As many are aware the 7000's PPENG starts acting up when the pcf approaches 3 MB and up.

I noticed that my bitmap file contains multiple duplication of the same png but with differring suffexes, or png identification numbers. How is it possible to consolidate to a single png the use of a given button without using a text editor after matching up which PNG goes to a particular page, etc. Is it possible to consolidate and thereby reduce file size easily?

Any other file size reduction ideas would also be appreciated.

Download to remote then upload and examine the pcf to see size differences. I also have discussed at least 1 time how images in a PCF get duplicated by changing the 'transparency' setting on the Button Properties Dialog.

There are also other threads in this forum where this topic is discussed. The subject contains typically "Large File" or "Memory Issues".

Lyndel McGee

Lyndel,
I have seen other discussions on file size reduction, and the upload/download approach. But I only saw once a brief post on reducing the number of PNGs and am unable to find it again after a rigorous search. So I thought a post on the subject would be worth while. I have numerous duplications, for example I use a frame around my channel icons which is repeated over 100 times, so there are 100 copies of it in my bitmaps file. How can one get PPENG just to refer to this file once?

A search and replace is ineffective on the xml file. Is the problem that the png is not in the gallery? If the png is in the gallery will it get a common reference? The gallery is very slow even on my 2.8 GHz machine with an 800 MB bus.

This message was edited by Ti-maniac on 04/19/04 11:34.

Well Ti,

You are right. My apologies.

I could not find the thread where I discussed duplication either. It appears the link is broken.

Say that you have 2 buttons both referencing the same set of images. You get duplicated images simply by changing the Transparency option (radio/option button)for either of the buttons. Once this setting is changed, the images are duplicated from that point forward unless...

You can remove the duplicates (provided you know they are there) by Alt-Drag and copying icons from one button to the other or by copying buttons with Ctrl-Drag and updating action lists. Note that to remove the image, the old, now unused, button must be deleted.

When you do this, you effectively remove the duplicated set.

I would be very surprised if duplication has anything whatsoever to do with a button's existence in the gallery.

Both Peter Dewildt and myself resolved ourselves early on to not using the gallery. It is way too much of a memory hog. We used PCFs that could be opened side-by-side with the PCF being modified. This way, we could Ctrl-Drag buttons from one to the other.

I'm not sure if multiple Ctrl-Drag force duplicated images. The only way to ensure that this does not happen is to:
1. Test whether multiple cross-PCF drags create duplicate images (open the PCF using Winzip and browse the bitmaps folder)

2. Once you do a cross-PCF button copy, re-use this button by Ctrl-Drag copying in the target PCF.

Hope these thoughts help you on your trek.

FYI, I use the Browse Folder option of PSP7 to see just what images are in a PCF following an unzip.

Lyndel