README

Mimprint
v0.2.0 June 4, 2008

Contents

Introduction

Mimprint is an image printing and viewing program written in Java and distributed under the GPL. In addition to providing a way to view and step through GIF and JPEG images, it allows laying out multiple images at different sizes on one page for printing.

Home Page

Go to the Mimprint home page to download the latest version of Mimprint.

Features

Documentation

Sorry, but there is no Users Guide yet.

Try this:

For programmers, the javadoc-generated API Reference provides detailed documentation on the packages and classes used in Mimprint (available after you have unpacked the source).

System Requirements

Item Required Why
Processor 700 MHz Image rendering will be somewhat slow with older processors. Faster processors will of course give better results.
Memory 256 MB Graphical Java programs tend to use a lot of memory. Images take up a lot of memory.
Disk 1 MB,
plus up to 250 MB
to install Java
If you already have Java installed, installing Mimprint will take less than 1 MB. Installing Java takes 100 MB or more, depending on which version you install, and whether or not you install the documentation.
Java JRE 1.5 Mimprint uses Drag and Drop.
  • On Linux, Java 1.5.0 or better is required; bugs in 1.4 cause drag and drop not to work, which makes the Printable page unusable.
  • On Mac, Java 1.4.2 or better is required.
  • On Windows, Java 1.4.2 or better is required. Unfortunately, dragging from the browsing list is not working on Windows; however, you can drag from Windows Explorer and drop into the Printable page.
Operating
System
Windows, MacOS, Linux,
or any other OS that
supports the required version of Java.
For a list of platforms on which Java is available, visit Sun's Java Platform Ports page.

Known Problems

If you happen to know a solution to the above two problems, please let me know. Meanwhile, I am hoping that a future version of Java will fix these problems.

Installing Java

To install Java on your system, download JRE1.5 - or, if usable on your platform (see the Requirements section above), download JRE1.4 - from Sun's Java web site and follow those installation directions. When you are at that download page, look for the section that says Download JRE 5.0 (for Java 1.5) - or, for Java 1.4.2, Download J2SE JRE - find your platform, and download the jre installer file.

Installing Mimprint

Mimprint is delivered in a self-extracting JAR file. You must have Java running on your system in order to extract it.

To install Mimprint from the installation JAR file (.jar extension), double-click on the JAR file, or run the command

java -jar mimprint-N_N_N.jar
where N_N_N is replaced by the Mimprint version number. This will open a dialog allowing you to specify a destination directory, and it will create a directory called mimprint-N_N_N in the specified directory,

If you have problems running the installer, you can try running it with the debugging flag turned on, which will cause it to print more information:

java -Dmimprint.install.debug -jar mimprint-N_N_N.jar

If you double-click on the installer in Windows and nothing happens, open a DOS command window, cd to the folder into which you downloaded the installer, and enter the java command shown above. Any error messages should now show up in the DOS window.

Unpacking the Mimprint Source

If you want to build Mimprint yourself, or just look at the source code, you will have to unpack the source files from the src.zip archive file with the commands

cd mimprint-N_N_N
unzip src.zip
This will create a src directory with all of the Java files, as well as adding a few other files (such as a build.xml file) to your mimprint directory. You must have the ant program installed on your system in order to build Mimprint from source files.

You will also need a scala development environment. You can download this from the Scala web page.

If you want to look at the Javadoc-generated API documentation for the Java classes, you must first unpack those html files from the apidoc.zip archive file with the commands

cd mimprint-N_N_N
unzip apidoc.zip
This will create the directory doc/api with all of the API documentation in it. Alternatively, you can unpack src.zip and then run the command
ant doc
to run javadoc and create the API documents from the source files (you must have the ant program installed on your system in order to create the documentation using this command).

The Mimprint kit does not include the source to the JShortcut package. You can download the JShortcut source from the JShortcut web site, or from the same location from which you downloaded Mimprint. You do not need the JShortcut source to compile Mimprint; the JShortcut.jar file included in the Mimprint kit is sufficient.

Running Mimprint

If you have not already done so, you must install Java.

On Windows

On Windows, double-click on the shortcut (if you have set one up) or CD to the directory containing mimprint.jar and run

java -jar mimprint.jar
You can manually set up a shortcut to mimprint.jar.

On Unix

On Unix, run
java -jar mimprint.jar
If the java binary is not in your PATH, you can explicitly specify the path to it. For example, if you have installed JDK1.4 into /usr/local/j2sdk1.4.2, you can run mimprint with the command
/usr/local/j2sdk1.4.2/bin/java -jar mimprint.jar

On Solaris 2.6 or later, you can directly run mimprint.jar.

Starting at a specified location

On any platform you can include an image file or directory name when starting mimprint to tell it to start in that directory. Just include that name as the first argument after the above command, like this:

java -jar mimprint.jar /home/jimmc/photos/folder1

Bug Reports and Feedback

If you have a comment about Mimprint, or would like to report a bug, please send email to domain j.jimmc.org, user mimprint.

Author and Contributors

Mimprint was written by Jim McBeath.
http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~jimmc