Welcome to the world of Prograph! Lots of languages promise 'visual programming'...Prograph delivers on that promise!
Please read the accompanying "Classic License" agreement before proceeding.
This document is organized into several distinct sections to help get you started:
1. Installation instructions and notes
2. Resources for the Classic User
3. Details on included files
4. How to get the Classic compiler
5. Differences between Prograph 2.5.x and Classic
6. Known bug list for Prograph Classic
7. Information on Prograph CPX - the next logical step
NOTE FOR POWERMAC USERS:
If you are running Prograph Classic on a PowerMac, turn off the Modern Memory Manager option in your Memory Control Panel while working in the Editor/Interpreter environment. Otherwise, attempting to load an application may result in unexpected load errors or the Editor/Interpreter may freeze when attempting to open windows.
SECTION 1: Installation Instructions and Notes
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The Manuals may make reference to Technical Support addresses. No Technical Support will be provided by Pictorius Incorporated for Prograph Classic freeware, but there are many active users of Prograph products who would be happy to help should you have any questions (see section 2 for details on where to find them!). While this product is very solid and has been extensively used, newer hardware/software incompatibilities may exist (or be introduced later) - we cannot promise fixes for these, though in extreme cases we'll be more than willing to listen!
SECTION 2: Resources for the Classic User
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If you would like to contact us for information on other Pictorius products (sorry, the rest aren't freeware!), or for any other reason, see the addresses below:
e-mail: info@pictorius.com.com or sales@pictorius.com
FTP: ftp.pictorius.com
WWW: www.pictorius.com
Prograph users can be found on
America Online - If you are an AOL subscriber, search on keyword "prograph" to find the lively Prograph discussion area. Included here are ~20 Prograph sub-topics, file libraries, and bug fixes.
Internet - If you have access to the internet, you can read the usenet newsgroup 'comp.lang.prograph' for information. Also, check out Pictorius Incorporated's WWW page at 'www.pictorius.com', and their FTP site at 'ftp.pictorius.com'.
Also, Pictorius Incorporated will be releasing code snippets for Prograph Classic regularly. Check the site you downloaded this from, or check PI's ftp site.
SECTION 3: Details on Included Files
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"Prograph Classic" contains the following files/folders:
Classic license
Classic Release Notes
>Learning Prograph
Prograph Classic
>Prograph Extensions
System Classes 2.6
• "Classic license" is your license agreement for Prograph Classic.
• "Classic Release Notes" is the file you're currently reading.
• The folder "Learning Prograph" contains both simple examples and complex ones to help you learn the language and environment. Please read the readme files included in these folders.
• "Prograph Classic" is the application itself. Launch this to enter the world of visual programming!
• The folder "Prograph Extensions" contains the interface files that let Prograph Classic call external routines. This folder is scanned every time Classic is launched and if the contents have changed a new catalog is built in the Prograph Preferences file. Only the top-level folder will be scanned, not subfolders!
This folder also contains the Extension Finder application. On opening a project, load errors can be caused when the following Prograph extensions cannot be located in the Prograph Extensions folder: primitives, external methods, external structures, external fields, external constants, and external globals. When this happens a dialog is displayed that provides the name and type of the missing extension.
The Extension Finder, located in the Prograph Extensions folder, is a standalone
application that can locate extensions. When you double click on the Extension Finder application and choose Find from the File menu, a dialog is displayed that allows you to select the type of extension from a popup menu and specify the name of the extension in an edit text field. You can also direct the search to your hard drive, a floppy disk, or any other mounted volume. Clicking the Find button initiates the search.
If Extension Finder locates the extension, it provides the name of the file containing the extension. Once located, you can move the file containing the extension into the Prograph Extensions folder. It will be available the next time you start Prograph.
• "System Classes 2.6" is a compact, yet functional, application framework available for use with Prograph Classic.
SECTION 4: How to Get the Classic Compiler
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The Classic compiler is a true compiler in the sense that it compiles your Prograph Classic source code straight into a stand-alone machine language executable application. There are no intermediate steps, no interpretation, just a stand-alone executable for you to begin distributing to all your happy customers!
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The compiler for Prograph Classic is available from Pictorius Incorporated for $25.00 US plus shipping/handling by Air Mail. Please place your order by completing the following form, and then fax it to us at 902-455-2246 or call us at 1-800-927-4847 (or 902-455-4446X265). You can also email sales@pictorius.com for more information.
Prograph Classic Compiler Order Form - $25.00 US + $10.00 shipping
Current users of Prograph 2.5.x will be interested in the following enhancements available in Prograph Classic:
• Complete support for system 7.5 with all new XDefs generated from Apple's universal headers.
• Several new/improved primitives, including enhancements made to the existing datafile primitives.
• The much-requested command-w shortcut to close interpreter windows.
• Several debugger enhancements, including single clicking on a terminal or root of an operation to see the value rather than opening a value window.
• Numerous bug fixes -- now compiled Classic applications will run on PowerPC machines without the need to include the compiler library fix into your project.
SECTION 6: Known bug list for Prograph Classic
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September, 1995
The following is a list derived from our internal bug tracking database. It contains all potentially open bugs for Prograph Classic 2.6. The numbers are not of great importance to you, but they are helpful to us when we need to update this list from the database.
You will notice that some of the bugs are unverified - this means that a user reported it, but we have not yet been able to reproduce the problem ourselves.
• Miscellaneous
#2881 The Prograph Classic interpreter will not run on a PowerMac unless the Modern Memory Manager option in the Memory control panel is turned off. However, the compiler will run correctly, and compiled applications will run correctly.
• Init Conflicts
#2883 After incrementally loading an Auto-Doubled Prograph file, all compacted methods will now be execute-only, and you won't be able to uncompact them. The file you incrementally loaded from is not affected.
Workaround: Use AutoDoubler's setup to exclude all Prograph files, or just the ones that you are likely to incrementally load.
#1011 Unverified - There may be an incompatibility between Prograph compiled apps and the SAM virus checker.
#1027 Unverified - Prograph runs unbelievably slowly when running "QuadraBoost", an init that is supposed to increase performance on Quadras.
#1028 Unverified - When Adobe Type Reunion is installed, it takes an interminable amount of time to do anything in Prograph (i.e., 10+ seconds to select an icon!).
#528 Unverified - When SFVol INIT 1.5 is active, clicking on the Volume icon in the standard file dialog crashes Prograph with a stack overflow.
#1023 There is a merely cosmetic incompatibility between Prograph 2.5 and SuperBoomerang 3.1; SuperBoomerang's > symbol for the hierarchical menu appears as an unprintable in Prograph's FIle menu Open... item. Both Prograph and SuperBoomerang function correctly.
#2884 Unverified - Incompatibility between Prograph applications and Apple’s Display Card 8•24. Some of the characters are not displayed correctly if and only if millions of colors are chosen in the Monitors control panel.
#2885 Unverified - Incompatibility between Prograph and Stuffit SpaceSaver. If you have a Prograph file, for instance, test.pgs and a backup file test.bak, and the backup has been compressed by SpaceSaver, then if you save a new version of the file the .bak file will lose the Type/Creator and become a Stuffit file even when it is expanded.
#2886 Unverified - Incompatibility between Prograph and MultiMaster (part of Now Utilities). MultiMaster puts an additional menu item up which can be used to launch applications. When this menu is pulled down in an application running in the interpreter, only every other letter in the menu gets printed.
• Application Builder
#2890 Unverified - If the 1st char of a <Menu Item> name is '-', that item will be drawn as a line. In Style Menu, the menu item is always drawn as a dotted line. However, in Key Menu, it is drawn as a solid line if active? is TRUE, and drawn as a dotted line if active? is FALSE.
#2391 On an SE/30, if you create a pop-up menu and drag it across the screen, a line is left behind.
#2892 Pop-up menus don't always redraw themselves properly in the app editor when you nudge them using the cursor keys
• Editor/Interpreter - Print
#578 Unverified - Prograph may have difficulty printing on an original Laserwriter with the original Postscript drivers.
• Editor/Interpreter - Editing Code
#2894 Shrink wrap (option-click on zoom box) does not take into account any comments made which extend beyond the right side of the window.
#580 You are allowed to list annotate the output of a get/set operation without there being a list or loop annotation on an input. If you execute it, you go into an infinite loop with no way to get out of it (not even Cmd-.). Workaround: Know what you're doing! We cannot disallow this option because you may be calling an overshadowing get or set method that does indeed have a terminate control within it.
#2895 Select All Objects from the Edit menu does not select hidden classes. For example, Compact will not compact methods in hidden classes.
#585 You cannot display a list of more than 706 items graphically in a value window - the scroll bars stop there.
• Editor/Interpreter - Executing Code
#955 Calls to externals generated by the C Interface are given only an 8K stack size in the interpreter. This is not big enough for some user's externals.
#965 Unverified - If you install a font into the source file and use it in a text object, the font will revert to the default font when the object is updated. Only the part that is updated will revert, making for some strange effects. In a similar vein, trying to display icons in a pop-up menu (by using the ^ metacharacter in the value list) doesn't work properly in the interpreter if you install the icon into your source file.
Workaround: install the font or icon into Prograph itself. Or just don't worry about it - everything works fine in compiled code.
• Editor/Interpreter - Save/Load
#2897 Launch Prograph, open a file, launch another application from the File menu (so that the directory is changed) and then switch back to Prograph. If you try to save the file, you will get the following message: "Initial file <<filename>> coud not be found."
• Editor/Interpreter - Compact Code
#2898 There is a limit onthe number of TGSV resources available (approx. 2500) which imposes a limit of this many compacted methods.
Workaround: Make some methods execute only (making sure to keep a copy that still has the visual information) or simply do not compact that many methods.
• System Classes
#2903 Setting the active or value list attribute of a scroll list causes the whole item to erase and redraw, causing ugly flickering. Workaround: available on the Essentials.
#2905 On a Pop-up menu whose item rect is smaller than the actual size of the menu, setting the visible? attribute to FALSE causes only part of the menu to get erased
#2907 The Scroll Text item does not update properly when the font attributes are set programatically. Entering the Window Editor and then going back to the application will cause it to display the correct font, size etc. but setting the attributes programatically doesn't do it.
• Primitives
#970 The trace primitive does not check-mark the TRACE menu item correctly.
#2908 When no header string is passed into the print-text and print-window primitives, the lines that mark off the header are printed anyway - this makes it difficult to use these primitives for such things as report generation.
SECTION 7: Information on Prograph CPX - The Next Logical Step
I've tried out Prograph Classic - Why Upgrade to Prograph CPX?
Thank you for downloading Prograph Classic! We made Prograph Classic available in the public domain so people could easily access the language that's been called the "Macintosh of programming languages". If you've tried Prograph Classic you've discovered the completely visual, object-oriented, nature of Prograph programming that cuts down on development time.
You may be ready to take the next step -- professional-level programming with Prograph CPX. Prograph CPX does more of the work for you with a suite of editors, a rich library of classes, a feature-rich debugger and a fast interpreter. Prograph CPX makes all code fully visible so you can make fine, detailed changes that customize your application to a deeper level. And with Prograph CPX you can make use of much of the code you've created with Prograph Classic.
Prograph CPX is a complete application development environment that has been used for a wide range of applications from multimedia to corporate client-server. We used it ourselves to develop our new product, Peregrine, the client/server application and database development environment.
Prograph Classic was the first product to make the Prograph language available to the public. When we developed Prograph CPX we added:
- A project structure that supports multiple files, so you can share code between multiple programmers working on the same, or different projects.
- A very rich class library of Application Building Classes (ABC's) comparable in functionality to Think Class Library, Power Plant and MacApp. The ABC's are pre-built classes that help you build applications even faster. And all the code is included so you can customize them and reuse them in future application development.
- A set of fully extensible object editors, called ABE's or Application Building Editors that allow you to build menus, windows, documents and more with a series of dialogs and click 'n drag ease of use. Build large parts of your program, including many standard behaviors, with little or no programming.
- Support for callbacks. Prograph CPX methods can be called by Toolbox or other C routines.
- Enhanced help and info. We created a hypertext browsing system that communicates with Think Reference. Just click on the name of a Toolbox call, hit the Lookup button and Prograph CPX launches Think Reference and locates the info on that call.
- The ability to "Undo" deletions, so that valuable code cannot be lost by accident.
- A much faster Interpreter that incrementally compiles the code you've written, allowing you to check and debug it.
- New debugging features like visible breakpoints, "go until" command and non-modal value windows which let you have more than one view of the data open from different parts of your program.
- 1500 pages of documentation and tutorials.
- Numerous interface and environmental improvements including list views, unified Cut/Copy/Paste, object deletion via the delete key and more.
- Both 68k and Power Mac compilers that produce fast standalone applications.
- Full set of extensions are included for sending and receiving Apple Events, using C libraries, adding graphs, charts and more.
- Your purchase includes a free one year membership to our support service called the Pictorius Developers Network (PDN). The PDN includes unlimited access to technical support via fax and email with regular CD-ROM mailings full of product updates, sample code, tech notes and news about the Prograph community.
If you have questions about Prograph CPX or would like to order, call us at 1-800-927-4847 from 9:00 to 7:00 EST. Or email us at sales@pictorius.com. You can reach our web site at www.pictorius.com.
