I'm using the latest Pagestream Pro (5.0.5. under Linux Mint 12. I use the MATE graphic interface, if that helps.

Pagestream has become unusable. I can open a window and edit/save/etc. but I can't open another window. I can open it, but can't switch windows. When I switch windows PGS locks up and I have to force quit. I've restarted the computer and that does not help.

What I've been doing is creating a new document and opening a PDF file in editable mode. I then copy a few things from the PDF file and use it in the new document. That's the only practical way to recreate a document that was originally created using PageMaker 6.

This erratic behavior is really putting me off.

64 or 32 bit mint, I use Ubuntu and nearly all is well with PGS, are you in
windowed mode or single screen? (not sure what the mode is really called)

On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 5:55 AM, farna@att.net <farna@amc-mag.com> wrote:

> **
>
>
> I'm using the latest Pagestream Pro (5.0.5. under Linux Mint 12. I use
> the MATE graphic interface, if that helps.
>
> Pagestream has become unusable. I can open a window and edit/save/etc. but
> I can't open another window. I can open it, but can't switch windows. When
> I switch windows PGS locks up and I have to force quit. I've restarted the
> computer and that does not help.
>
> What I've been doing is creating a new document and opening a PDF file in
> editable mode. I then copy a few things from the PDF file and use it in the
> new document. That's the only practical way to recreate a document that was
> originally created using PageMaker 6.
>
> This erratic behavior is really putting me off.
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

what you are describing does not sound like PgS is locking up, but that it is waiting for input due to the desktop manager not correctly switching focus. Could you be more specific as to the problem and steps to reproduce?

E.g.,

1. start pgs
2. start new document
3. edit, etc.
4. start second new document
-- PgS becomes unresponsive

I'm suspecting that there is a step 5 where you attempt to switch back to the first document, but with your description I'm not sure. If my guess is correct, how are you switching document windows?

Tim Doty

On Jun 13, 2012, at 6:55 AM, farna@att.net wrote:

> I'm using the latest Pagestream Pro (5.0.5. under Linux Mint 12. I use the MATE graphic interface, if that helps.
>
> Pagestream has become unusable. I can open a window and edit/save/etc. but I can't open another window. I can open it, but can't switch windows. When I switch windows PGS locks up and I have to force quit. I've restarted the computer and that does not help.
>
> What I've been doing is creating a new document and opening a PDF file in editable mode. I then copy a few things from the PDF file and use it in the new document. That's the only practical way to recreate a document that was originally created using PageMaker 6.
>
> This erratic behavior is really putting me off.
>
>

You are correct.
1. Start Pgs
2. Open document 1 with 2-3 pages done
3. Open PDF file (for editing) and move the window over and up about an inch so it's not directly over document 1
4. Switch to doc 1 by moving he mouse over the edge of doc 1 and clicking. Do a few edits on document 1
5. Switch to PDF file to cut or copy text or photo.
6. Switch back to doc 1. Sometimes I manage to get one edit done this way, other times the switch occurs, but the screen doesn't fully write the page. Might get 1/4 of the page and a big grey area. At this point everything locks up. If I switch screens I only get a partial view and a big grey area or just a big grey area on the second screen.
7. I try to close one of the windows and get a "program not responding/force quit?" message. So I force quit, then restart the program.... and repeat. I've even tried restarting the computer at this point, to no avail.

I believe the problem might be a bug in the PDF edit feature. Earlier today I tried just opening the PDF in Adobe reader and copying from there. That seemed to work fine. I only had one document open in Pgs though, not two, so it could still be a document window/switching problem. I tried using the window selection in the task bar, BTW. Same results as switching windows by clicking in the window.

Since I may be using the PDF edit feature in a way that wasn't intended or anticipated, I can forgive that. I'll have to try opening multiple Pgs documents one day. I have to admit that one reason I didn't really want to try Scribus was too many bugs and unfinished "features", but the main thing was they kept changing the format for a while a couple years back. So a document created with the then current version wouldn't be readable in the next version. I went with Pgs because I expected it to be a mature and mostly bug free product. As I said, I might be doing something that wasn't anticipated with the PDF edit feature, so if that turns out to be the problem it's understandable.

--- In PageStreamSupport@yahoogroups.com, Tim Doty <thoromyr@...> wrote:
>
> what you are describing does not sound like PgS is locking up, but that it is waiting for input due to the desktop manager not correctly switching focus. Could you be more specific as to the problem and steps to reproduce?
>
> E.g.,
>
> 1. start pgs
> 2. start new document
> 3. edit, etc.
> 4. start second new document
> -- PgS becomes unresponsive
>
> I'm suspecting that there is a step 5 where you attempt to switch back to the first document, but with your description I'm not sure. If my guess is correct, how are you switching document windows?
>
> Tim Doty
>
> On Jun 13, 2012, at 6:55 AM, farna@... wrote:
>
> > I'm using the latest Pagestream Pro (5.0.5. under Linux Mint 12. I use the MATE graphic interface, if that helps.
> >
> > Pagestream has become unusable. I can open a window and edit/save/etc. but I can't open another window. I can open it, but can't switch windows. When I switch windows PGS locks up and I have to force quit. I've restarted the computer and that does not help.
> >
> > What I've been doing is creating a new document and opening a PDF file in editable mode. I then copy a few things from the PDF file and use it in the new document. That's the only practical way to recreate a document that was originally created using PageMaker 6.
> >
> > This erratic behavior is really putting me off.
> >
> >
>

As a first step I'd suggest using the PgS menu to switch active document windows. If that resolves the interface hang issues it suggests a problem between PgS and the desktop/window manager, which would at least give Deron a place to start looking.

Because PgS has multiple windows (toolbar and document window at the least, edit palette probably and I usually have the document, page, script and style palettes open as well) whose contents depend on the active document window when switching documents there's some notification that has to go on. Its possible that the desktop/window manager is unintentionally interfering with that, hence the interface hang.

As for scribus, in addition to its other issues I hadn't realized they were constantly changing the document format. There's no excuse for that: you can load a PgS v3 document into PgS v5 -- and vice versa.

As for PgS bugs… IMO it is pretty robust with a couple of seriously annoying bugs. On linux PgS python scripts can't get return values and on OS X you can't cut and paste. Not meaning to downplay those -- the problem on linux has largely killed my ability to use PgS on that platform as I rely a lot on scripts, and the copy/paste issue on OS X is a serious pain -- you can move objects *within* a document, but have to export/import to move *between* documents. And you can't just paste in screenshots, they have to be saved as files (I recently wrote some documentation where I felt that pain).

As an aside, I was mildly involved in a game engine some years ago (as a customer) and they played the same game, every point release broke the format -- I pointed out that it was *not* an inherent problem and it'd been solved a long time ago. They didn't take me seriously until they followed up on the information (Interchange File Format was invented, by Atari if memory serves, to allow for a sane file format. It isn't magic, but it provides a framework that easily supports backwards/forwards doc format compatability).

Sometimes its more *convenient* to break backwards compatibility, but if you think about the format structure ahead of time instead of just "dump it to file" like MS Office (and most other apps) you can do cool things.

Tim Doty

On Jun 13, 2012, at 9:20 PM, farna@att.net wrote:

> You are correct.
> 1. Start Pgs
> 2. Open document 1 with 2-3 pages done
> 3. Open PDF file (for editing) and move the window over and up about an inch so it's not directly over document 1
> 4. Switch to doc 1 by moving he mouse over the edge of doc 1 and clicking. Do a few edits on document 1
> 5. Switch to PDF file to cut or copy text or photo.
> 6. Switch back to doc 1. Sometimes I manage to get one edit done this way, other times the switch occurs, but the screen doesn't fully write the page. Might get 1/4 of the page and a big grey area. At this point everything locks up. If I switch screens I only get a partial view and a big grey area or just a big grey area on the second screen.
> 7. I try to close one of the windows and get a "program not responding/force quit?" message. So I force quit, then restart the program.... and repeat. I've even tried restarting the computer at this point, to no avail.
>
> I believe the problem might be a bug in the PDF edit feature. Earlier today I tried just opening the PDF in Adobe reader and copying from there. That seemed to work fine. I only had one document open in Pgs though, not two, so it could still be a document window/switching problem. I tried using the window selection in the task bar, BTW. Same results as switching windows by clicking in the window.
>
> Since I may be using the PDF edit feature in a way that wasn't intended or anticipated, I can forgive that. I'll have to try opening multiple Pgs documents one day. I have to admit that one reason I didn't really want to try Scribus was too many bugs and unfinished "features", but the main thing was they kept changing the format for a while a couple years back. So a document created with the then current version wouldn't be readable in the next version. I went with Pgs because I expected it to be a mature and mostly bug free product. As I said, I might be doing something that wasn't anticipated with the PDF edit feature, so if that turns out to be the problem it's understandable.
>
> --- In PageStreamSupport@yahoogroups.com, Tim Doty <thoromyr@...> wrote:
> >
> > what you are describing does not sound like PgS is locking up, but that it is waiting for input due to the desktop manager not correctly switching focus. Could you be more specific as to the problem and steps to reproduce?
> >
> > E.g.,
> >
> > 1. start pgs
> > 2. start new document
> > 3. edit, etc.
> > 4. start second new document
> > -- PgS becomes unresponsive
> >
> > I'm suspecting that there is a step 5 where you attempt to switch back to the first document, but with your description I'm not sure. If my guess is correct, how are you switching document windows?
> >
> > Tim Doty
> >
> > On Jun 13, 2012, at 6:55 AM, farna@... wrote:
> >
> > > I'm using the latest Pagestream Pro (5.0.5. under Linux Mint 12. I use the MATE graphic interface, if that helps.
> > >
> > > Pagestream has become unusable. I can open a window and edit/save/etc. but I can't open another window. I can open it, but can't switch windows. When I switch windows PGS locks up and I have to force quit. I've restarted the computer and that does not help.
> > >
> > > What I've been doing is creating a new document and opening a PDF file in editable mode. I then copy a few things from the PDF file and use it in the new document. That's the only practical way to recreate a document that was originally created using PageMaker 6.
> > >
> > > This erratic behavior is really putting me off.
> > >
> > >
> >
>
>

It appears that using the editable PDF feature was the problem. It might have been me trying to copy from an editable PDF to a PgS document. In any case, I've stopped trying to use an editable PDF for a source and haven't had another freeze-up.

The comment I made about Scribus formats needs clarifying -- that was a couple years ago. The stable version was recommended, but the user group noted that the format would be changing and documents made with the then current stable version couldn't be opened with the upcoming version, and there would be no conversion program. You'd have to keep a copy of the old version to open/edit old documents. At some point there might be a need to do something like that, but I didn't want to do a lot of work only to have to start from scratch again in 12-18 months.

--- In PageStreamSupport@yahoogroups.com, Tim Doty <thoromyr@...> wrote:
>
> As a first step I'd suggest using the PgS menu to switch active document windows. If that resolves the interface hang issues it suggests a problem between PgS and the desktop/window manager, which would at least give Deron a place to start looking.
>
> Because PgS has multiple windows (toolbar and document window at the least, edit palette probably and I usually have the document, page, script and style palettes open as well) whose contents depend on the active document window when switching documents there's some notification that has to go on. Its possible that the desktop/window manager is unintentionally interfering with that, hence the interface hang.
>
> As for scribus, in addition to its other issues I hadn't realized they were constantly changing the document format. There's no excuse for that: you can load a PgS v3 document into PgS v5 -- and vice versa.
>