EssentialPIM 10.0 RC1: text editing is now even more broken (impossible to edit text, wine) [WALKAROUND FOUND]

[ЛеонидЛогинов]

Everything described below applies to using the program on Linux or Mac under wine. There are no such problems on Windows.
This bug is almost 5 years old and has only gotten worse with the latest preview.

Since version 7.2, text editing in all program modules has become problematic. For some unknown reason, the program reacts strangely to empty lines, giving them a huge vertical size.
7.2 changelog included something like "UI improvement: handling various font sizes". Could this 'improvement' cause this side-effect?
There has already been a post on this forum about this issue, but the developers did not seem to have paid serious attention to this issue.
Users seemed to find it easier to rollback than complaining and pushing for a bug fix for a non-target platform.
I decided to ignore this problem, because no one else wrote about it and there was a workaround: it was possible to edit the text by putting a period at the beginning of each blank line.

With the release of RC1, when the original bug was almost 5 years old, it is now impossible to edit the text at all.
The cursor now becomes huge immediately.

Here is a video with the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjzfdLLO6XI
0:00-0:20 | version 7.13, everything works well, no problems
0:20-0:50 | version 9.10.8 (also from 7.20) two blank lines turn the editor into a mess.
0:50-1:44 | 10.0RC1 now everything is a mess

I was able to reproduce this issue on all computers I used wine or crossover + wine on.
Developers, please look in the version history for what may have affected this between 7.13 and 7.2 and fix it.
It can be a great gift for mac and linux users for the new major release.

I understand that you are not economically interested in supporting platforms that occupy 1/4 of the desktop market and I, as a user, live with what I have. But in general, EPIM works stably except mail.
It seems to me that this problem with text editing can be fixed quickly if you allocate some dev time to fix a 5-year bug. I really hope so.

[admin]

Thanks for the detailed report, Leonid. We will have a look at this, although I cannot promise a fix as like your mentioned Mac OS isn't our target platform and there's no easy way to debug this with virtualization/simulation involved.

[ЛеонидЛогинов]

That's cool. I understand that it's harder to debug in such conditions.
But in RC1 you somehow made the bug even worse. Now it's almost impossible to edit text. Please try to do something, I'm begging you.

At least please look into your VCS history for something that could cause this awful effect between releases: 7.13->7.20, 9.10.8->10.0RC1.
If there could be a possible workaround on wine configuration level, I'll contact crossover developers to tweak their profile for your software.

I also found viewtopic.php?p=83349 which refers to the same problem which never was fixed in 5 years.
I think I've seen more threads about it but I can't find them.

This topic remains a bold red flag for Linux/Mac users that it is almost impossible to use the 10.0 version at the moment.
If you are reading this, 7.13 is the latest version, which worked fine with wine, but it is impossible to synchronize it with newer versions and other services, since almost 5 years have passed and many apis and db structure have changed.

[SilverSound]

I last used Linux and Mac 10 years ago, I had tried to switch from windows and after using them both for a year each decided their draw backs where not worth getting away from Microsoft, especially as Apple continued to get just as malicious and untrustworthy.

Digressing, I was wondering if you've tried running EPIM through Steam's Proton? Well made for games, I've heard from a couple of friends who still tolerate Linux, or rather hate MS and Apple enough that they feel they have no other ethical option, that it does work better than wine and crossover for quite a few programs as well.

[ЛеонидЛогинов]

I have not tried proton for software, since it seems to be not supported at all on the Mac because of their proprietary graphical api.
It looks like most of the proton improvements go straight to the wine project.

I compared the wine logs of v7.13 and v7.2 and found out that v7.2 too often complained about "0138:fixme:uniscribe:ScriptStringAnalyse Only Unicode strings are supported". It looked like it had something to do with the RichEdit and my problem.

Replacing library ups10.dll with a native one fixes this problem.

The installation of the corresponding component in winetricks also can help.

Thus, the problem has been resolved. Hope this post can help someone else.
Still there are a lot of small problems that are not noticeable..

The mail module can be fixed by creating a 32-bit prefix, installing Internet Explorer 7 on it and only then the program. But I cannot recommend this method, ie7 was released in 2006 and there may be some security holes in the component that is used to display letters. Not sure. Probably better to use EPIM without mail

[poet-man]

Do I remember correctly, that ressources willnot be split for Linux?
I guess version 10 will bind almost all energy, having it running smooth and without problems.
I had tried to run WinEPIM under Wine 2 years ago, and finally decided to fall back to windows, as it cannot be expected, that Astonsoft suddenly splits its ressources, just for some people, wanting to use Linux (including myself).
So in my opinion (and it's clearly my unimportant personell opinion), the main path of developing ahead EPIM on Windows and Android platform should not be left in any way - not even in small parts.
Sorry, but I think, some ressources put to Linux, willnot help anybody.
If EPIM would run on Linux very well, I would be among the first, to change OS. But it isn't!

[ЛеонидЛогинов]

WinEPIM already works fine under wine with some walkarounds.
Devs time is no longer needed since at least some walkaround for this issue is found.

I've filled a report for other wine users, it should appear here (https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager. ... n&iId=5312) when reviewed.

[Frank-H]

re: "the main path of developing ahead EPIM on Windows and Android platform should not be left in any way - not even in small parts".

I agree. If epim was a "simple little program", or an expensive program that floated having a huge development staff, then ok branch out to various platforms. But epim started as Windows, then went to Android, and that is the core majority of current consumers, and it is a large market. I'd call it good just doing Windows and Android as expressed above, and Do That Very Well.

I don't even use the email aspects of my epim Pro, due to seeing various "troubles with it", granted it's a big bite to tackle, programing for everything epim does plus doing email well. Why divert to "the other problems that will come up" even with IOS and various platforms, and the bugs that will come up there. I really only need a bulletproof good database / contact manager aspect (custom fields etc, I love epim for that) and calendar. Maybe notes. I keep it simple, knowing the task it is to develop epim and have it be (basically) bug free. That should be the focus.