Changes from Roaster DR 1.0 to 1.1 primarily affect the Applet Runner and VM. Features and bug fixes for this release include:
• The finalize phase during garbage collection has been made much faster.
• The applet viewer has been made smaller and faster.
• Support for scrollbars in AWT.
• The Applet Runner no longer has to quit when you close an applet.
• Transparency in GIFs and general color issues have been fixed.
• Support for stdin/stdout console has been added.
Special Instructions
The Roaster DR 1.1 Updaters can only be run on the original DR 1.0 software. This and all subsequent updates should be done using your DR 1.0 CD. To update your software to v1.1:
Applet Runner Update
1. Mount your Roaster™ DR 1.0 CD.
2. Double-click on the Applet Runner Update icon to launch the updater. The updater may initially find the Applet Runner on your hard drive as the file to be updated. Do NOT update this file!
3. Change the directory of the file to be updated to the Roaster CD, in the Roaster folder, and select the Applet Runner.
4. Click Update.
5. Save the updated file as Applet Runner (removing the word New from the title shown).
6. Change the destination of the updated file from the CD to the Roaster™ DR1:Roaster™ folder on your hard drive.
7. Save the update.
8. Verify that the new version of the Applet Runner in your Roaster folder is 1.1.
Roaster™ VM Update
1. Double-click on the Roaster™ VM Update icon to launch the updater. The updater may initially find the VM on your hard drive as the file to be updated. Do NOT update this file!
2. Change the directory of the file to be updated to the Roaster CD, in the For Extensions Folder, and select the Roaster™ VM.
3. Click Update.
4. Save the updated file as Roaster™ VM (removing the word New from the title shown).
5. Change the destination of the updated file from the CD to the Extensions folder on your hard drive.
6. Save the update, replacing the old file..
7. Verify that the new version of the Roaster™ VM in your Extensions folder is 1.1b.
javac and javadoc
There is no updater for the new version of javac or javadoc. Simply drag the ones included in this archive to your Tools folder within the Roaster™ folder on your hard drive, replacing the old files.
JDK
Put the JDK into the Libraries folder in your Roaster™ folder.
Restart the Macintosh once all steps are completed.
Created with Roaster™
The "Created with Roaster™" GIF, which was missing on the DR1 CD, is included in this release. (The GIF and HTML are also available from our web site.) Please note that the HTML has changed somewhat from the Read-Me file on your 1.0 CD, and the Read-Me was updated to reflect this. There are two GIFs in this folder - one is transparent, one is not. If you have trouble using the transparent one, use the other, but be sure to update the reference to it in your HTML!
Drag the "Created With Roaster™" folder into the Roaster™ DR1 folder on your hard drive. Replace the "Created With Roaster™" Read-Me file on your hard drive with the one included in this archive.
After you write an applet with Roaster and put it on your Web pages, copy the GIF and the HTML below and paste it into your page next to your applet. (You should also reset the GIF reference to your local copy of the GIF.) Every time people see your applet they'll know you created it with Roaster. In addition, when you post this page, send e-mail to webmaster@natural.com and we will include a link to your page from our gallery page.
This release of Roaster™ still supports Beta 1 of Sun's JDK. You will be notified when Version 1.0 is supported. 68K is not supported yet either. The following are known issues in Roaster. Unless these release notes specifically state that you should let us know when you run across these issues, you do not need to report them when you see them.
Applet Runner
• If you're debugging an Applet and click into the Applet Runner, you may have to click a few times to get back.
• Garbage collection may crash on you. Do an "es" in MacsBug to get out of it. If you have persistent problems with GC, please notify tech support ASAP.
AWT
• JPEGs are unsupported in this release.
• There is no audio or net support in this release. Stay tuned!
• AWT allows you to change the title of a menu. The MacOS doesn't like this, so we've left that particular thing as unimplemented for now.
• Text Areas (edit fields and scrolling text) will always be drawn with their background as white to be more Mac-like.
• Controls will remain normal colors. Changing the color is simply ignored.
• Popup Menus will always pop up in the system font.
• We do not support iconizing a window since the MacOS doesn't either.
• Text Fields are, for now, always 9 point geneva.
• The FileDialog is unsupported in this release (and may remain so).
• There are various redraw issues that you'll notice.
Compiler
• For best results, use javac to compile your applets.
• The Roaster compiler is still "icky" in this release. It's a work in progress.
• You must explicitly import classes.
• Casting to interface classes doesn't work.
• Errors generated by the compiler are sometimes less than useful.
Demo Applets
All of the applets included in the Sun Beta 1 JDK work with Roaster. To make them work, just drag the "suitcase" onto the Applet Runner. There are various issues that you'll see (most are noted above), but by and large you can see that things are progressing nicely.
The exception to this is the ImageMap demo, which may not work properly.
Debugger
The object inspector isn't very smart at telling you what is in an object. It will give you values for numeric values but it's hard to see what is really in an object instance variable. This will be worked on in the future.
There is no source level debugging in this release.
Editor
Adding and removing tools from the toolbar sometimes messes up the IDE.pref file which is in the Roaster DR1 directory. The workaround is to throw out the IDE.pref file and it will create a new one next time you launch. If you can make this happen reliably, please let us know.
Project Window
Set Startup File does not yet look for a class with a main routine in it. It assumes that the class in the file has the same name as the source file (i.e., foo.java contains class foo). This will probably be changed to find the first main routine in the file.
Preferences
The following preferences do nothing in this release:
• Generate debugging information
• Documentation path
• Application name
• Application creator
Roaster Documentation
If you have trouble printing the Roaster™ Docs.pdf file on your laser printer, you may want to go to the Adobe troubleshooting URL: http://www.adobe.com/Support/220099.html#h013 for tips on how to get around the issue.
The original Read-Me file says that running Roaster requires a PowerPC co-processor. That should have read "PowerPC 601 or greater processor."
Where We Differ from Sun's Implementation of Java
• None of the debug classes work here because we have our own debugger.
• Trace instructions & trace method calls are unsupported, as we have our own debugger.
• Execute internal will not be supported.
For more information contact:
Natural Intelligence, Inc.
725 Concord Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138-1052
Cambridge (617) 876-4876
fax (617) 492-7425
America Online: Natural
CompuServe: 72427,177
World Wide Web: http://www.roaster.com/
Technical Support: roaster-support@natural.com
Information: info@natural.com
Hours of business are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST Monday through Friday.
