Hello,

Your observations about how it behaves now are accurate.  However, we have many users who have lots of scenarios for relatives paths, so it's unlikely that we would make everyone happy with one particular relative path mode. So, what we could do is have a "relative path mode" option that simply returns the base file name.  That way, we don't need to make assumptions about the actual location of the images directory.

It might seem like an obvious solution is to base the relative path on the current location of the source VXM script, but as mentioned above, we've seen lots of path scenarios from our users over the years:  images are a simple subdirectory, for other users it's one folder up and two down, for others they go to a common network location (repository) and then separate subdirectories for each project, etc.  To make it harder, these relative locations can change during production deployment after the initial development is completed -- in other words, we could easily create a large amount of tech support questions for any change made to relative path handling.  Typically, users get around this by using

variables

for the path, which can then be changed in a single spot (such as "%image_folder").  So any solution would have to be something simple like either a bare file name, or the full path.

Maybe others out there have hints or suggestions, but most probably use variables for path management.

If it was set up like that and you had more than one file with the same name in different folders, how would vtask know which one you wanted?

ex.
       \abc company\logo.bmp
       \xyz company\logo.bmp

Hi all,

I was the user who posted this request by email. First, I should clarify exactly what I mean:

Suppose I create a vTask project in a folder named "myproject" and I create 100 image-based automation steps using the built-in tool to capture a screen area to generate the image. I place each of those images in the "myproject" folder along with the .vxm file. By default, as each image is created, the path inserted into the properties of the "Click on Image" step is "C:\path\to\myproject\newimage.bmp". Now, if I ever want to move the "myproject" folder, I have instantly broken every single step in my project, so whenever I insert a new image into a "Click on Image" or "Move to Image" step, I delete "C:\path\to\myproject\" from the path, leaving just "newimage.bmp". This works well, and enables me to move the "myproject" around with ease, but it is tedious to have to delete the path leading to the image every time I use an image in a step. I want a user selectable option in "Tools > Options" to do this behaviour by default, so when I select or create an image, instead of using an absolute path it uses a path relative to the .vxm file. When I say default, I mean that when the option is enabled by the user, it becomes the default behavior - the option itself should probably not be enabled by default.

Now, it seems logical to me that if this option were enabled, then selecting an image in a subfolder 1 level down from the .vxm file, the inserted path would be ".\subfolder\newimage.bmp" and likewise a folder 1 level up would create a path like " "..\newimage.bmp". This would make it easier to organise lots of images into subfolders below the .vxm file. So, cappy, to answer your point, I would see it inserting "abc company" or "xyz company" as part of the relative path, so that's how it would know which image you meant. It would work on the same principal as relative paths in hyperlinks in HTML pages in that it is relative to the location of the .vxm file.

Having said that, I'd be quite happy at the moment if all it did was dump the entire path and insert "newimage.bmp" in all cases (requiring me to re-insert the folder path if the image was in a different folder) or more sensibly, have this behaviour only apply when the selected image was in the same folder as the .vxm file.

I'm not asking for new behaviour in how relative paths are resolved, only that the already existing behaviour for resolving relative paths is made easier to use by making it the default.

Cappy is correct.

Most often you will be using paths of subfolders that are relative to the location of the *.vxm script.  vTask already has this functionality build in. The vTask variable {filepath} returns the path of the vtask script that is running.

{filepath}  will return "C:\path\to\myproject"   

So do a find and replace on the entire script replacing "C:\path\to\myproject" with {filepath}. Then you can move things around and everything will work perfectly.

I appreciate what everyone is saying here, but as far as I'm concerned, {filepath} is not the answer. My point is that I don't want to have to manually intervene to make the paths relative - I want this to happen automatically. I could globally replace my project path with {filepath}, equally I could globally replace my project path with "" which would have an identical effect. It doesn't make it any less inconvenient and I don't want to do it only when I've finished working on my project because I might forget - I'd rather do it every time I create a step, but what I really want is not to have to do it in the first place.

Quote:


Going back to comment #2 on this thread, the best solution might be a global Options setting that only returns the base name, and not the entire path name, and thus require no manual intervention.  This would be an automatic response when selecting an image.  If that's the best solution, it can be added to the request list.

Quote:


As you described it, a variable seems to provide the needed functionality.  Using a "%folder" variable, and then using it during the run, allows you to have that setting at the beginning of the script.  Adding something different might complicate things; not sure how else it could work cleanly.

Feature requests may be emailed to support@vtaskstudio.com.  Your request has been added to the database for consideration.