Ah ha! That’s the trick. It’s also weird. I’m with George:
Since when acts the tab-key as a confirmation key?
Yes, Tab is a way of progressing to the next field in many applications and in so doing it can act as way of submitting data but it’s not usual as a way of entering data into a single field, that would be err, umm, the Enter key that would do that.
I’m still with George:
I don’t want to move. I just want the value to be entered
No, that’s not some PL quirk - as @platypus explained - that’s standard Windows UI behaviour - - and it’s been that way since Win v1.0. If you don’t like using Tab then you could use Enter-key - or, simply move your cursor away and click on something else.
It works that way 'cos Windows need some “event” to occur before it knows you have finished typing your input and it can then pass the result to the application (PL, in this case).
When activating the crop tool from the Commander Bar and using the field under the main image window, you can’t use the enter key.
Enter key in gui means: accept the value, tab key means accept the value and move to the next field, or just move to the next field/window.
In text editors they mean something different: enter would mean place a LF, line feed, and a CR, carriage return, code. Tab will insert some spaces, or move some spaces, not always clear to me.
I still have a question for Platypus.
In your last picture you entered 297:210, mac notation. I’m not sure if you’ve ‘entered’ that value already. Are your values recalculated to the lowest common denominator as with me, win?
@George, I entered the values as seen in the screenshot and they stay like I entered them until I’ve set the crop where I want it and then press enter or click the blue button. All steps work as expected.
Can somebody explain to me why I did get 99/70 yesterday when entering 296/210 and now I get 1.409524???
I know what the figures mean but I can’t explain the different behaviour.
Are you sure you didn’t do 297/210 yesterday. I believe that to be the actual size of A4 in mm. And that cancels down to 99/70 (divide both sides by 3).
I’m not going to sit here and try all the possible permutations, but I’m not sure that 296/210 will cancel down to anything other than 148/105 and perhaps Photolab gives up at that point and displays as a decimal.
I have been frustrated by the lack of A4 (etc) presets in Photolab over the time I’ve been using it. It would appear to be something very straightforward to implement.
Best wishes
Malcolm
I’m sure. See my posts 25,29,36 and 45. Now I get a decimal notation. The program is changing behaviour but based on what??? I noticed the same with the file search. First I get a message of missing Canon modules, I don’t own Canon, and later no message at all.I was not the only one.
Why on earth should that little window act as a calculator? I suppose that DPL actually does do the math for easier scaling of the crop, but why should they display the result? WEIRD.
I cannot begin to say why - I was just trying to make a deduction from the data provided. I can only guess that DPL says to itself ‘if someone puts in a fraction, I’m going to reduce it to the lowest common denominator (99/7 in this case) unless that fraction is outside of a certain constraint and if that’s the case, I’ll show it as a decimal’.
But I’m coming to the conclusion that perhaps I just go with the flow - I guess I could type in 297/210 for every photo I want printing at that ratio for the remaining years of my photo editing life and it would still come to less time in total than I’m currently spending trying to second-guess DPL’s inner-workings!
@MalcolmC, the question was kind of rhetoric or directed towards DxO rather than towards you.
As for entering the ratio again and again, I can give you a hint to make your live (sorry, only in this respect ;-)) easier: Create a partial preset with the 99/70 crop ratio:
Take an image, crop it to 99/70 and then create a preset using the respective command from the menu.
Edit the preset and deselect all tools except the crop tool to make the preset act on crop only. Then save the preset.
Or download this preset I made with DPL3 on Mac: Crop To A4.preset (650 Bytes)
Hi Platypus - no problem. I thought it was DxO that you were directing your question toward, but (as you know) it’s sometimes hard to tell exactly what’s behind a question/comment.
I beg to differ because, as George has pointed out, you can’t use the Enter key, only Tab makes PL swallow the ratio. That is not usual Windows behaviour (and yes I do remember Windows version 1 and everything subsequent, my day job is IT centric).
In the Mac version, both Tab and Enter confirms the ratio change.
I entered 7:6 as a ratio and that is what continued to show… until I restarted PL, which then showed the ratio as 1.17 !
So, it seems, while you are in a given editing session, what you type is what you get in the ratio display but, as soon as you restart PL, the ratio is interpreted from scratch and, if it is not one of the predefined ratios, it is displayed as a decimal rather than the ratio it was entered as.
This should be an easy fix, by simply recording whether the number was entered with a “:”, a “/” or a “.” Either that or it should always be displayed as a ratio, to match the predefined ones.
That sounds different from what I understood from Platypus in post 34: "the values I enter do not persist "
I’ve win.
The amount of fixed items in the drop down list is 10. During the lifetime of the program one flexible item can be added. That’s done either manual, you fill in a value yourself, or it’s copied from the actual image.
Create a directory of about 5 images. Open PL and be sure they’re all rest. That’s the zero point.
Open an image, customize and select crop. There’re 10 values to choice from. Now add a non existing ratio, I call it x. and close the crop tool by , yes, enter. Open the next image, customize and select crop. Now you will count eleven items: 10 standard and x. Add a value y and close the image. Open the next image and,customize and select crop. You will find the 10 standard items and y. No x.
Close PL and open it aigain. Select a non edited image and look for the crop values: the 10 fixed. Open any of the former 2 cropped images and that value will be added to the list and will change when opening the other image.
5/2.6 becomes 1.923077 but 88/81 stays the same.
My conclusion.
The crop tool in win doesn’t work with the enter key. That should be seen as a bug.
It works with 10 predefined ratios. If you don’t know those ratios there’s no way to see where they’re based on.
An 11th item on the drop down list is used for a value that’s added to it either manual or from the last image you opened. It stays there until it’s overwritten by another item.
To validate a new crop value (WIndows), actually the Enter key does not work (Tab key is ok), but you can simply click in the image to apply the ratio that you just typed.
Thanks, Joanna. Yes, ditto for Win environment too - - or, you can click on another object. Any of these actions creates an “event” that lets the O/S know that you’ve completed your value entry.
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