Author Topic: A number of questions  (Read 11230 times)

Offline scarleton

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A number of questions
« on: June 04, 2006, 06:00:12 AM »
Hi, I love PM, I use it all the time, but there are a few issues that I have with it and don't know if there are current work arounds, bugs, or feature requests, so here is the list:

First off I am using 4.4.3 on Windows XP.

* I like to keep the Favorites panel stacked under the Navigator panel.  Often when I minimize PM and then restore it, the Favorites panel is now next to the Navigator panel.  I find it very annoying.

* I, too, am a software developer.  I use Microsoft Dev Studio 2005 and their help.  The reason I bring this up is because they have a "Sync" button in their help.  When you are displaying a given page of the help, you can click on the "Sync" button and make its navigation panel jump to where the current page is within the help.  Personally I find this very helpful because often I need to reference something very close to the current help page.  I find myself in the exact same situation with PM.  Normally PM opens to the last contact sheet I had open.  I would LOVE for there to be away to "sync" up the Navigator so that it has highlighted the folder for the current contact sheet.  I am thinking something as simple as a right click on the contact sheet folder name (tab) and then get a pop up menu that says "Navigator Sync" and "Add to Favorites".

* I also use the Firefox web browser.  I love their tabs, which is the same concept as contact sheets in PM.  There are a number of features about Firefox tabs that I really like.  One feature is being able to right click on a tab and to close all tabs EXCEPT the current one.  I also like how you can drag tabs around.  I also like how Firefox does have the refresh tab on the tab menu.  I would love to see a contact sheet menu on PM that allows the syncing, adding to favorites, refreshing, closing, closing all but current, etc.

* Back in an older version I was able to select images based on the color class.  Am I still able to?  If so how?  If not, are you willing to bring that feature back?  I really loved it!

* Printing contact sheets.  I tried this both at home (w/ Epson R200) and at work (big B&W laser printer/copier).  At work it was fine, but at home…  I go in to print a contact sheet and it starts off with 4 rows and 3 columns.  When I print it that way, the thumbnails are really small and there is a lot of white space.  When I try to up the columns to 4 or the rows to 5, next to those boxes it says "Error: thumbnail size too small".  It drives me nuts!  At work I believe I told it to do a 4x4 and it looked GREAT, no errors, perfecto!  But not at home:(  The whole thumbnail margins, I don’t understand it and I really don’t want to have to;)  I simply want to say, "I want x columns and y rows, make it happen, figure out the right sizing for everything for me!"

* When watermarking the images that are exported via HTML, I am having a bear of a time getting it so that it does not cut off the last letter of the work Photography.  Please see the attached image as a reference.



Sam

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: A number of questions
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2006, 07:31:08 AM »
Hi, I love PM, I use it all the time, but there are a few issues that I have with it and don't know if there are current work arounds, bugs, or feature requests, so here is the list:

First off I am using 4.4.3 on Windows XP.

* I like to keep the Favorites panel stacked under the Navigator panel.  Often when I minimize PM and then restore it, the Favorites panel is now next to the Navigator panel.  I find it very annoying.

I have seen this happen to other users on their machines.  I have never been able to reproduce the problem myself, meaning that I can minimize and restore dozens of times without reproducing the problem. (I rearranged my layout to have the Favorites under the Navigator like you and just tried minimizing and restoring about a dozen times with no problem.)  I have seen it happen and yes, it is annoying.  I wish I could reproduce it.  If I could, then it is very likely I could fix it. 

Quote from: scarleotn
* I, too, am a software developer.  I use Microsoft Dev Studio 2005 and their help.  The reason I bring this up is because they have a "Sync" button in their help.  When you are displaying a given page of the help, you can click on the "Sync" button and make its navigation panel jump to where the current page is within the help.  Personally I find this very helpful because often I need to reference something very close to the current help page.  I find myself in the exact same situation with PM.  Normally PM opens to the last contact sheet I had open.  I would LOVE for there to be away to "sync" up the Navigator so that it has highlighted the folder for the current contact sheet.  I am thinking something as simple as a right click on the contact sheet folder name (tab) and then get a pop up menu that says "Navigator Sync" and "Add to Favorites".

* I also use the Firefox web browser.  I love their tabs, which is the same concept as contact sheets in PM.  There are a number of features about Firefox tabs that I really like.  One feature is being able to right click on a tab and to close all tabs EXCEPT the current one.  I also like how you can drag tabs around.  I also like how Firefox does have the refresh tab on the tab menu.  I would love to see a contact sheet menu on PM that allows the syncing, adding to favorites, refreshing, closing, closing all but current, etc.

Sounds fine to me.

Quote from: scarleotn
* Back in an older version I was able to select images based on the color class.  Am I still able to?  If so how?  If not, are you willing to bring that feature back?  I really loved it!

It is still there.  On the Edit menu there is a submenu titled "Select Color Class".  It has the following choices:
Winner        Ctrl+Alt+1
...
Trash          Ctrl+Alt+8
Any             Ctrl+Alt+9
None           Ctrl+Alt+0

Quote from: scarleotn
* Printing contact sheets.  I tried this both at home (w/ Epson R200) and at work (big B&W laser printer/copier).  At work it was fine, but at home…  I go in to print a contact sheet and it starts off with 4 rows and 3 columns.  When I print it that way, the thumbnails are really small and there is a lot of white space.  When I try to up the columns to 4 or the rows to 5, next to those boxes it says "Error: thumbnail size too small".  It drives me nuts!  At work I believe I told it to do a 4x4 and it looked GREAT, no errors, perfecto!  But not at home:(  The whole thumbnail margins, I don’t understand it and I really don’t want to have to;)  I simply want to say, "I want x columns and y rows, make it happen, figure out the right sizing for everything for me!"

Your R200 must be telling Photo Mechanic that it has a really small page layout.  In order to generate a contact sheet layout, I must query the printer for its page bounds.  I then fit your desired layout into the bounds that the printer returns.  I would try checking the Page Setup (you'll always see it the first time you try to print on the Windows version) and make sure that the bounds seem right.  If the printer reports a very small page size, PM can do nothing to work around this.

Quote from: scarleotn
* When watermarking the images that are exported via HTML, I am having a bear of a time getting it so that it does not cut off the last letter of the work Photography.  Please see the attached image as a reference.


Fixed in the new beta version 4.4.3.1.  Please download it and see that it works properly.  See the Announcements section for the download details.

HTH,

-Kirk

Offline scarleton

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Re: A number of questions
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2006, 06:30:31 AM »
* I like to keep the Favorites panel stacked under the Navigator panel.  Often when I minimize PM and then restore it, the Favorites panel is now next to the Navigator panel.  I find it very annoying.

I have seen this happen to other users on their machines.  I have never been able to reproduce the problem myself, meaning that I can minimize and restore dozens of times without reproducing the problem. (I rearranged my layout to have the Favorites under the Navigator like you and just tried minimizing and restoring about a dozen times with no problem.)  I have seen it happen and yes, it is annoying.  I wish I could reproduce it.  If I could, then it is very likely I could fix it.

Just read a thread on SS that made me think about this question I posted a few weeks back.  It does seem that if I just minimize PM and restore it in a timely fashion, within 5 to 10 seconds (because I am trying to find another window), everything is fine. I see the problem when PM has been minimized for a sometime, many minutes, and sometimes when I first launch PM.  Hopefully this will help you find the bug!  I know what it is like to have something reported but not reproducible!

If you have any thoughts on where the problem might be AND you can add some logging to PM to gleam some light as to the problem, I would be happy to run a special build for you.

Sam

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: A number of questions
« Reply #3 on: June 16, 2006, 06:48:53 AM »
* I like to keep the Favorites panel stacked under the Navigator panel.  Often when I minimize PM and then restore it, the Favorites panel is now next to the Navigator panel.  I find it very annoying.

I have seen this happen to other users on their machines.  I have never been able to reproduce the problem myself, meaning that I can minimize and restore dozens of times without reproducing the problem. (I rearranged my layout to have the Favorites under the Navigator like you and just tried minimizing and restoring about a dozen times with no problem.)  I have seen it happen and yes, it is annoying.  I wish I could reproduce it.  If I could, then it is very likely I could fix it.

Just read a thread on SS that made me think about this question I posted a few weeks back.  It does seem that if I just minimize PM and restore it in a timely fashion, within 5 to 10 seconds (because I am trying to find another window), everything is fine. I see the problem when PM has been minimized for a sometime, many minutes, and sometimes when I first launch PM.  Hopefully this will help you find the bug!  I know what it is like to have something reported but not reproducible!

If you have any thoughts on where the problem might be AND you can add some logging to PM to gleam some light as to the problem, I would be happy to run a special build for you.

I've never tried waiting for a number of minutes.  I have been just arranging it the way someone tells me they have it arranged, and then I minimize it and a moment later restore or maximize and I never see the problem.

Thanks for the tips!

-Kirk