FOUNDRY - small issue with selecting a stack

More of a annoyance really. If I have been working with a stack and then select another stack to work on, the first stack remains highlighted. It does not effect functionality, it only becomes annoying when you have left the work for a moment and come back and see two stacks highlighted and one wonders which one was the one you were working on. I have found that by selecting a third stack, I can then go back to the stack I as working on without the first stack being highlighted. Using RW 8.6.2 Foundry 2.1 on IOS Catalina 10.15.5 on a iMac 27" 5k

Something for @isaiah to look at. Happens to me as well.

this sound to me like some kind of bug to me. clicking on another stack should always move the selection. if that’s not happening then there is either a bug in Stacks or there is some bad HTML or CSS on the page.

if it’s a bug in Stacks, then i should definitely fix it. if it’s a bug in the HTML or CSS then one of the stacks on the page – or perhaps even your own content – might have an error. and you’ll want to get that fixed right away too, since it might result in some corruption to the published site – and no one wants that.

here are a few questions to get this bug hunt going. please please please try to answer all the questions. this info really is needed. but if you don’t know the answer to any of these, then “i don’t know” is always perfectly valid.

:slight_smile:

first question:
can you do this:

  • on a simple page with just a few of the basic stacks?
    or
  • does this only occur on a complex page with many custom and 3rd party stacks?

i ask because my first step in fixing this problem will be recreating it here on my development Mac. if the problem can only be recreated with a complex document then i will need to collect the document from you, along with the contents of your add-ons folder so that i can open the document and see what you’re seeing.

if it can the bug can be recreated with a few of the built-in stacks we can skip that difficult step and just jump straight to the fixing it stage – which is always very nice.
if the answer is “only complex” then that’s ok too. i’ll send you instructions on how to share your project with us.

second question:
can you:

  • readily make this problem happen again and again?
    or
  • does it happen sometimes quite often?
    or
  • does it happen sometimes almost never?

third question:
are there things that make the problem happen more/less like:

  • a specific document that it happens regularly in?
  • only when you’re working with more than one document?
  • before or after you do something specific such as Preview or Publish?
  • right after you change pages?
  • right after you launch RW? or open a document?
  • after you’ve been running RW for a very long time?
  • when you are editing a partial?

last question:
are there things that make the problem go away:

  • restarting RW?
  • closing and opening the document?
  • Previewing/Publishing?
  • editing a partial?

The answers to your questions are as follows

  1. Only on complex pages, however no third party stacks involved.Here is a published page
    http://www.theswedishtiger.com/260-scotts.html. I have had no problem with simple pages. if one replaces content on the newly selected stack it will replace it on the still highlighted original stack, without updating the stack you are working on. This is particularly true on banner stacks.
  2. see answer 3
  3. Only working one project a time, not having a problem with projects that were created in Foundry v1. I am only working with one document. Preview and publishing does not seem to have any effect on this issue. But (big AH-HA here), I can recreate this right after changing pages! the problem does not clear until you update a stack. The length of time on RW does not seem to have any effect. Not editing a partial.
  4. See answer 3

“no third party stacks involved”

the page you point clearly uses Foundry, made by Elixir Graphics – a third party. Foundry is what I would consider a third party stack since it’s not one that’s built in to stacks and well, not made by me. :smiley:

but i am curious what you meant by “no third party stacks involved”?
i just thought i might be able to ask the question a bit more clearly next time so this misunderstanding doesn’t arise when i help folks in the future.

in any case, it sounds like this is only happening when using specific stacks or in specific documents. i think i’ll have to collect those things from you to dig down into this situation. i’ll put a link at the end of this message on how to do that.

“But (big AH-HA here), I can recreate this right after changing pages!”

Ahhhh! That is music to a developer’s ears. A repeatable error makes everything easy. Yeah!

But… and this really is the hard part… now you need to convey your recipe for making this bug happen back to me. So that, with a copy of your file, I can make this bug happen too – right here on my development machine inside of a debugger. And boom! It should be easy to diagnose and fix then.

So here we go…
Please explain, in as much painfully detailed as possible – exactly what you click on, or what you type in order to make the problem happen. Details details details. All the details! :smiley:

Sometimes recreating a bug comes down to silly details like where on the stack you click, or how quickly you click, or what sort of mouse you have – so… whatever details you can. Just go for it.

Please try just to stick to the absolute simplest possible way you know how to make the problem happen. And just a single instance. The more specific the better.

It’s also good to tell me exactly what i should be looking for to see the error. Sometimes when you look at this stuff all day it all blends. :crazy_face:And I’ll look at the screen and even an obvious error isn’t so obvious. LOL.

Screenshots with red circles or scribbles or arrows can help illuminate the situation too.

OK, now about sharing your project:

  1. Make a copy:
    make a copy of your project file

  2. cut it down!!!
    cut it down to the absolute minimum you need to share with me. If the problem happens just on page 3 and 5 – then delete all the other pages – that way I can’t possible look at the wrong page.

The best way to get a developer to look at a bug is to force him/her to – not give him/her any other things to look at except the bug in question.

If the problem only happens when on a specific stack – then delete all the other stacks.

If you can send me a project with a single page and single stacks THAT’S AMAZINGLY GREAT!!!

But if it needs a few pages to make the problem happen, or you can’t find a way to cut it down, that’s fine too.

  1. double check that you can still see the bug in the copy.

  2. Share the project and your addon folder with us:
    https://yourhead.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033849994-Sharing-Your-Project-and-Add-ons

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My guess is the title of the post FOUNDRY - small issue selecting stacks. The “no third party” would mean only Foundry stacks were used.

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Sorry, thought you were with Foundry, I use other third party stacks with Foundry, hence the confusion

Here you go
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/edshgu3uwwiig29/AABiBA_DU21eqIPuRUdp8PI5a?dl=0

Bug works, three pages needed so three pages in file

:+1: makes sense. simple mixup.

i am going to need the other stuff i mentioned in the post above. and that link at the end is the most important. without that i’ll have different add-ons and probably won’t see what you’re seeing.

i have the file.

i mentioned above trying to cut it down a bit. the file you sent has just three pages (awesome) – but close to 200 stacks. :grimacing:

if all those are needed to see the problem, then i’ll definitely need some guidance in how to find the problem.

thanks

Ok, are you ready? Are your sleeves rolled up, your coffee hot and your brain’s smokin’.

After opening the project, select page 246, scroll down to the second banner and select the header stack with the words ‘Basic Info’, this will highlight the stack (meaning the stack outline color will change). Thats all you need to to do on this page. Now go to page 247 and do the same as you just did on page 246. Select the stack and do nothing else. Now go back to page 246.

This is where the fun begins, and for me, it is time to take a sip of that hot coffee on my desk. You should see that the header stack you just selected has retained its highlighted status. Now try and select the stack underneath (it is a paragraph stack and starts with the words 1¢ - Bright Ultramarine).
On my RW you can’t. Foundry refuses to select it. Does not want to play. It will let you select the text within the Paragraph, and bingo it highlights. But… the header stack is still highlighted.

And the best thing is, it does this every time, it is not random, a programmers dream.

As far as the 200 stacks go. Yes, its a lot, in fact its an insane amount. Agree? But heh, I figure RW is up to the task. So why not. The nature of the information on the page demands it, and so far RW is pulling its weight. Rather like my Mother in Law, I test it until it breaks.

enjoy the coffee

Hi Roger,

The good news is that I think I may have identified this bug and if so, I might have a fix coming for this problem in Stacks v4.1.

However it was not easy for me to find – which makes me think I might be looking at a totally different issue and need to work harder to find the one that you’re seeing.

To help figure this out, I’ve made a video (it’s a bit too long and chatty – sorry) that explains the possibilities. Can you take a look at the video?

Thanks
Isaiah

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Hello Isaiah,

love your ‘rambling,’ which is just a sign how much you care :wink: I want to give you one more confirmation from my side, as I have experienced the ‘stack selection’ issue myself, too. Though using the latest RW & Stacks software versions (and Mojave on a no-longer supported 2009 13" MacBook Pro - with SSD replacement), my computer very likely falls into the ‘sufficiently slow’ category.

In my case, it is exactly the process of quickly clicking on a new stack after switching a page, leading to the selection confusion - it seems that I sometimes can even see the refresh 2-3 sec after the page switch. When I was trying to replicate the behaviour in a simplified project with only a few stacks, I wasn’t successful except once … I must have been fast or the laptop busy with something else.

Long story short, the issue you discovered matches exactly my experience on my truly old MacBook (let’s see what comes to the market next year - we are in an exciting time). Let’s see whether Roger can confirm the behaviour on his side.

Thanks and Cheers

I could not find your email address
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wmevpicdamxrtg0/bug.zip?dl=0

@GKs - thanks for confirmation of the bug. even though the bug isn’t good news, the confirmation that i’m fixing the bug that some of you see is good news.

@Theswedishtiger - I’m afraid I’m not sure why you’re sharing this with me again. Did you manage to watch the video I posted above? I may have found the bug you’re experiencing, you can help confirm or debunk that theory – but should probably watch the video for details. I give a pretty simple workaround too.

There are a number of useful links, including a support link (which gets you to our email) on the bottom of every page on our site. But I’ll paste it here to save you the trouble: http://yourhead.com/support

I should probably also let folks know that I track all the bugs (and features) for Stacks on a public tracker. If you like you can follow along and even get notifications when the status changes if you like. This will let you see when it gets fixed, help us test the beta, and confirm the fix really works.

update: i’ve added a fix into the codebase for the bug i theorized in that video. currently the v4.1 beta is private – just to stack developers since the changes were pretty big. however it should open up to the public in a week or two.

if you’d like to help test the beta we have a slack channel for beta testers (or any other stacks chat).

to sign up for the slack channel visit: http://slack.yourhead.com
once you’ve signed up you can find the channel at: http://yourhead.slack.com

thanks everyone for helping out with this one. you guys are awesome! :pray:

@Theswedishtiger - if you think the theorized bug is the right one and the workaround is good enough until the new version is released, then we’re all good. no more back and forth is needed.

if the theory seems wrong, the workaround isn’t working for you, or you have any other questions about anything at all, just let me know. and thanks again!

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I will try linking again. The link will take you to a video and all will be explained in the video

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wmevpicdamxrtg0/bug.zip?dl=0

Bug.zip expands to the bug.rw8 project file ?! … but not to a video explaining your situation ?

Not sure what happened, i will try again tomorrow

For some reason, Drop Box was having some kind of issue, you end up receiving a copy the RW8 file. My sincere apologies. Here is a new link

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z9q08maq80mwvds/isaiah.mpg?dl=0

Roger, it looked very similar to my video. And the bug looks, at least from my perspective, to be one and the same.

In your video the bug only happens when you move directly from page selection to clicking on the stack. And the first few clicks seemed not to really work correctly. All these things are the symptoms of the bug I just fixed in the private beta version. Yeah!

The mystery seems pretty well solved to me, but if you’re still interested I did mention before that you try a specific test. In your video you elude to the test, but didn’t actually demonstrate it one way or the other: after selecting a new page, wait 10 seconds (or have a nice slow sip of coffee). I’m picking 10 seconds, just to be on the safe side.

On the other hand, you could wait for the beta version with the hopeful fix for this, and give that a try. It should be next week sometime if all goes well with testing.

If you can do it while waiting 10 seconds – then it would surely be a different bug. If waiting 10 seconds always cures the problem – then it is surely the same bug.
(and if it’s half and half then we really have an interesting bug)

You have cracked it, I will wait, with pleasure. Well done and a big thank you, It was not easy for you, and you were diligent

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