Liveware Publishing Support Forum

This problem seems to exist for years now, from the very first time R&R included the picture from field option (version 9, I believe?)____Picture Properties, Scaling, Zoom Retain Shape____The picture does NOT retain it^s shape but is distorted. So this option has the same effect as the "Stretch-size to fit" option. ____These distorded pictures are terribly annoying and make one of the most interesting features of R&R totally useless. __So how must we make some printed catalogue with pictures of articles that are not distorted? What am I missing?

This one is a know issue. The only workaround suggestion is to use images that are of a similar size when using picture from field.____Kathleen__R&R Support

A known issue that exists for years!!! ____Would you be so kind to tell us WHEN this will be solved? __How many more upgrades do we have to buy? __This is not serious nor professional anymore. ____This is one of the key features of your product. How can you accept the fact that such a stupid bug stays in for years, making the feature as good as useless. ____And sorry your "workaround" is not a useable one. There happen to be landscape and portrait pictures. ____Paul

Crystal has just added the picture from field functionality into their XI edition if you want to shop the competition. I have not done a test drive of their latest to see how it compares.____I wish that we had the internal resources to be able to correct each and every bug/flaw/rough edge that exists in R&R. It would be an unjustified allegation that we never are responsive to problems and customer suggestions. When a problem occurs in a area of the product that is used frequently by some but seldom by most it takes a lower priority than an issue that would impact a larger number of users. __Overall I think that R&R has had a reasonable track record in delivering new functionality and in fixing bugs and in staying in touch with the needs of our users. Although we are a very small company, work around here goes on pretty much 24x7 trying to do the best that we can with the what we have. We are on the mobius treadmill of sales driving functionality which in turn drives sales...____Sorry to rant.____Kathleen__R&R Support

Kathleen, __>__>It would be an unjustified allegation that we never are __>responsive to problems and customer suggestions. ____Sorry but I have had some very bad experiences in the past with your company... like 3 pages e-mails not being answered (dec 2002)__for weeks. __But OK, let^s stay positive and forget about the past.____>When a __>problem occurs in a area of the product that is used __>frequently by some but seldom by most it takes a lower __>priority than an issue that would impact a larger number of __>users. ____The picture to Field stuff was something that was announced with a lot of "pride" by Liveware... and indeed it was something many wanted to have in a reporting tool. __If you say it is "seldom" used then this is mostly because it just doesn^t work like it is supposed to work. And that is a BIG BIG pity. __Also, how do you determine it is "seldom used"? By the number of complaints? I am certainly not the first one to complain about this bug. ____And yes we are not talking about a "rough edge" here but a BUG: the program does not wat it is supposed to do according the docs. ____And their is NO good workaround available, otherwise I wouldn^t even bother. ____Furthermore, I am a developper myself, having written quite some software that handles images, I believe that this is an easy issue to solve. Resizing an image while maintaining the proportions is nothing magic. ______> We are on the mobius treadmill of sales driving __>functionality which in turn drives sales... ____Sure but never forget the user base. And that user base is not big.... you are not selling ten thousands of copies of R&R. __Existing users should get as much attention, even more, than new ones. __I recall a discussion about Report generators in the Visual Objects discussion group 1 or 2 years back... R&R didn^t came out well, especially because the lack of good support. Sorry to say. A professional developper that integrates a 3th Party product into his applications, really can^t afford to see the same bugs staying in for years and years. Not even for months. __R&R bugfixes and patches come very irregularly. How many a year? 1? ____>__>Sorry to rant. ____no problem, I understand your position. ____Paul____>__>Kathleen __>R&R Support __

I found a range of email correspondence between you and in the period Dec 2002-January 2003 with discussion on date formats and image support so I am not sure what 3 page document was ignored.____The problem with picture from field is that we currently do not do an internal update for each image but instead use the blank.bmp placeholder. The task of making a per image change is according to our development staff not a trivial task. It is indeed on the to do list but not at the top of the list.____Kathleen__R&R Support

>I found a range of email correspondence between you and in __>the period Dec 2002-January 2003 with discussion on date __>formats and image support so I am not sure what 3 page __>document was ignored. ____Right On! First mail (3 pages indeed, covering 8 different problems and suggestions) was sent to you Dec 3/2002. No answer at all so I resend it 3 weeks later on Dec 30th. Then I did get an answer and we did start some kind of "conversation" but not all points were ever covered. __Frankly, at that time, this has discouraged me to make any other suggestions or mention bugs that I could work around (such as all the path issues when using the RRRPT32.DLL)____But again, let^s forget about it. We^ll just start over ;-)____>__>The problem with picture from field is that we currently do __>not do an internal update for each image but instead use the __>blank.bmp placeholder. The task of making a per image change __>is according to our development staff not a trivial task. It __>is indeed on the to do list but not at the top of the list. __>____So somewhere your program copies the original picture to a temporary picture (the placeholder). During this operation, you physically resize the image. When you use the correct function for this, no distortion will occur. ____By the way, most programs do it like that. They will create temporary "thumbnails" in a temp folder, or in a file (the MS way, see the thumbs.db file in any folder with images). The fact that you re-use the same temporary file (blank.bmp) for each picture does not make it anymore complicated... ____But, of course, I don^t know your programs.____I would nevertheless advice to move this issue higher on the priority list, IMO it is important AND an old bug. ____Paul