arachnophilia undo/redo

Graham Evans · External Since: Jul 06, 2007 Posts: 3

I am running debian sid pure 64

I'm experiencing a problem with Arachnophilia which runs on a java VM.
The problem is that the undo and redo functions don't work (whether via
clicking on icons, using menus or key combinations). There is just an
error beep and no other effect whenever undo/redo is attempted. There
is also nothing written to the Arachnophilia error log. Other than this
problem Arachnophilia runs faultlessly.

I have tried a range of scenarios:
Arachnophilia 5.3 running on
sun-java6-jre 6-00-2
sun-java5-jre 1.5.0-11-1
sun-java5-jre 1.5.0-12-1
Arachnophilia 5.2 running on
sun-java6-jre 6-00-2
sun-java5-jre 1.5.0-11-1
sun-java5-jre 1.5.0-12-1

I also tried the use of the ia32-sun-java5/6-bin versions.

Lastly I tried downgrading java-common from 0.26 (unstable/sid) to
etch-stable version (0.25) and also running Arachnophilia/java as root.
Nothing worked.

Paul Lutus, the programmer of Arachnophilia, just responded to my bug
report saying what I already knew : this is unlikely to be an
Archnophilia problem. He says he has around 1/2 million installations
and no similar reports.

But the other thing is : this is unlikely to be a sun-java problem as I
have had Archnophilia undo/redo work fine on Fedora Core 4 - 64 running
on sun 5.0 jre. Paul Lutus has also had the identical installation
working fine (possibly on 32-bit FC4).

Calling for:
hints on what to do/ possible causes/fixes...

Hints on which package to file a bug against (the latest jre? 1.5 AND 1.6?)

I am temporarily subscribed to this list to see any replies - I really
want to resolve this issue and would appreciate any help I find here.

Graham E

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-java-REQUEST.TakeThisOut@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster.TakeThisOut@lists.debian.org

Henning Sprang · External Since: Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 51

Graham Evans wrote:
> Calling for:
> hints on what to do/ possible causes/fixes...

- make sure you are not using a free non-sun java implementation
accidentally that might behave not 100% exactly as the sun
implementation the program seems to be tested against. Check to ouput of
java -version to see which java is on your default path.

- I am not sure if mixing architectures is possible, but because the
different bitness of your system to the system of the developer where
he's testing it, you might try to run the stuff on a 32 bit java, and
see what's happening.

- you could try and see if the problem also exists on a clean Etch
install. Actually, I just tried it on Etch and Ubuntu Dapper with the
package sun-java5-bin , and I don't see it happening - undo works fine
here. (on 32 bit)

- you could try to delete/recreate any java related config files you
have on your system from scratch, and see if that helps.

- I assume from your post that you always used Debian packages for sun
java(but I am not 100% sure). You could instead try to get a Java tar.gz
from Sun of the same version as the debian packages provide it, install
it, and see what happens.

- lastly, you could ask Paul Lutus about which java methods are used for
the undo function you are missing, and try to get nearer to the lines of
code in either arachnophilia or the java implementation you use to help
track down the problem. Maybe arachnophilia has a unit test suite, and
you can try if these tests run fine.
As arachnophilia is not free and seems not to come with sources, your
possibilities to check the problem seem very limited to me.

- Depending on how much time and work you want to invest, you might also
just try using bluefish, another nice html editor Smile

> Hints on which package to file a bug against (the latest jre? 1.5 AND
> 1.6?)

You _could_ for sure just file a bug against one of the java packages
used and needed by the software you are trying to run.

Maybe someone finds the time to do all the tracking down I described
before, and fix the problem when found. I'd guess this is a little
unlikely, because debugging problems with non-free software for which
sources are not available, is not a fun thing, and compatibility of
Debian with such stuff is probably not the most important point on the
agenda.

So it would be mutch better if you can give further details. Like, a
more exact analysis of what is causing the problem as described above,
until really the java function that is called - and does not behave as
expected - when the error occurs, and, even better, you can provide a
fix that changes the stuff to work fine.

Henning

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-java-REQUEST.RemoveThis@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster.RemoveThis@lists.debian.org

Graham Evans · External Since: Jul 06, 2007 Posts: 3

Henning thanks for the help. I need to go and do some more research
now. Just to quickly tell you what is eliminated:

Henning Sprang wrote:
> - make sure you are not using a free non-sun java implementation
> accidentally that might behave not 100% exactly as the sun
> implementation the program seems to be tested against. Check to ouput of
> java -version to see which java is on your default path.
>
>
I am definitely using the packaged SUN versions from non-free. All my
versions of java are:

sudo update-alternatives --config java
+ 1 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java
2 /usr/bin/gij-4.1
3 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java
4 /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/jre/bin/java
5 /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java

Debian is 'pure 64' although it runs 32 bit emulation java VM as well.
Using them didn't solve the problem. I don't have a chroot or a full 32
bit system to try this on so the possibility of it being a 64 bit
problem will have to go unexplored for a while.

> - you could try and see if the problem also exists on a clean Etch
> install. Actually, I just tried it on Etch and Ubuntu Dapper with the
> package sun-java5-bin , and I don't see it happening - undo works fine
> here. (on 32 bit)
>
>
That's good information - I will try downgrading the java packages all
the way to etch as my first experiment.
> - you could try to delete/recreate any java related config files you
> have on your system from scratch, and see if that helps.
>
And that will be my next experiment. There are likely looking
configuration files in /etc/$JAVAVERSION.
> java(but I am not 100% sure). You could instead try to get a Java tar.gz
> from Sun of the same version as the debian packages provide it, install
> it, and see what happens.
>
If I get that far I'll try that as my third experiment.
> - lastly, you could ask Paul Lutus about which java methods are used for
> the undo function you are missing, and try to get nearer to the lines of
> code in either arachnophilia or the java implementation you use to help
> track down the problem. Maybe arachnophilia has a unit test suite, and
> you can try if these tests run fine.
> As arachnophilia is not free and seems not to come with sources, your
> possibilities to check the problem seem very limited to me.
>
>
Yes I was wondering about this. Arachnophilia was the bees-knees when I
was a windows user in 1999 but I am realising it has this limitation
over all the great gpl software I use now I have escaped to the world of
GNU/Linux.
> - Depending on how much time and work you want to invest, you might also
> just try using bluefish, another nice html editor Smile

>
I have tried Bluefish not so long ago - I didn't mind it. One thing
that draws me to Arachnophilia is its simplicity for html, css and
javascript work. Now I am actually finding my fallback - the latest
version of gedit - is getting me almost as productive as I can be with
Arachnophilia. But Arachnophilia is unparalleled as a cross-platform
tool for training people in html coding. I have been designing for a
while a course based around Arachnophilia and GIMP.

thanks again for the input. I have a few good lines of research now.

Graham E

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-java-REQUEST.RemoveThis@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster.RemoveThis@lists.debian.org

Henning Sprang · External Since: Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 51

Graham Evans wrote:
> [...]
> I have tried Bluefish not so long ago - I didn't mind it. One thing
> that draws me to Arachnophilia is its simplicity for html, css and
> javascript work. Now I am actually finding my fallback - the latest
> version of gedit - is getting me almost as productive as I can be with
> Arachnophilia. But Arachnophilia is unparalleled as a cross-platform
> tool for training people in html coding.

maybe, if you like gedit and look for something similar in Java, Jedit
might be a choice. I never used it a lot myself, but it's quite possible
it has similar features as gedit, and a good html support plugin.

Henning

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-java-REQUEST.RemoveThis@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster.RemoveThis@lists.debian.org

Graham Evans · External Since: Jul 06, 2007 Posts: 3

> - lastly, you could ask Paul Lutus about which java methods are used for
> the undo function you are missing, and try to get nearer to the lines of
> code in either arachnophilia or the java implementation you use to help
> track down the problem. Maybe arachnophilia has a unit test suite, and
> you can try if these tests run fine.
> As arachnophilia is not free and seems not to come with sources, your
> possibilities to check the problem seem very limited to me.
>
>
With Paul Lupus's help I've 'solved' this problem: it is a designed
behaviour of the Arachnophilia program and in no way relates to java
virtual machines, faulty installations, packages or any of the other
angles I tried. Now to undo all the things I've done messing around
with my java installs!

Undo and redo on Arachnophilia will only work on cut, paste and copy.
It turns out that my undo/redo testing of a new version of Arachnophilia
(5.3) did not adequately cover these scenarios. I was an active user of
Arachnophilia 5.2 but couldn't narrow down why undo/redo was sometimes
letting me down... I had assumed the functioning of undo/redo was
standard between text editors. Then when I tried 5.3 my test case was a
blank document type type delete undo etc.

I am okay with Arachnophilia not undoing key strokes but the delete key
stroke is a special case. It can take out whole chunks of text or even
an entire document. This needs to be undoable.

So I will go back to gedit for the time being. The combination of gedit
2.18, sitecopy and web-developer extensions for firefox are a pretty
good way of working for me.

As far as providing cross-platform html training I will have to look
into alternatives. Java is the obvious environment for this sort of
work. GTK/GIMP is another great angle. I will check out jedit as
suggested

....but those html macros and wizards in Arachnophilia are really handy
reference points for beginners... Maybe I will get lucky with
Arachnophilia 5.4...

Thanks to Henning for the help.

Graham E

--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-java-REQUEST RemoveThis @lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster RemoveThis @lists.debian.org