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Bxecutor/DOS 1.99l and browser bugs (a lot!)
Hi guys,
The following was sent to bugs@ardi.com and the executor mailing list.
After working with E/D 1.99l and the browser, I have to take a deep breath
sigh a little and hope things improve significantly in 1.99m and further.
Here goes the list of bugs I found intermixed with some general complaints
and remarks.
Testsystem used : Toshiba T4400C
486DX2/50
12 Mb. RAM
WD90C30 SVGA 640x480x256
MS-DOS 5.0
EMM386.EXE NOEMS
Mouse driver Microsoft 8.21
- When E/D starts it shows the desktop with a one pixel horizontal line
dividing the desktop from the menu-bar. Just before E/D shows the
browser the dividing line temporarily becomes twice as thick. This only
lasts for about half-a-second but it still is a cosmetic annoyance.
This might be a bug along the same line as the 'flicker-bug' in 1.99m
that was solved by Mat.
- Why not displaying some sort of 'Please wait' or hourglas when E/D loads?
Anyway; loading is very fast now.
- The browser's help screen is in the way of the browser itself. It should be
positioned so that the browser stays visible. Then help has a context.
- Without volume windows E/D crashes when View by Icon is selected.
- When View by Listing is selected when a volume window is the active window
the resulting listing scrolls to the right outside the window.
- When a circular reference is created (i.e. a folder within a folder, both
with the same name is copied into its parent) an error -34 occurs and
then a -120
- Ctrl-Break halts E/D but hangs the PC in the worst kind.
- If there are no windows visible the option Close Window is not dimmed.
- When an icon on the hotband is selected the option Copy to Hotband is not
dimmed. When it is selected subsequently E/D crashes.
- The reference from a document to an app is static. When I copy the app to
another volume, double clicking the document does not start the app
anymore.
- When nothing is selected sometimes the options Duplicate or Delete are not
dimmed. Result is an error -35
- Copying an item twice to the same location is possible. The result is two
exact icons on the destination. Only a refresh of that drive will make one
of the two icons disappear.
- Copying a document gives 'document copy' as the name. A subsequent copy
of that document gives error -37. Continuing results in
'document copy copy' but the document has an invalid data fork.
- Get Info gives the opportunity to change type/creator but when 4 characters
are entered and OK is clicked it complains that they should be 4
characters.
- When a file with say a name of 15 characters is renamed to a name of say
10 characters the old name is overwritten. Only a refresh will make the
screen proper, i.e.
document with a long name
rename it to:
small document
results in:
documesmall document name
- When a drive is selected on the hotband and the option Edit Delete is
choosen without a warning (well, actually there is the 'normal' error
-34 or something) the whole drive is emptied. Some warning should be nice.
- I had a serious file system error and could not copy to a volume anymore
after testing a lot.
- Disk Error -120 when running Binhex on a .SIT file and a subsequent
Stuffit Expander 1.5.1 This used to work under previous versions. I
retried using the same volumes using E/D 1.3 and had no problems, so the
volumes were ok.
Stuffit Lite worked ok. however. Somewhere across the lines Stuffit
Expander 1.5.1 was broken then.
- I have seen the '1 absoffset=859045376 nphyscontig=0' error on the
menu bar again. This has not appeared for a *long* time.
- I have a standalone document created using DocMaker. It works fine except
for asking the 'Table of Contents' I do not know what this is supposed to
do but it crashes E/D severely. EMM386 complained about a serious harddisk
error but restarting the PC showed no HDD problems.
This problem has been present in all previous versions. Sorry about not
mention it any sooner.
That is about it. I am pretty sure that there are a lot more errors in the
browser. In its current state I would make -nobrowser the default. A lot of
people, new to E/D, will be put off when they use it and probably never
register E/D.
One remark: now that E/D is very able to restart when an app finishes it
should not be very difficult to implement a 'Mount Mac Volume'
option that pops up a dialogue box and asks the user to
specify which .hfv volume should be mounted. This enhances
the flexibility a lot. I now have to exit E/D, change the
batch file that starts it and restart it everytime I want it
to address some other volume.
B.T.W. Clifford; need any help with the browser's manual?
And please everybody; lets come up with a good name for the browser.
How about 'Found it!' or 'Founder' or 'Object Manager'?
Thanks.
Ernst J. Oud ernstoud@euronet.nl
100265.3601@compuserve.com
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Our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them,
but we have to keep passing the open windows.
John Irving - The Hotel New Hampshire
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