112 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
112 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
What does this software do then ?
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=================================
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aview is an high quality ascii-art image(pnm) browser and
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animation(fli/flc) player usefull especially with lynx browser.
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Supports: dos (VGA + MDA), stdio, curses, slang, X11, gpm, linux-console
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Features
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========
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o High quality ascii art rendering
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o Portable
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o Save into many formats (html, text, ansi, more/less etc...)
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o Contrast, Bright, Gamma control
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o Image zooming/unzooming
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o Three dithering modes
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o Hidden "bonus" features :)
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o Inversion
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o Support for bright, dim, inverse attributes/extended
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character set
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What is PNM file format?
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========================
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PNM if an graphics format similiar to GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and
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others. Aview uses it because of its simplicity. Many free or shareware
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conversion tools from other graphics format exist (ImageMagick, NetPBM
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for UNIX, alchemy for DOS and others.) So you should use aview to
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browse images in many graphics format. UNIX version has script that
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does conversion automatically (using eighter NetPBM (preffered way)
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or ImageMagic conversion program. FIFO is used to do not waste your
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disc space so conversion is fully transparent. Under DOS and other
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operating systems you probably need to do it yourself.
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Usage
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=====
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UNIX:
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asciiview [filenames] [options]
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to browse any image format supported by NetPBM or ImageMagick. Use OTHERS
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way if you don't have installed these tools
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options should be listed using aview or aaflip program when used w/o
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parameters
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OTHERS:
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aview [options] [filename]
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To browse pbm pgm ppm or pnm image.
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aaflip [options] [filename]
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to browse fli or flc animation
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Once aview is started use 'H' for help about keys.
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How this all started
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====================
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Once upon a time we've (my friend Kamil and I) bought two old
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Herculeses as secondary monitors. We didn't know for that time that our
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Diamond Stealths 64 cards would become obsolete soon. The next day we
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downloaded the logo of Linux Texas Users Group - nice silly penguin
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looking like a cowboy! It was so exciting logo ... we decided that we
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couldn't live without it and we wanted to see it at boot time as a logo
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on our secondary monitors. There was a small problem - Hercules doesn't
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support color graphics. So we decided to convert the penguin image to
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ascii art using netpbm tools.
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The output was very ugly because the converting algorithm was
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absolutly stupid. During the night I designed a new convertor that
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used a font bitmap to creat an aproximation table. The output wasn't
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very good since the algorithm wasn't tuned so well. Many months this
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small piece of code was waiting on my disc for the day "D". Meanwhile I
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started a new project XaoS (a fractal zoomer) with my friend Thomas.
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And then I got an idea: Ascii Art Mandelbrots! I was really impressed
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by the result! XaoS was faster, portable and looking much better than
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ever before. I found a new way to go ...
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AA-Project
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==========
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dT8 8Tb
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dT 8 8 Tb
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dT 8 8 Tb
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<PROJECT><PROJECT>
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dT 8 8 Tb
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dT 8 8 Tb
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Three goals of AA-Project:
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1. Port all important software (like Doom, Second Reality, X windows
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etc..) on AA-lib.
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2. Port AA-lib on all available platforms (mainly ZX-Spectrum and
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Sharp).
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3. Force IBM to start manufacturing MDA cards again.
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AA-project was started by Jan Hubicka. In that times just a few
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people knew about it. Then a new demo named BB has been relased to show
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the power of AA-lib technology. Now the project is freely available and
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anyone can help.
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Where to find Aview
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===================
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All programs covered under AA-project can be obtained at
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`http://aa-project.sourceforge.net'.
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