RIOT plugin for Irfan View

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Right. I open a PNG image in Irfan View and select Save for web.

I can access the File menu and click on Open or Save As, but nothing hapens.

With the same image, I can set the file size from the JPG save dialogue, using the RIOT plugin, and the file is saved OK.

[luciansabo]

Very strange. Using RIOT Compress to size within IrfanView has nothing to do with the open or save dialogs so this is normal.

To find the problem I must see by myself this strange behaviour. Until then I cannot tell you what is happening.

So far we know that this happens on some XP machines with sp2 or sp3.
Is not a XP related problem becase my tests went fine. It only occurs when using the DLL.
I suspect the UPX compressor messing things up, or even IrfanView.
I will put here a sample application that calls the DLL without IrfanView for you to test.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

A clean reinstall has fixed the problem, whatever it was.

[luciansabo]

I've just fixed the problem with the wrong filesize.

version 0.1.8 is available from my website:

http://luci.criosweb.ro/riot/?page_id=4

v.0.1.8 (stable candidate #5)
-bugfix: after resample or after copy from clipboard the filesize was -1 bytes. Fixed !
-bugfix: after Copy from clipboard preview was invokes twice. Fixed !

I hope we can find the problem with the dialogs, but we don't seem to isolate the problem... I must repeat: I did not seen this problem.

[Sam_Zen]

I'm a bit confused about this v1.8 version coming up. Am I supposed to overwrite the DLL of IV 4.20 ?
And a new library is introduced : FreeImage.dll. Do I have to integrate this in order to make v0.1.8 work properly ?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

All is explained in the text files that come with it. The full version will give you some more features. FreeImage.dlll has to go in the IrfanView.exe directory — riot.dll overwrites the other version in the plugins directory.

[luciansabo]

Right.
RIOT Lite 0.1.8 (no FreeImage.dll needed for that) is available also.
Please use the URL provided to download.

This Lite version has the following disavantages over the full version:
-open from disk only bmp, jpeg, gif and png. The full version can open many graphics formats
-no tone-mapping support
-no support for non-standard image types (>48 bit)
-slightly slower than the full version
-supports only bmp preview in the open dialog
-can’t let you keep IPTC metadata

[Sam_Zen]

I see. I think my confusion also was caused by the fact that now both lite and full are now declared free.
Which wasn't the case before. Or am I confusing things now with the stand-alone version ?
A practical thing : is this update already integrated in the plugin-package of IrfanView 4.20 ?

[matera]

The "Lite" is just the DLL, the plugin, while the "full" version is a standalone with its own interface.

The world is full of confusion

[luciansabo]

sam_zen I don't know why you are confused because I have explained all my plans very clear until now. I have refered many times to the difference between the full and the lite version. I never said I am planning to create a commercial application or plugin.

Please read posts

http://en.irfanview-forum.de/vb/showpost.php?p=9990&postcount=53

http://en.irfanview-forum.de/vb/showpost.php?p=9271&postcount=15

I will try for the last time to clear things out. I may have been unclear so far.

RIOT is a project aimed to create a FREE tool for image optimization (especially for web, but not only of that).

If you get bored to read this long story you can skip to the end.

I am a webdeveloper myself and I started this program because I know the importance of such a tool.
Creating a standalone tool would have never been a success. It would be very hard for people to find about it and use it. I cannot advertise it. I don't have a team for that.
So my first ideea was to integrate it in the most popular image viewer worldwide - IrfanView, that is also free and accepts plugins.
I am a IrfanView user for many years. This is my favourite program.
I thought it would be great to add something that is missing for years into this great program - a save for web feature.

So I talked with Irfan and we set the details. I wanted to create it in C#, but he didn't want the big .net framework as dependency even if on Vista and future windows systems it is installed by default.
I started a similar project in 2003 in C++ and left it in alpha state. So, I used my old sources and found a good library called FreeImage. I made some contributions to FreeImage (of course all of them are available for free for the community).
And here is the final result - RIOT.
Irfan didn't want to deploy 2 DLLs. Just one, he said, and smaller. I managed to link FreeImage, pnglib, libjpeg and zlib with Borland C++Builder, even if they are not compatible with this compiler.
This resulted in a lite DLL with stripped functionality.
I decided to maintain all advanced features by creating another version of the plugin called FULL version (also free).
For people that don't have/use IrfanView I created also an EXE (with full features).
I hope the DLL will be integrated in other programs that want to add save for web features.

So, RIOT comes now in three flavours, all FREE:
-LITE plugin - only one DLL, basic functionality
-FULL plugin - two DLLs (RIOT.dll + FreeImage.dll) - extended functionality
-FULL application - EXE + DLLs - extended functionality

Things are more clear now ?

[j7n]

So I talked with Irfan and we set the details. I wanted to create it in C#, but he didn't want the big .net framework as dependency. Irfan didn't want to deploy 2 DLLs. Just one, he said, and smaller.

Irfan is my hero.

[Sam_Zen]

Things are crystal clear now, thanks Lucian.

If you get bored to read this long story you can skip to the end.

I only get bored by my own ignorance.

[luciansabo]

Version 0.1.9 released (stable candidate #6)

I have just released version 0.1.9 - another stable candidate.

This is a bugfix/improvement only release. Waiting for a stable release until we can go any further with branch 0.2.

This version fixes loading problems with uncommon image types like 64 bit PNGs and others and provides some fixes regarding transparency handling.

Still no support for preserving transparency when color quantization (color reduction) is used.

v.0.1.9 (stable candidate #6)
-extended image support: add full support for uncommon images like 64 bit transparent PNGs (RGBA16,RGB16,RGBF,RGBAF, also complex, double, float, integer types)
-speed-up for GIF processing
-improvement: transparency from 1, 4 and 8 bit images is now preserved when saved as true color PNGs

[Paparazzi]

Just started getting interested in this and was wondering ... what is the difference between the lite and full version?

Would it be possible to explain this on your site?
Would it be possible to let the user keep the FreeImage.dll in the plugins folder itself ... ie., the program should check the plugin folder then the root folder and then the system folder (or in the reverse order) for this file.

Thanks so much

[luciansabo]

Please read the entire post before you reply, because I have explained the difference here and on my site also.

http://en.irfanview-forum.de/vb/showpost.php?p=11530&postcount=40

http://luci.criosweb.ro/riot/?p=10

The DLL is searched in the current working directory and system path. The working directory is irfanview exe folder. I don't see a problem right now to put FreeImage.dll in IrfanView folder. I will look into searching into RIOT.DLL folder.

I am working on version 0.1.10 that comes with very nice improvements.