Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

I have used Qimage for many years and my main complaint is its lack of robust error handling and feedback.

I would like to see some effort put into improving the error handling of Qimage Ultimate.  When I sometimes make a mistake the program will just lock and I have to use the task manager to kill it.  It would be much better if additional error handlers were include to catch a user's mistake and provide some feedback so the user will be informed of what went wrong. In addition, it would be very helpful if loading a corrupted file were handled in a more robust manner.  In the past, on an earlier version I had a corrupted filter file that caused the program to crash.  After look at the filter with a text editor and comparing to one that was not corrupted it was relatively easy to catch and fix the error.

QU already has extensive error handling so these would have to be handled on a case by case basis.  This is not a common complaint so I would need example(s) of where you are seeing problems and I'd like to know more about what you are doing that is causing these errors.  Are you doing strange things with filters such as trying to modify them in a text editor?  It might be easier to correct the problem rather than have Qimage try to bandaid them after the fact, otherwise it's kinda garbage in, garbage out.

Also, with many file formats and EXIF headers, the header itself is essentially computer code.  So there is no way to have 100% failsafe error correction when you run into something like a bad header that creates infinite loops in its own header code, etc. since there are an infinite variety of ways to corrupt an image header.

Regards,
Mike

Thanks for your reply.  I will come up with a list of problems as they occur.  A while back I had a filter file that some how became corrupted.  Every time I tried to load it the program would crash instead of indicating an error with the file.  In the end, I compared that file with a working filter file using the vim editor, and was able to correct the glitch.  Next time Ultimate crashes, I will be careful to document how that happen.  I'll keep a list and forward that to you.