ProSelect 2011r1 contains some major changes to the way frames are handled. 

New Feature Summary

• Frames in ProSelect are now controlled through a new Setup Frames window (under the Resources Menu).


• You can now have subfolders of frame images (up to one level deep) in your ProSelect Resources Frames folder to separate frame images or types from your frames suppliers.


• The Pro version of ProSelect allows you to organize your frames into arbitrary groups to make it easier to manage lots of frames within ProSelect. For example, you could group your frames by supplier, color, size or price. The groups can be expanded/collapsed in the frames popup menu when you click on the right-hand tool bar. 


• "Generic Frames" used in previous versions have been removed and are now downloaded as part of the installer package in ProSelect and called "Default Frames". New installations or upgrades from earlier versions which had the preferences set to show Generic frames, will have these frames automatically added to the available frames list on first startup. 


• The maximum number of frames that can be loaded in ProSelect Pro has been increased to 150  (300 as of v2014r1). The basic version of ProSelect now allows up to 12 frames which can be any mix of the "Default Frames" that come with the software or any custom frame images that you install.


• You can change the display name of a frame to something other than the name of the frame image file.


• You can change the way the frame is "tiled" if the supplied frame image was incorrectly labelled.


• The Setup Frames window includes an "Import Frames Folder" button which you can use to import a folder of frame images that you have downloaded directly into the frames folder (under your ProSelect Resources folder). These are placed in a subfolder of the same name in your Frames folder.


• The Setup Frames window includes a "Check Frames" button that will check all of the frames in your Frames folder (or a selected subfolder)  to make sure that they have been created with valid sizes and correct names.  A warning icon displays next to any frames with errors, and if you click in that frame, the reason for the error will be displayed at the bottom of the list.

What's actually happening

Frames are no longer automatically loaded from the frames folder. They are now controlled from the Setup Frames window (under Resources menu) and handled in a similar way to templates with overlay images. That is, the Prices and Templates data file (ProSelect_Data.xml) contains the list of Available Frames for use in ProSelect. Each of these frame items includes the name and location of the associated frame image file in your Frames folder.  

Missing Frame Images

If you move/change your ProSelect Resources folder or anything in the Frames subfolder and ProSelect can't locate the frame image file for one of your available frames, then it will display a dummy missing image frame around your prints or layouts.

When you first open the Setup Frames window, ProSelect checks that it can find the images for all of your Available Frames and displays any missing ones in red so you can quickly see any problem ones.  If you made any changes to the contents of your Frames folder (such as replacing some missing images), you should re-start ProSelect and open the Setup Frames window again to have it check your Available Frames again.

Converting from 2010r1 and earlier

The first time you run 2011r1 (or if you have deleted your ProSelect_data.xml file), ProSelect will automatically create the Available Frames list based on whatever frames you currently have in the frames folder and your old Preferences setting (for including generic or custom image, sorting etc). This means that initially your frame selection should be similar to how you had it setup with the earlier versions of ProSelect except you may find that you have more frame available if you have ProSelect Pro.

Frame Image Errors

While testing this new version, we did find that a number of the images from some frame suppliers were not correctly prepared. The new "Check Frames" button in the Setup Frames window makes it very easy to find these images and identify what the problems are. We contacted the frame suppliers whose images we found needed fixing but we did not test all images from all suppliers.

So when setting up your frames, you should check if your frame supplier has updated their frame images first. If you are still finding errors with any frame images, please contact your supplier about this.