Pangolin Lasershow Designer 2000 Tips...

[Stuka]

Hey Guys,
I have a need to load some different sets of shows in Autoplay and recalled a thread about Batch files here on PL.
I'm a bit surprised that it's nearly 5 years ago though.

Anyhoo, I suspect things have changed a little since Stuka started this thread as the wonderful Batch files he proposed don't seem to do the job anymore.
Perhaps that's a little unfair as what I mean to say is that it appears Autoplay doesn't write to the LDauto2k.ini file in the Windows directory (on Windows 7).

I have created a list for Graphics shows and then ran the batch file to save it.
After creating a new list of shows for Beams and saving that, it appears that the ini file remains unchanged but somehow, somewhere, when I load up Autoplay it remembers the last setting.
Spooky stuff.
I'm assuming that the settings are saved elsewhere (other than in the Windows/LDauto2k.ini file) but I've had a shuftie and can't seem to locate where it's saved to.

Any ideas Chums?

Hey dude - long time no chat!!
Yeah, CRAZY how quickly the years have gone by since we all started hanging out here!

Yep, the batch files still work -
My "laser laptop" is a Windows 7 64-bit machine I just picked up last October.

The "LDauto2k.ini" file I'm writing to is still in the C:\windows folder.
I did have to change the way I addressed all my custom batch files and temporary .ini, since I keep all them in my documents folders, and the naming conventions are a bit different than they were on XP.

For each selection in the "load" menu, I have a separate folder to hold the temporary "LDauto2k.ini" file.
That way, the show lists don't overwrite each other, and each list can be called up in any order, on the fly, as needed.

You "might" need to run everything as administrator to get them to run properly.

I'm attaching copies (text) of the main menu batch file, as well as "load" and "save" batch files that show how I'm currently using them.
Still works great!

Randy

Autoplay_menu example.txt
load_beam example.txt
save_beam example.txt
load_graphics example.txt
save_graphics example.txt

[soforene]

Hi Randy,
It is indeed spooky how time flies ......

I was thinking it might well be a permissions thing as the ini file on my machine in C:\Windows is not updating.
I uninstalled and reinstalled LD2000 but with no joy.
So then I had a mooch to see if I could find where the ini file was hiding as it was obviously updating the data somewhere.
No joy with regedit (I read that Pangolin prefer ini files anyway) and SEARCH on Windows will only look at filenames (and could only locate the file in C:\Windows) so I had to find a prog that would search within files.
A bit more digging and I came across a small prog called AstroGrep that does just the job and Voila !

For some reason, the ini file on my Windows 7 32-bit machine is hiding in C:\Users\Soforene\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Windo ws\LDauto2k.ini

A quick fiddle with the Batch files and I'm cooking on Gas as they say.
As to the reasons why my ini file saves in a different place to yours, who knows.
I've learnt to not ponder too deeply on the mysteries of life, merely to find workarounds.

Maybe someone else will find my findings on this issue helpful five years from now.

[Pangolin]

Hi guys,

Yes, in my opinion Microsoft really loves to make additional work for programmers, thus helping to keep programmers necessary and in business. With each next version of Windows, they make it exceedingly harder for users to do things, and with each next version, Pangolin must invest a lot of time, trying to undo what Microsoft has done... (Would Bill Gates please return to Microsoft and do what the return of Steve Jobs did for Apple? God knows we all need him!)

Yes, Soforene is correct. The LD2KAuto.INI is still there, but is placed in a folder that Microsoft tries to hide from you. (This is one of the reasons why we need a full-time support person...)



Bill