Prowler 1.1
Read Me by Andrew Cunningham (2000)
Homepage: http://homepage.mac.com/andrewcunnigham/prowler/
Email: andrewcunningham@mac.com
About Prowler
Thanks for taking the time to look at Prowler. Prowler is an image browser, viewer and slideshow presenter with stylish appearance and streamlined function. It's full screen interface (featuring soft shadows, crossfades, live scrolling) allows you to easily browse folders or volumes of images with large previews presented on screen. With one click in the browser view, the image is viewed at optimum size. Best of all, Prowler is freeware.
Prowler's main function is to present a collection of images in an attractive way, either for personal browsing, showing friends, or presentations (if anyone has used it for presentations, please drop me a note).
Prowler supports all file image formats supported by the currently installed version of Quicktime. These include PICT, JPEG, GIF etc.
Requirements
As the old saying goes, the faster the better. Minimum requirements:
€ PPC ( G3 highly recommended )
€ At least 12 MB of free RAM
€ MacOS 8.5 or later
€ Quicktime 2.5 or later
Prowler is a MEMORY HOG. Give it as much memory as possible (achieved through the Get Info option in the Finder).
"Unhandled Nil Exception" errors?
If you get this error poping up and Prowler quits, the cause would be lack of memory. Again, give Prowler as much memory as possible. For every thumbnail in the list RAM is used up, so obviously the more you give it the better it'll run.
Feedback
Please email me with feedback, ideas, bugs, no matter how slight the suggestion, so I can make Prowler the best image browser available for any platform. So far the feedback I have recieved has been extremely helpful in the development of Prowler. I hope that if you've gotten this far through the Read Me, you'll email me.
Distribution
Prowler may be freely included on CD-ROM archives. Just drop me a note first.
Version History
€ 29th November, 2000
Version 1.1
Added a randomise, and open sub-folders option to the slideshow as suggested by Josh.
File types that Prowler knows it can't open (such as applications or movies) now appear ghosted.
The list is 15%-30% faster!
The size of the browser window is now adjustable (see manual for details), suggested by Allan Reust.
To show the menubar, you now hold down the command key, as suggested by Raoul Schaffner. The old method may still be disabled/enabled through the preferences.
Fixed a bug in slideshow that caused each image to be shown for 20 seconds no matter what the preferences were set to. Thanks to Tom Habif for noticing.
Added "Move to trash" contextual menu, to handle trashing of folders as suggested by Donald Walsh.
Prowler's state is now more correctly displayed by the mouse cursor.
€ 13th November, 2000
Version 1.0
Prowler now remembers recently visited folders
Fixed a bug that would cause Prowler to crash when searching for a non-existant folder
Other minor bug fixes and code optimisation
€ 5th November, 2000
Beta Release 1
Developed a new full screen view.
Added slideshow functionality.
Added a smooth "crossfade" transition to the slideshow, as suggested by Thomas England.
Browser now shows more detailed file info, including creation date and file size.
Added to the "Go" menu favorite folders and recent folders.
Prowler is now keyboard navigatable. Thanks to Steve Pugh for the suggestion.
Added contextual menu support to the file list;
- Add To Favorites adds the item to favorites
- Reveal In Finder shows the selected item in the finder
Added a new preferences panel to handle the slideshow capabilities.
€ 24th October, 2000
Alpha Release 4
Changed the name from "PictureBrowser" to the catchy "Prowler", as suggested by Vincent Cayenne. Thanks.
Designed an application icon.
Added a "Go" menu, giving quick links to mounted volumes. Eventually this menu will features folders from the "Favorites" folder, and also recently visited folders.
Reduced application size by a half, and reduced RAM usage by a substantial amount.
Holding down the shift key scrolls the file list at twice the current speed.
€ 21th October, 2000
Alpha Release 3
Created a new backdrop picture, though this might not be in the final release.
Delete key when previewing an image now moves it to trash. Thanks to Jeff Miles.
The background image now stretches to fit the screen size.
Added soft shadow to default image previews.
PictureBrowser now recalls the last visited folder.
You can now drag drives onto the PictureBrowser icon.
Implemented better alert dialogs.
€ 11th October, 2000
Alpha Release 1.1
Fixed a major bug which would cause PictureBrowser to crash when run on a computer without a drive called "MacOS"; oops. Thanks to Bruce Jorgensen.
€ 7th October, 2000
Alpha Release 1.0
Fixed some problems with Full Screen mode.
Now automatically generates previews for files that have none.
Made the list scroll smoothly when using the Page Up, Page Down and Home keys.
Added the ability to show / hide image names.
Removed the resolution info, cause it could have been causing a crash?
Added soft-shadow to image previews.
€ 26th September, 2000
Development Release 1.0
Disclaimer
The author, Andrew Cunningham, makes no warranties, either express or implied, regarding the fitness of ³Prowler² for any particular purpose. Use ³Prowler² at your own risk. The author claims no liability for data loss or any other problems caused directly or indirectly by ³Prowler².