All technical support is handled by Polybytes® through electronic mail. If you have a
problem with a product's operations, can't figure out how to do something, or simply want
to suggest an alternative behavior, please send email to us at support@polybytes.com. (Note to AOL members:
If your email is blocked we cannot answer your mail. Be sure to unblock it if you want a
reply.) We also suggest that you refer to our frequently asked questions
to find the answers to many of the common problems that users have encountered.
Avoiding our SPAM filter: we get tons of junk email. To be sure that your message gets read by a human give your email message a Subject line that mentions one of our product names.
We encourage you to write to us if you have bugs to report (whether or not you are a registered user.) Every effort will be made
by Polybytes, Inc. to provide satisfaction. If you have image files in formats supported
by PolyView which are not reading correctly, please tell us about them. We can provide the
best service in this regard if the problem images are made available to us. You can either
attach them to an email message, tell us the address of the FTP or Web site where they can
be downloaded, or mail them to us on a disk. Our mailing address is:
Polybytes, Inc.
3427 Bever Avenue SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52403-3161
USA
Click here to join the PolyView mailing list at Yahoo! This list discusses issues concerning PolyView and receives announcements when new versions are available.
Click here to join the PolyImage Image Processing Library mailing list at Yahoo! This list discusses issues concerning PolyImagePro, PolyImage2, and ActiveX/COM and receives announcements when new versions are available.
What are the advantages of registering PolyView?
What version(s) of PolyView do my registration codes unlock?
I ordered PolyView online. When do I receive my registration codes?
I have lost my registration codes. How do I find them?
I am having trouble entering my registration codes. How do I do it?
Why do images with names containing spaces not open from the Windows Explorer?
Why do some images appear distorted when I view them?
Why do some thumbnails not print?
Why do the JPEG files I downloaded from the AOL browser not open in PolyView?
How do I publish a slide show to a CD?
Why do I get an error about a missing DLL when I try to run PolyView?
How do I capture screen content?
How do I control the size an image is printed?
What are the advantages of registering PolyView?
Registered users receive a license key number from Polybytes that disables the registration reminder screen output by the unregistered version when it closes. In addition, the registered version registers itself as a "launch application" for the Still Image system in Windows 98/ME/2000/XP. This allows PolyView to be automatically launched to acquire images when a scanner or other Still Image compatible image source initiates an image transfer operation.
What version(s) of PolyView do my registration codes unlock?
A user registration and the associated key do not expire and will work with all future versions of PolyView. The user registration information is stored in the Windows Registry. If for some reason this information is lost from the registry, simply run the Licensing Information dialog from the Registration menu and re-enter the key information.
I ordered PolyView online. When do I receive my registration codes?
The online resellers of PolyView have varying amounts of processing delay during which they verify credit card purchase information and prepare the notification message to Polybytes about a user registration. Once Polybytes receives notification of a registration purchase the response time varies from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the time of day that the notification arrives. If you do not receive registration notification within two days of your purchase, please make contact with both the reseller where you ordered PolyView and support@polybytes.com about the problem.
Note: be very careful about entering the correct email address on your order. We get many registrations with invalid addresses and must then resort to sending registration codes via the postal mail system, a much slower process.
I have lost my registration codes. How do I find them?
Polybytes will quickly supply registration codes if you email your request to codes@polybytes.com. To help us verify that you have registered PolyView in the past please supply the name you registered under, your original email address, and your original street address.
I am having trouble entering my registration codes. How do I
do it?
Enter your registration codes by performing the following steps:
- Run PolyView.
- Click on the License! menu item. It is the second from last menu from the right on the menu bar. Note that this item will not appear if you have opened any image or browser windows in PolyView.
- Enter Licensee information from your registration letter into the Licensee box provided. Be sure to use the same capitalization and punctuation (if any) shown in the letter you received that supplied your registration information.
- Enter the License Number information from your registration letter into the License Number box provided.
- Click the OK button.
Why do images with names containing spaces not open from the
Windows Explorer?
PolyView accepts multiple file names on its command line. If you invoke PolyView from a DOS prompt with the line:
polyview a.jpg b.jpg c.jpg
it will start running and open all three files. Because of this, however, the command line
polyview c:\program files\pics\a.jpg
will attempt to open the files
c:\program
files\pics\a.jpg
To deal with names like this, PolyView expects that they be enclosed in quote characters, as in:
polyview "c:\program files\pics\a.jpg"
In the first example, the following would also be acceptable:
polyview "a.jpg" "b.jpg" "c.jpg"
Many users of PolyView install it and then program the Windows Explorer to associate file extensions with it, like GIF, JPG, etc. Unfortunately, the Explorer executes PolyView without
the quote characters that are required to distinguish single names containing spaces from multiple names. The result is the error you have seen. There are two fixes to this problem:
- Go to the Files tab of the Properties dialog (Options menu) and check the Assume single command line argument. This will make double clicking the file c:\program files\pics\a.jpg work like you want, but will cause an error if you drag more than one file at a time and drop it on a shortcut to PolyView.
- Use PolyView's Register File Types dialog (Options menu) to make your file associations. When you do this PolyView informs the Explorer (through the Registry) of the DDE characteristics necessary to invoke PolyView. Do not use this option if you do not plan to keep PolyView. It cannot be easily undone.
Why do some images appear distorted when I view them?
There are a number of graphics cards whose drivers have problems with some of the high performance bit block transfer routines that PolyView uses to display images. The visible symptom of this problem can be seen as image areas that are painted with random colors. This is a particular problem when large images are being “shrunk” to fit within the available display space. PolyView supports a lower performance technique that solves this problem in many instances. The Limit Transfer Size option on the General tab of the Properties dialog (Options menu) forces PolyView to use this lower performance technique. You may notice some degradation in panning and scrolling speed with this option selected.
Why do some thumbnails not print?
This problem has been eliminated in PolyView Version 3.50.
The default format for storing image thumbnails in PolyView’s thumbnail database is to use Windows’ compressed bitmap format. This reduces the size of the thumbnail information in many cases. At the time a thumbnail is created a determination is made whether or not the compressed for of the image is indeed smaller. In cases where it is not the uncompressed form is used. Some time back it came to our attention that the thumbnail printing operation on HP printers was not printing the thumbnails that had been compressed during storage. The printing operation does not indicate that an error has occurred when this happens, but erroneous output is generated nonetheless.
The solution to this problem is to prevent the compressed bitmaps from being generated in the first place. This can be done with the Disable Compression option on the Thumbnails tab of the Properties dialog (Options menu). Note that thumbnails will need to be recreated after selection this option in order for them to print correctly.
Why do the JPEG files I downloaded from the AOL browser not
open in PolyView?
America OnLine uses a proprietary compression scheme when it downloads images from the Internet. When this compression is turned on it renders the image unreadable by nearly all image viewers. If you turn it off through the WWW preferences in the Member Preferences area of the AOL program, images will be downloaded in industry standard formats.
How do I publish a slide show to a CD?
PolyView slide shows can easily be distributed on a CD so that they can be viewed on a machine that does not have PolyView installed. The following paragraphs describe the operations you must perform to prepare the CD slide show for distribution.
Create a relative slide show script
The important thing to remember about running a CD slide show on another person’s computer is that the drive letter on the CD may be different from that on which the CD was originally prepared. For this reason PolyView provides a method to create a slide show script with file names that are not dependent on an absolute drive letter but instead depend only on the locations of the files relative to the slide show script file (.PVS file) that calls them out. To save a slide show script with relative file naming, click the Save button on the Slide Show Creation Window, then choose PVS – Relative Script from the Save as type list before naming and saving the script file.
Add your images and script to the CD
If you create a relative slide show script on your computer’s hard drive and then transfer it and the associated image files to a CD it is important that the locations on the CD correspond to the original locations on the hard drive. As an example consider the case where the slide show script is stored in C:\Pictures and all the image files are stored in C:\Pictures\Vacation. One possible storage setup on a CD would be to store the slide show script in the root folder of the CD, and the image files in a subfolder of the root folder named Vacation.
Add PolyView to the CD
In accordance with the PolyView License Agreement, you can place PolyView on your CD and distribute it to an unlimited number of users as long as the PolyView distribution files are included on the CD. This includes all the following files:
- inetwh32.dll
- License.txt
- PolyView.cnt
- PolyView.exe
- PolyImagePro.dll
- PolyView.hlp
- Readme.txt
- Roboex32.dll
Make an “autostart” CD
You can make a CD that automatically plays a slide show by including a file named autorun.inf in its base folder. This file must contain the instruction for starting PolyView, including the path to the slide show script that is to be run. The contents of an autorun.inf file look something like:
[autorun]
OPEN=<path_to_polyview> <slide_show_script_name> For example, suppose you have created a CD with polyview.exe stored in a folder named PolyView, and your image files and a script named the_show.pvs stored in the root folder. Your autorun.inf file should then contain the following two lines:
[autorun]
OPEN=.\PolyView\polyview.exe .\the_show.pvsPolyView does not have to be installed on the end user’s machine for this to work - it will run correctly from the CD. Be sure, however, to store the slide show script as a Relative script.
Why do I get an error about a missing DLL when I try to
run PolyView?
This problem has been eliminated with PolyView Version 3.50.
The snbd7w9s.dll file is normally put into the "c:\program files\polybytes\polyview\system" directory by the PolyView installation program. If PolyView is complaining that it cannot be found then try copying it to the same directory as polyview.exe and PolyView should run without error. Note that you may need to use the Windows Explorer's View:Options menu to set the Show all files options to make it visible, as the Windows default is to hide all DLL files.
How do I capture screen content?
Sometimes it is necessary to capture all or a portion of the computer’s screen and save it as an image file. While PolyView does not have a built-in screen capture mechanism, your computer does, and it is very easy to use it with PolyView.
The basis of your computer’s screen capture capability is the Print Screen key (labeled Print Scrn on many keyboards). This key operates in two modes:
Full screen capture – press the Print Screen key to capture the entire screen and store it on the Windows Clipboard.
Active window capture – press and hold the Alt key, then press the Print Screen key to capture the currently active window.
Once you have captured the desired screen or window, run PolyView and use the Paste command on the Edit menu to create a new image window containing the captured screen information. You can then crop and manipulate the image as necessary before saving it to a file or printing it.
How do I control the size an image is printed?
The size of an image on a printed page is based on a combination of the page margins set in the Page Setup command on the File menu, and the method used to print.
If you have an image open and choose the Print Full Image option on the File menu, the print size is controlled only by the Page Setup margins. For this mode you need to set the four margins to result in a printing area that is the size of the print you want. For example, if you are printing on an 8.5x11 piece of paper (which has a printable area of about 8x10.5), the top, left, bottom, and right margins would be set to 0, 0, 6.5, 2 (inches) to get a print that is 6 inches wide and 4 inches high. (This is only approximate because the size of the printable area varies a bit from printer to printer.)
If you are printing multiple images the size of each image depends on the Batch print images per page option on the Printing tab of Properties, and the Page Setup margins. In this case the printing area for an image depends on the Batch print images per page option, and the margins from Page Setup are applied within that area. Normally you would want to set the margins to be very small in this mode.
The last method of printing is the Print Composer (File menu). It provides templates that have many standard sizes available (8x10, 5x7, 4x6, etc.) and also lets you specify custom templates. With the Print Composer you have a choice as to whether or not the Page Setup margins are used within each image print frame.
