laptop as a digital picture frame

[eightbit]

I am working on making a laptop into a digital picture frame. I've reversed the screen and am ready to frame it.

I'm looking for suggestions for software to run on it. Does any1 have any ideas? A perfect app would run in dos be able to change pictures by swapping a cd and not  ever need a keyboard or mouse. Linux or Windows are also options. The laptop is a p133 with 80mb of ram and a 1.5gb hard drive.

I'm thinking about hacking a mouse for buttons to move forward and backwards through the pictures.

[Jakobud]

I've looked into this before.  There is DOS software out there that you can use to do a slideshow presentation of JPG's.  I can't remember the names, but programs like that are definately out there..  Just search a bit.

[Silverwind]

Take a look at this: (I use it and love it, and it's FREE)
www.irfanview.com


Here is an excerpt from the FAQ:

Q: I will create a CD-ROM with images and I will put IrfanView on the CD.  How can I start IrfanView's Slideshow when I insert the CD in the drive?

A: First: put IrfanView on to the root CD directory.  Second, create a TXT file with the files for the slideshow;  you can use RELATIVE path names too (relative to "i_view32.exe").  Third: put in your "autorun.inf" the IrfanView call "i_view32.exe /slideshow=txt_file_name".


This sounds exactly like what you want to do.  When you put the CD in the drive it will autorun and start the slideshow.  Doesn't require anything but a plane jane windows install, as all the required files are on the cd.

I have not used the slideshow feature, but as an image viewer this is top notch.  It supports many graphics formats, even graphics files such as photoshop .psd.  Very fast.  FREE.  Resize/convert graphics too.  Works with win95/98/me/2000/xp.

sorry for the long winded post.. been using image viewers since dos on a 286 and this one is the best.

[Silverwind]

I'm also a DOS guru, so if you really want a DOS alternative let me know and i'll try to find one for you.

[Odonadon]

Good luck eightbit.  I started a similar project a few months ago.  I'm stuck in the "crap, I need power supplies for these laptops" phase  I happened to have bought the hardest laptops to find power supplies for.

OD

[eightbit]

The laptop is more than powerfull enough to run windows. I was leaning towards dos because of never having to worry about shutting it down properly or anything like that.

I tried irfanview already and didn't like it. If I go Windows I'm leaning towards using Acdsee which is WAY overkill for what I want it to do.

I found a dos picture viewer called lxpic that I am working with right now. Its only 40kb and can move forwards and backwards through the pics with right and left mouse clicks which was another option that I thought would be cool.