DPSlide v1.0  25-Jan-86
Copyright (C) 1986  Paul A. Biondo

by

Paul A. Biondo
185 Powderhouse Blvd.
Somerville, MA 02144

CompuServe: 74746,277

DPSlide is a slide show program for displaying graphic images which
are output from the Deluxe Paint program from Electronic Arts, and those
images which are compatible with that output.

(note:  will not display compressed ilbm format... crashes ... robp)

DPSlide allows the user to select the slides which are to be shown, the
length of time for each slide to appear on the screen and the method of
bringing the slide up on to the screen.  There are five methods for
bringing a slide up on to the screen.

The five methods are:

Pop Up: The slide pops on the screen instantaneously.
Fade In: The slide fades on to the screen.
Fade Out/Fade In: The old slide fades out, then the new one fades in.
Scroll Up: The new slide scrolls up over the old slide.
Scroll All: The entire display scrolls up bringing the new slide into view.

Amiga owners with 512K of memory can display any combination of Deluxe
Paint images, mixing low, medium and hi resolution images.  Owners with
only 256K of memory are limited to only displaying low resolution images.

Warning for 512K owners: using two hi resolutions images in a row, uses
a large amount of memory.  When doing this, if memory is fragmented, the
program may not be able to get all the memory it needs and may crash.  To
insure that you have enough memory, reboot before running the program
and make sure no other CLIs are running.


Running the program:
--------------------

To run the program type:

DPSlide <commandfile>

The program will loop continuously thru the command file displaying the
slides as directed.  While the program is executing and the DPSlide window
is the active one on the WorkBench screen, there are three function keys
available.

The F1 key can be used to pause the program so that whatever slide is on
screen will stay until F1 is hit again.  The F2 key is used to push DPSlide
to the background and make the WorkBench screen come to the top.  At this
point you can run other programs from any CLIs that are available.  To
return to DPSlide hit F2 again.  Make sure that you click in the DPSlide
window first to activate it, so that the F2 will be read by DPSlide.  The
F10 key is used to exit DPSlide.


Building the command file:
--------------------------
The command file is a text file created with any Amiga editor.  It has the
format of one line per slide.  Each line contains five elements seperated
by commas.

filename,startmode,displaymode,endmode,displaytime

filename: This should be the name of the slide.  It can contain any valid
          Amiga filename that does not include a comma, including the
          location of that file if it is not in the current directory.
          It should be limited to 80 characters.

startmode: The method used to bring the slide up on the screen.
           0 = Pop Up
           1 = Fade In
           2 = Fade Out/Fade In
           3 = Scroll Up
           4 = Scroll All

displaymode: Not currently implemented.  Should always be 0.

endmode: Not currently implemented.  Should always be 0.

displaytime: Number of seconds to display image before starting to load
             the next image into memory.

There should be no blank lines in the command file.  Below is an example
of a command file.

KingTut,0,0,0,10
Starflight,2,0,0,8
PaintCan,3,0,0,10

This would display the KingTut image for 10 seconds using the Pop Up method,
the Starflight image for 8 seconds using the Fade In/Fade Out method and the
PaintCan image for 10 seconds using the Scroll Up method.  These 3 images
would be continuously displayed until F10 is hit.


If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to write me at
the address above or on CompuServe.  I hope you have fun using the program.

Paul A. Biondo