⚠️ NOTE: This project is no longer being maintained. Please feel free to fork it, clone it, make your own version of it, or whatever you wish.

SixelGallery (sixelgallery.js)

by Craig Hendricks
[email protected]
telnet://conchaos.synchro.net
https://conchaos.synchro.net

Description:

This is a simple Javascript mod that lets your users view nearly any image on your BBS in sixel format in SyncTERM.

How it works:

It uses ImageMagick to perform on-the-fly conversion of any specified image file to a temporary file containing the resulting sixel data, which it then outputs to the terminal.

It can be ran one of two ways:

1. As an External Program, which when ran gives the user a menu of available galleries configured (like AnsiView.js), and lets the user browse lists of image files to view.

2. As a Viewable File Type, so that users browsing directories in your file areas containing images (e.g.: GIFs Galore CD-ROM) can preview the image prior to or instead of downloading it.

In either mode, the script first checks to ensure the user is using SyncTERM or equivalent sixel capable terminal (cterm_version >= 1189). If this check fails, the user is shown a brief message telling them the action they're performing can't be done, and stops.

It has been tested in Windows 10 as well as versions as old as Vista.

It has been tested with ImageMagick versions as old as 6.9.9-37 and as recent as 7.1.0-38.

Since ImageMagick also runs in Linux, this script should also run just fine in Synchronet for Linux, but I haven't tested it myself.

Instructions:

1. Extract the contents of the ZIP file to /sbbs/xtrn/sixelgallery

2. Download and install ImageMagick from: https://imagemagick.org

3. In your favorite text editor, open settings.ini and edit the value of path_to_im_conv to the path where ImageMagick is installed on your system, including the "convert" executable itself.

   path_to_im_conv = c:\imagemagick\convert.exe

4. Add as many paths as you want to have menu options in the the paths.json file.

   Examples:

   [
      {
         "name": "Some homemade food",
         "path": "c:\\files\\images\\food",
         "cleanup_zip_subdirs": false,
         "resize": true
      },
      {
         "name": "GIFs Galore CD-ROM",
         "path": "c:\\files\\gifgalor\\GIFS",
         "cleanup_zip_subdirs": false,
         "resize": true
      },
      {
         "name": "fsxNet Images",
         "path": "c:\\files\\fsxnet_imge",
         "cleanup_zip_subdirs": true,
         "resize": true
      }
   ]
   

   The cleanup_zip_subdirs option removes subdirectories created as a result of browsing ZIP files.

   The resize option controls whether to have ImageMagick resize the image to the dimensions specified in settings.ini.

5. Add to SCFG -> External Programs-> Online Programs (Doors):

   Name                  Sixel Gallery
   Internal Code         SIXELGAL
   Start-up Directory    ../xtrn/sixelgallery
   Command Line          ?sixelgallery
   

6. Add to File Options -> Viewable Files:

   GIF   ?../xtrn/sixelgallery/sixelgallery.js %f
   JPG   ?../xtrn/sixelgallery/sixelgallery.js %f
   PNG   ?../xtrn/sixelgallery/sixelgallery.js %f
   

   If you have ?archive list %f configured for * (libarchive), make sure you include the above image types BEFORE it.

Configuration and Customization:

Edit the included sixelgallery.msg file to your liking in PabloDraw.

The scale_max_width and scale_max_height settings were decided on somewhat arbitrarily, but they can be changed. I found that images of this size filled the screen of a typical 80x24 SyncTERM console nicely.

If you don't wish to auto-scale your images in the terminal, you can set the resize setting to false in your paths.json file, and ImageMagick will not resize the resulting image. However, they will likely end up being too large to view all at once.

The difference between resize in paths.json and scale in settings.ini:

• resize in paths.json controls the resizing of the resulting sixel image on a per-path basis, and is enforced when calling sixelgallery.js as an external program.
• scale in settings.ini also controls the resizing of the resulting sixel image, but it's enforced only when calling sixelgallery.js on individual image files, such as those specified for viewable files in your file area (see 'How it works' and 'Instructions' sections above). You will usually want to leave this set to true.

Other Notes

If the input image has multiple frames of animation (e.g. an animated GIF), ImageMagick produces multiple output frames of the input image. Sixelgallery then outputs each sixel image to the terminal.

Small images work best; dimensions of around 200x200 or less are recommended. It's also recommended to set resize to false for any paths containing many animation files.