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From: Mike Horvath
Subject: Right-click menu in Windows Explorer
Date: 21 Jan 2018 12:09:27
Message: <5a64c947@news.povray.org>
Weird issue with

Persistence of Vision(tm) Ray Tracer Version
3.8.0-alpha.9475849+av541.msvc14.win64

and maybe earlier.

In Windows explorer I can select two POV files, then right click on one
of them and select "Edit in POVray". However, two separate instances of
POVray are created, with one file in each.

if you instead select three (or more) POV files and "Edit in POVray",
all three files are opened in the same instance.


Mike


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From: Mike Horvath
Subject: Re: Right-click menu in Windows Explorer
Date: 21 Jan 2018 12:52:49
Message: <5a64d371$1@news.povray.org>
On 1/21/2018 12:09 PM, Mike Horvath wrote:
> Weird issue with
> 
> Persistence of Vision(tm) Ray Tracer Version
> 3.8.0-alpha.9475849+av541.msvc14.win64
> 
> and maybe earlier.
> 
> In Windows explorer I can select two POV files, then right click on one
> of them and select "Edit in POVray". However, two separate instances of
> POVray are created, with one file in each.
> 
> if you instead select three (or more) POV files and "Edit in POVray",
> all three files are opened in the same instance.
> 
> 
> Mike


If I wasn't clear, I think the latter is the correct behavior.

Mike


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From: clipka
Subject: Re: Right-click menu in Windows Explorer
Date: 21 Jan 2018 15:52:37
Message: <5a64fd95$1@news.povray.org>
Am 21.01.2018 um 18:09 schrieb Mike Horvath:
> Weird issue with
> 
> Persistence of Vision(tm) Ray Tracer Version
> 3.8.0-alpha.9475849+av541.msvc14.win64
> 
> and maybe earlier.
> 
> In Windows explorer I can select two POV files, then right click on one
> of them and select "Edit in POVray". However, two separate instances of
> POVray are created, with one file in each.
> 
> if you instead select three (or more) POV files and "Edit in POVray",
> all three files are opened in the same instance.


Can't confirm here (Windows 10 build 1709): I get the same behaviour
regardless of the number of files opened (both 2 and 3 tested); I do get
different behaviour depending on whether "Keep single instance" is on or
off (and the behaviour is as to be expected from that setting).

Didn't test with exactly the same version as you did, but there
shouldn't be a difference.


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From: Kontemplator
Subject: Re: Right-click menu in Windows Explorer
Date: 21 Jan 2018 16:20:01
Message: <web.5a65038bf442417e6080ff20@news.povray.org>
clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> Am 21.01.2018 um 18:09 schrieb Mike Horvath:
> > Weird issue with
> >
> > Persistence of Vision(tm) Ray Tracer Version
> > 3.8.0-alpha.9475849+av541.msvc14.win64
> >
> > and maybe earlier.
> >
> > In Windows explorer I can select two POV files, then right click on one
> > of them and select "Edit in POVray". However, two separate instances of
> > POVray are created, with one file in each.
> >
> > if you instead select three (or more) POV files and "Edit in POVray",
> > all three files are opened in the same instance.
>
>
> Can't confirm here (Windows 10 build 1709): I get the same behaviour
> regardless of the number of files opened (both 2 and 3 tested); I do get
> different behaviour depending on whether "Keep single instance" is on or
> off (and the behaviour is as to be expected from that setting).
>
> Didn't test with exactly the same version as you did, but there
> shouldn't be a difference.

Here Pov-Ray opens twice if it is'nt running. I have set "keep single instance".
But i never used it that way to open files.


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From: Kenneth
Subject: Re: Right-click menu in Windows Explorer
Date: 21 Jan 2018 17:45:01
Message: <web.5a651624f442417a47873e10@news.povray.org>
With v3.7.1 beta 9 (in Win 7), and "keep single instance" active, I'm actually
getting *both* behaviors, seemingly at random. Sometimes 2 files open 2 copies
of POV-Ray, sometimes only one copy with the usual "You've decided to keep
single instance" warning (and then both files are loaded into that single
instance.) I haven't yet nailed down the reason for this-- perhaps it depends on
whether or not  one (or both?) of the chosen files have already been loaded
previously? or maybe/also on which of the 2 files is chosen from the desktop to
'Edit with POV-Ray'? I've tried a few tests of those permutations, but I still
don't get completely consistent results.


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From: clipka
Subject: Re: Right-click menu in Windows Explorer
Date: 22 Jan 2018 05:47:19
Message: <5a65c137@news.povray.org>
Am 21.01.2018 um 23:40 schrieb Kenneth:
> With v3.7.1 beta 9 (in Win 7), and "keep single instance" active, I'm actually
> getting *both* behaviors, seemingly at random. Sometimes 2 files open 2 copies
> of POV-Ray, sometimes only one copy with the usual "You've decided to keep
> single instance" warning (and then both files are loaded into that single
> instance.) I haven't yet nailed down the reason for this-- perhaps it depends on
> whether or not  one (or both?) of the chosen files have already been loaded
> previously? or maybe/also on which of the 2 files is chosen from the desktop to
> 'Edit with POV-Ray'? I've tried a few tests of those permutations, but I still
> don't get completely consistent results.

From a theoretical point of view, that seemingly random behaviour
actually makes kind of sense: I guess Windows will always run POV-Ray
for each individual file separately, and each instance of POV-Ray will
in turn try to figure out whether it should actually open the file
itself or defer that job to another instance (which I'll refer to as the
"king of the hill").

Now when an instance is started, it presumably first looks around
whether there already is a king of the hill, and only if such a king
isn't there it will declare itself king. This leaves a small time window
in which another instance looking for a king will see none, although one
is already in the process of declaring itself king.

In informatics, such situations are referred to as "race conditions",
and they are a real pain in the ass when trying to properly synchronize
multiple portions of a system (in this case two instances of POV-Ray).

This is probably non-trivial to solve, and given that we want to get rid
of that old POV-Ray for Windows anyway, I doubt whether it would be
worth the time and energy.


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From: Kenneth
Subject: Re: Right-click menu in Windows Explorer
Date: 22 Jan 2018 12:45:00
Message: <web.5a66221df442417a47873e10@news.povray.org>
clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:

>
> Now when an instance is started, it presumably first looks around
> whether there already is a king of the hill, and only if such a king
> isn't there it will declare itself king. This leaves a small time window
> in which another instance looking for a king will see none, although one
> is already in the process of declaring itself king.
>

So when trying to open "3 or more" files (as Mike Horvath says), there's more of
a 'chance' that a king-of-the-hill has already been invoked earlier-- resulting
in the normal 'keep single instance' behavior.

I wonder if older *slower* processors (like a really old Windows 286 system!)
would show more consistent behavior re: the race conditions-- in other words,
more 'time' to check if there's a king of the hill already present. Or maybe
there would be more INconsistent behavior-- because the first instance of
POV-Ray would be loading so slowly? Actually, I would assume that the faster
the processor(s), the more chance there would be of race conditions showing
their ugly heads.


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From: Mike Horvath
Subject: Re: Right-click menu in Windows Explorer
Date: 22 Jan 2018 14:11:38
Message: <5a66376a$1@news.povray.org>
I just tried with a fresh copy of POV-Ray 3.62 on Windows 10.

"Keep single instance" is enabled by default after installing POV-Ray.

The very first time you try to open 3 files at once, 2 instances of 
POV-Ray are spawned, and two of the instances tell me that "Keep single 
instance" is enabled, blah blah blah. After you click the checkbox to 
hide this message in the future, the program starts behaving as it 
should. E.g. all files are loaded in one instance of POV-Ray.

So, something happened to the editor in recent versions.


Mike


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From: Mike Horvath
Subject: Re: Right-click menu in Windows Explorer
Date: 22 Jan 2018 14:30:52
Message: <5a663bec$1@news.povray.org>
On 1/22/2018 2:11 PM, Mike Horvath wrote:
> I just tried with a fresh copy of POV-Ray 3.62 on Windows 10.
> 
> "Keep single instance" is enabled by default after installing POV-Ray.
> 
> The very first time you try to open 3 files at once, 2 instances of 
> POV-Ray are spawned, and two of the instances tell me that "Keep single 
> instance" is enabled, blah blah blah. After you click the checkbox to 
> hide this message in the future, the program starts behaving as it 
> should. E.g. all files are loaded in one instance of POV-Ray.
> 
> So, something happened to the editor in recent versions.
> 
> 
> Mike


I tried 3.62 on my principal Windows 7 machine, and the behavior is kind 
of random. It's possible my system is messed up after 
installing/reinstalling POV-Ray so many times.


Mike


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From: Mike Horvath
Subject: Re: Right-click menu in Windows Explorer
Date: 22 Jan 2018 14:40:11
Message: <5a663e1b$1@news.povray.org>
On 1/22/2018 2:30 PM, Mike Horvath wrote:
> I tried 3.62 on my principal Windows 7 machine, and the behavior is kind 
> of random. It's possible my system is messed up after 
> installing/reinstalling POV-Ray so many times.
> 
> 
> Mike

Now I can't uninstall/repair POV-Ray 3.62.

"Error opening installation log file. Verify that the specified location 
exists and is writable."

Sigh.


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