🚀 go-pugleaf

"Paul Rees" <paulrees@page87.invalid> wrote in message
news:OzrkirGZrv87EwnT@kabsi.at...
> Hi,
>
> I previously posted most of the following points over the course of
some
> days, spread out among several messages and 2 newsgroups. I didn't get
> much of a response so I though I'd get consolidate everything here and
> try my luck one more time before leaving it.
>
> In short, I recently downloaded the demo version of CW 8.0 and, whilst
> working my way through the tutorial, encountered several possible
bugs.
> I am not sure whether they are related to CW as a whole or just the
> specific code provided with the demo.
>
> I'm very much interested in purchasing CW but have some reservations
as
> a result of my tutorial experience. If anyone is able to confirm,
refute
> or explain the problems I would be very grateful.

OK, I'll see what I can do.

> 1. Chapter 7 is all about bitmaps. At one point one is asked to create
> an image with a coloured background. I found that there seems to be a
> bug in the Palm Constructor bitmap editor. If you use the Paint Bucket
> Tool (for the 8 bit colour image, maybe other resolutions as well) the
> image becomes corrupted. You can see the result by immediately
> attempting to edit the image once it has been saved - multicoloured
> vertical lines where your image once was. Should you try to 'make' the
> project, the CW IDE closes down without any warnings. Using a 'shape
> fill' tool (for example) instead within Palm Constructor bitmap
editor,
> all is well.

First, Constructor is a Palm product, not a Metrowerks one.  It is
supplied as part of the Palm OS SDK, and bug reports and new versions
come from Palm, not us.  Palm should be releasing a newer version of
this sometime soon, but I've not heard a confirmed date.  Many people
have seen the color bugs -- I don't have any real solutions, other than
to suggest you use the PilRC plugin to import bitmap files rather than
create and edit them in that program.

The IDE is crashing due to a bitmap import problem in the Palm Rez
PostLinker, another Palm-supplied component that handles building the
final program from the MacOS format resources output by Constructor.

> 2. If you start Constructor for Palm OS by double clicking on a
resource
> file in the CodeWarrior IDE, Constructor for Palm OS cannot find it's
> help file:
>
> 'Cannot find c:\Program Files\Metrowerks\CodeWarrior\Palm
> Tools\Help\Constructor for Palm OS.HLP'
>
> BUT if you open Constructor for Palm OS 'normally' (as a separate
> application), it finds it's help file here:
>
> 'c:\Program Files\Metrowerks\CodeWarrior\Palm Tools\Constructor\'

This seems to be a problem with the default directory concept in
Constructor.  This is another bug to report to Palm.

I hate to pass these bugs off as Palm problems which we can't fix, but
thats the current reality.  We're trying to improve our relationship
with Palm and get them to have a quicker turnaround for user problems.

> 3. From as soon as it is introduced, the database aspect of the
tutorial
> application just plain doesn't work. Information entered into the
> database keeps cropping up in the wrong places, i.e. Tues Errands
appear
> in Sun in the 'Create' form, but sometimes correctly in the 'View'
form.
> The more you click around and enter and view data, the less sense it
> makes. Also, eventually, spurious ASCII characters are pre-pended to
> your data. This problem can be clearly seen when using a de-bug ROM
and
> selecting 'Sun' in the create form. Immediately the (garbage) contents
> of presumably some other memory location appear...
>
> Additionally, using  a 3.3 debug ROM, when running the app, select
> 'Complete' form... if you then select 'View Errands...', for any day
> other than Wednesday (the longest string) you get to see the 'spill
> over' characters. i.e.,
> Sun shows Sundaysday
> Mon shows Mondayday
> ...etc.
>
> Using a 3.5 ez ROM, all looks as expected.
>
> These database problems are still visible right at the end of the
> tutorial after copying a 'clean' version of the last chapter - which
> rules out operator error.

I've not personally tried the tutorial, so I don't know about these
issues.  However, I'm sure we will be revising it before long, and I'll
file these as bug reports against it so they'll be fixed in the next
version.

> 4. Tutorial, page 93, 'Create a Large Application Icon', second
> paragraph, the line that says:
>
> set the Bitmap ID to 1101
>
> ... should say:
>
> set the Bitmap ID to 1011

I'll file this one too.