A problem not easy to describe in a few words

[davidh]

Discovered in the previous version but confirmed in the latest 24-Aug.

I had this test branch saved in a workspace

input image 48
Splitter
Precise Gaussian Blur / branch 2 loads without any problem
Halftone
Splitter
Monocolor/Posterize

When loading workspace gets to Precise Gaussian Blur step, I got the error: Illegal Precise Gaussian Blur Command.
When I accepted the message, the rest of the branch loaded but was error red.

Then I did the following steps:

1. double-click on Precise Gaussian Blur -> error message: Illegal Precise Gaussian Blur Command
2. accept it -> Precise Gaussian Blur dialog is opened
3a. cancel the transformation and confirm the error message -> error message: Illegal Precise Gaussian Blur Command
4a. accept it -> error message: Error in command line
5a. accept it -> Precise Gaussian is reprocessed and looks OK but is not, double-click it and you get the message from the step 1,

3b. Click the dialog OK -> Precise Gaussian is reprocessed and is OK, loading continues and stops at Posterize with the error message: Illegal Posterize command
4b. accept it -> loading moves to Monocolor and loads is correctly, however Posterize remains red
5b. Reprocessing Posterize removes the red color but leaves the thumbnail empty out of 5 various color patches 1 is now white and the rest are all black. The thumbnail is no longer empty but in preview is not black and white, but is identical to the previous step: Halftone
6b. Reprocessing Halftone makes Posterize output black and white but the original color patches are not restored. They got lost somewhere in the process.

If I saved only a part of the whole branch either from Monocolor (excluding erring Posterize), or from Posterize (B&W) in a script and loaded it, there was no problem with Precise Gaussian Blur.
It is interesting since PG Blur erred two or three steps before Posterize had even started loading.

I also watched the downstream reprocessing order (using the new usefull feature) beginning with the step 3b.
It went like this:
1. Halfone - OK
2. Branch Box 2 (Posterize) - does nothing
3. Branch Box 1 (Monochrome) - does nothing
4. Posterize - error Illegal Posterize command (accepted)
5. Monochrome - OK

Then I finished with the step 6b.

There was no problem with this script in pre-23-Aug. versions.

[jsachs]

I did apologize in advance for tightening the script syntax.

I recommend one of three actions:

1) rebuild the scripts from scratch

2) run each script you want to salvage and if you get an error, try saving a new script for the command that failed and compare to command line to the old one. You should see that the new command line has one or more additional arguments. Copy these extra arguments to the script that failed and continue in this manner until you fix all the errors.

3) run all your scripts with an older version (21-Aug or earlier) of PWP that reads them OK and then re-save them. This should convert them to the latest syntax. Let me know if you need me to re-post 21-Aug.

[davidh]

I have been aware of this risk from the the first version of PWP 8. As I noted at the beginning of my post it was a test script, so no harm was done.

When a have a failing transformation I usually first try to redefine it. This time, however, I thought it might be just another quirk of my favourite though "whimsical" Halftone transformation, which has recently shown a bit erratic behaviour in one or two cases. And since there was no mention in the latest two releases about any changes made to the listed transformations, I decided to post my observations.
Now I think I will always first redefine.