[comp.sys.next] WriteNow and Rom Monitor Bugs, Global Settings

rogerj@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Roger Jagoda) (12/29/89)

Fellow NeXTers,
 
I have some bugs to report and share that I
have encountered while using the Cube. Have
any of you seen similar behaviour and/or
know of work-arounds/fixes? Thanks in advance.
 
1) From within WriteNow, the Alt+<key> combos
produce the desired symbol, but NOT over the
letter you wish. For example, Alt-e produces
the French "egu" accent, and although it is
superscripted, it appears to the right of the
letter both on screen and in print which looks
very bad. The same is seen with Alt-i which is 
supposed to be the French "grave" accent. This
is repeatable in every font. I just can't understand
why such a great DPS machine fails to do accents
correctly. Others have reported the same result
with other foreign characters.
 
2) If I use the "P" hardware password option while
in the ROM Monitor, a hardware password IS set. I
know this because I cannot issue bsd -s and boot
stand-alone with the wrong password. Fine. However,
When I DO give the password, it comes back with:
 
"incorrect password"
 
Fine. So I issue "P" and try to change the password
which it LETS me do (some protection!). But still I
cannot issue other boot options. Other coomands that
failed:
 
bsd -s
ben -s
bod -s
 
Does using the "P" option NOT allow stand-alone boot-ups
whatsoever. Sometimes it's necessary! Heck I'm the SysAdmin
and when I need to boot stand-alone what am I supposed to do?
How does one, defeat the P protection (short of changing ROM
chips and doing it again, although if it's this bad, why do it
again!)
 
3) When adding a new application to the dock, the icon appears
just as a normal "generic" icon, even though there's an associated
.tiff file with the App. After I place the icon on the dock and issue
"Find Applications", a lot of disk activity is heard and then...
nothing changes. Fine. I logout and login again and still, nothing
happens. I log in as root, issue Find Applications, nothing. I reboot
then log in as root, issue Find Apps and finally, I see the correct
icon. What exactly is happening when I issue "Find Applications". I've
tried putting the App program in my ~/App directory and in the 
/LocalApps directory. The results are the same. This is MOST frustrating
with some of the great software on the Purdue archives. After you Make, then
maybe Make clean to get rid of the /obj dir, you'd kinda like to see the icon of the App you're using. 
 
 
4) How do you set "global" settings. For users, we have important
settings we need EVERY user to have in their environment. For
making .logins and .cshrc's we put a "stock" file in /usr/template/user/...
But now, for the NeXTStep stuff. For example, we want all the client 
machines to be in the same TZ. So, if I log in as root on each one and
set the proper TZ I would think that would do it, but where does this
information get stored? I also would like to TURN OFF THE PRINTER'S VOICE!
Can you imagine when the printer's out of paper, every machine (we have 35
in this site) chirpping away that "Your printer is out of paper!". Lovely!
We'd also like to give the users a larger screen (NXFixedPitchFontSize 
variables and all that stuff), beats me why NeXT decided everyone should
go blind, and a default Shell screen that's readable, things of this type.
Where are these things stored and is there a way of, as root of course,
making "global" settings for all the machines and users in the "/" domain?
Be even better if there were a way of doing it for each domain: "/". "..",
and ".".
 

Thanks in advance for any help.

Roger Jagoda
Cornell University

izumi@violet.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa) (12/29/89)

In article <9482@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> rogerj@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Roger Jagoda) writes:
>2) If I use the "P" hardware password option while
>in the ROM Monitor, a hardware password IS set. I
>know this because I cannot issue bsd -s and boot
>stand-alone with the wrong password. Fine. However,
>When I DO give the password, it comes back with:
>"incorrect password"

Enter the first 6 characters of the hardware password
when prompted during single user bootup.
I was bitten by this "feature" for a long time until
someone told me about the 6-char trick.

Izumi Ohzawa
izumi@violet.berkeley.edu

eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (12/29/89)

In article <9482@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
	rogerj@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Roger Jagoda) writes:
>1) From within WriteNow, the Alt+<key> combos
>produce the desired symbol, but NOT over the
>letter you wish.      ...    I just can't understand
>why such a great DPS machine fails to do accents
>correctly. Others have reported the same result
>with other foreign characters.

It's not a WriteNow bug per se, the problem is that the
Application Kit's Text class doesn't implement it yet.

[/usr/include/appkit/Text.h]

- setOverstrikeDiacriticals:(BOOL)flag;
 /*
  * TYPE: Handling Diacritical Marks; Unimplemented
  *
  * Unimplemented
  * 
  * CF:  overstrikeDiacriticals
  */

- (int)overstrikeDiacriticals;
 /*
  * TYPE: Handling Diacritical Marks; Unimplemented
  *
  * Unimplemented
  * 
  * CF:  setOverstrikeDiacriticals:
  */

So NONE of the NeXT applications work right (yet).


>2) If I use the "P" hardware password option while
>in the ROM Monitor, a hardware password IS set. I
>know this because I cannot issue bsd -s and boot
>stand-alone with the wrong password. Fine. However,
>When I DO give the password, it comes back with:
> 
>"incorrect password"

Type just the first 6 characters of the hardware password.


>3) When adding a new application to the dock, the icon appears
>just as a normal "generic" icon, even though there's an associated
>.tiff file with the App. After I place the icon on the dock and issue
>"Find Applications", a lot of disk activity is heard and then...
>nothing changes.

Don't put the icon in the dock until after you've done Find
Applications.  If the Mach-O file is in a directory in your
application path, which is by default
	~/Apps:/LocalApps:/NextApps:/NextDeveloper/Apps:/NextAdmin:
		/NextDeveloper/Demos
this should work ... I haven't had any problems.


>4) How do you set "global" settings. For users, we have important
>settings we need EVERY user to have in their environment. For
>making .logins and .cshrc's we put a "stock" file in /usr/template/user/...
>But now, for the NeXTStep stuff.

Just *DO* it!  (Do WHAT? he asks...)

Log in as freshly-created user, and run the Preferences
application to set things the way you want, and then use dwrite
to change things like NXFixedPitchFont etc.  Put what you want in
the dock.  Log out.  Log in as root and copy that user's
.NeXT/.NeXTdefaults.[DL] and .dock files to /usr/template/user/.
They then become the defaults for all subsequently created
users.

					-=EPS=-

dcarpent@sjuphil.uucp (D. Carpenter) (12/29/89)

In article <9482@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> rogerj@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Roger Jagoda) writes:
>Fellow NeXTers,
> 
>I have some bugs to report and share that I
>have encountered while using the Cube. [...]
> 
>1) From within WriteNow, the Alt+<key> combos
>produce the desired symbol, but NOT over the
>letter you wish. For example, Alt-e produces
>the French "egu" accent, and although it is
>superscripted, it appears to the right of the
>letter both on screen and in print which looks
>very bad. The same is seen with Alt-i which is 
>supposed to be the French "grave" accent. This
>is repeatable in every font. I just can't understand
>why such a great DPS machine fails to do accents
>correctly. Others have reported the same result
>with other foreign characters.
 
This doesn't seem to be a bug, strictly speaking, but
rather something that NeXT hasn't implemented yet.
See the Users Reference Manual, p. 416:  ". . . it will
appear next to the character instead in applications
that don't support this feature yet."  By applications
here I assume they mean all the editors currently available.
This problem has come up here before.  I agree that it's
a serious oversight.  Maybe if enough people complain
about it something will be done by the next release.

I'm would also like to see an additional diacritic made
available--a dot that can be placed UNDER a single letter.
This is needed for many Indic languages.  It's used under
several different letters, so it would need to be handled
like the French "grave".  It woould be the exact reverse of
the dot above the letter shown next to the "A" key in the
chart on p. 415.   

Is there anyone from NeXT that could comment on NeXT's 
intentionns in this regard?  Is there any place to send
recommendations like the above (assuming NeXT is still
interested in the imput of its "academic" users)?  Of
course, these last two questions also assume that someone
from NeXT is still reading this newsgroup, after the late
NeXT/Mac/Amiga wars.  I hope these arguments are over and
I hope they didn't scare people away.


-- 
===============================================================
David Carpenter            dcarpent@sjuphil.UUCP                    
St. Joseph's University    dcarpent%sjuphil.sju.edu@relay.cs.net    
Philadelphia, PA  19131    ST_JOSEPH@HVRFORD.BITNET                

chari@nueces.cactus.org (Chris Whatley) (12/30/89)

rogerj@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Roger Jagoda) writes:

>4) How do you set "global" settings. For users, we have important
>settings we need EVERY user to have in their environment. 

What I do is set up an account which has all of the defaults that I
want and then "cp -r" the .NeXT directory to /usr/template/user/.NeXT.

-- 
Chris Whatley
Work: chari@pelican.ma.utexas.edu (NeXT Mail)		(512/471-7711 ext 123)
Play: chari@nueces.cactus.org (NeXT Mail)		(512/499-0475)
Also: chari@emx.utexas.edu