Dialogs do not close in PSE 11 with Elements XXL

[macay]

After the 1.05 trial version of Elements XXL has been installed in PSE 11, some dialog windows will not not close on some occasions and PSE cannot be exited. This applies specifically to the Color Picker dialog and to the Refine Edge dialog. (At this stage I could not say whether any other dialogs may be similarly affected). The problem does not occur on every occasion when I am using either of the two tools but it does come back now and again. I could not establish what may be triggering it off. My first impression was that the problem occured after Quick Mask Mode was used but I cannot claim this is definitely a factor. The dialogs are superficially responsive, e.g. in the Color Picker window I can move through colour palettes and click on colours but this does not load the colour in the tools panel nor clicking on "OK" or "Cancel" closes the dialog. The dialog window just stays open and no further work is possible. The only way out - well, the only way I have found so far - is to close down PSE 11 through the task manager (which obviously means losing any work done). The OS is Windows 7 64-bit; no other external plug-ins are installed in PSE 11.

[HaraldHeim]

I came across a similar problem in the past with PSE 11. Some dialogs did not react anymore. I think it had to do with me clicking on somewhere else when a dialog was displayed, but I am not sure. I did not encounter the problem in recent months tough.

I do not think that it has anything to do with ElementsXXL. If you think it has, you could uninstall it and use PSE without it for some time and see if the problem still occurs.

[macay]

Harald, thank you for coming back so promptly. I shall keep Elements XXL installed until the end of the trial period and monitor the situation. If the problem reoccurs after Elements XXL have been removed I let you know. I have not come across it until now, though, and I have been using PSE 11 for quite a few months, including the two offending tools. Apart from the unresolved issue which may or may not be related to XXL, I like the product a lot, particularly the way it has been integrated into PSE. (I've postponed upgrading to the newest PSE as, at least for me, the new features do not justify it, and am hoping that Adobe will eventually come up with a 64-bit version. Will there be a 64-bit version of Elements XXL if it happens?)

[HaraldHeim]

I am quite confident that PSE 13 for Windows will be 64-bit. When it becomes available, a 64-bit version of ElementsXXL will also be released.

[macay]

Hi Harald, a bit more info about the sticky dialog windows. It looks like they are plugin related: the same sequence of actions will not make dialogs stick with the plugin deactivated. But to get yourself into a sticky window situation with Elements XXL active you have to do something stupid and even if you do, you can still get out of it without forcing PSE to close.

To procure a sticky window, do as follows: open the Color Picker dialog window, click on the colour spectrum or the slider, and then - with the dialog open - click on the toolbox (tool panel). This will usually make the dialog stick. The Cancel and OK buttons will not work. The same goes for the Refine Edge dialog.

But a) there is no reason to click on any of the tools in the tool panel with the dialogs open as the tools have no functionality in this state. (Incidently, if you double click on the tool panel with the dialog open, you'll get a message window saying "The Set command is currently not available").

And b) the really good news is that should you, for some inexplicable reason, click on the toolbox and get yourself into the sticky situation, you can close dialogs by pressing Escape on you keyboard, albeit sometimes more than once. (This will also make the Quick Mask Tool look like it is in an active mode). So there is no danger of having to kill PSE through the Task Manager and losing work.

Hope this clarifies things.

[HaraldHeim]

Right, ElementsXXL must be doing something in the background when you click on a tool in the tool bar, which causes a displayed dialog to freeze and you can only exit it with the Esc key.

I will try to fix the problem by checking if a dialog is active and not doing the background stuff in ElementsXXL in such a case. I hope it is possible. In any case thanks for pointing me to the problem!

[HaraldHeim]

This problem is now fixed in ElementsXXL 2.02.