Are you happy about testing pre-release software, without any hand-holding? Have you experienced any of the following problems with TextPad 4.7.0?
1. Files on read-only file systems, with invalid last-accessed dates, could not be opened.
2. Associated files could not be opened by double clicking them.
3. No background color for current line highlighting.
4. Multimedia keyboard commands.
5. Default document class settings were not propagated.
6. When the cursor was moved from off-screen to on-screen, in word wrap mode, active line 6ighlighting was not updated.
7. Some registry entries containing commands to launch TextPad were not quoted, if the path contained any spaces.
8. A bug in XP caused search strings of more than 1023 characters to be corrupted in the recently used lists on the Find/Replace dialog boxes. To work around this problem, the maximum length of search string has been reduced from 2047 to 1023 on XP.
9. Undo was disabled for text inserted with the DDE Append command.
10. On Windows 2000, when document windows were overlapping, and Ctrl+Tab was used to switch to the next document, part of the window border was not repainted.
If so, we'd like you to check that the problem will be resolved in TextPad 4.7.1. Accordingly, we've uploaded a pre-release (beta) copy for testing, which can be downloaded from here:
That file only contains textpad.exe and a readme file, so backup your current copy of textpad.exe before overwriting it with this one.
Please note: we wish to release this software as quickly as possible. Therefore, please restrict your feedback on this release to the points listed above. We don't want to be overwhelmed with enhancements requests. (There's a forum for that. )
Keith MacDonald
Helios Software Solutions
Last edited by bbadmin on Fri Aug 29, 2003 8:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
Current line BACKGROUND highlighting is brilliant. Thank you for this excellent change
Two minor issues with it:
First, when you click apply, it doesn't apply until you leave the preferences box and then move the cursor.
Second, I think the foreground of the highlighted line needs to take the "foreground" color no matter what. Some of my comments, for example, have a similar to the background color, and are therefore difficult to see.
I say either eliminate the dashes altogether OR have two color entries for current line highlighting: One for the dashes (foreground only, like it is in 4.7.0), and another one for the line itself (both background and foreground, where the foreground applies only to the text).
jeffy wrote:Second, I think the foreground of the highlighted line needs to take the "foreground" color no matter what. Some of my comments, for example, have a similar to the background color, and are therefore difficult to see.
I say either eliminate the dashes altogether OR have two color entries for current line highlighting: One for the dashes (foreground only, like it is in 4.7.0), and another one for the line itself (both background and foreground, where the foreground applies only to the text).
The more I think about it, I think there *has* to be two color entries, as I say above (one for dashes and one for the line-and-text). The biggest complaint people have is that the dashes obscure text (semi-colons/colons/underlines/...).
One of the reasons we adopted the original dashed line highlighting was so that both the foreground and background colors of syntax elements could still be displayed. If neither foreground nor background colors can be displayed for the active line, surely you lose one of the main benefits of syntax highlighting: confirming that what you are typing is correct. Try setting the active background color to pale gray, to give the best contrast with your other foreground colors, or adjust non-contrasting foreground colors.
Preserving the syntax colors in the hilited line is more important to me than having the background totally obscure the syntax just for the sake of having a colored line..
Jeffy.. thats what UE has and it does all kinds of strange things with syntax...
I still dont like the dashed lines so to counter that I made it just a bit darker than the bgcolor to give that subtle box effect and made the bg color the same as my margin to preserve the smooth color flow..
Last edited by webmasta on Mon Aug 18, 2003 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Oh, in case it's not obvious, if you set the current line foreground color to the default background color (normally white), the dotted lines will not be drawn. Similarly, if you set its background color to the default background color, background color highlighting will not be used. Doing that with both color components has the same effect as turning off current line highlighting.
bbadmin wrote:One of the reasons we adopted the original dashed line highlighting was so that both the foreground and background colors of syntax elements could still be displayed. If neither foreground nor background colors can be displayed for the active line, surely you lose one of the main benefits of syntax highlighting: confirming that what you are typing is correct.
Okay, I agree, this is a benefit. However, I still think it's a significant problem, because my comments are almost as dim as the highlighting itself. Comments look great on the not-current line, but comments are very difficult to see on the highlighted line (although otherwise, non-comment lines line look GREAT when highlighted).
Couldn't there just be a smart "if the color of the text is so mathematically close to the background color, such that it's obscured, darken it significantly, or just turn the darn thing to black"?
Give the user control over "how close" this should be (and some checkbox to disable it altogether)...
This is bordering on messy... How do other editors deal with this?
Somehow I like the subtle border insted of killing it altogether by making it white .. what I dont like is the dashes, but i can live with it by making it less obvious..
Jeffy .. try UE and you'll see the effect of being able to change your text color.. strange stuff happens with the syntax..
Okay okay, so "deal with it" is what I'm getting from you :' )
I found a definite, although minor, problem:
Turn both current line background and word wrap mode on, and then type any text exactly up to the right margin (so that the very last character on a line is a non-space, non-tab character). At this point, pressing a non-space/tab character wraps the current word to the next line. Pressing a space or tab does *not* move the cursor (until a non-space/tab is pressed).
While in this situation, when you are pressing spaces and tabs, the highlight disappears. The moment you press a non-space/tab character it comes back (on the next line).
Okay okay, so "deal with it" is what I'm getting from you :' )
amusing
(something tells me you wouldnt like the alternative if you couldnt see your syntax, thats why I pointed you to UE)
Is this clear?
Very clear ...for me... pressing a space or tab takes the cursor one position to the right up against the scrollbar, at which point the line disappears if I type space/tab...If I backspace and type a letter, the line wraps.
If I left arrow my cursor back in the same line while the color is gone, the color does not come on back till the cursor runs into another line or if I click another line... feature or bug I dunno but I dont find it to be annoying.
The best solution for me would be a checkbox for each element in the "colors" tab: "Use alternative foreground when current-line-highlighted". If checked, a *third* color box is provided (it would always be there, just not useable unless this checkbox is checked).
So I could have my comments be similar to the background if I like (when not the current line), but black when current-line-highlighted.
I just downloaded the beta, and the problem I was having with 4.7.0 is now fixed! I can now open Explorer, right-click on a file, choose TextPad from the context menu, and open the file. With 4.7.0, all I was getting was a blank screen. As before, I can double-click on an associated filetype and start TP. (I was not having that problem that other people were.) Now all I have to do is figure out how to use the highlighted current line feature. That wasn't showing up on my copy of 4.7.0, at least not by default, and I couldn't understand what people were talking about. So far so good. 8)
)
