Tricks of the Mac Game Programming Gurus/TricksOfTheMacGameProgrammingGurus.iso/Demos/Tools/BBEdit 3.1.2/3.1.2 Release Notes

Text File | 1995-06-21 | 19.6 KB | 466 lines | [TEXT/R*ch]

BBEdit 3.1.2 Release Notes
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June 20, 1995

This document contains information which was developed too late to be
included in the manuals.

To quickly navigate to the different sections of this file, choose
one of the items from the “Mark” menu.

Obligatory Anti-Piracy Notice
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BBEdit is protected by U.S. and international copyright law against
unauthorized redistribution and duplication. If you are using a non-
demo copy that you obtained by a means other than a legitimate site
license, product bundle, or direct purchase, then we encourage you to
write to the address below and order your own copy. The pricing is
reasonable, and options are available for discount and quantity
pricing.

External Services and Startup Performance
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The first time BBEdit starts up, it attempts to locate the application
associated with each external service. If the application isn’t found,
BBEdit will keep trying to find it on subsequent occasions, until it
either finds the application, or until you turn off the corresponding
check-box in the “External Services” section of the Preferences dialog.

Since an unsuccessful search for an application takes time, you should
turn off the check box corresponding to any application you don’t have
available. Doing so will decrease the time that BBEdit takes to start
up.

Memory Usage
------ -----

If you’re running BBEdit on a Power Macintosh, the native code that is
resident in the “BBEdit Power 3.1” file is copied into BBEdit’s own
application memory by the system. For this reason, BBEdit’s default,
minimum, and preferred partition sizes take this additional memory
usage into account. If you are running BBEdit on a 68K Macintosh, you
can reduce BBEdit’s minimum and preferred sizes by 90K.

BBEdit and CodeWarrior
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BBEdit’s support of integration with CodeWarrior requires version 1.2
of CodeWarrior (distributed in the “CW5” release). CodeWarrior takes
a somewhat more passive approach to external-editor support, and for
that reason, the following limitations apply:

-    CodeWarrior does not provide a means to select the external editor.
Thus, if you double-click on a file in an open CodeWarrior project
while in CodeWarrior, your source file will open up in CodeWarrior’s
editor. As an alternative, open your CodeWarrior projects in BBEdit. In
the project browser next to the “Open” button is a small icon; click in
this icon to open the project in CodeWarrior (and to launch CodeWarrior
if it’s already running). When you double-click on a file in a BBEdit
project browser, BBEdit will open the source file, and will enable items
on the Compiler menu if the source file belongs to the project that’s
currently open in CodeWarrior.

-    CodeWarrior does not arbitrate with the external editor for the
text. The practical result of this is that you will need to save files
before compiling them, if you wish your current changes to be compiled.
If CodeWarrior is the target environment, BBEdit will ask if you wish
to save an unsaved file before compiling it. Also, if you choose “Bring
Up To Date” or “Run”, and you have unsaved source files connected to the
currently open project, BBEdit will ask if you wish to save them before
compiling.

Claris XTND Problems
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BBEdit uses the Claris XTND translator system to effect the reading
and writing of various word-processor file formats. We have identified
several problems in the XTND system which can interfere with BBEdit’s
operation, usually by causing a system crash, out-of-memory condition,
hang, or other aberrant behavior.

The following situations can cause your system to crash while
launching BBEdit:

Excessive Memory Usage: In some situations, the XTND system
makes demands on the application that exceed the application’s
available memory, and reacts badly when the application is unable
to fill those demands. We have observed excessive memory usage
caused by the presence of the “MacLink Translator Bridge” and the
XTND translator module for WordPerfect 2.0 files. Large numbers of
XTND translators are also a contributing factor.

Damaged XTND translator or “XTND Translator List” file: In this
situation, one or more XTND translator modules, or the XTND file
which maintains a list of your available translators, have become
corrupted, possibly by a previous system crash. When starting up,
the XTND system will attempt to  read these damaged files, and
will usually crash or behave in an unpredictable fashion thereafter.

Mutual recursion in your system folder: This occurs when your
Control Panels and Extensions folders each contain an alias to the
other. In this situation, the XTND software gets stuck in an endless
loop as it follows these aliases back and forth, essentially “chasing
its tail” forever.

If you are using BBEdit version 3.1.1 or later, hold down the Shift key
as you launch BBEdit. (To do this, click once on the BBEdit application
icon, then hold down the Shift key and choose “Open” from the
Finder’s File menu, or hit Command-Shift-O.) Continue holding down
the Shift key until BBEdit’s menu bar appears. This action will disable
all of BBEdit’s external services, including XTND translation. If you
are able to launch BBEdit successfully using this trick, it is a near
certainty that one of the situations outlined at left is in force.

Your next course of action depends on your needs:

If you don’t need XTND translation, go to the Services section of
BBEdit’s Preferences dialog, and un-check the box labelled
”Claris XTND Translation”. This will prevent BBEdit from activating
the XTND system the next time it launches (and so on, until you
re-activate this setting), thus avoiding the XTND problems altogether.

If you do need XTND translation, you can work around the
problems in the XTND system by addressing them in the order
that they’re listed. Begin by removing the WordPerfect 2.0 translator,
if you don’t need it, followed by the MacLink Translator Bridge. If you
do need either of these components, try increasing BBEdit’s
preferred partition size to 1536K (or to 2048K if you have many
translators installed).

If this does not solve your problem, next remove the ”XTND
Translator List“ file; it can be found in your Preferences folder.
The XTND system will reconstruct the translator list as necessary.

If you have a damaged translator, you should remove all of
your installed Claris translators, and add them back to your
Claris Translators folder one by one, launching BBEdit each
time, until the problem recurs.

Finally, check to see if your Extensions and Control Panels folders
contain aliases to each other. If they do, remove one or both of
the aliases to break the alias loop.

Desktop Database Problems
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On occasion, you may find that the Finder doesn’t display the correct
icon for BBEdit documents, or that you can’t drag documents onto the
BBEdit application (or an alias to the application) to open them.

This behavior is not indicative of a problem with BBEdit; rather, it’s
an indication that the database that the Finder uses to associate
applications, icons, and documents (known as the “desktop database”) has
become confused or corrupted.

When this happens, it’s usually desirable to force the Finder to
reconstruct the desktop database. To do this, reboot your machine, and
immediately hold down the Shift key until the message “Extensions Off”
appears. As soon as this message appears, release the Shift key, and
hold down the Command and Option keys. For each volume that mounts at
startup, the Finder will ask whether you wish to rebuild the desktop
database. Click “OK”, and the Finder will do so.

Corruption in the desktop database can also render BBEdit unable to
locate external services. If you have an service installed (say, the
THINK Project Manager), but BBEdit doesn’t make the service available to
you, rebuilding the desktop database will usually help. (This assumes
that you’ve already checked to make sure that the application you’re
trying to use is of an appropriate version.)

The “Old MacTraps” File
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Versions 6.0 and later of THINK C and Symantec C++ contain a file called
“Old MacTraps”. This file is located in the “Mac Libraries” folder. The
structure of this file is such that both the THINK Project Manager and
BBEdit will crash while attempting to open this project.

If you’re performing a multi-file search of your Mac Libraries folder,
or of the folder containing the THINK Project Manager, BBEdit will
crash when it encounters the “Old MacTraps” file. To avoid this file,
remove it, or switch the “File Type” popup menu (in the Multi-File
Search options portion of the Find dialog) to “Text Files”.

System 7.5 Menu Bug
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System 7.5 contains a bug which will cause popup menus to behave
strangely in certain circumstances, specifically, when a menu is long
enough to scroll and is popped up close to the top or bottom of the
screen. In BBEdit, this is most likely to happen in the “Preferences”
dialog.

At this time, there’s no workaround for this bug; you may avoid the
symptoms by using the arrow control next to the popup menu in the
Preferences dialog, or by using Command-down-arrow and Command-up-arrow
to move from one preferences page to the next (or previous).

Apple has acknowledged the bug, and tentatively plans to fix it in an
upcoming revision of the system software. As of this writing, no
further details are available.


“Can’t Undo” Alerts
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A number of actions, most notably many extensions, are not undoable.
As a matter of course, BBEdit will pose an alert: “<action> is not
undoable. Do you still wish to proceed?” If these alerts annoy you,
you can turn them off. The appropriate option is in the Editor section
of the “Preferences” dialog. (The “Preferences...” command is found under
the Edit menu.)

On Location 2.0, Quadras, and AppleShare
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There is a bug in On Location versions 2.0 and 2.0.1 which will cause
your Macintosh to hang if you’re using a Macintosh Quadra, you have
AppleShare volumes mounted, and you attempt to perform an On Location
search with BBEdit. To avoid this hang, don’t select “On Location”
from the “Search Method” popup in the “Multi-File Searching” section
of the Find dialog.

(Note that an “AppleShare volume” can be a fileserver volume or a volume
on someone else’s Macintosh published with Personal File Sharing under
System 7.0.)

THINK Project Manager
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The THINK Project Manager, used in THINK C and Symantec C++ version 6.0
and later, has a number of bugs and limitations which occasionally make
working with an external editor difficult. Presently, we are working
with the technical staff at Symantec to resolve these issues. They
should be taken care of for future versions of both BBEdit and the THINK
Project Manager.

The most noticeable problems are as follows:

    -    On occasion, the THINK Project Manager will inexplicably refuse
        to provide the list of headers included by a given source file.
        If you control- option-click in the title bar of a connected source
        file and you don’t get the list, this is most likely the cause.
        Should this happen, deactivate the source window in question
        and re-activate it, and BBEdit will try to get the list of includes
        again. You can, of course, use the function popup in the status bar,
        which will also provide access to the include files.

    -    The THINK Project Manager provides no atomic way for the external
        editor to inform it that the name or location of a connected source
        file has changed. This means that if you do a “Save As...” of a
        connected source file, the TPM will continue to use the old source
        file. Until this problem is resolved in the TPM, you’ll have to
        manually remove the old file and add the new file to the proper
        location.

    -    There is a bug in version 7.0 of the THINK Project Manager
        which may cause it to crash after opening a file in the external
        editor. This bug is fixed in version 7.0.3 of the TPM; an updater
        package may be obtained from most online information services
        or directly from Symantec.

    -    Version 7.0.1 of the THINK Project Manager has a bug in it which
        will prevent the TPM from quitting if the external editor is running.
        This bug is fixed in version 7.0.3 of the TPM; an updater
        package may be obtained from most online information services
        or directly from Symantec.

    -    In spite of the above fix, version 7.0.4 will refuse to quit
        in some situations when the editor pointed to by the “Editor”
        tool alias is running. We have verified that the problem is on
        the TPM’s end, and we are working with Symantec to identify and
        resolve the problem.

    -    Because of latency issues between BBEdit and the THINK Project
        Manager, certain menu items or services may not be available
        immediately after bringing a window to the front. Usually, the
        services will become available after one or two seconds.

Printing with Substituted Fonts
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Because of idiosyncracies in the LaserWriter driver 7.1 and earlier,
there are some character spacing anomalies when printing with a
substituted monospaced font (i.e. Monaco). To avoid these problems,
print in a non-substituted, monospaced PostScript font such as Courier.
(With BBEdit, you can of course edit in one font, and print in
another.)

These problems appear to be resolved as of version 8.1.1 of the
LaserWriter driver.

Fractional Spacing
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BBEdit 3.1 supports a “Fractional Spacing” option when printing. We
recommend that you use this option if you are printing in a small
(less than 9-point) font size.

FaxSTF “FaxPrint” Printer Driver
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Version 2.2.3 of the “FaxPrint” printer driver, supplied with the FaxSTF
fax software package, has a bug in it which can cause all applications,
not just BBEdit, to malfunction. STF Technologies has been notified of
the problem. In the meantime, to avoid potential problems, choose another
printer driver, such as the ImageWriter or LaserWriter driver, except
when you’re planning to fax documents directly from within BBEdit.
Contact STF Technologies for the latest information on the availability
of a fix. (As of the writing of this note, FaxSTF has been updated
to version 3.0.)

LaserWriter 8.2.2 “Preferences Damaged” message
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On occasion, version 8.2.2 of the LaserWriter driver will issue a
warning message about missing or damaged preferences. We have contacted
Apple regarding this issue, and they believe it to be due to a bug in
the LaserWriter driver. If you get this message, simply choose “Page
Setup” or “Print” from BBEdit’s File menu, and you should be able to
continue without any difficulty.

NOW Utilities
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Older versions of Super Boomerang have a bug which affects BBEdit;
in particular, you cannot type upper-case letters in the “Save As…”
dialog. This bug is fixed in version 4.0 and later of the NOW Utilities
package; contact Now Software for an update.

Now Save causes BBEdit’s “File” menu to get scrambled. To avoid this,
turn off Now Save when running BBEdit.

Standard File Hacks
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There are some third-party extensions which modify the standard “Open”
and “Save” dialogs (known colloquially as “Standard File”). In a couple
of known cases, some of these extensions have a bug which causes
correctly written applications to crash. Specifically:

-    “Click, there it is!”, version 1.0.1. Version 1.0.4 is current, and
    fixes this problem. Registered owners should contact the author for
    more information.

-    Quickeys version 2.1 also appears to have a similar problem.

If either of these extensions is installed, BBEdit will most likely
crash when trying to bring up a Standard File dialog. (BBEdit’s “Open”
and “Save” dialogs should work correctly, but dialogs in other parts of
BBEdit, such as the File Types section of the preferences dialog, will
not.)

In addition, problems have been reported in which the Standard File
Package crashes, or BBEdit takes an “emergency exit”, when Peter
Lewis’ “CDIconKiller” extension is in use.

The BalloonWriter INIT
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Version 1.0.1 of Apple’s “BalloonWriter” extension interferes with
the correct display and operation of BBEdit’s dynamic menus. To avoid
this conflict, disable or remove BalloonWriter from your system.

The Programmer’s Editor Package
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BBEdit was written with libraries which are part of the Programmer’s
Editor Package. The PE Package provides high-performance text editing,
searching, directory search, and pattern-match capabilities for use
in text-manipulation programs. For more information, write to the
address below.

Documentation Errors?
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If you find an error in the documentation, please let us know. One of
the reasons we’re on CD-ROM with electronic documentation is so that we
can make revisions to the manual and incorporate the improvements in
subsequent pressings of the CD, along with improvements to the software.

Contact Address
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Should you have questions about BBEdit, write or send e-mail to the
address below:

Bare Bones Software, Inc.
P.O. Box 108
Bedford, MA 01730-0108
Internet: [e-mail]
Compuserve: 73051,3255
AppleLink: BARE.BONES
eWorld: BareBones
Fax: [phone]

For technical support, bug reports, and other issues of an immediate
nature, we strongly encourage you to use electronic mail. Not only
does it save paper and time, but you will also be guaranteed of a
response within hours of receipt of your message.

From time to time, we will release patches to correct problems in the
software, and/or add minor functionality. These patches are free, and
may be freely redistributed. We do not send out notification to our
customers, but we post announcements to the net and major information
services as a matter of course. Current versions of these patches will
be made available on our ftp sites:

    ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/bb/bbsw/updaters/
or
    ftp://ftp.std.com/vendors/bbsw/updaters/

We will also provide technical support bulletins as circumstances
warrant to address some frequently asked questions. These will also be
available via ftp from:

    ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/bb/bbsw/tech-support/Bulletins/
or
    ftp://ftp.std.com/vendors/bbsw/tech-support/Bulletins/

If you do have a problem with the software, please let us know about it.
All too often, customers don’t report problems for one reason or
another. Remember that if we don’t hear about it, we can’t fix it.

Additional Acknowledgements
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The regular-expression library used for ‘grep’ searching is based on the
‘regexp’ package, written by Henry Spencer of the University of
Toronto. Pete Keleher provided a Mac- compatible version, from which
BBEdit’s code is derived.

John Norstad of Northwestern University contributed the code that
BBEdit uses to resolve Internet URLs.

Thanks!
-------

Thank you for purchasing BBEdit. If you have any suggestions for
improvements, or any problems to report, don’t be shy. Our experience
shows that feedback from our customers has consistently led to better
products and happier users.

Thanks also to the many people who, in one way or another, directly
contributed to the production and success of BBEdit. They’re all listed
in the about box; choose “About BBEdit...” from the Apple menu to see
their names.

Finally, thanks to all of our customers, who have invested in our
product and our company, and, by doing so, have given us the ability to
keep producing and improving our software.

Rich Siegel
Founder, President & CEO

Michael Fryar
Chief Operating Officer

Patrick Woolsey
Director of Technical Services

Christopher Radliff
Vice President/Marketing