The File Viewer/Editor Dialog



The File Viewer/Editor opens as the top dialog when you start Photometric Power Tools. This is your avenue to open/load photometric files for modification. You can load as many photometric files as your computer's resources will allow, this may be in the thousands. Opening this many files is typically not practical from a workflow standpoint, but we'll leave that for you to decide!


Photometric Power Tools provides two different methods to open/load photometric files from the File menu: 


Select Files and Load/Append - This command is used to open selected files from within a single folder. You can use standard Windows techniques (drag a window, shift-select, ctrl-select) to select the files you want to work on. Use this command repeatedly if you need to "append" files from different folders.


Select Folder and Load/Append - This command is more powerful allowing you to select a single folder which will load ALL FILES in that folder and all of its sub-folders. Using this command you can open an entire tree of information at one time. This command can also be executed repeatedly to load even more files.


With files loaded and ready for modification you can use the Viewer/Editor as an easy way to examine data and fix small issues that you spot. See the numbered workflow below. The batch modification area of Photometric Power Tools is performed from the File Functions dialog. 




1. Once you have opened photometric files, the total number of files loaded is shown.

2. If any of the photometric files you tried to open contained errors in format, the number of files with errors is shown. These files are not loaded. You can see the specific errors encountered for each file from the adjacent Report button.

3. Place the cursor anywhere within the file body on the left side of the dialog to select that specific file for modification.

3.A All files are given a reference number when loaded. Selected in the image above is file #5. You can make changes to the filename in this area if you like. There are several other opportunities to modify filenames within the Photometric Power Tools software as well.

3.B This is the Descriptive Information Editor. You can edit any portion of the files descriptive information here. This is great for simple changes, correcting typos and other one-off editing operations. Once you start making changes you must select the Cancel (item 4), Apply Changes (item 5) or Reset Selected (item 6) buttons before moving to another file.

3.C For the file currently selected (file #5), technical details are displayed here for examination and possible changes: Luminous dimensions (1 for Imperial units, 2 for metric), Number Lamps, Ballast Factor, Future Use and Watts. For detailed definitions of these items please see IES document LM-63-02 or later. 

4. The Cancel button stops your current edit session and exits the editor. This preserves any changes you may have applied to the same file in an earlier session.

5. The Apply Changes button will apply any edits you have made to the currently selected file. Those changes will appear highlighted if the Highlight Changes box is checked (on by default). 

6. The Reset Selected button will reset all changes that have been made to the currently selected file. This can be a file currently in an edit session, or a file that was previously edited with changes highlighted as long at it is selected in the left side of the dialog. 

7. The Reset All button resets all changes that have been made in both the File Viewer/Editor dialog and the File Functions dialog. This is the same as selecting the Rest All Loaded Files (ctrl-R) command from the File menu.

8. You can control what portion of each photometric file is shown in the left side viewer of the dialog. The default is Filename & Descriptive (shown). If you have a large number of files loaded you may prefer to show Filename Only. You can also display the complete file contents by selecting Entire File

9. The Highlight Changes checkbox is enabled by default. When you make changes to the selected file, then click the Apply Changes button in the lower right corner of the dialog, all modifications are highlighted. All files with modifications are counted and that number is displayed at the top of the dialog.

10. If you prefer to move from one file to the next or previous using buttons you can do so here. Scrolling the mouse is usually preferred.


To save your changes you must select one of the save options from the File menu. You can Reset all changes at anytime by clicking the Reset button, this includes changes made in the File Functions dialog.