14.0.2.1 RC: "New Updates..." fails, odd widget background color, and some more

[os2bird]

Testing the 14.0.2.1 release candidate on Linux since yestereve.

1. For fun I tried "Help->Product Updates->New Updates..." and I'm getting the following error ~75% into the "Checking for Updates..." dialog:

Error retriving updates.

MANIFEST: Action failed for '':

2. I also noticed that the background color which with 14.0.1.2 was kind of grayish now has a yellowish tint. It doesn't match the widget background the GTK/GNOME apps are using. It's not ugly, so it's not a biggie...

3. An odd ".command" file tab that didn't seem to represent any buffer showed up. Sorry about this, but I don't know exactly when it showed up because I was editing lot's of files at the time. I'm also not sure how sticky it was as I didn't try right clicking on it or anything, it was just still there after I closed all the other buffers. Come to think of it, it was not in the Buffers tab of the Files toolbar. Not seen it yet today. Again, sorry for the poor observations.

Other than that, it seems most 14.0.0.7 & 14.0.1.2 features are still there; the stick right side when diffing subversion history, the "Diff file.h with the most up to date version" action doing a double take under some circumstances, the rebuilding the workspace tag data (using shift+ctrl+t) say "Database was opened for read only, modifications are not allowed" with the same kind of regularity, the failuire to add new files to project correctly when compiling them (shift+f10). 
 
Kind Regards,
 knut

[ScottW, VP of Dev]

Thanks for the problem reports. We're looking into them.

As for the color, we tried to lighten the background color to better match the color on our other platforms. We didn't notice a yellowish tint on our test machines, though. We just thought the old grey was too oppressive and dark. We want this color to be configurable in future releases.

[David_O]

There is a way to return the background colors of Linux/UNIX versions of SlickEdit to the pre-14.0.2 gray colors.

SlickEdit can read a file similar to an .Xdefaults file to set the color of various SlickEdit elements.  This file must be in your home directory and be named SlickEdit.  Sorry, this filename cannot be changed, but, as ScottW mentioned, we hope to make this process easier to configure in a future release.  To make SlickEdit use the values in this file, you must set the following environment variable as follows.

for bash:
export VSLICKUSEXRESOURCE=1

for csh:
setenv VSLICKUSEXRESOURCE 1

Then, create in your home directory a file named 'SlickEdit' with the following contents:

Code: [Select]

VisualSlickEdit*defaultDialogColor:  #d8d8d8
VisualSlickEdit*menuColor:  #d8d8d8
VisualSlickEdit*mdiClientColor:  #d8d8d8
VisualSlickEdit*buttonColor:  #efefef

There are other SlickEdit element colors you may experiment with, but the above 4 were the only ones changed in 14.0.2.  These others are:

Code: [Select]

mdiChildFrameActiveColor
multiClickTime
textBoxColor
textBox2Color
caretColor
mdiChildBorderWidth
scrollBarWidth

The colors are given as standard RGB colors in hex (e.g. #d8d8d8).  You can also specify any standard predefined X color.  For example, on St. Patrick's Day, give this a try:

Code: [Select]

VisualSlickEdit*defaultDialogColor:  green
VisualSlickEdit*menuColor:  green
VisualSlickEdit*mdiClientColor: green
VisualSlickEdit*buttonColor:  lightgreen


Hope this helps.

[Christoph]

Does this still work for v15?  I tried following the steps described above but the color hasn't changed back.   I miss my dark grey. :p

thnx,
Christoph

[David_O]

Yes, this will still work in v15, but there are two changes.  First, the resource file's name has been changed to SlickEdit<version number>.xclr.  So for v15, move your old SlickEdit file to SlickEdit15.xclr.  Second, SE will read and use this file by default, unless environment variable VSLICKUSEXRESOURCE is set to 0.

Hope this helps.

-David-