jwhitman@ALMSA-1.ARPA (03/23/86)
From: Jerry Whitman <jwhitman@ALMSA-1.ARPA>
Found an interesting bug in Notepad in Work Bench (v1.1). Well, perhaps
interesting is just a polite way to define it.
It seems that when using notepad with a modified font (underline, bold, or
italic) you set the stage for an unusual event. The scenario follows:
1. Type text that is emphasized with one of the above modifiers, such as
a title bar that is underlined.
2. Resume non-modified format to type associated text.
3. Recognize an error in the emphasized text and move the cursor to it
without re-selecting the font modifier.
4. Begin to type .... and wala!!!...the balance of the notepad screen
fills up with the little boxes that Amiga uses to represent non printing
characters.
5. No amount of character deletion efforts will get rid of the plethora of
little boxes, even though they may temporarily disappear from the screen.
6. Paging forward reveals several notepad pages of this junk, and eventually
some smatterings of gibberish that could be object code. Perhaps Notepad
has lost control of its buffering area???
7. The notepad text can be saved, and when it is the file is only slightly
longer than the point where the error occurred.
8. Closing Notepad, re-selecting it, and then opening the text file in
question results in the same as 4 thru 7 without any additional typing
or cursor manipulation.
Being the clever people we are, the obvious(??) answer is to edit off the
junk and the offending text. ED says it contains binary *clever that ED*
and tells us to get outta here with that boom-boom-boom and dont come back
no more! Some what crestfallen we try trusty EDIT which gladly takes on the
task. We edit off the undesirable elements, or so we think, and take the
file back to Notepad. Remember we deleted the garbage plus a few extra lines
just for good measure. Sure enough Notepad confirms we did delete what we
wanted to, then promptly fills the balance of the notepad with little boxes!!
Ever have the sense of De-ja vu?
To insure this was not a fluke we repeated the process with the same results.
Has this been reported before as a bug? Why was it not cured when the text
was edited? Using info on the before and after versions also verified the
edited text file was smaller than its predecessor.
Any explanation will be more than I have now. Would particularly like to
hear from the team at C-A. Reply to JWHITMAN@ALMSA-1.ARPA
Regards, Jerry