dpw@sei.cmu.edu (David Wood) (01/21/89)
************************************** ************* BUG ALERT ************** ************************************** Extensive use of Professional Page V1.1 has uncovered a potentially fatal bug that all users should guard against. For unknown reasons, ProPage sometimes corrupts your disk files!! Evidently the problem is associated with the SAVE or SAVE AS commands. You will notice no problem until you try to re-load your document, at which time ProPage will inform you that your file is corrupt. The potential for lost time and data is tremendous! In two weeks of intensive use (putting together a proposal) ProPage corrupted my files five times. According to Gold Disk, the bug has been reported by others. They have not yet offered a fix. (They said that they might provide a fix in release 2.0, perhaps in the spring - not acceptable!) So far as I can tell, the problem should be easily correctable: the file is physically intact, including all text and control codes. Apparently, a bogus control code or two is written to the file during SAVE, but the OPEN command is insufficiently robust to salvage the file. It might be possible to repair the file manually (with EDIT or MEMACS), but Gold Disk will not release its proprietary file format. Best present course of action: during each save operation, I save the file TWICE to two different files. Don't know if this will help or not until I have a recurrence of the bug. Meantime, the best you can do is try to extract the textual portion of the file manually and paste it into a new page. Better yet, Gold Disk should write a quickie SALVAGE program and provide it to registered users pending release of an actual bug fix. Are you listening, Gold Disk???? P.S. The product is otherwise outstanding. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dave Wood Software Engineering Institute/ Carnegie Mellon U. ARPAnet: dpw@sei.cmu.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (01/21/89)
In article <8291@aw.sei.cmu.edu> dpw@sei.cmu.edu (David Wood) writes: > >P.S. The product is otherwise outstanding. PRO: A worthy competitor to the ``Ventura Publisher'' class of programs; quite a close workalike. CONS: Makes you want to run right out and get yourself a 68020. -- ``In a few years, the only thing that will be made in America is a deal'' richard@gryphon.COM {...}!gryphon!richard gryphon!richard@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov