Leopard - RTF

DEVONthink Tips
21

[b]A concerned user, who purchased a Pro license and many version updates and other applications they produce and expects a professional service from the developer, can’t use a single forum thread to voice that concern ?

Today is the fifteenth day since I discovered all RTF handling was not safe for myself making the application unusable. It was a a couple of weeks before that when the programmer discovered there would be a problem with 10.5 ( I am angry that users were not sent emails telling them of his concern ). Yet we still await a fix ? I know of no business where this is acceptable. I know of no other company who produce a professional application that have been so completely sunk by this OS upgrade. If I stop complaining, demanding a fix will I still be heard ?[/b]

22

Of course you can share your concern and you have numerous times in the post. I suppose an email could have gone out, but how many users would actually be on that email list.

I am a heavy DT user too and am still holding off on Leopard. I’ve voiced the same concern about a Leopard compatible update, but I also recognize that DT relies heavily on the OS for its functions that is not always true for other apps.

I am frankly surprised that someone who relies so heavily on DT would switch before checking out the compatibility issue. Yes other apps have come out with Leopard-ready versions both before and after Leopard was released, but like me, you were probably prompted to download the update by the program itself! Not getting this update prompting from DT I would think should have been a clue for you that it wasn’t Leopard-ready yet and should have been a warning sign that you should hold off on the OS upgrade.

I sympathize with your situation, and I myself am getting a little annoyed having to wait to upgrade to Leopard, but you are sure making it sound like this is all the developer’s fault. Its not.

23

Please note the announcement of Leopard-compatible public beta releases for DT Pro and DT Pro Office at http://www.devon-technologies.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5386.

Also note that Apple released today OS X 10.5.1, which Apple encourages all users of Leopard to install.

And note that there have been other notices on the forum about the approach of DT Pro/Office updates, outside this thread. :slight_smile:

24

Clearly you don’t follow the Windows software world. In that space, buggy releases and compatibility issues are routine, and fixes typically take months, not days. By that standard, both Apple and DT have provided and continue to provide astoundingly good customer service.

Granted, the lack of responsiveness of Microsoft and other Windows software suppliers is one of the reasons why I switched platforms. Still, their financial results and market share seem to imply that a large number of customers find their approach acceptable.

I’m still waiting to hear why you didn’t revert to Tiger as soon as you discovered the problem.

Katherine

25

I’m hoping this update will have an added benefit of allowing forum posts to no longer be in all bold.
If it works, I’d venture to say it’s the best update ever.

26

I second that. Although I did the same mistake as I was waiting for Leopard and did not anticipate that something as basic as RTF handling would cause a problem.

But since everyone seems to be eager to emphasis ones own professionalism in contrast to the rest of the world:

Once I discover the problem, it took me 25 minutes to restore my 10.4.10 installation from a mirror drive. Wouldn’t a professional always make sure that a change of whatever nature can be reversed if it turns out to be a mistake?

/Sven

27

DevonThink Pro/Office ready on Leopard, but not on Personal.
When do that?

28

The Leopard-compatible public beta still does not save image attachments in RTFD files. Back to the drawing board. Hopefully not another couple hundred hours to sort this out.

(OS 10.5.1 Latest beta Devonthink Pro)

29

The beta of version 1.3.4 does capture images in rich text captures from Web pages. Under Leopard, I’ve captured over a hundred rich text notes from the Web and images (when present) have been included in the documents saved to the database.

Check your Systems Preferences panel “Other” listing to see if you have installed preference panes that may be incompatible with Leopard. Also utilities or plugins that are in the Input Manager folders within your boot disk and User Library folders. Quite a number of hacks to the operating system have compatibility problems with Leopard and can cause problems.

30

I don’t have any hacks ? No hacks for Leopard are available yet ?

[i]If I save a clipboard dump from a site including images and text into a TextEdit document and save it in the finder, all the info is saved on reopening. If I save the same clipboard dump into DTPro database the images are lost.

If I drag the TextEdit document (with images) into a Devon database the images are again lost. [/i]

31

Bold?

I simply cannot replicate your problem. I’m running Leopard 10.5.1 and DT Pro Office 1.3.4 beta 4. Whenever I select text and images and capture as a rich text note into my database, the images are there as well as the text.

Other than system problems on your computer (yes, there are lots of hacks around, including Safari add-ons and many other gadgets), the only thing I can think of is that you’ve got copies of both versions 1.3.3 and 1.3.4beta4 on your computer and have accidentally launched version 1.3.3. While your application is open, check “About DEVONthink Pro” and read the application’s version.

32

Did you actually check the Preferences panel? There are known problems with Leopard stemming from hacks that the user didn’t even know they had, and/or that worked under Tiger but don’t under Leopard.

Can you provide the URL of a site that’s giving you problems? That might help people duplicate the problem.

Katherine

33

Well, it is definitely 1.3.4 beta4.

I think I have found out what the problem is. If a file is saved within a database as a RFT ( No images within it ) it is unable to revert or to then change file type to accept images or become an RFTD as it used to be able to do in the last OS (10.4)

[b]Drag images on a previously saved text only RFT [A] and then save, select another file then reselect your first file again [A] and the images will have vanished.

34

Please don’t use bold and italic fonts so much. It’s distracting. :slight_smile:

I cannot replicate the behavior you described.

I can create a text-only rich text document. I save it (RTF).

Later I come back to it and insert an image. I save it (RtFD).

Still later i select that document and look at it. the image is there. It’s RTFD.

35

Two obervations:

  1. Check the permissions on your database using the Finder. This has potentially become more complicated on Leopard since the OS allows for more sophisticated permissions (for example see ACL problems).
  2. Check the output of the console (using Applications > Utilities > Console), sometimes this may enlighten a situation like this.
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Permissions for the database seem OK. I have read and write privileges set.
I don’t CLI, so can’t use the Console.

37

Well, if you can’t replicate the lack of image retention in RTF/D files within a DTPro database and you are using 10.5 then I am surprised. I find it odd that cgrunenberg did say that his RTF code handling was bespoke and was causing problems/bugs in 10.5 and yet you have never heard of this kind of problem ?

38

Hi, benignstar. The Console is just an application that displays information about what’s happening on the computer, such as failure of a routine.

Whenever something unexpected happens, you might run Console.app in Applications > Utilities. Every log entry has the date and time at which the line was reported. If you wish to report the unexpected behavior to Support, copying the Console log into the message, with a brief summary of what you were doing at the time, can help in diagnosis.

39

Responding to your post about rich text and images:

The DT applications, e.g. DT Pro/Office 1.3.3 had rich text problems because of changes in Leopard, some of which happened in the interval between the last developer seed of September 21 and the release date on October 26.

Leopard has some bugs. I’ve never seen an OS, especially when newly released, that doesn’t have some bugs. The ones that have caused DEVONtechnologies programmers considerable grief included WebKit instability and Apple’s suggested code for control of scanners via Image Capture (which didn’t work).

I had a writing project in progress when Leopard was released. I didn’t install Leopard on my work computer until my project was finished. Then I installed Leopard to do internal beta testing on a progression of revisions of DT Pro Office. Most of my Web captures and all of my drafting work is done using rich text. Since 1.3.4 beta 1 I have had no problems at all with rich text in DT Pro. I’ve gone through beta 1, beta 2, beta 3 and now beta 4 – each of which further polished code throughout the application, dropping compatibility with OS X 10.3.9 – with no problems with rich text captures or editing, including mixed text and images. So I’ve gotten a lot of work done using the betas of 1.3.4.

One purpose of the public beta is to allow users to get back to work with DT Pro/Office. We think the database software is solid, although scanning with Image Capture may have issues and WebArchives sometimes have problems, I’ve hammered everything else hard without problems. Many scanners, including my ScanSnap and CanoScan LIDE 500F are working well because they don’t need Image Capture but have their own driver software. We hope the remaining known issues can be polished off soon.

Because the users out there have a much wider variety of computers and they vary a great deal in what software is installed on them, we also want to hear about problems.

That’s why, when someone has a problem that I can’t replicate, I start asking questions. Some of those questions are based on browsing Apple’s support forums and support documents, which seem to implicate a number of OS hacks at the moment. And if DT Pro crashes, for example, Christian can get information about the computer’s environment and what went wrong from the crash log. Even in the absence of a crash, the console log may reveal useful information about what happened.

Information can help users resolve software conflicts and help DEVONtechnologies improve applications. We share with users the objective of databases that are functional, stable and reliable. I’m a heavy user, too.

40

I installed DTpro 1.3.4 beta 4 today, and migrated all of my changed files back into my DTpro database earlier this evening. For the beta period, I’m just exporting my databases more frequently than normal (and have my DTpro database on volumes backed up by Time Machine).

I use RTF in dozens of files in my DTpro databases, and I will let you know if I see anything awry. So far so good, though.