Beta 2.2 2 point hotspots broken?

[Robert Harshman]

Trying out the new point hotspots with the beta 2.2. 2 Not having any luck. Following the example in the tutorial I've added a point hotspot. It shows up in my example, using flash 9/10 setting. However, when I click it, it goes away and does not link to the next VR.

Using windows XP have tried local and remote using Firefox and IE.

Regards,

Robert

[Robert Harshman]

In continuing to investigate this issue, I though I should add an image hotspot to the same example to ensure I had the url name correct, etc. Much to my surprise it did not work either. The image hotspot would not work, and the hotspot editor would not keep the area defined for it. That is each time I went back to the image, the defined area was gone.

I reloaded the project file and got an error saying it could not load the png file.

On further test with a new project I got an image hotspot to work, so I must assume somehow the project file I was working on with the point hotspot is corrupted in some way, not really sure. As I edited this post after Eric noted his comments below I'll try some more test.


Any ideas?

Regards,

Robert

[erik leeman]

I had some difficulty getting them to work too.
I made a new version of one of my panos with a hotspot-link to an existing one, made with Pano2VR v2.1.1, and it didn't work just like yours.
The Flash10 standalone player didn't give any clue about what was wrong, but the Flash9 one did give some error feedback:

ReferenceError: Error #1056: Cannot create property slave on PanoPlayer.
at PanoCube/::nextPanoLoaderInit()

TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at PanoCube/init()

Then I tried it with 'network access' marked, that made the Flash9 standalone player tell me this:

Error #2044: Unhandled SecurityErrorEvent:. text=Error #2140: Security sandbox violation: file:///E|/... .swf cannot load file:///E|/.... .swf. Local-with-filesystem and local-with-networking SWF files cannot load each other.

So that didn't work either.

Then I decided to also re-make the target pano, so I could try a link back, also with 'network access' marked, and to my surprise that worked! I did the same with the 'none network access' version, and it worked too!

Apparently you need to make all interlinked panos with Pano2VR v2.2 beta2 to make those links work.

The next thing I made was a set of 5 interlinked panos (without the 'network access' option). I tested them locally to see if they all worked and they did! So I uploaded them to my website. Only to find they didn't work on-line.
The solution for the web-versions was to enter the complete URL in the hotspot editor, not just the name of the .swf file.
At last they (seem to) work ok.

Maybe this helps?

Erik Leeman

[Robert Harshman]

More testing, not much luck.

Tried to edit the image hotspot that worked, now I'm getting an out of memory error the second time I try to load the png file.

Also, added a point hotspot and that stopped the image hotspot from working. The point hotspot did the same thing, click on it and it's gone.

Tried to delete the point hotspot and crashed Pan2VR. This was after the out of memory error.

At this point I'm restarting my system, deleting all the failed test projects and starting fresh again. Will also delete the custom skin I added, again, based on the tutorial.

Regards,

Robert

[Wim.Koornneef]

At this point I'm restarting my system, deleting all the failed test projects and starting fresh again. Will also delete the custom skin I added, again, based on the tutorial.Robert

Hello Robert,

May I suggest that you download and use the demo files of the tour of Thomas and without editing anything rebuild the tour (the flash files) and then see what happens ?
If it runs locally well you could upload the tour and test it online.
If all is well with the tour of the demo files then you know that something is wrong with your workflow/methods for building a project.

BTW, my test project (with only point hotspots, see my posting about wobbling hotspots) is build in OSX and runs fine.

Success,

Wim

[Robert Harshman]

Hi Wim,

Good suggestion, tried it, but on inspecting the demo files it's failed to start.

No html included and most surprising only one of the project files has any links or files noted in the defined point hotspots and these are not to other VRs but fully qualified links to wiki pages. Only one of the sample project files even had a controller set in it. All of the key options are blank.

So, this does not look like it's going to be much help.

And I really can't believe something is wrong with my work flow for building projects as I've been using Thomas' pano2qtvr and pano2vr for years.

Sounds like the OSX version is further along or....

Just added the html, the url (flash file names) and the custom controller in one of the projects. Much to my surprise it worked and even more surprising the point hotspots worked even in the files that did not include any reference to the flash file nor the custom controller.

This is most surprising I guess. In the example the "real" links are in the map, not the point hotspots and since the map is being inherited for each loaded flash file, the other links work. This is very different from the tutorial and a bit more complex.

The only other perhaps significant difference is I'm tyring to use large 16 bit tif files as the EQ files, not small jpgs. Also the sample files reference a skin ID, don't remember the tutorial doing that.

So, I'll try again and see if I can make my simple test work.

Regards,

Robert

Regards,

Robert

[Wim.Koornneef]

Hello Robert,

I am supprised that the demo "out of the box" isn't working for you.
After I deleted the flash (.swf) files of the tour and creating new ones the tour was working fine.
The only thing that is missing in the tour is a working info hotspot of the fountain but I guess that is just a little glitch when Thomas build the tour.
Building the flash images should work the same way on your Windows machine as on my Mac, if not I suggest that you inform Thomas about it.

Best,

Wim

[Robert Harshman]

Finally, got a simple test to work!

Still not sure why the first test did not work, perhaps:

Used a 700megabyte multi layers 16 bit tif file as input EQ, changed to a 250megabyte 16 bit tif single layer.

Did NOT make any changes (as in tutorial example) to make a custom controller with a point hotspot template, simply added the point hotspots and

added a entry in the Skin-ID field of the point hotspot entry.

Note, I did NOT have to use fully qualified links, just the flash or swf file name.

OK, now on to more advanced test.

Regards,

Robert

[thomas]

This is most surprising I guess. In the example the "real" links are in the map, not the point hotspots and since the map is being inherited for each loaded flash file, the other links work. This is very different from the tutorial and a bit more complex.

I know and I am sorry for that. The example was made to "show off" and present all the new feature and not exactly to start learning the concepts. Karyn is currently working on an advance tutorial that will explain what is going on in the demo (the keyword here is "hotspot proxies"). We will also put up some more basic example projects in the next days.

[Robert Harshman]

Hey Thomas,

No problem, just a bit confusing but I've worked through that and everything is working now. I have a 5 VR test set with many point hotspots as text that fades in and out. The more I work with this the more I realize just how powerful this simple template can be. Very much looking forward to more documentation on the functions, and place holders, etc.

Regards,

Robert

[360Texas]

Question is... Are we having fun yet? And how much more fun we can engage in when we learn more ! This feature is not fading !