Re: Upgrading to Notabene K accentuates problem with U2

[Paul Breeze paul.breeze@xxxxxxxx]

Dear Carl and Harry

I have tested CA plus FUNC EN in NB 8.0i, which I have reverted to for
the moment and in NB 8.0k. It works exactly as you suggested, Carl, in
both cases. However WCAF Helpkey (the non-Alt version) works in 8.0i
but not in 8.0k. In the latter it opens and counts the first file in
the file mask, then opens the second, which is left open in one window
while it reports the result of its count, in this case the word count
total which is only that of the first file in a second window. (There
is no problem with my WCAF syntax, Harry, since the same syntax works in
the first case, not the second.)
I have moved the Alt Key assignment for the second helpkey to Ctrl and
it seems to work there more reliably. Thanks for the suggestion, Carl.
Further to my observations about HELP, it I command Help WCAF Helpkey,
as I noted before I end up at the top of the Help file. However if I
use the Helpkey a second time I do arrive at the correct frame, which is
serviceable.
Regrettably, I cannot get SEarch to work with any wildcard, in any
version Notabene 8.0. If I use it to search a single open file for a
particular word, that works. Otherwise, with a wildcard search over
several files, I just end up with an open file, the search terminated
and the cursor at the top of the file. I'm not sure if the open file is
the first or second file actually opened, though it should be the second
if CA followed by FUNC EN defines the order in which they are opened.
I have linked this to the WCAF behaviour because the outcome, a routine
failing after opening only one or two files, seems similar. That
similar behaviour should also be the outcome of assigning the helpkey to
an Alt key assignment, might hold a clue to what is going on too -- I
had hoped -- but I can't interpret it.

Paul





Carl Distefano wrote:
Reply to note from Paul Breeze  Tue, 10
Mar 2009 13:12:16 +0000

Paul:
Having just updated Notabene to 8.0k, I found it had
accentuated a problem that I have found using U2 in Notabene,
namely that several functions do not appear to operate
correctly.

Hard for me to respond definitively as I never progressed beyond
v8.0A. But I'll try.

The problem you're seeing with frames SE and WCAF suggests that
v8.0K introduced a bug, or at least a change, in NB's handling of
the CAll command as applied to filespecs that contain wildcards,
such as *.TXT, FOO.B?R, etc. Both SE and WCAF rely on this feature.
The way it *should* work is that if you command, e.g., CAll *.TXT,
the first matching file with extension .TXT should open. Then if you
command FUNC EN, the next matching file should replace it in the
same window; issuing FUNC EN again should call up the next matching
file, and so on, until you encounter the error "No more files that
match specification". I suggest you try this procedure manually with
a filemask that has two or more matching files and see if it works.
If it doesn't work, then we'll have to investigate further to see if
it's a bug (e.g., func EN is broken) that needs to be reported, or
just a change in program behavior that requires a workaround.

The problem with HELP is hard to diagnose at a distance. HELP is a
complicated routine (most of the code is Robert's), and I doubt I
could work out the problem without "upgrading" to v8.0K myself --
something I'm not inclined to do, given the unusual behavior you're
reporting.

In any event, like Harry, I doubt that the problems you report have
anything to do with . But if you're seeing flaky behavior
with  on Alt-F9, it may be because of the Alt key. Alt key
assignments are notoriously balky in the Windows versions of XyWrite
and NB, because the opsys doesn't relinquish control of those keys
-- at least, not fully and not reliably. Try assigning the 
to some non-Alt key combination, or to an unshifted key. If you see
an improvement, then the answer is to stay away from Alt.