Camembert V1.0 Help
Written by John Croudy
A Pink Mouse Production © 2001



Requirements How To... Credits About the author Pink Mouse Productions Web cam search

Introduction
Thank you for installing Camembert. This program allows you to display and view web cams on your desktop. The main window displays a list of URLs of cams, and allows you to open other windows to view them. You can have as many cam windows open as you like, at normal size or as thumbnails. Each window displays its own cam and is independently configurable with properties that define the location of the cam, the update interval and a history control so you can view previous images in sequence.

License and Disclaimer
Camembert is freely distributable, but you must only distribute the original unmodified zip file, and you must not charge a fee (except for reasonable media and duplication costs). This program is provided AS IS with no warranties of any kind. The author cannot be held responsible for any problems whatsoever that may be caused by the use of this software, including but not limited to loss of data, money, or business. This software must not be sold or used in a commercial application without prior written permission from the author. I wanted to provide a list of interesting cams with the program, but while surfing for them I noticed that many sites don't like it if you link to any part of the site except for a specified front page. I don't quite understand the reason for this, probably something to do with that ugly copyright problem, but I still decided not to go against their wishes. I would like to point out that linking directly to image files on a server may violate the site's terms of service. Adding such a link to Camembert's cam list may constitute such a violation, and I hereby deny any responsibility or liability for the consequences if you do this. I've simply provided some software — it's up to you what you do or don't do with it. You use this software entirely at your own risk. If you do not agree to the above, then you must remove the software from your computer.

Remote Configuration — "Nuggets"
Camembert features an experimental remote-configuration system. By retrieving small files containing "nuggets" stored on a server, the program automatically configures its help menu and is able to notify you when an update is available. In the event that the server is down, it will be unable to configure its help menu or notify you of updates, but this should not stop it from working. This system provides a means by which the help menu can be extended, which in turn makes it possible for me to quietly notify you of changes or new interesting web pages to view. This system will not be used to deliberately advertise third-party products and it will not pop up any windows (except for your web browser, when you click on an item). Read our Privacy Policy.

Update Notification
If you see a flashing on the toolbar, click on it to get information about the new version of Camembert that's just become available. If you choose to download and install the new version, the indicator will go away until the next update. Otherwise it will remain, but shouldn't cause a problem.

Image Formats
Because it uses a third-party image processing DLL, Camembert can display images in BMP, JPEG, PNG and (some) TIFF formats. However, web cams are usually in either JPEG or GIF format. Unfortunately, GIF is not supported due to licensing restrictions involving the patented LZW compression scheme that it uses.

What do you want to do?

Get an overview of the main commands		Add a new webcam
Get an overview of the cam window commands		Import webcams from a file or webpage
Organise the cam windows on the desktop		Delete broken cams
Change the settings for one or more cam windows		Minimise the program to the system tray
Remove the border from a cam window		Navigate through the history of a cam window
Make a movie from a sequence of cam images		Change the cam's name, URL or Update Interval
Update a cam window's display		Keep the image history trimmed to a fixed number of files
Quickly close all the cam windows		Read useful information about web cams and other notices

Fig. 1: On-screen Control Centre and cam windows with borders.

Fig. 2: Typical desktop layout. The Control Centre has been minimized to the system tray and the cam windows are borderless. How to do this

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