Differences in Behaviour - v8.23.2

[rcox]

I did try to Search the forum in case any of this had been covered, but Search doesn't seem to be working at the moment.

Over the many years I've used TextPad, updating to new versions has been transparent - no problems at all.
However I've just updated (from somewhere around v8.16) to v8.23.2 and found several issues which I'll diplomatically call "Differences in Behaviour" (DiBs)

DiB 1: V8.23.2 will not load a file with a file date before 1970: which previously would have loaded fine.
It reports "Unspecified Error" in a dialog box. To explain, I used to stamp files with 1/1/1900 if I wanted to keep them separate when I sorted a folder by date. No great problem for me to use 1/1/1970 instead, but was that change intended?

The downside of the unspecified error is that although TextPad hasn't loaded the file, it *thinks* it has and so on exiting saving all files, it saves a zero-byte file over the file it wouldn't load. That IS a great problem if you're not expecting it.

DiB 2: After V8.23.2 has edited files in a folder, all instances of TextPad are closed, and then those files are moved to a different folder, the original (now empty) folder remains locked and cannot be deleted until the system is fully rebooted.

DiB 3: Using the FileNew command in a Macro frequently causes a File OPEN dialog to appear.
Using File|New with the mouse or Ctrl-N from the keyboard (outside the Macro) still works fine.

DiB 4: Using the EditCut command in a Macro causes the selected text to disappear but NOT to be transferred to the Cut/Copy buffer; so the routine I frequently use in Macros (Select, EditCut, FileNew, EditPaste) loses the text I had cut and instead pastes the previous contents of the Copy/Paste buffer.
Using Edit|Paste with the mouse or Ctrl-V from the keyboard (outside the Macro) still works fine.

I've repeated these enough times to be reasonably certain it's not down to anything I'm doing wrong. It makes no difference whether I'm using my original Macros created before v8.23.2, or new ones just created with v8.23.2.

Can anyone help? The Macro issues are a bit of a show-stopper for me!

[bbadmin]

DiB1: Which filesystem are your files on?

DiB2: On General Preferences, is "Working folder follows active document" set? Opening a file in another folder should free the operating system lock.

DiB3: I cannot reproduce this. Have a look at the macro using Configure/Preferences/Macros/Edit and check that the command is "FileNew".

DiB4: I cannot reproduce this either. Check that the macro contains:
EditCut
FileNew
EditPaste

[ben_josephs]

DiB 1: I can reproduce this.
TextPad 8.23.0
Windows 11 [Version 10.0.26200.7019]

Attempting to close TextPad results in a warning: Some of your documents have been modified.
Attempting to Save All and then saving over the original file results in a crash.
I've emailed support at textpad a dump file (TextPad-8.23.0-a00.dmp).

[bbadmin]

Microsoft have some conflicting code in one of their DLLs that TextPad depends on which checks if the timestamp is valid, then throws an exception if it's earlier than 1970. That's year zero for the Unix operating system so maybe Microsoft made a change to be more strictly adherent with it. I'll submit a bug report to Microsoft.

[rcox]

DiB1: Which filesystem are your files on?

Sorry, I should have mentioned that anyway. Windows 11 21H2, with Bitlocker active on the drive holding the relevant files.

DiB2: On General Preferences, is "Working folder follows active document" set?

Yes, it is.

Opening a file in another folder should free the operating system lock.

It should, I agree, but I tried that, both before and after exiting TextPad, and the folder remained empty but locked.
(In case it's relevant, in my General Preferences, "Allow Multiple Instances to run" is set, and when I referred to exiting TextPad, I meant exiting ALL instances that had been running).

DiB3: Have a look at the macro using Configure/Preferences/Macros/Edit and check that the command is "FileNew".

I always inspect Macros before running them, but I checked again ... and it is.

HOWEVER ...

I recreated the Macro involved, and ... everything worked as it should. Which left me feeling a bit embarassed.
At least, it worked as it should when I ran it using the mouse from the main menu: "Macros|MacroName"
It still worked when I ran it from the Macro Toolbar. It still worked when I assigned a key combination (Ctrl-T) to it.
By now I was starting to feel very embarassed. So, thinking that the problem was fixed, I assigned the macro back to the original key combination I had been using for that Macro before updating TextPad - which was Shift-Ctrl-G. But as soon as I'd done that, running the macro resulted in the original problem: FileNew in the Macro triggered a "FileOpen" dialog.

To prove it conclusively, I assigned two keystroke combinations to the same macro: Shift-T and Shift-Ctrl-G;
When I run the macro with Shift-T, I get the correct behaviour; when I run it with Shift-Ctrl-G, I get the "File Open" Dialog

In other words, the behaviour of the Macro seems to depend on whether I use a two- or three-key combination to invoke it.
I hope that's helpful.

Richard

[AmigoJack]

Windows 11 21H2, with Bitlocker active on the drive

That's no file system. See:

Right click your drive > Properties > General > File system:



It should be something like "NTFS" or "FAT32" or "exFAT". Windows version and drive type are independent from that.

[rcox]

All my drives are NTFS. Sorry for misunderstanding your question.