Gripes, Bugs, etc.

[Robin Hermance-Moore]

First, the usual good words...

I love OmniWeb!  My work wouldn't be the same without it!  I'll gladly pay (a  
reasonable price) for it!

OK, now the gripes....

Wil Shipley said:

|  So, here's a 20 license that will see you through until March:
|  ...
|  I understand that many people won't have been able to buy OmniWeb by then,  

|  but I figure by then it'll probably be Lighthouse's problem.  Maybe not.
|  ...
|  You can pass this around, since it's going to expire just before OmniWeb  

|  actually ships.

It's going to expire just BEFORE OmniWeb ships???  Bzzzzzzt!  Wrong answer,  
try again!  Unless you want lots of ROYALLY PISSED OFF users, you need to give  
some more leeway on this - learn a lesson from today's fiasco and give people  
a chance to buy your product without having to be majorly inconvenienced -  
everyone will be happier.  For example, I know that, in the company  
environment I have to deal with, the red tape alone is going to delay any  
purchase for at least a month from the time I find out what this product will  
cost.  Please don't throw away a year's worth of good will and enthusiasm for  
no reason!

The "somebody else's problem" argument won't wash too far, either.  I hope  
you'll realize that, unless you rename this product to LighthouseWeb, any  
problems with it reflect upon YOU more than they do upon them.  If Omni  
expires everybody's licenses before we can possibly purchase the product from  
Lighthouse, I will feel it is Omni that has blown it.

Finally, the bugs....

(I'm using a NeXTstation mono with 8 MB of memory and 3.2.)  I haven't seen  
specific mention of the following problems:

CRASHES:

Once, immediately after bringing up OmniWeb (with the default home page of  
<OmniWeb:/Start.html>), I selected the "home" button (kinda redudant, I  
realize) - it  crashed.  Didn't see any messages on the console.

(This one has happened three times.)  In preferences, I had gone through a  
couple rounds of the "radio button" and "home" preference panels, then pressed  
the button to bring up the "colors" panel - and the app crashed.  The last  
messages on the console (from a couple minutes previous - not sure if they  
were related to the crash) were:
     [skipping unimplemented GIF extension block of type 0xf9]
     Feb  2 12:07:25 next35-01 OmniWeb[539]: objc: FREED(id)(0x92a2c): message  
request sent to freed object=0x92a2c
     Feb  2 12:08:47 next35-01 OmniWeb[539]: Struc2RTF: 2 leftover groups

After a suggestion on the net, I changed the bookmark string in preferences  
from "file:" to "ftp:" - as soon as I hit return, the app crashed.  No console  
messages.

OTHER PROBLEMS:

In preferences/home, the text windows do not allow you to view any text past  
the end of what's visible at first.  Hmmm, let me rephrase that - when my  
bookmark page is <file:/home/rhm/Library/OmniWeb/Bookmarks.html>, all I am  
able to see when I edit is <file:/home/rhm/Library/OmniWeb/Bookmark> -  
normally, a text window like this should scroll when moving towards the end of  
the text.  Furthermore, after entering this text and hitting return, I get  
these messages in the console:
  Feb  2 15:49:35 next35-01 OmniWeb[626]: objc: FREED(id)(0x15d1dc): message  
free sent to freed object=0x15d1dc
  Feb  2 15:49:35 next35-01 OmniWeb[626]: Unknown error code 0 in  
NXReportError

In preferences/colors, unselecting "underline anchors" does not accomplish  
this until the app is exited and restarted.  Also, even though the color for  
"Links" is chosen to be 33% gray (recall that this is on a 2-bit monochrome  
NeXTstation), the color that is shown is still black.  After links have been  
selected once, they are colored correctly for being "cached".

The browser window always comes up the same size (too small for my tastes).   
It used to remember the size setting (of course, that was back when there was  
only one of them possible.)

Thanks for listening,
Robin 

(who's trying hard to be patient after having lotsa users screaming at him  
this morning....)
--
Robin Hermance-Moore, Manager, Telecomm Facilities Development Section
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Mail Stop 468
6565 Frantz Road, Dublin OH  43017-0702
rhm at oclc.org  (NeXT MaIL WeLCOME!)  614-764-6215