Known Issues with AppleScript 1.7 (Mac OS 9.2.2) and 1.8.1 (Mac OS X 10.1.2)
Known Issues with AppleScript 1.7 (Mac OS 9.2.2) and 1.8.1 (Mac OS X 10.1.2)
- Subject: Known Issues with AppleScript 1.7 (Mac OS 9.2.2) and 1.8.1 (Mac OS X 10.1.2)
- From: Chris Espinosa <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 14:03:33 -0800
All,
There's been a lot of talk on this list about problems in recent
versions of AppleScript. I want to reassure you that the assertions
made by some list members that these versions had no QA, that Apple has
destaffed AppleScript, and that Apple is not interested in AppleScript,
are flatly untrue.
We did, however, release new versions of AppleScript with last-minute
changes that caused problems in commonly-used applications. We've
documented these known problems and are working on fixes for them. The
current release notes for AppleScript can be found at:
http://www.apple.com/applescript/macosx/release_notes/181.html (1.8.1
for Mac OS X 10.1.2)
http://www.apple.com/applescript/macosx/release_notes/1.7.html (1.7
for Mac OS 9.2.2)
These notes document the dozens of bug fixes and product improvements
we've put into these versions, as well as some of the problems we're
aware of, which include:
- coercion handlers and Standard Additions that break many solutions and
applications, including Smile, on Mac OS 9
- poor performance and occasional crashes in some applications on 9 and
Classic, notably Claris Emailer
- occasional crashes in Script Debugger 3.0 on Mac OS X
Because of the nature of the problems in Mac OS 9.2.2, we will be
shipping AppleScript 1.6 on new CPUs that use Mac OS 9.2.2 (the 9.2.2
Software Update will continue to install version 1.7). We'll be posting
instructions shortly on how to reinstall AppleScript 1.6 for use with
the 9.2.2 Software Update.
Mac OS X version 10.1.2 has known problems with Script Debugger, and
we're working with Mark Alldritt to resolve those problems and allow his
customers to use that version of AppleScript.
We expect that versions that fix these known problems will be out
shortly.
We do have a Quality team that runs test suites, does ad-hoc testing,
and validates each internal and external release of AppleScript; this
team found dozens of bugs in the development of 1.7 and 1.8.1 that were
fixed prior to shipment. But no internal testing effort is as thorough
as real-world use, we did not have an adequate Beta test cycle for
either of these releases. (As an example, since we began seeding
AppleScript 1.7 for Mac OS 9, we received 16 bug reports from our Beta
sites, 9 of which were duplicates of known bugs or were not actual
bugs. This compares to 27 bugs reported by the AppleScript team and 15
bugs found by other Apple employees, 5 of which were duplicates or
non-bugs.) For future releases we hope to have a longer Beta test
period and more publicity and distribution for the Beta versions, so
that problems like the ones we've seen in 1.7 and 1.8.1 can be found and
fixed prior to their release in an operating system update.
I thank you for your patience while we address these issues and for
your commitment to the AppleScript technology.
Regards,
Chris Espinosa
Manager, Components & Scripting
Apple