"WIF" stands for Weaving Interchange File, and is a way for people with different weaving drafting programs to exchange designs. Each program has its own way of storing information in a computer file, and they are all different - except for WIF. WIF's are text files and can therefore be read on any computer, whether the operating system is Windows (any kind), Mac (any flavor), or UNIX (and its varieties, too). Find out what your text file reader/writer program is and get a bit familiar with it. In Windows, it is Notepad (notepad.exe). I will use notepad from now on; please reinterpret for your own text editor.
Here is a simple weaving draft. It shows a white warp, threaded in a four-harness straight draw. The tieup is a twill tieup in the first four columns, followed by plain weave in the last two columns. The weft is blue and is treadled first with eight picks of twill followed by eight picks of plain weave.
The WIF for this draft is also simple. You can download a copy of the WIF produced by my drafting program (Fiberworks PCW), simple01.wif. Go ahead and open it in Notepad and be sure you are at the top. Any line preceded by a semicolon (;) is a comment. This means it is for your enjoyment or edification and is to be ignored by the drafting program. You will see that it has sections, each of which is set off with a title in square brackets. For example, the first three titles are [WIF], [CONTENTS], and [TEXT]. The first section, [WIF], is just identifying information about the version and the program which produced the wif.
The second section is called [CONTENTS] and is just that - a listing of what contents are in the WIF. It differs from an ordinary Table of Contents in that the order in [CONTENTS] is not always the same as the order in the rest of the file. However, we will be able to muddle through. By the way, do remember that even the simplest of text editors has a "Find" feature, which will be useful as we go along. Each of the items listed in [CONTENTS] is all capital letters and each is followed by an equal sign with a single word indicating whether that item is contained in the WIF.
If the word is "true" (or "yes"), then that item is in the WIF. If "false", it is not there. I will discuss the following sections in the order in which they appear in this WIF rather than the order in which they are listed in [CONTENTS]. Another WIF may have a different order.
The third section is called [TEXT] and has the title of the draft (usually the filename) and a remark (preceeded by a semicolon) giving its creation date (or modification date).
The fourth section is called [NOTES] and has the information which I typed into the "Notes and Records" section of my drafting program. I had typed in four lines, just as an example. Note that in the WIF, the lines are numbered, although they are not in Fiberworks.
The fifth section is called [WEFT COLORS] and has no information in it. Back in the [CONTENTS], the statement "WEFT COLORS=true" (or"yes"), meant that the section heading existed, not necessarily that it had content.
The sixth section is called [THREADING] and is exactly what you would expect. It reminds me of the threadings listed in some of our older weaving textbooks. On each line, the first number is the end number, counting from right to left. The second number, after the equals sign, tells us on which shaft to thread that end. So thread # 5 is threaded on shaft one, #6 on shaft two, and so on.
The seventh section is called [TIEUP] and is also almost straightforward. The first number is the column number. However, this time we read from left to right. The numbers after the equals sign are the rows to be shaded. That is, the numbers show the shafts to be lifted. The leftmost column in our tieup has rows 1 and 2 shaded (shafts 1 & 2).
The eighth section is called [TREADLING]. It reads from top to bottom. The first number is the pick number. The number after the equal sign is the treadle number. So here we have 16 picks. The first eight are treadled 1-2-3-4 and repeat. The next eight are trealdled 5-6 and repeaat
The ninth section is called [WEAVING]. It contains facts about the draft. "Rising shed=true" (or"yes"), means that the draft assumes a rising shed loom. Also listed are the number of treadles and the number of shafts.
The tenth section is called [WARP]. It gives facts about the warp. In this case, "Units=centimeters" refers to the measurement unit for "Spacing" and "Thickness". To make a simple draft by hand, you probably won't need those three items. The statement "Threads=8" means that there are 8 warp yarns in the draft. The statement "Color=1" tells us to look at the [COLOR TABLE]; the first item there gives the Red-Green-Blue proportions - up to 999 maximum for each. See JoOwl's RGB Colors for a table (in color) showing which numbers make which colors. Color #1, in this case, is 999,999,999 which makes white.
The eleventh section is called [WEFT]. It gives facts about the weft. In this case, "Units=centimeters" refers to the measurement unit for "Spacing" and "Thickness". To make a simple draft by hand, you probably won't need those three items. The statement "Threads=16" means that there are 16 weft yarns in the draft. The statement "Color=7" tells us to look at the [COLOR TABLE]; the seventh item there gives the Red-Green-Blue proportions - 0, 666, 999. This means no Red, some Green, and a lot of Blue. This produces a medium blue. See JoOwl's RGB Colors for a table of which numbers make which colors.
The twelfth section is called [COLOR TABLE]. You will probably have to refer to
RGB Colors - 0 to 999, RGB Colors - 0 to 255, or Color Display to get a better idea of what things look like. To find out how the [COLOR TABLE] is set up, skip down to the [COLOR PALETTE]. But briefly, each color in the palette used by the drafting program has a number - the number to the left of the equal sign. The numbers to the right of the equal sign tell what proportions of Red, Green, and Blue to use. Think of these as three different numbers rather than as a nine-digit number. Here are some of the best known colors:
#1=999, 999, 999. Use full-strength each of red, green, and blue - the result is white.
#2=0, 0, 0. Use no red, no green, and no blue - the result is black.
#5=0, 0, 999. Use only blue. The result is blue.
#18=999, 0, 0. Use only red. The result is red.
#21=999, 0, 999. Use red and blue each at full strength. The result is purple.
#50=0, 599, 0. Use green, but only at about 2/3 strength. The result is a dark green
The thirteenth section is called [COLOR PALETTE]. The entry "Range=0,999" tells us that the smallest number used to express the amount of a color is 0, while the largest is 999. 999 means to use that color at its strongest, while 0 means don't use any of that color at all. The line "Entries=82" merely tells us that there are 82 colors in the [COLOR TABLE]. Don't worry; we don't have to use all of them. In fact, in this case we use only two. See RGB Colors - 0 to 999 for details.
In another WIF, [COLOR PALETTE] may have "Range =0,255". In that case, the largest number used to express the amount of a color is 255. 255 means to use that color at its strongest. For details, see RGB Colors - 0 to 255
To see what a color looks like without the big RGB tables, use Color Display. You must let your browser run JavaScript in order to use this.
Now test yourself. Download the next WIF, simple02.wif and try your hand at figuring out the corresponding draft. You can check your work by looking at simple02.gif
For a somewhat more complicated WIF, try downloading draft #53581.wif. This wif was originally downloaded from http://www.handweaving.net. It is a draft from Posselt's Textile Journal, August 1908, Page 41, Figure 11. The result will not look the same as the figure shown on handweaving.net - everything seems to be reversed.
A study of more complicated WIF's will be available shortly.
