Migrate Freehand files to Adobe Illustrator - graphics

I have rudimentary skills in scripting that I got from free lessons, so I'm sorry in advance.
I got this script from Adobe (particularly to use in CS3).
I work in CS6 but have access to CS3 & CS4, if that helps (I've tried it in CS3 & CS6 but get the error).
The task of hand-migration 20 years of FH files to ai is daunting (opening each file on an old PowerPC in CS3, exporting as eps or ai, then opening on a new mac). While I understand Macs only do up to 1000 files at a time, that's much better, if I can get this script to run rather than giving this:
ERROR: 21, undefined is not an object
I opened it in ExtendScriptToolkit to see if anything leapt out at me but I'm afraid my meager skill set has failed.

Look at this bit of the code:
// Set Freehand options
var FreehandOptions = app.preferences.FreeHandFileOptions;
FreehandOptions.convertTextToOutlines = false;
FreehandOptions.importSinglePage = false;
Since Illustrator CS6 doesn't support freehand file formats, there is no "FreeHandFileOptions" so it will never work in CS6. The script was written for CS4 but it still works in CS5.1.

Related

Opening .grp .mps and .rsc .rsr

I recently re-opened the different editions of The Cluefinders to understand how it worked to potentially do a spinoff of it.
I downloaded the iso file from https://www.myabandonware.com/game/cluefinders-3rd-grade-adventures-bh9
Unfortunately, even if it works flawlessly (especially for a game so old), the files still have some secrets I want to uncover.
Primarily there are some .grp, .mps, .rsc and .rsr file that I can open, but cannot read properly. Thus since I can't decode it I can't find the master file that ensures the proper order of events and the different graphics files. There are references in some MPS files but I don't understand how it fetches the different sprites, etc ...
Does anyone know how to open these files properly? I'll try and do the maximum from them
Sincerely,

Can't save a python file in any IDE

I'm currently starting to learn Python on Windows 10 and to do so I've installed Geany 1.34.1 and Python 3.7.2 (with the PATH option) as instructed in my book.
I then created a new file and tried to save it in some folder on my C: disk where both softwares are.
Unfortunately, I get the following error
The translaton (original partly in french):
"Error in saving the file. Failure to open the file "C:\Users\XXX\Documents\python_work\test.py" for writing: fopen() has failed: No such file or directory. The file on the disk may be truncated"
I've tried with the Python IDLE as well and get the same problem where I can't save my file.
I've read that it could be due to the fact that in WIN we use \ and in Unix / but I really don't know why Geany can't do alone the translation.
After few hours of hit and miss, does anyone could explain the reason of this behaviour ?
Edit1: Transcription and translation of the error
I think that's because, in python and in other programming languages the "\" is used for some special character.
For ex. '\n' = new line
I'm not really sure, but I think it is for this reason, i had similiar problems at the begin.
Found the problem.
Make sure that the following is deactivated:
Windows Defender > Virus & Threat protection > Virus & Threat protection settings option > Controlled folder access > Disabled

How to open an uml2 .tex?

I apologize if this this is an extremely amateur question. But before yesterday I had never even heard to tex, latex, mactex, all this stuff.
Basically I have cloned a git repo in which the UML documents appear to be in a .tex file. Following google, this has led me to install MacTex, try to open these files. Click 'typeset' which I presume is how it produces the document, but it gives an error about 'uml2' being invalid syntax.
What program, or what anything, am I supposed to use to open a .tex file which has stuff like this in it:
\tikzstyle{uml2} = [
fill=rupBody,
draw=rupBorder,
font={\ttfamily},
]
Is this even something your supposed to open in a program and view visually? I suppose this file named uml.tex will show a UML diagram once opened. Or do I have completely the wrong idea? Sorry if this is extremely amateur, like I said I've never heard of this since before yesterday, and google isn't turning up lots of information on this. Any direction would be much appreciated.
You need to install pgf from http://ctan.org/pkg/pgf The easiest is to use TexLive. Once you got all packages installed you can typeset the TeX file. I'm using TexShop which is a nice app for the Mac.
Since you indicate you never heard of TeX before: TeX is a program written by Donald Knuth many, many years ago when computers were engined with steam. But it's the best you can find for typesetting. It's mature, crude and more than 99,99% error free. Donald Knuth has a bounty for each error you find in the code and he did not have to pay since many years. What you do is to create those TeX files (there are different macro packages were LaTeX is the most famous) and send them to the TeX processor. That will create the output (now its PDF and formerly it was some DIV (device independent viewer IIRC)).
Edit I downloaded tikz-uml from here: http://perso.ensta-paristech.fr/~kielbasi/tikzuml/index.php and moved the tikz-uml.sty to folder where the main .tex source is placed. After including
\usepackage{tikz-uml}
in the header I was able to compile the source.
Note: there is a global location for .sty files but that depends in the app you use. Use Google to find this place. But putting .sty near your .tex is fine anyway. A \usepackage directive first looks in the source folder before looking into the global ones.

'modifying' an exe by working with bas using visbasic or q basic

all!
I'm trying to run programs to control stepper motors. The PC and software and stepper motor controller I have already in place are pretty old and I'm new to almost everything I'm doing here-learning as I go sort of thing. I've 'coded' a bit in Matlab, so I have a very basic level of coding logic, but basically no knowledge of any common syntax. So, I know some about the steppers and the stepper controller, but not much else!
I have a program called "Hoop.exe" that I'm trying to modify to slow down the speed of one of the steppers (I just need to change a 300 to a 200!) when I run the program. There is also an associated (assuming) hoop.bas and a hoop.txt file on the floppy disc. From looking at the txt file, it looks like basic code from examples of basic I've seen. I'm working with visual basic 2.0 and qbasic 1.1 on Windows 98.
So, I tried opening the hoop.bas file first with qbasic and with vb. With qb, I get a 'bad file mode' message. With vb, I get 'invalid file format' and it seems it wants me to open a mak file but I have no 'hoop.mak'. I did this thinking that I could open the bas file with vb or qb, and then edit it, and then save it as an exe, and then run that.
I found a pdf that showed how to incorporate a qb file into the command button of vb, and I tried that. But, I got an "Expected: end of statement" error in the first line! when I tried to save it as an exe.
So, all I really want to do is change my hoop.exe. I would assume that since qb and vb are both on the PC, one of them wrote the bas (maybe not!), so I'm wondering why neither of them can read it.
I've never used vb or qb, but if I have to get into the nitty gritty, it seems like I'd rather use qbasic, since I've never used a graphical interface to code before. But, is either one of those necessary in order to do what I want to do? (I'm going to need to write some programs to control these steppers when all is said and done, but I figured that I should take it one step at a time.)
I tried some form of copying and pasting into qb, but I couldn't immediately figure out how to do that. (Probably because I have no idea how to use qb.)
So, what would be the most efficient way to modify my hoop program?
If the answer is that I just need to learn basic with qb, that's fine, but I'd like to get some sort of indication from people who know what they're talking about before I put that much effort in.
I would really appreciate any pointers because I'm apparently completely clueless on my own!
8/10/2013:
Just in case it's helpful, here are some lines from the Hoop.txt I opened:
10 CLS : CLEAR 1000: P = 512
20 LOCATE , , 1
100 A% = INKEY$: PRINT A$;
105 IF A$ = "*" THEN GOTO 700
110 GOSUB 510: GOSUB 610: GOTO 100
500 REM
510 IF A$ = "" THEN RETURN
etc. This is the beginning of the interface code that allows me to talk to the motor controller
QuickBASIC and Visual Basic are very different, despite their common name of "BASIC" and despite the fact they were both made by Microsoft. First you need to determine if the .BAS file is QuickBASIC or Visual Basic. A simple quick way (though not the most accurate) is to open the file up in Notepad or some other text editor. If keywords such as "OPEN" or "LEN" or "MID" or "CLOSE" are in uppercase, then its more likely a QuickBASIC file. If the keywords look more like "Open" or "Close" or "Len" or "Mid", then its more likely a Visual Basic file.
Now keep in mind that there are other versions of BASIC that have been developed, such as Turbo BASIC (Borland's version) or GW-BASIC or BasicA or PowerBASIC and even Color Basic.
Now if you can't figure it out this way, the next thing I'd suggest is downloading a hex editor, such as XVI32 (though there are many other free ones out there). Look through the file (especially towards the end of the file) and there are usually signs that indicate what kind of compiler was used. You might see the words "Microsoft Basic Compiler" or "Borland Turbo Compiler". Usually towards the end of the file, there are string "stubs" put in by the compiler or linker that you can use to determine the compiler.
If all that fails and you are desperate and that "300" number is hard coded in the program and you need to change it, then there is another way to do this. First back up your original exe file. Then Use XVI32 or some other hex editor and search for the string "2c01" (300 is 012c hex and you need to reverse the 01 and 2c since Intel machines are little-endian). Once you find an instance of 2c01, change it to "c800" (200 is 00c8. Little Endian version would be c800). Save the file, then rerun it. This is a gruesome trial and error way to fix this. If it was changed from 300 to 200, then everything is good! If not, restore from your backup and try again!
Have you considered getting an Arduino or some other low cost and friendly electronics development platform? I think it would be the way to go for you to control stepper motors...
take a look:
http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/StepperUnipolar
If you google around you'll find tons of you tube videos showing off some arduino controlled stuff.
Modifying your current .exe seems to me a too long and hard path to follow instead of making your own and proper source code for achieving what you want, as you would need to disassemble the executable file and literally "know what you're doing" with all that assembly language to find where to patch the binary with the right value.
Anyway, if you post a picture or a schematic of your old hardware I could try to help you a little more, but I guess that would be better suited to this other stack exchange site:
http://electronics.stackexchange.com

make swf from fla without ever opening it

is it possible to change text and images in a fla file without ever opening it up and then making the swf via command line? I want to make a flash template and save the fla. Then be able to update my text and image name and convert it to swf. I have one template but tons of different text options and background images. It would be nice to be able to copy the master.fla twenty times and just change the source code (will do this from command line) and then convert to swf (via command line).
Any help would be appreciated.
With CS5, you can do half of what you're asking today, by using the XFL file format instead of FLA. Instead of a binary blob, you get an editable XML file and a tree of separate asset files: PNGs, AS3 files, etc. You can then modify the XML or AS3 files programmatically to get your variants.
(A CS5 FLA file is really just a zipped up version of the XFL, but there's no advantage to using that instead of an XFL. In CS4 and previous, FLA was a proprietary binary format.)
The missing piece is an XFL compiler. Adobe currently provides no such thing, and the third party market hasn't yet produced one.
You could use a systems automation tool to drive the Flash Professional environment through the compilation steps. On OS X, for example, either Automator or AppleScript should be able to do what you want. It'll just have more overhead than the command line compiler you were hoping for.
I agree with Jason, there are a lot of alternatives to what you suggest. Keeping content out of the SWF is good practice actually. This is a good way to avoid large files!
Depending on what you 're looking to achieve, there are a lot of solutions available. XML is an option, JSON another.
If you're looking to build a template, any of the above would seem appropriate.
It sounds like you're working from the Flash IDE, as Jason suggests you may want to have a look at another IDE, such as FlashDevelop, FDT or FlashBuilder as they make coding with AS3 a lot easier.

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