Found a very useful feature on bpgenc.

[GeeMack]

Well, we know that IM is reading delay.txt because the error message mentions 0000.png. I can't see what is wrong. I assume 0000.png etc exist?

I'm using IM 7.0.3 on Windows 10 64, and I get the same error as pikashi describes above. It seems IM wants to read everything in that file as images, so it complains about how it's "unable to open image '-delay': No such file or directory". It appears to read the actual image files, and indicates they're being read when I add "-monitor" to the command, but it chokes on all the "-delay"s and "5"s.

I've also worked the policy.xml file a few different ways, but my installation (from ImageMagick-7.0.3-0-Q16-HDRI-x64-static.exe) comes with that line commented out like this...

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  <!-- <policy domain="path" rights="read" pattern="@*" /> -->

My IM will happily read lists of images from a text file when I precede the filename with the "@", even without editing that policy file.

[snibgo]

V7 handling for "@" scripts is different to v6. In v7, the script had to start with an image or "(", but then could contain anything. It was (we are told) designed only for handling a list of images, but it could also read and process options.

In v7, this changed so "@" scripts couldn't contain options. I would have though it could also handle options that precede images, but perhaps not.

Of course, v7 has "-script" scripts. These can contain options. They have to, because the script never returns to read the rest of the command line.

[fmw42]

V7 handling for "@" scripts is different to v6. In v7, the script had to start with an image or "(", but then could contain anything. It was (we are told) designed only for handling a list of images, but it could also read and process options.

In v7, this changed so "@" scripts couldn't contain options. I would have though it could also handle options that precede images, but perhaps not.

Of course, v7 has "-script" scripts. These can contain options. They have to, because the script never returns to read the rest of the command line.

Snibgo: is this documented somewhere. This is the first I have heard about not allowing options.

[GeeMack]

In v7, this changed so "@" scripts couldn't contain options. I would have though it could also handle options that precede images, but perhaps not.

With 7.0.3 on Windows I tried bringing in a @textfile.txt with options before and/or after the image files. I tried starting with parentheses and without. I tried starting with an image before any lines with options. Nothing seemed to work except a list of just images. Everything else died from errors saying "(" or "-delay" or "5" wasn't an image.

[fmw42]

I am getting the same error messages

tmp.txt is

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-delay 10 lena.jpg 
-delay 100 ellipse.png 
-delay 500 rose.png

Command is:

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convert @tmp.txt -loop 0 result.gif

convert: invalid argument for option `-delay': lena.jpg @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/1254.

in IM 6.9.5-9 Q16 (on my Mac OSX snow leopard) after setting my policy.xml to

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  <policy domain="path" rights="read" pattern="@*"/>

So it is not restricted to IM 7. Perhaps IM 6 never allowed anything but a list of images??

[snibgo]

Is what documented where?

"-script" never returns is in http://www.imagemagick.org/script/porting.php

"@" scripts have never been properly documented, as far as I know. For using "@" scripts merely with a list of filenames, see http://www.imagemagick.org/script/comma ... essing.php , under "Filename References". There is no documentation that says "@" scripts can do other things, or that they can't.

When I have brought up the topic in these forums, I was told that "@" were never intended for anything other than lists of files.

But they currently can, in v6, provided they start with an image. For example, a text file called "rose.scr" contains:

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rose: +write rose.png
+delete
rose.png ( +clone ) +write info: -append

Then the command:

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convert @rose.scr r2.png

in IM v6.9.5-3 does exactly what we would hope.

The "-delay" script doesn't start with an image, so doesn't work under v6. To make it work, do a no-op at the start, eg:

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xc: +delete
-delay 10 lena.jpg 
-delay 100 ellipse.png 
-delay 500 rose.png

EDIT: I should stress that these examples don't work under v7 "magick", because v7 "@" scripts should be merely lists of files, and "-script" scripts need to write to the output. However, the following does work under v7.0.2-5:

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magick convert @rose.scr r2.png

[fmw42]

I was asking about @textfile.txt

Interesting about using an xc: first image.

I suspect you can also just reverse the image and delay, such as

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lena.jpg -set delay 10
ellipse.png -set delay 100
rose.png -set delay 500