The current Goldenseal accounting software stores images as PICT. It was a very good format, popular for a couple of decades. PICT can include bitmaps, and also MacDraw-style vectors. Sadly, it’s obsolete now. Apple abandoned it completely in their 64-bit versions.
The Qt framework that we use for our new accounting software can’t read PICT. We didn’t find any C++ libraries to convert PICT to newer formats. It’s not worth the several months it would take to write the code from scratch. So, hacks and work-arounds are needed to move graphics from Goldenseal to the new accounting software.
Goldenseal stores graphics data in several different places. Some are resources inside the app: icons, pictures, and graphics inside layouts. Our staff moved those built-in PICTs last winter. We had to take screen shots, save them as files, embed them inside the app, and convert ID numbers to file paths to access them. The pictures for estimating dimensions were especially tricky.
Users can also paste pictures into the company file. Last week we set up a way to show most of those user-created PICTs. Printed forms and data entry screens now show pictures that were pasted into the layout. They also show your logo, pasted into Company Info.
The solution is hacky, but it should work for most users. You’ll need to save your logo into a file called TSLogo.png, and put it in the Documents folder. Save any other graphics as TPPicture-106.png (for printed forms) or TSPicture-106.png (for data entry screens). The number is different for each class of record. We’ll publish a cheat sheet so you know which to use.
It’s not an elegant system, but it’s good enough for a temporary fix. Graphics will be easier after we rewrite Custom Layouts. That won’t be in the first release, but it won’t take too long to finish it.
One little-known feature in Goldenseal is picture fields. A few types of records let you paste in a PICT image that is stored in the database. Sadly, we don’t have any way to move those into TurtleSoft Pro. To save them, you can take screen shots, then save those as files elsewhere. There also are websites that will convert PICT to newer formats.
In a future update, the new accounting software will link to exterior files of all types. For now, we’re just trying to make old data work OK.
Sometimes progress is painful, especially on Macintosh. I lost blueprints and many other useful files made by apps that are dead. This summer, I talked with a couple of scientist friends who have years of data in old Mac formats, now lost forever.
Hopefully the pace of progress has slowed a bit. It will be nice if this next generation of pictures and data can last longer.
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com
