Pixinsight question, please!

[ollypenrice]

This programme drives me nuts!

I used to use a toolbar icon (a page with the corner turned down?) to make preview selections by clicking and dragging. This icon has vanished and I cannot recover it. If I go View-Toolbar-Preview I get a whole series of preview icons but not the click and drag one.

I'm offered just the complicated possibility of trying to define a preview using size and co-ordinates.

Pretty please, where's the old preview maker??? I'm close to tears...

lly

[swag72]

If you press alt and N on your main image then that will allow you to make a preview wherever you want

[ollypenrice]

If you press alt and N on your main image then that will allow you to make a preview wherever you want

Not on mine it won't! I've tried both the Alt keys with and without capitals, and all it gives me is a magnified view in a box...

Olly

[ollypenrice]

Ah, now it does! I restarted PI (though I'd already tried that once...) Who knows, but thanks.

O

[Scooot]

On my trial version, the icon is underneath the word "Workspace" to the right of the "pan mode" icon. It looks like a rectangular piece of blank white paper.

[ollypenrice]

On my trial version, the icon is underneath the word "Workspace" to the right of the "pan mode" icon. It looks like a rectangular piece of blank white paper.

Thanks Scooot. You're lucky!  Whatever you do don't lose it 'cause when it's gone it's gone, baby, gone...

If anyone knows how to bring it back I'm all ears but at least Alt N is working now.

Olly

[swag72]

Is it not in the manual Olly? :d  

[Oddsocks]

Olly,

Have you accidentally contracted the tool bar that contains the preview icon?

The preview icon has changed on the latest PixInsight versions, on my Mac the icon is now a page with a shadow border to the left side, it will disappear if you grab and move the the vertical dotted line that separates the individual groups of icons from each other, when the icon group is contracted you will see a double right facing arrow on the right of the toolbar and clicking the double arrow will reveal the hidden icons. To bring the toolbar back to it's correct length just grab the dotted line and drag it to the right and the hidden icons will reappear.

If this does not work just reinstall PixInsight again, there is no need to reenter the license as this is stored in a separate folder that is not lost during reinstallation.

There are a couple of images below that show the preview icon as it is normally seen in the full (expanded) toolbar (on a Mac) and how it looks if you contract the toolbar.

As an aside I have had problems over the last few days since a recent Windows 7 update, Maxim DL6, Pinpoint and T-point all stopped working, wouldn't even launch, I had to uninstall the programs and reinstall them again before they would work again...really should turn off Windows 7 updates for the observatory PC.

Full toolbar:

 

Contracted toolbar:

 

William.

[ollypenrice]

Thanks William. It may be a Win7 problem. I've just retried and Alt N is no longer working. I'm just restarting the programme now and... yes, it's working again.

Looks like a bug. (Or a six letter word beginning with bug!!!)

I can't recognize your toolbar description on what I see in front of me, but thanks for trying. Not to worry, I do most of my processing in the civilized comfort and tranquility of Photoshop!

Olly

[Oddsocks]

There have been some changes in the latest releases of PixInsight, have you recently installed a new release?

In my version of PI on the Mac, 01.08.04.1193 Ripley (X64), and the same version is on my Obs' Windows machine, both of which I installed last week, there is no drag and drop function from the top screen toolbars to create a new preview, the only way I can do this is to select the "New Preview Mode" icon arrowed below, and then click in the image and drag a box around the region of interest, or full frame, once the mouse key is released a new preview will appear, the only annoying thing with this is the preview is always zoomed larger than the original and you have to zoom out the preview so that you can compare original and preview at the same scale.

The problem with the keyboard shortcut not responding (ALT+N) might have been this:

The "Show Previews" icon in the previews toolbar works as a toggle, if you click it nothing seems to happen but when clicked it toggles into a deselected mode and you can no longer create a new preview by mouse click or by keyboard entry, click the "Show Previews" icon again to toggle it back into the selected state and normal preview creation by mouse or keyboard is restored, see also the image below.

I have to say I really struggle with the latest "look" of the PI desktop, in both Mac and Windows versions I find it hard to distinguish which icons and tools are available and which are not, it might be ok for a teenager with perfect vision but for an old b***** like me with dodgy eyesight then it is a nonsense, perhaps they might develop a braille version?

Much preferred the earlier desktop versions for appearance.

William.

 

[Pompey Monkey]

Try right-mouse button clicking on any of the toolbars. Then you can move the mouse down to the "Mode" item on the menu. If there's no tick by it, then left-mouse button on it and the "Mode" toolbar should re-appear.