Metacard menu?

[Shari]

>1. If you can't or don't want to test/troubleshoot your work on a 
>platform why bother to publish possibly broken apps for that 
>platform.

They are tested on the other platforms before release.  That's how I 
found out about the Metacard menu in the first place, though she did 
not tell me in time.  Actually, my OSX testers gave the program very 
high marks, it was stable, everything appeared to function as 
expected, most of the feedback was related to feature requests, I 
think only two minor bugs were reported.

Most of the bugs I've been squishing were created after the beta 
testers, in a module I've been working for to add to the game later. 
I needed certain internal game code to be ready, but the module 
itself did not have to be.

One of the reasons I purchased Metacard was the ability to do it 
cross platform.  I do not expect to have to OWN each platform.  It 
was my understanding that you code one time, and compile three times. 
And with a few exceptions, such as the Mac having a Preferences 
folder and Windows not, I was under the distinct impression that most 
of the cross platform issues are handled internally, within the 
engine.

All in all, I go to great lengths to keep the coding as generic as 
possible, so that I don't have cross platforms issues.  I've even 
abandoned things that I would have liked to use, because they did not 
work on all three platforms (certains blends for example).  I choose 
fonts that should be loaded on all three platforms, avoiding Geneva 
for example, the primary Mac font.  I take all this into account 
during creation.

As for testing, I have beta testers for final testing.  I test it as 
thoroughly as I can before they get it.  I tested the devil out of 
this one in particular.  As my many questions here show.  I test it 
until I'm convinced there is nothing broken, and nothing they can 
break by doing something unexpected.  I try to figure out every weird 
thing a person can do to mess it up, and trap for it.

I've had beta testers intentionally try to break my programs and 
fail.  Not to say I've never missed a bug.  Nobody gets it right 
every time.  Even programmer's who've been at it for 25 years miss 
things.  But in general, I'd say I do better than many shareware 
authors in that department.

I even ran tests using the various lookAndFeel options, which are 
supposed to emulate the other platforms, are they not?

Based on what I've been told about Metacard's capabilities, this 
should be sufficient.

Shari C

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--Shareware Games for the Mac--
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