CompuServe Messages

Mike, Is it still time for a suggestion? If not, you can consider it for the next maintenance upgrade. I'll bet this has happened to every single Imagine user: you create a finely-crafted group. You put in a lot of time and effort. After rendering, you realize something is wrong, so you bring the group into the Detail editor. You select the offending object, make the necessary changes, then save the group back. You merrily click on "Overwrite existing file? – OK" and go to Stage or Project to re-render your test frame. When the image appears, the blood drains from your face. The intricate group has been replaced by… A SINGLE OBJECT, the one you just modified. You dope. You overwrote the group while you were still in Pick Objects mode. You just lost tons of work. This happens to every Imagine neophyte, and even occasionally to Imagine experts who might be working too fast, too late at night. Here's an improved scenario: when the user selects a filename to save, if the file already exists on disk, Imagine puts up the "Overwrite existing file?" alert. If the user clicks on "OK", Imagine could read the file and determine whether it's a single object or a group. My suggestion is: if the disk file is a group, and the user is saving a single object, Imagine could put up a second alert, saying something like "You are about to replace a _group_ (on disk) with a single _object_. (OK/Cancel)" This would be quite easy to code, and would avoid an irritating situation faced by most users. Blaq!