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    Some pages of this and other topics include contributions from members who are creating and posting their own CAD designs for 3D printing and laser-cutting. Do not confuse them with Templot's own exported CAD files. All files derived from Templot are © Martin Wynne.
  • The Plug Track functions are experimental and still being developed.

    For an updated overview of this project see this topic.   For some practical modelling aspects of using Plug Track see Building 3D Track.

    The assumption is that you have your own machines on which to experiment, or helpful friends with machines. Please do not send Templot files to commercial laser cutting or 3D printing firms while this project is still experimental, because the results are unpredictable and possibly wasteful.

    Some pages of this and other topics include contributions from members who are creating and posting their own CAD designs for 3D printing and laser-cutting. Do not confuse them with Templot's own exported CAD files. All files derived from Templot are © Martin Wynne.

Message staying on screen when printing track plan.

Quick reply >

Tony W

Member
Location
North Notts
Hello Martin.
Sorry to add to your woes, but I am reasonably confident I have discovered a bug.
The situation only appears to occur with a particular combination of events, which is why I have not reported it before as I have been trying to narrow down the options. Here is a screen shot.
Bug.JPG

The preparing railfoot edges message remains on the screen after printing the pages has finished and is all but impossible to get rid of.
Obviously some Flatbottom track is included in the printed area and it only happens when the map shape is included.
If I delete the map shape from the background shapes list, the problem does not occur.
I am having to use the dots option for this printer driver to work and have only discovered the issue when recently printing out Flat bottom track so I don't know if it happens with the stretch method.
I have the current version of Templot 226f running under windows XP.

Regards
Tony.
 
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message ref: 1221
Hi Tony,

Thanks for the report. That's a weird bug, especially being associated with the map shape. I've just checked the code and that message box is definitely being closed after it is displayed.

What I'm wondering is -- could the message panel actually be an image which is somehow being copied into the map image? That would explain why you can't get rid of it. Try pressing SHIFT+HOME to toggle the background shapes on and off. Does the message box go too?

That still leaves the mystery of how it could get there. I will do some more digging.

Can you post your BGS3 file here? (It may be too big.)

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1223
I recently had an issue with a message from a program (CorelDraw),,which was running in the background, getting stuck on top of Templot. It even appeared in a Templot printout.

The issue seems to have gone away after a Windows 10 update a few days ago.

Regards
Mike
 
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message ref: 1224
Hi Martin.
SHIFT+HOME turns the background shapes off alright, but not the message.
Also it stays when the print options window opens, which may be a clue.
Message.JPG

The message window can be dragged, but pauses the print window until the mouse button is released.
BGS3 file attached.
Regards
Tony.
 

Attachments

  • brimsdown_21_03_23_0916_12.bgs3
    1.5 MB · Views: 170
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message ref: 1225
Thanks Tony, Mike.

Thanks for the file. This is really weird and will take some tracking down.

Are you really printing by dots, including this large picture shape? It must take for ever?

I was baffled by the top caption bar on the print pages dialog, until I remembered that it's from the rotate bitmap by dots function. The picture shape bitmaps have to be rotated by 90 degrees for inclusion in the print output (top of screen is right edge of print).

Are you really printing at 40% size?

I will write again when I've found something.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1226
Hi Tony,

I've tried printing some FB templates at 40% over your background shapes and so far I can't reproduce the problem (Windows10).

What I have noticed, is that much to my surprise the print by dots method is actually faster than the normal method, when each printed page contains only a small fraction of a much larger bitmap. Which it very often does nowadays with the NLS map captures. When I wrote the code originally that option wasn't available.

Looking at the code again now (which I haven't done for years), I can see why that might be. Which is an important light-bulb moment for me, and I can see that I need to rethink some of the defaults and program notes. So thank you for posting this topic. :)

If I convert your stark black&white image to a low-contrast grey image, as I would normally do for working over it (using the function in Templot), it gets noticeably slower. Since there is nowhere in my code where the colour of a dot is referenced, this must be down to the Windows GDI.

I'm going to re-do the tests on my Windows7 system. My XP system is currently in bits, so I can't test it there. I do remember the print by dots method taking a fortnight on there, so I was surprised when my Windows10 system did it so much faster.

All this also has implications for the option to show the sketchboard contents in the output.

So you have given me a lot to think about -- but so far no explanation or fix for your actual problem. Sorry about that -- I will keep looking.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1228
Hi Martin.

Thanks for the replies.
I normally print at 100% as the original screenshot was and only printed this one area at 40% in order to be able to mark in the point rodding runs for this area on one sheet of paper, once I had worked out where they go from the photos, but the scale is irrelevant to the problem.
Since the maps are Monochrome and used to have to be entered as Bitmaps, I saw no point in making the files any larger than necessary, as they slowed things down as they got bigger. So it's a legacy thing as all my orginal scans are 1 bit deep.
You may / probably not / recall that I had problems with my HP printer not printing areas of Templot with no templates, which I cured by finding a different printer driver. Unfortunately, although this cured the original problem and gave me a preview option, if I use the normal method of printing all I get is the outline of the picture shape, so Dots it was and it is slow, but with only 100DPI maps acceptable if only printing a few pages at a time.
I could try printing a page using the old printer driver and see what happens for comparison if you wish.

Regards
Tony.
 
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message ref: 1229
Hi Tony,

I haven't been able to reproduce your problem or get to the bottom of it. I think it must be related to Windows XP. But I'm going to make a few changes to the printing of picture shapes in the next program update, which may solve the problem.

I have also added a closing X to the wait message box, which should at least solve the problem of not being able to get rid of it (although why you can't do so is a complete mystery):

wait_message_close.png


cheers,

Martin.
 
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message ref: 1248
Thanks Martin.
Up till now to get rid of the message, I have either had to restart Templot or start another print, minus map and cancel at the preview stage. I will continue to experiment with differing combinations as time permits and see what bearing they have on the problem. It may even be a problem caused by my printer driver. All things are possible.

Regards
Tony.
 
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message ref: 1250
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