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IRIX Base Documentation 1998 November
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IRIX 6.5.2 Base Documentation November 1998.img
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1998-11-02
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5. _K_n_o_w_n__P_r_o_b_l_e_m_s__a_n_d__W_o_r_k_a_r_o_u_n_d_s
5.1 _C_o_s_m_o__C_r_e_a_t_e
The current implementation of Cosmo Create has a few
limitations, as described in the following sections.
5.1.1 _G_e_n_e_r_a_l
+o The localization of Cosmo Create covers the main
application and the Packager. Certain areas of these
applications such as the Help menu, and help content
have not been localized.
+o Due to a bug in PC NFS, Cosmo Create will hang while
trying to work on files mounted from a PC. This
includes opening files from, saving files to and
browsing such directories. This problem has been
reported to the manufacturer of the PC NFS software.
There is no known workaround.
+o Please install Patch 2715 if your LD_LIBRARY_PATH is
set to anything longer than around 100 characters. The
runtime linker (rld) shipped with IRIX 6.2MR sometimes
core dumps if your LD_LIBRARY_PATH is too long.
+o Please install Patch 1537 to work around a bug in the
File Alteration Monitor shipped with IRIX 6.2MR. The
visible symptom requiring this patch was that changes
saved from Helper Applications were not always noticed
by Cosmo Create.
+o If you have both an evaluation and a permanent license
in your /var/flexlm/license.dat file, the first one
matching the product will be found. Thus, if the
evaluation one occurs first, you will continue to see
the expiration notification until the evaluation
license expires, at which point the permanent one will
be used. To avoid this problem once you've obtained
your permanent license, edit the
/var/flexlm/license.dat file and remove the evaluation
one. See Chapter 6 for more information about
licenses.
+o If you are running Cosmo Create in the Japanese locale
please install Patch 2906 included with the Japanese
World View product to ensure that type-in text fields
provide a composition window.
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+o The Spyglass eMosaic browser is run from a shell script
called eMosaic. Due to a bug in this script, eMosaic
will not launch from Cosmo Create unless the following
line is added to the top of the script: ####!!!! ////bbbbiiiinnnn////sssshhhh.
+o Pressing the "Default" button in preferences should
clear the values in the Proxy and Cache entries.
Currently it does not.
+o Cosmo Create does not always correctly undo/redo the
insertion of a horizontal rule.
+o Insertion of a horizontal rule into preformatted text,
a list, or a text flow around an inline may not produce
the expected visual results in all cases. Use preview
to determine the actual result.
+o When you delete numerous lines that contain alternate
HTML, the lines do not join into a single line.
+o The network fetching code for the Netscape plug-in
architecture is not yet implemented, making plug-ins
that depend on it unstable. Also, there is no java
runtime in Cosmo Create, so plug-ins that depend on
Java will also be unstable.
+o Cosmo Create may cause your system to run out of swap
space. If this happens, you will probably get a system
error dialog. Running out of swap space may cause the
application to crash, may prevent you from launching a
browser for previewing, or may prevent you from
launching the packager. If this occurs, consider
closing down other applications or adding more swap
space.
To add swap space, choose "System->System Manager" from
the Toolchest. On 6.2, you can launch the swap manager
from the "Administration Tools" panel of the system
manager. On 6.3, selecting "System Performance" from
the system manager will guide you through adding swap
space. On either system, you can look at the man page
for "swap".
+o To insert a paragraph before a left-aligned image at
the top of a page, make sure that View->Symbols is on,
position the cursor before the aligned image marker at
the start of the line and hit return. The marker looks
like a little triangular flag pointing left.
+o Pages containing ISO Latin 1 characters outside the
ASCII range should not be processed by Cosmo Create in
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an Asian locale. This limitation is placed on Cosmo
Create by the character encoding schemes used for Asian
locales.
5.1.2 _T_a_b_l_e_s
+o If a table is the first or last thing in a document,
and you want to add something above or below it, select
"Add Paragraph Before Table" or "Add Paragraph After
Table" from the Format menu. Alternatively, click to
the left of the table or above it, or the right or
below it, and when you then start typing, the new text
will go in a new paragraph automatically inserted above
or below the table, as appropriate.
+o If a table isn't being drawn completely, slightly
resizing the document window will usually correct the
problem. This may happen particularly after adding a
table, or adding rows or columns to a table.
+o Undoing some table operations may not work correctly.
Sometimes undoing an edit of a nested table, or a
deletion of a table immediately above another table may
change the nesting structure. If this happens, the
Edit Source function can be used to clean it up by
hand. Undoing an edit of a table at the very end of
the document or undoing an insertion of a table within
a table may cause Cosmo Create to crash.
+o If you copy a table that contains two immediately
adjacent sub-tables, the nesting structure may be
changed.
+o Table cell and caption alignment is not shown WYSIWYG.
+o In a table heading cell (<TH> tag), the text may not be
displayed bold if it has a character style such as
<CITE> or <KBD>.
+o The sizing of tables, rows and cells is not exactly the
same as in Netscape Navigator. In particular, if a
cell or a subtable width is specified as a percentage,
it is draw at that percent of the document's width,
rather than that percent of the parent table or cell's
width. Also, the minimum width of a cell containing a
left- or right-aligned image is calculated differently
from how it is done in Netscape Navigator.
+o If a table width is specified as 100%, resizing the
window may cause the table to be displayed too wide.
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Also, editing in a wide table may cause it to be
displayed too wide.
+o A cell can span into the next row only if the cell
below it spans the same number of columns as the
original cell. Likewise, a cell can span into the next
column only if the cell to the right spans the same
number of rows as the original cell. Therefore, for
example, if you have a table with no spanned cells, and
want to make one cell span two rows and two columns,
you have to do it in two steps. First increase the row
span of both that cell and the one to its right to 2
and apply that change, then set the column span of the
original cell to 2 and apply that change.
+o A table inside a list may not be indented correctly,
nor will a table with a list item at the beginning of
the first cell.
+o If there is an ordered list item at the end of a table
cell, and another at the beginning of the very next
cell, the numbering of the lists will be combined.
This can be avoided by putting a plain (Body) paragraph
between the lists.
+o Cosmo Create requires a table to be in its own
paragraph. If you try to create a table in the middle
of a paragraph, it will split the paragraph into two
pieces, with the table going between them.
+o The cursor may be displayed in the wrong location,
especially after horizontal scrolling and adding or
removing table rows or columns. If this happens, just
click the cursor in the desired cell to reset its
position before typing.
+o If you want to delete a subtable within another table
along with some other table contents, first delete just
the subtable, then delete the rest. Otherwise Cosmo
Create may crash.
+o Deleting and undoing editing involving tables together
with form elements or list items is somewhat unstable.
+o Sometimes inserting HTML or pasting a copied selection
containing nested tables into another table will cause
Cosmo Create to hang.
+o Some table editing actions cause Cosmo Create to use a
lot of memory.
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5.1.3 _I_n_l_i_n_e_s
+o If you're editing a new, unnamed document, save and
name it before inserting any inline content. Also,
when editing a new file created from a template, save
the file under a new name before inserting any inline
content.
+o If you have installed any of the Beta releases of Cosmo
Create, and experience problems with Button Magic or
other inline objects not appearing, then you may have
outdated conversion preferences.
To check for a valid Button Magic converter:
Select File->Preferences and open the "Converting"
panel.
Find the converter for "CosmoButtonAsciiData." The
conversion command should read:
/usr/lib/CosmoCreate/apps/bmrender %i %o
If not, clear the "Conversion Command" field, save the
preferences, and restart Cosmo Create.
If you are unable to determine which converter is
failing, you may resort to renaming or removing,
".cosmocreate/cosmocreate-preferences" in your home
directory and starting Cosmo Create again. Beware! You
will lose any other preferences you may have saved.
+o For inline plug-ins, the right mouse button is not
interpreted by the plug-in but is intercepted by Cosmo
Create to pop up its own menu.
+o Plug-ins don't print. However, plug-ins don't print in
Netscape Navigator, either.
+o If two images are adjacent on the same line, and one is
resized so that it wraps to the following line, it can
be difficult to position your cursor after the
remaining image on the previous line. It will always
go to the start of the next line. The workaround is to
cursor back from the next line.
+o Reacharounds for inline objects are not dealt with
correctly. A "reacharound" is when you launch Cosmo
Create from inside one directory, edit a file in
another directory, and attempt to make inline objects
that reside in or below the first directory. A
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workaround is to make URL mappings that match your
directory structure.
+o If you enter a non-existent file as the source for a
plug-in, the data filename will not be saved with the
document in the EMBED tag.
+o There is currently no way to drag-resize a running
plug-in. To resize, either enter the new width/height
in the attributes panel or turn plug-ins off (using the
View menu) and drag resize its placeholder.
+o Alignment TEXTTOP, ABSMIDDLE, and ABSBOTTOM for inlines
that are the first thing on the line does not always
work as expected, though it does work the same way as
in Netscape Navigator. They only align with things
that precede them on the line.
+o When inserting parameters on applet and embed inlines,
the parameter fields are redrawn slowly.
+o It can be difficult to drag-resize an inline if another
inline is immediately to the right. Workaround by
putting a space in between them, and then removing it
when you have the inline the right size.
+o It is somewhat difficult to select left and right
aligned images, especially in tables. Clicking towards
their upper left corners seems to work, but an
alternative method is to View->Symbols and select the
aligned image placeholder instead. The placeholders
appear as small triangular flags in the text that point
towards the margin the image is aligned with.
+o Sometimes the server and client map fields on the image
attributes dialog show incorrect info. The correct
info is always shown in the Image Map Tool.
5.1.4 _O_u_t__o_f__P_l_a_c_e__E_d_i_t_i_n_g__/__A_u_t_o_m_a_t_i_c__C_o_n_v_e_r_s_i_o_n
+o If you try to edit a file you don't have write
permission on, the file is copied to the current
document directory. No attempt is made to copy it to a
new name in the directory it previously resided in.
+o Automatic conversion always puts the converted file in
the current document directory rather than trying to
first put it in the directory in which the original
source file resides if write permission is granted
there.
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+o Some showcase files fail to convert when the last page
in the showcase document is blank, resulting in either
a small or invalid GIF file (sometimes the GIF file is
0 bytes long). To remedy the problem, open the file in
showcase, delete the last (empty) page, and try again.
+o There is no cleanup of the auto generated files from
conversion or copying.
+o Double clicking on inlines doesn't launch an editor, as
it should.
5.1.5 _L_i_n_k_s
+o When you type after a link to continue the linked text,
sometimes the link does not continue with the new text.
The workaround is to first delete one character of the
old text before adding the new text.
+o Cosmo Create does not correctly resolve paths in the
link dialog. If you're linking to a file in a parent
directory of the current directory, Cosmo Create should
write out the link as ../document.html. In fact it
writes out the link as working_directory/document.html.
A workaround is to manually specify the link as known
to be correct.
5.1.6 _T_a_g_s__a_n_d__T_a_g__O_r_d_e_r_i_n_g
+o Unrecognized attributes on font tags (e.g. B, I, FONT)
are stripped when an HTML document is read. If these
tags are meaningful they must be manually placed back
into the file after it has been saved. Unrecognized
attributes on all other elements are preserved.
+o Empty HREF anchors are consumed by Cosmo Create but
empty NAME anchors are preserved by attaching them to
adjacent markup.
+o Lists in Alternate HTML for Applets can have their
close tag written outside of the </APPLET> tag, causing
parser warnings.
+o Cosmo Create will allow multiple consecutive empty
non-PRE paragraphs. Most HTML browsers will ignore
these empty paragraphs. Use line breaks instead of
empty non-PRE paragraphs for spacing. Paragraphs and
lines that are ignored by browsers are indicated by the
paragraph symbol enclosed in square brackets.
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+o The BASEFONT tag is not processed and will be displayed
as unrecognized markup. As a result, any subsequent
relative font sizes will be relative to the default
font size, 3, rather than the size specified in the
BASEFONT tag.
+o The SUB, SUP and DIV tags are not processed and will be
displayed as unrecognized markup.
5.1.7 _I_m_a_g_e__M_a_p_s
+o Clientside imagemaps can be read and written, but the
map must be in the same HTML file. (That is,
USEMAP="otherfile.html#foo.map" will not work, and will
be changed by Cosmo Create). Also, an HTML file
contains a clientside map that isn't used by that file,
the map data will not be written back out.
+o Cosmo Create may add extra empty paragraphs when
reading a document file containing a clientside
imagemap. These paragraphs are ignored by browsers.
+o If a document contains a clientside imagemap that is
not referenced by that document, Cosmo Create will not
write the map information when it saves the file.
+o If you change the preference for what type of image map
to write, no map will be written unless you save the
document. However, if you have made no other document
changes, Cosmo Create does not indicate that the
document needs to be saved.
+o Launch Cosmo Create from the directory where your files
are; it might not find imagemap files that are in
directories other than where you launched from.
+o If you edit a document from the web (as opposed to a
local file), and that document uses serverside
imagemaps, the map files will not be found, and an
error dialog will be posted.
5.1.8 _F_e_t_c_h_i_n_g
+o If you open a page from the web, and cancel the fetch
before the page is completely loaded, you must open a
new window in order to initiate another fetch.
+o The "Browse" feature (see chapter 3) only parses HTML.
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+o Saving inline images in web fetched documents can only
be accomplished by making a modification to the page,
which causes the "Remote Document Modified" dialog to
come up, which has a check box that allows you to save
the inline images.
+o Saving a web fetched page from the Edit Source window
will not save the inline images. To get around this,
save the page from the main document window.
+o Opening Cosmo Create twice on the exact same URL in the
same editing session causes Cosmo Create to hang.
Pressing "Cancel" on the Progress meter will unhang the
program, allowing you to close the window.
+o Occasionally, when downloading a page over the web, the
page will not layout correctly after the download is
done. In these cases, resizing the window will cause
the page to correctly layout.
5.2 _B_u_t_t_o_n__M_a_g_i_c
+o Palettes and Editors
The Material Palette and Texture Editor look for data
installed in /usr/share/data/materials and
/usr/share/data/textures, respectively.
If you do not have showcase installed, these editors
will still function, though no default material
palettes or textures will be shown.
For best results, you should install showcase.sw.data
and showcase.sw.textures.
+o International font support.
Button Magic supports international fonts, such as
Japanese. However, due to limitations in the
interface, only the first font in a font list may be
changed. If you wish to change the font list, you must
add the font to the button's fontlist by hand.
A sample font has been inserted in each button magic
file to get you started:
HonMinchoLtBT--H;HonMinchoLtBT--Hankaku
If you wish to use some font other than the above, you
must add it by hand to the Button Magic file.
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To do so, perform these steps:
1) Create a button by clicking on the "Go" button in
the Create panel and sweeping out an area on the
HTML page.
2) When Button Magic appears, select "Change inline
object" from Cosmo Create's "Editors" palette.
Launch your favorite text editor on the file
shown in the "Original File" field.
3) Find the line beginning with the text "fontName" and
add your fonts to the right of the first semicolon.
Example:
fontName "Palatino-Roman;HonMinchoLtBT--
H;HonMinchoLtBT--Hankaku"
To
fontName "Palatino-Roman;HeiseiMin-W3--
H;HeiseiMin-W3--Hankaku"
4) Save the file. The button should automatically
re-render with the new font. If not, launch Button
Magic on the inline object and press Apply.
+o When a new document has not been saved before, Button
Magic writes images to the current working directory,
if writable. If the current working directory is not
writable, it will attempt to write the images to the
user's home directory. Workaround: save the document
once before launching Button Magic for the first time.
+o Symbol and Zapf Dingbats fonts are not supported in
Button Magic.
+o Due to a bug in PC NFS, Button Magic will hang while
trying to work on files mounted from a PC. This
includes opening files from, saving files to and
browsing such directories. This problem has been
reported to the manufacturer of the PC NFS software.
There is no known workaround.
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5.3 _C_o_s_m_o__P_a_c_k_a_g_e
The current implementation of Cosmo Package (invoked by
choosing the "Package..." menu choice under the "File" menu
in Cosmo Create or Cosmo Worlds) has a few limitations.
Here is the list:
5.3.1 _G_e_n_e_r_a_l
1. Due to a bug in PC NFS, Cosmo Package will hang while
trying to work on files mounted from a PC. This
includes packaging files from, packaging files to, and
browsing such directories. This problem has been
reported to the manufacturer of the PC NFS software.
There is no known workaround.
2. The Packager handles only HTML, VRML 2.0 Draft 3, VRML
2.0, and Cosmo Worlds files. All other document types
are treated as "black boxes" -- they aren't searched
for references to other local documents, they aren't
optimized, their references aren't patched -- they are
merely moved to the packaging directory. This will be
most noticeable when you package HTML documents
containing Java Applets. Only the main ".class" file
will be moved. None of the supporting files will be
moved.
3. Cosmo Package relies heavily on the File Typing Rules
(FTRs) which are installed as part of your desktop.
If files are not being typed properly, they may not be
packaged properly. On each line claiming that a file
is being discovered or packaged, the packager shows
the file's FTR type. If the right thing isn't
happening to the files, check that the FTR looks
reasonable. If it doesn't please talk to your system
administrator to have your FTRs checked.
4. Package directories created by the beta version of
this tool will not be recognized by this version of
the packager.
5. Cosmo Package strips whitespace from directory index
filenames, mappings, and trusted references. This may
make it difficult to use directories containing
whitespace in their names.
6. Cosmo Package may cause your system to run out of swap
space. If this happens, you will probably get a
system error dialog. Running out of swap space may
cause the application to crash, may prevent some media
conversions from being done, or may prevent you from
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launching a browser for previewing. If this occurs,
consider closing down other applications or adding
more swap space.
To add swap space, choose "System->System Manager"
from the Toolchest. On 6.2, you can launch the swap
manager from the "Administration Tools" panel of the
system manager. On 6.3, selecting "System
Performance" from the system manager will guide you
through adding swap space. On either system, you can
look at the man page for "swap".
5.3.2 _V_R_M_L
5.3.2.1 _U_R_L__d_i_s_c_o_v_e_r_y The packager searches for all urls
found in "url" fields of the various node types. It does
not check to see what values might flow to those fields
through routes. For instance, if a script generates urls
and routes them to url fields, the packager will not
discover these urls. Similarly, if you have a PROTO and
route one of its event-ins to the url field of a texture
node, the URLs in given in uses of those protos will not be
found by the packager.
A partial work around for these blind-spots is to use those
urls elsewhere. For instance, put the urls in the texture
node of a shape which you arrange to never display. (One way
to avoid showing the shape is to put it under a switch and
set whichChoice -1). This will at least ensure that the
urls are discovered by the packager and that their fiels are
packaged. It will also patch the "fake" uses of the urls
based on where those files are mapped to. It is only a
partial solution because you will still have to check that
the urls you use in your scripts and routes will properly
refer to the files once they've been packaged.
5.3.2.2 _M_e_d_i_a__C_o_n_v_e_r_s_i_o_n The VRML packager's media
conversions are done "best effort". If you are not happy
with the conversion done by the packager, you may do the
conversion yourself in your authored files or you may or
leave the files alone. Here are the known problems:
1. Movies
+o If you request that a movie be converted to MPEG,
it may have its size changed by the converter. To
avoid this resizing, don't request automatic
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conversion of your movie files.
2. Image textures with alpha channels
The VRML packager may drop alpha channel data in some
cases if you ask it to do conversions for you.
Notably:
+o (PNG --> GIF)
We allow this, but any alpha data in the PNG
is likely to be dropped. (Ask yourself...
why are you converting "away from" a media
format which all VRML 2.0 browsers are
required to support?)
+o (GIF --> PNG) and (GIF --> JPEG)
We allow these conversions, but alpha data
in your GIFs will be lost.
3. Audio
Cosmo Package won't convert from audio files out of
MIDI or WAV format.
5.3.2.3 _F_i_l_e__S_u_f_f_i_c_e_s
1. Using the "Use .wrl suffix for VRML files" makes the
packager propose new filenames for VRML files which do
not end in ".wrl". Even with this option enabled, you
can still override these recommended names with the
mappings. Doing so is not recommended. Without this
suffix, Netscape Navigator probably won't recognize
your content as VRML.
5.3.3 _H_T_M_L
1. Server-side includes are not discovered or
packaged. For instance, "<!--#exec cmd="basename
`pwd`"--></P>" looks like a simple comment to the
HTML packager.
2. Image map files which are referenced other than
as image maps may not be properly discovered and
packaged. We don't expect this to cause a
problem since normal servers won't server image
map files unless they are being used as image
maps.
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