Hi Moshe, "You can always fake out the program by sticking a dummy image into the path Mapt is looking for, opening the layout, removing the image from the layout, and then resaving. A pain, yes, but a reasonable workaround."
I don't believe this method works. Have you tested this idea? I tried copying my images into the directory Maptitude was looking for, and I still got the "Can't find image...retry or cancel" dialog box. Also, if they can't add an image search dialog box, at least change the program so it only tells you the missing image error once, not every time you pan, zoom, refresh, print, etc. As far as a release date for Maptitude 5.0, on October 15th, Caliper issued a press release stating that TransCAD 5.0 will be shipped out in November. Hopefully, Maptitude will soon follow! Mike From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Moshe Haspel Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 10:28 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Maptitude] Re: Insert image into a layout Mike, You have a valid complaint... to a point. The problem you refer to is not unique to Maptitude; it plagues every GIS package I am aware of. A map file (or a project, or whatever the other folks call it) is just a set of parameters specifying a query against a spatial database (the geographic files upon which the map is based). That's why your map file is a lean 100k or so even when the underlying geographic files total 50 megs. By the same token, when you insert an image into a map or an overlay, it again simply creates a pointer to that file. Move the files, and the pointers point to nothing. The most obvious alternative, embedding the actual data in the map, would create more problems than it would solve. It would be nice, then, if Maptitude was smarter about locating the missing file. But that's not really Caliper's fault; Microsoft's file indexing system stinks. That said, I agree wholeheartedly that a "find image" dialog box instead of a message that says "Note! Cannot find image X:\xxxxx.jpg" would be helpful. Hopefully that will be part of the 5.0 overhaul. [Release date PLEASE?!?] You can always fake out the program by sticking a dummy image into the path Mapt is looking for, opening the layout, removing the image from the layout, and then resaving. A pain, yes, but a reasonable workaround. Another potentially useful hack: move all of your geographic files to a folder within your new, roomy c: drive, then map that folder as e:\. Basically you 1) configure that folder as "shared" such that only you may share it 2) Use map network drive to exploit the share. Once the OS thinks it that folder is e:\, Maptitude will follow suit. --- In [email protected]<mailto:Maptitude%40yahoogroups.com>, "McCann, Michael J. (Mike)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Moshe, > > Thank you very much for your sharing your Maptitude scripts. I just have a quick comment about using images in a layout: > > Inserting images in layouts should be done with caution. If you have the images in one directory and the layout in another, or you move files from one drive to another where there are layout files with images, you will basically screw up the layout and go through extreme frustration... > > For example, if you try opening a map and a layer file is missing (because you have moved it, e.g.), Maptitude gives you the option to browse for the missing file. With images, both in a map and in layouts, you do not have this option. With a map, you will keep getting an unable to locate image message for each and every image, and you have to click a "cancel" button each and every time for each image it can't find, and worse, you have to keep doing this if you zoom, pan, refresh, etc. Ditto for a layout, and on some occasions, if the image has been moved to a different directory or deleted, the layout will simply not open. If it does open, you have to go through the same clicking the "cancel" button for each image, each time you make any kind of changes to the layout. > > As an example, I had been storing many maps and layouts on an external drive. I recently got a new PC with a much larger internal hard drive. I transferred the external hard drive (e drive) files to my internal drive (c drive). This completely screwed up all my maps and layouts with images. The problem also a real pain when you have multiple users of Maptitude. > > Again, just cautioning about using images in Maptitude. I have found layouts to be the biggest pain in Maptitude. Don't expect a whole lot of improvement in 5.0. I have reported this problem to Caliper, and requested that a search for missing images dialog box be made available much like the search for missing layer dialog box is available. Haven't heard anything back though as far as a resolution to this problem. Otherwise, I think Maptitude is a fine product. > > Hoppe this makes sense! > > Mike >
