SpecView SE 2.1.5 Readme (English)SpecView SE 
v.2.1.5 (unstable) 

FREEWARE - DISTRIBUTED AT NO CHARGE 

Program code  Copyright 1999-2000 Sergei N. Dubarev AKA Heaven Aeroplane 
Images  Copyright 1999-2000 Pro Hackers' Dynasty 

IMPORTANT NOTES 

  This program is a freeware and must be distributed in an original form at no 
charge. Nor Pro Hackers' Dynasty, neither Sergei N. Dubarev are responsible for 
the possible loss/damage of data, hardware, etc as a result of using this 
software. You're running it at your own risk. 


What is SpecView SE? 

  SpecView SE is a free gift for all ZX Spectrum fans. It is a Speccy screenshot 
viewer for Win9x (and possibly NT/2000 but this wasn't tested). It reads 
standard screenshots produced by various emulators (6912 and 6144 bytes long) 
and Hobeta archives (this files include an additional 17-byte header which 
stores a description of a file for TR-DOS). More functions are described below. 


Highlights 

  These are main SpecView SE highlights: 
  - standard and Hobeta type files support; 
  - picture scaling; 
  - full-screen mode; 
  - picture printing; 
  - color palette tuning; 
  - export to BMP and JPEG files; 
  - Windows wallpaper setup; 
  - highly customizable interface; 
  - support for different languages; 
  - more ... 


System Requirements 

  SpecView SE requires: 
  - a 486DX-based PC (Pentium-based PC is recommended); 
  - 8 Megabytes of RAM; 
  - about 400 Kilobytes on your hard disk; 
  - Windows 95/98 (NT/2000 compatibility wasn't tested); 
  - 640x480x256 colors VGA card (16bit HiColor card is recommended); 
  Note, that... 
  ...SpecView SE usually runs slowly on 486s, although now its code is a little 
bit optimized. 
  ...you'll probably get corrupted colors on a 256 color card. If it happens, 
try to tune color palette (see "Hotkeys"). 
  ...some image distortions can happen when using full-screen mode in 640x480 or 
800x600 resolution modes. The 1024x768 resolution gives no distortion. 
  ...there is no interface description files (translations) for this version of 
SpecView SE. I hope to release Belarusian and Russian descriptions soon. If you 
want to send me a translation of interface in some other languages then click 
here. 


Changes Since v. 2.1.4 

  There are some new things in SpecView SE v. 2.1.5 in comparison with v. 2.1.4. 
This is a list of all that was added([+]), changed([x]) or removed([-]). 
  - [+] Windows wallpaper setup; 
  - [x] picture output algorythm; 
  - [x] configuration file format; 
  - [x] interface description file format; 
  - [x] preferences panel; 
  - [x] documentation; 
  - [-] slideshow (*.shw) files support; 
  - [-] docs in other (than English) languages; 
  - [-] additional (non-English) interface translation files. 


Hotkeys 

      Hotkey What it does 
      Ctrl-O Open Speccy picture 
      Ctrl-E Save picture to BMP or JPEG file 
      Ctrl-Alt-P Tune printer 
      Ctrl-P Open print dialog 
      Alt-X Exit SpecView SE 
      Ctrl-C Tune color palette 
      Ctrl-D Discard attributes 
      Ctrl-B Discard brightness 
      Ctrl-N Start new SpecView SE session 
      Ctrl-R Relocate SpecView SE window to the left if new one is opened 
      Ctrl-Z Zoom in 
      Ctrl-M Zoom out 
      Ctrl-1 Original picture size (256x192) 
      Alt-U Full-screen mode 
      Alt-H Hide (show) toolbar 
      Ctrl-Alt-I Hide (show) progress bar 
      Ctrl-Alt-S Set slide show parameters 
      Ctrl-G Register file types 
      Ctrl-S Save settings 
      Shift-F1 Show 'About' box 
      F1 Show readme file (Web browser is required) 



Tips & Tricks 

Here are some useful tips you can use while running SpecView SE: 
  - double-click image to enable (disable) full-screen mode; 
  - select 'Preferences/Wallpaper' from main menu to set current image as 
centered or tiled Windows wallpaper; 
  - use only 'Register file types' function of SpecView SE to associate it with 
Speccy pictures 'cos Windows does this incorrectly; 
  - set 'WindowLeft' and 'WindowTop' parameters in 'specview.conf' file equal to 
65535: it will force SpecView SE to center its window on startup; 
  - you can run SpecView SE from a console: just type in something like 
'specview picture_name'; note that DOS PATH environment variable should point to 
the SpecView SE installation directory at this case. 


Bugs 

  Known problems currently include: 
  - ACDSee 2.41 problem (ACDSee 2.41 frequently shows BMPs created with SpecView 
SE improperly); 
  - if your COMCTL32.DLL file version is earlier than 4.72.2106.4 then the 'Hide 
toolbar' function will work improperly; 
  - Windows registers file types incorrectly, so, use only SpecView SE 'Register 
file types' function; 
  - SpecView SE will probably not work properly under Wine (Windows emulator for 
Linux). 


Contacts 

E-mail: ha88@mail.ru 
FidoNet: 2:450/156.24 
WWW: http://heaven.4all.cc 


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