Re: Stable version of AbiWord for WinXP?

Grant Edwards wrote:
> Is there a stable version of AbiWord for WinXP? I installed
> 2.4.6 on my mothers XP machine hoping it would work a bit
> better than AppleWorks 5 (which is getting a bit old in the
> tooth and doesn't really play well with Windows). Unfortunately
> AbiWord 2.4.6 locks up frequently. Among other things, doing
> just about anything involving a textbox or image will often
> cause the program to lock up with a permanent "hourglass"
> cursor and a "not responding" dialog box when you try to close
> the AbiWord window.
>
> I've also seen several formatting snafus where clicking
> somewhere will result in successively more space between lines
> until you only have a few lines per page. I had to delete the
> affected paragraphs and start over.
>
> So, I'm hoping there's a more stable version that somebody can
> recommend for use under Windows.
>
>
2.4.6 is stable for a lot of people, so I'm inclined to think there is
more here than meets the eye. (It hasn't hung or crashed for me in a
long time on Windows.) The most likely culprits, in order of
appearance, are 1) mixed plugin versions, 2) a particular document or
action, or 3) your default printer driver.

1) If this is your first install of AbiWord, proceed right on to the
next one. If you upgraded, see the instructions at the top of this bug
entry to try a clean re-install:
http://bugzilla.abisource.com/show_bug.cgi?id=9624 (Ignore the fact
that you probably aren't getting that error message, it's a useful
procedure nonetheless)

2) You mentioned images and textboxes. Is there a particular image,
image type, or document that this apperas more frequently in? Any sort
of pattern? (Was the document created in another program then edited in
Abi? Created in Abi from the start?) In short, is there anything that
could narrow down the symptoms from a a more general sense so that we
can have a better shot at reproducing the problem then fixing it?

3) This may seem weird, but it matters in every program that uses page
size to affect the document. (This includes at least Word, and probably
many others). What kind of printer do you have? Are you using the
latest drivers from the manufacturer? Try installing PDFCreator from
http://www.sf.net/projects/pdfcreator/ and setting it as your default
printer. You'll get the capability to create Adobe Acrobat PDF files
for free, and it will help stabilize any printing programs (since they
all have to ask Windows information about the printer, and Windows in
turn asks the printer driver). If the problem goes away with this
change, then we know that there's something funky with the way your
printer is acting. Try leaving it on all the time - it probably goes
into a low-power mode when left alone anyway, and it makes Windows less
confused if you don't constantly plug and unplug hardware (which is what
on/off on your printer looks like to your computer)

Hope this helps! Let us know the answers to these questions. If you
get it pinned down to a more specific case or set of cases, please file
bugs at http://bugzilla.abisource.com/ Thank you!

Ryan

-- 
Ryan Pavlik
AbiWord Win32 Platform Maintainer, Art Lead: www.abisource.com
AbiWord Community Outreach Project: www.cleardefinition.com/oss/abi/blog/
"Optimism is the father that leads to achievement."
 -- Helen Keller
"The folder structure in a modern Linux distribution such as Ubuntu
was largely inspired by the original UNIX foundations that were
created by men with large beards and sensible jumpers."
 -- Jono Bacon, The Ubuntu Guide
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