There are 689 records in TurtleSoft’s Problem Log, nearly all of them for bugs in Goldenseal accounting/estimating software. Most showed up during the first few years, then tapered off. This year there was a slight uptick because of old bugs caught while testing the new accounting app.
257 bugs are marked as Completed. Most of the others were fixed long ago, but didn’t get a status update. A few are user bug reports that we couldn’t duplicate.
Recent bug finds are usually small stuff: slightly annoying or very rare. However, last week we discovered a serious Goldenseal design flaw. It may be the cause for some mystery errors. The problem will linger on in Goldenseal, but not in the new version.
One handy feature in our software is linked records. There are many ways to see something related. Some are commands in the View menu. Others are buttons in records. You can also see links from clairvoyant/smart fields and from double-clicks on report lines. All those actions will activate a window, then jump to a record (some buttons start a new record, instead).
The system is nifty, but we overlooked something important. What happens if the window was already open, with an unsaved record? It’s an “edge case”. Probably rare, but it may happen. The code tries to save changes, but if it’s too incomplete to save, the record sits in limbo after another one is loaded. When you quit the app the dud record will disappear, but it may cause chaos before that.
Fixing it took a while because we discovered another problem. The different ways to see links were added gradually, with slightly different code each time. Rather than fix four different functions, our staff combined them so only one change is needed. That will make future upkeep easier.
The new accounting software now warns about the unfinished record, and cancels the link. Slightly annoying, but better than creating a mess.
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com