ELVis lives!

[martin]

why does roughly doubling the space used by these PNG files matter?
[...]
forgive me if (as I fear) I've once again misunderstood something

Not at all, Phil -- the reason is purely biographical, and thus you were not to know: I got my training and conditioning when an advanced (not-really-)floppy disk held -- now can you believe this! -- all of 1.44 MB !!
(Same with RAM, by the way: it still gives me 7.5 goose bumps to cross the 640 kB threshold...)

Old have-bytes die hard, that's all there is to it!  

Those 600+ kB for PNGs are not a problem at all, but I wish to see some "return of investment" (in quality) for them, that's why I was asking.  

Cheers,
Martin

[Hardy Heinlin]

I mostly use JPG for PSX screenshots. PNG might be sharper and better compressed for EFIS vector graphics (not many different colors, and just a few shades for anti-alias), but JPG is often better for the entire flight deck with its millions of colors.


Cheers,

|-|ardy

[martin]

Greetings,

for those who requested PNG: you can now use ELVis to save "screenshots" (cockpit images) in that format (instead of JPEG).

Download the file PSX_ELVis_png.jar and use this instead of the original PSX_ELVis.jar.

Put this new JAR into the same folder where your previous ELVis is installed; it needs the other files!

Providing an alternative executable (JAR) is perhaps not the "proper" way to do it, but I did not want to mess about with the original file and user interface (yet another button or checkbox would spoil the looks! :-)

Besides, this version has not yet been tested (except by myself, of course), so it should be clearly distinguishable from the original version (which is known to work).

A technical comment:
This version uses an (ex-)plug-in to handle PNG files which is now built into Java SE. Somewhat strangely, this plug-in seems not to support fiddling with PNG parameters, as is possible for other formats. (This may be a version thing: I used SE 6 to accomodate those Mac users who have to stick to this old Java version).
Therefore you'll get PNG files with whatever the current Java SE6 default quality settings are.

But perhaps that is enough already.
Give it a try, and if the quality is still not satisfactory, let me know (also, in which respects it is not).
There are external libraries which could perhaps be used for further PNG optimizing, but they may not really be necessary, and then would be "overkill", for such a rather secondary function.

Moreover, keep in mind that the "Save Image" button is merely a convenience: you can of course always take screenshots yourself in the traditional way, and save and post-process them in whatever format in the graphics program of your choice.
In fact you must do this if you want pictures of cockpit details -- the "Save Image" button will always create an image of the whole cockpit.

Have fun!

Cheers,
Martin

[Hessel Oosten]

Hi Martin,

Did try the new "png-output-jar".

1. The .png has no automatic "png" extension, so it's d.i.y.
Of course, no problem at all.

2. More important:  Personally I do not see a real/significant differene in sharpness when compared to the .jpg from the other version.

As  I wrote earlier, my initial intension was taken screenshots, but as you wrote the "screenshot-method" is far better for that goal.

So for me, putting in extra energy, is not necessary.

Thanks and back to my... Pamela ...

Hessel

[martin]

Hello Hessel,

The .png has no automatic "png" extension,

Yes it has!
Well, at least for me it has (WinXP and Win7).  

Let's first check if we are "on the same page":

1. The extension ".png" is really missing from the file itself (as seen in File Explorer or some such)?
Don't be misled by not seeing it in the "Save" dialog! That will in fact show ".9pack", but the image will (should) be saved with ".png" even so.
It's explained in the doc.s (for the JPEG format, but the same now applies to PNG).

2. If you're on Windows (Macs may have something similar):
You have the File Explorer option ON to see the file extensions?
(It's OFF by default in Windows.)

3. You did see the correct ".jpg" extensions in the original ELVis version?
(If so, it's even stranger: What I changed was not much more than a string find/replace of ".jpg" vs. ".png"...)

I very much hope it's one of those above -- anything else may mean I have to dive into the differences of Regular Expressions on Win boxes vs. Macs, and I don't want to go there...  :shock:

I do not see a real/significant difference in sharpness when compared to the .jpg from the other version.

Nor did I (unless I hugely zoom in); that's why I asked about it earlier -- people with other systems and monitors might see other things.

The lines are marginally sharper, but I think there is not much point in trying to "optimize" further (which, as said, would require setting of parameters, and thus adding an external library to the mix).

Groetjes,
Martin

[Hessel Oosten]

Hoi Martin

Now I see where the "problem" (in fact a non-problem..) was  located.

When you do save the whole layout with all the 9 packs "tablets" without using the "all" asterisk, in that special circumstance the extensions are missing.

When using the program in the right manner .... :oops: it's  all "GOED"... RIGHT !.

Hessel

[martin]

Ahoi Hessel,

helaas begrijp ik het toch steeds nog niet!  :?

Something does not compute. (The issue itself is negligible but I wonder what other problem may lurk behind it).

When you do save the whole layout with all the 9 packs "tablets" without using the "all" asterisk, in that special circumstance the extensions are missing.

I am not sure I understand. The "Save Image" button saves only images, of course, not layouts.
Or do you mean that you have all ELVis checkboxes checked to see all coloured "frames" in the image?
But that shouldn't have any effect on the file name or extension.

Step by step:

1. start ELVis;
2. click "Open 9pack" and load XYZ.9pack;
3. select any or all nine layouts to see them as coloured "frames";
4. click "Save Image";
5. dialog opens, filename field is pre-set with "XYZ.9pack";
6. ignore ".9pack" extension; do not change or add or enter anything;
7. just click on "Save" (in the dialog);
8. after a moment, confirmation pops up that image has been saved as "XYZ.jpg" or "XYZ.png" (depending on ELVis variant used);
9. PSX Layout subfolder now contains the image, with proper file extension.

Tested on WinXP and Win7.

Where does your procedure differ from this? It should not be necessary at all to enter asterisks.
Of course you can use another filename than the one pre-set in the dialog (step 5 above); but if you don't want that you don't have to enter anything; just click buttons.

Cheers,
Martin
GUI Verbalizer

PS. The discussion was already helpful: I did discover an unrelated minor glitch in the new PNG variant (nothing functional, just using an outdated image version.) Now fixed.  

[Hessel Oosten]

Martin,

Although still unclear to me, I must have done something stupid.
In first instance I could reproduce the missing extensions several times, but now .... it's constantly OK. Win XP.

Interesting .. effect is, that when te files are saved by Elvis AND when Elvis is still open/running, clicking of the produced file (which now has landed in the layout folder) does not show the saved intended layout but a picture of the Elvis "service-block (where you choose what you want to choose").
After closing of Elvis, the .jpg or .png shows NOW the intended layout.
Not important,but there is no doubt the programmer wants to know it ...

Hessel

[martin]

Hello Hessel,

thanks for the report; we are making progress!  

when the files are saved by Elvis AND when Elvis is still open/running, clicking of the produced file (which now has landed in the layout folder) does not show the saved intended layout but a picture of the Elvis "service-block (where you choose what you want to choose")
After closing of Elvis, the .jpg or .png shows NOW the intended layout.
[...]
no doubt the programmer wants to know it ...

Yes indeed, very interesting!
 
My first thought was "OK, this is probably a real one: ELVis (while kept open) still has a handle on the image, so the image viewer can't get it. ".
But I can't reproduce it    

In fact, the handle from ELVis is really still there, but it does not prevent my viewer (IrfanView) from showing the correct and complete image of cockpit plus selected layouts.
Tested on WinXP and Win7 (and for both ELVis variants), may be different for other systems and perhaps for other image viewers(?).

On second thought, this cannot be the reason anyway:
If anything, you should perhaps see an incomplete cockpit picture, but not a picture of the ElVis GUI ("service box") itself.

There is one rather exotic possible explanation:
Could it be that the "image" you saw was indeed incomplete, namely empty or 100% transparent, and so you simply looked through it onto the ELVis GUI.
Meaning what you saw was the real GUI  under the empty or transparent image, but it was not the image itself.

The only other thing I can think of:
Did you wait until the "Image has been saved" confirmation dialog has popped up?
Occasionally this seems to take a few seconds -- perhaps you tried viewing the picture already while ELVis had not yet finished producing it, hence the "incompleteness"?

No other ideas at the moment, and as it is not a very big deal for you either, I suggest we wait until more complaints pop up.  

Cheers,
Martin