Download IFS Construction Kit as a compressed Zip file. If you would like to be notified of bug fixes and updates to IFS Construction Kit, please send me an email (see address below.)

Installation Issues

IFS Construction Kit should run under Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, or Vista. It may require the files comdlg32.ocx and mscomctl.ocx in your system32 directory. Also, if you have an older version of Windows 98 or ME, it may need a special VB runtime file from Microsoft. Click here for more details and links to download these files if the program gives an error message when you start it.

The program also requires that your regional options (available from the Control Panels) use a period as the decimal separator in a number rather than a comma.

Installation Issues with Help

If the program does not display the help content when you choose Help from the menu, the file may be blocked (for security reasons since it was downloaded from another computer). This is due to a change by Microsoft in one of its security updates from 2007. Find the file "IFS Help.chm" in the same folder as the program. Right click the file with the mouse. Choose Properties. Look for a button labeled "Unblock" at the bottom of the Properties dialog box. If it is there, click it. If it is not there, then the file is already unblocked and something else is preventing the content from being displayed. Make sure that "IFS Help.chm" is in the same folder as the program.

By default, CHM help files now only work in the "local machine zone" for security reasons. In other zones the CHM will open but content cannot be displayed, so you may have trouble seeing the content of the help file if it is accessed from a network drive. It is possible to change the default behavior, see your system administrator.

You can always access the help files from this website by choosing "Web Based Help" from the Help menu in the program.

Giffy 2.3

You can save fractals drawn with IFS Construction Kit as BMP files. You can open the bitmap image in a graphics program that is capable of saving images in other formats such as gif or jpg. Alternatively, you might want to try the free program Giffy 2.3 that can convert BMP files to GIF format. The author of this program no longer supports it, however, and the website is no longer active. Since the licence says that the "program is FREE to distribute on any kind of media," I have made it available here. Download giffy23.zip.

Note: You can get Giffy to automatically convert images via a right click with the mouse by running the setup program. However, I had to edit the registered file type setting via folder options to enclose the program path in quote marks. Choose the "File Types" tab, then choose the BMP extension and click on "Advanced". Choose "GIFFY, Convert to GIF" and click on "Edit...". In the textbox for "Application used to perform action", put quotes around the path to giffy.exe. Now you can select a BMP file, or select multiple files, by clicking with the right mouse button and choose "GIFFY, convert to gif".