Deck Echange

[Aurora]

Hi Richard:

When I try to enter the deck exchange page I`m directed to the OT forum search page or to my personal OTZ.
Could not download, most of the time when I click to download, or nothing happens, or I`m directed to the OT forum search.

Maybe there are too much of us visiting the page?

Thanks for all the new options you added to the forum and deck echange page. And all those decks that keep me downloading all day...

I think it was a good desicion to keep the decks, you previously had in the public page, here in TZ

Thanks in advance for your attention.

Love,

[Marvin]

Hello,

I'm getting the same problem.

Later,

Marvin

[Programmer]

Hi Guys,

I have been thinking a lot about this problem and what could be behind it. What makes it tricky is that I don't have this behaviour on my machine, but I do have a couple of ideas:

First, it might have something to do with the file mshtml.dll which is installed with the program. It might be that the version I have distributed is incompatible with some peoples versions of Internet Explorer, or with something else on their system. I don't think it is O/S related though because Marvin is using Windows 98 and Aurora is using XP pro (I think you said that before, please tell me if I am wrong about that, Aurora).

Could you try renaming or removing this file, which you can find in the Orphalese Tarot folder? Try to run the program and please let me know if you get any errors. It might be that the program behaves exactly as before, or it might be that you can't use the OTZ at all.

My other idea is that it has something to do with the navigation tree. When you get back to me with the results of this little test I will upload a beta you can try out with a slight modification to the way the navigation tree works. I will wait till tomorrow to do that though so we can keep these two things separate.

Obviously this only applies to Marvin, Aurora and Gisela and anyone else who has been having this problem with navigation. If it ain't broke don't try to fix it!

Richard

[Aurora]

Richard:

I closed the program and removed the mshtml.dll file. Open it again and got an error message that said i will not be allow to use TZ. The program open as usual, but cannot access the TZ. I put the file back again and I`m here again.
The curious thing is that I do not have problems to access the forum page. It is only when trying to access the deck exchange page that I`m directed, either to My OTZ, TZ forum search or users home pages. I`m directed to one of this 3 pages only. After I close and open the program a couple of times I can access the page and download some decks, then I have to repeat the same thing.

I`m accessing TZ with my home computer, where I have Windows XP Home Edition.
I have 2 notebooks, one with XP Home Edition and the newest one with XP Pro. I have 3 computers in total.

I never go TZ with my notebooks.

Love, Aurora

[Programmer]

Hi Aurora,

Thanks for the feedback!

I think the fact that you cannot use the program after deleting or renaming that file supports my first idea. This is because I can delete the file with no problem - the program runs fine and I can access the OTZ.

For now I am going to work on the assumption that I should not have included this file in the setup, because it is a system file and varies from machine to machine depending on operating system and version of IE.

For you, Marvin, Gisela and anyone else affected by this problem, the program is using my file which is slightly incompatible. On the other hand (and I don't know why) for me, Dominatrix and the rest of the users who don't have the problem the program is instead using the correct version of the dll as registered on the machine. That is why I can delete the file from my Orphalese Tarot directory and the program carries on working.

Could you try the following and see if it helps: uninstall Orphalese Tarot using the Add/Remove programs tool, and then reinstall with this file: http://www.orphalese.net/beta/tarotsetup.zip. This is a full setup which doesn't inlcude the mshtml.dll file. Hopefully in the absence of this file the windows installer will configure the program to use the one already installed on your system.

I hope this works. It is based on a lot of guess work because I only have your feedback to go on.

If this doesn't work I will go on to my second idea, which is that it has something to do with the navigation tree.

All the best,

Richard

[Marvin]

Hi Richard,

Just had a thought. Knowing how Bill Gates gets devious when it comes to his software, could it be that he changed it somehow for Europe?

Just a thought,

Marvin

[Programmer]

Hi Marvin,

Well, I know for a fact that if you have a non-us version of any microsoft product then anything can and often does go wrong. I know this apart from anything else because in my day job I work for a UK company with offices in Spain (where I am based) and we use Spanish versions of Word, Excel, Access etc.

I don't think the problems are so much down to deviousness though as plain incompetence. For example, in Access and Excel many of the built in functions simply don't work. The root problem is that here in Spain they use a , symbol as a decimal place separaor, and a . sybol as a thousand separator. I would bet my head (to use a phrase I borrowed from Dominatrix) that the problems occur because internally Access is using string parsing routines - i.e. converting numerical data into a text string and then looking, say, for the . symbol to try to find where the decimal portion of a number starts. A similar problem exists with dates and times which are formatted differently here than in the States. Add to that the fact that Microsoft charges the dollar price in Sterling or Euros (so $200 automatically becomes 200GBP), and that they don't have a proper support network here, and you will see why Bill Gates is even less popular on this side of the pond than over there.

Having said that, Microsoft is a big organisation and certain products, such as the whole .NET programming framework and the Window XP operating system are really excellent, so the criticism should go by departments. Most of my MS grievances are to do with Office products.

I don't think any of this is too relevant to the problem in hand though. If the file in question is a system file I should not be distributing it with the setup, so it is me that is at fault. So I want to establish a) whether the program still works if I don't include it and b) if this has anything to do with the site navigation bug you reported.

Cheers,

Richard

[Marvin]

Hi,

Let's start with: Usory, greed, arrogance, bad breeding, no interpersonal skills, (and that's just his good ponts!)
Before I found your program, I was about to switch to Linux/Unix, because the situation has gotten so bad here with microsoft software. (My wife's computer has XP, but when I started setting up the program on it, it didn't have .Net, then I had to sit through her having a screaming fit because I did something to her machine! It had set up user accounts for her .asp networks, and guest......, until I spent about three days upgrading it, it had no virus protection, no spyware protection, no firewall, etc., etc...)
Trust me, Microsoft's track record is lousy world wide, it's starting to make Made in America seem like Japanese products from the 50's-60's.
(Can we just drown him in the big muddy ditch/pond (whatever!), and be done with him?

(I know, next week I'll produce commentary about Stuart Kaplan and US Games Systems!) LOL!

Later,

Marvin

[Aurora]

Richard:

Just to let you know that today, Sunday 24, I could download without problems, and the pages stay quiet and obedient. Everything run smoothly.
It seems that the ghost that plays jokes in the deck exchange page is on vacation today...

Love,
Aurora