StarTools

Ivo,

Is it possible to pass the image I'd like to open as a command line argument to StarTools?

I'm working up a batch file that will copy everything (The ST executeable along with tits resources and license file, AND the image I want to edit) to a RAM drive, and then open up the image. Everything seems to be working fine, except ST seems to ignore the filename parameter when passed like so:

StarTools-windows64.exe "File Name.TIF"

I've tried the standard help switches (/?, /h, and so on) with no luck.

Yeah, command-line switches are currently ignored.
What I will do though for 1.4 is, instead of you having to go through all this trouble, have an option to specify the page file for swapping to disk, so that you can specify the RAM disk volume if you want to.

That'll certainly make life easier in that regard!

To be honest however, if I had my druthers, I'd still like to be able to pass the image as an argument, for 2 reasons:

1) It would enable the ability to add StarTools as an option for opening the file... Right Click -> Open With -> Select StarTools
2) Since I've got the RAM to play with, I like copying the image to the RAM drive as well as running ST from it. This makes things stupid fast. While I can certainly do that manually, it's slicker to do it as part of a batch file. I'm just a geek that way.

gboulton wrote:That'll certainly make life easier in that regard!

To be honest however, if I had my druthers, I'd still like to be able to pass the image as an argument, for 2 reasons:

1) It would enable the ability to add StarTools as an option for opening the file... Right Click -> Open With -> Select StarTools
2) Since I've got the RAM to play with, I like copying the image to the RAM drive as well as running ST from it. This makes things stupid fast. While I can certainly do that manually, it's slicker to do it as part of a batch file. I'm just a geek that way.

I understand where you're coming from... The thing is though, I have some things in the pipeline (for 1.4) that make opening files a little different, in the sense that opening a dataset will require that multiple files be specified from the start. This is to improve the workflow when working with color or multiband data sets, while automating luminance frame synthesis... Stay tuned in 2013

PS 'real' geeks run Linux which will let you do all this cool stuff easily.

Fair enough, Ivo. Just me being all weird and stuff.

admin wrote:PS 'real' geeks run Linux which will let you do all this cool stuff easily.

Shortly after they got back from the desert, real geeks were posting on bulletin boards about how annoying Torvalds and his cobbled together pile of spaghetti code were.

gboulton wrote:Fair enough, Ivo. Just me being all weird and stuff.

admin wrote:PS 'real' geeks run Linux which will let you do all this cool stuff easily.

Shortly after they got back from the desert, real geeks were posting on bulletin boards about how annoying Torvalds and his cobbled together pile of spaghetti code were.

Hehehe

You inspired me and I actually bit the bullet and got virtually the same system you built the other day (same processor, same RAM). While configuring my new Linux Mint install I was pleasantly surprised how everything Just Worked (TM) out of the box. Nothing further to install, just 'bam'; a working system.
Next I simply changed the mount location of the tmp folder to a RAM drive and, lo-and-behold, a fresh copy of StarTools was running completely in RAM.
Of course it took me an hour after that to figure out how to get my printer working, but still... (To be fair I should have just RTFM, but where is the fun in that?)
Open Source and Linux have given me the tools, free of charge, to create and cross-compile StarTools. No need to purchase Visual Studio or a Mac. It's levelled the playing field for any developer (or content creator) to go and implement their ideas, no matter their means. I love that about OSS and its philosophy. Using OSS for every aspect of ST's creation (except for ST's source code) has let me keep the cost of this whole thing down. It's been such a great enabler!

admin wrote:Using OSS for every aspect of ST's creation (except for ST's source code) has let me keep the cost of this whole thing down. It's been such a great enabler!

And it's enabled us to have a pretty damn terrific tool at our disposal as well!