Rtnl Mapper: Readme

Build: 1999-12-28 (version 1 beta 1)

Copyright (C) 1999 c.z.robertson

This program, with the exception of K. Nishita's NViewLib Library, is distributed according to the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. See the file copying.txt for details.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Description:

Rtnl Mapper is an html client-side image map editor for Windows 9x. It is currently at version 1 beta 2 and is probably still a bit buggy.

Current features:

• Displays and edits rectangular and circular link areas.
• Reads gif and jpeg format images, among others.
• Reads html files for images and image maps.
• Saves image maps to the clipboard or to file.
• Displays images at a number of zoom depths.
• Polygons can be read in from html and can be output, but not displayed or edited.

Proposed features for later versions include direct code editing within the program, support for polygon editing, and for the reading of png images. If possible I would like to replace NViewLib with an open source (preferably GPL or compatible) image reading library. Actually it's a little more complex than this because I think this codebase is a dead end. I hope to have a proper explanation on the web site as soon as possible.

The Delphi 2 source code for this program is also available. It is probably not of the highest quality, since I'm still an amateur. Also the commenting is a bit patchy, so if there is anything you don't understand, just email me and I'll do my best to explain it. Also, if you want to add any features, let me know, because I already have a few ideas about how various things could be implemented. Bug reports (and fixes) are, of course, always welcome.

New builds of this program are uploaded every few weeks, university work permitting. At the moment it's more like every few months. See http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~s.robertson/rtnlmapper for the latest version.

This program makes use of K. Nishita's NViewLib dll for image reading. See http://nishita.com/ for more information.

colin robertson
c.z.robertson@ndirect.co.uk

Bugs/limitations

Known bugs/limitations:

• It is not possible to open progressively encoded jpegs. (Limitation of NViewLib.)
• Circle resizing isn't perfect. The control point is centred under the mouse pointer no matter where in the control point the user actually clicked. I knew that would happen when I coded it but I don't know how to do it better.
• Control point detection isn't quite right. Detects control point clicks a few pixels outside the area of the control point. I don't know what's happening here. Seems to have started in build 1999-09-22. I can't reproduce this any more...

Please tell me of any bugs you find.

History:

• Build 1999-12-27 (version 1 beta 2)

  Added an about box and a view manual command on the menu bar. (Two months. What progress!)

• Build 1999-10-29 (version 1 beta 1)

  Beta 1. Hooray! Dialog positioning, ini file, shape menu, nohref and empty alt options, and a manual.

• Build 1999-09-22

  Circle editing! It's slightly buggy but it's there. Added a toolbar (if anyone wants to do a better job than me on the icons, feel free). Also fixed a bug in html outputting causing circle and polygon area tags not to have the "area " in <area href...>. I can't believe I didn't spot that one sooner. A few other small changes, most of which I can't remember.

• Build 1999-09-03

  Source files reformatted. Added procedure for changing control point size in imagemap.pas and a very rudimentary options dialog to the main program which accesses this.

• Build 1999-08-31

  Zoom menu has check marks to show current zoom factor. File filters added in open and save dialogs. Size of control points specified at beginning of imagemap.pas rather than scattered throughout the code.

• Build 1999-08-19

  Placed under GPL. More code tidying and some minor changes to imagemap.pas.

• Build 1999-08-03

  Fixed relative image srcs. Improved handling of empty tags. Rewrote some of the HtmlRead code so it's now much more elegant, tidy and readable. Added some more commenting to main.pas.

• Build 1999-06-25

  First public release.