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Text File | 1998-09-16 | 16.7 KB | 427 lines

============================================================================ VisualAge for Java Version 2.0 Integrated Development Tools Release Notes ============================================================================ Table of Contents 1.0 Web browsers 1.1 Launching web browsers on Windows 1.2 Color limitation with Netscape on OS/2 1.3 Running applets in a web browser 2.0 Printing 3.0 Import SmartGuide 4.0 Debugger 4.1 Security manager 4.2 Breakpoints in classes.zip class files 5.0 Scrapbook and Inspectors 6.0 Code assist 6.1 Availability of code assist 6.2 Activating code assist 6.3 Code assist limitations 7.0 UNIX 7.1 UNIX - font sizes 7.2 AIX - Readability of Japanese fonts 7.3 UNIX - Shared libraries 7.4 Solaris - Timestamps 7.5 Solaris - Accelerators 7.6 UNIX - Printing 8.0 Caching 8.1 Setting up the cache 8.2 Clearing the caches 9.0 Japanese .jar files 10.0 Japanese fonts 10.1 Japanese fonts on OS/2 10.2 Japanese fonts in Options dialog 11.0 Directory selection 1.0 Web browsers 1.1 Launching web browsers on Windows Windows has two different types of file associations for web based documentation. The first type of association is for .htm and .html files launched locally (e.g. c:\index.htm). The second is for non-local files in URL format (e.g. http://www.software.ibm.com/ad/vajava) and is called "URL - Hypertext Transfer Protocol". VisualAge for Java uses the first association for most Help menu items, and the second one for the Help->Support menu item. Typically when a web browser is installed it configures both of these associations automatically. If a VisualAge for Java Help menu option fails to open a web browser it means your associations are not properly configured. To determine if the associations in Windows are properly setup, go to the Windows Start menu and choose Run. Type in the name of an .htm file or a URL (e.g. 'http://www.software.ibm.com/ad/vajava'). In both cases, a web browser should open. If a web browser fails to open it means your associations are not properly configured. In the event the web browser does not open, you can either reinstall the web browser, manually configure your Windows associations or in VisualAge for Java go to the Help page of the Window->Options dialog and choose 'Specify browser path' instead of 'Use file association'. 1.2 Color limitation with Netscape on OS/2 When running Netscape 2.02 simultaneously with the VisualAge IDE on OS/2 Warp 4 in 256 color mode, the IDE is unable to get all the colors needed to draw widgets and graphics. Workarounds: 1) Disable palette awareness in Netscape. (by unchecking the palette aware option on the General Preferences Color page.) 2) Use 16-bit color mode. 1.3 Running applets in a web browser If your exported applet does not run in your web browser ensure that your browser supports JDK 1.1.6. Consult the web browser's vendor site for any JDK related fixes. Also, ensure that your web browser's security settings are correct for running your applet. 2.0 Printing Some printer drivers provide incorrect information about the size of the fonts used in the driver. Others have problems scaling images or drawing lines properly. These problems are most commonly found in PCL printer drivers. Printer driver problems can cause some of the following symptoms when printing from VisualAge for Java: - text runs off the right margin of a page - text extends outside of its rectangle in the class graph - class graph icons are positioned improperly - unexpected lines are drawn in class graphs These problems can often be solved by ensuring that you have the latest printer driver that is available for your printer. If your printer supports PCL and Postscript, try the Postscript version of the driver. It is usually more accurate. The following drivers have exhibited these kinds of problems: IBM Network Printer 17 PCL - OS/2 <older versions> IBM Network Printer PCL Driver 1.14 - Windows 95 3.0 Import SmartGuide When importing from directories, you should typically not select a subdirectory of a package hierarchy as the root for import. If you do, the resources will be copied incorrectly. For example, if you were to "Export" the "IBM Java Examples" project, the result is a directory structure such as: \com\ibm\ivj\examples\awttextframework \com\ibm\ivj\examples\awttestlauncher \com\ibm\ivj\examples\awttests etc. To import from directories you should choose the directory which contains the com subdirectory and use the "Details..." prompter to select the subdirectories you want. The subdirectory structure for the resources will be recreated when you import. 4.0 Debugger 4.1 Security manager Installing a security manager that does not allow complete access to members and properties can cause exceptions or missing fields in the debugger due to introspection failures. This affects SecurityManager and its subclasses. Workaround: Do not use a security manager when debugging code, or ensure that your security manager allows access to members and properties. 4.2 Breakpoints in classes.zip class files Breakpoints placed in external class files found in classes.zip may not trigger. Workaround: Place the breakpoint in the copy of the class which is located in your Workspace. 5.0 Scrapbook and Inspectors If a large string (>10K) is inserted into the scrapbook, there is a noticeable delay as the text is inserted and syntax highlighted. With very large strings, it can appear as if the scrapbook is suspended or hung. This situation is most likely to occur when displaying the results of an expression in the scrapbook, such as displaying the toString() of a very large vector. Long strings can also cause the horizontal scroll bars in the editor to fail and can cause internal errors on OS/2. The actual limit involves the pixel width of the string (32768 pixels), so the size of the font used can affect how long the string can be. Workaround: To work around the problem, split long lines into shorter ones and avoid displaying the results of expressions that return an object with a long string representation. 6.0 Code assist 6.1 Availability of code assist Code assist is available in a method source view, Scrapbook, Inspector, breakpoint modify dialog and the event-to-code connection editor of the Visual Composition Editor. Code assist is not available in the class source view. Code assist requires that your code prior to the current cursor location be syntactically correct. If the code cannot be processed, the status line will indicate that code assist is not available. 6.2 Activating code assist To activate code assist press Ctrl-Space or Ctrl-L. On some Japanese platforms Ctrl-Space is reserved for IME activation. In this situation Ctrl-L can be used to activate code assist. 6.3 Code assist limitations This section describes some of the limitations of code assist: - In the case where a possible field completion would be hidden by a visible local variable with the same name, code assist will not filter out the hidden field and will still present it as part of the user selection. Note that even having picked up the field, compilation will bind to the local variable. For example, after defining the following class X, browse its constructor. class X { int value; X(int value){ this.value = value } } When requesting code assistance in the constructor, in the right hand side of the assignment: this.value = val<code assist> VisualAge will find two completions: the field and the local, where actually the local variable is hiding the field. - In some cases, code assist will not detect that the input source is invalid, and will still propose some potential candidates. For example, the following cases yield an incorrect completion. new Thread().`<code assist here> new Thread().\<code assist here> new Thread().........<code assist here> - There are some locations where code assist will propose type completions where it should not. Selecting and inserting a type in this case will result in invalid source. For example the completions for: new Thread(s<code assist here> will list some types (such as short) where no possible Java construction could require a type in this case. - If a type name needs to be qualified and it is not, no code assist will be available for static members. For example: public String newMethod ( ) { ResourceBundle a = ResourceBundle.<code assist> does not produce a list but public String newMethod ( ) { java.util.ResourceBundle a = java.util.ResourceBundle.<code assist> will produce a list. The easiest way to produce a qualified name in this case (assuming you do not want to add this class/package to the import list) is to place the cursor before the period and activate code assist. Select the class name from the list and it will be fully qualified for you automatically if required. 7.0 UNIX 7.1 UNIX - font sizes If the font selected from the Options dialog seems smaller or larger than expected, a possible problem is the X font path. From a terminal window, examine the output of the "xdpyinfo" command to determine the resolution of screen #0. (The resolution will be similar to: "91x92 dots per inch"). Then examine the current font path by typing "xset q". The font path will likely include "100dpi" and "75dpi" directories. The font path should be set such that the directory with the resolution closest to the screen resolution comes first. (e.g. in the case of a screen resolution of 91x92, the 100dpi directory should come first in the font path.) The font path can be set with the "xset fp= Path,..." command, followed by the "xset fp rehash" command. (See the xset man page for more information). Note that font path will be reset when you logout and back into the window manager. Therefore, to have it set each time you login, add the xset command to either your window manager's startup script, or shell startup or your login script. 7.2 UNIX - Readability of Japanese fonts On AIX and Solaris, many fonts, especially non-English fonts, do not scale well to small sizes. Fonts will always look best if you pick a size that has a defined bitmap version available at that size. To find the sizes of the bitmap versions of a font, use the "xlsfonts" command. Please refer to the xlsfonts man page for more information. 7.3 UNIX - Shared libraries VisualAge for Java uses shared libraries which reside in the ide/program directory. On AIX the file extension of these files is ".a", on Solaris, it is ".so". You must ensure that your system is properly configured before running VisualAge for Java, otherwise the environment will not be able to locate these shared libraries. The easiest way to ensure the libraries are found is to set the environment variable LIBPATH (on AIX) or LD_LIBRARY_PATH (on Solaris) to include the ide/program directory. For example, if you installed VisualAge for Java in /usr/local/vajava, then add the directory /usr/local/vajava/ide/program to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH. How you do this depends on which shell you are using (e.g. csh, ksh, etc.). Please refer to the documentation for your shell for information regarding setting environment variables. You may choose to set this variable when you log in (i.e. in your .cshrc, .profile, .login, or related startup file), or you may wish to create a shell script to run VisualAge for Java which sets the variable for you. For example, #!/bin/sh export LIBPATH=$LIBPATH:/usr/local/vajava/ide/program cd /usr/local/vajava/ide/program ./ide 7.4 Solaris - Timestamps Due to a problem in Solaris OS, dates on the locale en_CA are displayed as 6//17//98. This problem does not appear to occur on en_US for Solaris. This problem may also occur with some other locales on Solaris. 7.5 Solaris - Accelerators Accelerators are not supported on Solaris due to a degradation of performance caused by the platform menu support under certain usage patterns. This problem does not occur on any other platform, including AIX. 7.6 UNIX - Printing VisualAge for Java uses the Bristol X printer libraries to support printing. These libaries require Postscript printer support. 8.0 Caching 8.1 Setting up the cache A disk cache and a memory cache are used by VisualAge for Java to improve .class file access time for classes in the IDE. The memory cache is used to keep a number of classes resident in memory. Every time the IDE is started, only the most frequently used classes are maintained in the memory cache. The memory cache preferred size is user settable from the Options dialog on the General / Cache page. This value is the number of classes that will be preserved when the IDE is started. Any class found in the cache can be almost instantaneously dynamically loaded. A system with a large amount of RAM can take advantage of a large memory cache; a system with a limited amount of RAM should keep the memory cache small - this will allow VisualAge to flush unused classes. The disk cache is used to help fill the memory cache. When an IDE class must be loaded, the disk cache is searched first and if the class is not there it is loaded from the repository. The resulting class is then put in the memory cache. The disk cache improves performance, but does not have as significant an impact as the memory cache. There are two variables that the developer can control on the disk cache: (1) disk cache enable, and (2) disk cache preferred size. To enable the disk cache, the directory named "cache" must exist as a subdirectory of the ide directory. There are at least two reasons why you may not want to enable the disk cache. First, systems with limited available disk space should not use the disk cache. Second, if accessing the repository is almost as fast as accessing the cache directory, the disk cache provides no additional value. The disk cache preferred size is the number of classes (files) that will be preserved when the IDE is exited (or saved while remaining in the IDE). The most frequently used .class files are maintained in the disk cache; all other files in the directory are deleted. 8.2 Clearing the caches When a developer selects Clear the Memory Cache (from the Options dialog), the contents of the memory cache will be discarded the next time the IDE is started. When a developer selects Clear the Disk Cache (from the Options dialog), contents of the cache directory will be immediately discarded. 9.0 Japanese .jar files If types and resources with Japanese names are exported to a .jar file, the files within the .jar do not have Japanese names but rather render the names as single byte characters. The lack of support for Japanese names is a current limitation of .jar files. 10.0 Japanese fonts 10.1 Japanese fonts on OS/2 With some fonts on OS/2 Japanese, the very top of some "tall" characters may not be visible. For example, this has been seen with the Mincho 8 point font for the "[" and "]" characters. However, the same Mincho 8 point font has been observed to display correctly on other OS/2 machines. This problem is machine and font specific. If this occurs another font should be selected. 10.2 Japanese fonts in Options dialog If the "dialog" font in the Options dialog is set to an English font (e.g. adobe helvetica) on a Japanese machine, the font will not contain the necessary Japanese characters, so the Options dialog itself becomes unreadable. Workaround The Options dialog can still be used to set the dialog font back to a Japanese font. The keyboard arrow keys may have to be used instead of the mouse to make selections when the Options dialog is in this state. 11.0 Directory selection - The directory selection dialog (used for importing, exporting, generating javadoc, etc.) may lock access to the directory, so that other applications cannot delete, rename, or move the directory. - When typing in the drive name of an NTFS drive, you must use upper case to specify the drive name in the directory selection dialog. The dialog will not recognize lower case drive names on NTFS drives.