SubtitleCreator (alternative to srt2sup)

[Asmodeus]

No problem :)
Works fine , thx.

[mp3boy]

hi buddy
thanks alot for your charming software, since you post it on sourceforge, do we have permission to download sourcecode? and is it possible to run c# code inside microsoft excel? i have bunch of macros for my subtitle handling.

and one more thing (a feature request):

- is it possible to have convert srt bitmap to sup?

another thing is a bug:

- when I try to make dvd using rejig it take 10 times longer than normal to multiplex subtitle and its 100 percent cpu usage at all time


thanks in advance

[Paddington]

Clearly, if you like to improve the program, you can also download the source (using a program like WinCVS) and do with it what you like. The only limitation is that if you use it for your own programs, they have to become freeware and open source too. Probably the WriteSUP method in the SUP.cs file is the most interesting one, as this is the method that converts a bitmap to a sup file. Whether you can use it inside Excel, I wouldn't know, and I would doubt it. Aren't you limited to VB, in which case you would have to translate it...

With respect to your feature request: can you explain me why you would like to convert bitmaps (I suppose you are talking about plain bitmaps, because srt bitmaps doesn't mean anything to me) to sup? As explained above, in principle it would be quite easy to do so using WriteSUP, which takes a bitmap as input anyways. But as I don't have this need, I would like to know more before I implement it. In principle, you could easily write a routine to convert a set of bitmaps while specifying their position and the colors from the palette...

Finally, ReJig is always slower than IfoEdit in my understanding - this is because he does the multiplexing in two steps: first, video & audio, later plus subtitles. Or are there specific differences between my sups and other (original) sups, which would surprise me a lot (I've also used ReJig with my sups, and didn't notice anything strange)...

[mp3boy]

I never used WinCVS and I couldn't find a link to your sourcecode.

btw, the speed problem was fixed by itself, ReJig is much faster now.

thanks

[Paddington]

mp3boy: the sources can be found here (http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/subtitlecreator/SubtitleCreator/). And instead of using WinCVS (before this project, I never used it before either), you can just download every file here and compile it yourself using Visual Studio for C#. Good luck!

[TomSem]

hi paddington

The lines are gone but the background can't get transparent

Thnx for your nice tool anyway

[TomSem]

Sorry to mention the transparency bug

I 've it is fixed in the oct 17 version

[mp3boy]

there is also one bug: there is some dots and lines out of in some titles which I don't where it comes from but it seems to be the edge's alpha channel problem.

Basically I asked for source code because of some midification and add feature but maybe you can do it yourself since I don't know C#.

The Second thing is a feature request,

- Option to define the space between two line.
- Option to define Text stretch (width and height).
- Option to place the text to second line if its only single line.


I'll post more when I remember

thanks

[Paddington]

mp3boy, can you be a bit more specific - where do you see those dots and lines, font, example text file... Thanks

Wrt to the features:
- If there is only a single text line, it already goes to the bottom line (previous feature request).
- Setting stretches and spacing could be added, but is it necessary for other too.
- If you wanted to use (or mix) bitmaps, how would you deliver them.

For example (srt format):
1
00:00:10.123 -> 00:00:11.234
<I>bitmap0001.bmp</I>

2
00:00:12.123 -> 00:00:13.234
Hi there, ...

[mp3boy]

I believe stretch is definately required by everybody since it is the only way of making subtitle for wide or letter and by defining text streght in height and width.

and usually srt2sup was doing it by having separate menu (load bitmap) but I don't know if there is a requirement for color definition header to say which color for border , background, text and anti-aliasing. and I don't really think there is requirement of having mixed of them but if you like we can do it by text.bmp and we can still save [ i ][ / i ] for Italic and there is also alignment values which which has X1,X2, Y1,Y2.


usually srt bitmap does not have any mark but you could do that anyway but I don't really like srt's timecode because its not frame accurate, using timecode HH:MM:SS:FF is best way or microDVD is also quiet good and best accurate.

and other thing is about Persian font which are all joint but the outline is spliting them and i think it is the bug in rendering method which I have attached the photo. the photo is actually taken by subrip after multiplexing into dvd using ReJig.

see the character just next left side to three dots (...) in shot0001.bmp and arrow one in shot0002.bmp and I also attached the fixed image using photoshop and VB scripting to convert Text2Image by myself from excel.

another thing is that I think its best if you don't crop your image or you give option to user to have full image like those fixed or even option to define bounding box because many of my character is out of bounding box. I'm sure that will help alot.

and the last but not least question , I got v1.23 which have some bug only some time, a runtime error message popup with Detail, Continue and Quit buttoms on it. I forgot the text but I will post later if it helps.

Thanks again.
http://forum.doom9.org/images/show.gif

PS: where to get the latest and update version? I saw various location which many of them was not updated (such as VCDHelp.com)

[Asmodeus]

Latest build is crashing ReJig on DVD authoring. Previous hasn't.

EDIT: After some testing I can tell that not always. I think that there is some bug with loading background picture, because after I done this, subtitles are broken :|
Where SC writes it's own settings, cause I want to go to defaults ?

[Paddington]

Thanks for letting me know - I will try it out this weekend. I've recently uploaded a new version (a couple of days ago, same version 1.2.4 however), as C# sometimes has the annoying habit to change the user layout randomly. In this case, it was the Preview window that I had to scale back again. Maybe that caused some problems... I will come back to that...

BTW, did you read the other thread that I launched on an XML subtitle description language. Looks quite powerful!

[Asmodeus]

New version - same problem.
I know that even with this version I did some proper subs, but when I first tryed to change background it's start to get messy :( Is there place for SC settings ?

This xml language surely looks powerfull but I don't find any aplication for it :|

[Paddington]

Asmodeus, all settings are stored inside the code - it's on my todo list to change defaults to disk, and maybe even to have different profiles that you could use (e.g. for different screen formats)...

mp3boy, unfortunately I couldn't see your images. You can send me a private message if you like, and we can exchange emails...
Wrt your remark about the SRT time format: it allows a precision accuracy of milliseconds, which should be more than enough (even 30 fps only needs an accuracy of 1000/30=33ms).

I've never used srt2sup's bitmap options: what do I need to specify besides the bitmap name? Because I would prefer to use the same position as the normal text subtitles, so you can interchange them. And what kind of bitmaps does he generate: I use internally 24bpp, although I only need 4 colors, but it makes the transformation to a sup easier. And how does srt2sup deal with the bitmap colors, which I would need to map to the IFO color palette (else I cannot see the original sups)...

[Asmodeus]

Small holiday ? ;)
How's progress ?

[maques]

First of all, thanks for the tool. It's great!

I'm new to DVD subtitling, and I couldn't find really good tools for subtitling, though maybe I'm the unfortunate or the impatient one.

I find SubtitleCreator useful, I have only one small problems with it.
When I have more than two lines, like "line1|line2|line3" the result will not be what I would like (three lines), but it will automatically break to two lines, like:
line1 line2
line3

Maybe allowance of the bigger text box height would be useful. (The orginal english subtitle is also 3 lines on the DVD.)

-

I'm also looking for how to insert special characters (such as the "music note" symbol) into a subtitle, so far I found editing a font file of your own to be the easiest. Any better solution?
Maybe for such, and different font color/size, there would be good to develop (if it is not already exist...) an extension to an existing subtitle file format, where you could specify these parameters without bothering the main part much. (Of course the best would be having a program like Subtitle Workshop and SubtitleCreator put together...)

-

I'd also recommend to put a link on SourceForge to this Forum, as it would be good for the folks find this program there to come here and read what's up.

[Paddington]

Just to let you know that I've updated SubtitleCreator and moved to version 1.3 (https://sourceforge.net/projects/subtitlecreator/). Most notably, the bug mp3boy illustrates above has been fixed, so the output is now much nicer (it didn't only occur with Persian fonts, but also with other sharp edges, for example 'M').

Additionally, as Asmodeus requested, a new feature has been added, and you can now use different profiles which contain the most used settings, such as:
- Subtitle Window position and size
- Font name, style and size

This is especially useful when you often have to switch between 4:3 and 16:9 or 2.35:1 screen sizes. In order to change the profiles, or add your own, edit the SubtitleCreatorProfiles.xml file. Please make sure that you keep the same format as used in the example.

Wrt allowing three lines, I don't like that very much. It really covers your screen. I have been thinking, though, on having different styles, fonts, colors etc per subtitle, and I know that there are already a couple of XML-based subtitle description languages that allow you to specify this (see the thread I started in this forum). However, I don't see a lot of people using them, I cannot download them as such yet, and as it would mean a lot of coding, it's not high on my priority list.

[CoNS]

Hi Paddington,

I've just discovered the existence of SC. I've done quite a lot of adding custom subs to DVDRs using Srt2Sup. Your program sounds good, lots of features that I've missed in Srt2Sup. I'll do some testing and report back if I find any bugs etc.

Two things I've noticed by now: In your nice .pdf guide about adding subtitles, you recommend ReJig instead of IfoEdit when authoring NTSC DVDs. The NTSC authoring issues are supposingly solved now in IfoEdit with the new version 0.971...

Also, in the GUI of SC in the "Create SUP" tab, the button "Open Sub" is split into two lines ("Open" on one line and "Sub" on another") making the text too high for the button height. My OS is Win2000 and I haven't changed font size in OS.

EDIT:

The above mentioned problem occurs in the first three tabs. It's a problem with both plain text and text in the buttons. I don't know if it's been reported by someone else already, but here's how it looks like:

http://home25.inet.tele.dk/dvdkat/sc-image1.jpg

http://home25.inet.tele.dk/dvdkat/sc-image2.jpg

http://home25.inet.tele.dk/dvdkat/sc-image3.jpg

http://home25.inet.tele.dk/dvdkat/sc-image4.jpg

A suggestion: When the info about the video format (PAL or NTSC) is loaded from the IFO, the option is disabled in the preview window. Could you make it so that the disabled option shows the actual format? Right now it shows PAL even though I've loaded an IFO from an NTSC movie.

BTW, the preview window (which cannot be resized) is larger than my desktop (1024x768, perhaps the most common resolution?). Could you squeeze the height of the options panel a bit in the preview window or move it to the right side of the picture?

In the preview window I miss a "Cancel" button so that I can return to the main window without applying the settings I made (if I close the window clicking the upper right X it seems to remember the settings, like pressing "Ok"?).

Also, in the preview window, the bottom of the black outlined box merges with the background pic and is not visible, when I'm working with a picture with black fields above and below the video. Could you make the outline pink or purple or some other not often used colour in order to make it show on all backgrounds?

Furthermore, in the Font Settings tab it would be nice to be able to see the colour codes of the colours used and be able to enter them manually (like in Srt2sup and SupRemap)... :)

Found a bug in the preview window (dunno if it's the same as reported above by another user?): When I select the profile "2.35:1 Movie" the target area box is supposingly moved according to the profile settings. But if I click "Change Font" and "Ok" (without making changes in the font window), the target area box moves down a little. So there's a bug somewhere in the vertical alignment.

The subtitle sync function where you sync with original sup file is very, very useful. Could you make it possible to save the .srt file after sync for later use? When I load a srt, use the sync function, save the sup and then load another srt, the display in the "Syncronize" tab looks like the new file also has been sync'ed? Could you reset the progress/status bar when a new srt is loaded? In this case it would also be nice to be able to load the original sup file once and for all and then use the file for the different srt files w/o reloading (saves time), i.e. split the advanced sync process in two steps: 1) load original sup file and 2) do the sync.

Finally the version number in the about tab says "1.2.3" but I've downloaded the latest version 1.3 from SourceForge?

[CoNS]

The program crashes when I load original sup file for advanced sync. I can post the error log if you want?

The error occurs when I load the sup file with "Every 2nd" line selected. When I load it with "Every 10th" it works?

Also, could you add a "Cancel" button while loading the sup file? I couple of times now I've forgotten to alter "Every 2nd" before opening the file - it loads a lot faster if it's set to "Every 10th"...

EDIT: The same goes for the output window when creating the bitmap sup file with "Show output (+ delay)" enabled - it would be VERY nice to have a "Cancel" button! :)

EDIT2: Found another bug. When clicking "Save As" in order to specify output sup file, the program reports an error when the Windows save as dialog window is cancelled.

[Paddington]

Hi CoNS,

Thanks very much for the thorough testing you have done and for the tip about IfoEdit - I didn't know that it now does NTSC movies properly! However, there is still another reason why I use Rejig instead of VobEdit. The latter sometimes splits a single subtitle in two parts, screwing up the timing. Rejig keeps it intact.

I will go through your list of remarks:
Win2000 As I am using XP, I didn't even know that it would run on Win2000, and I have to think how to deal with the fonts on the buttons.

PAL/IFO Yes, you are right - I actually thought it did show the correct format, but as I don't have many NTSC DVDs, I will have to check.

Preview panel too large/options to the right Good point, I use a higher resolution desktop, but it is easy to change that.

Preview - Cancel OK

Preview - background color Actually, the previous version did have a neutral colored background. However, I can see that you probably have a problem when using NTSC movies, something I didn't think of. I will reverse it (but not to pink, however :-).

Font color preview I am not sure whether I understand you. The bottom left bitmap showing the font name uses the actual colors that you choose in the font settings tab.

Preview - Changing font When I change the font (size), the subtitle window height will have to change too. Therefore, I prefer to reset the position to the bottom. If you choose a profile, not only the position, but also the font is set as specified in the XML file, so you cannot really use them together.

Version number Good point, I always seem to forget that!

Synchronize True, I still have to reset the progress bar. It would make sense to have a load new sup versus compare (when already loaded) function in there, so I will think about that. I am not sure, however, why you would want to save the synchronized srt file. What would you want to do with it?
Wrt a cancel button when you've selected every 2nd file... hmmm, I will think about it. Maybe it could also go in the .xlm settings file.
Finally, as I don't have the exact specification of the sup format (I needed to re-engineer the files I've got), there are sometimes sup files that I cannot, or partially cannot, convert back to bitmap. In that case, using every 10th sup is useful, as it might skip the bad subtitle in question.

Display output + cancel Don't think I will add a cancel button. I only used it to debug my app, but actually if you want to see how a subtitle looks, go to the preview window and select it. I don't see any reason why anyone would want to see each subtitle when it is being converted (slowing the whole process down considerably).

Save as + cancel That's a bug - will check it out!

Well, that should about cover it, I hope...

[CoNS]

Thanks for taking the time to answer & for taking my suggestions into consideration! It's a good program, very much needed.

ReJig/IfoEdit: Hmm, I haven't noticed the subtitle splitting issue. Is it a problem when auhtoring both PAL and NTSC? When does it occur?

Preview - background color: Pink is pretty :) Well, actually there're two things: I'm working on a disc with black bars below and above the actual movie (I think movie format is 2.35:1, not sure though). In this case I can't see where the target area ends, because the black outline of the target box merges with the lower black bar in my movie. My suggestion is to give the 1 pixel outline a strong colour, like... PINK!! The second issue is the background colour in the program when working with NTSC discs.

Font colour preview: Often when I add custom subs to a disc, the original disc doesn't have any subs or I don't want to keep the original subs. In these cases, I don't want to load the original subtitle colours - I'd rather use your default colours in the program (when no .ifo file is loaded) with the white, black and grey. But I miss two features (which Srt2Sup has, combined with SupRemap): 1) I'd like to be able to change the colour palette to choose/create my own subtitle colours. The easiest way (for you) would be by allowing the user to enter hex values like in SupRemap (as you know, subtitle colours are not in RGB format, they're YCrCB). 2) When using other colours than ones loaded from an .ifo, I need to know the hex values of the colours for entering in the .ifo manually using SupRemap, IfoEdit, PgcEdit etc. Srt2Sup has a nice function to output/show the colours used in hex values. Btw, it would also be very nice to be able to load an ifo file into SC, change/edit the colours and then save the ifo again. That's what SupRemap does for me now.

Preview - Changing font: I understand what your saying, but I still think there's a bug in the program, see my description in my first post (I select a profile and the target box moves down as it should. But if I click "Change Font" and then ok, WITHOUT changing any font settings, the target box moves further down?)

Synchronize: I'd like to be able to save the srt file for later use in SC. If I syncronize, create subs, author and burn and don't like the font size etc., it'd be nice to be able to reload the syncronized srt file again and quickly make some new fonts. It would be nice to have the cancel button in ALL CASES when loading the original sup. This process takes some time on my old Pentium 3, and I'd like to be able to cancel, for instance if I selected "Every 2nd" or "Every 5th" my mistake.

Display output + cancel: Well, you're right about just looking at the output in the preview window. But if you - as I did! - enable this option to see what how it works, it's a bit annoying that the program starts a process that hangs the rest of the program and takes a looong time (on my old PC!) without being able to cancel it.

Phew, that's it for now! KUTGW :cool: And happy new year !

[Paddington]

Happy New Year to you too!

I've had some time to play around and work on your suggestions. As always, the latest release can be found here (https://sourceforge.net/projects/subtitlecreator/):

Preview - background color I've changed the whole layout of the window, so it should fit on your 1024x768 desktop. Additionally, I've reset the color to the default window color, and created a black border, so you should be able to see it properly now.

I've also enlargened all (problem) buttons now, so I hope they display properly on your Win2000 system. If not, please let me know which are still troublesome.

Font color preview The default font colors that are used can be found in the Examples directory. If you want to have another palette, you can either edit this file directly, of save a correct IFO file somewhere, and point to it in the SubtitleCreatorProfiles.xml file (at the end, I specify its name and location). This should solve your need for a default color palette without having to edit the hex values all the time.

W.r.t. your second remark about copying the color palette to a new IFO file. This feature will not be included, as it's much easier to do in IfoEdit. I mean, after multiplexing the new DVD, IfoEdit is already open, and I only need to open the original IFO file and copy the palette. Else, I would have to reopen SC again, which doesn't make sense.

Preview - changing font I now understood what you meant. It has been fixed.

Sync You can now change the synchronized subtitle file and re-open another subtitle file without reloading the original. The default number of lines that are read are specified in SubtitleCreatorProfiles.xml in the program's directory. So no cancel, but if you have a slow computer, you can change the default to 10 lines (end of the file).

Additionally, I've added two features to the advanced synchronize window:
First, when you double click in one of the panels, the other panel will jump to a similar start time (so it's easier to find a good link when the movie is almost correctly synchronized, and for checking the result).
Second, when a subtitle is split across multiple files, you will see a new window, that allows you to jump to the beginning of each part (you need to link the first and last subtitle of each part in order to sync properly).

ReJig/IfoEdit v0.95 Well, I've recently experienced this problem with the new Indiana Jones release (PAL). The english subtitle was split across two files, each containing the same data (it seems), but the time was halved. ReJig didn't have that problem.

OK, that's it for now. Let me know if you find any new bugs ;)

[mp3boy]

Hi
Thanks for your updates on your software

Some bugs:

- The bug I mentioned long ago in post with attached photo, those character generated by SC have borders where two character join each other, means persian or arabic alphabet will join eachother to make a work and the border at joint does not make it nice.

- when you save subtitle file (SUB format) in subtitle creator it saves a first subtitle as frame rate such as 23.97 or 25 or 29.97 which SC does not recognize that and still asking for framerate, and it also put it into subtitles which they don't have to be in the list

- multiple instance of Preview can be loaded and the main page is accessible after you load preview page.

- Antialiasing is not really anti-aliasing, it more looks like a single pixel border around the text, you may refer to MaestroSBT for they cool anti-aliasing, it will give the idea of what I mean.

Feature request:

- I still can't load images instead of text. if it was possible it would be a good idea... and also at same time, exporting IMAGE is also good because the DVDMaestro that I am using instead of rejig or ifoedit does not recognize SUP, and also I am not so sure but maybe you could give a try on DVD-LAB SP subtitle stream? that can be amazing too if your software have that option.

- Text SCALING: is something that I am dying to have.

Thats all for now... gotta go
Thanks again

[CoNS]

Thank you very much for the update. I'll do some testing and let you know!

[maques]

>>Wrt allowing three lines, I don't like that very much.
>>It really covers your screen.
It also depends on what size of fonts you're using...
Even if I use size 6, I can't make a 3 lines subtitle and it can be annoying if SC "reorganizes" my lines at it's favour.

OTOH, if someone wants to have 10 lines of subtitle, why not let him to do so (if font/screen size allows of course). I think this is a very "basic" feature request compared to for example "having different styles, fonts, colors etc per subtitle".

(BTW. folks, I managed to put musical note in my subtitles by editing one of my fonts. I'm still wondering if it is really the *only* [best?] way to do so...?)

Also, "saving" possibility of the profile from the program would be handy, but I can live without it.

Thanks, M.

[CoNS]

A few remarks on the new version 1.3.1:

Buttons/text: Everything looks fine now except the text "Show" in the second tab to the right of the button "Save". See picture below. Also the text "Every x lines" in the dropdown selection field is partly hidden as you can see.

http://home25.inet.tele.dk/dvdkat/sc-image5.jpg

Preview window: Much better now! :) Found a bug, though. In NTSC mode, if the target area box comes below the video into the Windows coloured background, the box is not erased from the background when the vertical position is changed again.

The Windows coloured background in NTSC solves only a part of the problem I described with the black target box. In both PAL and NTSC I still have a problem when working with video which has black fields in the picture below and above the actual movie. In these cases (which are quite common - appear in all 2.35:1 movies etc.) I can't see the target box properly, which is why I suggest using ANY other colour than black for the target box outline. (don't HAVE to be pink or purple. White will do!!). You can see what I mean here (picture has been resized for better viewing in this forum):

http://home25.inet.tele.dk/dvdkat/sc-image6.jpg

Also, like mp3boy I've noticed that it's a bit annoying that it's possible to open multiple preview windows. Could you make it so that if the preview window is open and the user clicks "Preview" again, the already opened window is selected instead of opening another window?

Furthermore, in the preview window when I load a background, it disappears when I change the PAL/NTSC selection. I then have to load the background again.

And finally another bug which is visible in the preview window: The vertical alignment of subtitles with only one line of text is not the same as the lower line in the subtitles with two lines of text. BTW, you could consider aligning the one line subtitles in the middle of the target box vertically instead of at the bottom. I think that's the case with most original subtitles? (EDIT: I just saw that the bottom alignment is a previous user request! Could you make the vertical alignment an option for the user to select in the preview window?)

Font name: In the first tab the chosen font is shown at the bottom to the right. It says "Sub: [font name]" (see picture below). Shouldn't it be "Font: [font name]"?

http://home25.inet.tele.dk/dvdkat/sc-image1.jpg

(Please notice this particular screen shot is from version 1.3.0 where the button is not yet corrected)

The About tab: In the "About" tab, the links don't work as clickable hyperlinks (in Windows 2000?). All of the text gives me the link-cursor, but clicking the blue underlined urls doesn't open any browser windows. Also, the url http://tinyurl.com/5ggpm points to version 1.0 of the program (should point to the download page at SourceForge?). Also, instead of using TinyUrl you could make a link like this here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80109), where the url is hidden?

Cancel button: Finally, I know you've already commented on it, but... Please once again consider adding a cancel button when loading an original sup file and creating the new sup file. It takes around 30-40 seconds to load the original sup file (with teh default setting) on my old PC. Would be nice to be able to quit this process. :D

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I have a suggestion for your pdf guide on how to add subtitles to a DVD. You can easily expand the guide so that it covers the common situation where you want to keep the menu (and extras etc.), too: With the freeware tool VobBlanker (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=86437) (created by jsoto), you can simply replace the old VTST with the newly authored VTST including the custom subs. By using VobBlanker instead of just copying the files manually, all vectors and sector pointers etc. are correctly updated in the IFO files.

Btw, what would it take to make the program completely stand-alone, without having to install MS .net? I'm not a programmer, so I wouldn't really know, but it seems that lotsa other C++ apps can be run w/o MS .net after they're compiled?

[CoNS]

myello paddington, you there? Still knocked up from new years eve?! :D

[Paddington]

Yeah, yeah, have been busy.
You know how it is - juggling between family, work and hobby...

New version 1.3.3 has been released (http://sourceforge.net/projects/subtitlecreator/)

Some quick remarks, as it's getting late here:

Preview window now with yellow border around the subtitle
You can now save the synchronized subtitle file
Improved the reading of SUP files (not perfect, though). Maybe I could find out from mpucoder how they really work, but I am not a member, unfortunately
Added VobBlanker to the guide (thanks for the tip, ConNS!)
Abort button for the reading of the SUP file
Preview button will open only one copy of the window
Font name changed from Sub to Font
About tab: links are now clickable
Preliminary stretching implemented (not tested however!!!): you can define how much you want to stretch your subtitles in the .xml file.

One of the first things I still need to fix is better antialiasing (indeed, it currently is only a thin grey line, which goes fast, as true antialiasing with only one color is quite difficult), and the Persian font problem. The main difficulty being that I can't reproduce it (choosing a continuous Windows font displays correctly).

[CoNS]

Yeah, I know how it is! Thx for the new version, now we're getting there!! :)

Been testing it a bit here tonight and found some minor bugs in the preview window:

1. When I open the program, load a random .srt file and click "Preview", I get the nice Ashley Judd in PAL as default. If I change to NTSC, the bottom line of the yellow target box is now a few pixels below the actual NTSC picture. If I press PAL again, and then NTSC again, the yellow target box is now placed somewhat higher in the NTSC picture. In the process, I'm not changing the vertical alignment setting or selecting a profile or anything...

2. When I open the preview window, select NTSC and Change Font, and Ok (without making any changes in the font window), the yellow target box is moved up 1-2 pixels. This happens only the first time I do it.

3. When I open the preview window, select NTSC, click Cancel and then open the preview window again, PAL is selected by default and also says PAL in the window title BUT the nice Ms. Judd is displayed in NTSC format not PAL.

[Paddington]

Hi, I haven't had a time to fix your bugs (that will come), but I did upload another version, which contains another bug fix wrt loading sup files. Additionally, I've received another remark about the subtitle lines from Xenite, and I hope that's fixed too...

[Maxiuca]

http://www.maxiuca.com/sc_error.jpg

What now?

Oh and it happens right after I star the program :)

[CoNS]

What do you mean, Maxiuca?

EDIT: Ah, at first your pic didn't show at all. Now I see what you mean! :)

[Paddington]

Hi, Maxiuca, can you tell me a bit more when this occurred - it's a new error for me (Operating System, what did you do exactly, ..?)
Thanks!

[Maxiuca]

Hi,

My OS is Windows XP SP2 Polish Edition with .net framework and all possible updates. It happens on my desktop computer as well as on my laptop (running the same os). Funny thing is that this message is displayed in Polish on my desktop and in english on my laptop, but I guess I has something to do with the language pack for .net framework (which I probably haven't installed on the laptop). If you need any more details please just reply on this forum.

[maques]

Yesterday I also tried to report this - and some other - problems to your sf address, but it bounced back the 2MB mail. Now I created a page for it (not to trash the tread).

See it here: http://www.huweb.hu/maques/sc

BTW., at sourceforge, maybe the "web-page" could point to this forum or to some basic information page...

M.

[Paddington]

Hi Maques. Thanks for setting up everything on your server (you can also try to mail me at erik_vullings at yahoo.com).

I've downloaded your profiles and the error messages. BTW, what version are you using, as I see that your profiles file doesn't have any Stretch factors defined (new feature)? The current build is 1.3.4 (see about tab).

Let me go through your list:
1) Correct - thanks for that (I already do read those first lines, but I forgot to specify the frame rate = 29.97F (F for Float)). Fixed in the next version.

2) If you don't install it properly (no XML config file) it will crash - too bad, but not of my immediate concern (there are more pressing bugs).

3) Although I am fluent in 6 languages, Hungarian is not one of them :-) What version of SC are you currently using? I've

4) Everything displays correctly on my system???

5) Change font: Yes, this is a bug - the change font routine resets some values incorrectly...

6) I didn't find two spaces there?

7) Font numbers 0-15. Makes sense - done!

8) Output bitmaps for debugging: actually, I do this already for myself, but you are right, I will include it in my next release too.

9) 3 Lines - I see your point now, and I will try to include it: my main issue is that the formatting is something I am not happy with, and I would like to replace it altogether. However, it's a difficult method, and I am a bit reluctant to start it. My preferred solution would be to use something like a rich text edit box, and use all the standard tools available for that. However, this doesn't come with outlining, so I would have to do that manually too...

[puschpull]

I Have The Same Problem With New Version Like "Maxiuca"
:-(

W-XP Pro (SP2), Czech

http://puschpull.org/doc/screen.png

[maques]

Hi Paddington.
Seems like you can start collecting the error messages in different languages, you'll be fluent in how to say "exception" in several languages :-]

>>BTW, what version are you using, as I see that your profiles...
I use the newest 1.3.4 version with my older profile, simply because after copying the new XML, SC did the error. It also happened in the previous version (1.3.3? - I lost track :-] ).
-
I played it with a little, if I remove all the "Stretch" lines from the xml file, it starts ok (removing from the 1st/default is not enough). Maybe some Central European font/stretch issue???

>>4) Everything displays correctly on my system???
Interesting. Any hints? I'll try this on other computers then.
Maybe you don't have "subtitle" font, as specified in my profile.
That is basically "tahoma", I checked, it also happens with that.

>>6) I didn't find two spaces there?
Screenshot with highlight added to my page.
[ http://www.huweb.hu/maques/sc/2sp.png ]

>>9) 3 Lines - I see your point now, and I will try to include it:
Cool!

>>my main issue is that the formatting is something I am not happy
>>with, and I would like to replace it altogether. However, it's a
>>difficult method, and I am a bit reluctant to start it. My
>>preferred solution would be to use something like a rich text edit
>>box, and use all the standard tools available for that. However,
>>this doesn't come with outlining, so I would have to do that
>>manually too...
I (sort of) understand. Why don't you put up your concerns here, and brainstorming might get out the best approach on this.

For the rest done, thanks.

[krypton22]

I can only confirm what the other guys said, the program doesn't even start. :O(

[Paddington]

krypton22, maques, and Maxiuca, have you ever installed the dotnetfx (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=262d25e3-f589-4842-8157-034d1e7cf3a3&displaylang=en), which is needed to run C# programs?

I will post an update later today, which also includes the option to save bitmap output, and to use multiple lines...

[Maxiuca]

sure, as I wrote I have the .NET Framework installed (as well as all the other Win XP updates). The problems appears when I run the program with the xml file included in the archive. The programs runs well after deleting the file, but, of course, I can't do anything with the subtitles when the xml file is missing. I think that the might be some problems with the localized central european versions of windows (Hngary, Czech Republic, Poland...)

UPDATE: I was right and I found a (temporal) solution to this problem.
In europe (especially in central europe, but afaik in Germany also) we use commas for writing decimal fractions. USA/Canada and probably all english speaking countries (including Australia, right?) uses points. So it's 1,0 and not 1.0. If you change all 6 <Stretch> values from the xml file from 1.0 to 1,0 the program will start and work properly.

[maques]

As I wrote, if I remove the <Stretch...> tag[s], then it starts/works.
(BTW it doesn't work at all if you dont have net framework installed. I have, together with the latest updates.)

[CoNS]

Originally posted by Paddington
I will post an update later today, which also includes the option to save bitmap output, and to use multiple lines... Ahh, nice. I think your tool has a lot of potential, it's very much needed to have a better and faster tool than srt2sup. However, I still think there're things to be fixed and issues to be dealt with in SC, before I'll let srt2sup, which I know to work well but slow, go. I check back here in this thread every day to see if a new version has been released with bug fixes etc., but the development is going a bit slow ;) (yes, I know... Family, job...) BTW, have you identified the three new bugs I described regarding the preview window?

Originally posted by Maxiuca
In europe (especially in central europe, but afaik in Germany also) we use commas for writing decimal fractions. USA/Canada and probably all english speaking countries (including Australia, right?) uses points. So it's 1,0 and not 1.0. If you change all 6 <Stretch> values from the xml file from 1.0 to 1,0 the program will start and work properly. Sounds like a reasonable explanation. In Scandinavia the problem is the same, we use commas instead of period marks for decimals.

[Paddington]

Originally posted by CoNS

1. When I open the program, load a random .srt file and click "Preview", I get the nice Ashley Judd in PAL as default. If I change to NTSC, the bottom line of the yellow target box is now a few pixels below the actual NTSC picture. If I press PAL again, and then NTSC again, the yellow target box is now placed somewhat higher in the NTSC picture. In the process, I'm not changing the vertical alignment setting or selecting a profile or anything...

2. When I open the preview window, select NTSC and Change Font, and Ok (without making any changes in the font window), the yellow target box is moved up 1-2 pixels. This happens only the first time I do it.

3. When I open the preview window, select NTSC, click Cancel and then open the preview window again, PAL is selected by default and also says PAL in the window title BUT the nice Ms. Judd is displayed in NTSC format not PAL.

The new version (https://sourceforge.net/projects/subtitlecreator/) has fixed these bugs, and probably introduced some others for you to find :D
1. In principle, it tries to keep the position on the same height. However, you won't be able to move the subtitle window outside the screen, so it might move up when you switch from PAL to NTSC, and remain on the same height when you switch back.

2. I've fixed this stupid bug in Windows: when I start, I specify Arial Narrow, size 20, and Windows sets this correctly. However, if you do the same via the standard change font dialog (or change nothing), it sets the font to 19.800xxx, moving the window up a bit! How stupid!

3. Fixed.

Maxiuaca, Thanks for finding that bug with the decimals!:p. I am surprised that this happens with XML files, which should be easy to interchange. Probably, this interoperability issue has been solved somehow, but in the mean time, I've converted the stretch to percentages (I've multiplied the value with 100, so I don't need to read decimals.

BTW, I am originally Dutch, although a bit less than a year ago, I've migrated to Australia, so I am also used to commas for decimals...

Finally, have a look at the new version, which allows you to specify a couple of extra functionality in the Preview window, or in the XML config file:
Specify how many lines you wish to use for the subtitle
Specify whether you want SC to automatically wrap lines
Specify whether you want SC to generate bitmaps of the subtitles for you
Specify whether you want SC to remove double spaces and other types of annoyances

[krypton22]

works a charm now, thanks man (and thanks to Maxiuca and maques for their detective work, Id never thought of that)

[CoNS]

Hmm, weird. When I download v1.4 from SourceForge and run it, it says v1.3.4 under the About tab. Also, I can't see those new options you describe, with number of lines etc...?

[Paddington]

Hi CoNS, can you give it another go today...

[CoNS]

Yep, now I get version 1.4 when I click the link at SourceForge. Very weird that it worked for krypton22 yesterday, though?

Looks good so far. Thanks for the new version. :) Will do some more testing later.

A suggestion: When the program starts up, you're supposed to open a subtitle file as the first thing. Until then the options at the start tab is greyed out (disabled). Instead of displaying the popup window with a warning when clicking the two middle tabs, could you grey out those, too? Or alternatively let the user click the tabs but have the options greyed out (until a subtitle file is loaded)? It's a very small detail, but it would make the program work a bit more like the typical GUI of Windows programs.

[maques]

Originally posted by CoNS
A suggestion: When the program starts up, you're supposed to open a subtitle file as the first thing. ... Instead ...
Why not start with an open file dialog right away instead?

[Paddington]

BTW, I found that the problem with the lines under the subtitles occured again, and I fixed and updated the release.