I can't seem to get my latest painting to submit, and I'd like to know if there's anything I can do to solve the problem.

I'm using Shi-Painter, and when I try to "Upload" my drawing, I keep getting a series of three message boxes.

The first asks me the usual question "Are you done with your picture? Click Yes to submit your picture.", with the usual "Yes/No" buttons.

When I click "Yes", then I get a confirmation box, which suddenly blips away before I can even see it.

Where it was, instead, I'm getting a message that says "Null, sendE", with a button that says "OK". Clicking "OK" does nothing, except get rid of the message box, leaving me with no remaining options, other than to close the window and give up, I guess.

Fortunately, I had done a screen capture on this image, as I did with my last image (which also wouldn't submit, but I'm presuming that may have been because of a problem on my end, which occurred that time, but wasn't there this time), so I'm not losing the work forever, but I really would like to know if there's anything I can do to salvage this picture, and post it to the site.

If it's relevant at all, from a technical standpoint, I thought I should mention that when I started this image I wasn't sure it would fit in the original canvas size, and so I resized the canvas, BEFORE any drawing had been done, and following the instructions as given.

I *think* there was a question box asking if I wanted to keep my existing image, and I didn't have one to keep or lose, so may have clicked the "Yes" button; I do know that when I went to work on the image, I couldn't access the bottom 50 pixels, which is what I added to the canvas size. I don't know whether this could have anything to do with my problems submitting, but I thought it best to give you all potentially applicable technical details.

I've let Marcello know, but I thought I'd ask the rest of you about this, because I figured that at very least folks might want to know about this glitch in order to warn people what not to do, in order to avoid creating this problem for themselves. <wry smile> And, maybe one of you has had the same problems, so I thought I'd check with you all to see.

If it helps any in figuring out what's wrong, I'm using IE 6, on a Windows platform.

Thank you for any help you can give me!

Um try checking your studio?

I have -- it's not there. <sigh> The applet page is still open, the page where the submission information (title, rating, and whatnot) is entered never even comes up.

So it was really only a forlorn hope that led me to check my studio, since I think that you have to make it past the submission info page for a piece to make it into your studio.

I just can't get this thing to send at all, it just sits there, as if I never told it to upload. I must have tried the sending process a dozen times, including after upgrading to Sun's Java 2, just in case that was the problem.

The picture, in the applet, just sits there, squatting like a malevolent... <pardon me, literary fit, I'm back now...> ...and won't send, no matter what I do. And I really liked it, too! <sighs>

Oh, well, at least in looking for help in the forums, I found one where it looks like I can post the finished image, once I make an output version from the screenshots I saved. That's a nice consolation prize, so to speak... <smile>

I'm using Shi-Painter

Ok, that's your first problem. Since I did not make this applet, do not have access to its source code, and the author cannot understand enough English to properly take any bug reports I send in.

When I click "Yes", then I get a confirmation box, which suddenly blips away before I can even see it.

That is normal, do not worry about it.

Where it was, instead, I'm getting a message that says "Null, sendE", with a button that says "OK". Clicking "OK" does nothing, except get rid of the message box, leaving me with no remaining options, other than to close the window and give up, I guess.

That would be your second problem. That is the send dialog, clicking "OK" is equivalent to clicking "Cancel and fuck up my image beyond all repair, lmao, you sucker." Of course, that would also be a problem in the applet, which as I said above, I have no control over.

If it's relevant at all, from a technical standpoint, I thought I should mention that when I started this image I wasn't sure it would fit in the original canvas size, and so I resized the canvas, BEFORE any drawing had been done, and following the instructions as given.

There is nothing wrong with changing the canvas size, if there were, I would not put that on 2draw.

I *think* there was a question box asking if I wanted to keep my existing image, and I didn't have one to keep or lose, so may have clicked the "Yes" button; I do know that when I went to work on the image, I couldn't access the bottom 50 pixels, which is what I added to the canvas size. I don't know whether this could have anything to do with my problems submitting, but I thought it best to give you all potentially applicable technical details.

This would be problem number 3. Another bug in the applet makes it try to restore an image even if you have changed the canvas size. I fixed this problem in my PaintBBS mod, but obviously my changes to PaintBBS will not affect Shi-Painter.
You absolutely have to click the NO button when you get that dialog. If you had used PaintBBS or Lascaux Sketch, it would not have asked you that question if you change the canvas size. You notice that you couldn't access the bottom 50 pixels, and that is no surprise, it is still using your old image. I will guess here that you only changed the height of the canvas, not the width, because the problem would be much more obvious.

I just can't get this thing to send at all, it just sits there, as if I never told it to upload. I must have tried the sending process a dozen times, including after upgrading to Sun's Java 2, just in case that was the problem.

This may or may not be problem number 4. Upgrading your Java, while you are using Java is very likely to screw things up, and it is quite possible your only chance of actually submitting your image (keep reading) will not work because of this.

The applet page is still open, the page where the submission information (title, rating, and whatnot) is entered never even comes up.

If you still have the applet open, here is what I suggest you do (no guarantee it will actually work, though):
First, hit refresh on the page. It should ask you if you want to restore your canvas image. Click Yes. Now the applet should be restored, and hopefully has your image in there. Then click upload again, click yes to confirm, but leave the second box open for at least half an hour before giving up.

It is quite possible your little canvas size stunt will prevent it from ever sending properly, however. I should probably test that when I have a chance.

Live and learn, I guess... <sigh> Thanks very much for the advice! <rueful smile>

At least I know what not to do next time. I could have sworn it didn't have that third dialogue box (the "null / SendE" one), though, the last time I submitted an image using ShiPainter.

I *will* have to say that having a box with no comprehensible information that offers only one choice, labelled "Yes", and making that choice cancel the send on the image, has got to be some of the most bizarre behaviour I have seen in software design, and I've seen some pretty odd things -- but, as you say, it's certainly not something you chose, and I understand and appreciate that, Marcello. I'm beginning to understand more thoroughly why you warn people about these applets the way you do, on the applet selection page!

And, I can definitely see why you'd decide to build a better option, if this was the quality of the available alternatives (having already had OekakiBBS mangle an image through it's animation replay, I already knew its downside, and that's on MY machine, where it will actually run, as opposed to our other PC, where it won't run at all).

I like the tool, in many ways, but I can't stand the limitation to 2 layers, on PaintBBS -- it just doesn't work for me. I kept it down to 3, this time, but I just can't do this technique, with any fewer: one for the rough sketch, one for the black background, and one for the colour layer (which uses variances in opacity, together with the black background, to produce some of the shading effects, making it not an option to just omit any of the layers).

For what it's worth, I didn't upgrade Java until everything else I'd tried had failed, at which point it seemed to me that I had nothing to lose. I also didn't mean to "pull a stunt" with the canvas size -- I was trying to follow the instructions as given, and I thought that when it said that my image would be lost, it meant that regardless of what I clicked, the image would be cleared to a blank canvas -- which is all I had up at the time, anyway.

I appreciate your adding this to your already extensive list of things to check into when you have a chance, if only so that the users who aren't familiar with the programs can have some warning as to their idiosyncrasies, and how to work within them. I don't expect perfection from a free tool, but I'd like to know *what* to expect, and most especially what I should not do, to avoid causing problems for myself or the site.

At this point, I'm really tempted to start compiling my own documentation for these tools, since there seems to be so little out there, in the way of decent documentation of what they do -- and problems like this aren't something a person would necessarily figure out from just experimenting with the tool, on practise pieces which they don't save, a learning method which I've often seen recommended here.

As I said, I like knowing what to expect, and much more importantly, what it's critical to avoid doing, in order to avoid stuffing up the site, or my work. :/

If I *do* wind up putting together some documentation for these tools (for my own use), are you still looking for users to write articles, in particular documentation for the tools (since I notice it's not in place yet)? I may not know their ins and outs as well as you and many of the others do, but at least I might be able to help the poor "noobs" like myself, to avoid making any really major gaffes (as I appear to have done).