GIFtest 4.0ß
CopyRight 1991 by Dave Navarro, Jr.
History File
Note that many changes are occuring in GIFtest, I think up dimented
stuff to do to it all the time. If you can think of anything let me
know. At present, the DOCs aren't even close to being finished and
the utilities mentioned in ORDER.FRM aren't out of the alpha stages
yet, but all seem to work, though they're buggy. All "official"
beta testers will recieve a free registered copy of GIFtest. Thanks
for you help.
Note: An incorrect price of $30 was listed in earlier betas. The
correct price for GIFtest 4.0 is $15 plus shipping. This is to
accomodate smaller BBS's which cannot afford high priced utilities
for their BBSs.
New!: If you are using GIFtest with ZipLab, you can register
GIFtest for only $10! "Jeez Dave, how do we take advantage of the
great offer?" Well, I'm glad you asked that.. It's simple, send in
the ORDER form with your check/money order for $10 along with your
BBS number and the serial number from your registered ZipLab and
I'll leave a message on my BBS with your serial number to 'BRAND'
GIFtest with! Note: This does not include any of the extra
utilities that come with GIFtest like GIFbrand, to get those you
MUST pay the $15 registration fee.
Version 5.0:
As soon as 4.0 is out the door, I will start taking suggestions for
the next version. Already on the list is the ability to read
resolutions from .JPG files created with GIF2JPG. Much thanks to
that author for providing me with the appropriate information. Also,
I have contacted the author of GIFLITE via BBS and asked him to
include the original 32 bit CRC as part of the GIFLITE header in
GIFs created with GIFLITE. He doesn't feel there is a need, so it
is up to you to drop him a note and let him know that it is
EXTREMELY important for duplicate checking. If he includes the
ORIGINAL CRC as part of the header then if you use GIFtest, users
will no longer be able to download those large GIFs from your BBS,
GIFLITE 'em and re-upload them for credit.
Version 4.0:
Beta [01/19/92]: Had a problem reading the new ProDoor $DOOR.NAM
format. Should be corrected.
Beta [01/17/92]: Well, we can thank Sam Smith for the latest beta..
Fortunately, before I got GIFtest out the door as a final product,
he got around to changing the file format for the description files
in ProDoor 3.44 dated after 12/31/91. So, with this beta I have
added support for /B:3 which tells GIFtest that you are running
ProDoor dated after 12/31/91. What's taking so long is that I had
decided to convert the majority of GIFtest over to assembler to make
it smaller and faster (and take up less memory), and I didn't expect
to have to make a change of this magnitude this soon. It's affected
GIFtest and GIFBRAND which were both converted.. This beta should
cover the necessary changes in GIFtest, but I'll need at least
another week and a half to make the changes in GIFBRAND. Sorry, and
I'm just as anxious as all of you to get this version out and
finished with so I can get on to the stuff in version 5. Once last
note.. I'd like to thank Steve Catmull of CDC for his idea for an
option in GIFtest 5.0 of a way to reject untasteful GIFs... I am
thinking about some way to add a "GIF critic" option, but it may be
impossible.. I'll sure give it a try though <grin>. For all of you
who have registered GIFtest (many thanks), I have printed out
postcards for all of you with your serial number and branding
information so that you'll at least have something until I get the
disks in the mail. And last, but not least.. I need some ideas on
GIFLab.. My original intention was to just add ANSI color to
GIFtest to make it more colorful (GIFtest already supports the COM
port).. But what do you want? Do you want it as garish as ZipLab?
Let me know.. ** Please Read GIFTEST.CRC **
Beta [01/01/92]: Sigh.. It looks like all the bugs weren't
completely out. GIFtest was not opening the GIFLOG file in file
sharing mode so that was causing a number of problems. That has now
been fixed. Note, however, that you MUST have SHARE.COM or an
equivelant loaded for this to work. Also, a number of people
reported some odd behavior under different situations. I finally
tracked it all down to places where I was using integers when I
should have been using long integers. If you are a beta
tester/registered user, GIFSTAT 1.0ß is available for downloading on
The Bard's Lair. This util is for registered users and approved
beta testers only. Do NOT distribute it. GIFBRAND 1.0ß is also
available for beta testing. When you call the system, leave a
message to the sysop to get the password to download these utils.
Beta [12/07/91]: Final Beta! Fixed "/R:3" option to place
description as the last line by itself. Fixed problem where 1 out
of every 7000 GIFs wouldn't pass because of an "illegal block". Some
program somwhere is writing a block with a header number of zero,
which is not defined in either the GIF87 or GIF89 standard. VPIC and
CSHOW apprently just ignore this block and continue on processing,
so the GIF views perfectly, but GIFtest would report it as a bad
GIF. If you use VPIC to "regif" the image, VPIC rewrites it without
the offending block, which would get you around the problem. If
anyone knows what block type zero is, I'd appreciate it they'd let
me know.. It doesn't seem to be part of the image. I added the /Z
option which display's debug info as GIFtest is operating. If your
having a problem, add /Z to the command line to help you to see
exactly what GIFtest is doing as it processes the file. I am gonna
give this last beta 7 days, and if there are no more reports of
problems, I'm gonna remove all the debugging code and release it as
final. When that happens I'll start mailing disks to all of you who
have already registered GIFtest (if you have registered it and I
have NOT called you or your BBS to give you your serial number,
please send me a note or call my BBS.)
Beta [11/23/91]: Added /A option to force upload descriptions to
private (put a "/" in front of them). It's gotten to the point on
my BBS where idiots (you know who they are) upload adult GIFs in my
main board public area for minors to download.. The only way around
it is to either stop letting people upload GIFs, force all uploads
private (a major pain), or have GIFtest force all GIFs to be private
uploads. Add /P:n routine where 'n' is the com port number.. This
will have GIFtest send all it's display information to the specified
COM port if carrier is detected. GIFtest reads the port speed from
the com port (only supports COM1: through COM4: with standard port
configurations), so should work with any BBS software. Fixed
resolution insertion problem where GIFtest wasn't putting the rez on
the last line by itself if position is set to 3. Fixed GTSETUP.COM
to reflect the changes in GIFtest 4.0 beta.
[Note: Can someone who is running GIFtest on PCB or ProDoor and not]
[ using 4DOS please upload their PCBTEST/PROUT1 file(s) ]
Beta [11/17/91]: Fixed GTSETUP to use GIFTEST.CNF as the default
config filename as opposed to GIFTEST.CFG.
Beta [11/14/91]: Added the /F:filename option for PCBoard 14.5a
sysops. PCBoard 14.5a will pass the location of the UPDESC[.n] file
on the command line to PCBTEST.BAT as variable %3. This, so you can
now use /F:%3 on the command line to tell GIFtest the location of
your description file. You can then delete all the remaining lines
in your GIFtest.CNF file which did contain the various names and
locations of your UPDESC file. (See sample PCBTEST.BAT file)
Beta [11/07/91]: Finally fixed ALL problems with resolution
insertion on PCB systems. Rewrote the whole thing from scratch and
tested it for 2 hours. A number of PCB sysops have called me and
asked where the heck the UPDESC file(s) can be found. When a user
types in a description of a file before they upload it, it is put
into a file called UPDESC. If it's a multinode system, the node
number is appended as the file extension (UPDESC.1, UPDESC.2,
etc..). If you have NOT specified a word directory in PCBSETUP, the
UPDESC file(s) are kept in the default PCB directory where
PCBOARD.DAT resides. If you have designated a WORK directory, then
you will find the UPDESC file(s) there. If you have PCBoard 14.5a,
PCB passes a third parameter (%3) to PCBTEST.BAT during upload
testing. You can put "ECHO %3> UPDESC.LOC" at the beginning of your
PCBTEST.BAT file and you'll find a file called UPDESC.LOC in your
PCB directory which tells the location of the UPDESC file for that
node.
Beta [10/07/91]: COM routines are not functioning yet.
Beta [10/06/91]: GIFtest no longer "automatically" searches path for
GIFTEST.CFG, only if you specift /C or /C:filename on the command
line. Instead of searching the path for GIFtest, GIFtest only
searches the current directory and the directory that GIFTEST.EXE is
located in. Changed /P [rez position in description] to /R. Changed
/R [rez type] to /T. Changed /D [debug on] to /Z. Added /D to turn
on duplicate checking via 32 bit CRC (same CRC used in PKZIP and
ARJ). Added /P:n to indicate COM port number. Note -> GIFtest will
send all output to both the local screen, and the COM port if
carrier is detected on the indicated com port, if no carrier, only
the local screen will recieve data. COM ports supported are 1-4,
com addresses 3FB, 2FB, 3EB, and 2EB using IRQ's 3 and 4. COM port
addresses are looked up from the BIOS table, so if you have a
program that uses a non-standard port address and changes the BIOS
table, GIFtest will support it. GIFtest automatically reads the
baud rate, parity and stop bits from the port so they do not need to
be passed. This will make GIFtest usable with a wide variety of BBS
programs when not using the resolution insertion functions. Once
again, I fixed the PCBoard description handling routines. I've done
extensive testing with PCBoard this time, so they should be working
properly. I had been working on moving the CRC dupe checking
routines into a database instead of searching the GIFLOG as I have
been doing, but I've had too many problems because of how I've got
the code setup.. Since there are plenty of CRC database programs
available right now, I suggest you use one of those if the dupe
checking routines are too slow for you. To facilitate this, dupe
checking now defaults to off and you must include "/D" on the
command line or in the GIFTEST.CNF file. CRC's are still put in the
log even if dupe checking is turned off.
Beta [09/15/91]: Fixed PCBoard Description Handling.
Beta [08/12/91]: Changed display so that if a duplicate is found,
instead of "Duplicate!!" is says "Duplicates [duplicate filename]".
Beta [08/12/91]: Changed the display slightly to better accomodate
PCBoard's PCBVIEW.BAT for redirection to PCBVIEW.TXT [sample
PCBVIEW.BAT file for 4DOS included]. I have changed my BBS to
PCBoard, and in doing so, have discovered the the PCB description
routines are not working..
Beta [08/10/91]: Fixed the "press any key" bug in the help display for
the unregistered version.
Beta [08/07/91]: Changed GIFLOG searching routines to make them
faster when searching for CRC. Added PCBOARD description support.
GIFtest now parses UPDESC[.n] where [.n] is the extension with the
node number. If GIFtest finds the PCBNODE= environment variable then
GIFtest uses that for the node number (ProDoor systems should set
this variable for each node to have GIFtest properly find the right
description file if running multiple node and your using the same
PROUTEST.BAT for all nodes.) Made changes in "alpha" routines for
recognizing "branded" GIFs.
Beta [07/24/91]: Converted a bunch of routines to ASM to reduce size
of EXE file. Added "alpha" test routines for recognition of GIFs
branded with GIFbrand.
Beta [07/23/91]: Fixed logic for finding $DOOR.NAM description file.
Beta [07/21/91]: Made changes in sample PROUT1.BAT file. Added
TESTGIF.BAT as a sample GIF testing batch file for ProDoor and
PCBoard.
Beta [07/20/91]: [04:15am] Added /X:FILENAME option which will
log any internal GIF comments found to FILENAME. All descriptions
are appended, FILENAME is not overwritten.
Beta [07/20/91]: Rewrote GIF testing logic to comply 100% with
GIF89a standard. No longer "crops" description fields in GIFs.
Added /D option which will display "debug" information as GIF
is processed.
Beta [07/19/91]: Fixed bug in /S, skip GIF testing and just add
resolution. Fixed bug in /E option, added "debug" routine to
display where GIFtest "thinks" $DOOR.NAM is located.
Beta [07/18/91]: Added ProDoor resolution insertion routines and
node checking routines. GIFtest will now also display the exit
code so you have some idea exactly what is going on. Added CRC
test for GIFtest itself. If you type GIFTEST CRC, GIFTEST will
display a CRC of itself.
Beta [07/17/91]: It seems that with the GIF89a standard, an image
can end with a "!" as a terminator instead of a ";" which designates
an extension. Prizm BBS uses this to store ASCII text comments
after their GIFs. GIFtest currently truncates this "extension" and
replaces the "!" terminator with the proper ";". At present, VPIC,
CSHOW and other GIF viewers do not recognize any extensions while
viewing GIFs so by truncating this, GIFtest is able to get a more
accurate CRC32. This will not affect your GIFs in any way other that
to reduce their size.
Beta [07/17/91]: Fixed command line parsing so that it properly
distinguishes between a filename and a command parameter.
Beta [07/15/91]: Searches path for GIFTEST.CFG file if not in
current directory. Removed /T option.. when testing GIFs, GIFtest
will always trim off the extra bytes, otherwise the 32 bit CRCs
don't mean anything. Added GTSETUP to the beta zip to help people
create GIFTEST.CFG file.
Beta [07/12/91]: Does not have routines for placing resolution into
description yet.
Complete rewrite from scratch. Now 70% assembler to speed up most
functions.
Version 3.4:
Recompiled to use less memory.... Fixed /E (erase) function.
Version 3.3:
Added /L:[filename] option for logging of GIFs. Log entries are
written as:
FILENAME.GIF 999999 01-01-91 [9999xx9999x999] 9999 OK GL FFFFFFFF
─────┬────── ──┬─── ────┬─── ────────┬─────── ─┬── ┌─ ┌─ ┌───────
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ └ 32 bit CRC
│ │ │ │ │ │ └ GIFLITE'd
│ │ │ │ │ └ Status
│ │ │ │ │ OK
│ │ │ │ │ IM Incomplete Image
│ │ │ │ │ IV Invalid Header
│ │ │ │ └ Trimmed Bytes
│ │ │ └ Resolution
│ │ └ Current Date
│ └ File Size
└ File Name
If the filename for /L is left out, then GIFtest assumes the name
GIFLOG. If the log file exists, it's search for the current filename
and if found, GIFtest exits without retesting the file.
Version 3.2:
Fixed resolution insertion (again). 3.0 and 3.1 weren't handling
multiple line descriptions properly, and didn't do ANYTHING with
single line descriptions. When testing, this wasn't caught with the
"/D" option because "/D" printed the description as it was being
adjusted and not as it was put back in $DOOR.NAM so I didn't catch it.
Version 3.1:
Added ability to detect if a GIF has been compressed with the
unregistered version of GIFLITE. If the GIF is valid and it has been
compressed with GIFLITE then GIFTEST will exit with an ERRORLEVEL = 3,
which will allow your batch files to use GIFLITE on uploaded GIFs if
you desire. Also added "/S" option to skip GIF testing alltogether.
This was provided for SysOps who just want the resolution added to their
description without all the testing.
Version 3.0:
Rewrote GIF testing routines to test the internal image of a GIF file
as well as the header and terminator. This does not test to see if
each pixel is the correct color, but rather tests to make sure that
the correct number of pixels are represented in the LZW table for the
image and that all internal codes are accurate. Added /P:3 option to
place resolution as the last line of the description by itself. Once
again fixed problem with descriptions not being displayed properly.
Also included TESTGIF which displays techinical information of a GIF
file. WARNING! TESTGIF.EXE does direct screen writes when displaying
information about a GIF. This could cause problems with some
multitaskers on non 386/486 machines when used in the background task.
Version 2.3:
Added /E option to erase Invalid or Incomplete GIFs and fixed problem
where leading "/" was being deleted from description causing private
uploads to be put in the public upload directory. Fixed description
duplication problem when description was the minimum allowed by ProDoor
and using the /P:2 option.
Version 2.21:
Minor bug fix in documentation to reflect the change in the switch
charactor. Use "/" instead of "-".
Version 2.2:
Minor bug fix where GIFtest was improperly placing resolution when used
with -p:2 or -p:0 options.
Version 2.1:
Minor bug fix where GIFtest would remove "-"'s from filenames on the
command line causing the GIF to be invalid.