HowTo: install multiple Corel Painter brushpacks silently

I got a nice expression software charity bundle with Corel Painter 2020 (current version is 2021) and a bunch of brushes in it and then noticed that the brush packs where available for download as separate installers than the Painter software.

So I launched one of the brush pack installers from the command-line (can give CMD and press enter at the address bar of the file explorer window to open command-line in the current folder) with a /? parameter to see its syntax:

e:\brushpack_abstract_windows.exe /?

Then I created a batch file to loop over all the brush_* installer files using the following commands in the console (press ENTER after each one). The for loop executes each brush pack installer from the same folder passing parameters for silent mode (/S /v/qn), as instructed by the dialog above:

copy con PainterInstallBrushes.bat
@for %%f in (brushpack_*) do %%f /S /v/qn

^Z

The last one (^Z) means Press CTRL+Z (then press ENTER for that line too). It signifies the end-of-file / input. We were inputing/copying keystrokes from the console (CON) into the file PainterInstallBrushes.bat (note that if the file exists you’re asked to overwrite it as soon as you copy the 1st line into it, but you still have to press CTRL+Z and ENTER to end input).

To avoid having to press Yes at repeated security dialogs (due to User Access Control [UAC] being activated), I opened an administrator command-prompt (can give CMD at Windows search and right click the found cmd.exe and select to open it as administrator), then executed the batch file (E: goes to drive E, CD \Corel.com goes to Corel.com folder under E: drive root)

c:\windows\system32> e:
e:\somefolder> cd \Corel.com
e:\Corel.com> PainterInstallBrushes.bat

e:\Corel.com>PainterInstallBrushes.bat

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_abstract_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_alcoholink_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_bristly_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_bubbles_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_drytexture_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_feather_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_fireworks_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_gesturalillustration_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_mangaii_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_michellewebbmasterpack_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_nature_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_perfectpets_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_popart_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_rain_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_rake_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_rustandpatina_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_scrape_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_stipple_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_suminagashi_windows.exe /S /v/qn

e:\Corel.com>brushpack_sunnyrays_windows.exe /S /v/qn

An alternative way to using the command-line would have been to create the batch (.bat) file with a text editor in the same folder as the brush pack installers, then right click it and select to run it as an administrator from the popup menu.

Nested LINQ Aggregate queries vs Nested Foreach statements example

At Trafilm project’s Metadata (http://github.com/zoomicon/Trafilm.Metadata) I have a linked data structure where a Film contains multiple Conversations which contain multiple L3STinstances, which in turn contain multiple L3TTinstances.

I had the need to calculate a list of all unique L2language values of L3TTinstance grand-grand-children for a Film (to keep as calculated metadata for display at the Films PivotViewer collection available at http://gallery.trafilm.net/collection/films.cxml (that is a Collection XML file), which you can explore via HTML5 PivotViewer (seajax) at http://gallery.trafilm.net/film).

BTW, other objects mentioned have their own separate PivotViewer galleries (shown at http://gallery.trafilm.net/conversation, http://gallery.trafilm.net/L3STinstance, http://gallery.trafilm.net/L3TTinstance respectively). Note that the metadata for the respective collections is still being populated at the time of writing, but some sample data is included to try out.

 

Initially I did it with nested LINQ Aggregate expressions:

L2dubbedLanguages = value.Aggregate(new List<string>(), (total, conversation) =>

  (conversation == null) ? total :

              conversation.L3STinstances.Aggregate(total, (totalST, l3STinstance) =>

     (l3STinstance == null) ? totalST :

           l3STinstance.L3TTinstances.Aggregate(total, (totalTT, l3TTinstance) =>

       {

          if ( (l3TTinstance != null) &&

               !string.IsNullOrEmpty(l3TTinstance.L2language) &&

               (l3TTinstance.L2mode == "Dubbed") &&

               !totalTT.Contains(l3TTinstance.L2language) )

            totalTT.Add(l3TTinstance.L2language);

          return totalTT; //note that totalTT == totalST == total

       }

  ))).ToArray();

 

However, since I also had to repeat again all the code block shown above for the “Subtitled” L2languages (just replacing the “Dubbed” string comparison in it), it was more optimal to combine the two in one code block using nested foreach statements that host one switch statement:

//Calculated from Conversations.L3STinstances.L3TTinstances//

IList<string> dubbed = new List<string>();
IList<string> subtitled = new List<string>();
foreach (Conversation conversation in value)
  if ((conversation != null) && (conversation.L3STinstances != null))
    foreach (L3STinstance l3STinstance in conversation.L3STinstances)
      if ((l3STinstance != null) && (l3STinstance.L3TTinstances != null))
        foreach (L3TTinstance l3TTinstance in l3STinstance.L3TTinstances)
          if (l3TTinstance != null)
          {
            string l2language = l3TTinstance.L2language;
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(l2language))
              switch (l3TTinstance.L2mode)
              {
                case "Dubbed":
                  if (!dubbed.Contains(l2language))
                    dubbed.Add(l2language);
                  break;
                case "Subtitled":
                  if (!subtitled.Contains(l2language))
                    subtitled.Add(language);
                  break;
              }
          }
L2dubbedLanguages = dubbed.ToArray();
L2subtitledLanguages = subtitled.ToArray();

 

Having done this refactoring, I decided to also change some of the Conversation object’s calculated fields with a LINQ Aggregate:

L3STlanguages = value.Aggregate(new List<string>(),
  (total, l3STinstance) => { 
     if ((next != null) && 
         !string.IsNullOrEmpty(l3STinstance.L3STlanguage) && 
         !total.Contains(l3STinstance.L3STlanguage)) 
       total.Add(l3STinstance.L3STlanguage);
     return total;
}).ToArray();

and which had to be repeated again for the L3STlanguageType field (that is by just changing L3STlanguage to L3STlanguageType in the code block above), to the following nested foreach statements’ code block:

IList<string> languages = new List<string>();
IList<string> languageTypes = new List<string>();
foreach(L3STinstance l3STinstance in L3STinstances)
  if (l3STinstance != null)
  {
    string language = l3STinstance.L3STlanguage;
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(language) &&
        !languages.Contains(language))
      languages.Add(language);

    string languageType = l3STinstance.L3STlanguageType;
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(languageType) &&
        !languageTypes.Contains(languageType))
      languageTypes.Add(languageType);
  }
L3STlanguages = languages.ToArray();
L3STlanguageTypes = languageTypes.ToArray();

That should also avoid any intermediate memory objects overhead that comes with usage of LINQ for Aggregation.

Suggestion: add optional “where” clause to “foreach” statement in C#

Wouldn’t it be nice if I could use in C# the following syntax?

for (SomeType repeaterVariable

      in SomeEnumerable

      where someBooleanExpressionOfRepeaterVariable)

  doSomethingUsingRepeaterVariable;

e.g. use this one:

instead of this one:

BTW, if you wonder what FixTime does, it prepends 0: to time strings to make sure they are of format h:m:s.f

Have added this as a comment to another person’s suggestion that I see has similar format, so please vote for that one:

https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio-2015/suggestions/7474789-add-condition-to-foreach-in-statement