[texworks] Scripting-related hangs & crashes (was: We've reached r700+; please test)

[Stefan Löffler]

On 2010-12-04 22:49, Paul A Norman wrote:
> On 5 December 2010 00:24, Stefan Löffler <st.loeffler at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I basically have one question regarding all scripting-related stuff: how
>> did you obtain your 701 build? If you built it yourself, and include
>> plugins (as it seems from the MS error dump you provided), you need to
>> rebuild those plugins as well (otherwise, they are trying to access
>> things that have changed, which easily causes problems and crashes).
>>
> I got it from a reputable supplier I know down the road they've been
> in the business for a while I think, I've had a few good downloads
> form there from time to time ;-)
>
> http://code.google.com/p/texworks/downloads/list
>

Hm, interesting, and disturbing ;).
OK, I looked over your appcompat.txt file again, and it seems it picked
up all Tw versions and supplementary files you have on your system. I
wonder how the contents of that file is assemble - unfortunately, the
internet seems to be flooded with people complaining (erroneously) about
that file causing programs to crash, so it's hard to find some useful
information...

On 2010-12-04 10:42, Paul A Norman wrote:
> 1. I think this was covered by someone else earlier - but in case
> still relevant  - Windows Xp SP3 Tw File Open takes up to ten or even
> more seconds to present the dialogue box.

This is (still) really curious. I don't experience this, as many others.
On the other hand, there also seems to be (quite a large?) group who do
experience this. All in all, this seems rather odd, and more related to
the respective system than to the code.
What I did see was that the open dialog did stay blank for maybe half a
second the first time I opened it - but not thereafter.

> I'll run all these following ones here and not in separate Issues as
> they may all be due to the same, one, new innovation/ change perhaps?
>
> 2. TwMenu//Edit/Preferences/Scripts
>     Tick or untick the Script Writing check box and things will either
> freeze permanently when you ok the dialogue, or hang for about nine
>      seconds.

Again, I can't reproduce this, and it strikes me as weird. The only
thing that was added to the code were two lines - one to get the value,
and one to set it, just as countless other code lines do in the same
function (see
http://code.google.com/p/texworks/source/diff?spec=svn692&r=692&format=side&path=/trunk/src/PrefsDialog.cpp&old_path=/trunk/src/PrefsDialog.cpp&old=691).
One other thing is that the script list is reloaded, but nothing should
change there if only write access was changed (if plugins are
enabled/disabled, the list naturally changes, however).

So, at the moment I don't have a clear idea what this could be. A few
things to try would be:
 * Get rid of the old versions of Tw. You could move them to a USB stick
or something. Ideally, this shouldn't change anything, but you never
know where Windows meddles
 * Run Tw in full portable mode (ini+lib). This avoids writing to the
registry (it uses the ini file instead), and it allows to...
 * Remove all scripts (from the lib/scripts folder in portable mode).
This should avoid problems that may be caused by reloading the script
list (if any).

HTH
Stefan