README
1What does this software do then ?
2=================================
3
4 aview is an high quality ascii-art image(pnm) browser and
5animation(fli/flc) player usefull especially with lynx browser.
6
7Supports: dos (VGA + MDA), stdio, curses, slang, X11, gpm, linux-console
8
9Features
10========
11 o High quality ascii art rendering
12 o Portable
13 o Save into many formats (html, text, ansi, more/less etc...)
14 o Contrast, Bright, Gamma control
15 o Image zooming/unzooming
16 o Three dithering modes
17 o Hidden "bonus" features :)
18 o Inversion
19 o Support for bright, dim, inverse attributes/extended
20 character set
21
22What is PNM file format?
23========================
24
25 PNM if an graphics format similiar to GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and
26others. Aview uses it because of its simplicity. Many free or shareware
27conversion tools from other graphics format exist (ImageMagick, NetPBM
28for UNIX, alchemy for DOS and others.) So you should use aview to
29browse images in many graphics format. UNIX version has script that
30does conversion automatically (using eighter NetPBM (preffered way)
31or ImageMagic conversion program. FIFO is used to do not waste your
32disc space so conversion is fully transparent. Under DOS and other
33operating systems you probably need to do it yourself.
34
35Usage
36=====
37
38 UNIX:
39 asciiview [filenames] [options]
40
41 to browse any image format supported by NetPBM or ImageMagick. Use OTHERS
42 way if you don't have installed these tools
43
44 options should be listed using aview or aaflip program when used w/o
45 parameters
46
47 OTHERS:
48 aview [options] [filename]
49
50 To browse pbm pgm ppm or pnm image.
51
52 aaflip [options] [filename]
53
54 to browse fli or flc animation
55
56Once aview is started use 'H' for help about keys.
57
58How this all started
59====================
60
61 Once upon a time we've (my friend Kamil and I) bought two old
62Herculeses as secondary monitors. We didn't know for that time that our
63Diamond Stealths 64 cards would become obsolete soon. The next day we
64downloaded the logo of Linux Texas Users Group - nice silly penguin
65looking like a cowboy! It was so exciting logo ... we decided that we
66couldn't live without it and we wanted to see it at boot time as a logo
67on our secondary monitors. There was a small problem - Hercules doesn't
68support color graphics. So we decided to convert the penguin image to
69ascii art using netpbm tools.
70
71 The output was very ugly because the converting algorithm was
72absolutly stupid. During the night I designed a new convertor that
73used a font bitmap to creat an aproximation table. The output wasn't
74very good since the algorithm wasn't tuned so well. Many months this
75small piece of code was waiting on my disc for the day "D". Meanwhile I
76started a new project XaoS (a fractal zoomer) with my friend Thomas.
77And then I got an idea: Ascii Art Mandelbrots! I was really impressed
78by the result! XaoS was faster, portable and looking much better than
79ever before. I found a new way to go ...
80
81
82AA-Project
83==========
84
85 dT8 8Tb
86 dT 8 8 Tb
87 dT 8 8 Tb
88 <PROJECT><PROJECT>
89 dT 8 8 Tb
90 dT 8 8 Tb
91
92Three goals of AA-Project:
93
94 1. Port all important software (like Doom, Second Reality, X windows
95 etc..) on AA-lib.
96
97 2. Port AA-lib on all available platforms (mainly ZX-Spectrum and
98 Sharp).
99
100 3. Force IBM to start manufacturing MDA cards again.
101
102 AA-project was started by Jan Hubicka. In that times just a few
103people knew about it. Then a new demo named BB has been relased to show
104the power of AA-lib technology. Now the project is freely available and
105anyone can help.
106
107Where to find Aview
108===================
109
110 All programs covered under AA-project can be obtained at
111`http://aa-project.sourceforge.net'.
112
README.flip
1aaflip -- an ascii arted flic player for aalib
2Version 0.3
3This is modifies version of flip(flic animation file player, see bellow)
4that works in text mode.
5
6ORIGINAL FLIP README
7====================
8
9
10flip -- a flic file player for the Linux console
11Version 0.3
12By John Remyn
13
14This is a non-X flic animation file player for Linux. A VGA compatible card
15is required.
16
17Flic files can usually be recognized by the .fli or .flc extensions at the
18end of their filenames. Fli files are limited to a resolution of 320x200,
19while flc files can have any resolution.
20
21The binary requires svgalib to be installed (svgalib can be found at
22sunsite.unc.edu: /pub/Linux/libs).
23
24The default method of playing is to load the first frame of the animation
25sequence and display it. After this the remainder of the flic file is loaded
26into memory, and the animation starts. The animation ends when q or ctrl-c
27is pressed. There are some flags that control the way the flic file is
28handled:
29
30-a Remove frames from memory after processing. Using this option
31 leaves more memory for other processes, but relies on the buffer
32 cache for continuous animation.
33
34-b Process frames immediately as they are loaded. When using this
35 option the animation frames are shown as soon as the player has read
36 them, so you don't have to wait until the entire file has been
37 read. The disadvantage is that the animation becomes jumpy if the
38 speed set by the animation is higher than the speed of loading.
39
40-c Keep the screen black while loading the animation. This conflicts
41 with option b, which can give interesting results.
42
43-f This removes the clock synchronization. This is just for fun, so
44 you can show off the speed of your computer :-)
45
46-n <number>
47 Play the flic file <number> times.
48
49-s <delay>
50 Sets the delay between frames to <delay>*0.01 seconds. Option -s 0
51 is the same as -f.
52
53- Causes flip to read the flic file from stdin. Using this with option
54 -a may cause trouble since backward seeks are done.
55
56Other options are:
57
58-v Shows some information about the flic file being played.
59
60-? Shows a bit of help.
61
62Flc files:
63Flc files with resolutions higher than 320x200 are now supported, out of the
643 files I could find, 2 work OK, 1 works almost OK.
65There are some considerations to be made when playing big flic files. If the
66file fits completely into memory, there are no problems. However when memory
67is short Linux swaps pages out of memory, which can happen while a frame is
68being decoded. This is not only slow but also results in very ugly
69animation. Animation improves when option -a is used, in which case there
70will be much less swapping (there still is a lot of disk/buffer-cache access
71going on though). Using option -b is also advisable since the animation
72won't be smooth anyway.
73
74
75Bugs:
76- X and Y offsets are not handled.
77- Flic files with resolutions smaller (or bigger) than the screen size are
78 probably not handled correctly, but I have yet to see one.
79- At least one of the flc files I have displays a few pixels of trash in a
80 place where they should definately not be. This could be caused by
81 incorrect handling of a page break. When I feel motivated enough I'll try
82 and fix it.
83
84
85Release history:
86
87V0.3a Added support for FLC files with resolutions greater than 320x200.
88 (A real pain)
89
90V0.2a Added decoding of DELTA_FLC chunks, so some flc files can also be
91 played. Changed the command line parameters. Removed some small
92 bugs.
93
94V0.1 First release, only just capable of playing fli files.
95
96
97John Remyn (author) (boogyman@xs4all.hacktic.nl may work soon)
98Harm Hanemaayer hhanemaa@cs.ruu.nl (for mail)
99