VSE2000 Release

 

 

What’s New?

 

This release of VisualSmalltalk Enterprise has been tested under the Windows 2000 operating system.  It will be supported on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows 2000.  OS/2 support has been sunsetted

There were problems in the previous release with certain Pentium (particularly Pentium III) chips.  This problem has been addressed, although a BIOS update may also be required

As with the rest of Cincom Smalltalk, we are releasing VSE2000 with all of it’s component add ons.  Previously, these add ons were priced separately.  Now, WindowBuilder and SubPanes/V are being shipped as a core part of the VSE product

As part of this release, a number of limitations in the product have been addressed.  See the table below for a specific list of fixes.

This release of VSE follows the lead established by the rest of the Cincom Smalltalk offering.  We are shipping over thirty community supported ‘goodies’ with the product – including an evaluation version of the Simply Objects modeling toolset. 

All product documentation is now included in an online format, using either Adobe PDF format or standard HTML format. 

 

Installation Requirements

 

 

 

Bug Fixes in this Release

 

AR/Case
Number

Description

Affects

6748

VT_BYREF support in OLE flawed

OLE Automation Support 
OLE COM Support 

6791

OLE BSTR memory leak 

OLE Automation Support

6805

Small icon not implemented for Windows NT

User Interface Classes

6821

Invalid window handles passed to application from VM

User Interface Classes
Dynamic Data Exchange
(DDE)

6822

ActiveX control in MDIFrame flooded with WM_PAINT messages 

Multiple Document Interface
(MDI)

6842

Invalid window handles in MDI

User Interface Classes
Multiple Document Interface
(MDI)

6852

Revision comments incorrect with PVCS 6.0

Team/V PVCS

6854

Buttons on a tab control page do not work when tab is out of focus 

Tab Control 

6859

CursorManager>>changeFor: does not answer aBlock evaluation value 

GUI Library 

6875 

Conflict with API calls that return a handle but are declared return type long in Smalltalk.  Fix to use the return of GetWindowLong as an unsigned integer as is needed when retrieving handles in VSE.

Base Classes
GUI Library
PARTS Basic Window and Menu Parts

320855

Printer class>>defaultPrinterName truncated to 37 characters

GUI Library

--

PrintDialog class>>printerDefault does not release handles

GUI Library

Subpanes/V

AR/Case
Number

Description

Affects

6799

Table row numbering is truncated after row 99

Table Runtime

--

CPDateEditor 2 digit date interpretation incorrect after Y2K

Input Field Runtime

 

Known Limitations

 

  1. Some Pentium III class machines can cause Visual Smalltalk to crash at random times with a protection violation. Anecdotal reports suggest that a bug in a particular VIA support chip or BIOS on some motherboards cause this problem. A general problem with these PIII machines often occurs on coppermine CPUS due to old mainboard BIOSs. After a BIOS update the problems vanished. If a BIOS update does not resolve the problem, the solution is to modify the BIOS settings for the problem machine to turn off the level 2 or external cache.

 

  1. 3916 - If you have modified text in the Package Browser and click the radio button to switch from class to instance methods (or vice versa), you will get a dialog asking you to accept or discard your changes.  The third option, to cancel the radio button push, does not work.  You must either accept or discard the changes to the method.

 

  1. 3920 - If you have a debugger open and change the source of a method on the stack using another tool, the debugger will show the new text rather than the text of the method that is being executed.

 

  1. 3939 - It is possible to get a compilation error during compilation for a method that will ultimately be deleted during the migration.  This can happen in a migration involving deletion of instance variables. These errors are resolved before the migration completes and should be ignored.

 

  1. 4592 - A drag/move operation dragging a method definition to an open package that has a definition for a method with the same class and selector will result in a package containing conflicting definitions.  This package cannot then be loaded. That package must be modified using the package organizer before loading.

 

  1. 4727 - In the Package Browser class definition editor, the paste operation always goes to the comment pane, rather than to the text entry panes, even if they have focus.

 

  1. 4741 - Loading a file (foo.st) in file-in that defines a pool and contains a class that references the pool results in a walkback.  The workaround is to file in the code, using the File/Install... menu item.

 

  1. 4860 - In the Cluster Organizer, if you convert a cluster to a group or configuration, it marks all specifications in the cluster as dirty, even though they may not have needed changing.

 

  1. 4974 - Committing into a read only repository (protected by file system access permissions) gives a misleading message. It says: "Cannot commit revision ... must be proposed repository entity before attempting to commit.

 

  1. 5096 - Unloading a package that has a large pool (2000 entries) takes a long time (more than 5 minutes).

 

11.  5213 - You cannot set a conditional inclusion flag for a cluster that has not been committed.

 

  1. 5999 - Some messages do not show up in Messages list. Certain messages are implemented specially for efficiency, such as ifTrue:, and these do not show up when you select the Method/Messages menu item in the Package Browser.

 

  1. 6036 - You cannot rename an empty category in the Package Browser, but you can delete it and create a new category with the desired name.

 

  1. 6037 - The file names generated for filing out code, building a library, or exporting a module do not take advantage of long file name support even if the base OS provides it.

 

  1. Executing a runtime application by placing the name of a smalltalk library on the command line, following the name of the runtime EXE (by default, V.EXE), no longer works, and is not recommended.  In order to specify a library or list of libraries to bind when your application is started, use a .BND file with the same name as your executable file, which specifies the names of libraries to bind.


The option to override error messages which are generated by the Smalltalk virtual machine (such as 'virtual machine stack overflow'), usually with a foreign language, requires special command line processing.  Here is an example of how to enable the use of an alternative VM messages DLL:

  v "/LANG vmmsgs.dll"
 

  1. NonGUI Runtime Application.  There's a known problem in creating a non-gui runtime application via saving an image. If you use VNOGUI.EXE (or a copy of it) as your image, bind the Console SLL (vcon31w.sll), then save the image, this resulting saved image will not run as a runtime application.  To create a non-gui runtime application which uses Console, the preferred approach is to put all your application code into an SLL, then put the name of your SLL (and the Console SLL) into a .BND file which matches the name of the EXE (which is a copy of VNOGUI.EXE).