Test releases available

[Sigbjorn Finne]

Thanks Mark,

I've fixed both of these; there's really no good reason to use WinExec()
in this day and age. Here's the behaviour I propose :edit has:

   - :edit is synchronous, with the read-eval-print loop blocking until the
      editor process terminates.
   - Console-based editors like "vim" gets a separate console window when
     invoked via WinHugs or Hugs98. This allows the user to still be able to
     see the type error (say) that the :edit is trying to fix.
   - GUI-based editors do get a separate window, but not a separate (empty)
     console.

I've updated the installer to include these changes.

Your e-mail is a good example of just the thing you encourage people to
do: try out their favourite Hugs features & report back undesirable
behaviour. I rarely use the :edit command, hence I wasn't aware of this
usability problem.

thanks again,
--sigbjorn

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark P Jones" <mpj@cse.ogi.edu>
To: "Sigbjorn Finne" <sof@galois.com>
Cc: "Hugs Bugs" <hugs-bugs@haskell.org>; "Mark P. Jones" <mpj@cse.ogi.edu>
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2001 13:43
Subject: RE: Test releases available


> A general comment, then some bug reports:
>
>   Thanks for the test releases of Hugs that we're seeing today!  I hope
>   that as many people as possible in the Hugs community will take this
>   opportunity to download and test them---particularly in areas that
>   matter most to them---before the final releases are made.
>
>   I suspect that some people on this list don't realize the extent to
>   which Hugs now relies on support from members of the community.  There
>   is *no funding* for work on Hugs as part of any ongoing research
project,
>   for example.  And while I hope they will benefit from the new release
>   in their own efforts, the people who are working hard on getting it out
>   are doing this essentially as (skilled) volunteers.  If it wasn't for
>   Sigbjorn, Jeff, Johan, Alastair, and others, this release wouldn't
>   happen at all.  But all of us can help in some way by testing the
>   candidates and reporting back on what we find!
>
> Now to the bug reports: (These minor problems are specific to win32)
>
>   The new installer creates a context menu entry for .hs files in which
>   the description is given as "New verb"; this should probably be
something
>   more like "Load with Hugs98".
>
>   The console version (at least) should not be compiled with HAVE_WINEXEC
>   set to 1.  First of all, that setting defeats the way that Hugs was
>   designed to integrate the interpreter and the editor; the two activities
>   should be interleaved rather than executed as concurrent processes that
>   require manual :reload commands, etc...  Secondly, with at least one
>   choice of external editor (vim), it causes the whole console window to
>   hang, so you never actually get to make any edits, and you certainly
>   don't get back to the Hugs prompt or to the command prompt.  At the
>   very least, perhaps the #if HAVE_WINEXEC line in machdep.c could be
>   changed to #if (HAVE_WINEXEC && HUGS_FOR_WINDOWS)?   (please ... :-)
>
> All the best,
> Mark
>