OpenEuphoria

Re: Win32Lib & Bitmaps or maybe GIF's

• Posted by Brian Broker <bkb at CNW.COM> Jan 17, 2001
• 470 views

On Wed, 17 Jan 2001 14:47:38 -0500, Euman wrote:

>Hello Fellow Coders,
>
>I was wondering if anyone has researched the ability
>to bitBlt and transBlt GIF files (if possible)?
>
>I am pretty sure that to use the GIF file Format you
>would need a liscence. Am I right?
>
>I am extensively useing bitmaps and have found that over
>time (to include these bitmaps with my program) the expense of HD space is
too great.
>
>Does anyone have an alternative to oversized images
>other than zip archives?
>
>If I were to use JPEG what if any restictions would apply?
>Is it possible to use this format with Win32Lib?
>
>I want to shave some bytes by-way-of graphics and need
>some ideas.
>
>I cant use Euphoria bitmaps because of the limitation
>of being only 256 color depth (8 bit)
>
>Thanks in Advance all !
>\
>euman at bellsouth.net

I think that the Portable Network Graphic (PNG) format is a great
alternative to GIF.  It is a lossless format (JPEG loses info with more
compression), it has good compression (using zlib) and does more than 256
colors (a limitation of the GIF format).

At one point I started wrapping libraries for JPEG and/or PNG support for
Win32Lib but like most of my projects, I lose interest or free time before
completing the task.  I'll see about finishing up the PNG lib since I am
more interested in the format....

For more info on PNG see http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/
and for a library see http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html

-- Brian