Developer CD Series 1998 April to May: Technology Seed

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Text File | 1998-04-27 | 19.3 KB | 493 lines | [TEXT/R*ch]

====================================================================== The information contained in this message is under non-disclosure. ====================================================================== Welcome to release a4 of Allegro. We're very encouraged by the feedback from developers on the performance and stability they experienced with a2. We're also encouraged by the quality and quantity of bug reports received. The work has only begun, so please don't slow down as we head into further releases. Please make sure this build makes it to your quality assurance people as well as engineering! For those who have read the seed note in previous releases we've noted the sections with updated information. For anyone new to the seeds, please read this Developer Release Note in its entirety, as we've made efforts to increase the amount of information provided, and it contains information necessary for developing for and testing with this release of Allegro. Downloading was very heavy for the first build and, understandably, this caused some frustration. Here are some tips and some information we hope will lessen this frustration. -- We've uploaded the release in binary format, saving 50 megs of download time. We've also reduced the file size of the segments to one meg apiece rather than two due to feedback from developers. -- Be sure to use an FTP client (not a web browser) which is set to bypass any firewall you may be behind and which allows only one login session at a time. Also beware that your FTP client may time out your connection if inactive for more than a minute, thereby forcing you to get a new password and start over. -- Be sure to enter your current developer information in the fields. These cover the majority of problems we've seen. Due to the many download difficulties, we regret not having been able to respond to all inquiries into <devseed@apple.com>. This remains the proper path for issues. We expect to clear these up very soon. The Allegro seed archive has been digitally signed, which allows you to verify the image if the image has been corrupted during download, been modified in any way, or replaced. PGP will report that the signature is bad in any of these cases. It is not necessary to verify the file to use the software. The signature is merely a precaution against tampering. To verify the file's integrity, perform the following steps: -- Obtain PGP 5 or later, commercial and freeware versions are available: <http://www.nai.com/products/security/security.asp> For information about or support for PGP, consult PGP as this is not an Apple product. -- Obtain the public key for Tim Holmes (key ID 0x9E22EA50) -- Verify the disk image file by opening the signature file If there's something not included in these seed notes which you would like to see added, please let us know, and thank you for your suggestions to date. On behalf of the entire Allegro team, thank you for taking the time to download this build; we appreciate your efforts and strive to meet your expectations. Tim Holmes Mac OS Developer Relations Apple Computer, Inc. ======================================================================= *** *** Allegro a4 Seed Developer Release Notes *** *** Copyright 1998 Apple Computer, Inc. (This work is unpublished.) *** Table of Contents: -------------------------------------------------------------- A Note on Confidentiality [revised for a4] A Note on Participation Allegro Fundamentals Allegro a4 Fundamentals [revised for a4] A Note on Component Versions Known Problems [revised for a4] Significant Bug Fixes and Changes [revised for a4] Top "Gotchas" Contact Information [revised for a4] Allegro Seed Release Notes Errata [revised for a4] -------------------------------------------------------------- A Note on Confidentiality ------------------------- The vast majority of developers seeded abide by their non-disclosure agreements, and for that we thank you; however, some continue to violate this trust. These violations reduce the amount of time Apple is able to spend on the very things developers most need, better software and better support. In addition, these violations may have a severely negative effect on our ability to continue these seeds. We appreciate any help in tracking down violations and appreciate the help we have received to date. Please see the contact information below to report infractions. A Note on Participation ----------------------- Early seeding is important to developers and Apple alike; however, in the past, we haven't received the level of feedback we'd expect for something you've told us is so important. To ensure compatibility with Allegro, developers should not assume Apple will test each of their products internally. It's important that every developer continue to test their products with this pre-release software and provide feedback on problems they encounter. Two important guidelines: -- Provide feedback. It's become apparent that many developers perceive Apple as a sufficiently large organization that either will be able to find all compatibility problems or will get swamped with duplicate bug reports. Neither of these perceptions is accurate. Only reported bugs have a chance to be fixed. -- Provide feedback as early as possible. The pattern of feedback we receive is generally a "spike" following the earliest seeds, and then traffic drops off until the final candidate stage, at which time we get a second "spike". This second spike occurs too late in the process for us to incorporate the requested changes. The earlier you report a problem, the more likely it is we'll be able to achieve a resolution satisfactory to everyone. Don't wait to test for or to report bugs! Allegro Fundamentals -------------------- Allegro is the next in a series of regular Mac OS reference releases. Allegro supports all PowerPC Mac OS compatible computers but does not support systems in which the PowerPC processor is on an upgrade card. WARNING: It is still possible there are significant bugs in this build of Allegro. Do not risk critical data by exposing it to this software. Do not install this software on a machine which is critical to your business. Allegro a4 Fundamentals ----------------------- This is the second seeded build. a3 was not seeded. We expect additional alpha builds before one of them is declared beta. At this time (post-alpha), we are not considering new features for Allegro. Bug fixes and compatibility issues are expected to be the focus of development. A Note on Component Versions ---------------------------- Some of the components in Allegro may be earlier versions than those shipping at the time of the release of Allegro. This is due to extensive, time-consuming integration quality assurance that is required to achieve the quality goals for such a large project. Integrating later versions of components impacts testing and could compromise the quality of the Allegro release. In Apple's OS release strategy, the latest version possible of any given component will integrate into the next OS update or release, but those components will continue to improve and be distributed as appropriate in parallel to the OS releases. Known Problems -------------- There will, of course, be bugs in early builds of Allegro. In this section, rather than attempt to list all known bugs, we will attempt to alert you to entire components which are not functional or major functionality within a component which you should avoid. -- ATI, IXMicro, and 9600 graphics acceleration pieces have been removed for this build. -- There is no help viewer available. The HTML help files have been revised, but there is no standard viewer for them in this build. -- Energy Saver is known to have several aesthetic problems. The relevant engineering team is aware of these problems and is working to correct them. Significant Bug Fixes and Changes --------------------------------- Allegro is a huge effort involving many engineers and thousands of bug reports. We cannot catalog them all on a build-by-build basis. However, we will attempt to keep you informed of fixes for critical bugs and other significant changes such as the addition or removal of a component or a feature of a component. Also, if a bug appears to be a user-level issue only, we'll spare you from having to read about it, and we'll omit reports about the installer script unless there seems to be a developer-related reason to include them. -- Font Manager needs less stack. -- Balloons no longer appear when Apple Menu Options is frontmost and the mouse isn't over its window. -- Apple Menu Options' AppleScript terminology improved. -- Window zoom boxes now persist when switching to Platinum theme. -- Stickies windows can now be collapsed. -- CFM calls new Alias Manager API ResolveAliasWithMountFlags to resolve aliases referenced by the 'cfrg' resource. -- CFM defines a new bit in the 'cfrg' resource which forces the fragment's code into the application heap. -- Geneva and Monaco fonts have updated high-ASCII glyphs, and Chicago now has a Euro glyph. -- Mount requests are now passed to each installed file system, not just built-in (HFS, HFS+). -- Aliases of special folders (example: Fonts) no longer show in Standard File as applications. -- Various managers, in particular Font Manager, are considerably less memory-hungry, both on a per-process and system-wide basis. -- WorldScript Power Adapter is not loaded if it is installed by a language kit or other installer, since Allegro has this functionality in the System file. WorldScript II is no longer loaded differently than other extensions. -- Apple CD-ROM and Apple DVD-ROM drivers have been combined into a single file called Apple CD/DVD Driver. This change appeared in the Allegro a2 seed but we failed to mention it in the a2 notes. -- You can now drag documents onto the Application Switcher window. -- Version numbers in Finder's Get Info windows are back. -- The Application Support folder is now part of the CFM search path. -- Disk Cache: A few single-instruction optimizations have been applied. The smallest disk cache size is now 128K. Now respects the pleaseCacheBit passed in by file systems. The pleaseCacheBit, like the noCacheBit, is passed to file systems in the ioPosMode field of Read and Write requests. The pleaseCacheBit is documented in IM:Files and in Technote FL 16. The disk cache size now dominates the RAM disk size (as opposed to the other way around). -- Several sound problems, including some very old bugs, have been addressed. It is now possible to change recording quality while recording. Chained calls to SPBRecord now work when the recording buffer size is smaller than the hardware interrupt buffer size. The sound input source is now more likely to be remembered across boots. siRecordingQuality now works. Fixed a failure to turn off auto-muting when the output component found that the preferences for speaker mute had been set. -- PrintMonitor Documents folder is created at startup again, eliminating some print spooling problems. -- A few more FindFolder selectors have been added: Find, Internet Search Sites, Installer Logs. Also, an auto-routing path has been added for files of type 'issp' (to Internet Search Sites). -- Process Manager defines a new bit, modeGuardPageAware (0x00000002), in the SIZE resource. If this bit is set, two things happen. [1] A 16K guard buffer is placed above the appplication heap which will cause an immediate crash if any of that memory is accessed, and [2] a 4K guard buffer is placed between the application's main (non-thread) stack and heap. In a future build, this bit will apply only to PowerPC applications, since 68K applications can change their stack size dynamically with SetApplLimit, and Process Manager does not handle this case. 68K applications should not set this SIZE flag. (Fat applications should be OK, because Allegro only supports PowerPC based computers, and 68K application code from a fat application does not execute.) -- Process Manager is slightly more strict about when it will call jGNEFilter for "fake" keyDown events created by TSM, eliminating some duplicates. -- The Keyboard menu now correctly displays balloon help for items beyond the seventh. -- The improper shutdown dialog is more likely to actually check the disk. Also, some cosmetic problems have been cleaned up. -- An off-by-one error has been corrected in MountCheck; this error could conceivably corrupt disks which are unmounted improperly. -- PBGetFPos now clears all 16 bits of ioPosMode. -- PBAllocate and PBAllocContig now always set ioActCount, even on error. -- Display Manager now converts Display Data Channel model and serial number to big-endian values when read from the Extended Display Identification Data. -- Fixed a Display Manager and Monitors & Sound crashing bug. When the user had M&S open on a PowerBook with a multiscan monitor attached and put the PowerBook to sleep, disconnecting the monitor and waking up the PowerBook would cause a crash. -- The most common PCI/CardBus chip used to construct CardBus cards doesn't contain a CIS (Card Information Structure, the configuration information stored on the card which tells what kind of card it is.) Therefore there exist some CardBus cards without a CIS, even though this is theoretically illegal in the PC Card 95 specification. Prior to this change, such a card would simply be ejected from the PowerBook. Now, we use other data, such as the PCI configuration registers, to set up the card anyway. Top Testing and Compatibility "Gotchas" --------------------------------------- As you can see, there are many changes in Allegro. There are some specific areas we know have a relatively high potential of causing trouble for a significant number of programs. Here are some testing recommendations which we believe should be part of your testing regimen: -- Use the Appearance control panel to choose the Gizmo theme and Techno font for the system font. Exercise as much of your human interface as possible. Look for text wrapping and clipping problems. Make sure your controls track the way they're meant to. Switch themes and see if your windows all redraw as you would expect. (Note: you should always design your interfaces using Chicago as the system font. This is the assumption the system makes in order to provide the highest degree of compatibility.) -- Create a document which exercises your printing code as extensively as possible. Print the document and look for text wrapping and clipping and placement problems. -- As with Mac OS 8, Allegro streamlines and simplifies the layout of the System Folder. Make sure your program places files in the appropriate places; if not, be sure you are making proper use of FindFolder. -- If your program reads and writes Open Transport preferences files directly, make sure it still works the way you expect it to and start thinking about re-architecting your program to use the soon-to-be-documented OT Configuration APIs. -- If your program ships with AppleScripts, make sure they do what they are meant to do. -- If your program gets icons or cursors from the system (as opposed to its own resource fork), make sure these icons and/or cursors display properly. -- If you want to test the OT 2.0 DHCP Client ID feature, you can enter the Client ID into the "Computer Name:" field in the File Sharing control panel. This is temporary until the TCP/IP control panel is updated so the DHCP configuration screen has a field for Client ID. Once the TCP/IP control panel is updated, the Client ID will no longer be taken from the File Sharing computer name field. We may add items to this list as time goes by. If you discover a "gotcha" from which you think other people might benefit, please feel free to send it in. (Indicate whether you'd like us to credit you for your "gotcha".) Contact Information ------------------- Downloading and Decoding Before contacting Apple for assistance with the seeding process or obtaining this seed, please consult the Seeding Frequently Asked Questions web page: <http://developer.apple.com/faq/faqseed.html> If this page does not help you resolve the problem, <mailto:devseed@apple.com> Bug Reports For bug reports (but not Allegro enhancement requests): <http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter> Security Breaches ("Leaks") We encourage you to report anyone you know to have distributed Allegro, in whole or in part, or information about Allegro (including but not limited to screen dumps) to anyone who is not under non-disclosure with Apple. <mailto:shortstop@apple.com> Allegro Seed Release Notes Errata --------------------------------- Clarifications: -- The configuration application for Internet Config is called simply "Internet". Only the extension from Internet Config 2.0 is integrated; the interface from the IC2 package is not. The "Internet" control panel replaces the application in the IC2 package. -- The Disk First Aid application runs whenever the "improper shut down" dialog appears; the user has the opportunity to cancel it. This version of Disk First Aid is still being evaluated for inclusion in the final product. -- Translation Manager has been moved into the System file. Corrections: -- There is no desktop printer browser application. Only the scripting addition is present. -- File Synchronization 1.1 is the version planned to ship with Allegro. -- Since the last public release, the new feature of Drive Setup is the ability to painlessly re-init a drive maintaining the former partition scheme and formats. -- We claimed a2 changed the message "extensions disabled" to "extensions off". This change is present in a3.