Variations - version 0.41  23 November 2007
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     IMPORTANT - licence conditions follow
     *************************************

Variations is free. I make no request for any sort of financial recompense
for the time I have put (and will put in the future) into this.

However, as the author of this software I believe that legally, (and more
importantly in my opinion, *morally*) I have the right to expect that as a
(hopefully) decent person you will consider obeying a few simple requests.

Namely:

1. That you do not distribute a modified version of this program.

2. You do not pass it off as your own work nor use any part of it in
   any other software you write.


"this software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group".

Distribution
------------

Variations is currently being developed. For the moment I ask that
you do *not* distribute copies of this application to *any* third party.

Please do not place it on web sites, ftp sites, CDROMs, give it to friends on
floppies, tie it to the leg of a carrier pigeon etc. It is unfinished,
buggy and a later version will almost certainly be available here:

http://compo.iconbar.com/variation.htm

Please do tell anyone you think who might be interested where
they can get hold of it.

At some point when development settles down I'll replace the above with a less
restrictive clause and make the source code available.

Feedback
--------

I invite comments, bug reports and suggestions for ways in which this program
can be improved. I'm writing it for my own personal use and enjoyment but I
often find that other people suggest useful improvements to my software that
I'd never have thought of making myself.

Friendly, positive (or at least encouraging) feedback is more likely to bear
fruit. If you are abusive or overly critical you very probably will be ignored
or be told to "just delete it then".

My email address is rob@mapleglen.co.nz

Warranty
--------

None whatsoever. :-)

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* If you are unwilling to abide by the above then delete the application now *
******************************************************************************


Use
---

Drag a bitmap image file (sprite, jpeg, tif, gif...) to the iconbar icon.

You will see a window of thumbnails appear, each one slightly different.

The central thumbnail (surrounded by a red box) is the "this is what the
image will look like when you click on [Update] button" thumbnail.

Initially, it'll be the same as the original image.
A fullsize view on that may be opened by clicking on [View]

Clicking on a thumbnail places that one in the centre and causes the others to
be recomputed.

Thumbnails to the left of and above the central one lead the effect in one
direction. Thumbnails to the right of and below take you in the other.
The usual RISC OS standard of ADJUST having the opposite effect works to
reverse the above just as you'd expect.

When you're happy with the look of the central thumbnail you can choose
[Update] or simply double click on it to make the same change to
the full size image. Alternatively, click menu over any thumbnail and
choose Thumbnail -> Compare at full size to compare it with the original.

[View] gives you a view of this and via the menu attached to this window,
the option to save it as a sprite or jpeg. It also allows you to revert to the original and to save the thumbnails as a sprite or draw file along with many other options and facilities I leave you to discover.

[Reset] resets the effect offsets and redraws the thumbnails.

The step size slider controls the distance of each thumbnail step from
the previous. The idea is you'd initially have this set fairly high,
click on thumbnails until the central image starts to look like what
you want, then reduce the slider to see a series of variations that
are very close to each other and choose from one of those before
applying the change to the full image.

Currently implemented effects are Hue (though this one is *slow*),
Saturation, Brightness, Gamma, Contrast, Sepia/tint, Fade, Shape, Border,
Filter, Pontillist.

Some effects add their own controls.
I leave it up to you to discover what these do.

Fade, Shape and Border are extendable - look at the appropriate directories
within Variations. You can add drawfiles or ArtWorks here and as long as
you follow the naming convention used they'll be picked up next time the
program is run.

Fade, Shape and Border have the options to change background colour or use a
texture - drag a tiled JPEG to the load target arrow in the pane that pops up.

You can of course, edit the built in fade, shape and texture resource files
though you should ensure that they are contiguously numbered and that "000"
*always* exists.

The only other thing to mention is that the thumbnail window can be
resized and this will cause the thumbnails to be recomputed (they're
antialiased thumbnails too BTW - its not just doing a simple sprite scale
- though it should fall back to that if you're short of memory).

Options to save the current size of the thumbnail dialogue and vary the
number of thumbnails displayed (3x3, 5x5 or 7x7 grid) are provided in a
rudimentary choices dialogue box available from the programs iconbar menu.

As new features are added they are documented in the ChangeLog file so if
you are a new user, or have updated from an old version you might like
to skim-read this to see what has been added since these basic instructions
were written.

A command line interface (so that Variations can be used to process a
directory of images) will also be added in due course...


Err...early days, but what do you think of it? :-)

Let me know here: rob@mapleglen.co.nz

(...and I'd appreciate it if some graphically talented person went to work
    designing more fades and shapes...)


Rob Davison 29 May 2005.
