further viewing by
going to IIBrowseCat again.
NOTE: You may not want to show all the images in a directory (especially if some
are huge files--your ram and IBrowse have processing limitations). In that case
select 'delay image loading' in IBrowse Prefs, and when the boxes appear,
right-click and select 'reload unlined image' of only those ones you want to see.
When the display is done, you can save the THUMBNAILS.HTML script by just
dragging it out of Ram, and renaming it before you do another one. Why save the
script? Well, you may want to create an html folder of all your pictures, which is
managed by a menu page.
You can also do a screengrab of the IBrowse display if you would like to create
a single-sheet thumbnails image file, of cut it up into individual
thumbnails---useful if the source images are very large.
Additional scripts you can use:
IBrowse2IFX.ifx. Launch this from ImageFX. Click the desired thumbnail on the
IBrowse screen to get the image url specified in the window at top (plus the full
image on screen). Then activate ImageFX, and select this added script from the
Arexx button. This script will determine the path of the file from the url and load
it into ImageFX. In this way, IBrowseCat.ibrx can be used as thumbnails for loading
into ImageFX.
IBrowse2PP.pprx , to be lauched from Professional Paint RX button, used in same
way for the same reasons.
REVISION HISTORY
1.0 --original script
1.1 --modified the script to use 'base ref' so that the script does not have to write
the entire path for each line. Added notes to this readme regarding the fact that the
boxes for non-images are still clickable for navigation and for showing html
documents. Created two supplementary scripts, one for ImageFX and one for
Personal Paint, for loading into these programs after using IBrowseCat for thumbnail
viewing.
CREDITS AND NOTES
This script was inspired by three sources:
A program called NetCat (see NetCat.lha on Aminet)which also creates an html
script for browser use, which scales source images. But it simply gives you an
'index.html' script. You have to store it in the picture directory and load it
into your browser as an additional step. IBrowseCat.ibrx selects and loads thru the
Ibrowse interface. Also IBrowseCat.ibrx creates the script on the fly, thus it is
always fresh--very useful for an active picture directory that is always changing.
The manner in which the image files in a directory are listed and sorted is
borrowed from a similar requirement in the ImageFX script called CreateNails.ifx
where a sorted file list had to be created before the thumbnails were created.
Inspiration for doing an IBrowse script is from seeing on the Aminet some IBrowse
arexx scripts by S. Forsberg .
I am:
Andres Pääbo, Box 478, Apsley, Ont. Canada K0L 1AO. Can-705-656-9387
email paabo@bancom.net
(Webdesigners: I have also created a PPaint7+ arexx script for animated gif design
. See WAD.pprx on Aminet.)
-date of this upload August 1998
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