imageSource problem

[thatkeith]

I'm hitting some frustrating behaviour, I hope someone can help me eliminate it.

I want to set a number of different images as the imageSource for characters in a scrolling field, one per line. When I run my script to do more than one image (with a repeat loop going through my list of file paths) what keeps happening is the latest image in the loop is shown in EVERY imageSource character – replacing the different images set in an earlier loop of the repeat.

Anyone know how I can get this to show different images, one per line?

I can do this if I run each 'set the imageSource' entirely separately, but that's rather missing the point.

Code: Select all

   -- 'it' contains a number of file paths, one per line.
   
   repeat with x = 1 to the number of lines of it
      -- (1) import an image,
      -- (2) scale it,
      -- (3) throw away the 'extra' image data, then
      -- (4) set the imageData of a char to the imported image
      
      -- (1)
      set the filename of image "thumb" to line x of it
      
      -- (2)
      set the width of image "thumb" to 720
      if the width of image "thumb" > the height of image "thumb" * 6 then
         set the height of image "thumb" to 60
      else
         set the height of image "thumb" to 120
      end if
      
       -- (3)
      set the imageData of image "thumb" to the imageData of image "thumb"
      
       -- (4)
      set the imageSource of char 1 of line x of field "test" to "thumb"
      
   end repeat

It's the last line (set the imageSource) that goes wrong; each existing imageSource character is changed to the imageData used to set up the character in the new line, so I end up with a scrolling field with multiple copies of only the last image in the list. :-/

k

[jmburnod]

Hi thatkeith,
As far I know imagesource need an image to work.
I think you have to create an image for each imagesource in your loop,
something like that (no tested):

Code: Select all

repeat with x = 1 to the number of lines of it
   -- (1)
   put "thumb" & x into tCurThumb
   new img tCurThumb
   set the filename of image tCurThumb to line x of it
   -- (2)
   set the width of image tCurThumbto 720
   if the width of image tCurThumb > the height of image tCurThumb * 6 then
      set the height of image tCurThumb to 60
   else
      set the height of image tCurThumb to 120
   end if
   -- (3)
   set the imageData of image tCurThumb to the imageData of image tCurThumb
   -- (4)
   set the imageSource of char 1 of line x of field "test" to tCurThumb
end repeat

Best
Jean-Marc

[thatkeith]

I have one image object in my card, and I use that as a temporary store for importing and resizing each original photo. So... I think I understand you, and hence the problem. Do you mean that each imageSource character is a ‘live’ reference to the actual, er, image source? So when I loop around and bring a new image into the ‘thumb’ image object I’m changing the referenced image for the existing imageSource chars too?

Damn. Well, I can see some ways of using this, but it wasn’t explained well in the dictionary. (Or I misunderstood the info, which is also very possible – I’ll go re-read the entry.)

Thanks!

[Klaus]

Hi Keith,

what Jean-Marc said!

But do yourself a favour and do not use IT more than once!
IT will change when you least exspect IT!

Use IT only when neccessary and then put IT into another variable immediately!

Code: Select all

...
## No good:
## get fld "my list"
## Good:
put fld "mylist" into aVariable
repeat with x = 1 to the number of lines of aVariable
...
...
answer file "yadda yadda"
if IT <> empty then
   put it into tFile
end if
...
## etc...

Best

Klaus

[thatkeith]

Thanks Klaus – very good advice. I’ve been caught by that in the past; I only leave it like this when I’m trying to isolate a behaviour by trimming things back. I shall go sanitise my code now.