Kid Pix Templates in Tux Paint

[Bill Kendrick]

An educator contacted me asking if Tux Paint can load template files
generated for Kid Pix.  She has a lot she's made for classes, but needs
to switch away from Kid Pix because it doesn't work in a thin-client
environment that the school is switching to.[*]

I know nothing about Kid Pix, let alone the template files.  She sent me
a few examples that she uses in her classes (".kpx" files), and to the best
of my knowledge (spending literally just a few minutes editing the files
by hand in the "vi" text editor), it appears they're simply an Apple Mac
file with resource data at the beginning, containing a number of JPEGs
inside.  (One seems to simply be a tiny thumbnail of the other.)

So to me, the brute-force easy way of converting a Kid Pix template (".kpx")
into a Starter image or template for Tux Paint (".png", with or without
alpha channel) would be to:

(1) remove the Mac resource stuff from the header from the beginning of
    the file (looks to be 60 bytes)

(2) convert the resulting file (which to a conversion file would probably
    just look like "JPEG plus junk at the end that I'll simply ignore")
    into a PNG

Here's a simple shell script I've come up with so far:

--- begin ---

#!/bin/bash

for x in $(seq 1 $#)
do
  i="${!x}"
  FNAME=`dirname "$i"`/`basename "$i" .kpx`
  JPG="$FNAME.jpg"
  PNG="$FNAME.png"

  echo From $i to $JPG
  dd ibs=1 obs=1 if="$i" skip=60 of="$JPG"
  identify "$JPG"

  echo Now from $JPG to $PNG
  convert "$JPG" "$PNG"
  # we could also use "djpeg ... | pnmtopng > ..."
  identify "$PNG"

  echo Cleaning up
  rm "$JPG"
done

--- end ---

The biggest problem I've had so far is the quality of the lines (at least in
one of the drawings I tried).  The Fill tool bleeds through parts of the
image.

It's a similar problem we have with some of our OWN starters (though
usually due to lack of connection, rather than blur or greyness.


Has anyone got ideas on how we can best support KPXes globally?
Shall we create some import tools (similar to the above shellscript),
or should I just add KPX support directly to Tux Paint, so people can
drop in their originals?

-bill!

[*] Additionally, I noticed this troublesome bit of info on the "Kid Pix"
    article at Wikipedia, which makes me wonder if (at least the non-Mac
    version) Kid Pix's days are truly numbered!

    "2009 - Information appeared that email and phone support for
    application was cancelled, including help with passwords and
    usernames. The program requires an appstream application which causes
    connection of user's computer to remote servers. The application can
    also prevent access to the software, even long after the software has
    been purchased."

--
-bill!
Sent from my computer

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[Bill Kendrick]

On Wed, Oct 07, 2009 at 04:03:51PM -0700, Bill Kendrick wrote:
> Has anyone got ideas on how we can best support KPXes globally?

At the least, I'd love it if someone can cobble together a conversion
tool for Windows users to use, which will convert KPX into PNG for
the current Tux Paint.


> Shall we create some import tools (similar to the above shellscript),
> or should I just add KPX support directly to Tux Paint, so people can
> drop in their originals?

I went ahead and did this.  It was super-trivial, thanks to SDL_RWops! ;)

-bill!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA
is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your
developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay
ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now!
http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference
_______________________________________________
Tuxpaint-devel mailing list
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https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tuxpaint-devel