Bug Report: MLE Figures have gone AWOL!

CarrickCon

Hi GM'ers

I have this periodic problem which seems to occur randomly and I've had difficulty re-creating it, but occasionally when I click on the MLE icon I discover that figures I have set up previously have all gone missing and the only option I have is to set up new figures via the "New Layouts Option" dialogue box! As you can imagine this is VERY frustrating, particularly if you have spent a lot of time setting up the figures in a previous session! 😩

It seems to happen with large workspaces that I've worked on over several sessions and I thought that perhaps it was connected with doing a "Save As" on a workspace with perhaps that day's date. I've tried to recreate this error and haven't been successful and was wondering if anyone else there has had the same problem?

Today I opened an existing workspace that I last worked on about a week ago only to find that 14 detailed figures that I was about to print and include in a client's report had all gone AWOL! The template files are all still in the project directory and I had saved all figures and the workspace when I last worked on it so I have no idea why the figures are no longer there in the MLE...

I have switched to GM 26.1 in the meantime and I thought that might have something to do with it, but even when I tried opening it in GM 26.0 (the version the workspace was originally created in, they are still missing). I have had this intermittent problem over the last few versions/years (I've been around since GM V17), so I don't think its related to recent versions.

Any and all help much appreciated as this is a royal pain in the ass!

Ta,

/al

bmg_mike

That definitely does sound like an annoying issue. The MLE changes in 26.1 were related to the UI, and it sounds like you've been seeing this for a while, so there must be an issue in the process of saving / loading the layout to a GMW workspace file.

If you open a GMW in a text editor, the Map Layout definition is in between START_LAYOUT_DEF ... END_LAYOUT_DEF (like below). Does your GMW that is missing the figures have something like that?

START_LAYOUT_DEF NUM_LAYOUT_PAGES="2" ACTIVE_WINDOW_RECT="0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000"
START_PAGE Name="Default";IsCustomName=FALSE;Bounds="3034517.412,481540.350,3061037.095,512479.981";Scale=0;IncludeInIndex=FALSE;MapTitle=""
PAGE_DEFINITION Name="A4 (21 cm x 29.7 cm)";Size="8.267700,11.692890";Unit=2;Margins="1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000";BackgroundColor=16777215;Orientation=0
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=0;Position="1.804778,10.190876";Size="4.315912,7.738222";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=TRUE;FrameStyle="4294967233,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;FrameGridDef="0,0,0.000000000000,0,Arial~0~534799368~0.000~0~0~16777215~-1~16777215,1,1,0,1,-1";DrawIndexLayer=FALSE
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=6;Position="2.528815,3.911614";Size="4.076704,3.010039";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=TRUE;FrameStyle="64,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;NumElements=2;Buffer=0.098425
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=4;Position="2.627240,2.013295";Size="3.013219,1.013295";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=TRUE;FrameStyle="4294967233,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;BackgroundColor=16740721;Font="Verdana~0~102412~0.000~0~0~16777215~-1~4294967295";TickSpacing=0;TickSpacingUnit=0;TickLabelOption=0;TickCustomText=""
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=1;Position="4.467171,3.813189";Size="2.039923,2.039923";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=FALSE;FrameStyle="4294967233,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;SymbolName="North Arrow - Compass Rose, Color"
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=3;Position="0.697091,9.292710";Size="1.159783,2.110424";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=TRUE;FrameStyle="192,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;Type=1;BackgroundColor=16740207;BorderStyle="0,2097152,0.0";Font="~0~534799368~0.000~0~0~16777215~-1~4294967295";Footer="";FooterFont="~0~534799372~0.000~0~0~16777215~-1~4294967295";InclOnlyDataWithinBounds=FALSE;Header="";HeaderFont="~0~534799372~0.000~0~0~16777215~-1~4294967295";LabelAttr="<Feature Description>";NumColumns=1;Palette="";UseNaturalSort=0;FilteredLayers="";UseGroups=0
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=2;Position="6.120691,9.392338";Size="1.045706,4.049733";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=FALSE;FrameStyle="4294967233,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;BackgroundColor=16777215;CustomRangeMax=0;CustomRangeMin=0;DisplayUnits=TRUE;UnitsStr="";Font="~0~534799372~0.000~0~0~16777215~-1~4294967295";RangeType=0;SlopePercent=FALSE;DisplayType=2;Title=""
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=7;Position="5.697465,2.295989";Size="2.680809,2.072398";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=FALSE;FrameStyle="4294967233,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;FileName="W:\QAQC\Test Data\CartoTest\test2.png"
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=6;Position="-0.751245,11.957867";Size="6.970112,2.782595";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=TRUE;FrameStyle="64,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;NumElements=2;Buffer=0.098425
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=5;Position="2.307253,10.692928";Size="3.813189,0.959964";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=TRUE;FrameStyle="192,0,64,10485760,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;Text="Blue Marble";Font="Trebuchet MS~10485760~179248~0.000~0~0~16777215~-1~4294967295";Justification=1;AutoAdjustSize=FALSE
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=7;Position="-0.652820,11.859442";Size="3.422309,2.585745";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=FALSE;FrameStyle="4294967233,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;FileName="W:\QAQC\Test Data\CartoTest\test.png"
END_PAGE
START_PAGE Name="Page 1";IsCustomName=FALSE;Bounds="3054031.735,508197.849,3057651.993,511153.534";Scale=0;IncludeInIndex=TRUE;MapTitle=""
PAGE_DEFINITION Name="A4";Size="8.267700,11.692890";Unit=2;Margins="0.750000,0.750000,0.750000,0.750000";BackgroundColor=16777215;Orientation=0
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=0;Position="0.750000,10.942890";Size="6.767700,10.192890";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=TRUE;FrameStyle="4294967233,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;FrameGridDef="0,0,0.000000000000,0,Arial~0~534799368~0.000~0~0~16777215~-1~16777215,1,1,0,1,-1";DrawIndexLayer=FALSE;LayerList="gardiner map.jpg|JPEG|gardiner map.jpg||"
LAYOUT_ELEMENT ElementType=4;Position="1.333585,2.189442";Size="3.014449,1.015393";IsVisible=TRUE;HasFrame=TRUE;FrameStyle="4294967233,0,0,2097152,0.0";Translucency=512;IsTransparent=TRUE;RotationAngle=0;BackgroundColor=16777215;Font="~0~534799372~0.000~0~0~16777215~-1~16777215";TickSpacing=0;TickSpacingUnit=0;TickLabelOption=0;TickCustomText=""
END_PAGE
END_LAYOUT_DEF

I don't see anything obvious that would make that be lost on save, but maybe it is a load issue.

You might also turn on the option to automatically back up workspaces as changes are made to see if you can recover the definition from an earlier one when it happens (assuming it's not some issue we can easily reproduce and fix).

Thanks,

Mike

Global Mapper Guru

CarrickCon

Hi Mike,

I looked and the .gmw it is missing the entire "Map Layout definition between START_LAYOUT_DEF & END_LAYOUT_DEF".

I have stripped out most of the info to make it smaller/anonymous and attached it as .gmw and .gmp if you want to take a look? I've also attached some of my template files in case that is helpful.

The strange thing is that it did have all 14 figures set up in an earlier version of the workspace which I updated with the following day's date (I always over-save and update the date when modifying a workspace to ensure that I'm working on the latest version), but when I opened it the other day they were ALL missing! Luckily I was able to go back to the previous day's version and print out the report figures from it.

Still, it doesn't explain why this has happened sporadically in the past when reopening workspaces with figures setup in the MLE, only to find that they are missing and need to be re-created.

Your help is much appreciated.

/al

Workspace 250304 MISSING FIGURES.zip

Figs 10-14 A3 PORTRAIT.zip

bmg_mike

The layout definition is definitely not in the GMW that you attached. Of course, once it's gone, it's not really possible to tell why.

It looks like the current layout definition will be reset when you do either of the following:

• running a script or loading a GMW with an UNLOAD_ALL command in it
• selecting File->Unload All
• create a New Layout in the Map Layout Editor

It seems like the last one is the most likely situation to occur, otherwise all of your data would be unloaded otherwise. Or perhaps you run a script with File->Run Script, but NOT in the context of the main map view, but that still resets the layout definition (which seems incorrect to me).

Thanks,

Mike

Global Mapper Guru

CarrickCon

Thanks Mike.

I'm not a "scripting" type of guy and have never run a script in GM (or anything lese for that matter) in my life, so we can definitely discount anything to do with that.

When I finish working on a workspace and then need to work on a different job/project I save/re-save the current workspace (using today's date) and then sometimes use "File ->Unload All" before loading the next workspace, so perhaps that's it? Maybe I'd be better quitting out of GM entirely when I'm switching between different jobs and workspaces and opening a completely new GM session?

I only ever use create "New Layout" in the MLE when I'm setting up the first figure for that workspace. I have a set of A4/A3/A2 figure/drawing blocks that I have set up and always use for client reports, so when I add a second figure I always use "Add a new page to the current map" command.

Ta,

/al