SGI Cosmo Software 1997 May

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- 1 - 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 only. Certain areas of the application such as the Help menu, help content and the Packager 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 1584 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 1349 included with the Japanese World View product to ensure that type-in text fields provide a composition window. - 2 - +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 Most editing tools (e.g. Background/Text Color tool) do not have any meaning when editing the document source and should have their UI disabled. Currently the UI for these tools is not being disabled. To avoid unpredictable results, do not use any open tools when editing the document source except for the Find/Change and Spelling tools. +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". - 3 - +o Pressing the Default button on the Background/Text Color tool returns the color settings on the tool to the default color. However, pressing the Apply button does not return any highlighted text to the default color. The workaround is to reenter the displayed color values in each text field by hand and then press Apply. +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 If you don't have the subsystem containing the Cosmo Create templates installed (cosmocreate.data.templates), don't choose File->Open Template. If you do, the File Selection Browser will be pointed at a non-existent directory and will crash if you attempt to type into it. +o If a target appears at the beginning of a line of text that wrapped from the previous line, the target symbol will show in the margin for both lines. Look for the blue highlighted text to identify which is the correct line. 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 - 4 - 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. 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 - 5 - 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. 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 - 6 - 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 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. - 7 - +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. +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 an inline has a link and the link button is toggled-in, if you press on the link button to unlink the inline, it will delete the inline object. +o The Link Tool is currently very slow when tracking large documents with many links. +o The file browser from the link dialog has resize problems when entering a URL. - 8 - +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. 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. +o If a document contains a clientside imagemap that is not referenced by that document, Cosmo Create will not - 9 - 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. +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. +o Attempting to fetch a bogus URL, (e.g. http://www.asdfasdfasdf.com/) the fetch will not timeout. The same problem also occurs if the network properties are not correctly specified. Pressing "Cancel" on the Progress meter will terminate the fetch - 10 - in both cases. 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. 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-- - 11 - 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. 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 - 12 - 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 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 - 13 - 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 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 - 14 - 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, "</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.