Any possibility of load options for a plugin?

[aybe]

In PropertyBasedFileType I've noticed the overload for save options, but there's nothing similar for load.

Basically, like when you open a raw audio or image in other software, you can choose settings and pray they're correct.😅

In my case it isn't that extreme, it's just that the TIM format, while having transparency info, actually it isn't always desired.

Long story short, TIM can be a texture atlas and most generally is, also with a different depth and palette for each image. 😆

So ideally, if there's a way to show some GUI before image loading or some other approach that'd work it'd be amazing!

 

[aybe]

Here's a concrete example of the challenge, this is the same TIM file, it has two palettes, first is for the characters, second is for the GUI:

 

 

The more I am thinking about it, the trickier it appears to be achievable from within a PDN plugin... generating 1 layer per palette wouldn't make much sense as there can be dozens and all of them but 1 would work for a sub-image in the surface.

 

And then, loading is a thing but saving is another totally different thing, how could one specify what palette is for what region, etc.

If that wasn't complex enough, TIM can hold 4-bit and 8-bit images simultaneously... this is because of limited VRAM in the PSX.

 

Still, any ideas or suggestions are welcome! 😀

Edited February 12, 2022 by aybe

[null54]

32 minutes ago, aybe said:

In PropertyBasedFileType I've noticed the overload for save options, but there's nothing similar for load.

 

You can show a dialog in OnLoad, the Icon, Cursor, and Animated Cursor plugin does this to allow users to select which icons to load.

But this is not officially supported by Paint.NET, e.g. cancelling the load dialog causes Paint.NET to show an error message to the user.

 

11 minutes ago, aybe said:

Here's a concrete example of the challenge, this is the same TIM file, it has two palettes, first is for the characters, second is for the GUI:

 

Many game texture formats tend to use tricks like that.

The usual solution for those formats is to have an editor that can import and export images, while allowing the user to set the palette assignment and other details.

It would be fairly difficult to support those specialized features in a Paint.NET plugin.

[aybe]

Haven't though about that actually, indeed a message box (or more) solves this problem more or less elegantly!

 

For the second, I'm starting to realize the trouble I've put myself in. 😁

 

While loading a TIM file is straightforward, providing the full TIM user experience from PDN looks just impossible to me...

 

The problem is that it's impossible to know and assign palettes from PDN, unless rewriting a full-blown software from within PDN, at the mercy that some thing might be not allowed by PDN at some point.

 

The plugin that loads all TIM format is here https://github.com/aybe/pdnTimFile, but unless one finds a way to address these issues, it has become to a halt.

 

Thanks mate😀