FAQ for Visualmagick:

- What is Visualmagick?

Visualmagick is a system for buidling ImageMagick using the standard
Microsoft VisualC++ 6.0 IDE environment. The heart of this system is a
configuration program called configure.exe. This is really a
tongue-in- cheek reference to the configure program on UNIX that does
the same kind of thing. On UNIX, people are accustomed to running
configure from the command line and having it create a complete set of
build scripts and makefiles. The VisualMagick configure program take
the form of a set of dialogs that create all of the projects and
workspaces to build the whole ImageMagick system using the VisualC++
6.0 IDE.

The main issue with VisualC++ environment is that is has lots of
variations for both compiling, and linking. Most systems pick a
particular way to deploy and then force everyone to use the particular
method. For example, a library would only compile as a DLL and require
the use of multi-threaded C runtimes. The creation of this wizard is
an attempt to provide the most frequently needed ways of building the
library and its associated utiliey programs as well as provide a way
to do the same for your own applications and plug-ins.

In order to use configure you have to compile it and link it using the
VisualMagick\configure\configure.dsw workspace. (See README.txt for details)

- What versions of VisualC++ does VisualMagick support?

Only Visual C++ 6.0 with any service packs. We are starting to look at
the .Net stuff now, but nothing has been done

- What are all the almost empty dir's good for?

These directories tell configure.exe what directories in the
Imagemagick package, are inclued in the projects. The configure.exe
program uses the structure in the level immediately above the
configure directory to scan for files to be added to projects. The
assumptions is that a directory has files that are to be included into
either a library of to build an application.

This method of defining projects is a kind of hack, but it works
surprisingly well. Most libraries put their source code into a single
directory, and the ImageMagick package is no exception.

The configure program on UNIX is far more sophisticated and use text
files and scripting to accomplish the same thing. We could do the same
on Windows but it would be a whole lot more work, so we leave this
project up to a more ambitious person.

- What is the X11 option on the first page.

You could say that X11 (Or XWindows) is the unix way to do
windows. However, it is possible to install an X11 server on your
windows machine or to display over a network from your windows machine
to an X11 server running on a Unix machine. This option allows you to
use the header files for your X11 server during compilation. If you do
not have X11, do not know what it is, or don't want to have anything
to do with it, select to use the "X11 stubs". This will allow you to
compile without having any X11, yet the compiled library will use it
if it is available.

Note: Without an X11 server, the included 'display' and 'animate' program 
will not work.

- What does 'decorate exe files with build options' mean? 

In Visual C++, you can build using "Debug" settings, or "Release" settings.
For the Imagemagick dll's, debug settings create dll's that include DB in 
their name, Release builds have RL in their name. This is need since all 
files end up in the same dir (.\bin), so they would overwrite each other 
if this wasn't the case. This is also true for the demo programs, however 
the debug builds here might not be of interest to most people. Also, the 
names for these utilities might be hardcoded into some scripts people have 
made etc. If you want to keep them apart anyway, select this option to 
include DB and RL in their names to. (If you select this, don't forget that 
everywhere the documentation talks about e.g. convert.exe, you will have
convertRL.exe

- How do I run the Magick++ test and demo programs?

First, you must have selected "build tests and demos" in the configure
program so that the tests and demos are included in the
workspace. Once you have done a full build the Magick++ tests and
demos are available in the VisualMagick\bin directory. Unfortunately
these tests and demos often require files from the Magick++ source
directories so they can't just be run in place.  Two batch scripts are
provided which allow you to run the tests and demos respectively.  All
of the Magick++ test and demo programs are console applications so you
must start the Windows Command Prompt ("DOS window) and change
directory to the top of the ImageMagick source tree before following
these instructions.

The procedure for running the Magick++ tests under the Windows Command
Prompt is:

  cd VisualMagick\Magick++\tests
  run_tests

This runs a batch script which sets an evironment variable (srcdir) so that the
test programs can find files they depend on, and executes each test
program. If all is well, all test programs will pass.

The procedure for running the Magick++ demos is

  cd VisualMagick\Magick++\demo
  run_demos

This runs a batch script which sets an evironment variable (srcdir) so
that the test programs can find files they depend on, and executes
each test program. If all is well, all demo programs will complete
their execution without crashing.

Files writen by the Magick++ tests and demos are in MIFF format which
is ImageMagick's own format.  Output files are written to the
directory from which you ran the batch script. If you elected to
support X11 in the build and have an X11 server available, you may use
the built (under VisualMagick\bin) 'animate' and 'display' programs to
view these files.  If you selected a multi-threaded build, then you
may use the built 'IMdisplay' Windows GUI program to view the files.
An alternative is to use the 'convert' program to convert the files
from MIFF format to a format like JPEG or PNG that Windows is able to
display (e.g. "convert demo_out.miff demo_out.jpg").

FAQ originally written by Arnt Witteveen (Arnt.Witteveen@iname.com) (22/12/2000)
Magick++ section written by Bob Friesenhahn (bfriesen@simple.dallas.tx.us)
Reviewed by Bill Radcliffe (BillR@corbis.com) (...)
