NAME

Win32::GUI::BitmapInline - Inline bitmap support for Win32::GUI

SYNOPSIS

To create a BitmapInline:

    perl -MWin32::GUI::BitmapInline -e inline('image.bmp') >>script.pl

To use a BitmapInline (in script.pl):

    use Win32::GUI;
    use Win32::GUI::BitmapInline ();
    
    $Bitmap1 = new Win32::GUI::BitmapInline( q(
    Qk32AAAAAAAAAHYAAAAoAAAAEAAAABAAAAABAAQAAAAAAIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAAAAAQAAAAAAAA
    AACcnABjzs4A9/f3AJzO/wCc//8Azv//AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///8A////AP///wD///8A
    ////AHd3d3d3d3d3d3d3d3d3d3dwAAAAAAAABxIiIiIiIiIHFkVFRUVEQgcWVVRUVFRCBxZVVVVF
    RUIHFlVVVFRUUgcWVVVVVUVCBxZVVVVUVFIHFlVVVVVVQgcWZmZmZmZSBxIiIiIRERF3cTZlUQd3
    d3d3EREQd3d3d3d3d3d3d3d3
    ) );

DESCRIPTION

This module can be used to "inline" a bitmap file in your script, so that it doesn't need to be accompained by several external files (less hassle when you need to redistribute your script or move it to another location).

The inline function is used to create an inlined bitmap resource; it will print on STDOUT the packed data including the lines of Perl needed to use the inlined bitmap resource; it is intended to be used as a one-liner whose output is appended to your script.

The function takes the name of the bitmap file to inline as its first parameter; an additional, optional parameter can be given which will be the name of the bitmap object in the resulting scriptlet, eg:

    perl -MWin32::GUI::BitmapInline -e inline('image.bmp','IMAGE')
    
    $IMAGE = new Win32::GUI::BitmapInline( q( ...

If no name is given, the resulting object name will be $Bitmap1 (the next ones $Bitmap2 , $Bitmap3 and so on).

Note that the object returned by new Win32::GUI::BitmapInline is a regular Win32::GUI::Bitmap object.

With version 0.02 you can inline icons and cursors too. Nothing changes in the inlining process, just the file extension:

    perl -MWin32::GUI::BitmapInline -e inline('harrow.cur','Cursor1') >>script.pl
    perl -MWin32::GUI::BitmapInline -e inline('guiperl.ico','Icon1') >>script.pl

The module recognizes from the extension the type of object that it should recreate, so it will add these lines to script.pl:

    $Cursor1 = newCursor Win32::GUI::BitmapInline( q( ...
    $Icon1 = newIcon Win32::GUI::BitmapInline( q( ...
   

newCursor or newIcon are used in place of just new. As above, the returned objects are regular Win32::GUI objects (respectively, Win32::GUI::Cursor and Win32::GUI::Icon).

WARNINGS

• Requires MIME::Base64

  ...and, of course, Win32::GUI :-)

• Don't use it on large bitmap files!

  BitmapInline was designed for small bitmaps, such as toolbar items, icons, et alia; it is not at all performant. Inlined data takes approximatively the size of your bitmap file plus a 30%; thus, if you inline a 100k bitmap you're adding about 130k of bad-looking data to your script...

• Your script must have write access to its current directory

  When inlined data are used in your script (with new Win32::GUI::BitmapInline...) a temporary file is created, then loaded as a regular bitmap and then immediately deleted. This will fail if your script is not able to create and delete files in the current directory at the moment of the call. One workaround could be to change directory to a safer place before constructing the bitmap:

      chdir("c:\\temp");
      $Bitmap1 = new Win32::GUI::BitmapInline( ... );

  A better solution could pop up in some future release...

• The package exports inline by default

  For practical reasons (see one-liners above), inline is exported by default into your main namespace; to avoid this side-effect is recommended to use the module in your production scripts as follows:

      use Win32::GUI::BitmapInline ();

VERSION

Win32::GUI::BitmapInline version 0.02, 24 January 2001.

AUTHOR

Aldo Calpini ( dada@perl.it ).