PicPluck! v2.1
last updated:  September 27, 2000


FOR THE FIRST-TIME USER
-----------------------
When PicPluck first runs, you'll need to answer a few questions (completely private --
see below).  Once the application is loaded, you'll see three windows -- an Image Viewer,
a Website window, and a Browser window.  Just hit "Go" on the Browser window and
the webpage of Yosemite National Park will appear.  Hit "Pluck this page" to call up
the Website window, then hit "Go!"  You'll see the images slowly being downloaded to
your local hard drive.  It's that easy!  You can also right-click on URLs within
the browser window to specify specific links to pluck.

-------------------

PicPluck is FreeWare.  You are free to use it as long as you'd like, and are
encouraged to give it to other people.  The development of PicPluck is funded
in part by advertisements that are displayed while using PicPluck.  
NO INFORMATION THAT CAN IDENTIFY YOU IS COLLECTED.  The information that is
collected is used only to show advertisements that will be of interest to you,
and this information is NOT stored on your computer.  Absolutely *no* monitoring
of your use of PicPluck is done -- YOUR PRIVACY IS 100% RESPECTED.

If you like PicPluck and would like to disable the advertisements, you may purchase
an unlock code for $16.95 (see the Purchase menu when running PicPluck), 
but there is neither an obligation nor a necessity to do so. 
If you've previously purchased an unlock code for PicPluck, the same code will 
work with this and all future versions.

Thank you for trying PicPluck!

the Random Innovations staff
http://www.picpluck.com
comments@picpluck.com


v2.1
----
NEW FEATURE:  "maximum filename collision avoidance".  Sick of sites that names all
their pictures 01.jpg, 02.jpg, ...?  Well, now PicPluck will add a unique CRC32
prefix to each filename, which helps to identify from *which* site each picture
comes from.  Now, yahoo.com/01.jpg will NOT collide with altavista.com/01.jpg
Try it!  You'll like it!  Just set your Options to download all pictures into a
single, unchanging directory (like c:\my images\08-23-2000), UNCHECK 
"automatically add host name to save directory" in Options, and make sure
the filename collision checkbox is checked.

NEW FEATURE:  URLs-to-exclude.  But this feature only works if you have purchased
a PicPluck unlock code (see http://picpluck.com/register.html).

A lot of memory leaks were cleaned up, which should result in better stability.

imagemaps are working correctly now

fixed crashing bug in bookmarks

fixed a crash when plucking large sites

fixed broken Browse-for-folder functionality



v2.01-2.04:  bug fixes for stability.


NEW FEATURES for v2.0!  
----------------------

Built-in mini-browser:  easy navigation of web to find & select pages of pictures
to download.  No JavaScript, so no popups!  Just right-click on any URL and you'll
be downloading images instantly!  This also allows you to "log-in" to CGI-based
sites, so you can process them now.

Multiple window interface:  you can now download from multiple URLs simultaneously
using multiple PicPluck windows.  Use the standard CTRL-F6 to switch 
between windows.

Image cache:  PicPluck remembers every document & image you've visited since starting
PicPluck, so nothing is ever downloaded twice.  So when you're browsing with the
mini-browser, and you decide to Pluck a page, the images you've already seen in the
browser won't have to be downloaded again!  The cache is not stored on disk, only in
memory.

Images can now be optionally fit-to-screen instead of using a scroll bar for large
images.

New image viewer:  view images in multiple subdirectories easily.

AVIs and MPGs are downloadable and viewable.

Major bug fixes:  completely replaced the HTTP download library, which was the source
of many, many problems.  Continued to improve parsing of web pages to extract
previously missed images.
