[8311] in Athena Bugs
vax 7.3P: olh
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ckclark@Athena.MIT.EDU)
Wed Oct 2 15:12:21 1991
From: ckclark@Athena.MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 91 15:13:04 -0400
To: bugs@Athena.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: ckclark@mit.edu
System name: hal-2000
Type and version: CVAXSTAR 7.3P
Display type: SM
What were you trying to do?
help @rel37:main_menu
What's wrong:
Apparently no information was available for Athena Release 3.7,
so I had to pay for my typo:
Instead of producing a useful message, olh popped up a transient
error window with the message:
---------------------
| |
| ! Error in token |
|-------------------|
| |
| ------ |
| | OK | |
| ------ |
---------------------
Of course, it's not ``OK,'' but I can't do anything until I type
click on the button that says ``OK,'' so I did.
I got another transient, demanding my immediate attention:
--------------------------------------
| |
| ! Not owner while parsing keyword |
|------------------------------------|
| |
| ------ |
| | OK | |
| ------ |
--------------------------------------
Submissively, I clicked ``OK'' a second time.
What should have happened:
Regarding the use of the pop-up windows producing the successive
messages:
Error in token
and
Not owner while parsing keyword
The user interface improved by replacing the relevant code with
the line:
fprintf(stderr,"You lose.\n");
(The old MH standby.)
There's no point in using an interactive pop-up window for this,
since the user only has no choice anyway. This reminds me of
old FORTRAN compilers that used to produce elucidating diagnostics
like:
BAD C* TAG IN LABEL 567
when you forgot an endif.
Please describe any relevant documentation references:
help @foo:bar
