no bug JPEG Quality comandline conversion changed from v4.38

[John Stockton]

I have a macro that scans all foldernames in N:, and if the phrase "chess" appears in the foldername, then ther entire folder is moved to a new location (RECENTGAMES) and then from that new location each and every JPEG pic will be converted from 100% JPEG quality to 50% JPEG quality

But when IfranView was upgraded to the next version above 4.38, the commandline I used stopped working and I got errors.

I just tried v4.44, and the problem still exists! So I am stuck to using v4.38

Here is the commandline that works in v4.38 but no longer since then (T20 is just the JPG file name that is passed)

c:\program Files\iview\i_view32.exe N:\RECENTGAMES\%T20%\*.jpg /advancedbatch /jpgq=50 /convert=N:\RECENTGAMES\%T20%\*.jpg

See PIC below for error I get now, but do NOT get with v4.38

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Have you enabled the Unicode plugin in the new version? Did you install the new plugins?

[John Stockton]

Have you enabled the Unicode plugin in the new version? Did you install the new plugins?

Yes all plugins are installed, but I did not get the part about "enabling" -- can you explain. This must be something new since 4.38?

[John Stockton]

I got WinXP Sp3 and still using 4.38

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Basic Unicode support via a plugin was added in version 4.20.

It used to be enabled until recently in Settings, Language. That option has gone in 4.44, so paths with accents should now work by default. I see no Unicode.dll listed in plugins.

The question then arises, why are you getting an error asking for the Unicode plugin, since it seems no longer to be needed.

I am not using Windows XP and no longer have the older versions of IrfanView installed, so I cannot help with this.

I suggest reinstalling 4.44 and its plugins, before testing this again, then send a bug report to Irfan Skiljan (Help, About IrfanView).

Let us know your results.

[Mij]

Unicode support may not be relevant. The Irfanview error message is very confusing. Unicode is just one possible cause. There are no characters in the example you showed that need Unicode, so it is almost certainly something else that is wrong.
If you are passing the name of a jpeg file using the token %T20% then the command line is incorrect. Your command is using it as a folder name from which you will process in turn all the jpeg files that Irfanview can find in that folder

If you are supplying all the jpeg file names in turn in a loop using %T20% then I would expect to see something like
c:\program Files\iview\i_view32.exe N:\RECENTGAMES\%T20%.jpg "/advancedbatch /jpgq=50 /convert=N:\RECENTGAMES\*.jpg"

but I suspect that is not what you are doing since v4.38 would not work with your command line either.

[John Stockton]

T20 is the FOLDER NAME ONLY, but that folder will contain ONLY JPG files--The the commandline/macro workes perfectly for years and years so far.

But all I got to do in install any version of IFranview above 4.28 (with the new plugins), and suddenly these errors appear and no conversion to 50% take place. NO change in the macro, no nothing different EXCEPT a higher verison of IfranView being used, thus forcing me to stick tyo 4.28

[Mij]

In that case look carefully at that error message you attached in your first post. Irfanview is trying to open a file called N:RECENT GAMES\3-09
I suspect that N:RECENTFILES\3-09 is not a file at all and that 3-09 is probably the first part of a folder name that has a space in it.
Read the second note at the start of the Command line option help file which says - Use "" for file names/paths with spaces! (example: "c:\images\dummy test file.jpg")
and remember that the token %T20% will be replaced by the real folder name before the Command line is parsed.

There have been a number of extra functions and formats added to the Command line options in recent versions and it would not surprise me at all if, as a result, it is less tolerant of errors than it used to be.

[John Stockton]

I suspect that N:RECENTFILES\3-09 is not a file at all and that 3-09 is probably the first part of a folder name that has a space in it.
.

This is correct. An example that worked with 4.38 is N:\RECENTGAMES\3-02 chess--He quit too soon -- where there are spaces

I always assumed that such a basic thing as spaces in folder names would have been handled properly even in many version before 4.38. If the addtion of quotes will solve the problem, that is such a simple thing that I just assumed it was already dealt with in 4.38 and below and I never thought to think that only after 4.38 was this "space-in-folder-names-thing "fixed." I did not read any notes about this fix, so that too made me not think along these lines.

I will add the quotes and see what happens in 4.44

[John Stockton]

Yes, that solved it.

c:\program Files\iview\i_view32.exe N:\RECENTGAMES\%T20%\*.jpg /advancedbatch /jpgq=50 /convert=N:\RECENTGAMES\%T20%\*.jpg -- this does not work except in 4.38 and earlier.

c:\program Files\iview\i_view32.exe "N:\RECENTGAMES\%T20%\*.jpg" /advancedbatch /jpgq=50 /convert=N:\RECENTGAMES\%T20%\*.jpg --(added 2 quotes) -- this now works

Interesting is that a 2nd pair of quotes (I forgot to add them) later down in the commandline was not added (because I forgot to add them) and the macro still worked as normally before.

It would have been nice to read this in changelog or something.

[Mij]

Before you cast too much criticism on Irfanview I think you should know that the problem really lies in the Command line interpreter, cmd.exe, which has its roots way back in the early days of Windows and DOS when spaces in file names were not allowed.

In fact I am surprised that the
c:\program Files\iview\i_view32.exe
part of your command line works without quote marks around it. In many cases you get an error message of Cannot find c:\program because the space inside program files within the path name is treated as a delimiter.
Having got past that first hurdle though and recognised the Irfanview file name as an executable program, the rest of the line is passed to the program as Arguments (aka Parameters) and once again every space is treated as a delimiter. So Irfanview may receive multiple part arguments which have to be stitched back together to restore the original Command line.

It used to be the case that the name of the image file/folder to be processed had to follow immediately after the program name, before the first / that indicated a Command line option. So it was fairly easy to stitch the image path/name back together correctly. The program name and the / could be used in place of a pair of quotes.

I do not know all the extra functions that were added to the Command line options that I referred to in the earlier post because as you say Irfan did not include them in the changelog. I do know that an alternative Thumbnail format was added. Before if you had a Thumbnail shortcut (Target property ....\i_view32.exe /thumbs) you could not open it by dropping an image folder or file name onto it, because that creates a command of the form
[path]\i_view32.exe /thumbs [path]\myimage.jpg
which was not an allowed order.

Now however it is allowed and, after all these years, you can do something useful with the thumbnail icon using drag and drop.