SpeakUp with Sundial Systems from 10/02/2000 (Topic: Help Forums)

<randell>	Hi all!
<DCasey>	Damn .. I was just getting ready to ask where our guests were :-)
<DCasey>	Hello, randell
<Sector>	Maybe the other one will come rolling in
<mandie>	g'evening :)
<randell>	Rollin should be along shortly...
<Sector>	Hi mandieððð
<RumpleS>	Hey my nick list is getting rather full now!
<RumpleS>	Hey my nick list is getting rather full now!
<Projects>	hiya mandiekins
<Sector>	Hey there's an echo in here
<Sector>	Hey there's an echo in here
<MADodel>	Projects: you could just buy eCS upgrade, which would basically be the first CP with Lotus SS included. Then buy the upgrade protection in a year or so if you wanted to upgrade again. but it looks like all future fixpacks after 15 will be either in SWC or eCS Upgrade Protection.
<mandie>	lag :(
<Sector>	Hello rollin
<Sector>	Hi WyldFire
<rollin>	Hello!
<Sector>	Hmm, pings and leaves
<WyldFire>	hi
<rollin>	I'll take advantage of our pre-start time. Anyone using F/X Tunel over DSL/Cable?
<warspite>	Good morning all.
<WyldFire>	What fun, two new OSes to play with this week =)
<randell>	Dan, Rollin, and I are it for the Sundial side tonight... so we can get started whenever you're ready.
<rollin>	Sounds good to me
<DCasey>	:-)
*	Projects thanks Sundial for the long awaited lists
<randell>	Projects, that's our main topic for tonight.
<DCasey>	OK. Lets get started, then :-)
<DCasey>	Whoops .. where'd Dan go?
<DCasey>	Tonight, VOICE is pleased to welcome Sundial Systems to this Speakup session
<DCasey>	At this point, I'll have to admit that I'm not aware of the topic for this evening's session, so I'll defer to Sundial to get things started
<randell>	Thanks!
<DCasey>	Welcome to randell and jdkulp
<randell>	We don't have a "major" topic for tonight...
<randell>	The primary focus will be our new Product Forums...
<randell>	But we'll have plenty of time for questions about any of our products...
<randell>	And, with Dan here tonight, it's time to get all those Mesa questions out there...
<randell>	So, on to the Product Forums...
<warspite>	I would like to say "thanks" for starting them.
<DCasey>	I'm assuming we can use these ne "Forums" to hound you about Palm integration with Relish??
<randell>	Basically, for a very long time, people have been asking us for a way to share
<rollin>	No, that's the one thing you can't do with them :)
<randell>	their experiences, tips, solutions, etc, that involve Relish, Mesa, DBExpert, etc...
<randell>	We thought long about the best way to do this...
<DCasey>	LOL
<Projects>	DCasey: you have to saturate their personal mailboxes for stuff like that :-)
<randell>	Some people advocated using one or more newsgroups...
<randell>	Some people advocated using one or more mailing lists...
<randell>	So we combined those together in a package!
<randell>	Starting last week, we opened a series of product forums... one for each of our products.
<randell>	You can access the forums as newsgroups OR you can subscribe to them and
<randell>	receive all the messages as email!
<randell>	The details are on our website (www.sundialsystems.com).
<randell>	I'll come back and talk a little about how useful they've been already...
<randell>	But, Rollin, why don't you comment a little about how we make this all work.
<rollin>	It's pretty slick. We use Hethmon brothers mail server and Changi for the news server.
<Sector>	wb mandie
<mandie>	thx :)
<Sector>	Lag any betterù
<rollin>	When the news server gets a message it sends it to a special account which sends it to the mail list. The same is true in the opposite direction.
<mandie>	22 secs better :)
<MADodel>	rollin: Is that on a Warp 4 machine or Warp Server?
<rollin>	Neither source knows or cares that the message is not from a traditional news/email client.
<rollin>	It's running on our web server which is a Warp 4 machine.
<MADodel>	Thanks
<rollin>	There's not much benefit to the web server itself of running on Warp Server.
<DCasey>	rollin you must not be using Hethmons Mail Server on WSeB :-)
<MADodel>	rollin: Yes I know, but VOICE has WSeB running and has encountered problems wit hInetMail
<MADodel>	Sorry to take you off topic, but when you mentioned the mail server a light clicked on. :-)
<rollin>	True, I tend to be very conservative on my servers. We're running an older version of Inetmail, W4, and other "older" software.
<Projects>	sometimes "older" is better...
<MADodel>	Well don't try it on WSeB :-)
<randell>	MADodel, was the WSeB box you tried it on an SMP box?
<rollin>	I do use it on one of my test servers without problems, but again it's an older version, so that might have something to do with it.
<MADodel>	randell: no.
<mandie>	Projects: I couldn't agree more!
<MADodel>	randell: Abel could tell you more since he is the SysAdmin and the one who has done the install
<Projects>	mandie: I was talking about software, but won't disagree with what you thought I was talking about :-)
<DCasey>	randell No SMP ... AMD K62-500
<mandie>	:P
<MADodel>	Unfrtunately he's not here right now
<randell>	We've noticed some rather strange thing on WSeB SMP but since, per DCasey, you're not running SMP that must not be the issue
*	DCasey is the one who built the server ... I know exactly what's in it :-)
<randell>	I want to emphasize that our new Product Forums are not a replacement for our traditional tech support...
<randell>	In fact, most detailed problems and usage issue should still be channeled thru our various
<randell>	tech support email addresses (relish@sundialsystems.com, mesa2@..., dbexpert@..., rover@... junkspy@... clearlook@...)
<randell>	But the product forums are a great way to find out what other people are doing with the products...
<randell>	and to share idea, tips, and get answers to "how to" kinds of questions...
<randell>	We know some of our most experienced users are already reading (and contributing to)
<randell>	the forums and sometimes they do know more about doing certain things than we do!
<randell>	We will, of course, monitor the forums... and use them to send out technical notices, etc.
<randell>	But one other great thing for YOU all to use the forums for...
<dcasey>	I should know better than to respond to Tim Martin when I'm doing something important :-)
<randell>	Is to let us know what you want to see in future versions of our products.
<randell>	That's already been happening since last week.
<rollin>	Indeed - DBExpert got a good dose of user feedback last week :)
<randell>	We've had a long discussion about adding a "ditto" key type of thing to DBExpert.
<warspite>	Woohoo!
<MADodel>	ditto?
<randell>	And our European customers have been helping us figure out their need to display "week of the year" in Relish.
<randell>	And just today, an exchange on Relish forum helped us find (and kill) a bug we didn't know about...
<randell>	that has been in the product for 10 years (since April, 1990)!
<randell>	Talk about "obscure bug of the month/year/decade"!
<randell>	But I'll pause now and open it up... I think MADodel might have had a question about "ditto"?
<MADodel>	ditto?
<MADodel>	:-)
<warspite>	I use to use it as.....
<randell>	Yes, "ditto"... basically the ability to "clone" the value in a field/record from some other record...
<warspite>	Ctrl+F8 on DBaseIV
<randell>	particularly useful when you are entering a series of records...
<randell>	The discussion covered, among other things, which record to copy from and other the differences between doing it...
<randell>	one field at a time and trying to do the whole record. You can visit the newsgroup for details...
<randell>	since I posted a summary earlier today and we still need more feedback to make sure that...
<randell>	if and when we implement this, we do it the way people would find it most useful.
<randell>	While we are at it... did you know that the ISO standard for such things defines the first week of the year...
<randell>	to be the one with the first Thursday in it (which is equivalent to the week containing Jan 4th)?
<randell>	I didn't.
<randell>	What we don't know (yet) is if there is any US standard/convention for this and if it follows the ISO rule.
<randell>	There might be a difference because US weeks start on Sunday while ISO (and thus most European) weeks start on Monday.
<mandie>	then they need to change that! :)
<randell>	Other questions? Particularly any Mesa ones while Dan is here?
<_Digi_>	Thanks timka. I am in linux and I need an audio file but my audio board isn't set up yet.
<mandie>	hmm
<_Digi_>	Wrong window.....blame it on x-chat I take no responsibility for my actions :)
<rollin>	We're also working on Junk Spy 2.0 - so if you've got feature requests let me know.
<MADodel>	What are in the plans so far for Junk Spy 2.0?
<rollin>	Good question :) Lot's of polish and UI improvements.
<rollin>	We've add an exception wizard so that if you have a message that shouldn't be Junk, Junk Spy will analyize it and help you build the best exception.
<rollin>	There are several others like that which I'm not sure in what form they will be, so I'll hold off on their specifics.
<warspite>	I do have a question re: DBExpert and long Directory Names
<MADodel>	rollin: thanks for the update
<randell>	warpsite, yes... a specific question?
<warspite>	Yes...if I have any long filenames..say "scholl matters" in my directory tree...
<warspite>	DBExpert doesn't work for me. Is it something I've done?
<DSOMber1>	Hello all.
<randell>	warpsite, it's not the long directory name... it's the space in the directory name...
<warspite>	Gotcha...if I concertina it up, things will work?
<randell>	The problem is that when DBExpert accesese table using SQL statements...
<randell>	Internally (you don't see it) the full path to the filename is used in the statement...
<randell>	When the ODBC drivers see that, the don't parse the statement correctly...
<randell>	because they think the file name ended at the space...
<randell>	Unfortunately, we can't correct those drivers though we may come up with a workaround...
<randell>	at some point in the furture... but it's not a high priority.
<warspite>	Fair enough...
<randell>	The best thing to do for now is to make sure the full path to any DBF file...
<randell>	contains no special characters.
<randell>	That would have been a good topic for the DBExpert Product Forum!
<warspite>	OK, and thanks
<randell>	More questions?
<randell>	We certainly have a lively crowd tonight! Everyone must be burned out from watching the Olympics too much!
<StevenL>	It was on late at night here. :-)
<StevenL>	Did I missing anything on Relish?
<rollin>	You missed it all :) No, nothing much.
<dcasey>	I want to know when wqe can expect Palm sync support with Relish ... and when we can look for a REAL update to Clearlook
<StevenL>	Oh well, there's always the logs.
<rollin>	The Palm Sync is partially dependant on features that are slated for 2.3 of Relish. We're looking at ways to pull them apart, but right now they are tied together.
<randell>	When we do the Clearlook update, it will be major... but I've stopped projecting dates for it.
<randell>	We have lots of new Clearlook features implemented, but getting it rounded out into a "product release" has turned into a long, long effort.
<dcasey>	I REALLY like using Relish ... the pop-up reminders are un-paralleled
<randell>	The Relish update is planned to be the next major update out the door but this could change.
<dcasey>	But Clearlook is sorely in need of a "major update"
*	Projects wonders about the relish popup thing... more than one popup coming? :-)
<randell>	dcasey, thanks for your praise of Relish and I do understand your concern about Clearlook.
<randell>	Projects, I really don't understand this "more than one popup" thing.... it's probably better to discuss it in the Product Forum...
<dcasey>	I don't like StarOffice .. a real pig ... I use Relish extensively ... and WordPro .. and my Palm III is just sitting in its bag
<Projects>	randell: you (or was it rollin?) understood it last time :-)
<randell>	but I realize don't understand how people would really find that useful.
<dcasey>	I'd like a way to be efficient and productive ....
<dcasey>	But I refuse to go to Windows ... so I keep waiting :-)
<randell>	Projects, I understand *what* you want but not *why* you want it and I'm not sure how useful it would really be to most people.
<randell>	Having more than one reminder poped up on the screen just seems like it would be too confusing to me.
<Projects>	randell: hrm... I think it would be really useful to be able to have a bunch of popups on the desktop, and get rid of the ones that are handled as they're handled...
*	Projects used PMPostnotes before using Relish... multiple popups were great.
<randell>	But, wouldn't you get lost in all those windows?
<randell>	We do listen to customer needs, however, so I'm not ruling out multiple popups...
<StevenL>	Perhaps, this could work if there were a settable number of open popups.
<Projects>	nope.. they cascaded themselves nicely in pmpostnotes... at one time I had around 60 on the screen at once
<randell>	But there are some architectural issues in adding the to Relish in a clean way... so it's something we would do unless there really is a need.
<Zoltan>	Got to go... Good (whatever you having).
<randell>	60 on the screen at once??? My you are most organized than I am .
<StevenL>	Yep, and which one is waiting for the ctrl-u?
<mandie>	or further behind on getting things done :)
<Projects>	heh... I was keeping track of customer reminders at the time... kept the notes up until the order was placed.
<randell>	That's the kind of thing we always envisioned that the Defered status and Overdue List would be used for.
<StevenL>	I just use defer for this...
<StevenL>	However, revise would be better if the done flag worked better 2.3?
<randell>	Projects, and StevenL, please feel free to start a thread in the Product Forum on this...
*	Projects likes to have the popup reminder showing, so that procrastination can't be blamed
<randell>	that was we can capture a wide audience of input on the "multiple popups" need/issue.
<warspite>	Gotta go...big day ahead for me....catch you on the Forums
<StevenL>	I find a 10 minute defer gets annoying enough that I just do it.
<warspite>	Thanks for everything.
<randell>	StevenL, the Done flag will work differently in 2.3.
<Projects>	StevenL: I've tuned my ears to not hear it :-)
<StevenL>	I'm waiting
<randell>	warpsite, thanks!
<randell>	StevenL, we're working
<StevenL>	:-)
<warspite>	Thanks to you too...see you.
<StevenL>	Then there always my Note templates wishlist item.
<randell>	StevenL, it's on my wishlist too. It's not implmented yet and may or may not make the next version.
<StevenL>	I know. I realize how much work it is.
<StevenL>	I get by with Alt-Insert for now.
<randell>	Foruntately, it's not as much work as it seems like it might be... the Relish architecture accomodates that one pretty well.
<StevenL>	True, but defining the setting pages and all that stuff... I just adds up.
<StevenL>	I -> It.
<randell>	Still no Mesa questions for Dan... he's getting off easy tonight!
<jdkulp>	:)
<StevenL>	He fixed the last bug I reported...
<randell>	StevenL, we have a better way to do it than to use settings pages... but I'm not going to detail it here.
<StevenL>	I've be light on spreadsheets lately.
<jdkulp>	I must be doing my job and satisfying everyones needs. :)
<randell>	Yep, Dan must be right! Everybody's satisfied!
<StevenL>	The only place Mesa is a bit limitied is in things like backsolver and so on.
*	Projects had a mesa question, but forgot :0-)
<StevenL>	I do wish cell labels worked differently, but I've already made my views on this known.
<randell>	How dare Projects forget anything... he should have put it in Relish!
<jdkulp>	I knew that one was coming. :(
<Projects>	heh... probably did, but there's no MULTIPLE POPUPS! :-))
<StevenL>	In mesa?
<randell>	Projects, got me on that one :-))
<Projects>	hehehe
<Projects>	any plans on a sticky note addon to relish?
<StevenL>	How so?
<randell>	Projects, no not really.
<Projects>	:(
<StevenL>	There is one thing that might be handy to have in Relish. A trash bun.
<randell>	Projects, did you have something specfic in mind? Sounds a bit like multiple popups to me.
<randell>	A trash bun?
<Projects>	randell: no, just sticky notes. I got used to having them with pmpostnotes, but now I'm using relish, I don't need the whole pmpostnotes for just the notes... I'll just find something else. I know there's sticky note things out there.
<StevenL>	Yes, every now and then I OK a note in error...
<Projects>	wtf? Too many hops on an email?
<Projects>	first time I've ever seen that "undeliverable" message
<StevenL>	If it's not set to stay around, I can not correct my error...
<randell>	Projects, what if you could have a WPS object (like a bun but different) that represented a particular note? Would that do the trick?
<StevenL>	If these notes when to a Trash bun, they could be retrieved and corrected...
<MADodel>	StevenL: I have had the same problem on an occasion also
<StevenL>	I've deleted in error at times too.
<Projects>	randell: and said object could be modified itself?
<StevenL>	This would also allow me to turn off Ctrl-U because I could always undo an error.
<randell>	Projects, yes, that would be the idea.
<MADodel>	StevenL: Maybe have the trash bun auto delete after a set number of days
<Projects>	randell: sounds like a sticky note to me :)
<randell>	I'll have to think about the "trash" idea a bit more... it's probably something we could do. The main problem I can think...
<StevenL>	Mark, the delete could by settable, but for what I'm interested in a fix duration of say a day would be more than sufficient.
<randell>	of at the moment, is that I'm not sure how they would impact repeating notes when you OK a repetition popup.
<StevenL>	I expected that. I'm not asking for undo per se. Just the ability to get to deleted note back...
<randell>	(Internally, Relish does have a concept of "deleted but not gone yet" so we might be able to leverage that.)
<Projects>	funny, my mind has that concept too :)
<StevenL>	I guess you would have to instatiate the repeated note as a non-repeating note with the reminder date that popped up.
<randell>	BTW, you can undo a delete from the Relish window... but you can't from the popups and that's the issue here.
<StevenL>	That's part of the problem...
<StevenL>	The popups don't work like the rest of relish in many ways.
<randell>	We actually have the capability of doing that instatiation now (for other reasons).
<StevenL>	I've seen that happen by accident. :-)
<randell>	There are specific reasons the popups work the way they do... mostly for good reason at the time they were designed...
<StevenL>	And don't ask me how I did it.
<StevenL>	I'm sure there's plenty of history involved...
<randell>	but there is always room for refinement and we are doing some of that (specifically to the popups) in the next version.
<StevenL>	I'm just a simple user who wants to be able to drop times on to the entry fields.
<randell>	Not just history... people tend to want to do different things from the popup than from the main window.
<randell>	The reason you can't drop times on entry fields has to do with an enhancement to entries fields...
<StevenL>	Since you mention the main window, is there a way to do multiple selects?
<randell>	that someone at IBM (who I won't name and who was a Relish user) promised me, oh, back in about 1993...
<randell>	I'm still waiting for it and I suppose I'm never going to get it! But I can be stubborn about waiting for such things!
<randell>	Multiple selects can't be done in the main window for historical reasons having to do with the drag/drop implementation...
<StevenL>	Well, at this point in time, I suggest you hope that Kim really wants to use Relish and the enhancments this requires. :-)
<randell>	We are trying to get around that limitation for this next version but I won't promise it.
<StevenL>	OK, let me know when the beta's ready.
<randell>	You will be one of the first to know.
<StevenL>	Glutton for punishment, are you?
<randell>	I could say the same about you ...
<Sector>	I Blackbird
<Blackbird>	HI sector
<StevenL>	I'm used to things that break. As long as they don't lose data, it usually don't care.
<StevenL>	Hi BB.
<Blackbird>	HI steven and All
<DSOMber1>	Yeah...speaking of Kim...are you guys working with Serenity in any sort of co-development?
<StevenL>	I do have a question for Dan.
<randell>	StevenL, data integrity is always very important to us.
<randell>	DSOMOber1, I would prefer not to discuss it here, but, basically, Kim and crew aren't interested in anything we are doing.
<DSOMber1>	randell - Ok....thanks.
<jdkulp>	OK
<randell>	StevenL, what was that question for Dan?
<StevenL>	Dan, did you ever do anything to allow the globals.m2 file to be found in the directory...
<StevenL>	containing the .m2 file when the .m2 is started by clicking on it?
<jdkulp>	Nope, but there may be a workaround to that problem.
<StevenL>	Yes?
<jdkulp>	I don't remember if you tried this or not, but if you add the mesa2 directory to the LIBPATH.....
<DSOMber1>	Hello randell.
<jdkulp>	and then remove the working directory from the "Mesa 2" program object, it might work. Then again....
<StevenL>	How exactly is your class code starting Mesa?
<jdkulp>	It's not. It's allowing the WPS to do the default thing. The only action we change is printing and some icon stuff.
<jdkulp>	Thus, if the Mesa 2 program object is registered to handled *.m2 and all "Mesa Workbook" objects (it is by default)...
<jdkulp>	then when you click on a workbook, the WPS should start the Mesa 2 program object.
<randell>	So it's strictly based on the file type associations.
<StevenL>	OK...
<StevenL>	I'll fiddle with it...
<jdkulp>	yes, except for printing.
<StevenL>	I can't remember if I tried this before. I do recall discussing it.
<Blackbird>	Sorry for coming late....will see the transcript posted I guess on Voice...need to go put my foot up and on ice...sprained the heck out of it ...see you all later somewhere...
<randell>	Yes, I meant the *program startup* is strictly based on the file type/extension mechanism built into the WPS.
<randell>	Well, it's about that time for us to be wrapping this up until next time... so one last call for questions
<randell>	Thanks for having us. We'll be back in December. And, until then, be sure to stop by our new Project Forums to ask questions or help answer other people's questions!
<rollin>	Thanks all!
<StevenL>	Nite. Thanks for coming.
<randell>	As always, the details are at www.sundialsystems.com.
<mandie>	Thanks as always :)
<StevenL>	Dan, I'll let you know the results of my testing.
<Sector>	Thanks for stopping in and sharing this with us
<randell>	StevenL, be sure you let me know as well.
<DSOMber1>	Thanks.
<jdkulp>	OK
<jdkulp>	Post to the forums. :)
<StevenL>	OK.
<randell>	Yes, post to the forums!
<StevenL>	That reminds me...
<StevenL>	Did the mesa forum naming get fixed?
<randell>	StevenL, if you are referring to the long names, no, that's an issue for Rollin and he's left.
<StevenL>	No, there was a CGI problem...
<StevenL>	It's probably fixed...
<randell>	StevenL, if you are referring to that brief signup problem just after we opened, yes, it's fixed.
<StevenL>	That's the one....
<StevenL>	I probably forgot to try it again...
<StevenL>	Going there now.
<randell>	Thanks again everyone! Goodnight!