ARE YOU SERIOUS REV TEAM? MAJOR SCRIPT EDITOR ISSUES

Sat Apr 9 07:50:33 EDT 2005

Hi,

I've been using RunRev on and off for about a year now. I must say 
this I kind of agree with you about the Script Editor. However I 
really don't see it as that big an issue if you just follow the 
following rules:

1. Don't use the Single Handler Mode. It's annoying because I like 
the locals, globals and parameters tabs that show you what the 
handler is using.

2. Under Mac OS (9 and X) there seem to be a lot of window refresh 
problems when switching to Single Handler Mode anyway, e.g. to see 
the code properly you have to click the window "zoom" button else the 
left edges get cut off.

3. I have taken to using the "Apply Scrtipt and Save Stack" Command 
from the File Menu (wish I could assign this a Command Key) before 
running a changed script. I also Copy and Paste the Script into a 
Text File before before I do a big change or I just copy and Paste 
the whole object into a "temp" Stack (I always have a "temp" stack 
while I am developing in RunRev and Drop all kinds of temp objects 
and code into it. You can always just Hide the Stack or Delete it 
before final distribution.

You can also use the "Enter" key (as apposed to the return key) which 
will Apply the script and then hitting it again will close the window.

So to quickly Apply, Save the Whole Stack and Close the Script 
Window, Use "Apply Script and Save Stack" and hit "Enter".

I would just love it if there were another File Menu Command "Apply, 
Save Stack and Close Script"  and it had a Command Key assigned to it.

Is there any way to "patch" the IDE to do this.

4. Yes, I agree, loads of windows do seem to appear all over the 
place. I have two 17 inch monitors and it's really hard to organise 
and place the IDEs windows where you would like them. For instance I 
would like all the IDE windows to be on the second screen (which has 
a higher resoltion) and the App I am working on to be on the Main 
Monitor (where is is most likely to be when the end user is running 
the app), but some IDE windows insist on opening on the Main montior 
instead of the monitor I moved it to last time. This is annoying to 
say the least! The App Browser does this which is particulary 
upsetting!

5. I agree, the formatting and colorizations don't work correctly. 
It's a pain and I wish it were fixed. I don't understand how "rect" 
seems always to be colored correctly but "rectangle" only seems to be 
colorized at more or less random! I found doing a select all and then 
manually selecting "formatting" and "colorization" sometimes does the 
trick.

6. There are other editors you could use, I see there is a plugin to 
allow you to use BBEdit. Does anyone know if there is a plugin 
available for CodeWarrior. I am looking into this now. I would like 
to see how I got on using an external editor, it may speed up the 
whole process, however I don't know how it would work in the 
debugger????

7. Another moan is that the property inspector (and other PopUp 
windows) do not respond to Command+W, so if you open an inspector by 
accident and then Command+W to close it again, the wrong window 
closes!!! Grrrrr!!!! If it just ignored the Command+W if a Floating 
Window had focus it would be nice!

I agree that there are some major issues with the Script Editor, and 
to be honest, the whole way in which scripts are edited, debugged and 
maintained, should be looked at and completely redesigned/rewritten 
IMO. The way in which you have grope around in order to find and open 
a script is not very nice. You can use the "revNavigator" plug in 
which helps to EditScripts and takes up much less room on the monitor 
than the Application Browser. But that only provies fast(er) access 
to an objects script. The Apply/Save Issues are still there.

Also it would be nice to have some kind of Source Control Built into 
the Scripting Editor/Maintenance System. This is a major advantage of 
using an IDE/Editor like code warrior. You could create a "dummy" 
CodeWarrior Project (and echo it to a source control system) with 
each file being a script for an RunRev object. The compile/make phase 
could send these files to RunRev, which would then Compile and 
Replace the script with the text from the CodeWarrior Compile/Make 
Process.

This would quite a good way of doing things in lue of a better Script 
Editor/Maintenance system. Is it possible?!!

However, with all the issues I have pointed out, it still doesn't put 
me off using RunRev, I find that I can be much more productive even 
with there issues and I am sure that they will be addressed and fixed 
in the fullness of time and I will then be even more productive!

I hope that this helped you to get around the annoyances of the 
Script Editor and that you continue to use RunRev and eventually 
contribute some useful knowledge to the community.

All the Best
Dave
>Hello, I'm new to Revolution (Rev 2.5.1: Mac OSX
>10.3.8).  After a few associates mentioned Rev I
>thought I'd spend a week or so using the software,
>looking to migrate a few of our projects and team to
>Rev.
>
>THE SCRIPT EDITOR IS A JOKE AND HAS SERIOUS ISSUES!!
>
>How can you expect any programmer to take your product
>seriously when the <b>sacred</b> script editor has SO
>MANY BUGS!!
>
>I became wary of it when small niggly things went
>wrong, then I LOST a whole bunch of code!  Here's just
>the top 10 issues I found, most on the 2nd day:
>
>----------------------------
>
>01 Going to single handler view, closing the script
>then opening again, then back to multi-handler view
>lost ALL MY STACK SCRIPT.  EMPTY.  THEN OTHER SCRIPTS
>IN THE STACK APPEARED TO BE EMPTY TOO!  ALL EMPTY!?
>
>02 Going to 'single handler' view doesn't parse the
>last handler, handler name shows but content appears
>empty.
>
>03 Syntax coloring doesn't work properly (not
>everything is parsed correctly) and ends up looking
>like a handful of colored balloons... I needed to
>customize colors to make any sense of this.
>
>04 On some occasions (when a modal dialog is open, an
>error occurs?) dialog after dialog repeatedly appears
>warning that 'can't edit while executing'.  Seemed to
>appear three times?
>
>05 Pre-emptive typing seems to only parse some of the
>keyword tokens?  I can't work out what is parsed and
>what is not: functions, constants...?  For example
>'openstack' is parsed, 'itemDel' isn't?  (Actually it
>did parse once, then it didn't the second time?)
>Don't know.
>
>06 On another occasion all my script formatting (bold
>etc) was lost. Something happened, I opened and all my
>careful formatting was GONE.
>
>07 Windows all over the place.  I found I was
>constantly opening up the variable watcher, shuffling
>windows around (I'm on a 22 inch monitor), resizing,
>closing opening trying to see what is going on.
>Surely during development these could be organized
>properly, perhaps with variable watcher attached to
>the side or bottom of the script window with and
>expander triangle?  I found I had to constantly expand
>the width of this to see things properly.
>
>08 Lots of incorrect errors.  I got 'Can't find
>Handler' when in fact it was an error in the script of
>the stack handler!!  What sort of message is that!?
>Wasted time trying to work out why the message wasnít
>being passed down the message path.
>
>09 I found sending more than one parameter in a
>function call from the message box only accepted the
>first parameter.  Fine if sent from a button but no
>good if sent from message box. 2nd, 3rd etc parameters
>are ignored.
>
>10 Escape doesn't close the window, it puts some weird
>symbol in the script window. The 'double-enter' to
>accept and save a script is kinda weird, why can't you
>stick to a more conforming 'save and close' system?
>
>----------------------------
>
>After enjoying your software my confidence rating
>dropped to ZERO.
>
>Get it together, these glaring issues make your
>product look like a beta or late alpha.  I don't mind
>issues in other areas but the SCRIPT EDITOR IS SACRED!
>
>Doesn't anyone else notice these things?  How long has
>Rev been around?  How can I write code if I can't
>SAFELY edit without worrying about code loss?
>
>I know some will brand me as a 'disgruntled
>programmer', however I'm just so used to a clean SAFE
>scripting environment that Rev made me feel VERY
>UNSURE of the environment.
>
>Iíd love to switch our team over ñ an excellent and
>extensive set of script functions and commands --
>however I donít trust Rev now. 
>
>Perhaps there is there a way I can edit in BBedit and
>then save back to Rev??? At least Iíd know that the
>script is safe, even if my code has bugs.
>
>On the up side: once out of the nightmare script
>editor/ debugger, code and samples all seemed to
>execute well.  Excellent speed. 
>
>I see that you keep adding and adding more to Rev, why
>not SUBTRACT things that donít work and get the others
>working properly. For example, tables also lost data,
>I basically gave up on the Table Object and cRevTable
>etc.
>
>Good luck, Iíll keep looking out for script editor
>fixes and improvements.  In the meantime, if any
>serious programmers can tell me how to use BBedit with
>Rev then Iíd much appreciate it.  Seems the IDE is a
>very leaky tank but the engine is pretty stable.
>
>regards,
>
>Peter Armstrong
>--
>
>
>
>
>
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