[VIEWER/EDITOR]

WPClipper (c)2005-2010 by Paul Sherman
Distributed under the GNU GPL version 3
(See the file "copying.txt")

WP Clipper is a cross-platform, hybrid image viewer and 
image editing program. It was designed specifically with 
WPClipart in mind, but it can be used to view/edit almost 
any clipart or photograph. 

It can accomplish several simple transforms (tilt/rotate) 
and has several filters as well as color/brightness tweaking 
abilities.It can then re-save the image in PNG or JPG format 
or copy to the clipboard for immediate pasting into another 
program. It can paste into OpenOffice, AbiWord, Windows Word 
and WordPad. (So you can view images easily and paste them, 
with some quick change, directly into your word-processing 
application.



[INSTALLATION]


FOR WINDOWS:
------------
I distribute binaries for Windows, tested on 2000 and XP.
(So you don't even need Python to run it on Windows.)

Run the program "wpclipper",
...or browse the WPClipart directoty tree.



FOR LINUX:
----------
Use the source for Linux.

For ease of use with the clipart collection, place the 
wpclipper.py script in the wpclipart-x.x/viewer folder.
In that way the viewer will open with the first directory 
listedcontaining the clipart. Make sure the wpclipper.py 
is set as executable.


Look for WPClipper or WPClipart on my website:
http://www.wpclipart.com

If you use the source version you will need to have
python >= 2.6
pyGTK >= 2.16
PIL >= 1.1.7 (Python Imaging Library)



[Program background...]

It was initially developed on Linux for my kids to use in 
conjunction with AbiWord (which they used on Windows machines 
in their middle school.) There were two reasons I made the 
collection and program:

1] I was uncomfortable with the kids doing image searches 
    online. (See the site information below...)

2] Linux did not have a little viewer/editor program that 
    could copy and paste into AbiWord. Also, for ease of 
	use I wanted the speed and simplicity of a viewer, 
	but with some quick and easy editing for basic things 
	like rotation, some color/contrast adjustments and 
	for fun a few filters.
    
The program was first written using the wxWindows GUI 
toolkit, as it was then needed for proper clipboard 
functionality... but updates to pyGTK have made the use 
of that toolkit possible, and has made the overall 
software requirements for the program leaner, able to 
be used on computers with slightly older hardware and 
in most cases able to run without installing additional 
dependencies -- as python-gtk is a much more commonly 
installed development library. It is also available on 
the OLPC machines.

Making the program/collection available to OLPC machines, 
as well as many commodity PCs in use for education, 
fits precisely with the goals of WPClipart.