Rev # 1: Compiled from questions received as of 10/1/95
This faq is a compilation of questions frequently posed to our technical support staff and to our pre-sales support staff. It is intended to cover important points that are not in the User's Guide (for example, items of a time-varying nature) but it is strictly customer question-driven, and was not compiled with the intention of being a comprehensive User's Guide supplement. It is intended to immediately provide answers to common questions and problems, thereby saving users the time spent contacting Athena for information or resolution. But please feel free to contact us if you need further clarification, want to give us feedback on the product, or just say "hi".
Also, Athena Design issues two other information sheets, the "Mesa for OS/2 Data Sheet" which briefly outlines major and unique features of Mesa, and "What's new in Mesa 2", which covers features implemented in the latest version. If your question seems likeley to be in one of these documents, or if you cannot find questions pertaining to a specific feature, e.g. "Can Mesa do ____?", feel free to ftp these documents from our anonymous ftp site, ftp@athena.com, in /pub/Mesa2. If ftp service is unavailable, you can request documents by sending email to info@athena.com, or calling 1-800-426-MESA. Documents can be emailed to you, or sent via fax or via U.S. Postal Service.
This faq will be periodically updated. The rev number at the top of the document will be reflected in the title of the file on our ftp site, so as to allow readers to quickly determine when updates have occurred.
This faq is organized into the following sections:
For pre-sales questions you can reach us via the following methods:
By telephone...800.426.MESA (6372)
By fax..............617.426.7665
By email..........info@athena.com
By post:
Athena Design
332 Congress Street, #5
Boston, MA 02210-1217
For registered users of Mesa, post-sales technical support can be obtained by fax, and by email at m2-support@athena.com. If you have purchased a one-year technical support contract, you may also receive phone support at the phone number listed above.
Currently, we do not have our own forum on Compuserve. We do occasionally respond to Usenet articles pertaining to OS/2 in various comp.os.os2 subgroups.
Q. How and why should I register my copy of Mesa for OS/2?
Registering your product helps us notify you of new releases and other information you should be aware of, and it helps us better predict our support and sales needs over the next several months. In addition, technical support is provided to registered users only, so if you don't send your registration card, we'll probably insist you do so if and/or when you contact us for technical support.
Please send in the registration form that arrived with your product. If you no longer have the form, please let us know and we'll email or fax or send you another one. When you do fill out the form, please send it back to us at:
License Registration
Athena Design
332 Congress Street
Boston, MA 02210-1217
The registration card that comes in the Mesa box is already addressed. You can also fax a registration form to us. Our fax number is (617) 426-7665. Please note that we CANNOT ACCEPT EMAIL REGISTRATIONS. For legal reasons, we require a signed document or facimile thereof to indicate that you've accepted the terms of the license agreement.
Q. What is the technical support policy for Mesa for OS/2?
Mesa comes with 90 days of technical support via email (m2-support@athena.com), fax (617.426.6372), and U.S. Postal Service at:
Athena Design
Attn: Mesa for OS/2 Technical Support
332 Congress St.
Boston, MA 02210
Your first contact with technical support will initiate the 90 day countdown, so if you don't immediately use Mesa 2 after purchase, or don't immediately require technical support, you aren't inadvertently penalized. We also accept bug reports and feedback for improvements at any time, independent of your technical support status.
After your 90 day period has expired, you can purchase additional technical support contracts for $99/year. These contracts provide unlimited technical support via telephone, emai, fax, or post. For more information or to purchase a contract, contact Athena at (800) 426-6372, or at info@athena.com.
Technical support information is also available on-line under Help->Technical Support. Your Mesa license, once installed is on-line under Help->About Mesa. Please include the first 12 characters of your license when contacting us for technical support.
What's new:
Q. What is new or improved in Mesa for OS/2 version 2.0.4?
New and Improved Features:
1. Print Preview
2. Formula Builder
3. In-Cell Editing
4. AutoGrow ranges
5. SmartSizing of rows and columns
6. Page tabs at bottom of workbook, rather than side.
7. Text Boxes
8. Added Find and Replace to the existing Find Panel
9. Revised Status Bar
10. Toolbar no longer interferes with the menu alt-keystrokes
11. Keyboard selection of ranges
12. End-key maneuvering within the sheet.
13. Keyboard selection of ranges within formulas
14. Discontiguous range selection via Ctrl-mouse-clicks.
15. Ctrl-drag graphics
16. F4 key cycles through absolute and relative references for cells and ranges in formula entry.
17. Import and Export of WK4 files
18. Import Quattro Pro .WB1 format files
19. ASCII import with a variety of delimiters
20. Better DDE Links editing capability
21. Revert to Saved
22. Default Font, Default Zoom settings available in preferences
23. Row/Column header defaults are 14. Helvetica Bold
24. Script Recorder
25. Added the following MScript commands:
FIND
REPLACE
SORT
SIZEROW
SIZECOL
26. Buffered redraw (reduces screen flicker on display)
27. Improvements to display functions.
DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS:
1. We added Print preview. You can access it by calling up the Print Panel, select File->Print, and then select the Preview button.
2. We added a Formula Builder that you can use to select formulas and enter them into the formula bar. Choose Edit->Formula Builder to invoke it.
3. In-cell editing is now possible (that is, directly editing cell contents in the cell, as opposed to editing in the formula bar). To turn this feature on and off, call up the Preferences panel and check or uncheck the In-Cell Editing box. In-cell editing is on by default.
4. Labeled Ranges have the ability to AutoGrow (tm). You can make a Labeled Range an AutoGrow labeled range by selecting the range in the Labels page of the Section Manager and choosing AutoGrow (tm) item. The key benefit of AutoGrow ranges is that once you select the range, you can use the keypad Enter key to extend the range into the next row. To do this, call up the Labels panel, select the range and choose GoTo Range. Once the range is selected, you can use the Enter key (make sure the Enter behavior in the Preferences panel is set to Down) to extend the range to the next row each time you press the key.
5. We have added the ability to size a row or column to fit the data in it. To do so choose either Range->Rows and Columns->SmartSize Rows or SmartSize Columns or choose the popup menu for row or column markers and choose SmartSize Rows or SmartSize Columns. You can also enable SmartSize (tm) by double clicking on a row or column divider to change one row or column or Ctrl-double click on a row or column of a selected range to SmartSize all rows or columns in that range.
6. We have moved the Workbook page tabs to the bottom of the workbook. They now grow to fit the text in them. You can change their fonts via drag & drop and turn them off entirely. To set the behavior, call up the Preferences panel.
7. We added text boxes. Basically, text boxes are just like other types of graphics except that you can enter text into them. Just click on a text box and enter your text into the formula bar.
8. The Find page in the Selection Manager workbook now has Replace functionalities. You can also access this from Edit->Find.
9. The Status bar now includes a number of new items. We have added font and alignment indicators for the cell you have selected. We also added an indicators for the Insert, Num Lock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock keys. You can drop font chips onto each of these items to change the font size they display with. The Status bar should flicker far less now when it is loading files or other options that cause it to update itself.
10. Fixed a conflict that prevented the menu alt-keystrokes from working when the Toolbar was on.
11. You can select a range via the keyboard by holding down the Shift key and moving the base cell with the arrow keys to expand the selection.
12. You can now quickly move about the sheet via the keyboard. To do so, press the End key and the arrow key to move to the next cell that contains data in that direction. End-Home will move you to the cell of the last row and column that contains data. End-End will disable use of the End key until you next press the End key.
13. You can now select cells and ranges via the keyboard from within the formula bar. The two features listed above also work in the formula bar. To do so, enter the = sign or an @function( or =Excel_function( and then use the arrow keys to select the cells or ranges you want.
14. You can now select discontinuous ranges using your mouse. To do this, hold down the Control key and select the ranges you want, in the order you want.
15. You can now Ctrl+drag graphics to copy them the way you can with ranges.
16. Successively pressing the F4 key will run through all the permutations of absolute cell references (indicated by $'s) for cells in the formula bar.
17. We now support import and export of Lotus formats up to .wk4. Wk4 is a multi-layered format, and a format through which Mesa workbooks can be imported into Excel.
18. We now support import of Quattro Pro WB1 files. These are the multi-layered Quattro Pro for Windows files.
19. ASCII import allows user to choose between tab, space, and comma-separated (CSV) files, and line termination of CR, LF, or both.
20. DDE link editing (Edit->DDE Links) was made more robust. Some links, such as links within the same workbook crashed previous versions of Mesa. Now links should either be stable or their creation should not be permitted.
21. We implemented a Revert to Saved feature. The menu item is File->Revert to Saved.
22. Default Font, Default Zoom settings available in preferences. Handy for people who prefer a specific, non-default font; people with large monitors may appreciate the default zoom.
23. We have changed the default the row and column headings to 14pt Helvetica Bold so that they are easier to read at lower Zoom levels.
24. We added a Script recorder. It is running at all times, so once you have done the actions you want to put into a script, select Options->Script Recorder and cut and paste the MScript lines into your Script Page.
25. Added the aforementioned MScript functions, which are documented in the on-line help.
26 & 27. Part of an overall effort to speed and improve performance of the user interface.
Installing and licensing Mesa:
Q. Do I need to retype my license number into Mesa when I upgrade?
Typically, the answer is no. Mesa stores your license string, among other things, in encrypted form in your os2.ini file. This can be seen using a .ini editor. When you install an upgrade, you should not have to retype your license number as a result. The old license number will work with upgrades, and will read the license from os2.ini.
If your os2.ini file has been corrupted, and/or you rebuild the file from a default configuration, and this removes the license string, then you will have to re-enter the license string. Otherwise, Mesa runs in demo mode (32x32x7 rows/columns/layers). If Mesa mysteriously starts running in demo mode, loss of the license string in the os2.ini file is the probable cause.
Q. When I unzip Mesa from an ftp site, I get junk. Why?
The Mesa for OS/2 package can be downloaded from various ftp sites, including our own (ftp.athena.com) in a .zip file. The most common problemwith bad downloads occurs because the ftp transfer was done in ascii mode, instead of binary mode. Please try downloading with the ftp transfer mode set to binary. The command at the ftp prompt is "binary".
If that is not the problem, please make certain that your unzipping utility is capable of unzipping files produced by the OS/2 "ZIP" program. If you need this program, the source code is available on our ftp site (ftp.athena.com) in the directory /pub/Mesa2/zip. Due to legal restrictions, we must distribute zip in source form only. We cannot distribute a binary.
In the future, Athena's ftp server may contain the Mesa 2 package in a different compressed format such that decompression can be done during the download, and files will arrive uncompressed and ready for the Installer. If this feature is in place, there will be notification and instructions on our ftp site. If you have further questions, send mail to ftp@athena.com.
Q. I just installed an upgrade of Mesa, and now when I start it, I get a 2070 error and Mesa crashes. What gives?
2070 Errors are almost always caused by duplicate .dll (dynamic link library) files that are from older, previously installed versions of Mesa. Dll files are vesion-specific, so you must use the 2.0.4 dll's with the 2.0.4 MESA2.EXE file. If you encounter a 2070 error, try the following command at an OS/2 command prompt:
dir c:\mesacore.dll /s
where C: is the drive where Mesa 2 might be installed (please do this for all the drives in your system). If you do discover additional dll's, delete them if you are not using them, or rename them. Also, check your CONFIG.SYS file's LIBPATH variable to remove any unnecessary paths. The default entry from the Installer for Mesa 2 in the LIBPATH is:
C:\MESA2\DLL
C is the default drive used by the Installer program; change C to the appropriate drive if you chose a different drive using the Installer.
Q. Why can't I install Mesa 2!
There are several potential problems.
1. If you delete Mesa 2 without using the Installer, then try to re-install, the Installer can sometimes get confused. The solution is to delete all the EPF files in the OS/2 system folder, as follows:
C:
cd os2\system
del epf*
If you're getting messages about EPFIXXXX errors when you attempt to install, this is likely the cause and the solution is to do take the above steps.
2. You may have to delete existing versions of the mesacore.dll file. Typically, a 2070 system error occurs when older versions of mesacore.dll are hanging around. To find these, at an os/2 command window, type:
dir c:\mesacore.dll /s
where C: is the drive where Mesa 2 might be installed (please do this for all the drives in your system), then remove all copies of mesacore.dll except the copy that you most recently installed. See the question on SYS 2070 errors in this section of the faq.
3. One known problem with installation has to do with search paths and different versions of "unpack" in your system. If you have multiple versions of unpack on your system, or if you are installing Mesa from something other than an OS/2 system window, please try reinstalling it from a standard OS/2 command window.
4. If all else fails, we suggest the following manual method of installing Mesa 2.
Step 1.
Copy all the files to an empty directory on the hard drive.
Step 2.
Use the OS/2 UNPACK utility to unpack all of the files.
Step 3.
Create a MESA2 directory with the following directories below it:
DLL
EXAMPLES
Below the EXAMPLES directory create a SRC directory that contains the two directories FEED and PAGE.
Step 4.
Move all of the files to the directories listed below:
Directory \MESA2
autoload.m2
m2bmodel.ico
m2model.ico
Mesa2.exe
mesa2.hlp
mesa2.ico
mesa2doc.inf
readme
Directory \MESA2\DLL
Mesacore.dll
Mesafeed.dll
Mesalic.dll
Directory of C:\mesa2\EXAMPLES
account.m2
examples.m2
features.m2
feed.exe
feed.ico
page.exe
page.ico
portflio.m2
present.m2
Directory MESA2\EXAMPLES\SRC\FEED
feed.cpp
feed.def
feed.dep
feed.h
feed.mak
Directory MESA2\EXAMPLES\SRC\PAGE
os2h.h
page.cpp
page.def
page.dep
page.mak
page.rc
Step 5.
Delete any other remaining files that you have not moved.
Step 6.
Edit your config.sys; add the <DRIVE>:\MESA2\DLL entry to the SET LIBPATH line and the <DRIVE>:\MESA2 to the SET HELP line.
Step 7.
Create a Mesa 2 folder on the OS/2 Desktop. Next, create a shaddow of the Mesa2.exe file and one of the mesa2doc.inf file in this folder.
Step 8.
Reboot your system.
Performance issues:
Q. Is the latest version of Mesa 2 any faster than previous versions?
Yes, in many ways. Most of the improvements in speed have been a direct result of user feedback. Here are some areas in which performance has improved.
Display/redraw speed:
A number of changes to the code have increased displaying and redrawing speed. You should see formatted text displayed faster, less screen flickering, faster pasting, quicker range selection, and in general much better performance. A few points should be noted, in the following paragraphs.
Mesa 2 uses OS/2's method of handling outline (as opposed to bitmapped) fonts. Mesa uses outline fonts in part because OS/2 programming interfaces only have rotation and scaling routines for outline fonts. Many of Mesa's features, from zoom to graph drawing, require fonts to be scaled and rotated, so we must either use outline fonts or abandon the OS/2 routines entirely and write our own graphics engine. We chose to use the OS/2 API (application programming interface) in the belief that these routines would be highly optimized by IBM. We may reconsider our use of them in the future.
For now, Mesa, and other OS/2 apps, are approximately 7 times slower at displaying text in outline fonts than a Windows app. This is an established benchmark that Athena and IBM have collaborated to produce and verify. We are working with IBM to determine what progress can be made from the OS/2 side.
Another factor affecting display speed has to do with using floating point numbers in its display routines, rather than integers. This does make for slower display on slower, older machines, particularly those without math coprocessors. However, as machine speeds increase, and coprocessors become standard hardware, display speed increases. On the PowerPC architecture floating point numbers process in fewer cycles than integers. We've chosen to design Mesa 2 with an eye for the future, to take advantage of 32-bit operating systems and new architectures, while keeping down memory requirements, hard disk space requirements and other factors that affect performance on older machines.
Sheet recalculation:
When formuli were used in previous versions of Mesa, changes to the cells they reference triggered a recalculation if the auto-recalculation setting was on. This briefly made the sheet unavailable for user input while the formula values recalculated and redisplayed. For example, cell A1 contained the number 1, and the range A1:Z1000 (26,000 cells) is selected and SmartFilled (i.e. the NEXT() formula is placed in the non-A1 cells). The range now contains the numbers from 1 to 26,000. Change cell A1 from 1 to 2, and the whole range updates to 2-26,001. Under previous versions, during the update, input was delayed until the update finished. Version 2.0.4 will allow user input to interrupt recalculation, so in the previous example you could change A1 from 1 to 2, then if you (quickly!) change your mind and want to make A1 equal to 3, you can input 3 into A1 during the recalc (and Mesa will stop the recalculation for A1 equal to 2 and restart for A1 equal to 3).
Sheet input and navigation:
Generally speaking, we've speeded up input to the sheet and navigation of the sheet, i.e. keyboard movement and scrolling.
Printing:
Previous versions had background printing functionality, so that printing ran in a separate thread from the user interface. However, there were problems with OS/2 which caused a variety of unpleasant things to happen when using background printing. This has been changed. You should now be able to print in the background, thus leaving you free to continue working.
Status bar:
Previous versions had been slowed by the status bar, which was updated every 500 Hz (cpu cycles). This has been changed so that the status bar updates at fixed time intervals, which is less obtrusive.
Q. Is there anything I can do to get Mesa 2 running even faster?
For starters, here are our hardware requirements and recommendations:
-8 MB of RAM (required)
-486 or Pentium CPU (recommended)
-math co-processor (highly recommended)
Mesa 2 is designed with an eye to the future, i.e. we try to take advantage of features in newer, faster machines. We have made performance improvements in version 2.0.4 that will help regardless of your hardware, but software that is optimized for faster, newer configurations will always be suboptimal on machines at the opposite end of the spectrum. In these requirements and recommendations, we hope we have struck the proper balance of advanced technology and practicality.
Turning off the status bar has been a way to improve speed of data entry in the past. This may still be the case with some slower, older machines (386 machines, mostly), but entry should be substantially faster in version 2.0.4.
Turning off auto-recalulation has also in the past speeded up input to the sheet, particularly in cases where large numbers of formuli (for example large ranges that have been SmartFilled) are used and a change is made to cells referenced in the argument list of the formuli. Obviously this is a drawback if auto-recalc is desired. Version 2.0.4 has been improved so that recalculation does not interrupt user input as in the past. You should therefore no longer need to do turn off auto-recalculation.
If you happened to obtain a copy of 2.0.3 via ftp in the first week of its release, please check the rev number, which is displayed in the "About Mesa" screen, under the Help menu. If you were one of the few who ftp'd rev 101 (no Compuserve, AOL, or reseller versions had this rev), please obtain the latest rev of 2.0.3. Rev
101 has a bug whose most obvious symptom is slowed performance with keystrokes and data entry. This rev was pulled from ftp sites within a couple of days of issue, but a few people did download this version. We have attempted to get word via Usenet and other forums (fora for you Classics majors!) to those folks who did download this version. We sincerely and humbly apologize for this inconvenience.
Q. Why do I get a SYS3175 error message?
SYS 3175 error messages are generated when a program attempts to place or retrieve data, or retrieve instructions from a location in memory that does not belong to the program's address space (address space=the portion of RAM allocated to the program).
There are any number of causes for this. If you should encounter an error of this type, please send us the following information:
1) Your hardware configuration. This would include
-CPU type and speed
-Amount of memory
-Monitor type
-Any information on the types of controllers you may know
-Additional hardware installed, such as cpu accelerators.
2) Your operating system information, including
-Version of OS/2: 2.X, 3.0 (Warp)
-If Warp, is it Warp Connect?
-If Warp, is it Warp FullPak?
-Is there a FixPak installed? What number FixPak?
3) The register info, which will state, among other things, in which
executable file and function the error occurred. An example:
SYS3175
A program generated an access violation at 1bdaf32c.
PMMERGE.DLL 000:000af32c
This is the most important part of the trace.
Q. How do I get Mesa worksheets to show up as icons on my OS/2 desktop?
This has been a point of confusion amongst many users. The Mesa folder visible on the desktop is created during the installation process, and the icons within that folder (Mesa 2, Read Me First, Mesa 2 Online Documentation)are SHADOWS of actual files on the filesystem. The actual files were installed in the directory chosen when the Installer was run (default C:\Mesa2). The shadow files/icons are located in the Desktop\Mesa2 folder, which is usually located on the OS/2 boot drive. To see the file connected to a desktop icon, click on one and right-click and choose Settings in the pop-up menu. Click on the Program page tab. The path and file name of the actual file the shadow represents will be shown.
Mesa can be started from the OS/2 Desktop by double-clicking the shadow, or Mesa can be started from the command line of an OS/2 window by typing "MESA" in the directory where MESA2.EXE resides (again, default of C:\Mesa2). Both are equivalent.
When starting Mesa via the Desktop icon, there is a natural tendency to think that saving Mesa workbooks will iconify them and place them in the same folder as the Mesa icon. When issuing a save command in Mesa for a workbook, the working directory will be shown in the file dialog (again, this is usually C:\MESA2). Saving a Mesa file here will not create a icon in the Desktop\Mesa folder. To create an icon, open the Drives folder in the OS/2 System folder, click on the icon of the drive that has the Desktop folder. Navigate to the location of the file you wish to iconify. Click on the file, then right-click. Choose Create Shadow, and select, on the boot drive, the Desktop\Mesa folder as the target. The of the file should appear in the Desktop\Mesa folder.
There may be a temptation to simplify this process by saving Mesa files directly to the Desktop folder. This is risky, because the Desktop is far less stable and more dynamic a storage environment than the underlying file system. Desktops can become corrupted, and thus potentially corrupt the Mesa files contained within. We recommend against doing this, as it is not standard OS/2 procedure, whereas creating shadow files is the accepted way, and has little associated risk.
File operations:
Q. What file formats (filters) does Mesa for OS/2 support?
Mesa 2 supports .wk1, .wk3, .wk4 (Lotus), .wb1 (Quattro Pro for Windows), and .xls (Excel v3.0 and v4.0 worksheets) import, and .wk1, .wk3, .wk4 and .xls (v3.0 and v4.0 worksheet) export.
Mesa 2 currently does not support Excel version 5 file formats, as they are proprietary to MicroSoft, and are not currently licensed to third-party software vendors.
We also import ascii text files with tab, space or comma delimiters. (Comma delimited files are sometimes referred to as comma-separated value files, or .CSV files). The line termination character(s) is also user-choosable from carriage-return, line-feed, or both. These choices are made by the user via a panel after selecting a file to import.
Q. Why isn't my file format listed in the File Type menu?
(or other supported file formats ╨ wk1 1-2-3 etc.)
Mesa 2 supports .wk1, .wk3, .wk4 (Lotus), .wb1 (Quattro Pro for Windows), and .xls (Excel v3.0 and v4.0 worksheets) import, and .wk1, .wk3, .wk4 and .xls (v3.0 and v4.0 worksheet) export.
The "File Type" drop-down menu in the Open and Save As dialog boxes determine the extended attributes that OS/2 looks for (i.e. acts as a filter). However, you can still import and export files in the above formats regardless of the File Type menus. For more information about extended attributes, see the OS/2 system documentation.
To import a file, simply select it from the list box of files in the Open menu. If it is not visible, check the File Type to be sure you have the desired format, or simply select "All Files" as the File Type.
To export a file, simply change the extension -- for example, save a file with the name
export.wk1
to create a wk1 file.
You can cause Mesa 2 to ignore the extended attributes of files by turning off Extended attributes in the Preferences panel (Options -> Preferences...)
Note: some elements of a Mesa workbook, such as graphs or graphics do not export in certain formats. If this is the case, closing the document window of a file that is only saved in an export format will cause a pop-up panel to indicate that changes to the document need to be saved. Save in a Mesa file to retain these elements, and the pop-up menu will no longer appear.
Graphics:
Q. How do I print just a graph in Mesa 2?
The formal way to print a graph is to select the cells underneath the graph, by entering a range of cells using the Range->GoTo command (control-g), or with the mouse by dragging/highlighting. This was not adequately documented in the User's Guide, we realize, and we apologize for the oversight.
If you need to print a graph repeatedly, and wish to avoid the above steps, try the following work-around: place a singe space in the cell that is just lower and to the right of the bottom-right corner of the graph. If you then print the whole spreadsheet (no specific, highlighted range) the graph will be included. Just remember that the space in the cell could cause confusion if you save your document and forget that one cell is occupied. You may wish to empty the cell after you've finished your work with the graph.
Printing:
Q. I'm having problems printing to my _____ printer. What's the problem?
There are a few models/categories of printers that have problems when printing from Mesa. The IBM 40X9 series/Lexmark 40X9 series of printers (printer made by Lexmark, and marketed under both companies' names) have a driver problem which can produce mirrored, reversed, or upside down printing. Athena brought our customers' reports to Lexmark, and a new, patched driver was subsequently issued. This driver is available on our anonymous ftp site (ftp.athena.com) in /pub/Mesa2/ as 4019.zip. Also available as of 10/6/95 from IBM's web pages, URL is:
We are very pleased with the result of this collaboration between our customers, our staff, and another vendor. We hope this will serve as a model for resolving future problems.
Also, a number HP printers, have also had trouble printing with Mesa. The drivers included in pre-Warp OS/2 (2.XX) are known to have had problems. The drivers were improved with OS/2 Warp FullPak, though some problems still occur.
Here is a brief list of known printing misbehaviors:
Row and column headings inverted
Colored text prints as black
Non-outline fonts print slowly
Landscape printing doesn't work on HP IIIP PostScript printer
(Apple LaserWriter Plus emulator)
Blank pages added to the ends of files on HP DeskJets
and LaserJets
We will continue to monitor the situation and keep our customers informed, and improve our code with workarounds, whenever possible.
Scripting:
Q. What scripting capabilities does Mesa for OS/2 have?
Mesa 2 supports the OS/2 REXX scripting language. By using REXX as our scripting language, instead of a macro-like language specific to Mesa, the user gains a great deal of flexibility to work with the OS/2 environment and existing OS/2 tools. Take a look at the OS/2 documentation to learn more about REXX.
An additional benefit is that VX-REXX, a graphical user interface extension of REXX by Watcom, Inc can be used. Please be certain that you are using version 2.0.4 of Mesa 2, as prior versions had a problem that could crash Mesa when invoking VX-REXX.
Other third-party REXX products are available, though we haven't done testing on these products. We'd love to hear from you if you have experiences with other REXX products and Mesa 2.
