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Re: Version 7.0.1 bug with initial Palette positions

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg97204] Re: [mg97191] Version 7.0.1 bug with initial Palette positions
• From: peter <plindsay.0 at gmail.com>
• Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 05:50:00 -0500 (EST)
• References: <200903070741.CAA17106@smc.vnet.net>

I always find that a nice cup of tea helps in these situations.Peter

2009/3/7 Bob F <deepyogurt at gmail.com>

> I downloaded the 7.0.1 update and started it up and it didn't place
> some of the palettes correctly when starting up. I have a dual-screen
> Mac setup and I put all my palettes on the left screen, and Notebooks
> on the right primary screen so I have visibility of my notebook
> windows at all times and not obscurred by the palettes that don't like
> to cohabitate with normal windows (something I still find to be a
> royal pain -- why cant they be like any other windows - yes I know you
> can change their floating attributes, but the whole idea of not
> behaving like any other window is so contrary IMO, you can't resize
> them, you cant minimize them, etc).
>
> So in this case the WindowMargins parameter in the init.m setup file
> had a negative left and top number and Auto for right and bottom. But,
> for some strange reason only the ClassroomAssistant palette was
> incorrectly placed on the left screen and before with 7.0 and 6.0 and
> 5.2 things were fine (all the other 4 or 5 palettes came up in the
> expected position which is even more bizarre actually - I can only
> guess that the code that does the placement of the palettes is
> individually isolated to each and every palette and not a general
> purpose routine that all share, otherwise all would exhibit the
> problem cause they are all on the left screen). The most bizarre
> problem is that sometimes one of the other palettes would do this and
> not the Classroom assistant, but not very often, and certainly not
> repeatable as far as I can tell.
>
> The really ugly thing is that the ClassroomAssistant palette was
> positioned so that the title bar was underneath the main Apple/
> Mathematica menu along the top of the primary screen and no matter
> what I did, I could not move it. It's title bar was underneath and
> totally not reachable.
>
> What I ended up doing was using the OptionInspector to change the
> WindowMargins parameters so that it was lower on the primary screen so
> that I could drag it where I wanted it on the left screen, or just
> change it to what it should have been to begin with. But when exiting
> Mathematica and then restarting, the same thing occurs all over again.
> WHAT A PAIN!!!! And on top of that the init.m file is rewritten on the
> fly when Mathematica starts up to change what it considers as an
> invalid margin setting and changes them to what it thinks are valid,
> but no message ever indicates that it just mucked with the settings in
> the init.m on it's own prerogative for this ClassroomAssistant
> palette, so you are forced to move it to where you really want to
> every time you start up Mathematica as I described with the Option
> Inspector and I spend a minute or two every time Mathematica starts up
> to fix a problem it caused!
>
> I can't believe this simple user interface issue escaped the QA
> process, and the beta testers. The only thing I can guess is that a
> two screen setup is not common. When I called Wolfram to see about
> this, the person in support was able to locate a dual-screen Mac and
> verify that the problem occurs there also. So they have the ability to
> test dual screen setups, but guess they either didn't do at all, or
> not very extensively. Very disappointed in my first excursion into
> 7.0.1 land -- but I will get over it. Now I will only have to wait 6
> months or maybe a year and the fix will be available. And I pay money
> for this??? In the meantime, I know how to get around the problem -
> thank goodness for the option inspector.
>
> Why oh why oh why do people put up with this kind of software
> problems!! Wolfram get your act together and come up with some way to
> get patches to people on a timely basis for when you create bugs and
> problems and don't catch trivial bugs you create in releasing new
> versions, let alone the hard ones. This is not the first time this has
> happened, far from it. I am sure everyone on this list has stories
> that would cause us all to shake our heads in familiar disappointment
> and belief. If people feel the same, please let your Wolfram sales and
> support contacts know how disappointing this kind of problem is and
> encourage them to come up with a solution.
>
> That Mathematica is such a powerful tool is it's saving grace, but
> Wolfram -- wake up and smell the coffee! Remember a company called
> Quark, who was so world famous about not giving a rat's behind about
> customers problems -- now Adobe has virtually killed them off because
> people gave up on Quark ever getting better. Please, WOLFRAM, do a
> better job of QA and do a better job of coming up with a way to solve
> bugs, rather than wait for months and years and the next release.
> THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY. Solve it and you will have even more
> loyal and fanatic customers.
>
> Of course, I realize that the problem is not rampant, but a relatively
> rare, and certainly Wolfram is not the only one suffering from this
> problem. It only becomes such a frustrating issue when it affects
> things in what I am doing or try to do, and I say to myself that this
> ought to work, that I get so disappointed. And I am sure that we all
> have shared in this frustrating experience before.
>
> But the fact that it happens again and again and again is the part
> that completely baffles me and makes me think how could they shoot me
> in the foot again and think I wouldn't say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!! I am
> so disappointed with bad, careless, and sloppy programming - why after
> about 60 or 70 years of the "science" of programming and all the
> advancements of computer hardware, do things like this continue to
> occur? It is not just Wolfram, but rampant in the entire field of
> software. The complexity of code today and the difficulty in solving
> trivial as well as difficult problems is hardly any better today than
> decades ago. Since the overall complexity of software solutions is so
> many orders of magnitude greater, the only saving grace is that the
> hardware is so much faster as well. Otherwise we would be in a truly
> dismal position.
>
> But I am sure there is a solution for this problem, and Wolfram does
> have some of the most talented and resourceful and intelligent people
> in the world. My wish is that they solve some really fundamental
> problems so that customers don't have to continually have to go thru
> this frustration on every release and every bug, but instead remember
> and chant to themselves
>
>    Just wait for the next release - the problem will be solved, or at
> least moved to some other, hopefully unimportant, spot.
>
> In the meantime, just don't do it that way, no matter how much you
> think that it should work or not work that way. Adapt and be happy, as
> the alternative is rather miserable.
>
> -Bob
>
>


-- 
Peter Lindsay

• References:
  • Version 7.0.1 bug with initial Palette positions
    • From: Bob F <deepyogurt@gmail.com>