Transperancy

[cdavid]

Hi

I've seen on tutorials that if you keep the top bar of an image clicked and hold it over a similar sized image that it is supposed to be transparent such as when comparing a DBE model or star mask to the original image.

Is there some setting somewhere that allows this?  I am running the most recent Pixinsight on a mac with OS 10.9 and this transparency function does not work.

Thanks
Carlos

[pfile]

IIRC windows (and maybe linux?) only feature.

rob

[Juan Conejero]

Since the upcoming version 1.8.3 of PixInsight Core, translucent workspace child windows only work on X11 (Linux and FreeBSD). They have never worked on Mac OS X because of this Qt bug:

https://bugreports.qt-project.org/browse/QTBUG-15367

Note that this bug was first reported in 2010, and remains unassigned as of today. Now we have this bug also on Windows 8.1:

http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=7546.0

where the screen rendition artifacts are a side effect of translucency. Consequently, I have disabled translucent image windows also on Windows. Fortunately, they continue working fine on X11 (our primary development platform).

There are more changes in 1.8.3 affecting the Mac OS X version, but I (still) don't want to scare you

[gvanhau]

Hello Juan

Please dont deactivate it on windows.
I have windows 7, windows 8.0 and windows 8.1 and it works ok in all of them.

Geert

[cdavid]

Bummer

Juan your comment on future Mac changes has just made me nauseous

[msmythers]

I'm with Geert. I've never had an issue on Windows 7 or 8. If nothing else make it a selection in the Global Preferences but with a default of on.


Mike

[Geoff]

Hello Juan

Please dont deactivate it on windows.
I have windows 7, windows 8.0 and windows 8.1 and it works ok in all of them.

Geert

+1

[Juan Conejero]

OK, child window transparency will be available on Windows (also on Mac OS X, just in case we manage to make it work in a future version). This feature will be disabled by default on Windows and Mac the first time you run 1.8.3, so you'll have to enable it manually on these platforms with Preferences and see if it works for you --- chances are that it will stop working well sometime after a Windows update.

[Juan Conejero]

Juan your comment on future Mac changes has just made me nauseous

Just to calm you down (so I hope ), the changes are a consequence of the new code signing policy established by Apple with the release of Mac OS X 10.9.5. To make a long story short, the problem is that from now on a Mac OS X application must sign digitally every file in the application bundle (even plain text files have to be signed!). Since the application seals all files through cryptographic checksums stored in the main executable, no file in the bundle can be modified without invalidating the whole signature.

In principle, this means that our update system just won't work on Mac OS X anymore. We have an extremely efficient and secure update system that allows us to change a single byte in the application tree to deliver bug fixes in real time to all users on all platforms. Since all files in the application are now sealed on Mac OS X, if we have to update a simple script that requires changing just 100 kilobytes for example, now we have to release a new installation package requiring 100 megabytes. This also means that our integrated documentation system does not work either, unless we redesign it to keep all the documentation outside the application bundle on Mac OS X. There are some potential solutions based on incremental updates, but they are technically complex and would make the release of updates very difficult for us and simply impossible for third-party developers (really bad for a development platform, which is what PixInsight is).

We have been working on a solution to this serious problem for the last month (and this has been the main cause of the long delay in the release of 1.8.3, by the way). The only reasonable solution that we have found so far is to keep all files of the application distribution outside the application bundle, with the only exception of the core executable. This means that PixInsight will no longer be installed as a single application bundle on Mac OS X. The whole PixInsight installation will be under a sub-folder of /Applications, and you'll have to execute the PixInsight.app application stored under that sub-folder. We are right now testing this configuration to see if it works well with Gatekeeper. It seems that it works for now...

[msmythers]

Thanks Juan   


Mike

[cdavid]

Sounds awful

....damn apple....so am I better off installing Linux on my Mac and running pix there?  I have no experience with this operating system but I am aware of the ability to run it virtually or alternatively re-partitioning my Harddrive and running it that way.

Would I need to buy a second pixinsight license?

Thanks Juan

Carlos

[msmythers]

Carlos,

Straight from the PixInsight FAQ page.

 2. Licensing

 2.5 Must I buy several licenses to use PixInsight on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD?
Absolutely not. The commercial license gives you the right to use PixInsight on all supported platforms and operating systems. This currently includes FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
 2.6 Do you impose restrictions on the number of installations per license?
Absolutely not. Our commercial users have the right to install and use PixInsight on any computer they own. The only limit is that only the licensed users have the right to use their copies of PixInsight. Other than the fact that a commercial licensee cannot share his/her copy of our software, we impose no restrictions.



Mike

[jkmorse]

Carlos,

Between these types of issues and the 200 image stack limit, I gave up on using my Mac and moved to Windows too.  And if you have what it takes to understand Linux (boy am I jealous) from everything I have seen written here (and the development team's insane devotion to Linux  ) you will never be sorry you made the switch.

And a huge +1 on the transparency issue, so thanks for leaving in for us Windows folks, if Juan is reading.

Best,

Jim