Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

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Dave Gehman
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Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

I created a new banner_company.jpg for a skin. When I right-clicked on banner_company.jpg in Premium Pack Toolbox and selected the option to write the new image to the baggage files, I got this error:
Image

I don't know what this means - and, after trying multiple times to close it with subtle differences in the error, it finally tells me that the file is saved and project update.

So, did I screw everything up? Or is the re-saving of the new version successful? And what were all those error messages about?
Dave Gehman
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Well, it seems to have swapped in my new banner.

But I don't look forward to paging through numerous error messages in the future. What is the right workflow for swapping in a new graphic?

The one I used that resulted in the flurry of errors:
1. Opened original banner_company in Impict.
2. Noted size.
3. Created new graphic in my photo editor (I needed sophisticated resizing, conventional unsharp mask, and large-radius unsharp mask which I don't find in Impict.)
4. Saved new graphic under the banner_company.jpg name
5. Right-clicked on the graphic name in the PP Toolbox, chose Add Baggage File(s)
6. Browsed to the location of my new file and selected it.
7. Selected save or close or OK, whatever the "I'm done, save this" option is called.

Any insights are welcome.
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Dave Gehman wrote:Any insights are welcome.
Hi Dave,

Which graphics editor? It seems that you needed to do File > Close in that editor in addition to/instead of Save. Or alternatively close the editor down, before going back to the PP Toolbox.

Martin.
Dave Gehman
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

I use an old editor called Photo-Brush for a number of reasons, but mainly because it makes actual digital photo editing accessible & easy and has the best resizing / resampling results I've found.

The banner_company file was cllosed, but the editor was not, so I'll try closing the editor. I have to modify the image anyway.
Dave Gehman
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

This time, only 1 error message, identical to the one in my graphic, above.

Once I clicked "OK' on the error, up popped a success message.

Now, the next customization layer - although the image in the baggage file is the same size as the original one (1768 x 128), WebHelp is displaying it only about 2/3 as high (full width seems to be visible). I'll have to track down where the output size of company_banner is controlled and try to change the height value.
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Tim Green
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,

Your screenshot shows why you are getting the error: The files you edited have not been saved back to the project yet, so they are locked. That is as it should be. When you edit baggage files in Toolbox with a linked editor it handles saving your edits back to your skin. When you double-click on a baggage file and open it in the editor, it opens a copy in the editor and monitors all changes to that copy. As soon as you save in your external editor the file name in Toolbox lights up in red to warn you of the change. Then all you need to do is click on Save Project and the edit will be saved directly back to the skin. This is then confirmed by the red highlight disappearing. In the Preferences you can also automate this: If you activate Auto-Save it will automatically save the edited baggage file (and any other editing changes) back to the skin as soon as the changes are registered.

Basically what has happened is that you torpedoed this process by trying to second-guess Toolbox and do its work for it while it still had the files in question locked because it saw that you were editing them and that unchanged edits had not been saved back yet.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Dave Gehman
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Tim Green wrote:Hi Dave,

....When you edit baggage files in Toolbox with a linked editor it handles saving your edits back to your skin. When you double-click on a baggage file and open it in the editor, it opens a copy in the editor and monitors all changes to that copy. As soon as you save in your external editor the file name in Toolbox lights up in red to warn you of the change.
When I tried to save the changes in my editor, I was left totally puzzled as to *where* to save it. As with all other Windows programs that I use, my editor needs to know the file folder in which to save. After experimentation, I found that the .hmskin is an archive file. As far as I can tell, my editor won't break into archived files to save things.
Basically what has happened is that you torpedoed this process by trying to second-guess Toolbox and do its work for it while it still had the files in question locked because it saw that you were editing them and that unchanged edits had not been saved back yet.
I've been back through the PPT help, both the internal popups and the online help, and even in the light of your explanation, I can't find anything around where to save edited graphics files. Without information, and with a need to progress in my project ASAP, I am pretty much left to second-guessing.
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Dave,

Just click File > Save, or CTRL+S. It must be an odd Windows program if it doesn't save it back to where it got it from. (Which is a local Temp folder used by the Toolbox for the purpose.)

regards,

Martin.
Dave Gehman
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Ah - a failing of my program... no, it never saves where it sourced. It's a digital photo editing program and the I think the engineering decision was that all work must be non-destructive, and that the user will always want to save a copy rather than overwrite the original...

How can I find the temp directory? Though I guess I could use the ability of one of my search programs ability to find directory created in the last few minutes/ hours/day... unless it's always the same directory?
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Dave Gehman wrote:How can I find the temp directory?
Hi Dave,

The path was in your error message:
dave_path.png
But it's a bit of a mouthful.

I think I would use an intermediary graphics editor program. From the Toolbox go to that. Copy the image from there. Paste it into your preferred editor. Make changes. Copy it from there. Paste it back into the first editor to replace the image. Save the file from there.

cheers,

Martin.
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Dave Gehman
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Martin Wynne wrote:The path was in your error message:
:shock: :oops:
I think I would use an intermediary graphics editor program. From the Toolbox go to that. Copy the image from there. Paste it into your preferred editor. Make changes. Copy it from there. Paste it back into the first editor. Save the file from there.

cheers,

Martin.
Thanks. I'll may want to play with my Macro Express and try to automate that workflow -- if I ever get a chance to come up for air, that is. Everything is possible with MEx... but nothing works the first time...
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Tim Green
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Tim Green »

Dave Gehman wrote:When I tried to save the changes in my editor, I was left totally puzzled as to *where* to save it. As with all other Windows programs that I use, my editor needs to know the file folder in which to save. After experimentation, I found that the .hmskin is an archive file. As far as I can tell, my editor won't break into archived files to save things.

This is all handled by Toolbox, you don't need to think about it at all. Here is how it works:
  1. When you double-click on a graphics file in the Baggage to edit it, it exports a temporary copy to the temp folder and then opens this copy in your graphics program. You do NOT need to choose a place to save it and should NOT try to do so.
  2. Toolbox monitors changes to the temporary copy in the temp folder. As soon as you edit the file in your graphics program and save there, it notices this and the name of the file lights up red in the list, and the Save Project button activates.
  3. If you then click on Save Project, Toolbox copies the changed file back into the skin and the red highlight turns off. That is ALL you need to do to get the edited version back into the skin.
IMPORTANT: As soon as you do open the file for editing the file in the skin is locked to the temporary copy. Even if you don't edit it directly, you won't be able to overwrite it with another copy. If you save a copy somewhere else and edit and then try to save it back to the skin you won't be able to do it, even if it is not highlighted in red. As far as Toolbox is concerned, that file is being edited and it is locked.

If you are really determined to do it the hard way you can export it, edit it externally and re-import it instead (requires the current 3.40 update with the new Export function):
  1. Right-click on the Baggage file and select the Export option.
  2. Save it anywhere you want and edit it in your graphics program.
  3. Use the Add Baggage File function to write it back to the skin.
Again, this is really unnecessary, but if you want to do it that way, you can. But if you have opened a Baggage file for linked editing it will be locked to its temporary copy until you close the skin.
I've been back through the PPT help, both the internal popups and the online help, and even in the light of your explanation, I can't find anything around where to save edited graphics files. Without information, and with a need to progress in my project ASAP, I am pretty much left to second-guessing.
It's not there because it's not needed. The way Toolbox handles it, you are effectively editing the file inside the skin with your program. Editing the other files in the baggage in a code editor works in the same way. However, it won't work if you try to save somewhere else. Only the temporary copy monitored by Toolbox will work like this, and it will also be deleted automatically when you close the skin in Toolbox, or close Toolbox, which also closes the skin.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Dave Gehman
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Thanks. You can't possibly know all external editors out there - and particularly the little-known one I use.

PP toolbox has an impressive amount of depth to it.
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Tim Green
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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,
Dave Gehman wrote:Thanks. You can't possibly know all external editors out there - and particularly the little-known one I use.
That doesn't matter, because Toolbox isn't interacting with your editor at all. It doesn't need to know anything about your editor. It is simply monitoring the temporary file that you are editing with your editor. As soon as you save that, Toolbox registers the change and activates the red highlight and the Save Project button. When you save, it copies the edited temporary file back into the skin.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Re: Tried to change banner_company.jpg, got error

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,

PS: This whole issue is an excellent example of one of the most difficult problems in technical documentation of any kind. When the user makes an a priori assumption about how the product he/she is working with will work, the documentation has no more chance to get through to them. From that moment on, they will filter everything through that assumption. This is almost impossible to deal with in documentation, because the assumption is generally made before the user even looks at the documentation.

In this case, you assumed in advance that Toolbox would be unable to "interact" with graphics programs because it couldn't know about all graphics programs. In addition to this, you assumed that only the graphics program could write the changed file it edited back to the skin, and since the graphics program couldn't do that, it wasn't going to happen. Acting on this assumption, you then assumed that you would need to save the file somewhere else and then save it back to the skin somehow yourself.

All these assumptions were incorrect, and as long as you held on to them it made it very difficult for you to understand what was actually going on, because you tended to filter all new information through those assumptions.

In fact, Toolbox doesn't need to interact with or know anything about the graphics program at all. Instead, it just monitors the temporary file that the graphics program is editing. As soon as that changes, it knows that there is something to save. When you click on Save Project, it copies the edited temporary file back to the skin. However, to be able to do this reliably, it must lock the file in the project to prevent any outside interference. So when you made another copy and tried to save that back to the skin, Toolbox correctly prevented you from doing that.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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