Update image after edit with external editor

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Greg Smith
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Update image after edit with external editor

Unread post by Greg Smith »

Very nice to be able to specify an external image editor in latest release.
However, when I use MSPaint, the image does not update after editing and I have to navigate away and back to refresh it. Please refresh the image after a change... and maybe you should refresh if a window with a file-based image loses focus.
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Tim Green
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Re: Update image after edit with external editor

Unread post by Tim Green »

Greg Smith wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2024 6:50 pm Very nice to be able to specify an external image editor in latest release.

This has always been possible, ever since Help+Manual 5, I think. 8)
However, when I use MSPaint, the image does not update after editing and I have to navigate away and back to refresh it. Please refresh the image after a change... and maybe you should refresh if a window with a file-based image loses focus.
For this Help+Manual would need to constantly monitor changes to the external file on the hard disk, which isn't really necessary, and which would generate excessive overheads in topics containing a lot of images. Then customers would start nagging at us that the editor was too slow. :roll: Just right-click on the image after editing and select Picture > Reload in the context menu.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Greg Smith
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Location: Cambridge, England

Re: Update image after edit with external editor

Unread post by Greg Smith »

Thank you for the reply.
There is no need to constantly monitor... Detecting that H&M has gained focus would be enough... Speaking with my developer hat on, when an app gains focus there is a lot of stuff that happens. Lots of Applications do this, for instance development IDEs (for example Visual Studio, which can have a lot of files open) do it to check if any of their files have been modified by external programs.
Thank you for suggesting a work-around. It is just that this has been a minor annoyance for years... most things in H&M 'Just Work' TM.
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