METHODS TO MAKE MY PROGRAM TAKE LESS SPACE

[UstadBhai]

My program has a lot of images. And what i have is by a timer control, a new image appears. My method to do this is i have bunch of images at same spot. All are set to invisible. And only one becomes visible at a time, and the rest are invisible. Then after couple of second another become visible and the rest are invisible.

It works and all, but my program takes a whole a lot of space. How can i do this so it doesn't take much space?

People have suggested to save all the images into a certain folder. And then call the images from the program. This method works, and it does make the program take less space, but if I distribute my program, people could edit the images and it will show up in my program. This method I don't like.

Another person suggested that I save the files into a differnt file format that only my program can recognize the file extension, and keep these images with different format in a certain folder and call them up from my program. This method sounds good, but I don't know how to save something in a differnt file format so only my program can recognize.

Does anyone have a solution to this problem? or know how to program the above solution? Please help. All help will be greatly appreciate. Thanks.

Have everything on in your Form as a JPEG or GIF. It will save a lot of memeory.

[PiKaPrO]

Compile your program to N-Code, with the option: Optimize for small code. This makes your program smaller.

Get your pictures to JPEG or GIF and rename the extensions.

[kedaman]

If you have more than 40 images consider using a graphical method drawing you images on the form instead of overloading your resources and RAM with controls

Also, if you are using an PictureBox, you might want to consider using an ImageBox because they use hardly any resources.

[Mashirito]

Hello UstadBhai:

You must search the balance between speed and size. If you set you images in desing time, then you are saving them as a resource in the same .exe file. That makes exe file too long. If you load images at run time, it supposes a waste of time, that is bigger if you images are compressed (gif or jpg), and end user can modify your images.

I recommend you to load the images when program starts. Don't use an image control for every image, because it suposses a great waste in graphics resources. Use only an image control to show the selected picture, and a image list control (Microsoft common controls) to contain all pictures. To avoid user modifications, store all your pictures in a resource file (.res).

I think that's the best way.