Help Contents
SaveBMP 1.1

by P. Foggia 1995

SaveBMP is a simple program to save bitmaps from clipboard.

Choose a topic to get a more specific help:

What is SaveBMP

The File Menu

The Edit Menu

The View Menu


Pasquale Foggia
about the author:

Pasquale Foggia is a PhD student in Informatic Engineering at the "Federico II" University of Naples (Italy). You can contact him by e-mail using the address: foggia@amalfi.dis.unina.it , or by snail mail at the following address:

Pasquale Foggia

via A. Moro, 26

80012 Calvizzano NA (Italy)


What is SaveBMP

This program gives you the possibility of saving a bitmap (hence the name) from the clipboard into a .BMP file.   Furthermore, some useful additional functions are present, for stretching, mirroring, changing the palette and converting a colour bitmap to black & white.

I started making this program when I realized that Windows PaintBrush cannot paste correctly a bitmap from the clipboard if its size is greater than the PaintBrush window client area; so, you can't get the whole screen into a .BMP.   I added later other features I needed when pasting a bitmap into a document, to avoid using PaintBrush at all for the most frequent editing operations.

This program is FREEWARE, that is, you don't have to pay anything for its use; however, if you find it useful, let me know by sending an e-mail, or, still better, by sending me an illustrated postcard of your country (click here for the address).

DISCLAIMER

This software is provided as is; i.e. no warranty is made it works correctly. If you use it, you make it at your own risk; in any case the author cannot be considered responsible for damages caused, directly or indirectly, by this program.

WARNING

This program has not been tested on true-color (24 bits) graphic cards; some functions surely will not work properly with 24 bits bitmaps.


The File Menu

This menu contains the commands to load and save bitmaps, and to leave SaveBMP.

Command	Meaning

Open...	Shows a dialog box for entering the file name of a bitmap (.BMP); if you select a file and choose the OK button, the bitmap is loaded.

Save	Saves the current bitmap into a .BMP file, using the last specified file name, or prompting for one, if this is the first time the bitmap is saved.

Save as...	Similar to Save command, except that you are always prompted for a file name.

Exit	Exits from SaveBMP; if the current bitmap has not yet been saved or copied into the clipboard, asks for a confirmation.

see also:	the edit menu

the view menu

help contents


The Edit Menu

This menu contains the commands to copy, paste and modify bitmaps.

Command	Meaning

Copy	Copies the current bitmap into the clipboard.

Copy DIB	Similar to Copy command, except that the Device Independent Bitmap format is used.

Paste	Pastes a bitmap from the clipboard. The bitmap can be either device dependent or in DIB (device independent) format.

Change size...	Modifies the size of the current bitmap, by stretching or compressing it. This command also permits the horizontal and vertical mirroring of the image. You have to specify the desired size for the bitmap (in pixels), wheter or not you want mirroring, and the kind of bitwise operation to perform when more pixels are compressed into one.

Change palette...	Changes the color palette of the current bitmap. You are displayed a dialog box with the colors used in the bitmap; the Solid colors button converts the colors into the nearest ones that can be represented without dithering; to change a color you have to double-click on it, and the standard Windows color dialog box will be displayed. The changes are made effective only if you press the Ok button.

Invert colors	Inverts the colors of the bitmap, by changing each palette entry in its complementary color.

Monochromatic...	Converts a color bitmap into a monochromatic one. You have to choose between two algorithms: the first one selects the new color (black or white) by comparing the arithmetic mean of the three color components of each pixel with a threshold you supply; if greater, the pixel becomes white, otherwise black. The second algorithm is dithering: the program tries to transform the different color nuances into patterns of black and white pixels. Note however that the algorithm used is very slow and primitive.

see also:	the file menu

the view menu

help contents


The View Menu

This menu contains the commands to change the scale bitmaps are displayed with.

Command	Meaning

Normal size	Each pixel of the bitmap corresponds to one screen pixel.

Zoom 200%	Each pixel of the bitmap corresponds to a 2x2 block of screen pixels, so the bitmap is magnified by a factor 2.

Zoom 400%	Same as Zoom 200% command, except that the block is 4x4, and the magnification factor is 4.

Shrink 50%	Each 2x2 block of bitmap pixels is displayed as one screen pixel, so the bitmap size is halved.

Fit in window	The bitmap is shrunk or magnified by the amount needed to display it entirely in the window. The aspect ratio (i.e. the ratio between the height and the width of the bitmap) is not changed.

see also:	the file menu

the edit menu

help contents


Device independent bitmaps

A Device Independent Bitmap (DIB) is a bitmap stored in a format that is not specific to any graphic output device. Such a bitmap contains informations about its color number, its palette etc., so that Windows can convert it in a device dependent bitmap in order to display it. The DIB format is primarily used to store a bitmap into a file (.BMP), and retrieve it later, possibly on a different machine.