How To Debug "A problem opening that stack"?

[J. Landman Gay]

Rob Cozens wrote:

> At least half of the Revolution stacks I created on Mac platforms before 
> switching to Windows XP TPC Edition as my development platform will not 
> open in Rev 2.6.1 for Windows.
<snip>
> 
> Question 1: Has Revolution stack file format changed between v2.1+ and 
> v2.6+?  If so, where is this documented and where is a format converter?

The file format changed somewhere in there, but I think it was with 
version 2.0. At any rate, it didn't affect opening the file. The only 
difference was that once saved, you couldn't open the stack with a 
previous version. So this shouldn't be the problem regardless of when 
the format change occured.

> 
> Question 2: How do I debug the problem short of:
> 
>     * deleting each control in a stack and seeing if it will then open, or
> 
>     * control-by-control comparison of a stack that opens and one that 
> doesn't

Not sure about that. Since you are getting such weird results, I kind of 
think there is more wrong than just the controls themselves. So this 
probably isn't a way to debug. It sounds like the file format itself is 
hosed.

I second the suggestion to make sure you have zipped the stack before 
moving it to the PC. I have often seen corruption happen when stacks are 
emailed or copied without compression.

> 
> Question 3: Could this be happening because my Studio license is 
> Windows-specific and the stacks were last saved on Mac OS X?  If so, 
> what does this imply for developers providing stacks to other developers 
> licensed for a different platform?

No, any stack can be opened by any engine. The restrictions are entirely 
on the authoring end. The stacks themselves hold no information about 
which license authored them; they are completely portable anywhere.

I'd say try the zipping thing and let us know if that works.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com