This page is written for people who have a basic understanding of how Fader is used (for example those who have used the previous versions). If this is the first time you try to use my applet and have not read the tutorial, then I recommend that you take at least a quick look at the examples that can be found there.
Fader has 9 parameters of which 2 are required:
bgColor
The applets background color. (#$rrggbb, you may omit $ or # or both.)
This parameter is optional and the default is black. If you use the bgImg
parameter, you should nevertheless specify the correct background color,
because it is used for adjusting the default colortables.
bgImg
The url of a background image.
You may use relative or absolute urls. If the image cannot be loaded,
the applet falls back to the bgColor parameter. The image will be repeated
in x and y direction if necessary.
ImgXDisplace
Integer value for x displacement of the background image (in pixels).
Default is 0, which means the first tile of the background image is aligned
to the left edge of the applet area. Positive values move the tile to the right,
negative values to the left.
ImgYDisplace
Integer value for y displacement of the background image (in pixels).
Default is 0, which means the first tile of the background image is aligned
to the top edge of the applet area. Positive values move the tile downwards,
negative values upwards.
TextXDisplace
Integer value for x displacement of the text (in pixels).
Default is 0, which means the text is centered horizontally. Positive values
move the text to the right, negative values to the left.
TextYDisplace
Integer value for y displacement of the text (in pixels).
Default is 0, which means the text is centered vertically. Positive values
move the text downwards, negative values upwards.
InlineData
The data (as described below)
Either this or "Data" is required.
Data
The (relative or absolute) URL of a file containing the data
Either this or "InlineData" is required.
AppletHome
http://johannes-schellen.home.ml.org/fader.html
This parameter is required and has to have that value (exactly as typed).
Fader does not use the value of AppletHome for anything, but if it is missing, Fader will complain. I have learned that many people just copy applets they want to use from the page where they see it instead of searching for their origins. That way they don't use the applets to their full extent because they don't have the documentation. I believe that the additional parameter will work around the problem by showing anybody who looks at the html-source where to find the documentation.
The data is a sequence of assignments (variable=value) separated by returns
(Unix-, Mac- or MSDOS-style) or pipe-chars ("|"). Any mixture of these separators will be
accepted.
The reason why I included the | as a separator is that it is possible
to put the data right into the html-code, but some browsers don't seem to pass
multi-line parameters to the applet.
The following table lists all variables of the current version with the values they
accept and a short explanation of their meaning:
| text | One line of text This triggers the fading of the line of text with the current values for all the other variables. |
| time | Display time in milliseconds Fader waits for this amount of time when it has faded in a line of text before it starts to fade it out. Initial value: 2000 |
| pause | Pause in milliseconds Fader waits for this amount of time when it has faded out a line of text before it starts to fade in the next one. This assignment does not trigger a pause when it is read. Initial value: 500 |
| delay | Delay between frames in milliseconds The delay between two frames when fading in or out. The framerate is 1000/x frames per second. Lower values allow for smoother animation but require more processing power. If you set this too low (which demands a higher framerate), some virtual machines may be too slow to deliver the frames at the desired rate, in which case the animation is simply slower than expected. Initial value: 50 |
| color | 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 Selects one of the ten available color tables. They are predefined but you may change each of them with the colorinx and coloroutx variables. Initial value: 0 (The tables are preset to these colors: 0 is red, 1 is green, 2 is blue, 3 is cyan, 4 is magenta, 5 is yellow, 6 is black, 7 is white, 8 is red without fading, 9 is green without fading) |
| fadein | 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 Selects one of ten available transitions to be used as the fade-in transition. Use the "transitionx" variables to redefine a transition. Initial value: 0 (The simple all-at-once transition. Play with the values to see what the other transitions are.) |
| fadeout | 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 Selects one of ten available transitions to be used as the fade-out transition. Use the "transitionx" variables to redefine a transition. Initial value: 0 |
| colorinx | color,steps,color,steps,...,steps,color Actually, these are three variables (x=0, 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9).
Each of them represents a list of colors, which is created
like this: Take the first color, take the next step value and
go to the next color in that number of steps, take the next
step value and go to the next color in that number of steps,
and so on. The colors between the key colors are created
by linear interpolation. Defaults: |
| coloroutx | color,color,...,color The description is the same as for colorinx but these colors are used when the text is faded out. The last color should be exactly the same as the background color of the applet or the characters will be visible until the last of them has gone through the fading procedure (If you don't use a background image). Defaults: |
| transitionx | number,number,...,number These are the tables for the five transitions
(x=0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9). Defaults: |
| font | The name of the font you wish to use This font has to be available on the client-system! You should only use fonts that are known to be available on most systems. Proportional fonts are now supported with proportional spacing and fixed spacing. Initial value: Courier |
| size | The height of the character box in pixels By setting this value you only change the size of of each single character. The placing of the chars is not changed. This is done by setting the "space" variable. Initial value: 24 |
| space | Character distance in pixels This is not the distance between two chars but the distance from the left edge of one char to the left edge of the next char. The default value (0) is a special value which indicates that the font's character spacing is to be used. Initial value: 0 |
| style | plain, bold, italic or bold+italic The style of the font. Initial value: bold |
| link | The URL of the page When someone clicks on Fader, it will tell the browser to load this URL. Both relative and absolute URLs are allowed. If you specify link=none Fader will not react to mouseclicks. Initial value: Applethome |
| target | The target for the link This is used just like you know it from html. With target=_blank, for example, Fader loads the link into a new browser window. Initial value: _new |
| status | The status text This text is shown in the status area of the browser when the mouse is inside the applet area. Initial value: Copyright Message |
| loop | here (or any other non-empty string) The value is ignored. When the end of the data is reached, Fader will return to the last occurance of this assignment. Make sure that at least one line of text is faded between this and the end of the data or Fader will run into an endless loop which does essentially nothing but consumes processing power. Initial value: loop from the beginning of the data |