processing4/processing/build/shared/bugs.txt

KNOWN BUGS FOR THE MOST RECENT RELEASE

this was moved out of the release notes since it's getting too long,
and since only a handful of things change between releases


..................................................................


COMMON PROBLEMS (NOT BUGS)
things that are often perceived as bugs, which means maybe they'll be
changed in the future, but for now, they're not actually 'broken'.


- names of sketches cannot start with a number, or have spaces
  inside. this is mostly because of a restriction on the naming of
  java classes. i suppose if lots of people find this upsetting, we
  could add some extra code to unhinge the resulting class name from
  the sketch name, but it adds complexity, and complexity == bugs. :)

- if you're exporting as applet, variables that are 'final int' need
  to be 'static final int'. otherwise they'll have trouble with a java
  1.1-only machine: (i.e. running microsoft's java on windows). you
  should also avoid using "final" variables *inside* of methods, since
  those aren't supported by microsoft's vm (and that's the one most
  widely installed).

- 'export to application' remains unimplemented, though it's closer,
  and should be ready before beta.

- 'preferences' will get better in a future release


..................................................................


QUICKTIME FOR JAVA / VIDEO PROBLEMS

- quicktime for java is still required on windows. it's required on
  macosx too, but it's installed there by default. the requirement
  will be removed in a later release for people who don't want to use
  video, but the fix is more difficult than anticipated, so it will
  probably happen after the initial beta release. 

- on windows, if you can't install quicktime for java yourself, all
  you really need is a copy of QTJava.zip from the quicktime install,
  which needs to be at %WINDIR%\system32\QTJava.zip. WINDIR is an
  environment variable on windows, open up a DOS prompt and type 
  echo %WINDIR% 
  to find out what it's set to (prolly something like C:\windows on
  windows xp/me/98 or c:\winnt on windows 2000).

- quicktime for java was missing from the initial release of quicktime
  6.4 on the mac. an upgrade to quicktime 6.4 that includes qtjava is
  now available from software update.


..................................................................


KNOWN BUGS
the real deal, keeping us awake at night


- haven't yet modified the default html to make changes for the eolas
  case. we have the code (thanks to toxi) but it won't be in until 67.

- beautify doesn't retain the *exact* position of the caret within the
  text. 

- beautify has problems with indenting when lines with a brace are
  commented out, or with switch statements.
  http://proce55ing.net/discourse/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Proce55ing_software_bugs;action=display;num=1067309918;start=0

- .dll and .jnilib files only work if they're in the same folder as
  the processing app. in the future, they will run properly just from
  within your 'code' folder.

- java mode in rev 63 and higher only works if you have java available
  in your path--meaning that you've installed it yourself under
  windows or linux, or this will always be the case for macosx.

- network examples haven't been updated for the latest api, so they
  will likely break in releases 60 and higher.

- clipping planes are not yet implemented. meaning that objects may
  sometimes fly into the camera and turn upside down or do other tricks.
  http://proce55ing.net/discourse/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Proce55ing_software_bugs;action=display;num=1058491568;start=0
  http://proce55ing.net/discourse/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Proce55ing_software_bugs;action=display;num=1052313604;start=0
  http://proce55ing.net/discourse/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Proce55ing_software_bugs;action=display;num=1042699742

- concave polygons still don't work, meaning that lots of irregular
  polygons won't draw properly.
  http://proce55ing.net/discourse/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Proce55ing_software_bugs;action=display;num=1062469819;start=0

- a lot of println() commands will make the environment really slow or
  even lock up completely. it's because the console can't keep
  up. we're working on a fix.
  http://proce55ing.net/discourse/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Proce55ing_software_bugs;action=display;num=1064182823

- the app doesn't provide an option to 'cancel' when it so politely asks
  if you want to "save changes before quitting?". this is because of
  java weirdness that we're trying to straighten out. the vm seems to
  be force quitting itself, even if cancel is selected. 

- lines with stroke weights that aren't 1 are probably broken.

- single pixel lines still have some problems with drawing over things.

- the size of exported applets has jumped in this release. this will
  get smaller again in a future release. we're in the middle of
  transitioning between two different sets of rendering/graphics code.

- curveTangent() is not yet implemented. contributions welcome.

- strokeMiter() and strokeJoin() exist but are not implemented.

- textures warp in strange ways due to perspective problems.
  http://proce55ing.net/discourse/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Proce55ing_software_bugs;action=display;num=1050650262

- smooth() is not completely implemented. there will be quirks in how
  it draws (like a weird flat line at the end of a shape, or areas
  that are less than smooth).

- on windows, processing can't be run from a folder that has non-ascii
  characters in its name. 
  http://proce55ing.net/discourse/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Proce55ing_software_bugs;action=display;num=1062794781

- video examples sometimes crash the whole environment on windows

- jikes is ~9 megabytes in size, which is a bit obnoxious. it doesn't
  hurt anything but we plan to put it on a diet for a future release.
  http://proce55ing.net/discourse/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Proce55ing_software_bugs;action=display;num=1062581723

- net needs work, it's currently sending unicode, instead of ascii or
  UTF-8, data. this can cause problems with other programs.

- run.bat hasn't been given love for a while and may not work. at the
  very least, you'll need to modify it to find your copy of quicktime
  for java. 

- sound doesn't always stop when the 'stop' button is hit (i.e. the
  mixer example seems broken). for now, you have to first quit
  processing to stop it. 

- the horizontal scroller for the text area has some weirdness, this
  may not be fixed until after beta, depending on how bad it is.

- using saveFrame() or saveBytes() or some of those things will cause
  trouble inside applets. we'll try to do better error trapping soon
  so that your applet doesn't crash when this happens. 
  http://proce55ing.net/discourse/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Proce55ing_software_bugs;action=display;num=1059928189;start=0


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BUGS THAT WE PROBABLY CAN'T FIX
these are things that are out of our control


- "create font" crashes sometimes on windows, bringing down the whole
  environment. this seems to be a jdk bug, because it's not a java
  exception, but a full crash.

- video sometimes likes to crash the application completely on
  windows. this seems to be due to problems with quicktime for java
  (since we shouldn't be able to write code that crashes using
  java.. heh right). so this is probably outside of our control.