[softwarelist] Re: OPW - referencing pictures and drive path changes

In message <489C37D4.1030306@xxxxxxxx>, Clive Bonsall <cbonsall@xxxxxxx> writes
reasons I don't fully understand, Windows will occasionally decide to change the "letter" assigned to an external drive (F: > G:, for example).
Frustrating, but ISTR there is a way of renaming drives, and/or getting the letters to "stick".
When that happens, OPW can no longer find the pictures for a particular document ... and if <pictures> happens to be ticked in View>Options (and there is a picture on page 1 of the document) then View> 
file cannot be opened or closes immediately after opening.
I thought what happens is that the window shrinks, but you can get at the view menu and turn off picture display. Things are not ideal here and missing pictures should be handled better. 


Assuming you can open a file and re-save it as DDL
<danger> You could edit the binary file - assuming you're not changing the length of anything. </>
, then you can change the path to the external drive with search & replace. A slight inconvenience here is that a Windows path contains single reverse solidus (\) symbols, while the DDL "path" replaces these with double symbols (\\), thus:
"escape" characters in programmers' jargon - because \ is used to incorporate control codes \n etc. it has to be entered as \\ 


Can anyone suggest ways of minimizing these problems?
The paths used are subject to macro expansion. This is why they can be of the form: 

{filepath}\myfile.bmp
here filepath expands to the location of the document containing the picture, so that you can shift documents and pictures without changing the paths - making the paths document relative - all discussed in the manual.
Anyway, you could define a user macro in OP, lets call it "mypictures" as the path to where you keep your pictures and then for the paths in documents use: 

{mypictures}\myfile.bmp
Then when Mr. Gates' demon changes all the drive letters all you have to do is change the definition of the macro. 



--
David Pilling
email: david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  web: http://www.davidpilling.net
 post: David Pilling P.O. Box 22 Thornton Cleveleys Blackpool. FY5 1LR UK
  fax: +44(0)870-0520-941


To unsubscribe or subscribe goto: http://www.freelists.org/list/davidpilling

Other related posts: