America Online APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG Tuesday, March 5, 1991 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time Topic: Operating Systems Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet) Z Factor help help please ShanoJ What's up, Z AFL Dyfet GA Z... Z Factor what is the complete syntax for random access text file writing in prodos 8??? Z Factor including parameters? AFL Dyfet Do you mean from Basic or the MLI? AFA Gary J Yes, under what language? Z Factor basic, but it doesn't really make a diff because prodos is by itself Z Factor (i suppose i could use RWTS tho) Z Factor is it WRITE FILENAME,Rr,Ff or WRITE FILENAME,Rr,Bb??????? AFL Dyfet You need an open first :) Z Factor (fields or bytes) Z Factor :) AFL Dyfet As in OPEN FILENAME,Rreclen AFA Gary J That's the whole key. Z Factor yes but if inside the record there are fields, can i access them separately? Z Factor or do i have to use bytes? AFL Dyfet And then you can do READ FILENAME,Rrec# and WRITE FILE,Rrec#. Applesoft does AFL Dyfet not use fielded file buffers like some basics's do :)....You can only read the AFL Dyfet record as a line.....the B parameter is for byte offset, which you can use AFL Dyfet in place of record number to move around the file.... Z Factor but there are fields inside! Z Factor there is another parameter, what is it??? ShanoJ non OS ? Z Factor but can i use the B parameter inside the Record? Z Factor as in READ FILE,Rrecord,Bbyteoffset? AFL Dyfet It's been a long time since I've played with Basic.System :) WinkieJim David, there is a F parameter.... WinkieJim the F param let's you count the number of carriage returns... 0 is the WinkieJim start of the record, 1 is the first CR, 2 the 2nd... Dave Lyons (You could do a READ filename,Rr and then do a series of INPUTs, but you'd always have to read Dave Lyons the sub-fields sequentially starting with the first one, inside each record.) Z Factor listen to jim. there is a field parameter i'm sure of it... AFL Dyfet The F parameter is to skip lines in a (really text normally) file... Z Factor but can it be used to skip fields within the record using CR's??? Z Factor (i know this is a long question but it's very important) AFL Dyfet Okay, I do not recall for certain, but I believe ,F is relative to the current WinkieJim Z left... AFL Dyfet Oh well.... AFL Dyfet This is going to be one of those nights :) ShanoJ Winkie can go before me... Mine's kinda unrelated... :) AFL Dyfet GA Winkie...it seems we are at you again :) WinkieJim Mine's not even close to that last question...:) WinkieJim Ok, I've installed a Heartbeat task and it's being called with no problem... WinkieJim With it just trying to find a key combination it works fine, but when I WinkieJim stuck in a _GetName call to see what program's running it will bomb after WinkieJim being called 3-5 times... WinkieJim I made sure that the system isn't busy by checking the busy flag... WinkieJim Any ideas? Coach101 Testing.... AFL Dyfet You called _GetName from within your HeartBeat ISR, though? WinkieJim David, right AFL Dyfet GA Jonah... ShanoJ Isn't there ANOTHER flag that says when GSOS is busy? And, if I remember ShanoJ correctly, a whole other queue for tasks like that (ie. interrupt type tasks ShanoJ that call GSOS).... AFL Dyfet GA Dave :) Dave Lyons The OS -has- a busy flag of its own, but it also increments Dave Lyons the system busy flag during a call, so there should be no problem there. Dave Lyons Even if you called GS/OS while it was busy, all that would happen is you get back error $0007, Dave Lyons which means "GS/OS is busy." It doesn't do any harm (unlike calling P8 while it's busy). Dave Lyons I suspect something is going wrong--maybe unrelated to the call, or maybe something's wrong with your Dave Lyons parameter block. Are you *providing* a pointer for the result string? If you expect it to fill in Dave Lyons the pointer for you, you'll be trashing memory--it uses the one you provide. WinkieJim Well, the same exact code without the _GetName call functions fine... WinkieJim putting the )GetName call in crashes after 3-5 times Dave Lyons And the call returns with no error? WinkieJim Dave, no I'm giving it a nice 36 byte buffer to stick the name into WinkieJim Yup, no error Dave Lyons Well, beats me...send some code. ga WinkieJim Is there any good text on writting interupt tasks? AFL Dyfet I guess we had better move to Jonah's question then :) ShanoJ Okay... I just wanna know if anyone here has seen/heard of the SDE Shell from ShanoJ SEA software... It's supposedly a massively cool replacement for APW. Comments? AFL Dyfet GA Matt... Matt DTS I've seen/heard of it. If you're the guy who wrote it, it's perfect for you. It doesn't function the Matt DTS same way as the ORCA shell does, which isn't necessarily bad, but Apple disagrees with some of the Matt DTS author's practices (i.e., getting new user IDs for every file he edits, not purging or disposing of Matt DTS files in memory when you quit the editor), but it does have some nifty menu-script driven capabilities Matt DTS and an assembler the author swears is the cats pajamas. End of opinion. GA. ShanoJ Anyone else? :) AFL Dyfet I guess not, Jonah...only heard about it myself... ShanoJ Okey doke, I'll be quiet then... :) AFL Dyfet Okay, Sting, you have the floor now...go ahead... StingRay63 A GS/OS question. Does anyone think it will become a multitasking os in StingRay63 the future? AFL Marty GA Dave Dave Lyons GS/OS is unlikely to ever be pre-emptively multitasking, which is probably what you're Dave Lyons asking; but as I understand it, neither is Unix(tm)! Just because you can't yank control Dave Lyons away from an OS call doesn't mean you can't do -cooperative- multitasking (whether partly Dave Lyons interrupt driven or not). JWankerl (Yah, the Leapfrog program demonstrates that bit) Dave Lyons Many parts of the toolbox already support multitasking to a cool enough degree, but then Dave Lyons again other parts don't. It's hard to predict. ga AFL Dyfet Bumped :(...What Dave points out is very true...I have written a simple AFL Dyfet scheduler without a single pre-emtive interrupt :).... AFL Scott (Is there such a thing as post-emptive? :)) WinkieJim Scott it's called a crash :) AFA Gary J :) StingRay63 Just asking because am presently on a //e and would like to upgrade in the StingRay63 near future. Thanks for the info. ga AFL Dyfet Okay, go ahead Winkie... WinkieJim Okay, assume the memory manager, misc tools and QD have been started up... WinkieJim Would starting up the event manger with a different memory ID be ok? WinkieJim Or do the toolsets like to use the same memID that is given to them? AFL Dyfet GA Matt... Matt DTS Different as in a different auxiliary ID, or different as in a totally new user ID? WinkieJim totaly new ID Matt DTS In reality, the tools currently don't care too much, but they might in the future. It's also not Matt DTS a nice thing to do (trying to fool the system). Why do you want to do it? WinkieJim I need to use the event manager from a interupt rouine and am trying to start i WinkieJim it up if it's not active... Dave Lyons Eh? What can you do with the Event Manager from inside an interrupt? AFL Scott (become recursive:)) Dave Lyons (Or what do you -think- you can do? :-) AFL Dyfet :) AFA Gary J :) Dave Lyons (And what interrupt?) WinkieJim heartbeat task... WinkieJim as to what I want to do.... WinkieJim ...don't think I want to go into that...it's probably won't work...just wondering WinkieJim what the event manager would recact to being started and shutdown within a WinkieJim heartbeat task Dave Lyons Okay, then for the record Dave Lyons I'll just point out that using the EM entirely from inside an interrupt routine wouldn't be very Dave Lyons helpful, since no key-down or mouse-down events would occur (they get posted during interrupts), Dave Lyons and the tick count would not advance. Oh, and the mouse location would not change. ga AFL Dyfet Other than that...:)...An eventless event loop :) WinkieJim hmmm, ok, I think that answers my questions... Dave Lyons But, Dave Lyons if you want to -start- and -stop- it from a hearbeat, I suppose you could--although it seems Dave Lyons like you'll mostly just confuse the foreground application big-time. In that case, I'd recomment Dave Lyons you post a GS/OS SIGNAL to do the startup/shutdown, rather than actually doing them from inside the Dave Lyons heartbeat task. ga again WinkieJim GS/OS Signal? AFL Dyfet GA Dave... Dave Lyons Signals are described in one of the GS/OS reference books...probably the Driver reference, as MD will Dave Lyons probably confirm. You can call the SIGNAL service to post one; it's somewhat like calling SchAddTask Dave Lyons to make the Scheduler dispatch to your task later, only it doesn't depend on the Busy flag being Dave Lyons nonzero, and it's a much zanier dispatching mechanism. WinkieJim Did you guys add a feature without telling me! :) Dave Lyons (The GS/OS Driver Reference is an APDA thang.) Matt DTS Coach101 can give you more information on it, but the documentation reference is indeed GS/OS Device Matt DTS Driver Reference. It's a System Service call, so you can't make it from a high-level language without Matt DTS glue. ShanoJ (see, told you that existed... :) Dave Lyons Oh, and interrupts are generally enabled when a signal gets dispatched; this is not necessary Dave Lyons true for SchAddTask tasks. ga Dave Lyons (Or without imbedded assembly code.) Dave Lyons (BTW, you can make OS calls from a signal, Dave Lyons and EMStartUp might just need to do that, when loading the key translation resource.) done AFL Dyfet Okay, I guess Parik can have the floor now :)...GA Parik... AFA Parik does anyone have the # for Kfest reservations handy? JWankerl something 6502 WinkieJim 913-469-6502 WinkieJim I like that phone number! :) AFA Parik thanks, done AFA Gary J :) AFA Gary J That was quick. AFL Dyfet Okay, does anyone else have a question for tonight? WinkieJim That didn't even make matt or Dave sweat...let's get another tough one AFL Dyfet Ga Wankerl... JWankerl How come my fmdEditMenu call isn't working properly? Matt DTS Because you're not holding your tongue properly. Dave Lyons What's it doing? ShanoJ :) AFA Gary J :) Matt DTS Because your edit menu items don't have the standard menu item numbers. Dave Lyons (250..254) Matt DTS Because ... yeah, what _is_ it doing? JWankerl Well... it does its stuff when a NDA is front - so my menu items *are* JWankerl numbered correctly. JWankerl But when something with a LineEdit or TextEdit control in it is front, JWankerl the edit things are all dimmed. Dave Lyons Is there some text selected? Is there anything text on the clipboard? Dave Lyons If not, they will be dimmed. JWankerl I think there is something in the clipboard - didn't think to select JWankerl something, though. :-) Matt DTS Note that FMD will not enable edit items if there is no target control, either. Dave Lyons Well, no selection explains everything but Paste; if there was no text on the clipboard that Dave Lyons explains Paste too (or if the target Text Edit control was read-only). Yeah, or if you have no Dave Lyons target control at all. Matt DTS Quoting from the manual you should have picked up at KansasFest: Matt DTS "If the current target control is a LineEdit control, fmdEditMenu enables cut, copy and clear if Matt DTS any text is selected. Paste is also enabled if a text scrap longer than zero bytes exists." JWankerl Okay. And one more FMD question -- is there a way I can change the cursor to JWankerl an I-beam in my main event loop (not using the fakeModalDialog call) by JWankerl using the FMD tools? Matt DTS "If [target is editable TE control], fmdEditMenu enables cut, copy and clear, and Paste if a >0 Matt DTS text scrap exists." (For read-only TE records, cut paste and clear are disabled.) JWankerl (automatically when it passes over a TE or LE control, that is) Dave Lyons Isn't there a fmdSetIBeam call? Dave Lyons One of them thangs does it. JWankerl Yah, there's a call, but I want to change it only if it's over a TE or LE JWankerl control. Matt DTS Sure - use... Matt DTS ...fmdGetIBeamAdr. This gives you the address of FMD's IBeam cursor so you can do stuff with it, Matt DTS although, I don't know why you don't just use fmdIBeamCursor instead of SetCursor(fmdGetIBeamAdr). Dave Lyons Okay, so call fmdFindCursorCtl to see what control you're over, and check the control's procID field Dave Lyons to see what kind of control it is. JWankerl It'd be nice if FMD did that for me since it has to do it itself anyhow. Matt DTS Joe - it does! AFL Dyfet GA Matt... Dave Lyons Matt, he means for windows other than modal dialogs. Matt DTS As long as you have bit 3 of the flags word set, FMD automatically does that over LE and TE controls. Matt DTS Oh...you want FMD to work for non modal-dialog windows? Yeah, you'll have to do that yourself. Matt DTS FMD wasn't supposed to be the "complete user-interface-in-a-box tool", just a step in the Matt DTS right direction. GA. AFL Dyfet Okay, Coach, go ahead.... JWankerl I'm done -- for now. Coach101 What is FMD? ShanoJ Fake Modal Dialog. Coach101 Thanks.... AFL Dyfet Okay, Gary, Ga... AFA Gary J Is there anything that could cause an ACE $1D08 error other than the obvious AFA Gary J source and destination areas overlapping in memory? If not, is there any AFA Gary J outside occurance that could cause the overlap to occur (such as low memory, or AFA Gary J just a bogged down system :) AFA Gary J GA AFA Gary J (I've seen this happen, out of the blue, on a program that has been working AFL Dyfet GA Dave... AFA Gary J for months.... ) GA Dave Lyons Gary, weren't you having this same problem last year? :) If it's reproducable, I'd like to Dave Lyons see it. AFA Gary J :) AFA Gary J The trouble is, it only occurs on very strange circumstances - while I'm in the AFA Gary J ORCA shell, and after I've run/assembled/linked/run/assembled/linked for many AFA Gary J times. JWankerl Well that's the problem right there - the ORCA shell! AFA Gary J It could be, but that's what I'm wondering. Dave Lyons Well, can you modify your program so that on getting the error it displays the source and Dave Lyons destination parameters, along with the addresses & handle sizes of the handles? AFA Gary J Yes, that was going to be my next plan, since it has me real curious. AFA Gary J The trouble is, I have to catch it in the act. I spent 30 mintutes prior to WinkieJim I always get curious when my programs crash too... AFA Gary J this conference this evening trying to get it to do it again (so I could take AFA Gary J a good look with Nifty List), but I couldn't get it to do it. Oh well. I may AFA Gary J be doing something wrong something wrong, I'll just look harder :) GA AFL Dyfet GA Coach... Coach101 Gary, do you ever have problems with other programs, tools, compilers after a whole bunch Dave Lyons :), :) Coach101 of edit, compile, link, execute iterations in ORCA? AFA Gary J Well, sometimes Coach, but I'm not sure if I can attribute it to ORCA in every AFA Gary J case. Coach101 To attempt to exonerate ORCA (or blame your program) you could change the program to an S16 and Coach101 repetively execute it from another launcher to see if the same problem ever appears. ga AFA Gary J Well, it IS an S16 program, but it returns to ORCA each time (with most shell AFA Gary J info intact) AFL Dyfet Prizm I'd be more quick to judge harshly than ORCA shell...you could use AFL Dyfet Nifty to see if anything strange is happening with avail memory between each AFL Dyfet Orca invokation, Gary :)... AFA Gary J Ok, thanks. I'll see what I can figure out. James S WI Where can I get DUPLICATE or any utility to copy a resource onto a regular file AFL Dyfet (James, you can try APDA for the APW tools update...I do not know of a pub. AFL Dyfet domain 'duplicate)... AFL Dyfet (though it would not be hard to write one :) Matt DTS Bryan Pietrzak's COPY command copies files with resource forks. Part of ZakPak, should be online Matt DTS here somewhere. AFA Parik (email BRYAN ZAK for info on ZakPak.) ShanoJ I'm gunna upload ZakPak as soon as I get a minute... AFA Gary J (Great, Jonah! ) ShanoJ (Even have it all packed, ready to go... :) WinkieJim Just checked... There's a program called ResLin that does resource moving and WinkieJim copying... ShanoJ LLRE Is better, Winkie... :) James S WI Do they work from the ORCA shell? WinkieJim Well I use GeneSys mostly myself.. ShanoJ They're both dekstop applications.... James S WI I mean are ther exe or s16? James S WI That answers it. WinkieJim ResLin is sys16 AFL Dyfet Okay, Jim...go ahead, you have the floor... DYA Jim1 Ok; I think I found a little bug in SF. When the open button is dimmed, in DYA Jim1 a getfile dialog box, OA-down arrow still works and enables and flashes the DYA Jim1 open button. It doesn't cause any damage; just a cosmetic thing.. anyone DYA Jim1 else see this? AFL Dyfet GA Dave... Dave Lyons Yup, I did. :-) Don't be surprised if that eventually doesn't happen any more. As I recall, Dave Lyons the button is left enabled after that little trick, but you're right, it's just cosmetic. Dave Lyons (BTW, please *do* report stuff like that (to me, for example)--we can't have found them all) DYA Jim1 Ok.. thanks Dave.. GA AFL Dyfet Okay, go ahead Wankerl... JWankerl That reminded me of a quirk I just found with SF - when you click on the JWankerl Volumes button when you're in some directory that's not the root and then JWankerl you click on the 'Select Volume:' string above the list (or whatever it's JWankerl titled) you will be taken back one directory from where you clicked on the JWankerl Volumes button. Dave Lyons Really?? Hmmm, hadn't heard of that one. (scribble....) JWankerl Actually it's kinda neat if you didn't want to hit the Volumes button. :-) AFA Gary J :) AFL Dyfet Okay, do we have any more questions for tonight? Dave Lyons (Besides that one?) AFL Dyfet That was a question, alright :) ShanoJ Okay, I'll take a shot... :) AFA Gary J Both of them. Dave Lyons ("Sir; may I ask a question?" "Data, I think you just did." "Yes sir. Then, may I ask another Dave Lyons after this one?") AFA Gary J :) AFL Dyfet Data follows ADV protocol :) ShanoJ First: What would people like to see in the way of new programming utilities? ShanoJ Next: What would people like to see in the way of new NiftyList modules (I'm ShanoJ kinda getting into them... :) JWankerl I'd like to see a NL module that does GSBug Templates. :-) Coach101 A post associated source level debugger.... AFL Dyfet :) Dave Lyons How 'bout one that will tell me what next week's Apple stock price will be? That would be cool.... JWankerl Nifty List -- programmer aid and stock broker. ShanoJ Would that be a shell utility or a NiftyList module, Dave? :) Coach101 Geez Dave, they just lowered your option point for you last summer :) AFL Dyfet Or one that picks winning Lotto numbers :) AFA Gary J I'd like to see one that would identify bit flags (i.e. event flags, etc.) Matt DTS (We don't give Dave options. That requires him to actually decide something.) AFA Gary J or something like that. AFL Dyfet Hmmm... Dave Lyons (Yes Matt, you make a nice duck.) ShanoJ I thought a cool idea would be something like Templates, but for FILES. It'd ShanoJ load in a file and label all of the parts for you. Particularly useful if ShanoJ you're trying to make files for some other program (say AWGS). You have your ShanoJ program save them, then the module load 'em up, so you can make sure that ShanoJ everything got into the proper position... ShanoJ Then again, I also thought that a MiniAssembler module for NiftyList would be ShanoJ nice, so what do I know... :) Matt DTS Of course, you'll have to make it modular enough so that others can add their own file descriptions. Coach101 Thats a neat idea Jonah! ShanoJ Of course, Matt. That's the whole idea (notice the reference to Templates). JWankerl Of course it's work for both data forks and resource forks. ;-) JWankerl (Reference noted - one brownie point awarded) ShanoJ So, I take it from the overwhelming response that the GS is a mature computer ShanoJ and needs no more utilities? AFA Gary J Ha! :) (I think every programmer in the world is constantly asking himself the AFA Gary J quesion, "What is the utility that everyone needs?" :) Matt DTS Jonah, people think of utilities that are needed when they can't get something done, not while sitting Matt DTS in a conference (unless there's a recent frustration memory). ShanoJ Or that because you're all programers yourselves, you wanna keep your ideas ShanoJ to yourselves... :) Dave Lyons (Jonah, maybe they're saying it needs more menu-driven utilties and fewer weird-command-line Dave Lyons syntax utilities....) ShanoJ I didn't say it had to be command line... Desktop utilites count, too. Dave Lyons (Oh, I thought the question was still "What Nifty List modules do people want?" Sorry....) AFA Gary J Are you gonna write my Integer Math calculator CDA? If not, I'll write it :) AFA Gary J (I just want to use it) Coach101 Though there is always room for another utility, I do think that the IIgs native development Coach101 environment is fairly mature. Coach101 Now, the hot area may be "development" utilities for developing HyperCardIIgs stacks... Coach101 Much bigger marketplace I suspect :) ShanoJ Oh, has anyone gotten Prizm to work under 5.0.anything? JWankerl I didn't use Prizm 10 minutes after I got it. I really dunno. ShanoJ Ya, me either... The other day I wanted to play with it a bit (did you know ShanoJ it does window PANES?!) but it wouldn't boot any more... :( JWankerl window panes? Ain't that a new technote somewheres? AFA Gary J :) ShanoJ Naw, that's "Aren't windows a Pane?" AFA Gary J Yeah, that's it. ShanoJ BTW, Dave, could you explain Mr. Tangent and Of Course I Trust You, I'm Just ShanoJ Checking? JWankerl (and also explain Dave "Eh?" Lyons ;-) ShanoJ Or do I have to send EMail to Mike Opitz for that, too? :) Dave Lyons Sure, Dave Lyons anyone spending significant time near me while I'm supposed to be getting work done finds that I Dave Lyons frequently go off on tangents. All of them, if possible. AFA Gary J :) Dave Lyons ("Whoa! Now I see why it's crashing, it's doing a BlockMove by 5 bytes across all the softswitches; Dave Lyons Gee, I wonder exactly what effect that has & why...." :) Dave Lyons And I would make a good diplomat when it comes to arms control or something: Trust and verify. Dave Lyons I have to actually try it out or look it up (or preferably both) before I believe it (anything Dave Lyons relating to the GS, that is). Dave Lyons "Mr. Tangent" is on my business cards. Matt DTS (He's been known to irritate people by listening to their explanations and trying it in Nifty List... Matt DTS ...even though they just told him how it works.) Dave Lyons And even though they weren't quite right half the time. JWankerl You shoulda seen him track down a bug in Transfusion at Kansas last summer... AFA Gary J :) JWankerl out of the blue "Oh, you didn't do a setport" JWankerl From god knows where inside the toolbox - code that didn't mean a thing he JWankerl exclaims this. ShanoJ That's why he works for Apple and we don't, Joe... :) Dave Lyons (Elementary, my dear JW...as soon as it crashed -inside quickdraw-, that was an easy guess. :) Dave Lyons I can do better than that, I found a bug at lunch just talking about a guy's code...he didn't realize Dave Lyons a handle had to be unlocked and non-fixed when grown with SetHandleSize to be sure it will work. Dave Lyons (Didn't even know there was a bug.... :) Dave Lyons (Gee, I've bored everyone to death again. :( A2Evanglst Dave Lyons, The "Black Flag" of Apple Computer... Kills Bugs Dead ;) JWankerl So... anyone know any good IIGS references for AppleTalk *besides* the JWankerl Inside Appletalk and AppleShare PRogrammer's Guide for the Apple II? Matt DTS Joe: No, that pretty much covers it all. What more do you need? Nuzz Is the special price on CD drives still in effect? Matt DTS Nuzz: Call the hotline and ask. Dave Lyons (Yeah, call...I believe there's an ongoing special price for new partners and associates, but beyond Dave Lyons that I don't know.) JWankerl I need something that tells me what to do!!!!!!! JWankerl Both those books are cryptic. Matt DTS They're not network primers. You might want "AppleTalk Network System Overview" for a technical Matt DTS introduction to the network. Developer University also has an introductory AppleTalk class. Dave Lyons ("It was hard to implement; it should be hard to use!" <--joke :) ShanoJ That's why there aren't any OTHER references, Joe... :) Dave Lyons (BTW, this might make a good DTS sample some year: real live working examples of all the calls.) JWankerl Exactly. Go thru each protocol and give examples of what to do. JWankerl Examples are really what I need. Dave Lyons (Along with comments saying when & why you'd want to use each call.) Matt DTS Would you like French Fries with that? JWankerl Yes, but not too much salt - it's bad for the heart. Matt DTS (Dave is the same one who, every time I report a bug, says "fix it" but thinks DTS exclusively gets Matt DTS to write all the sample code.) AFA Gary J :) Dave Lyons I didn't say DTS had to write it; I said it would make a good DTS sample. Anybody you can get to Dave Lyons make time to do it, go for it. Matt DTS You volunteering? :) Dave Lyons (I am not volunteering at this time.) AFA Gary J Well, I'm gonna go and see if I can get my program to crash :) ShanoJ Gary... AFA Gary J Yes, Jonah? ShanoJ The idea of programming is to NOT make your programs crash.... :) AFA Gary J :) JWankerl Unless, of course, you're writing GSBug or something. ShanoJ That might be what's slowing you down here.... AFA Gary J Yes, but I've had a particular bad time with the ORCA shell. It's the problems AFA Gary J that have "gone-away" that I used to have that worry me the most :) AFA Gary J All the problems have only occured (as far as I know... I do have a few beta AFA Gary J versions of my program sprinkled around) under the ORCA shell, during AFA Gary J development. ShanoJ Well, then as long as you don't distribute the source you don't have to worry ShanoJ about it... :) AFA Gary J :) JWankerl Don't write for GS+, then. Nuzz What does GS+ pay for programs? JWankerl Nuzz: Depends on the program - no less than $50, I believe. That's a low JWankerl bottom end, though. AFA Gary J Somehow, the most annoying problem (of having to COLD re-boot in order to AFA Gary J re-edit ANY source file after running my program) has gone away. AFA Gary J (The problem with the "Invalid Text Data") ShanoJ Have you ever used MAX/Edit? Their choice of stealing a system toolset was ShanoJ REALLY stupid, because you have to boot with a system disk that has that ShanoJ toolset on it in order to get into the editor... :( For people writing things ShanoJ like Twilight that have boot parts that sometimes don't work, meaning that you ShanoJ have to boot from floppies instead of the HD, that can be REALLY annoying. :( JWankerl Man, it only takes 3 lines of code to use a user toolset and install it. :-( Matt DTS The author of MAX/Edit felt his stolen system toolset was "too ingrained in the design" to change, Matt DTS whatever that means. AFA Gary J I've never tried that, Jonah. I actually like the ORCA editor well enough. AFA Gary J I'd just like it better if it could (1) edit more than one file at a time - and AFA Gary J (2) edit files larger than 64K. ShanoJ Gary: Try MAX/Edit--except for a few little flaws, it's GREAT. I couldn't ShanoJ believe how wonderful it was until I tried it! ShanoJ Matt: here's one time when I'm completely on your side: a system toolset theft ShanoJ was a BAD idea. :( Matt DTS I use EdIt-16, now shipping from SSSi (got mine today). Completely modifiable, up to 9 files Matt DTS open at any time. EXE or S16, uses command line or message parameters, every command is configurable. ShanoJ Uggh... I have EdIt-16, but I didn't like it to much. I think MAX/Edit is a ShanoJ LOT better... (In fact, I installed EdIt-16 on MAX/Edit as a Min/Shell ShanoJ utility... :) Matt DTS Only flaw is that it has 64K file limits. Matt DTS Jonah: "uggh" is not useful in software review discussions. ShanoJ I think that SSSi should have done a little more work on EdIt-16... One thing ShanoJ that I really don't like is that you have to refer to language types by auxType ShanoJ rather than by name. _I_ sure never remember the auxTypes... :( JWankerl LINKER is 265... I think. Matt DTS Jonah: A good point, but building in a table of auxtypes requires an update to add new ones. ShanoJ Matt: MAX/Edit uses FTD files.... :) AFA Gary J As to the 64k file limit, I could live with that (I don't think source files AFA Gary J should be bigger than that), BUT, there's always the one time when you need to AFA Gary J break down a large file that you've created/obtained from someplace else that AFA Gary J makes it all worthwhile. ShanoJ Gary: Macgen can only handle 64K files, so you're right that that's not too ShanoJ useful.... :) JWankerl Macgen - "Scanning opy can't be opened" or something like that. Matt DTS MAX/Edit has a good interface in many cases, but for me the design flaws are not worth messing up Matt DTS my system for. Matt DTS I don't want to crash in some other program because it used up all the user IDs and wouldn't purge Matt DTS memory when not in the editor. ShanoJ Well, I think the preservation of workspaces around editor uses AND the built ShanoJ in shell can't be beat! ShanoJ Then again, I EXPECT my system to crash regularly (and I'm not disappointed...) ShanoJ so I guess we come at it from different angles... :) Matt DTS Well, to each his own. You probably use unreliable screen dimmers, too. ShanoJ Ya, that I do... In fact, I WRITE them and force them on others, too... :) ShanoJ And, truth be told, I DO do it all just to make Matt's life a living hell... :) AFA Gary J :)