jslice - Command line based JPEG slicing program
------------------------------------------------


=========
Purpose - 

	jslice is designed to read in a JPEG file, and then allow you 
	[the user] to select portions of it to be saved [also] as JPEG 
	files.



==============	
Why do that? -

	If you've ever tried to make a WWW page out of a full-size 
	JPEG splash-screen,complete with javascript buttons, then 
	you'll understand that slicing your splash-screen into little 
	bits can prove to be quite a nightmare.  Worse still, is no 
	sooner do you get that splash screen out, than the person 
	who wants it says "Ermm... can we add something?"


===============================	
Oh, okay, so how do I use it? -

	Lets set the scene, you have a splash screen JPEG file called 
	
		frontpage.jpg
		
	You wish to make lots of slices, named like
	
		fp001.jpg
		fp002.jpg
		...
		fp013.jpg
		
	You also want the output quality of the JPEG to be 80%.
	
	First off, you need to work out the coordinates of the slices 
	you wish to take out of your main JPEG file.  Specifically, the 
	opposing corners of your rectangular "slice".  ie, here are the 
	coordinates of slices that I wanted to take out of one of 
	my splash screens
	
	NOTE - Comments are denoted by the 1st char of each line being
	a '#'
	
	
# Start of the file...
#
# some arb comments	
#
0 0 120 24 reservations.html
120 0 200 24 location.html
200 0 270 24 rates.html
270 0 360 24 facilities.html
360 0 460 24 conference.html
460 0 570 24 restaurant.html
570 0 640 24 gallery.html 
640 0 704 24 /
#
# This is just a spacer
#
0 25 600 45
600 25 704 45 mailto:contact@somearbplace.com
#
# More spacers
#
0 46 704 389
#
#----end of the file


The format of each line is x1 y1 x2 y2 <URL>

Each line represents ONE slice.

You'll also note that the slices are ordered left->right, top->bottom.

Place these coordinates into a text file, say frontpage.cut
(use vi or your other favorite form of torture).

Then, finally, to put it all together, you run jslice in the 
following way...

	jslice frontpage.jpg fp frontpage.cut 80
	
jslice will dump the HTML to stdout, so u can redirect it to what ever 
file name you wish, ie...

	jslice frontpage.jpg fp frontpage.cut 80 > frontpage.html
	
	
where ...

	frontpage.jpg is the source picture
	fp is the destination file[s] prefix
	frontpage.cut is the text file containing the slice coordinates
	80 is the quality of the output JPEG's.
	

So, that's it... nothing else.  Enjoy.

You can post your compliments to jack@spyda.co.za, 
and your complaints to /dev/null ;)

