Ticket #382 (Fixed)Thu Mar 20 23:27:58 UTC 2014
RC12/!PackMan bug
| Reported by: | Chris Hall (132) | Severity: | Normal |
| Part: | Release: | ||
| Milestone: | Status | Fixed |
Details by Chris Hall (132):
The obey file $.!Boot.Resources.!Packages.SetVars in the RC12 SD card image for the Pi sets the RunType for 3d6 (StrongHelp) incorrectly to point to $.Apps.Utilities.!StrongHelp. Lots of apps test this variable and, if blank, set it correctly. The Obey file helpfully states that it is automatically created by !RiscPkg and so chnging it will not work!
The practical effect is that StrongHelp manuals are not shown.
Changelog:
Modified by Chris Hall (132) Fri, March 21 2014 - 08:30:15 GMT
At present in my !Help file in one of my applications I have the following line:
<code><pre>IF “<Alias$@RunType_3d6>”="" THEN Filer_Run TextHelp ELSE Filer_Run <Obey$Dir>.ReadMe</pre></code>
this was added to work around Virtual Risc PC where !StrongHelp is put somewhere ouut of site of the filer in the standard distribution.
Perhaps I should add a line that tests to see whether the run type is set but the variable StrongHelp$Dir is unset and produce an error message that explains that the problem is one of ROOL’s making. I don’t want to do that because RC11 would fail unnecessarily then.
Actually it is difficult to test whether the runtype variable is set but points to something that doesn’t exist but that would be a better test. Any ideas?
Modified by Chris Hall (132) Tue, August 05 2014 - 16:08:29 GMT
I can confirm that the bug is still present in RC12a.
Modified by Sprow (202) Thu, August 07 2014 - 21:43:28 GMT
- Part changed from RISC OS: Application to Unspecified
Changing part, since it’s not an app bug per se, it’s the distribution that got messed up.
Modified by Chris Hall (132) Wed, October 15 2014 - 12:37:47 GMT
As of 14 Oct 2014 the bug is still present.
Modified by Chris Hall (132) Fri, October 17 2014 - 16:39:08 GMT
A better way of expressing this bug is that the RC12 (and RC12a) SD card image distributions appear to have PackMan and StrongHlp set up so that the internal data files held in Resources for PackMan know that the apps were originally placed in $.Apps.Admin.!PackMan and $.Apps.Utilities.!StrongHlp. They were both later moved to $.Apps without keeping PackMan informed.
All appears OK until PackMan gets used to install something after which (and on every subsequent boot) it will cleverly point the system variables to the relevant sub-directory inside $.Apps, knowing that PackMan and StrongHlp will otherwise be invisible to RISC OS. The practical effect is, indeed, now to make them invisible and for an error message to be generated whenever an attempt is made to open a StrongHlp file.
The user can overcome this by deinstalling and reinstalling both PackMan and StrongHlp, preferably dragging the application icon into $.Apps (rather than a subdirectory of Apps) during the install process, i.e. between clicking ‘Install’ and clicking ‘Install’.
Modified by Sprow (202) Sun, February 22 2015 - 08:56:07 GMT
- Status changed from Open to Fixed
This is resolved in RC14
