[arachne] Re: arachne Digest V2 #133

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 01:06:35 -0500 (EST), Arachne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 11:59:46 -0600
> From: "Glenn Gilbreath Jr." <wizard57m@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [arachne] Re: internal editor??

> Greg,

> I disagree with your comment that observations from those of us
> who have not experienced some given problem are not useful!

I find it EXTREMELY non-useful and also ANNOYING when someone's
reply conveys no more information than the fact that they haven't
had that problem.

> At the very least, it could provide the user with some insight that
> the problem encountered COULD be specific to their system or
> particular setup.

I am become convinced that there are gremlins in the hardware of
my computer.

I have installed OpenDOS and stripped the setup of ALL extraneous
stuff and all it has has done for me is to farnarkle my mail
downloads.

I have gone back to MS-DOS and found the mail downloads back to
their normal snappy response -- well, as snappy as one could
expect with a 19200 b/s limit on the serial ports.

But now when I boot with MS-DOS, Arachne will not allow me to
modify a message in the outbox.

This whole matter is becoming ridiculous.

I may have to spend money I can't afford to buy a computer that
will support Windoze, Internet Exploder and Lookout, since Arachne
is getting so obsteporous with me.

And I would HATE to have to do that.

> I've noticed a recurring trend with some reported "bugs"...namely
> the mis-identification of which particular piece of Arachne handles
> which part of the process.

Well, naturally. But I was guessing. I'm sorry if it came across
as a statement that INSIGHT.EXE was definitely the cause of the
problem.

> The "internal editor" is not really an editor at all, but basically part of
> CORE.EXE, it doesn't resemble other text editors, such as MS EDIT
> or NE, in that it cannot be used outside of running CORE.EXE.  It more
> closely resembles a "stream editor", such as SED (used in Lynx 386
> for DOS).

Yes, that has become obvious.

>  The only snafus I've noticed with using the "internal editor"
> is the occassional "whiting out of the text area", but the text entered
> previously is still there, and re-appears in a micro-second.  It simply
> just blanks out momentarily when the memory being used is cleared
> to allow more stuff to be entered.

Ah, yes, I get that all the time, usually when what I'm typing
wraps into the next line. Often the screen won't redraw except
for the line I'm typing on until I stop for a couple of seconds.
On a 33MHz computer, things are a bit slower than on later
machines.

> Sorry about the extraneaous explanation, and the length of this post.
> However, instead of lamblasting people who do not report some
> supposed "bug", the user should be "clued-in" that the problem may
> not be something actually in the software itself.

Yes, I had thought of that. That leaves two possibilities:
(1) the hardware which appears to be operating satisfactorily on
    every other bit of software I have; and
(2) the loose nut on the keyboard.

Greg

Arachne at FreeLists
-- Arachne, The Web Browser/Suite for DOS and Linux --

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