Survex 0.99 prerelease 5

[Olly Betts]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2001 at 08:36:28PM -0000, Brian Clipstone wrote:
> I have tested both the Dos and Win 98 Versions. A couple of points.
> The text files that come with the Program (Changes, install, todo etc)
> are HTM in Dos and text in Windows

I've just checked - in fact the Windows version has HTML versions of all the
docs, and also includes text versions of many files (HACKING and OLDNEWS are
only there in HTML).  I've just fixed the Windows packaging script to not
include the text files.

> HTM is not much use in Dos.

Why not?  There are a number of web browsers for DOS, some of which even
work on pre-386 machines:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/x86/DOS/Internet/

http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/

Also one audience for the DOS version is MS Windows 3.1 users, who have a
wider choice of web browser.

Is HTML such a poor choice for DOS users?  I can include the text versions
of the docs instead/as well.  HTML has the advantage of hyperlinks, and a
nicer presentation than plain text, but of course you do need a browser to
view it.

> The Dos version works ok, I still miss the automatic POS and INF files.

You can get cavern to automatically produce a .log file (which it does by
default with the MS Windows file associations set up by the installer).
This is done running cavern like so:

cavern -q --log survey.svx

which produces a survey.log much like the old file.inf.  ".inf" is used by
MS Windows for driver information files, so wasn't a good extension to be
using (though I think Survex was using it first, so Microsoft are the ones
who really should change...)

Are you really using .pos files often enough to want them automatically
produced?  In my experience, most people never look at the .pos file.  Those
who do look at it are using it for hand-plotting data (because they don't
have a printer available - e.g. on expedition somewhere remote), and even
they more often view the survey in aven/caverot than hand-plot it.

> In the Windows Version Double Clicking a 3D file opens the Print Window

OK, I thought this had been fixed, but it looks like I merely worked out
what the problem was and failed to actually apply the fix.

> right clicking then using Open will open Aven but it does not display
> the survey, but it does list the survey stations.

I can reproduce this (but not on all .3d files).  Mark - Do you have time to
investigate or do you want me to look?

> Opening Aven then opening a 3D file it works ok.
> If you drag out the Survey it now stops at the 10 Metre bar and goes no
> further ( Caverot goes down to 1mm).

The limit on zooming in is a quick fix for the problems with lines wrapping
around at high zoom.  Being able to zoom to 1mm is not actually useful when
you consider the accuracy of a cave survey, though the current limit in aven
is a little more restrictive than I'd like.

> I still do not understand how you use the file Find and Hide Window and
> buttons, text can not be typed in because the keys are used for other
> functions.

Indeed - I'm trying to work out how to fix this.

Cheers,
Olly