Viewing Graphics on OS/2 - by Ryan Dill

iven that this issue of e-Zine! focuses largely on graphics creation and editing, we felt we should try to inform readers of the best graphics viewing applications for OS/2 as well. True, any graphics design program worthy of the name has the ability to view a large number of picture formats, but if all you want to do is look at an image, the extra overhead in a full graphics application like ColorWorks or Photo>Graphics is probably overkill.

Three of the most well-known OS/2 programs for viewing and minor touch-ups of digital pictures are PMView, Galleria, and PMJpeg. This article is not intended as a full review of any of the programs (reviews of PMView and PMJpeg have been previously published by e-Zine! ), but instead compares and contrasts the three, giving an overview of the features each has to offer.

For this article, I used the latest versions of each: PMView v1.00, Galleria v2.31 and PMJpeg v1.93. (Note that the latest shareware version of PMJpeg is still v1.74, soon to be updated to v1.83 -- the registered version of PMJpeg is kept ahead of the shareware as a reward to registered users.) All programs were tested on a Pentium 120 (40 megs RAM) running Warp 4, with an ATI 3D Expression video card.

Picture Formats

All three programs permit you to view a variety of popular graphics formats, including the common GIF, BMP and JPG. However, from the full list of formats, it is clear that PMView can deal with more types of graphics than either of the other two contenders, including OS/2 icons, pointer files and even OS/2 boot logos. True, most people will never have the need to view graphics in many of these formats, (I've never seen a FITS file, for example) but "better safe than sorry" is a phrase that comes to mind. It's comforting to know that, should you ever need to view graphic X, PMView is the most likely to have support for X out of all three programs.

Slide Show

PMView, PMJpeg and Galleria all have the ability to view multiple images, one after the other, in a format much like a slide projector (hence the term 'slide show'). All allow you to view slide shows in regular or full-screen view, but unfortunately Galleria's version of full-screen doesn't cooperate with Warp 4's WarpCenter. On my system, the WarpCenter remains on top of full-screen images, even when the WarpCenter's own 'Keep on Top' option is turned off. PMView and PMJpeg have no such problems, both taking up the entire screen for image display. PMView's slideshow feature also allows one to both preview the next image, and view the slideshow both forwards and backwards, (GIF, 6.9k) unlike PMJpeg and Galleria. (Galleria has buttons (GIF, 5.8k) to do this while in normal mode, but no such method when in full-screen mode.)

Screen Captures

All three programs also include the ability to 'capture' part of your screen into a picture format of your choice. (Galleria uses a small separate program called Galleria/CM for performing captures.) Each allows you to capture anything from the entire Desktop all the way down to the inner contents of a folder or window. Additionally, all three programs include a delay feature which lets you set enough time for you to set your Desktop up the way you like it.

Galleria/CM (GIF, 8.1k) also includes a neat feature the other two programs lack -- when capturing a whole application, all of that application's open windows will also be captured. For example, if you were editing three or four graphics at once in your favorite graphics designer and you wanted a picture of all of them without the rest of the Desktop, all you would have to do is select the application and tell Galleria/CM what to do and, voila! No cropping necessary.

Editing

Since many people just can't resist tweaking an existing image until it's perfect, PMView, PMJpeg and Galleria all include basic image editing capabilities. You can rotate or flip an image, brighten or darken it (GIF, 4.5k), resize it and manipulate its colors six ways from Sunday. Unfortunately, PMJpeg has no 'undo' feature to go with its editing capabilities as its competitors do -- the only way to undo a change in color, brightness, etc. is to have a saved copy of the original image to revert to.

More Features

Scanning: Both PMView and Galleria allow one to use a scanner to scan an image right into the application for view and editing. Galleria supports any HP ScanJet out of the box, and since PMView supports the TWAIN scanning standard, as long as you have OS/2 TWAIN drivers for your scanner, PMView will be able to make use of it no matter what it is. (Two companies that produce TWAIN drivers for OS/2 are Solution Technologies in North America, and Computer für Menschen GmbH in Germany.)

Drag and Drop: Of the three programs, both PMView and PMJpeg are fully drag-and-drop enabled; in other words, you can drag an image file into the open program window and the program will automatically display the image. Similarly, if you drop an image file onto the program's WPS object, the program will start itself and then display the desired image. Galleria also supports dragging and dropping an image into an open Galleria window, but it doesn't appear to support dragging and dropping directly on the program's icon, as PMView and PMJpeg do. This is unfortunate, as it's a convenient feature.

Real-Time Scrolling: If your image is larger than the current screen size, each of these programs will either resize the image or give you scrollbars to pan around it with, depending on how it's currently set up. However, PMView and Galleria both have a nice feature in this respect which PMJpeg lacks -- when you pan around an image, PMJpeg doesn't update your view of the image until you're finished moving; both PMView and Galleria actually move the image around in real-time, which makes panning easier.

Thumbnails: Both PMView and Galleria (GIF, 10k) allow one to browse all images in a directory at once via small copies of the actual image, called 'thumbnails'. Thumbnails are an excellent idea as it's extremely easy to see what the image will generally look like without taking the time to load the whole thing. This is perfect when you're searching for an image you've seen before, but don't want to have to individually load 50 others just to find it.

Right Mouse-button Support: PMView makes good use of both mouse buttons in its operation. No matter what window (load, save, view, etc.) you're in, a helpful menu is just a right-click away. This is especially good when viewing images full-screen, as the title bar menus just get in the way when you're trying to devote all your screen space to a particular image.

DDE Toolkit: Galleria includes a limited DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) developer's toolkit for adding image support to your own applications -- if a program you're writing has need of displaying images, the kit included with Galleria provides you with a simple example of a PM client which would use Galleria to do so; full source is included, so it is a good stepping stone for those just introducing graphics support to their programs.

Other Viewers

Note, of course, that these three programs are by no means the only ways to view graphics on OS/2; they've been selected because they offer an excellent mix between simple image display and more complex graphics editing programs. If quick and dirty image viewing of the most basic formats is all you need, there are various other options, such as Practice Corp.'s Lightning Browser or Applause. Browse the graphics directory of the OS/2 Supersite or Hobbes to find one to your liking.

Conclusion

As you would expect, pricing for the programs is based on the 'stuff costs' scale -- ie: to get more features, you pay more bucks. PMJpeg is easily affordable at US$20, and PMView and Galleria are further up the scale, at US$42 and US$59 respectively. Of the three, my recommendation is PMView -- in addition to being able to view more formats than either of the other two (including various X graphics, for those who use XFree86 under OS/2), PMView's potential to use any TWAIN-supported scanner and its superior slideshow features combine together to make it more polished (yet less expensive) than Galleria, and simply more powerful than PMJpeg.

Galleria v2.31

by BitWare Australia
download from the OS/2 Supersite (ZIP, 499k)
Registration: US$59.00

PMJpeg v1.74

by PixVision Software
download from the OS/2 Supersite (ZIP, 212k)
Registration: US$20.00

PMView v1.00

by Peter Nielsen
download from BMT Micro (ZIP, 1.3M)
Registration: US$42.00

Ryan Dill is a student in Computer Science at Acadia University in Wolfville, NS and one of e-Zine! 's assistant editors. He is reported to be relieved that, with the advent of Warp 4, talking to your computer is no longer considered a sign of mental instability.

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