Sorry for not getting back sooner:

to export a png file OUT of TT and into your image editing software:

1. Place the existing button on your remote in TT

2. Right click on image and select CUT
or
Left click on image and press CTRL - X to cut

3. Open image editing software.
4. Create a new image (ie a blank workspace in the editor)
5. PASTE the image into the editor. You may be able to use CTRL-V or you may have to use EDIT>PASTE

6. Edit the image
7. Save / export the image file from your editor to the bitmap library in RTI
MAKE SURE YOU SAVE AS PNG file and set for transparencies

Yeah, well, you could get a real guy program that is actualy designed to handle png files like macromedia Fireworks you can usualy get a copy cheep on ebay [Link: cgi.ebay.com]
Why would you want fire works? Well go to this site for example http://www.mickjagger.com/ the whole site was built using macromedia fireworks and dreamweaver, all the fancy PNG stuff was done in Fireworks

Fluid,

Don't understand what the difference should be using cut instead of copy to place an image on the clipboard but I've tried both ways and in Photoshop, anything that's transparent has black in its place. However, transparency percentages seem to be understood. The part of an image that is 100% transparent = 100% black, 80% transparent = 80% black.

What am I missing?

Rich

Well, i made those buttons above using photoshop CS2, my method was to get a "rough copy" of the button any way I could, which at the time, was just a simple screen capture of the button on a white background, from the editor.

**The next few steps depend only the skill/style/preference of the user(s)!**

I then extracted all of the "useless" information out of the button.

Next, i added the "logo" of choice, which was the DISH logo.

Finally i added the "halo" or "gloss" myself to match that of the original.

**after actually using that button recently, i realized that i lost some color information in the copying process, this was because i made the buttons on a laptop that did not have theater touch editor installed, my mistake, i should have tested before i posted that. I will be posting a "revised" copy of the blank button.**

There are probably a ton of different ways to do this, as you see above, but i am not trying to "re-write" their hardwork, just borrowing the idea!

I hope that helps and finally answers some questions about this process.

Email me if you have any questions or need a "treasure map"!

oh sorry about this......but fireworks sux....
just my opinion, i know its Macromedias "flagship" photo editor, but its made to suit that family of products, if you are gonna choose a graphix program, i really advise you check this out:

[Link: blogs.adobe.com]

As the article reads:
Photoshop is "the professional image-editing standard"--or, if you prefer, a ten-foot-tall, two-ton son of a gun who could eat a hammer and take a shotgun blast standing...

Thats the best way to describe it.

Just my opinion!

Was a PITA, but I was able to pull these out with a hex editor, and some photoshop magic...

Anyone get the cut and paste transfer to work without loosing the transparency?

What file(s) did you hex edit to grab those buttons?

The ones in the template directory....

Search for the actual .png code, and copy/paste to a blank file - I'd reccomend hex editing a simple .png so you know what to start/end with.

They are not labled, and not in any order - so I just went until I found a pressed and unpressed square button and photoshopped them to take out the icons.

MrBeetle, thanks for the tip. I was able to easily extract a sample png.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY !!!!

I was going to suggest if someone was able to write a program to extract all the png's out of the library but I've since found a number of programs that can do just that!!

I've tried one at [Link: sharewareconnection.com] and it seems to work for most png's. Unfortunately as MrBeetle mentioned, the png's are in no particular order so there will be some manual seaching required to find the matching up state/down state graphics.

So the end result is that this program will allow you to extract all (or most) of the png graphics to individual png files.

There's a number of other similar and probably more elegant programs (such as MultiExtractor) out there which you'll probably have to pay for but should be worth it.

It would be nice if we can also extract the graphics names and have these be the file names for the create png's. Shouldn't be too hard for a programmer.

I've also found the following program which is a bit easier to use

[Link: download.com]

At first I thought there was a problem with BitMapRip as it created some blank files and some other files with random pixels. But I've got the same result with X-Ripper so I guess it's the way the source file is formated.

Which RTI file are you "ripping" these images from?

All the template files are in;

C:\Program Files\RTI\TheaterTouch Designer\Templates

I have tried the 'Glass.rtitemplate' and 'Universal Source Icons.rtitemplate' and most of the graphics can be extracted. I don't know why certain ones won't though.

To make sorting through the created image files a bit easier given they are in no particular order, you can sort them by file size in Windows Explorer and they will be roughly grouped by the type of image they are.

Or better still if you add the 'Dimensions' column (by right clicking on the column heading, selecting more, and checking 'Dimensions') you can then sort by the resolution of the graphic.

Uh, no they'll all have the same resolution, which is to say pixels per inch. They'll have different numbers of pixels indicating different sizes at that same resolution. Yes, I'm being picky, but if you're beginning to learn this stuff, you want to get the details right. And if I'm wrong, someone please tell me.