[Coco] Phoenix IDE update

[Roger Taylor]

At 11:08 PM 5/8/2011, you wrote:
>When I first ran Phoenix, I was prompted by Internet Explorer to 
>open or save several PDF files. I think these were supposed to be 
>embedded in the tabs, but those tabs all show Navigation Canceled. I 
>suspect this is because I don't have Adobe Acrobat installed, so I 
>don't have the PDF embedding controls for Internet Explorer.
>
>I pulled out one of the docked panels onto the second monitor. When 
>I ran Phoenix the second time, the panel opened in the same location 
>on the second monitor but was then hidden behind NitroPDF opening 
>second copies of the PDFs it opened the first time I ran Phoenix. 
>You might consider converting the PDF documents to HTML and 
>embedding the HTML instead.
>
>The installer didn't give me an opportunity to tell it where to 
>install (not really a huge deal), and I had to go digging around a 
>bit to find it. This is because I was looking for Phoenix IDE 
>somewhere in the Start menu or program files. I didn't expect to 
>find it under Taylor Software in \Program Files (x86).
>
>Some of the items in the Soltions treeview don't do anything; e.g. 
>Borland C++ test, HelloWorld, TasmTest, and the Vectrex items.
>
>Projector-3 opens a bunch of files, but then complains it can't find 
>C:\ProgramData\Phoenix IDE\Solutions\Tandy CoCo\Projector-3\Variable 
>Slope Audio.asm.
>
>What are all the tabs for in the properties window? This is the 
>window that has the DataBindings and DocFont properties. Speaking of 
>which, it's nice that it saves and restores the properties, but it 
>seems to do so on a per-file basis. Is there a way to set the 
>default font and font size globally? It's kind of a pain to have to 
>change the font for each file in a project one-by-one.
>
>When I click Sprites, I get a dialog saying, "The system cannot find 
>the path specified. Error occurred opening 4DGL_16bitColours.fnc".
>When I click Flash Drives, I get a dialog saying, "Invalid device."


I'll try to address each issue you brought up:

1) I thought everybody had Acrobat installed. :)  Ok, there's a 
built-in PDF library somewhere in Visual Studio and I'll try to use 
it and get away from using IE.  Or... I'll just launch text files and 
put the PDF files in the Help menu.

2) There's no need to tell the installer where to install the 
IDE.  Your app data should end up in <WindowsDrive>:\ProgramData if 
you want to quickly peek around.  The core of the IDE is in your 
Program Files directory somewhere where it should be.

3) I'm aware that some of the sample projects aren't ready.  Give me 
some time and I'll add a few at a time and try to get them fully 
ready to build and run with no fiddling.

4) I remember excluding Variable Slope Audio.asm from the P-3 
project.  That was an experimental codec and I doubt I even got it 
working.  I noticed it was there in one install so I removed it but I 
didn't fix the P-3 project container file to exclude the 
reference.  Just reload the P-3 project and it will fix the problem 
until I fix the problem.

5) The 7 tabs might be overkill but at least 3 of them could be 
useful.  These are the pass #'s (levels) for the build process.  All 
files tagged as Level 1 will be built first, then the Level 2 files, 
and so on.  In one project I take the output from one .asm file from 
Level 1 and load it into Level 2 using the hex viewer so I can see 
it, set its builder to VCC, and go back to level 1.  Next time you 
build, your .asm file will be build and pop up in the VCC 
emulator.  This works for .bin and ROM Paks and DOS ROMs.  This is 
how I can quickly see if the CoCoNet ROM is firing up correctly.  The 
levels have other uses as well.

6) The Sprite editor WOULD HAVE been a nice addition but now I see 
where it is referencing the 4D Labs IDE it came from.  It was free so 
I borrowed it as a tool for Phoenix.

7) Not sure why you're seeing Invalid Device for the Flash Drive 
utility unless its trying to reference one of my drives from some 
sort of history file that got carried over to the IDE.


-- 
~ Roger Taylor