ANNOUNCE: GdkMagick 0.5.1

[Arthur Jerijian <lightmanaj earthlink net>]

See below for the README file. This version of GdkMagick contains important
configuration and test bugfixes. Please upgrade to this version and test it in
your applications as soon as possible.

Changes include:

* Fixed minor problems with version numbers in the LSM file and the
  GdkMagick home page HTML file.

* Added -L@prefix@/lib and -I@prefix@/include in gdkmagick-config
  so that the GdkMagick library path can be found if it is different
  from the standard system library path.

* The GDK_MAGICK_IS_MAGICK5 macro was improperly defined and
  documented. This macro and its documentation are now fixed.

* The system information test has been completed.

* Fixed a bug in the pixmap and image tests where the filename was
  being copied into the ImageMagick Image structure before (!!!) the
  image was loaded from disk. The filename should be copied only
  to the ImageInfo structure so that it can load the image with the
  proper filename.

Thanks,
--Arthur

README for GdkMagick Version 0.5.1
==================================

    GdkMagick Version 0.5.1, A C-Language Library for Integrating the
    ImageMagick and GDK Toolkits

    Copyright (C) 1999 Arthur Jerijian
  
    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License as
    published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
    License, or (at your option) any later version.
  
    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU Library General Public License for more details.
  
    You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public
    License along with this program; see the file COPYING.LIB.  If not,
    write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
    Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

INTRODUCTION
------------

GdkMagick is a C-language library for integrating the ImageMagick library
with the GDK toolkit, one of the components of the GTK+ graphical user
interface library.

The ImageMagick library (libMagick.so) represents over eight years of
continuous development. ImageMagick knows how to read and write over
70 distinct image formats and provides over 60 basic image processing
operations (not including the many sub-modes for those operations). Due to
the popularity of ImageMagick, ImageMagick is now included in almost
all open-source Unix distributions and is often installed under
proprietary versions of Unix as well.

GTK+ (The GIMP Toolkit) is a small and efficient widget set designed with
the general look and feel of Motif. In reality, it looks much better than
Motif. GTK+ contains common widgets and some more complex widgets such as
file selection and color selection dialog boxes. GTK+ is used in many
popular free software projects, including the GIMP image processing tool
and the GNOME desktop environment. The GDK and GdkRGB components of GTK+
provide basic display drawing primitives, such as the manipulation of
pixmaps, bitmaps, and display images.

The GdkMagick library allows applications to utilize the ImageMagick image
processing resources and allow them to be integrated with the GTK+ toolkit.
GdkMagick includes functions which allow an application to convert an image
back and forth between an ImageMagick image structure and a GDK pixmap,
bitmap, or image structure. GdkMagick uses the GdkRGB routines to manage
color and to perform the actual image rendering, including dithering when
not enough colors are available.

GdkMagick AND Imlib
-------------------

GdkMagick is a complementary library to the Imlib graphics processing
library written by The Rasterman (raster@rasterman.com). The main
difference between GdkMagick and Imlib is that GdkMagick is a "glue library"
that allows the loading, saving, and manipulation of an image using the
ImageMagick library while making the image available to the GTK+ interface.
Imlib, on the other hand, does not require ImageMagick. Imlib provides its
own image processing functions and relies on fallbacks to load images that
are not native to Imlib. Imlib also provides routines to make disk images
available to the raw Xlib protocol layer of the X Window System.

I believe that both GdkMagick and Imlib have excellent uses in graphics
applications. I commend The Rasterman for the fine work that he did with
authoring the Imlib library.

AVAILABILITY
------------

The latest version of GdkMagick is available at the GdkMagick home page,
located at the following Web site:

	http://home.earthlink.net/~lightmanaj/GdkMagick

NOTE: This is an ALPHA TEST release of GdkMagick. I do not expect
this software to function properly in all cases, as it is still under
development and many features are not yet fully tested. In addition, the API
is not yet frozen and is subject to change in any future release of
GdkMagick. I take no responsibility for any damages resulting from the use
of this software.

GdkMagick uses GNU Libtool in order to build shared libraries on a variety
of systems. While this is very nice for making usable binaries, it can
create difficulty when trying to debug a program. For this reason,
compilation of shared libraries can be turned off by specifying the
`--disable-shared' option to `configure'.

This ALPHA TEST release of GdkMagick is protected under the GNU Library
General Public License (LGPL). This allows for the greatest possible
freedom for developers to use and/or modify this library. The LGPL also
provides a licensing agreement compatible with that of the GDK library.

REQUIREMENTS
------------

This version of GdkMagick was tested using the following configurations:

* Red Hat Linux 6.0 with X11R6.3 (XFree86 3.3.3.1)
* HP-UX 10.20 with X11R6.3 (downloaded from ftp://ftp.x.org and custom-built)
* Solaris 2.5.1 with X11R5 (in /usr/openwin)
* Solaris 7 with X11R5 (in /usr/openwin)

The following components are required to build and run GdkMagick:

* GNU sed, GNU make, and GNU CC. These packages are highly recommended
  for proper configuration and building of GdkMagick. You may use
  other versions of sed, make, and cc, but they haven't been tested
  and may cause possible problems during configuration and building.
  The latest GNU utilities are available at the following download
  site:

	ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu

* X Window System Version 11 Release 5 or greater.

* GLIB and GTK+ version 1.2.5 or greater. The latest releases of GLIB and
  GTK+ are available at the following download site:

	ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk

* The ImageMagick API version 4.2.8 or greater. The latest version of
  ImageMagick is available at the following download site:

	ftp://ftp.wizards.dupont.com/pub/ImageMagick

  WARNING: Support for ImageMagick 5.0 is in progress. Because
  ImageMagick 5.0 is still under development, the GdkMagick code is not yet
  guaranteed to work, much less compile, with a given snapshot of
  ImageMagick 5.0.

DOCUMENTATION
-------------

See the doc/ subdirectory for some API documentation and example programs.
This ALPHA TEST release of GdkMagick isn't yet fully documented, but the
documentation will be complete once GdkMagick is ready for production use.

REPORTING BUGS
--------------

The GdkMagick bug database is located at the address:

     http://www.simplesystems.org/GdkMagick/bugs 

To report a bug, use the bug entry form located at the page with the
address given above. If you prefer to send a bug report via e-mail, do not
send it to my personal e-mail address, since I am not guaranteed to
respond immediately. Instead, send your bug report to:

     gdkmagick-bugs@simplesystems.org 

FEEDBACK
--------

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or don't hesitate to send
me (Arthur Jerijian) e-mail. My e-mail address is:

	lightmanaj@earthlink.net

NOTE: Do not use this address to report bugs. Refer to the "Reporting Bugs"
section above for more information on submitting bug reports.

I hope you enjoy using this software!