Frustration with packager warnings and errors

[jgfoster]

The runtime packager contains a step that identifies warnings and errors. This list typically contains thousands of lines, almost all of which are related to problems in the base image (or vendor-supplied add-ons such as WindowBuilderPro). This makes the tool essentially useless as a way to find actual problems in an application. Does anyone find this tool useful, and if so, how do you deal with the overwhelming number of pre-existing problems?

To make matters worse, if there are unmanaged globals or pool dictionaries, then the display gets a walkback when trying to display the list. Since each the list is redisplayed each time the window is brought to the front (taking several seconds), a new walkback is reported. This makes the window essentially useless since it is impossible to go to the next step.

After spending several hours digging through the various unmanaged things, I've worked it down to two: (1) SampleNLSPoolDictionary (which seems to come from WbNLSExample), and (2) AbtFeatureLoadGrp (I don't know where it comes from). Can we agree that SampleNLSPoolDictionary should be defined with a _PRAGMA_ method? Any idea of the source for AbtFeatureLoadGrp?

James Foster

[marten]

The runtime packager contains a step that identifies warnings and errors. This list typically contains thousands of lines, almost all of which are related to problems in the base image (or vendor-supplied add-ons such as WindowBuilderPro). This makes the tool essentially useless as a way to find actual problems in an application. Does anyone find this tool useful, and if so, how do you deal with the overwhelming number of pre-existing problems?

To make matters worse, if there are unmanaged globals or pool dictionaries, then the display gets a walkback when trying to display the list. Since each the list is redisplayed each time the window is brought to the front (taking several seconds), a new walkback is reported. This makes the window essentially useless since it is impossible to go to the next step.

After spending several hours digging through the various unmanaged things, I've worked it down to two: (1) SampleNLSPoolDictionary (which seems to come from WbNLSExample), and (2) AbtFeatureLoadGrp (I don't know where it comes from). Can we agree that SampleNLSPoolDictionary should be defined with a _PRAGMA_ method? Any idea of the source for AbtFeatureLoadGrp?

James Foster

Very often this problems comes from incorrect prerequisites (perhaps unaware of the user/programmer). In the example above I would spend some time to get to know, why the packager wants to include code/data from example applications.

Another good idea is to package from a new, clean image just after loading your application using some configuration maps (etc).

Marten

[wembley]

James -

I have opened case 34405 for the problem of the 2 names in unmanaged namespace (not the more global "Why are there 1000's of messages coming out of the packager") -- fixed in V8.0.0.

1) The 'toBeLoadedCode' in WbNLSExample has been removed and a PRAGMA has been added to define SampleNLSPoolDictionary. This fix will be in the next release of WindowBuilder Pro.

2) AbtFeatureLoadGrp (an empty pool) looks like cruft in the build image. As a workaround you can delete it from the Smalltalk namespace. The fix will be in the next release of VA Smalltalk.

Thanks for letting us know about this problem.

[jgfoster]

John,

Thanks for the prompt reply confirming the two issues. I appreciate your work.

James