Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!intercon!news
From: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Xloadimage patchlevel 04 now available
Message-ID: <1990Feb26.184738.3816@intercon.com>
Date: 26 Feb 90 18:47:38 GMT
References: <1990Feb23.165346.26243@intercon.com> <4953@helios.ee.lbl.gov>
Sender: @intercon.com
Reply-To: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation, Sterling, VA
Lines: 41

First, I'd like to disclaim that for anything beyond throwing an image into
an X window (or onto the root window), pbmplus is the way to go--much
niftiness.

In article <4953@helios.ee.lbl.gov>, jef@ace.ee.lbl.gov (Jef Poskanzer) writes:
> Another possible design would be for the pXm-reading library routines to fork
> off such a magic-number switch when they don't recognize a file format.

I like this idea.  It would also be nice if the magic-number switcher was
driven by a configuration file somewhere, so that one could add formats at
will (one of the strengths of pbmplus already).

> I am a firm believer in the orthogonal tools approach.  When someone
> tells me that an all-in-one monolithic program is the only solution, I
> begin to suspect that someone (perhaps me) hasn't been creative
> enough.  Either that, or they're using MS-DOS or a Mac...

Well, I do make my living on the Mac, but please note that I didn't say
that xloadimage was the only solution, only that it was less hassle for
a common application.
 
> the next version will optionally produce "merged"
> binaries - sort of a portable version of shared libraries.  Total size
> for the 81 programs on a Sun3 is 460K.

Not bad at all...

One other thing I'd like to note is that pbmplus and xloadimage can complement
each other quite nicely.  Why, just the other day I typed:

mtv < scene.nff | mtvtoppm | ppmquant -floyd 256 | ppmtogif >scene.gif
xloadimage scene.gif

Almost makes me forget my frame buffer's only 8 bits deep...

--
Amanda Walker
InterCon Systems Corporation

"Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own point of view."
	--Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Return of the Jedi"