ElfPreview Output PlugIn (new)

Beta Build 1.1

Beta Build 1.1 is now uploaded and available. See the first post in this thread for the links.

Some pretty big changes in this build.

Fixed bugs:
-- If you had channels in your sequence not included for Elf, this would cause a crash.
-- If you had multiple copies of Elf Preview assigned to the sequence, that would crash (related to the last bug).
-- Playing back in other than the default channel order would cause the wrong channels to render.
-- Channels stored in the sequence other than the default order would cause problems for the editor.
-- Extra channels defined in the profile caused a crash.

Changes:
-- New icon graphics added to the editor, make a consistent look and feel to the program.
-- Selected buttons that have an on/off condition (i.e. individual tools, options on the tool strip) now render blue when check in order to enhance visibility.
-- Background image files are now allowed to be stored within the profile as just the filename, instead of encoding the file into a huge string. This enhancement allows the profile to be opened quicker, allowing for there to be less time when starting a playback.
-- Bug tracing code has been removed from the build, reducing lag time in running in the editor.
-- Tool and profile code have been moved off into separate library files. These are now plugins for Elf. (Yo dawg, I heard you like plugins, so I made some plugins for your plugin!) This was done so that change and enhancements to individual tools and profile definitions can be made without having to download the entire package. New tools and profile definitions can be added to Elf just be moving a new dll file into the folder, just like Vixen does. If people are interested in writing new tools for Elf, I can make an example program available to guide you through the process.
-- New snowman image stamp added, thanks to flashpop on diychristmas.org

Again, reminder that this is still beta code, please make sure you back up your profiles before using, just to be safe!
 
Beta Build 1.1.1 is now out there.

There were a few issues with saving profiles and the wrong sort order index was being saved, causing a crash. Also a couple of changes to the import Channels screen, now you can override the target channel's name with the name of the channel being imported.
 
The standalone Elf application is crashing and no information is written for me to help with the errors.

Also, I am using the Stamp tool and can only seem to get it to work for small mini trees. I click on the various size but no change. I also can not choose any other item.
 

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Can you give me a little more on the nature of the crashes? When does it happen? Are you doing anything in particular when it happens? With the Image Stamp, are you able to change to a different stamp at all? If so, do the other sizes work for them?

Thanks
 
For the crashes on the standalone, it gives me no errors, just a typicall MS window telling me that the application crashed and I can send a log to MS. I looked at everything buy the mini dump. I can run through that and see if I can find anything.

Never mind about the mini stamps, it seems to be working fine. Must have been an ID10T error.

I did howerver attach an image showing you the standalone error.
 

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I will have to create a profile with a large number of channels to see if that is part of the reason it seems to the OS that it is unresponsive. TBH, most of my testing has been with a relatively small number of channels... :p
 
Tony, I have over 1300 channels in my preview. Depending on which of my machines I use it takes two to four minutes for Elf to open. During this time, my computer says application not responding, but i just ignore that and eventually Elf opens and works just fine. My Halloween profile of about 400 channels loads much faster. The Stand-alone is faster than the Vixen plugins so most of the time I use the standalone to edit my profiles. I assume/hope that after this Christmas season, Rob will be able to find time to optimized the speed of the application some as it is frustrating when you need to go back in because you forgot to re-size the cells back down. Here both of my profiles for this year. I made great use of the custom stamp option for my animated faces in both profiles.

2013 Christmas Profile Elf.jpg 2013 Halloween Profile Elf.jpg
 
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This has nothing to do with the size of my profile, we are not getting that far. I have just downloaded the latested 1.1.1 Beta build and received a program crash on startup.

Here is the exception:
Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.\r\nParameter name: index

Here is the stack trace for the failure:

at System.Collections.CollectionBase.System.Collections.IList.get_Item(Int32 index)
at ElfCore.PlugIn.PlugInToolList.get_Item(Int32 index) in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\ElfCore\PlugIn\PlugInTool.cs:line 273
at ElfCore.Forms.Editor.LoadSettings() in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\ElfCore\Forms\Editor.cs:line 448
at ElfCore.Forms.Editor..ctor() in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\ElfCore\Forms\Editor.cs:line 99
at ElfCore.Forms.Editor..ctor(String[] args) in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\ElfCore\Forms\Editor.cs:line 122
at Elf.Program.LaunchEditor(String[] args) in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\Elf\Program.cs:line 34
at Elf.Program.Main(String[] args) in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\Elf\Program.cs:line 19
 
I checked within my code. It looks like it could not find the ElfTools.dll file. Can you check the directory in which Elf.exe is stored in and make sure the following files are there with the same date as the Elf.exe file: ElfTools.dll, ElfProfiles.dll, and ElfControls.dll.

I added a fix to the next version to make it a little more bulletproof if the files are missing, but they are essential in running the program.
 
Xenia said:
Tony, I have over 1300 channels in my preview. Depending on which of my machines I use it takes two to four minutes for Elf to open. During this time, my computer says application not responding, but i just ignore that and eventually Elf opens and works just fine. My Halloween profile of about 400 channels loads much faster. The Stand-alone is faster than the Vixen plugins so most of the time I use the standalone to edit my profiles. I assume/hope that after this Christmas season, Rob will be able to find time to optimized the speed of the application some as it is frustrating when you need to go back in because you forgot to re-size the cells back down. Here both of my profiles for this year. I made great use of the custom stamp option for my animated faces in both profiles.

View attachment 20379 View attachment 20380
Click to expand...

Wow... I will really see what I can do to optimize channel loading. Are you using a background file at all? and what is the size of your canvas?
 
Beta version 1.1.2 is now available.

--Fixed possible issue of going into the Change Canvas Size screen and it crashes, was looking at a background image object that might not have been set, but thought it was.
--Splash screen/About box now show the version of the associated library (.dll) files and if they are present or not.
--Degrades gracefully if the Tools library is not present, you simply won't have any tools show up instead of a crash.
--Errors now should generate a Crash log with specific info about the nature of the error. Please paste the contents of this when reporting errors, it would help a lot!

Please verify the files ElfTools.dll, ElfProfiles.dll, ElfControls.dll, ElfCore.dll and Docking.dll are all present in the same folder as the output plugin, or the standalone editor.
 
Rob,

Canvas is 600 x 325 at 2x2 pixels. I do use a background image for drawing purposes then black it out or remove it when the preview is complete.
 
MacabreRob said:
I checked within my code. It looks like it could not find the ElfTools.dll file. Can you check the directory in which Elf.exe is stored in and make sure the following files are there with the same date as the Elf.exe file: ElfTools.dll, ElfProfiles.dll, and ElfControls.dll.

I added a fix to the next version to make it a little more bulletproof if the files are missing, but they are essential in running the program.
Click to expand...

Here is a snapshot of the directory and here is a capture of the last crash from 1.1.2.

5:56:54 PM Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Message:An attempt was made to load an assembly from a network location which would have caused the assembly to be sandboxed in previous versions of the .NET Framework. This release of the .NET Framework does not enable CAS policy by default, so this load may be dangerous. If this load is not intended to sandbox the assembly, please enable the loadFromRemoteSources switch. See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=155569 for more information.
StackTrace: at System.Reflection.RuntimeAssembly.nLoadFile(String path, Evidence evidence)
at System.Reflection.Assembly.LoadFile(String path)
at ElfCore.Forms.ProfileSplash.GetAssemblyVersion(String path, String filename) in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\ElfCore\Forms\ProfileSplash.cs:line 96
at ElfCore.Forms.ProfileSplash.GetAssemblyVersions() in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\ElfCore\Forms\ProfileSplash.cs:line 81
at ElfCore.Forms.ProfileSplash..ctor() in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\ElfCore\Forms\ProfileSplash.cs:line 42
at ElfCore.Forms.ProfileSplash..ctor(Boolean splash) in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\ElfCore\Forms\ProfileSplash.cs:line 54
at ElfCore.Forms.Editor..ctor() in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\ElfCore\Forms\Editor.cs:line 68
at ElfCore.Forms.Editor..ctor(String[] args) in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\ElfCore\Forms\Editor.cs:line 122
at Elf.Program.LaunchEditor(String[] args) in c:\Users\roba\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Editable Adjustable Preview\Elf\Program.cs:line 39
Source:mscorlib


Do I need the 4.0/4.5 framework for this version?
 

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In order to get it to run I had to add the following to the elf.exe.config file.

<runtime>
<loadFromRemoteSources enabled="true"/>
</runtime>
 
I'm using Vixen 2.1.1 and when I attempt to setup the Elf Preview Plug In it causes the infamous "Not Responding" message and ultimately I have to re-start Vixen. I am on a Windows 7 Professional Laptop.

Also, I've noticed that once I added this plugin to the directory, the audio fades in from about 50% loudness to full volume over about 1/2 a second. Not sure if it's related or not, just something I've noticed.

Steve
 
When the profile is first being loaded, it goes through all the channels and serializes them for the undo/redo system. I am looking to see what I can do to prevent this. It's not too bad for lower numbers of channels but it is increasingly become obvious that this method is not going to work... I think I can add an option to disable the undo system until I can get something workable. That would speed up loading a lot, I think...
 
I’ve only got 255 channels in my profile. It would seem that it shouldn’t take much time to serialize those but it takes over a minute to load on a 3 GHz system. Maybe even deferring this function until Elf interface is loaded and then showing a popup window with the channel that it’s loading; maybe showing a progress bar or something similar. It wouldn’t even need to show every channel but just something that shows I don’t need the three finger salute.

Also, an option to turn off the logo would really be great. It looks like it kind of gets in the way too and after I’ve loaded the profile 50 or so times, I pretty much know what program I’m using.

This is a great feature and it’s a huge improvement over the Adjustable Preview. I think that eventually you’re going to have the “Ah-ha” moment and Elf is going to load in seconds instead of minutes. :wink2:
 
MacabreRob said:
When the profile is first being loaded, it goes through all the channels and serializes them for the undo/redo system. I am looking to see what I can do to prevent this. It's not too bad for lower numbers of channels but it is increasingly become obvious that this method is not going to work... I think I can add an option to disable the undo system until I can get something workable. That would speed up loading a lot, I think...
Click to expand...

I have 2 Pixelnet universes (8192 channels). I tried giving it 2-5 minutes to work, but it still hung up. Should I wait longer or wait for your mod?
 
teberle said:
In order to get it to run I had to add the following to the elf.exe.config file.

<runtime>
<loadFromRemoteSources enabled="true"/>
</runtime>
Click to expand...

I had the same issue with 0.1.1.2. It doesn't work if it's just added at the end. I moved it and this worked:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<runtime><loadFromRemoteSources enabled="true"/></runtime>
<startup><supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0"/></startup></configuration>

Rob, is there any way that this could be figured out the first time the program is run? The program should at least run right out the box. I'm thinking of newbies that are frustrated enough just figuring how everything works already, hardware and software.
 
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