
This is a BETA release of the SPC Toolbox and as such, is bound to have
a number of bugs.  Of course, unlike Matlab (and Mathworks Toolboxes),
you didn't pay any money for this software.  This software is also a
one-man project (designer, writer, QA controller, etc).  Hence, I won't
feel too bad if you find some bugs but I would appreciate knowing if
you find any so I can fix them (I do want to deliver a quality
product).  Anyway, here are a few known problems.


Slow to start GUI Application
----------------------------------
This is not a bug, it's just a side effect of Matlab being an
interpreted language.  The long startup time the first time a GUI is
started occurs because of the number of files which have to be read and
internally compiled by Matlab.  Some speed increase can be realized by
installing the SPC Toolbox in the "../matlab/toolbox" directory.


Bus errors, IO Errors, and Segmentation Violations on Unix platforms.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Quite frequently, you can experience these errors when running SPC GUI
applications on UNIX platforms.  These do not occur when running under
MS-Windows Matlab.  As near as I can figure, these errors are due to
the kluggy interface between Matlab and X-Windows.  If you get these
errors and can find an action that can consistently reproduce the
error, contact The Mathworks like you would for any other Matlab bug.


Memory fragmentation
--------------------
Sometimes after opening and closing several large spectral surfaces
using the SPECT3D application, the surface will seemingly stop
rendering and then do nothing.  Pressing control-C is required to bring
control back.  Near as I can figure, Matlab has fragmented memory so
bad its gotten lost.  The only thing I know what to do is save your
workspace, quit Matlab, restart it, and reload your workspace.


Edit boxes on frames in MS-Windows Matlab
-----------------------------------------
For some reason, The Mathworks didn't program the uicontrols so that an
edit box is visible when displayed on top of a frame in the MS-Windows
version of Matlab.  Under X-Windows, an edit box appears on a frame
appears as a shadowed depression.  Under MS-Windows, the only way to
make an edit box visible is to display it in a different color.  I've
tried to go back and put in a switch to do this on when running
MS-Windows Matlab.  However, I may have missed a few.  If you suspect
there is supposed to be and edit box there, watch for the cursor to
change to an I-beam or just keep clicking in the area until you see a
text cursor appear.


Watch pointer
-------------
The watch pointer is used to indicate Matlab is busy performing some
operation with an SPC Toolbox application.  Unfortunately, the cursor
does not change to a watch when set as advertised on all platforms.  To
get it to appear, a DRAWNOW command is required and this causes the
plot to keep redrawing, slowing down the GUI application.  I've left
out the drawnow commands hoping this will be fixed in version 4.2 of
Matlab.


Menu item checkmarks under MS-Windows Matlab
--------------------------------------------
When setting the 'Checked' uimenu property to 'on' under MS-Windows
Matlab, the checkmark is not drawn.  To draw the checkmark, you first
have to create the control with UICONTROL, render it with a DRAWNOW
command and then use the SET command to make the checkmark appear.
Sometimes, this was inconvient to implements so not all default menu
items are checked until after a menu item has been selected.  Again,
hopefully this will be fixed in Matlab 4.2.


Cursor colors
-------------
The line cursors are line objects drawn with the EraseMode property set
to 'xor'.  Unfortunately, the color cannot be set in this mode.  To
tell the truth, I can't tell how you can predict what color of an
object you will get when you set the EraseMode to xor.  I know it
depends on the background but still, if you use the same background
color on different hardware (even on machines of the same architecture,
the cursors come up in differenct colors.  This can sometimes make them
invisible or nearly invisible.  If this occurs, fool around with the
setting for the SPC_WINDOW or SPC_AXIS variables in the spcolors.m
configuration file.  If anybody can find the secret to predicting the
color, please let me know.


spect2d
-------
This is still a project under works.  I know there are some power
normalizaiton  problems.  Someday, I hope to get them figured out.

