MacFormat 1996 July/macformat-039.iso/Internet Essentials/Internet Shareware/BBEdit Lite 3.5.1/BBEdit Lite Release Notes

Text File | 1996-01-02 | 9.0 KB | 237 lines | [TEXT/R*ch]

BBEdit Lite Release Notes
------ ---- ------- -----

January 2, 1996

This document covers various topics above and beyond the basic
information given in the BBEdit Lite Quickstart.

Desktop File Problems
------- ---- --------
On occasion, you may find that the Finder does not display the correct
icon for BBEdit documents, or that you cannot drag documents onto the
BBEdit application (or an alias to the application) to open them.

This behavior is not indicative of a problem with BBEdit; rather, it is
an indication that the database that the Finder uses to associate
applications, icons, and documents (known as the "Desktop file") has
become confused or corrupted.

When this happens, it is usually desirable to force the Finder to rebuild
the Desktop. To do this, reboot your machine, and immediately hold down
the Shift key until the message "Extensions Off" appears. As soon as
this message appears, release the Shift key, and hold down the Command
and Option keys. For each volume that mounts at startup, the Finder
will ask whether you wish to rebuild the Desktop. Click "OK", and the
Finder will do so.


Memory Usage
------ -----
BBEdit uses System temp memory to hold the files it opens, so you will
not need to increase the application's partition size to edit large
files. However, some operations, such as Copy and Paste on large blocks
of text, or performing a multi-file search over many files and folders,
may require that more memory be made directly available to the
application. If you often perform tasks like these, we recommend that
you increase BBEdit's recommended memory size allocation to 750K or
more, as your needs dictate.


"Can't Undo" Alerts
------ ----- ------
A number of actions, most notably many extensions, are not undoable.
As a matter of course, BBEdit will pose an alert: "<action> is not
undoable. Do you still wish to proceed?" If these alerts annoy you,
you can turn them off. The appropriate option is in the Editor section
of the "Preferences" dialog. (The "Preferences..." command is found
under the Edit menu.)


Printing with Substituted Fonts
-------- ---- ----------- -----
Because of idiosyncracies in the LaserWriter driver 7.1 and earlier,
there are some character spacing anomalies when printing with a
substituted monospaced font (i.e. Monaco). To avoid these problems,
print in a non-substituted, monospaced PostScript font such as Courier.
(With BBEdit, you can of course edit in one font, and print in
another.)

These problems may have been resolved in version 8.1.1 or later of the
LaserWriter driver. Some problems may remain when using non-PostScript
printers (e.g. StyleWriters or DeskWriters).


Fractional Spacing
---------- -------
BBEdit 3.5 supports a "Fractional Spacing" option when printing. We
recommend that you use this option if you are printing in a small
(less than 9-point) font size.


FaxSTF "FaxPrint" Printer Driver
------ ---------- ------- ------
Version 2.2.3 of the "FaxPrint" printer driver, supplied with the FaxSTF
fax software package, has a bug in it which can cause all applications,
not just BBEdit, to malfunction. STF Technologies has been notified of
the problem. In the meantime, to avoid potential problems, choose another
printer driver, such as the ImageWriter or LaserWriter driver, except
when you are planning to fax documents directly from within BBEdit.
Contact STF Technologies for the latest information on the availability
of a fix. (As of the writing of this note, FaxSTF has been updated
to version 3.0.)


LaserWriter "Preferences Damaged" Warning
----------- --------------------- -------
On occasion, version 8.2.2 of the LaserWriter driver will issue a
warning message about missing or damaged preferences. We have contacted
Apple regarding this issue, and they believe it to be due to a bug in
the LaserWriter driver. We have also had reports that the recently
released LaserWriter 8.3 driver may exhibit this same problem. If you
get this message, simply choose "Page Setup" or "Print" from the File
menu, and you should be able to continue without any difficulty.


NOW Utilities
--- ---------
Older versions of Super Boomerang have a bug which affects BBEdit;
in particular, you cannot type upper-case letters in the "Save As..."
dialog. This bug is fixed in version 4.0 and later of the NOW Utilities
package; contact Now Software for an update.

Now Save causes BBEdit's "File" menu to get scrambled. To avoid this,
turn off Now Save when running BBEdit.


Standard File Hacks
-------- ---- -----
There are some third-party extensions which modify the standard "Open"
and "Save" dialogs (known colloquially as "Standard File"). In a couple
of known cases, some of these extensions have a bug which causes
correctly written applications to crash. Specifically:

-    "Click, there it is!", version 1.0.1. Version 1.0.4 is current, and
    fixes this problem. Registered owners should contact the author for
    more information.

-    Quickeys version 2.1 also appears to have a similar problem.

If either of these extensions is installed, BBEdit will most likely
crash when trying to bring up a Standard File dialog. (BBEdit's "Open"
and "Save" dialogs should work correctly, but other dialogs, such as
the File Types section of the preferences dialog, will not.)

In addition, problems have been reported in which the Standard File
Package crashes, or BBEdit takes an "emergency exit", when Peter
Lewis' "CDIconKiller" extension is in use.


The BalloonWriter INIT
--- ------------- ----
Version 1.0.1 of Apple's "BalloonWriter" extension interferes with
the correct display and operation of BBEdit's dynamic menus. To avoid
this conflict, disable or remove BalloonWriter from your system.


The Programmer's Editor Package
--- ------------ ------ -------
BBEdit was written with libraries which are part of the Programmer's
Editor Package. The PE Package provides high-performance text editing,
searching, directory search, and pattern-match capabilities for use
in text-manipulation programs. For more information, contact us by one
of the methods listed below.


Contact Information
------- -----------
Should you have questions about BBEdit Lite, please send e-mail to
us at one of the addresses below. Please note that we are unable
to provide phone or fax support for BBEdit Lite.

Bare Bones Software, Inc.
P.O. Box 1048
Bedford, MA 01730-1048

phone:    [phone]
fax:    [phone]

email:    [e-mail]
Web:    http://www.tiac.net/biz/bbsw/

For technical support, please contact us via electronic mail. Please
note that we cannot provide support for BBEdit Lite or our other
freeware products via phone or fax.

From time to time, we will release updates to correct problems in the
software, and/or add minor functionality. These patches are free, and
may be freely redistributed. We do not send out notification to our
customers, but we post announcements to the net and major information
services as a matter of course. Current versions of these updates will
be made available on our Web page, as well as our ftp sites:

    http://www.tiac.net/biz/bbsw/

    ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/bb/bbsw/updaters/

We will also provide technical support bulletins, as warranted by
circumstances, to address some commonly encountered problems. You can
also find a list of frequently asked questions about BBEdit on our
Web page with this URL:

    http://www.tiac.net/biz/bbsw/faqs.html

If you do have a problem with the software, please let us know. All too
often, customers do not report problems for one reason or another.
Remember that if we do not hear about a problem, we can't fix it.


Important! On-line Service Changes:
---------- ------- ------- -------
All the above site locations will change in early 1996; we will provide
pointers or links to the new archive locations on this Web page, as well
as by announcements placed on the sites themselves, and sent out via
via email to registered customers of the commercial product.


Additional Acknowledgements
---------- ----------------
The regular-expression library used for 'grep' searching is based on the
'regexp' package, written by Henry Spencer of the University of
Toronto. Pete Keleher provided a Mac- compatible version, from which
BBEdit's code is derived.

John Norstad of Northwestern University contributed the code that
BBEdit uses to resolve Internet URLs.


Thanks!
-------
Thank you for purchasing BBEdit. If you have any suggestions for
improvements, or any problems to report, do not be shy. Our experience
shows that feedback from our customers has consistently led to better
products and happier users.

Thanks also to the many people who, in one way or another, directly
contributed to the production and success of BBEdit. They're all listed
in the about box; choose "About BBEdit..." from the Apple menu to see
their names.

Finally, thanks to all of our customers, who have invested in our
product and our company, and, by doing so, have given us the ability to
keep producing and improving our software.


    Rich Siegel
    Founder, President & CEO

    Michael Fryar
    Chief Operating Officer

    Patrick Woolsey
    Director of Technical Services

    David W. Hill
    Vice President of Engineering