[kepler-dev] Abort/Retry/Error Stacktrace window

[Kevin Ruland]

Christopher,

The option I like the best is #3.

What about treating classes exending java.lang.Error seperately.  This
hierarchy includes those nasty unrecoverable problems like
OutOfMemoryError and the like.  They are also unchecked so they do not
need to be declared.

Kevin


Christopher Brooks wrote:

>Hi Kevin,
>You wrote:
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>>Which brings me to something you probably know about.  Ptolemy likes
>>to pop up a little "display stack trace" dialog.  The problem with
>>this dialog is that after clicking on either buttons, the base
>>window opens.  To a naieve user who is accostomed to random mishaps
>>in windows, they might not be aware that the system is
>>nonfunctional.  Is it possible to have some classes of exceptions
>>(such as RuntimeException) which go past that dialog and force the
>>application to abort?  Or better yet, presents a different dialog
>>which then ends up aborting.
>>    
>>
>
>I'm always really nervous about forcing a quit on the application,
>since we run the risk of losing user data etc.
>
>I can see two ways to implement what you are proposing:
>
>1) Modify ptolemy/util/MessageHandler.java so that it has
>a errorAndExit() method that would do the right thing.
>I'd prefer the message to be really clear that there is a problem 
>and offer the user the option of not exiting.  However, it might
>be worth just putting up the error and then the next click would 
>call System.exit().
>
>ptolemy/gui/GraphicalMessageHandler.java would need to be extended
>to have the right buttons.
>
>Be warned that I've run in to problems at start up where not all of
>the configuration is functional and one want to put up an error
>message but there is not enough configuration to really do this.
>
>2) Create a TerminateJavaException (or something) that is meant to
>terminate the Java process.  MessageHandler and
>GraphicalMessageHandler would need to check for this exception, much
>like how they check for CancelException.
>
>It would seem that putting this work in the Ptolemy tree would the
>natural location.  I believe Edward would have some input on the
>design.
>
>_Christopher
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