wesley@cs.utexas.edu (Wesley C Smith) (06/22/91)
Icon is indeed broken!! It seems like the programmer did not initialize any variables. (Is it possible that an old version of the OS or compiler used to initialize variables and no longer does) Wether or not something works is dependant on the order in which you do things because the initial values aren't set right. example: When marque/lasso menu is first opened it shows two white boxes for color. However if you double click on the right one the color panel will come up and show you the white color displayed is really black. If you try to use that color what you get is black. If you change the white color to white and uses it you get white. The colors will now work for Marque/Lasso but not for lines. If you want to change the line color, close the color panel and reopen it before selecting a new color. There are lots of things that must be set to actually getthe values displayed right and keep Icon from crashing. Icon works best if you play with lots of the options to initialize them before trying to get any reasonable behavior from Icon. It may also useful to set your coredumpsize to 0. Not only does that eliminate the core dump files but Icon will now take less time to finish crashing. As far as lack of documentation, I have found that a mac user will have good guesses as to what the Icons mean and is a great help in learing to use Icon. Once you initialize the variables and figure out the strange icons Icon isn't too bad. ===================================================== Wes Smith Pencom Software 9050 Capital of Texas Highway North Suite 300 Austin, Texas 78759 E-Mail (NeXT): pensoft!wesley@cs.utexas.edu Phone: 1-800-PENCOM-4 or (512) 343-1111 FAX: (512) 343-9650 =====================================================
tgingric@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Tyler S Gingrich) (06/22/91)
In article <1991Jun21.203210.28951@pensoft.uucp> pensoft!wesley@cs.utexas.edu (Wesley C Smith) writes: >Icon is indeed broken!! It's the most twitchy app which ships on the NeXT. BUT REMEMBER....... 1) It's a non-supported demo app. 2) It was written by Keith O. for Keith O. to use (we're just lucky we get to use it at all). 3) NeXT doesn't want to compete with independent developers and if icon was a perfect app, nobody could write something better.... (So get busy, we need something better!!) > > It seems like the programmer did not initialize any variables. Forgot to do a [super init]; WOW, send him back to dev camp.....fifty- thousand lashes with a wet noodle..... [list of ways to coredump Icon removed...] >It may also useful to set your coredumpsize to 0. from the command line: dwrite Workspace CoreLimit 0 > >As far as lack of documentation, I have found that a mac user will have good >guesses as to what the Icons mean and is a great help in learing to use Icon. >Once you initialize the variables and figure out the strange icons Icon isn't >too bad. > Again, it's a free non-supported app. Quit your bitchin and write a better one with easy to use icons, and lots of useful documentation.... Tyler