B4J Question jar name

[RacingDog]

Hi, long time guys, and yes I'm still using Basic4PPC!

BUT.....

I just wanted a quick look see at B4J. So I dutifully downloaded and installed and went through the first example in the Beginner's Guide. I then decided to do a release build. I was expecting to create "First Proggy.jar", as the source was "First Proggy.b4j". I got "result.jar". Eh?

I spent ages looking for some way of setting the name of the jar file, which, as you will already know, was a complete waste of time.

I tried one of the examples, ButtonSize, which magically produced ButtonSize.jar. I scoured this example to find out what the trick was, and as you already know, found nothing.

I sat and thought about it some more and then thought "Is this a non-standard restriction on Windows file names?" given that Windows allows spaces in file names. So I tied that and Bingo!

Wouldn't it have been better if the Beginner's Guide actually mentioned the fact that there is a non-standard restriction on file names? You come close to saying that in section 9.10.2 but what you actually say is

*********************
Windows file names allow following characters:
a to z, A to Z, 0 to 9 dot . underscore _ and even following characters + - % &
Spaces and following characters * ? are not allowed.
**********************

That says that Windows does not allow spaces in file names. That is not true, Windows does allow spaces. If you don't want spaces in B4J file names then you need to specifically say that, rather than say it about Windows file names. (or start allowing spaces)

 

[RacingDog]

Ummm. You then say file names are case sensitive. Not to Windows!

 

[Erel]

You can change it after compilation to any name you like.

 

[RacingDog]

Wow. That's really useful. After 52 years in software I would really never have thought of such a complex solution!

So what are you really saying? That you will stick with misleading and erroneous documentation?

There was something else that puzzled me. Most of those 52 years was spent in various branches of the testing field. One of the most basic lessons that even beginners learnt was that under no circumstances should you require a user to enter the same data in two separate locations as the user will, sooner or later, make the mistake of causing the two places to contain inconsistent data, and that of course is a totally avoidable error that the software could prevent. And yet, despite that being a basic rule of software, you require the form size to be manually input in two separate places? I thought computers were invented to automate processes, such as duplicating data.

 

[Erel]

So what are you really saying?

Why the negative attitude?

The jar file name is in 99% of the cases not important. The users should never see it anyway. You should use the packager to create an installer.
This was my last post in this thread...

 

[RacingDog]

Sigh. I thought I made it clear. I am working through the Beginners Guide. That document does not even mention the word packager. So am I supposed to be a mind reader? What packager? The name sounds like a set up builder, to use Windows terminology, but why would I want that for my own stand alone software? You just run the program when it is one of your own.

You do realise some of us have never had anything to do with Java and it's processes and terminology?

If you don't want a negative attitude you should refrain from insulting posts such as your first one. I also don't appreciate having spent several hours being mislead by non-standard Windows conventions that were inadequately explained. I still have the incurable cancer that I had when I was here regularly before and I value my time more than others might.