Description:
This program was developed to help people create Web menus by dividing up images into user configurable
sections. Once they are divided up you can easily change the images to be used in HTML mouse overs or
what ever else you can think of. Actually... I created it to help me make mine and thought that some others
might like to use it as well.
Since it's first release I have received quite a bit of feedback, so decided to try and work out some of the
quirks and problems and then re-release the application.
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Menu Help
File Menu
- Open - Opens a picture within PictureClip (BMP, GIF, JPG).
- Create Sections - Once your lines are placed, this will clip out the sections.
- Save Section Lines - Will save off your placed lines to a file for later use.
- Load Section Lines - Loads previously saved lines, files have a PLE extention on them.
- Last Cut - will be shown for easy retrieval of the last image you've diced.
- Exit - Exits the Program.
Edit Menu
- Draw Mode - Allows you to select from either Horizontal or Vertical Lines.
- Divide H Equally - Divides the picture horizontally equal into user defined sections.
- Divide V Equally - Divides the picture vertically equal into user defined sections.
- Clear Lines - Clears the selected picture and starts over.
- Undo Last - Will remove/undo the last line drawn on the image (full history).
- Set JPG Compression - Will allow you to set the Compression/Quality of the JPGs created.
Line Color
- Simply select one of the displayed colors to control what color the lines drawn on the image will be.
- Black - Red - Green -
Yellow - Blue - White
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About Menu
- This Picture - Shows the height and width of the selected picture.
- Program - Information about the program.
Help
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Once the sectioning is complete, you'll be prompted
with the screen to the left.
- Yes, in a screen - Will show you the screen below.
- Yes, to an HTML file - Will export the HTML to a file of the same name as the pictures.
- No, thank you! - Will skip the export of the HTML.
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Pretty straight forward here... this screen will show the output of the HTML export.
Click on "Copy to Clipboard" to do just that and get it ready to paste into your favorite HTML editor.
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Bugs Fixed/Enhancements in 2.5 -
- Added Scroll Bars for easier navigation of pictures larger than your screen resolution.
- Fixed small bug in HTML output that made the picture table not comply with Netscape Navigator v4.
- Added code to center the work area when opening larger pictures.
- Added ability to control the compression/quality of the created JPGs.
- Added an "Undo Last Line Drawn" function.
- Added option to save and load previously drawn lines.
Bugs Fixed/Enhancements in 2.0 -
- There was a reported error that only occurred when the application was full screen (maximized). Basically
what it came down to was the fact that the code was trying to do stuff to the screen that is impossible while
in full screen mode. So this was fixed pretty simply by checking if the screen is maximized before going
through the screen manipulation code.
- Remember that irritating little bug of the lines
disappearing when you would minimize the application and then bring it back
up? Well it's fixed now... and sadly.. it was all due to one single change on
the form. Why I didn't see this before I'll never know. ;-)
- The minor inconvenience of having to reconvert cut images into another format is somewhat fixed.
PictureClip will now export the clipped images in either BMP or JPG format.
- I got back to using this application a few months
back, and I got kind of irritated with the menu system. So in addition to
having the menu system, there is also a toolbar that gives you most of the
same functionality at the click of a button instead of navigating menus.
- I got a number of e-mails from users that thought the program was great, but they were somewhat perplexed as
to how to implement the sections in HTML... so for them, once you've created the sections, PictureClip will
now ask you if you want the HTML to go along with it. Here you'll have the option of declining the HTML offer,
dumping the HTML code to a screen so you can cut & paste it, or exporting it directly to an HTML file.
Bugs Fixed/Enhancements in 1.5 -
- Dividing the pictures equally.. yeah right.. Well,
due to rounding it really didn't work all that well. Thanks to some feedback I
received, I was able to incorporate code that would better section the image.
Now, you should see a more uniform division when your pixels and sections
don't quite divide evenly!
- Will now open JPG and GIF files, but due to a
limitation in the Picture Clip control supplied with Visual Basic, it will
still only write the sections out in BMP format. Just as soon as I can find
either the code to do the conversion or a cheap control that will do it for
me, I'll fix this inconvenience.
- Last folder you opened pictures from and the last
folder you saved to will now be saved for easier retrieval. In addition, I've
added a single "last cut" image on the menu.
- Will now check to see if it is going to overlay any
old sections before continuing with the save. Also, now prompts for a section
name so that each image is not always called Clip1, Clip2, etc.
- ZDNet reviewed this program and said that the
application window should not get any smaller than what it opened at. Well, I
wrestled with this one for a while... I kind of liked the way that the
application would conform to the image's size once opened. Until... I opened
an image that was smaller in width than the opening size.. oops.. menus get
kind of crowded. So, I comprimised and decided that the application's width
would get no smaller.
- Help, what you're looking at, has been upgraded to HTML and images instead of the original pop up window.
Credits
Purg - My inspiration and drive when I need it the most.
Luc - Supplied the idea for dividing the sections "evenly".
Paul - For doing a great job Beta testing version 2.0.
Dogman - For the image used in the above screen shots.
