Digital Workshop

Hello All,

I upgraded Opus to SP4, version 04.50 (Build Feb 4 2005 11:49:17). Today I opened a very large and complex project which uses a lot of script, ms access database via scripting, vectors and PNGs and it's clocked up over 487 Hours in Editing Time. It was developed with Opus 04 SP1. Today I needed to update some elements of the project for a client so I opened it.

After publishing the publication I noticed that all the files (About 900) which I set as External Files through the Resource Manager have now reverted back to being embedded. Also the MS Access file which would normally be exported at publication is not any more, I have to manually copy the file over.

Also on one area of my publication I have vectors cloned and set them to different positions on the page. These have now changed their position with the latest build. I used the CloneObject(PosX, PosY, Visible). Have you changed the way this works in Opus SP4, as they all appear about 20x20 pixel off set to both top and bottom left.

I've also noticed that buttons with images are now all 1pixel too small, the bottom row is missing. Even though they were all Set to Fit in Opus 04 SP1, and looked perfect.

Are these common problems with Opus 04 SP4?

I'm currently in the process of reverting back to SP1 even though that means I will lose the bug fix in SP3/SP4 which I needed for my client, change resolution via script in WinXP.

Can DW update me on these problems? Has anyone else experienced these kind of problems with Opus 04 SP4?


Many Thanks,

Joe


UPDATE
I'm just after reinstalling Opus 04 and applying the latest SP4 update (Feb 9 2005 17:58:48). I opened the original SP1 created file again. Published it again and still same problems. I also did the Ctrl+Alt trick to reset Opus.

UPDATE AGAIN
The publication was developed with SP1, not SP2 as thought earlier.

Hello All,

I have uninstalled Opus 04 with SR4. I have now done a clean install of Opus 04 and updated it to SR1. I opened the publication again and published it, and it all worked perfectly. The database was copied to folder and all external files were correctly dealt with.

I then updated to SR2 and republished again, the database copied correctly. But NO external files, everything was embedded into the publication.

Just installed SR4 now, and NO database and No external files.


Has anyone else experience this with SR2 to SR4? External resources and databases disappearing.

Help please Robin or Brenden...

Joe

Hi Joseph,

We have received no other reports of this issue and I have recently been working with a large database project which has been developed across many versions of Opus Pro 04 without problems.

The first thing I would recommend would be to click Publication > Publication Properties > Database and ensure that the Path for file when published is set to <SYSTEM_PUBLICATION_DIR>.

I would then take a look in the Resource Manager (Tools > Resource Manager), right-click on one of the affected resources and select Publish Location. Please ensure that this is set to External File, the Base Location is set to Publication Directory and the Copy files on publish option is checked. You can also preserve the original filename using the Use original filename option.

When you are happy with these settings, click Apply > OK > Close to return to the editor.

Now create a blank new folder on your Desktop named Published Files, pop back into Opus and click Publication > Publish, then follow the on-screen instructions to create a standalone executable, ensuring that the Published Files folder you created earlier is set as the publish directory.

Once the project has been published, please minimise all open windows to display the Desktop and open the Published Files folder to see what files have been created. Your external resources and database should hopefully be present and correct.

Please let me know if the problem persists.

Kind regards,

Hi,

I found that all the files in Resource Manager are reset to embed when the file is opened in SR4, and yes I doubled checked them in SR1 and all is correct there.

So I went through all the resources and changed the settings to publish to external file.

Also the database still wasn't exported, even though I went in and check the publication directory. Yes the publication does work in preview with the database so Opus does see it.


Joe

Hi Joseph,

After further investigation, I have replicated these issues and have asked our development team to look into this as a matter of priority.

The easiest workaround for the database publish issue is to manually copy your original database file to the publication directory after publishing. This should restore the link between the executable and database and allow the records to be seen without problems. However, this process was automated in earlier versions of Opus Pro 04, so a bug has definitely crept into the Publish Wizard.

The latest version also appears to have problems importing 'Publish Location' settings from the Resource Manager, so images which previously published to external files are now automatically embedded into the executable. As you have found, going back into the Resource Manager and setting the 'External File' option for all images rectifies this problem, but we will investigate this matter further and correct these issues.

Kind regards,

Thanks Robin,

Nice to know it's not just me. Have you been able to replicate the problem of CloneObject positioning vectors incorrectly?

I think the old method has changes and it doesn't use the top left anymore for positioning and now uses the centre of the object. Not sure which.

Previous Post:
>>Also on one area of my publication I have vectors cloned and set >>them to different positions on the page. These have now changed their >>position with the latest build. I used the CloneObject(PosX, PosY, >>Visible). Have you changed the way this works in Opus SP4, as they >>all appear about 20x20 pixel off set to both top and botto


Thanks again Robin,
Joe

Hi,

Thank you for your reply.

Are the vector objects within a frame? A number of changes were made to object positioning (including SetPosition() functions) in Service Release 2 which could affect framed objects and you should now find that the positioning of these objects is now calculated from the top-left corner of the frame rather than the page itself.

For example, try inserting a vector object into a frame, then apply an On Show action to the page followed by the following script action:



where 'Vector' is the name of your vector object.

Preview the publication and you should notice that the midpoint of the vector is aligned with the top-left corner of the frame, so only the bottom-right quarter of the vector is visible. Before SR2, the vector would have been aligned to the top-left corner of the page and would therefore be completely invisible (unless the frame was positioned in the top-left corner of the publication).

This new method of positioning objects is much more in tune with other application development environments and should make it much easier to visualise and control framed objects.

To correct the positioning of the objects in your imported publication, simply determine the horizontal and vertical co-ordinates of the top-left corner of the frame object, then subtract these from the horizontal and vertical co-ordinates in your CloneObject() function. This should position the cloned objects in respect of the parent frame and correct any alignment issues.

Kind regards,

Hi Robin,

The vectors are not in a frame, just displayed on the page. It's a vector which is hidden, on page show depending on certain actions by the user it is cloned and then positioned using the script below, where 333 is the X position of the page and 154 is the y, ie the left side of the vector will be aligned to 333 on the page, and the top of the vector will be aligned with 154. So this is the top left of the vector which it is aligned to.

ProgressMark.CloneObject(333, 154, true)

Currently is is offset by about 20 pixels.

Ok I did some tests with SR4, it appears that the Mid-Point is now used for everything when using set position and clone. So if I find the Mid-Point of objects and change the code in my publication it will work, another night of re-doing previous code, great.

I can sort of see the point of using the centre point for aligning single objects, but sometimes it is easier to find the top-left points, as it is difficult to find the centre of a complex vector object, whereas it is easy to place the pointer to the top-left and take note of the co-ordinates in the status bar.

***Also please note that is is not possible to see the size/mid/position of vector polygons within a vector object in the status bar. This makes it very difficult to judge the mid-point of polygons within vectors, it you can't read this detail in the status bar. Can the dev team please look into adding this to the next build.


Thanks again Robin, you're helpful as always.

Joe