GIFConverter

Posted December 15th, 2002 by kevin
in

GIFConverter 2.4.5d5 Carbon (OS 9/OS X native) Version has been released. Download it here now.

This is an experimental/development release. Please take care to avoid saving over important files. If you intend to modify a picture, work on a copy. It may contain some bugs, and there are several cosmetic issues under Aqua.

The file is a Self Mounting Image; after downloading, double click it to mount the disk on your desktop, then look inside the disk for the GIFConverter icon. You can run GIFConverter from the SMI, or copy it to your hard disk.

My intention is to get GIFConverter stabilized under Carbon, then to get to work on new features. Watch back here periodically for new releases, and more information about the GIFConverter on OS X program. Please report bugs to gc-bugs@kamit.com, and make suggestions for new features to gc-suggestions@kamit.com.

And the historical particulars...

GIFConverter is a graphics viewing and converting program for the Macintosh. It can display the following graphic types, and convert between them:

  • GIF
  • JPEG (and progressive JPEG in GIFConverter 2.4)
  • PICT
  • MacPaint
  • CompuServe RLE
  • TIFF
  • RIFF
  • EPS (output only)
  • PNG (in GIFConverter 2.4)

GIFConverter 2.4 also introduces many new Features, including progressive JPEG, PNG, scriptability, and recordability.

Here are some of the features in GIFConverter 2.4:

  • GIFConverter is now native on the PowerPC. It's delivered as a fat application.
  • GIFConverter now supports progressive JPEG. Also, problems with JPEG comments have been fixed.
  • GIFConverter now has initial support for PNG. Missing are comments, transparency and gamma support. They're coming.
  • GIFConverter supports more GIF features:
    • GIFConverter has always had support for multiple images.
    • Direct support for transparency.
    • Animation support: Delay, disposal method, user input, and loop count.
  • Change the size and position of images with dialog boxes.
  • Direct preview in your HTML browser. There's room for interpretation in the GIF animation specification, and differences in color rendering.
  • Apply the Netscape color palette to your images.
  • GIFConverter is now AppleScript scriptable and recordable. Some of the older commands aren't scriptable yet. There's plenty there to work with. Set many properties on the document and the its contained images. You can do things like write a droplet that will set the transparency to the color of the top left pixel, for instance.
  • And, there are sample batch-conversion scripts. Wish GIFConverter converted things your way? Just change the scripts yourself!
  • You'll be asked about file preferences on every save. No more hidden surprises. And you can specify them on the save AppleScript command. Write scripts to interlace all your GIF files!
  • GIFConverter has better memory management. It will use unused memory automatically.
  • Many bugs have been fixed. GIFConverter's internals have had a major overhaul, which should reduce or eliminate the number of crashes users have experienced.
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