From: Justin Fletcher To: regdevs@riscos.com Subject: Developer missive 5 X-Organization: RISCOS Ltd Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 17:26:42 +0100 Intro ----- Hiya, Recent changes have highlighted a few more caveats. Hopefully, these won't affect you, or if they do, you will already be aware of them. Caveats update -------------- A few more caveats for you... OS_ReadLine This is broken. Caveats mentioned in StrongHelp are not strong enough. Buffer must live in 26 bit space. This will be extended to 29 bit space for the next version. Replacement for OS_ReadLine to be decided. ReadLineV claimants Declare yourselves quickly; the interface is changing and you need to be aware of the updated interface because it is NOT completely compatible. Toolbox Slider_[Get|Set]Bound Are documented incorrectly. Technote issued to this effect. GCOL coloured windows Using the 'GCOL colours' flag has no effect on RISC OS 4. If you need this functionality, clear the window in your redraw loop. Submenus from windows, off menus Submenus generated in this way have never worked reliably - don't use them. The next version may have this problem fixed. *FX, *TV, *Keyng the command from the arguments slow the whole command line processing system. Support for these without the space will be withdrawn in a future version. Parameters are also recommended as space separated (Opt, FX, TV). Impact of these changes should be minimal as software should not be using OSCLI commands for these operations where SWI calls exist. Dynamic Areas Marking a Dynamic Area as inaccessible on creation will be treated as only user mode inaccessible. Workspace areas for modules In the past we have stated that module workspace areas should not be modified by external applications. To further the protection of the system, such areas may in future be marked as read only, or inaccessible, from user mode. Bugz ---- Bugz has now been corrected so that it will actually send emails. Early versions failed to send emails when the 'Send' button was clicked. Problems with Voyager are being looked in to. Problems with mail gateways requiring HELO are being looked in to. Some developers have asked for permission to use Bugz for their own purposes. RISCOS Ltd hereby give permission for registered developers to use !Bugz for distribution to their testers to report faults with their own software. Bugz may not be modified without written permission from RISCOS Ltd. To ensure that emails arrive at the correct place, description files should contain the section [*EMail] containing the email address of the person to receive bug reports. For more details, contact developer support. Allocations ----------- Reservations of names, allocations of reserved numbers and registrations of types will continue to pass through Pineapple Software (allocate@pinesoft.demon.co.uk). We would still be interested to know what products are being developed as there may be concurrent developments which can aid in your work. A copy of !Allocate (which should be used for all allocations) can be obtained from the Public developer area - http://developer.riscos.com/public/Resources/Utilities/ Telephone support ----------------- Telephone support is offered to all commerical registered developers. However, the Stratford telephone number is NOT public information and should NOT be given out to the general public. It, along with other priviledged information supplied to developers, is convered by the NDAs, and giving the phone number out to others not in your company is a breach of that. Contacting Developer Support ---------------------------- We ask that developers contact us with emails marked with the subject as : : eg: Subject: D1001: Internet or something similar. This should aid in recognising who the support query should go to more clearly than 'Can you help please?', and will also enable us to check on developers more readily. The email address for developer support is devsupport@riscos.com. Submitting bug reports ---------------------- We ask that developers submit bug reports using !Bugz. This ensures that we get sufficient information about the component being tested. It is envisaged that Bugz be made available to the general public at some point. If you are reporting bugs in developer components, then they should go via developer support. We ask that bugs in released components go to bugs@riscos.com. -- Justin Fletcher, Software engineer, RISCOS Ltd Personal URL: http://www.movspclr.co.uk/