New Tangix TesterPRO Client application released

Posted by Mattias Sandström on June 3, 2009

After months of testing we have finally taken the step to release version 6.0.1 of Tangix TesterPRO Client. This new version is developed and compiled using REALbasic 2009 which has caused some migration problems of the code that had to be solved, mainly affecting the handling of windows in the code and the code-flow around windows. The major cause of problems was related to the Windows’ Open events that did not fire in the same was as in REALbasic 2007 that was used for older versions of Tangix TesterPRO Client. A couple of syntax changes were also required to take care of as some functions have been depreciated between 2007 and 2009 versions.

Changed Picture object creation
Another change between 2007 and 2009 was how a new Picture object is created. In the old code, new pictures were created using:
p = new Picture(width, height, depth)

This fails with an exception in 2009 if the width or height is zero. The correct way to create a new Picture in 2009 is:
p = NewPicture(width, height, depth)

The handling of out-of-memory situations differs in 2007 and 2009 when it comes to Picture objects and also needed to be taken care of.

Installer - yuk!
The major change between 2007 and 2009 is the compilation which since the 2008 version of REALbasic no longer creates a single-EXE file. This has been a major cause of concern for us as this would break the simplicity of the system from the users’ view. Despite all reports from REAL Software and other REALbasic developers about the problems with the single-EXE approach we have had very few cases of issues. With 2009 we now need to provide the same user experience and decided to start using the NullSoft Scriptable Installer System (NSIS) to build an EXE-file containing the unpacking logic. This installer is stripped down and could be seen as an un-zipper on steroids, taking case of displaying the license agreement, asking for the location to unzip the application files and then (optionally) launching the installed application. So far there have been no issues reported from the users about installation problems.

2007 bug that caused us to go to 2009
One major issue in REALbasic 2007 that was solved by re-compiling with 2009 was the disabled scroll-bar of TextFields when the window was located on a secondary monitor with negative coordinates. This seems to be solved in the 2009 framework and fixes this long-standing issue.

Keeping fingers crossed!
-- Mattias Sandström