[Coco] Portal-9 notes

[Roger Taylor]

What you can expect in an upcoming version is:

custom tab width (implemented)
assembly error lines are background-highlighted, making them easy to see 
and fix (NICE!)
a "find next error" button (planned)
asset box (snippets, fonts, bitmaps, audio, etc.) (implemented)
tree navigator box that shows categorized project components (in progress)

There are two bugs in Portal-9 1.44 that might prevent you from building a 
project, depending on your version of Windows and video hardware.  During a 
repaint function that Windows may or may not call, to repaint the left and 
right panels, you could be entering data or selecting from a drop-down 
list, and then suddenly the fields could be reset as if you hadn't changed 
anything.  This bug is caused from an unneeded call to UpdatePanels from 
within the paint message handler.  It's a little technical, so I won't get 
into how Windows works, but I did remove the call to UpdatePanels from 
where it was mistakenly placed, and things are working correctly now.

The other bug shows itself whenever you "Add Target Floppy Disk".  Doing so 
will sometimes or always clear some of the fields in the left panel. The 
only quick fix is to make it a habit to go straight to adding target disks 
as soon as you create a new project.  If you're adding disks to a project 
that already exists, I think only the currently-selected file is affected 
by the field resetting, so you might try selecting a project component that 
doesn't matter, such as "help.txt" or even the readout window, before 
adding a floppy disk to the project.  Otherwise, you'll just need to 
reselect/reenter some of the fields in the "Assemble File As" group box.

Version 1.5 should be posted soon, hopefully by tonight.  For those who 
received the CD package and are experiencing either of these bugs, I'll be 
glad to mail you a new CD whenever you decide that the website download 
shows to be working right for you.  All you have to do is e-mail me and ask 
for it.  Again, some of these little bugs have proven to be related to the 
different variations in Windows and it's hardware.  Thanks to 
trial-and-error and support from Portal-9 users, things are getting 
smoother every day.  So I want to thank anybody who has ever helped in any 
way by testing or reporting a bug.

More customizing will be added on each update, such as editor fonts, color 
schemes, etc. but the more important features such as helping you create 
software easier will have priority over the bells and whistles.  My goal is 
to make the IDE do the hard work and let the user focus on the programming 
part.  Programming vs. building programs is not always the same thing.

Also, Portal-9 will come in an "a-la-carte" system.  The software installer 
might come with just one sample project.  Something such as a "CoCo 
SourcePak" installer might contain hundreds of source code files, projects, 
fonts, audio files, and misc. bitmaps, or other "asset" files.  Later, a 
"Vectrex SourcePak" could arrive, but I haven't decided on how all of this 
will be managed and kept separate yet.

It is not recommended to uninstall a SourcePak because if you've made 
changes to some of the projects, there is a possibility that those folders 
*might* be deleted by the uninstaller, although in my tests, altered files 
have always remained after an uninstall.   That doesn't mean that some 
untouched but critical file might be removed.  Installing over an existing 
Portal-9 or SourcePak install is the best thing to do, even though the 
installers might give you the option to remove the old files.  This is not 
recommended for development environments.

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Roger Taylor