Thread: Try my journaling program?

  1. #16
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    I'm curious, I loaded Perodika today and it said it had crashed during its last running and wanted to upload a bug report. So I played along and hit OK to submit. But it took me to a blank bug report form so I'm extremely curious what it thought was the problem ( as far as I know the program exited successfully last time I had run it. ) I closed it and started it again to see what was up but it didn't give me the message again so I can only assume it had found something? But not giving me any information on what it thought was wrong leaves me with being able to report nothing about that error. Perhaps that type of detection can be improved to give the user some type of info about the crash.

    Still testing!

    * I tried adding a blank exhibit (none existing file) today from the button bar on the screen and it gave me this error.
    "That's a huge file; in fact, it's too big."
    This should be changed to state file not found or something.

    * Timestamps are to keep the info on the time the entry was last modified? If so it doesn't update this for me. I edit the entry but it still displays the time it was created. Is this why there is an "Edit Timestamp" option in the Entry menu? This seems tedious.

    * There is some instability trying to Import a non existent file. It crashed the program giving a C++ error and corrupted the journal file. This is repeatable. The second time I did this it simply deleted all my entries but the journal file itself was readable. This should be like the exhibit importation. Perodika should catch the error and prevent the user from trying to import the non-existent file before it crashes.

    I think you might want to do something to ensure that the journal file itself is more safe or protected from corruption in the event the program crashes. It would really be a pain for a user to write a lot and then have it possibly corrupted by a program crash. Perhaps backing it up somehow, I'm not sure.

    I also feel strongly that you should allow users the option to label their journal entries instead of 1, 2, etc. It will make keeping it organized much easier.

    * The error of losing the selection of the Event in the calendar and being able to click edit or remove and generating an error still exists. It should ask the user to select an entry or be grayed out.

    * For the installer, add Back buttons so a user can change a setting without having to cancel the installation process and begin again.

    * For un-installation KillPerodika.exe is still present as well as the folder for Perodika. I know most programs tend to leave these sitting around (registry entries too -shudder-) but it would be nice if it could remove and fix it's own entries. If nothing else removing the uninstaller and folder would be nice. And this is also slightly interesting but if you've run Perodika, crashed it you can't uninstall the main Perodika.exe file. I checked Processes tab but it's not running there at all. So I'm confused why it would give an error removing it. But having restarted the PC it allowed me to manually remove the Perodika.exe file. Hardly a very dangerous bug though. More an annoyance.
    Last edited by sdemaio; 10-17-2008 at 07:36 PM.

  2. #17
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    Jesus, the next time I need a program tested I'm going straight to you sdemaio.

  3. #18
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    I submitted a bug report with the web reporting feature. Did you get it? It's still an issue in beta 5.

  4. #19
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    Wink

    Quote Originally Posted by arpsmack View Post
    Jesus, the next time I need a program tested I'm going straight to you sdemaio.
    I have always found breaking things somewhat fun...and I know it will help me whenever I get around to learning how to program to know some things to watch for and catch when writing the software with the user in mind.

  5. #20
    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by robwhit View Post
    I submitted a bug report with the web reporting feature. Did you get it? It's still an issue in beta 5.
    Yeah. I thought I fixed that problem a couple betas ago. You'll have to send me a screenshot at "mail [my user name] at mailnew dot com".

    sdemaio,

    The "crash detected" dialog is just asking you if you're aware of a bug that made the crash, or otherwise a bug at all. Is what it says misleading?

    The timestamps are there to let you know when the entry was created, not last edited. I'll make the updating a setting anyway.
    As you know the menu item used to be "Reset Timestamp", if you go to it now, you'll see that you can now adjust the date. But there's also a button in the edit dialog that "resets" it with ease. Let me know if you have a suggestion on improving that.

    >> * The error of losing the selection of the Event in the calendar and being
    >> able to click edit or remove and generating an error still exists. It should
    >> ask the user to select an entry or be grayed out.
    I thought I fixed problem that too. Give me a detailed description on how you caused this.

    I don't know why the un-installation is leaving itself there. It injects a thread into explorer.exe that waits for the program to close, then it deletes it and it's folder. This was the only way I could overcome the problem where a program can't delete itself. I'm using Zone-Alarm, and when the program does this, ZA warns me about it, but it works fine. What firewall/anti-virus are you using?

    Oh, it should be getting rid of it's registry keys.

    arpsmack's right, you are trying things I would've never even came close to even thinking of. Have you beta tested before?


    working on B6 right now...

  6. #21
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    The "crash detected" dialog is just asking you if you're aware of a bug that made the crash, or otherwise a bug at all. Is what it says misleading?
    Most of the time it was helpful, I knew there was a crash and most users should be sent to the page to submit a bug report but they also might not know what caused the program to crash. That's why I had suggested perhaps auto-filling out the form with some info about the crash or possibly telling the user what went wrong if that's even possible without too much work. Otherwise it's not really serving a point if the user knows the program crashed but not what to fill in.

    For the timestamps I think that having the "last edited on" option being a setting would be great. The Timestamp editor seems nice but I'm struggling to think of a time where I'd use it, I'd think (for me anyway) that with the setting to update the last edited date and time that I would be fine with that.

    For the calendar button errors. Do this:
    1) Open calendar choose a day, add an event (I usually do note because it's fast but it should replicate on any type of event.
    2) Now have the day selected still and the event has appeared in the "Day's Event" box on the right hand of the calendar. If you take a look at the buttons now, Edit and Remove event are grayed out as they should be.
    3) Select your event, the buttons un-gray and are click-able. So click "Edit" for now.
    4) Just hit OK to get rid of the Edit dialog, but now look at the Edit and Remove buttons, they are NOT grayed out and are clickable. But if you notice in the "Day's Event" box the event is no longer selected.
    5) At this point hit Edit or Remove Event and you'll generate the error.

    An easy fix? I think checking that an event is selected (when you click the button) would solve that (not sure if that's going to hurt efficiency or not), or even just graying out the buttons again but I'm not sure how that is done. OR even just making sure that after editing the Event that the event stays focused within that box.

    I'm proceeding to uninstall Perodika again right now. Lets see...

    Start Menu > Perodika Folder > Remove Perodika which launches KillPerodika.exe.

    Ok.. so it deleted the Perodika.exe as it should (it only seems to leave it if Perodika has crashed fatally (even though I've not seen Perodika.exe running in Process tab...). It gave me after the Uninstall.

    "Could not delete primary program"

    Now, programs I have running. AVG. I do have Windows Firewall running. That's all that would interfere with something uninstalling itself. I've looked around in AVG and it doesn't have anything relating to some type of log of it blocking an application (it has a history log related to only AVG actions).

    I use CCleaner to keep my registry in order. I'm running the registry scan right now and will tell you the keys it finds related to Perodika.

    Hm, it does not leave the shell extension (associates *.bjd with Perodika). These are the four relating to Perodika, and looking at them I'm not sure if you have control over changing these? I'm not very good with the registry. It could be taking care of the keys it can take care of, like I said, I'm no pro with registry info. Most programs when uninstalled will generate similar registry issues, but again it might just be normal.

    Code:
    Open with Application Issue	C:\Program Files\Perodika\Perodika.exe "%1"	HKCR\PerodikaBJD\shell\open
    Open with Application Issue	C:\Program Files\Perodika\Perodika.exe "%1"	HKCR\Applications\Perodika.exe\shell\open
    Missing Startup Software	"C:\Program Files\Perodika\Perodika.exe" /si	HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
    Missing MUI Reference	C:\Program Files\Perodika\Perodika.exe	HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache
    Ok running through the installation again I chose "Install for current user only." During uninstall it generates the same error about "Could not delete primary program."
    Checking registry...

    Code:
    Open with Application Issue	C:\Documents and Settings\Steve\Perodika\Perodika.exe "%1"	HKCR\PerodikaBJD\shell\open
    Open with Application Issue	Applications\Perodika.exe\shell                       	HKCR\Applications\Perodika.exe
    Missing Startup Software	"C:\Documents and Settings\Steve\Perodika\Perodika.exe" /si	HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
    Missing MUI Reference	C:\Documents and Settings\Steve\Perodika\Perodika.exe	HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache
    Have you beta tested before?
    Quite a few games a long time ago but nothing within the past... two years I'd say. My PC is so old now (Athlon XP 2600+, 1gb of ram, Radeon X1650 Pro) that I would struggle to run most of the newer games so I don't bother signing up for beta testing anymore. This is my first piece of software to beta test that isn't a game. Some of the games were Empires: Dawn of the Modern World (Activision actually sent a FREE copy of the game for testing it...that's hot), lots of MMORPGs, those tests are easy to get into. I had this great list of all the things I'd done but it got deleted when a hard drive failed.. a shame.-_-

    I guess the thing to take from beta testing is to work each aspect of the program from as many angles as possible so you can tap the bugs out of hiding. Some are subtle others are easy to find. I think it's fun. I don't know I might be crazy. >.>
    Last edited by sdemaio; 10-18-2008 at 12:45 PM.

  7. #22
    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    >> I think it's fun. I don't know I might be crazy. >.>
    If no one was crazy who would beta test?

    I wrapped up B6. Hopefully, it's the last B.
    Check the removal program again too, I did the most work on that one.
    Also, please recheck other things too, my fixes have "come undone" a couple times already before.

    About the registry, I updated that too, but some reg references to Perodika will probably still come up in some MUI keys, which isn't a problem on my program's part.

  8. #23
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    * Set title (so glad the option is finally in btw lol) isn't saved when the journal file is saved.

    * The last edited on date is great.

    * Sorting entries might be helpful to alert the user that it is sorted by timestamp. This actually will re-order the entries and possibly throw some of them out of whack. (Entry 1 is edited after entry 2, sorted, and now entry 2 appears as entry 1 and entry 1 is new entry 2.)

    * The journal calendar error with edit/remove is fixed.

    Ok going from the beginning now.

    * The "s29" bug I cannot make appear anymore.

    * Spell check seems to work.

    * Export seems to work partially. Talking about journal entry export here.
    It exports from the last SAVED version of the file instead of the current file. That should be changed to current version.

    * The help messages appear fine for me, although I'm not using large fonts.

    * Marriages and Divorces on the calendar still ask for the users birth date, it's irrelevant for creation of a marriage/divorce. Should be removed from asking it :P

    * I cannot reproduce "\par" error.

    * On calendar, you might consider the option of adding to the default calendar to be a button someplace instead of a pop up question each time. It becomes a pain after a while to click through it.

    * Uninstalling still leaves PeroKill.exe and it's folder on my hard drive. The latest uninstaller leaves the journal shell extension association (*.bjd to Perodika) in my registry (something new it hasn't done before). The other entries relating to Perodika are same as before.

    That's all I see atm. After those few issues are fixed I'd think you could release it (non beta) and have few problems.

  9. #24
    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    Final (hopefully) Release is done! Please continue to treat this version as a beta though, just in case. I know the uninstallation can be finiky at times, I figure it'll do, it's not that big of a deal.

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