[QuickTacBeta] Possible issue in Program

[Peter Sullivan]

Hello Kelly,

I'm putting this response on list, though as a non-subscriber, you
ordinarily won't able to post to QuickTacBeta.  I think that you raise some
issues of general interest.

We got twenty-seven hours from posting to the first crash report.  I've done
worse.

I suspect, though, that you're running into DDE timing issues.  QuickTac.exe
normally uses DDE to work in a client/server model.  However, you may find
that things are more stable if your do one of two things:

1. Always run QuickTac as "QuickTac.exe --standalone".  Run this wayh,
QuickTac makes no use of DDE.  We found, when exploring compatibility with
Windows 98, that this was helpful.  (We still don't claim to support Windows
98 or ME, but people who will run QuickTac on Windows 98 or ME anyway may
find that tip helpful.)

2. Run "QuickTac.exe --server" once before running QuickTac without
arguments each time you start QuickTac, unless there is one or more QuickTac
windows on screen already.  This isn't something I recommend long term, but
if you have a moment to try it out, it could help us understand what is
going on.  We may just not be patient enough waiting for the server.

The Juliet PRO issue is an interesting one.  This is one of the models that
I actually do have.  And so I think that I've worked out fairly precisely
(for standard braille paper) just how many dots will fit on a page.  I too
was surprised that the device's "internal margins" are as large as they are
when in graphics mode.  Certainly they aren't that way for text.
Regardless, I do plan another round of looking at this, but I'm not sure
that the problem can be solved in software.  (If you have any information to
suggest I'm wrong about that, please let me know.)

Asking about future plans is certainly not off topic.  I'm not working on
such things at the moment, but happy to share what we're thinking.  At
present, we plan to offer a lot in the way of importer/exporter features,
but presumably not in the free edition.  I'm under some pressure to justify
my salary. ;-)

There is an indirect way to import/export from a BMP file.  But it's rather
difficult, particularly for the importing.  If you're interested, I'll fill
you in.

It will help me to know what importers and exporters will be most helpful.
I have in mind a good set of raster formats (bmp, tiff, jpg) and SVG, but
nothing more for now.

- Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: Kelly Ford
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 8:07 PM
To: quicktacbeta at duxsys.com
Subject: Possible issue in Program

Hello,

I'm new to this program but saw the announcement and wanted to give it a
try.  I was working with a sighted colleague to have some diagrams drawn.
What we noticed was that the first time we launched the program it failed to
draw the UI completely (my colleague's description) but we could still start
making diagrams.  However the program would then crash.  If we relaunched
the program then all worked fine on that second launch and all future
launches until a machine reboot at which point the cycle would start again.

I was running on Windows XPSP2 with the JAWS screen reader 8.0 current
shipping release version if that matters.

Also, I was using a Juliet Pro and set the page setup for wide and 11
inches.  I noticed that the diagrams still only filled about the first two
thirds of the printed page.  Is there some setting I need to adjust?

Finally, and this may be a bit off topic, is there any plan to allow import
from other programs or is there a better option for this?  For example I
have a bunch of visio diagrams I'd like to get in braille.
Right now my colleague is recreating them with this program.

Kelly