Symbolbutton Image Formats

Maya
1

I'm creating an UI. In that UI I want an image.

Using image -i "image.jpg"; works and my image is displayed. However, it is a static image.

I really want an image you can click on to open another window. So I figured I would use symbolButton.

symbolButton -i "image.jpg"; throws the following error Error: File Not Found: image.jpg

I even tried the full path to the file, still received the same error.

Is it a format issue, or something more obscure that I'm missing?

Thanks,

MDA

2

try saving it as an xpm file (GIMP can load and save these).

3

Thanks for the reply Rob. As I was waiting I was searching for something I could use to create XPM files. I found a few that I could use. However it still did not solve my problem.

I am still receiving the same error Error: File Not Found: image.xpm

I even went so far as to pull an .xpm file from inside Maya itself (one of the brush icons) and tried to use that as my image and still received the same error Error: File Not Found: cloud.xpm

So I'm coming to the end of my rope on this one and may just use a static image with something else to open another window.

Any other suggestions will still be appreciated.

MDA

4

Something of interest maybe.

In the help file for MEL they give you an example snippet for symbolButton.

In that snippet are 3 .xpm files: circle, sphere, cube

I cannot find these files on my PCs hard drive ANYWHERE.

And yet, the example works fine, if I use one of these as the image in my UI script, it works.

So, where exactly are these files?

MDA

5

Problem solved. When searching a few other forums and topics and discussions, I found someone using a .bmp file for their symbolButton.

So I figured I'd give it a try.

It works

Still don't know where those three .xpm files are, but I also no longer care.

Problem solved, thanks for the help.

MDA

6

put the icons into

my documents/maya/7.0/prefs/icons/

The 3 xpm files you cannot find are located in maya/bin/mayares.dll
To view them you need to open the DLL in a resource editor (i.e. Visual C++). From there you can modify them (if you want, though might be a good idea to make a backup of the original dll just in case)

7

QUOTE(Rob Bateman @ 07/31/06, 12:11 AM) [snapback]243832[/snapback]
put the icons into

my documents/maya/7.0/prefs/icons/

If I find it necessary to use something other than a .bmp at some time later I'll keep this in mind. As it stands right now, I think I'll just use the .bmp

QUOTE(Rob Bateman @ 07/31/06, 12:11 AM) [snapback]243832[/snapback]
The 3 xpm files you cannot find are located in maya/bin/mayares.dll
To view them you need to open the DLL in a resource editor (i.e. Visual C++). From there you can modify them (if you want, though might be a good idea to make a backup of the original dll just in case)

Oddly enough, they aren't in mine. I saw where you posted this on another forum I was searching and looked into my mayares.dll using IconLover from Aha-Soft. There are 62 icons in that .dll, however, none are the three that I was looking for.

Now, I am using Maya 7.0 PLE. But that shouldn't make a difference for those icons.

Thanks again for the help,

MDA

8

QUOTE(Michael DarkAngel @ 07/31/06, 07:51 AM) [snapback]243835[/snapback]
If I find it necessary to use something other than a .bmp at some time later I'll keep this in mind. As it stands right now, I think I'll just use the .bmp

If you ever want to distribute what yoru doing you should use xpm since neitehr the linux nor mac version are especialy fond of xpm files. NOTE maya coems witha a utility to convert xpm files.

9

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 07/31/06, 02:50 AM) [snapback]243843[/snapback]
If you ever want to distribute what yoru doing you should use xpm since neitehr the linux nor mac version are especialy fond of xpm files. NOTE maya coems witha a utility to convert xpm files.

I take it there's an error in there somewhere.

I should use xpm?

Linux and Mac don't like bmp? Is this what you meant?

So, how exactly do I get an xpm file to work? Relative or absolute pathing mean nothing. The only xpm files I could get to show up are embedded in another file somewhere that I can't find.

I would much rather use something universal as I hope to distribute what I'm doing provided I actually finish it.

TIA,

MDA

[edit]I even tried Rob's suggestion about putting the icon into the My Documents directory still did not work[/edit]

10

QUOTE(Michael DarkAngel @ 07/31/06, 08:05 AM) [snapback]243846[/snapback]
[edit]I even tried Rob's suggestion about putting the icon into the My Documents directory still did not work[/edit]

Did this work for you in the end?

I had the same issues as you. I got it to work with a bmp by putting it into the icons directory mentioned, but you have to restart Maya before it picks it up (rehash is not enough).

11

Does anyone know if bmps work in Windows only?

By putting my bmps in My Documents\maya\7.0\prefs\icons\ in Windows everything works fine once I restart Maya, but in Linux, even though I have put the bmps in ~/maya/7.0/prefs/icons/ I continue to error messages saying that the (first of the) files cannot be found, despite having restarted Maya. I am specifying the relative filename in my script.

Does Maya report "file not found" only when it doesn't find the file, or also when the file format is invalid?

Thanks.

12

To answer my own question and provide a solution:

  • Both bmp and xpm work in Windows, but it looks like only xpm works in Linux
  • It looks like Maya reports "File not found" when the file is the wrong format as well as when the file cannot actually be found (If this is the case, this is bad program design, guys! Sort it out!)
  • There are various facilities around for converting bmps to xpms. Shake (v2.51.1116 for Windows) seemed to have no idea what to do and made a complete mess (using up the palette on the first 64 differently coloured pixels and painting everything else black, or just getting colours completely wrong: magenta for yellow, anyone? I can't vouch for later versions). The following Maya program does the job beautifully, converts both ways and works in Windows and Unix (although I've only tried it in Windows):

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/to...lities/816.html

13

QUOTE(Paul G @ 09/19/06, 12:30 PM) [snapback]247899[/snapback]
* It looks like Maya reports "File not found" when the file is the wrong format as well as when the file cannot actually be found (If this is the case, this is bad program design, guys! Sort it out!)

Actualy its not supprising no other computers read bmp, afetr all bmp is a WINDOWS sytsem native format so its not terrinby suppriising linux does not carry libraries to read them. It wuldnt supprise me if bmp wouldnt work on mac either. But yes xpm is a *nix format but thing is unlike bmp it is OPEN.

Thing is the windows version also only works on BMP, it just converts the xpms to bmp druring runtime! So its kindof a convienece service for windows users. But yes xpm works totaly different from bmp. So the fact you can even use bmp at all is a miracle!

Its kindof like asking mac isntallers to work on windows.

Use gimp, becasue its probably best tool for you!

But yes damnding linux tio use bmp is like demanding all cat food is sold only to dog owners...

14

If, as I do, you prefer to work in Windows, and you have a bmp image already that you don't want to recreate as an xpm, then the application I mentioned works very well (although it is for Windows only, not, as I originally said, for both Windows and Linux). Alternatively, you can use Shake 3.5 to convert it, which I have just tried doing, and it worked fine. Sorry, GIMP's interface just looks horrible to me - I'd really rather not go there.

15

i wasnt realy thinking anybody who has money to dish out on a shake licence on linux (or have had the money to buy windows shake, or buy a mac to run shake only), would realy claim this to be a problem.

16

It looks like nothing much changed between versions 2.51 and 3.5... Shake still screws up bmps with more than 64 colours. I use Shake only because it is available to me.

I would probably use GIMP if I were working in Linux. I'm very happy with the results from the free Windows application I downloaded.

17

QUOTE(Michael DarkAngel @ 07/30/06, 11:54 PM) [snapback]243831[/snapback]
Problem solved. When searching a few other forums and topics and discussions, I found someone using a .bmp file for their symbolButton.

So I figured I'd give it a try.

It works

Still don't know where those three .xpm files are, but I also no longer care.

Problem solved, thanks for the help.

MDA

I am some what new to Mel and am working on a UI. I am having the same problem with the symbolButton image. I originally used a .bmp but I have also tried using .xpm. When i try using just an image the come up, they only don't work with the symbolButton. I was wondering if you could let me know how you solved the problem. Thank you.

18

QUOTE(pingevt @ 10/01/06, 09:11 PM) [snapback]248983[/snapback]
I am some what new to Mel and am working on a UI. I am having the same problem with the symbolButton image. I originally used a .bmp but I have also tried using .xpm. When i try using just an image the come up, they only don't work with the symbolButton. I was wondering if you could let me know how you solved the problem. Thank you.

If you're working in Windows, this is what worked for me.

Place your .bmp files into your My Documents/maya/[version #]/prefs/icons directory. Change [version #] to whatever version you are using, for me it was 7.0 or 7.0PLE.

HTH,

MDA

19

Yes maya looks for images in a number or folders if you run

getenv XBMLANGPATH

maya gives you the list of all directories it looks in separated by a ; you can even specify additional folders in maya.env or the systems environment.

Or by using setenv inside maya (but you need to rehas it later). THis is pretty basic operating sytem stuff, and maya oerating environemt stuff you alls hould know!