Island display & image support

PROBLEM

What is the color depth support for IPS (Island Productivity Series) applications like Write, Draw, Paint, Presents, etc.?

Displaying to a 24 bit display results in the Island application crashing with some X Errors, e.g.

X Error of failed request: BadValue
(integer parameter out of range for operation)
Major opcode of failed request: 91 (X_QueryColors)
Value in failed request: 0xff
Serial number of failed request: 79
Current serial number in output stream: 79

WORKAROUNDS

Island applications doesn't officially support running in a 24 bit display environment. There are a few ways to deal with this:

1) Start your X server in 8 bit mode.

xdpyinfo

     supported pixmap formats:
      depth 1, bits_per_pixel 1, scanline_pad 32
      depth 8, bits_per_pixel 8, scanline_pad 32
      depth 24, ...

If the output doesn't show depth 8, then your card may not support 8 bit graphics.

If you are using Sun OpenWindows, you can start the X server with the following arguments:

% /usr/openwin/bin/openwin /dev /dev/fb defclass PseudoColor defdepth 8

2) Run the Island applications in monochrome mode. To do so, use the -2i flag with most of the Island applications, e.g.

% $IOFFICE/bin/IslandDraw -2i &

BACKGROUND

All Island Productivity series 5.0 and below will run under two different color depths (or bit depths):

1-bit monochrome (black & white)
8-bit color (256 color)

By default, Island applications expect to run on 256-color (8-bit) video boards and monitors. As of IPS 6.0, 24-bit color display support is added.

Grayscale displays and images:

Island does not support photo-realistic grayscale (256 grays) or photo-realistic color (24-bit color) display cards and monitors. In addition, Island applications do not support output of grayscale images. Grayscale images can be read in and converted to color-mapped images.

24-bit PostScript:

While Island products (pre IPS 6.0) cannot display more than 256 colors, Island applications that manipulate PostScript graphics will be able to save and print to 24 bit color or 8 bit grayscale PostScript printers.

Warning: IslandDraw 4.0 always compresses the color map of both 8 and 24 bit images to fit its small 64 color palette. Color information is lost when importing images which use more than 64 colors. Image colors not available in IslandDraw's 64 color palette are mapped to the closest available color in the palette.

24-bit TIFF:

All Island products that support TIFF, use TIFF version 5. Island may read version 6, but the specifications that our software currently supports are for TIFF version 5.

Island products also allow users to import files using several different compression schemes, such as CCITT and LZW.

IslandPaint 4.0 reads 24 bit TIFF images by converting them to 8 bit first. So, imported 24 bit images will have up to 256 colors. IslandPaint 4.1 (with IPS 6.0) reads, saves and displays 24 bit images.