Gifview

Menus:

File:

Pick A File - Opens a standard file/open dialog allowing selection of Gifview's supported file types (or all file types to find a file with a non-standard extension
Future Functionality: The background will change to whichever file is selected, and the file list will change to the directory of the selected file
Current functionality: Changes the Gifview working directory to the directory where the selected file is

Browse To - Opens a dialog box where the user can type in a path. Gifview will then change the file list to show the selected directory. This feature is useful for copying a path from the address bar in Windows Explorer into Gifview.

On error: beeps, and cancels directory change

Copy (New Name) - Creates a copy of the selected file in the same directory with a different name. A dialog box pops up allowing the user to type in a new filename. The default name in this dialog is the current file name. If this is not changed to something different, Gifview will beep and the file will not be copied. If copy is selected when no file is selected, it will beep and will not pop up the dialog box.

Copy (New Location) - Copies the selected file to a different directory, giving the new copy the same name as the original. (needs more error checking code)

Copy To New Location & Move Selected File Dialog Box

Move Selected File - Moves the selected file to a different directory, preserving the file name. (needs more error checking code)

Rename Selected File - Renames the selected file to a different file name in the same directory.

Delete Selected File - Will delete the selected file. Whether the file is deleted directly or sent to the recycle bin depends on the menu option Options/Use Recycle Bin. Confirmation dialogs are also dependent on this option.

Delete Confirmation Dialog when Use Recycle Bin is off

New Subdirectory - Creates a new folder inside the open folder. Note that open is different than selected.

Delete Subdirectory - Deletes the open folder. Will only delete empty folders. If a subdirectory is not empty, this will cause a beep sound, and the folder will not be deleted. The recycle bin is not used.

Explore This Folder - Opens an Explorer window to directory open in Gifview (was not responding on testing)

Exit - Closes all Gifview windows and exits.

Edit:

Copy Image To Clipboard - copies the currently selected background to the clipboard, so that the image can be pasted into a graphics program, such as Paint.

Copy File To Clipboard - copies the currently selected background to the clipboard, so that you can paste the file to a different folder using windows explorer.

Copy Filename and Path to Clipboard - copies the path and file name to the clipboard. For example, "C:\Windows\Circles.bmp" might be copied. This is useful if you need to type in a file name in another program, such as in a file/open dialog box.

Copy Path only to Clipboard - copies the path of the current file to the clipboard, without the filename. For example "C:\Windows" might be copied. This is useful for pasting the folder into the address bar of an explorer window, saving you opening my computer and drilling down many folders to find the graphic you were looking at.

Publish

Open Sample Page Writer - Opens the sample page writer window with default values. See the sample page writer section

Publish This Picture - Opens the sample page writer window to the current directory so you can more easily create a html test page for a particular image

Wallpaper

Set This Image As Wallpaper - creates a file in your windows directory called "gifview.bmp" and changes your computer's desktop wallpaper to this image. If gifview.bmp already exists it is overwritten without prompting. (Error handling needs checking)

Add to Windows Directory - copies the image being displayed to a bmp file in the windows directory. The filename is the same as the original except for the extension. This is useful for adding web download images to be windows wallpaper.

Windows Wallpaper Tiling - Changes your windows wallpaper tiling settings. This is useful after you change the wallpaper with gifview and need to change the tiling options. Your choices are:
        Tiled
        Centered
        Stretch

View

Show Single Image - when this item is checked, a box with the image is shown to the right of the file list. This is helpful for determining the relative size of an image, or seeing the upper right corner of the image without having it hidden by the file list.

Show File List - This can either be enabled or disabled. If you uncheck "show file list" the drive, path, and file boxes will be hidden from the window. This is useful for viewing a large background without distracting items on the screen.

Refresh File List - Refreshes the list of files in the current directory, so that the list matches the list of files currently in the directory. If the current drive is no longer valid the path will change to the program's working directory. (Does not handle case of current folder no longer existing correctly)

Refresh Tiled Image - Redraws the image on the screen. This is useful to do if you make changes to the picture in photoshop and want to see your the tiled image with your new changes.

Clear Image - clears the background image from gifview. This feature is useful when viewing images with transparency. If an image with transparent regions is viewed, the previous image will remain in the transparent portion. Selecting "Clear Image" will eliminate any "residue" on these pictures. After selecting clear image you will have to click on the file name again or "refresh tiled image" for it to return as the background.

"Why does Gifview leave 'residue' from the previous image when images with transparency?"
This only seems to happen with icons and not gif images, and is intentional. If it cleared the image first there would be no way to tell whether the image is grey in color or is transparent. You can select different backgrounds behind the transparent image to tell which portions are really transparent. Not "clearing" the image every time the picture is changed is also faster, and prevents image flicker when refreshing. Gif images are displayed ignoring any transparency, however, future versions may implement transparent gif handling differently.

Window Color - allows you to change the background color of the gifview window. You will probably only see this color when gifview is first started or after selecting "clear image". (Window color changes even if the user hits cancel. final functionality will be the window color resetting to button highlight color OR not changing the window color)

Options

Use Recycle Bin - Default is checked. This setting is used for File/Delete Selected File
When this item is checked, any files deleted will be sent to the recycle bin the same way as the file would if you right click on a file in explorer and select delete. Whether you will be prompted for confirmation is dependent on your windows recycle bin settings. (If you right click on the Recycle Bin on your windows desktop and select properties, you can view your confirmation settings)
When not checked, a message box pops up asking whether you are sure you would like to delete the file. If you select "OK" the file will be deleted without sending to the recycle bin.

Show Sample Text - If this option is checked some sample "Web page text" will appear on top of the background being viewed. This is good for testing whether text can easily be read on a particular background.

Sample Text Font - Allows you to change the font name, weight and size for the sample text. Color is changed in a separate dialog.

Edit Sample Text - A dialog pops up prompting the user to enter new Sample Text. The default is the current sample text. Suggested uses of this feature is to type in the heading for your webpage, or the first paragraph of text that will appear on your webpage.

Sample Text Color - brings up the windows standard color selection dialog. This will affect the color used when "Show Sample Text" is enabled. This may be changed regardless of whether the sample text is visible. Sample text is not turned on by changing the text color.

Black Font - Changes the sample text color to black. This is a shortcut, so that you dod not have to go into the Sample Text Color dialog to get the most commonly colors. Sample text is only displayed, however, if Show Sample Text is checked.

White Font - Provides the same functionality as Black Font, but changes the text color to white instead of black.

B&W sample - Displays a large piece of sample text covering most of the window. Half is white and half is black. This is useful for testing the background for readability with a large amount of text on the screen. It is also useful for deciding whether black or white text looks better on a particular background. This option may be used at the same time as the "Show Sample Text" option, however, this is not recommended because the text from the two samples will overlap. Currently the black and white sample text is the first paragraph from the novel 1984 by George Orwell, however, this is subject to change in future versions. Likely the text will be changed to suggestions on how to use Gifview.

Help

Help - loads the help webpage in your default internet browser

Show The Nag Screen - Displays the good ole shareware notice. Someday I may remove this

About Gifview - shows the "about" screen and current version information

Popup Menus

Rename - see rename under the file menu section.

Delete - see delete under file menu section.

Supported File Types

Currently Gifview can display: Gif, Jp(e)g, Bmp, Ico

Sample Page Writer

The sample page writer creates a html page to display a background as a tiling test pattern. You can then save the page to the same name as the image but .htm in the same directory as the image. Alternatively you can copy the html to the clipboard to paste into the html editor of your choice. The sample page writer is flexible and allows you to either automatically get the information from the file such as the name and size, or lets you specify your own values. It has a small preview window to help you decide whether you should make the text on that image dark or light. You can also change the text used as the body of each page, so that you can create links to your backgrounds collection, or whatever is most helpful.

Issues With Gifview

transparent gif handling - does not deal with transparency consistent with internet browsers.
window color changing - canceling
browse this folder "broke" itself. now doesn't do jack