Welcome to EnterAct 4. Significant new things are listed below, and the EnterAct 4 Manual (previously the "EnterAct 3 Manual") has been revised as a result. "EnterAct in brief" also describes the more important new features, although for the new "Indent" command you should consult Appendix 3 of the EnterAct 4 Manual, and also the Indent User's Manual.
Please note my new email address is kearle@interlog.com.
EnterAct™ 4 and hAWK are now FAT, so if you have a PowerMac fasten your seatbelt.
What you should routinely grab from this new version:
EnterAct™ 4 itself, the entire "Documentation" folder, the hAWK and Indent Drag_on Modules. The "hAWK project" has changed, but you probably aren't building your own version of hAWK. There are no significant new hAWK programs. "Converting text to HTML" was updated in the v3.9 release. There are some new code templates in the "EnterAct Code Templates" file, dealing with the new builtin variables (@@date, @@time, @@me, @@mail etc). That's it.
•••• IMPORTANT CHANGES and things you should do••••
Please rebuild your EnterAct project dictionary for projects made with older versions of EnterAct. To do this: hold down all three of <shift><option><command>, and select "Update Dictionary" from the "EnterAct" menu using your mouse. EnterAct will then reparse all your source files, retaining more information than in previous versions.
The change to the dictionary builder in version 4 affects handling of variables declared as "struct" something, eg
struct FileThing *next;
--however, your project dictionaries will need rebuilding anyway if you were using a version of EnterAct earlier than 3.8, so you might as well do total updates of all your old projects just to be right up to date.
hAWK HAS CHANGED as of EnterAct version 4! Version 2.1.5 of hAWK brought better error handling, and with version 2 hAWK became FAT. If you are using hAWK, please grab the new version from the "Drag_on Modules" folder.
As a result of "irreconcilable differences" encountered producing the PPC version, EnterAct 4 will forget preferences set with older versions of EnterAct the first time you run it. Sorry about that, this should be a one-time problem.
••••••••
••••Installation••••
You can now put the EnterAct Stuff folder anywhere on your hard disk, and not bother moving EnterAct into your development folder: instead, drop aliases for your development folders into your EnterAct Stuff folder (eg "Metrowerks CodeWarrior alias"), and also aliases for <system> headers and any other folders that you routinely add to a project (eg "Universal Headers alias"). This way, when you're asked to select a <system> folder while making a new project you can select the alias for your development folder, and to add all files in a folder you can now drag an alias for the folder onto your project window instead of navigating through an "Open" dialog.
When installing the new version, please take a moment first to set aside any hAWK programs in your "hAWK programs" folder that you wish to keep. By the way, it’s a good policy to rename any supplied hAWK programs that you modify, if only so that you can distinguish them when updated versions arrive.
Please reinstall every part of the EnterAct package that you use. You'll find a list of contents in "Installing EnterAct", or see the "standard" list above. You can throw out the folders "hAWK project", "Read Res project", "Indent project", "Minimal App7 ƒ", "write your own Drag_on", and "code to call Drag_ons" if you're not interested in the source.
••••
CodeWarrior users PLEASE NOTE:
• Metrowerks supplies a few third-party source files with nested comment starts (of the form "/*.../*...*/"); the quick fix is to deselect the the option "Detect nested comments" in EnterAct's Options… dialog. A better fix is to remove the few nested comment starts and leave the checking enabled.
TCL users PLEASE NOTE: the file "TCL #includes.cpp" contains some unparseable junk (quite deliberate) and EnterAct can't quite handle it yet, so please omit this file from your dictionary by holding down the<Command> key and clicking next to its file name in your project window. A dash '-' will appear next to the name, and it will be skipped.
Currently about half of EnterAct's improvements are the direct result of user requests, quite often just one user who bothers to write. Design your suggestion up a bit, summarize your thoughts in a paragraph or two, send it off to me--there's a very good chance I'll do it.
•••••••New for EnterAct 4.0 - 4.3
• EnterAct, hAWK, and Indent are all FAT. And very fast on a PowerMac.
• hAWK has been slightly modified, and now has better error handling. If you are using hAWK, please grab the new version (2.2.1) from the Drag_on Modules folder
• there is a new Drag_on Module called Indent, which can adjust whitespace in C or C++ (but not Java) code to suit your preferred style. You will have to create a list of options describing your preferred style, and you will have to read the Indent User's Manual to do that. But afterwards, you will be able to restyle any compilabe source, from a text selection to a list of MFS files, just by selecting from three popup menus in the Indent dialog and then clicking the Run button. Indent is not infinitely adaptable, but you should find it's a lot better than trying to decipher some style, or lack thereof, that you personally find inscrutable. Indent can be called through a dialog (it appears with hAWK under the "EnterAct" menu) or by a comand line. It's described briefly in appendix 3 of the EnterAct 4 Manual, and at length in the Indent User's Manual.
• EnterAct 4 itself has been modified to allow you to invoke Indent with a command line.
• EnterAct's "Go to" command now accepts CodeWarrior-style file locations, such as
MySource.c line 273
as used in CodeWarrior's "Message Window".
• <option>double-click and the equivalent Find Definition now work with local variable names to take you to the line in a function or method where the variable is defined., although any interpretation of the name with a more "global" scope will still take precedence.
• There are also some minor cosmetic fixes, and enhancements to the dictionary builder.
• Method popups in the Browser now show method parameter summaries so you can tell overloaded names apart.
••••••
•••••••New for 3.9
Well, not a lot new this time around folks, but there were some bug fixes (nobody's prefect):
• two Browser bugs: as a result, AutoLook no longer chokes under mysterious circumstances (one reported problem), and class names longer than 31 chars are OK (no reported problems, but I fixed it anyway)
• an attempt to reduce "thrashing" under tight memory conditions with VM on: if you run into lengthy delays while using EnterAct, please let me know (no one has mentioned it yet, guess you all have lots of RAM)
• "Converting text to HTML" script and hAWK program have been revised to use more widely compatible file and anchor naming conventions
• Show Activities was reporting more activities than actually took place (due to miscounting typing activities), it's hard to count how many typing activities you actually do but the number looks "better" now
•...and one genuine new feature, there are now six builtin variables for use with code templates, including ones for time and date and the entire contents of your clip. Details are at the top of the "EnterAct Code Templates" file, along with a few examples.
••••••
•••••••New for 3.8
If you had version 3.7.something, rest assured the tedious download of 3.8 was worth it. Several AutoLook and related nuisances (along the lines of "could not find instance of X in current method's inheritance chain...", or not being able to jump to a method definition directly even though there's only one method of that name) have been stomped, the browser builds a bit faster, the popup in each text window lets you turn coloring on and off, and some other minor fixes.
I am now finding that EnterAct projects which include all of the toolbox and all of PowerPlant need about a 9 Meg partition. Alas, there is no easy way for me to reduce EnterAct's memory needs (AutoLook requires random access to your entire dictionary, which can be quite large), so if you'd like to think of EnterAct as being worth about $100 US (the rough price of 16 Meg of RAM these days) please feel free....
••••••
•••••••New for 3.7.6
• Drag and Drop:
• full undoable D&D for 'TEXT' (note as with other commands you must bring the altered window to the front in order to enable Undo), and if the D&D originates and concludes within EnterAct then any Paste will preserve your indentation
• drag any mix of files and folders to a project window, and all files will be added to your project; all files in subfolders will be added too (unless the folder name is in parenthesis)
• Better PICT support for illustrating your text documents: to add a PICT to a text document, drag it over from some other application (note EnterAct cannot be the source, but then EnterAct can't make pictures anyway); to delete a PICT, "swipe" a small text selection within the picture, and then OK the resulting dialog. A "swipe" is a mouse-down drag mouse-up that selects something, and you'll have to beat your double-click time. Note that adding and deleting pictures ARE undoable operations, but the PICTs will not be recorded in your activity log. And remember to put your PICT inside a comment /* */ if it's a source file, otherwise your compiler will probably choke on the option-space (isn't this a primitive world...). See "Illustrating your text" in the EnterAct 3 Manual.
• Java: you no longer have to specify file extensions for java files; just add them to your project as you would with C or C++ files. AutoLook has been fine-tuned a bit to work with the Java that people are currently writing (could we have some standards please??)
• Interface change: to access the popup Locations menu in any text window, hold down the <command> key while you click and hold; this replaces <option> click (the key change avoids confusion with Drag and Drop)
• source file markers are now rebuilt automatically if you edit a source file and then access the marker menu (<option>click in the title bar); and the marker menu now shows an argument summary for each function or method. The "Mark" panel in the Options dialog allows you to control whether arguments are shown for function marks, since this may be too slow for older machines -- a 68040@25Mhz is just fine.
• all non-front text windows now have highlighted selections, instead of just the second from front
• the "Find In Next File" button and menu command now change to "Batch Find" if you select the "Batch" checkbox in the Find dialog
• project tip: make aliases of your most-used <system> and header folders and place them in EnterAct's folder: then when you're asked to select a system folder while making a project you can select the system folder alias; and to add all headers to a project, drag the header folder alias onto your project.
• the Options dialog has been overhauled; panes split the options into groups, there is a new option to enable/disable Drag and Drop for text (note this also affects dropping PICTs), and there's an option to set the default text file creator. And there's a new option to disable the recording of "Find"s, which can reduce clutter in your activity log (see the "Log" pane in the Options dialog).
• a small popup in text documents to select Mac(CR)/DOS(CRLF)/Unix(LF) as the file format. It's down in the display box area, and displays the initial (M/D/U) of the current format.
(for 3.7.8, you can turn coloring on and off here too)
• in the browser, classes from <system> files are shown as before, but classes from "user" files have their names underlined. This helps especially when looking at someone else's work.
To have this work you need to set your <system> folder properly (with the "Select <system> folder" command if you didn't do so when making the project) and if it's a project you made with an eariler version of EnterAct (before 3.7.6) or you change your <system> folder you'll need to completely rebuild your dictionary by holding down all of <shift><option><command> and picking "Update Dictionary" from the EnterAct menu with your mouse.
• also in the browser, you can now use the Find dialog and the Find Again command to find classes in the browser window (eg if you're looking at the source for a class and want to see where the class is in the browser, use Enter Selection to enter the class name in the Find dialog, then bring the browser to the front and do a Find Again)
• several AutoLook improvements. If AutoLook doesn't show you what you want to see (and if it theoretically could), PLEASE send me a note about it (kearle@interlog.com (Ken Earle))-- include a brief example and a description of what you'd like to see, and I'll give it a shot.
