Programming

Microsoft likes to take credit for "innovations" in software. But usually, they just steal or purchase other companies' ideas. For example, Borland pioneered Integrated Development Environments back when most people had 5-1/4" floppy disks and CPU Mhz was rated in "K" units. Turbo Pascal was a terrific way to quickly create applications, and allowed the programmer to edit, compile, and run their programs without creating a bunch of batch files and launching them just before going out for lunch. Alas, Borland has lost most of its pioneering geniuses to the Redmond, Washington monolith.

PicViewer is a Windows 32-bit program that lets you scan through a bunch of graphic files (.JPG, .BMP, .ICO, etc.). It has a full screen mode in which the background is black and the cursor is hidden. In this mode, the spacebar or arrow keys step through each of the graphic files in the directory thus making it easy to give a slide show. A movie mode has been added to provide automated naviation. The pictures can be scaled to fit the window or shown in full-size mode with scrollbars if needed. Command-line parameters can start in a given directory, initiate movie mode, etc.