Well, it’s been an interesting day today. For a start I am beginning to incorporate generic logging routines for the purposes of beta testing. The logs will eventually feature a time code for every major event (like opening or closing a file, doing a search & replace etc), and where applicable a text description. Any exceptions (errors) caught will also be recorded in the log, and the user will have the option of continuing even after such an error. These logs should greatly streamline the beta testing process, as well as providing useful statistical information. So as to assuage those who are paranoid about spyware (which I loathe too), I will state now:

1. No personal data will be collected and sent to me without your knowledge. In any case where there is data to be sent, you the user will be informed of this need and offered the choice to accept or decline.
2. Where possible any data being sent will be first accessible to the user, such as the log files I just mentioned. This means you can read it to make sure there’s nothing in there you’re not happy about.

A program log is one of those things which is amazingly bloody useful, but often as a programmer you dont get around to implementing one until you run into a mighty awful bug that cant be tracked in any other way.

Today I added a v.cool feature to HTML Editor, which allows me un-include style sheets while keeping the actual styles they impart. This could be useful for taking content from totally differently styled pages and sticking it on one page without the styles clashing (except aesthetically of course). What was nice is that in the process of adding this feature, I came across a couple of really stupid mistakes I had made months ago in the style handling I use for my v early prototype anti-aliased HTML Renderer. It’s nice to come back to something and find an obvious problem with an obvious solution… It feels like I’m getting smarter instead of dumber! (which is how it normally seems)

Also added a bit more Javascript to my site… because I was worried that for some people my font choice may be a little too small. The 2 arrows in the header of each page adjust font-size up or down , in smallish increments. A cookie will then be stored so that when you view other pages from this site, they will automatically choose that font size. How’s that for waste of time which would be better spent on software? Not only is it not essential, but it’s really asking for trouble (causing pages to modify their own display settings… yuk!) In fact I’ve already noticed a glitch… I think I’ll get rid of it shortly.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 10th, 2002 at 2:14 am and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.