November 5 #psp/group chat @Dicer ****PSP STUDY SESSION OFFICIALLY BEGINS**** Hi everyone and thanks for coming to another exciting study session! We have a few rules we follow during these sessions to help keep all organized... We ask that everyone keep quiet and not just blurt out comments and questions. If you want to ask a question... Type the ? mark and wait until you are called to ask your question. If you have a comment to make... Type the ! sign and wait until you are callede to say it. During the tutorials... We often pause and wait for all to catch up... If you have completed all the steps and ready for the next set of instructions, type GA ( go ahead) and we will know you are ready! Those are the guidelines for the meetings. Now... I have some bad news... ? Tonight, I had invited Bill to come talk to us about BladePro... Today he was preparing to come and noticed that we were meeting about BladePro... HE is not the creator of BladePro but He created Picture Dicer! SOOOOO, he is not coming... He will however be doing a study session on Picture Dicer this Saturday for those who are interested! NOW the good news... Here is Bill now I was trying to resched this so you'd have a chance to try out PictureDicer, but, hey ... I am sure that we would all love to have you here to help us with Picture Dicer! Aha! Yes group???? Well, I'm happy enuf to hang out here tonight in any case -- my library books can wait till tomorrow :-) ! Okay Bill, let's help get those people who do not have Picture Dicer to download it. want a URL? I'll let you start off by giving the URL and then telling us about Picture Dicer. http://www.ziplink.net/~shoestring/dicer01.htm will do as well as any Go ahead and get the download everyone! OK, the concept is pretty simple -- summer of 1997 a lot of folks were talking about how difficult it is to cut up pictures in Photoshop or what have you, so I thought :"I can fix that". So I spent a few months writing the freeware version, PictureDicer 0.39 (and have been working on an advanced version, targeted as shareware, since (on and off)) The question arises as to why you might want to cut pictures up, right? Anyone? Bill...I am sure people have some questions... for an image map When you see a ? mark, call their name and they will ask ? right..tell us why :) ? sorry GA Diz Diz? any chance the newer version will do 3rd image mouseovers? well, it's certainly an idea * PSPWiz waves at Steve and asks if he has Picture Dicer, if not Download it here: http://www.ziplink.net/~shoestring/dicer01.htm ??? The current Beta shareware version does a whole 2-image number automatically ? Ummm -- is anyone here a Beta tester by any chance? ?? I am Aha! I am Cool! (I have over 100 I think, can't remember all the names, ya see!) Close is next Where should we unzip it to..any other thing we need to know to install? there are instructions in the readme file you might be able to run it without moving all those files, however you asked why we would want to cut up a pic I said for an image map Yes, that's one good reason ? also to make a large pic load faster Note that doing it that way eliminates the server-side/client-side problem OK, yes, it is said that it makes large pictures load faster, and that may be true, I don't really know for certain! But a lot of designers swear by it, so.... it does ! OK, and of course, there's the mouseover thing -- that being the biggie, I think. OK, let me scroll back and see who was next! are there plans for future versions to support point-to-point cutting using transparency? hmmm -- can you enlarge on that? ok, i just tryed it breifly, but it appears that it only supports stright lines, are there plans to change to point-to-point well, first of all, pictures must be rectangles, in general, so ... is the idea to cut an irregular area and then drop it into some other graphic or what? it could be Well, let me explain -- the basic program just does simple grids. The beta can remove interior cut lines to make rectangles of various sizes ok, that was my question Of course, you can do more complicated stuff with the freeware by repeatedly cutting stuff Bill, could you take us all through a quick run through Picture Dicer and show us the features and then a quick tutorial to use it? Simple enough, it's very simple to use * PSPWiz grins and starts up Picture Dicer Everyone should go ahead and start up picture dicer yes, from the File menu, load a graphic Should we all have a graphic loaded into Picture Dicer Bill? beware! some JPEGS won't work! it then asks for a "basename" for resulting output usually just select the default Questions? Is there some reason some JPEGS won't work? I've not run into any... Yes. Progressive won't load, and Adobe did some weird things with their version of the JPEG format I have added a workaround to the shareware version OK, so, to cut up the picture, you just move your mouse around over the picture left button down drags a vertical line, releasing deposits it in place right button for horizontal lines I have no imagines lost them all will some please send me one Is it better to cut a picture in more or less sections??? like 6 verses 10? Depends on your purpose for fast loading, I'd suggest less ok...why would you do "more" then? for what reason I mean the trick there is that browsers can have several threads downloading at once, user-selectable usually I see ok Have too many lines..how do I get rid of some without starting over? so you can have as many pieces of image as the user has his/her browser set to -- I'm not at all sure what the defaults are. Glad you asked! move the cursor over the little triangles outside the picture Cool when it turns into a "NO" symbol, click and the line is gone Thanks OK whew..thanks LOL So once you've laid in all the lines, you select Process from the File menu and it dices -- but first, you might want to change the output format, which you do from -- guess what? :-) I meant, guess how you change it :-) go to output format in the output place right! (Not all conversions are valid, mind you) This really IS easy!!!! Very clear! * PSPWiz agrees with Dakota! That's another improvement in the shareware -- various color reduction options Yeah, I tried to make it as simple as possible You'll notice that it produces a bunch of new image files, plus a grid (.grd) file and an html file * ath-ena peeked at the help file and it's all there nice and clear and simple so, that's the basic usage -- now, to make a mouseover, you need your *other* picture Same height and width, of course You just load it (you could just load the original pic for practice) Which I just did, then changed the basename so I won't overwrite the other batch THEN, instead of redrawing the lines, I just .... ...click Load Grid on the File menu ... (go and do likewise) Waiting for anyone who wants to follow along .... Yes, keely? well the first time i tried to open the grid it said corrupt..but i tried again and it worked..;) Whoops! That;s odd -- I've had occasional reports of that, never saw it myself ... Doesn't seem to cause any permanent damage, AFAIK! Its working fine now..;) So at this point you have two sets of sub-pictures, also two grids (identical) and two html files (almost identical) Now to make a mouseover, *you* have to beg, borrow, steal or write a little JavaScript ... Or use a JavaScript generator (I've seen a few, both online and offline) ... or, eventually, upgrade to the shareware version when it's available! do we process the second image? Oh, yes, to be sure -- sorry!! No problem..I just have to be TOLD everything..:) Hey, no problem! how does dicer number the segments..left to right top to bottom? exactly cuz you need to know which piece for the mouseovers Bill, this is a wonder program! Tell us about it being shareware and the cost of regfistering it. Good evening everyone...Thought I'd pop in and see whats going on. yes!!! thanks so very much!!! Hi Millsy! Well, I was working on it until about April, then went off the track with some other projects, and have had a hard time getting started again, but ... I definitely plan to release another beta quite soon, and I've sent out a survey to the current beta testers and gotten some good feedback but I don't know exactly when it'll be ready :-( ... However, depending on how it gets marketed ... What i need to know is where I can beg borrow or steal some java ...Or preferably learn to do it myself *S* Lone Wolf and builders.com (and I'm hoping to get someone else to do the marketing -- any ideas??) it looks like it'll be, well, let's just say under $50 US <_tammy> Is there a way to do rows with irregular sized rectangles in each row? without having to dice and re-dice? On JavaScript (not Java, mind you) you could always borrow the script from the dicer01.htm page! On irregular sizes, the shareware beta does handle it ... <_tammy> eg. first row with 2 rectangles 4 sized 25 x 100; next row 2 sized 50 x 100? how do you become a beta tester? Well, there's quite a queue at the moment -- I'm trying to weed out some of the less responsive folks from the list -- but just send me an email and I'll add you to the queue back to irregular boxes: The best way to do it is to plan it first on paper then you should be able to figure out what order to make the cuts in. Even if you have the Pro version! <_tammy> Can you erase "part" of a line? Again, you can in the Pro version. Has anyone "visited" the Haunted House? Maybe I should make a special offer to this User Group -- waddya think? A lot of work there...it shows and is wonderful :) Well, I don't have the details, but evidently they cut that whole thing up with the freeware dicer AFAIK Is this the haunted house at freegraphics.com? That's the one! <_tammy> try this addy... http://www.freegraphics.com/hauntedhouse/images/hh-full.html yep! I think it is going to make this so more more flexible! I like the sound of being able to erase a partial line... very handy and that will really help. I am gonna be cutting up things right a left tonight lol Now -- who knows what about the Haunted House? 'Cause I only know that it's way kewl! <---Still writes his own JavaScript as well. I would say that they cut up the haunted house graphic and then used animated graphics for the rollovers I use the freeware version all the time.. Its really great Each animation was created to fit the cutout size let's see -- OK, if you email me and mention this chat session, I'll at least move you to the front of the queue (shhh! don't tell anyone!) wha's your email addy? *grin* I'll extend that offer to the Saturday people as well, and if anyone cares to review the transcript and email those who have left, that's OK too. It may still be a little while before you get in, but you'll have priority. Howzzat? mailto:wfp@usa.net I have a suggestion.... For the Saturday session.... I can have a quickie tutorial ready for using Picture Dicer to make a great rollover button! Will include the script for it So, anyone here tonight, may want to come Saturday also to learn this! Ok, we always save the session logs and have them for download in the archive section Well, are there any more questions for Bill? I see at least one of you is here in Massachusetts - one of my students has an account at capecod.net Yes -- ask away, folks OK, I'll be here Sat. I will officially close this session and leave it up to everyone to chat and share now! You're a great bunch! Good night all! ****MEETING OFFICIALLY CLOSED**** I have the dubious honor to be teaching a course called "The Wild World of Web Design" wfp, what lang is it coded in? tell us more about class please Well, Visual Basic, actually Where do you teach it at? thought it would be more than that... im learning C++ I am also taking VB at VU i want the visual ones though At a little architecture college, the Boston Architectural Center would you ,ike to teach it online? hehe, wanna be a co-webmaster...lol...jk...unless ya wanna would you ,like to teach it online? VU is always looking for new teachers online that is My original plan was to convert it to something like Delphi once I got it prototyped, but it just took off by itself, so ... Oh, I don't know ... it would be quite a challenge to teach online, I suspect. no you would have to prepare the lessons to be posted weekly and if you desire have a meeting like this once a week wfp you could even teach a class how to use this new dicer ok wfp think about teaching dicer at VU next term. I'll keep it in mind! Nea Do You know VU? Virtual University? http://www.vu.org can anyone attend?????? yes topsider and we have severasl students your age from all over the world we are in session right now and you can see alot about it at my nest Eagel's Fall Nest for study group, logs, class info and urls. http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/3421/1.html Will check this all out. great is it free? and great lesson I am off to play with dicer I have an Idea and I think this program will solve my problem with presentation I noticed several hits on my site from ZDU a number of weeks ago, but never found out what that was all about. this term it was $15 for 3 classes That's very reasonable lots of VU students also do ZDU but most of us like VU better for several reasons Interesting! yes very and CUE are offered aslo sorry that is CEU Continuing Education Units no kidding? cool! great learning environment also Must have a look -- I suppose they don't offer degrees, though LOL ok I am off to edit and post these logs and then off to play with dicer, Thanks for coming by tonight no BUT I am also taking classes at freeAcademy and those do lead to I am taking A+ cert class they offer several Continuing Education Units- is something here in most US states are units needed to fulfull continuing certification requirements but I do know several home schoolers that are using these classes as part of their transcripts freeacademy is at http://www.freeacademy.com I think they are very structured in the fact that. you can not continue to the next lesson until you have passed a test on the immediate and they do prepare you to take the state tests required for certification nite all Session Close: Thu Nov 05 19:15:34 1998