[Coco] Portal-9 Questions

[Mannequin*]

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 01:49:36 -0500
Roger Taylor <rtaylor at bayou.com> wrote:

> At 01:53 PM 7/13/2004, you wrote:
> >Okay, I've uninstalled it and then reinstalled it at
> >d:\coco\portal-9. I've been able to get it to build... I just found
> >the button on the side bar. It's been getting covered up by a small
> >window that keeps on moving itself over the build button. :( I didn't
> >notice this until today. (That window is keeping itself above all
> >other windows, no matter if it's the Portal-9 window or something
> >else. It's annoying.)
> 
> Yea, it can be annoying when you find yourself moving it out of the
> way every time you build a project, but you can still build even
> though the software hasn't been purchased.  Ofcourse, I've got PC
> software with reminders of their own, like my favorite e-mail program
> Eurdora, which shows square advertisements at random in the lower left
> corner of my screen.  I've tried moving it off the screen but Eudora
> will eventually throw a message up saying that it has detected that I
> have moved the ad window off the screen and then go on to explain why
> it exists in the sponsored version of the software.  :)

I understand what it's for, and don't get me wrong, it's your choice to
put it up there. But the main concern I have with it, is that it puts
itself over the build button, and over everything else when I have, say
Mozilla, over Portal-9. (It even keeps itself over my screensaver.)
Anyway, I was thinking that for beginners, such as myself, who don't
know where the build button is, it could be a problem. I don't know if
you put it over the build button so that non-registered users would have
to move it every time as a reminder, or if you were concerned about
screen sizes, but if you could have it move itself down a little so that
the build button is visible, I would be much happier. :) (When I used to
used Eudora, it never put itself over anything that would impede
functionality. It would just size down the mailboxes, etc sidebar.)

> >It's still doing that with the latest version that you posted up on
> >coco3.com. Something else I've been having problems with is that for
> >some odd reason Portal-9 keeps on overwriting the configuration file
> >on every start of Portal-9. This means that all of my options and
> >paths are being reset on every startup. To get around this, I edited
> >the file then I marked it read-only.
> 
> What version of Windows are you using?  Windows 2000 has caused
> problems that I was unable to track down so for now I don't mention
> 2000 as being supported.  Also, do you have the service Pack 1 for XP?

I'm using measly ol' Windows 98SE. It has all of the available updates
installed.

> Also, is this the only drop-down list that's "sticking" ?

As far as I know. Everything else seems to be working okay now that I
have the configuration file for Portal-9 marked as Read-Only.

> If I run into anything else, I'll let you know. Until then, I'm pretty
> >impressed with the build feature. I like it a lot... Now I have to
> >finish learning 6809ASM.  :)
> 
> My goal has been to make the IDE do as much thinking as it can and to
> not require a nasty configuration like most other IDEs do.  If you
> really want to see an impressive sight... build the Projector-3 system
> in one click.  The project is in the Source Pak download.  And, if you
> have emulation enabled you will be sitting at a virtual CoCo with the
> P-3 floppy disk mounted in no time, ready to run.  It just doesn't get
> any better than that.  Installing M.E.S.S. on your PC and telling
> Portal-9 where it is, is a very smart move.

Yeah, I have the Source Pak downloaded, as I said in my last email. But
I haven't built Projector-3 yet. Just some of the smaller programs.
Pac-Dude, etc. I also have MESS installed, and you do a good job of
"seamlessly" putting that into use, too. Very good job. :)

-M.