In article <qqazxxsw-757396.07591217102004@news.povray.org> , Lazarus Plath
<qqa### [at] yahoocom>  wrote:

> So when you first run the paths to external files is empty
> and you need to specify them. Figuring this out and the greyed menu
> items are the main source of frustration for new users I think, at least
> in my case.

They are actually set, but on some newer systems this does not seem to work
as expected.  It might be related to some security update or something
specific on those systems.  Usually new users are not beta testers (which is
good thing), but it also makes identifying problems like this less likely.

Of course, the generic error message would be understandable even for a Mac
user, but that would require having read the Mac as well as the generic
manual parts.  As such, the next version will contain a different error
message for this specific case that explains it to Mac users specifically.

> It's not the most intuitive to mac users, there is a steep initial
> learning curve and lots of research before you can start playing with
> making scenes. The usual learning by messing with the app doesn't apply
> here, you have to read, and there's lots to read. But it's well worth
> it, I'm amazed by how much it can do.

I agree that there could be a better Mac tutorial ... but few users check
the manual at all before trying to use POV-Ray as past experience has shown
:-(

>  PovRay itself seems to store those
> settings in the resource fork of the file, it doesn't seem practical for
> me to do the same. I've tried setting the render width and height in the
> pov file but they are ignored. does it go in an inc file, an ini, some
> other file? Do I need to link to the other file from the pov code?

You can do this by using INI files, they are explained in the reference
section of the documentation.

> I want to use pov as a render engine and not have to mess with code

You might want to consider getting the Unix version and compiling it rather
than using the Mac GUI version.  It would give you a plain command-line
version of POV-Ray.

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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