Release Notes

Welcome to Komodo, ActiveState's Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This document accompanies Komodo 3.5.1. See the Revision History for details about previous Komodo releases.

New in Komodo 3.5

  • Komodo has been ported to Mac OS X
  • Ruby support has been added, including debugging, code intelligence (including Code Browser support, Object Browser support, AutoComplete and CallTips), an Interactive Shell (new in 3.5.1), syntax checking, syntax highlighting, and code folding.
  • Komodo's Mozilla source base has been upgraded to the 1.8 tree (same as Firefox 1.5).
  • The embedded Python has been updated to version 2.4.
  • Multilingual Input Method Editor (IME) support.

To view a complete list of bugs fixed in this release, see http://bugs.activestate.com.

Known Issues

To view the status of outstanding Komodo issues, including those that have been fixed in this release, or to add comments or additional issues, please visit the Komodo Bug Database.

Installation Issues

  • Windows NT users may need to manually move their license file from \WINNT\Profiles\[username]\ActiveState to \WINNT\Profiles\[username]\Application Data\ActiveState
    (Bug 20203)
  • If you upgraded your system from Win9x/WinME to WinNT/2K, ensure that your ComSpec environment variable is configured to %SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe (for example, C:\system32\cmd.exe). There was a bug in the Microsoft Windows installer that did not update the variable from its original value of command.com
    (Bug 9135)
  • The Komodo installer requires up to 230 MB in your TMP directory (as indicated by the value of your 'TMP' environment variable) during installation, even if you plan to install Komodo to another drive. If you do not have the required space on this drive, manually set the 'TMP' environment variable to another directory with sufficient space. Ensure that you have enough space, temporarily, for installation. (Bug 7057)
  • If you try to install Komodo on Windows and the MSI install fails with error 2355, your MSI file is corrupt. Please download Komodo again and re-run the MSI install. (Bug 7405)
  • There are known issues regarding the installation of PHP on Windows Millennium systems; please refer to the PHP site for installation information.

 

Startup Issues

  • When Komodo 3.1 is first launched on Solaris, Mozilla runs a utility to confirm the presence of required operating system patches. A Mozilla dialog box containing the results of this test is displayed. The data is also recorded in the file ~/.mozilla/solaris_patchchecker_keys.txt, which lists patches that are not installed as well as existing patches that need upgrading. It is recommended that you install the necessary patches, although Komodo may operate correctly without them. These patches are available from the Sun Microsystems Patch Support Portal. (Bug 35873)
  • The first time Komodo is run after installation, it must register a number of components with the operating system. This causes the first launch to be considerably slower than subsequent launches.
  • Certain programs may cause problems launching Komodo. For example, server programs such as SQL Server are known to be problematic. Also, Norton Anti-Virus (NAV), or more specifically, the File System Realtime Protection feature is problematic. If Komodo fails to load, examine the applications you are running, and try stopping those that might be conflicting with Komodo. (Bugs 8593, 8819, 8831)

 

Editing Issues

  • The scroll bars around the editor component will sometimes draw over other components (e.g. the Output and Toolkit windows) when the Editor Pane is resized. (Bug 39722)
  • The macro recorder will record events that it cannot handle, such as the opening of dialogs. The only dialog that can be opened via a macro is the Find dialog; other dialogs will cause the macro to stop.
  • Languages that are read right to left and Asian languages are not supported. All Latin and Cyrillic languages are fully supported. (Bug 29702)
  • Cheyenne Antivirus Realtime Monitor and Komodo on Windows 9x: When RealMon is set to monitor outgoing files (or both incoming and outgoing files), Komodo's syntax checking doesn't function. (Bug 7741)
  • On slow networks, users may notice performance degradation when editing files on network machines. Performance can be improved by disabling the Komodo function that checks if files on disk have changed. Use the Editor Preferences to disable this feature. (Bug 18297)
  • Interpolation shortcuts in snippets are not executed when the snippet is inserted in the Editor Pane via dragging and dropping.
  • GTK2 hard codes 'Ctrl'+'Shift' to use international input. Therefore, all key bindings involving 'Ctrl'+'Shift'+ (any valid hexadecimal character} do not work in Komodo. A workaround is to start Komodo with the command: export GTK_IM_MODULE=xim; ./komodo'. Otherwise, key bindings of this kind must be changed. (Bug 38205)
  • When copying text that does not have Windows line endings into another application, which expects Windows line endings, the text may not retain the desired formatting. The text is often pasted as a single line. (Bug 36791)
  • Code snippets that are 8-bit-encoded and contain high-bit characters may have the wrong encoding (or no encoding) when inserted from the Toolbox into a UTF-8 encoded file in the Editor Pane. (Bug 36769)
  • When you are editing a code comment in Komodo you may use <Shift+Enter> to start a new line within the comment, i.e. the comment prefix is added automatically. Komodo may fail to properly add the comment prefix if many new lines are added quickly with repeated <Shift+Enter> presses. (Bug 38658)

 

Debugging Issues

  • PHP 5.1 Debugging on Windows: PHP 5.1 users on Windows should always choose php-cgi.exe instead of php.exe in the PHP preferences panel. Currently php.exe and Komodo's PHP debugging extension (xdebug) are incompatible (bug 42810).
  • If the debug listener (Debug|Listen for Remote Debugger) is off, multithreaded applications may not run or debug as expected. Only the main thread operates through the debugger. To debug multithreaded applications, turn on debug listening prior to debugging. (Debug listening is turned on by default.) (Bug 32776)
  • PHP configurations that use Zend Extensions (such as PHP Accelerator) are not compatible with the Komodo PHP debugger. (Bug 21890)
  • Due to the way the core Perl interpreter works, it is not possible to step over "require" statements. (Bug 18776)
  • You cannot use the 'freestanding' option when debugging Perl applications created with the PDK in Komodo. Instead, build a 'dependant' executable, which requires a local install of ActivePerl.
  • The "Delete temp files after each run" option generates an error when debugging an application with the Perl Dev Kit interface. (Bug 20761)
  • The variable watcher does not work when debugging \\machine\d$\path\to\perl_script.pl. It does work when opening the same file via a UNC path that does not include a '$' character. (Bug 19558)
  • You cannot debug in a separate console on Windows Me/9x machines. (Bug 8718)
  • If a script has syntax errors, the debugger can fail without warning (Bug 33130).
  • When debugging remote applications, Komodo fails if the remote process does not have valid stdout and stderr handles. GUI applications, such as those started with "wperl.exe" or "pythonw.exe", or those using the Pythonwin or wxPython frameworks, or those with certain embedded applications, can have invalid stdout and stderr handles. Until we resolve this issue, try to run and debug your remote program under perl.exe or python.exe.
  • Python, XSLT and PHP debugging require TCP/IP to be installed and properly configured, even if you are debugging scripts locally. While TCP/IP is configured by default on most systems, early versions of Windows may require manual TCP/IP configuration.
  • When debugging a GUI script in Komodo, adding a "watched variable" when not stopped at a breakpoint can cause Komodo to hang. You must manually terminate the script being debugged to stop Komodo from hanging. The problem occurs because the GUI script, while in its message loop, does not respond to Komodo's request for the variable value. (Bug 23516)
  • Local debugging with the PHP debugger will fail if the debugger proxy is used. (Bug 31235)
  • If the Komodo debugger is configured to use a specific port, when Komodo is shut down, the port is sometimes not immediately released. If Komodo is restarted before the port is released by the operating system, a message is displayed advising that the system is unable to bind that port. As a workaround, we suggest configuring port 0 as the Komodo debugging port and using the debugger proxy for remote debugging. (Bug 32821)
  • Breaking into a running Perl script can only occur if the Perl code is crossing sub boundaries in the Perl code, as that's currently the only chance the Perl debugger has to check to see if the IDE has sent the break command. (Bug 35611)
  • When debugging Perl, if you set a breakpoint on the while statement, the debugger stops on the breakpoint only once, namely before the first pass through the loop. This is a limitation of how the Perl interpreter works. (Bug 34866)
  • The debugger system in Komodo uses TCP/IP networking for debugger communications. On systems with firewalls installed, the debugger may fail if the firewall is not configured to allow Komodo to listen for connections. On Windows, you may see a "Windows Security Alert" dialog asking if you want to allow Komodo to listen for connections, you will need to unblock Komodo. (Bug 21684)
  • The Perl debugger cannot trap fatal runtime errors. Users can accomplish this in their code by wrapping problematic code in an eval block, and then testing for an exception. (Bug 33855)
  • Komodo does not provide proper source debugging in exec and eval statements. This is a limitation of Python's interpreter. (Bug 40336)
  • When debugging PHP on a remote Linux machine from a local Windows machine, the debugging option "Try to find files on the local system when remote debugging" has no effect. This is due to differences in Unix and Win32 file paths. (Bug 39137)
  • When debugging Python, Komodo does not permit you to set local variables in the interactive shell. However, you can edit those values from the program's variable viewers, such as the Watch and Locals panes on the Debug tab. (Bug 36794)
  • When debugging PHP scripts on Komodo with CGI emulation, you may need to change the setting for cgi.force_redirect in the php.ini file. You may also need to set an environment variable in the Debugger Options dialog box: "REDIRECT_STATUS=200 OK". These settings vary depending on your system and the configuration of PHP. (Bug 35021)
  • When Debugging PHP, the HTML pane of the Output tab does not refresh automatically. To refresh the contents of this pane, click the "Reload HTML view" button on the Output tab. (Bug 36999)
  • Komodo supports full Unicode debugging with Perl 5.8. Although Perl 5.6 can be used for debugging programs with single-byte encodings (e.g. cp1251), it is recommended that programmers with multi-byte character sets upgrade to Perl 5.8.5 or better. (Bug 36760)
  • When debugging Python, if you launch the debugger from a directory containing a module with the same name as one of the modules used by the debugger, the wrong file is used. For example, if you have a file named logging.py in the directory where the debugger is launched, the debugger will fail. (Bug 36783)
  • When stepping through Perl files, the Komodo debugger displays the wrong print results in the Locals window of the Debug tab. This is because Perl provides only one iterator for each collection variable. The Komodo debugger must iterate through a hash or an array in order to display the values in Komodo. A workaround is to display the Watch pane instead of the Locals pane, and type the names of the expressions that you want to view. (Bug 33668)
  • In Komodo 3.0, setting the "Try to find files on the local system when remote debugging" preference had no effect. Consequently, Komodo always searched for local files during remote debugging sessions. The feature now works as intended, and it must be enabled (Edit|Preferences|Debugger)if you want to search for local files first. (Bug 33116)

 

Interactive Shell Issues

  • Perl: only pattern variables $1 .. $9 are preserved across each query. (Bug 34528)
  • Python: The getpass package requires the use of a tty on unix systems. Komodo does not provide a tty in it's interactive shell so getpass will fail with an exception. (Bug 34259)

 

Source Code Control Issues

  • A bug in CVS will cause WinCVS and TortoiseCVS to detect file changes when a Komodo project has merely been opened. The problem is likely a bug in the cvshome.org executable or in the cvsnt.org executable, which are used by both WinCVS and TortoiseCVS. (Bug 21085)
  • Komodo's integration with the Perforce commit/submit command cannot commit files that are not in the default changelist. These files must be submitted via an external interface (e.g. p4, P4Win). Note that any files checked out inside Komodo are in the default changelist, so this limitation should only apply to users who already use an external interface to their Perforce repository. (Bug 27070)
  • If the Perforce connection cannot be established, checking the status of files in a Perforce repository will hang Komodo. (Bug 35058)
  • If you are using CVS Source Code Control, note that the very first time you log in to a repository, cvs.exe fails to create the .cvspass file correctly and will return an error. Repeat the command to login a second time and correctly generate the file. This is a CVS bug. (Bug 20353)
  • If you are using CVS Source Code Control on Windows 98 or Me, the environment variables HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH must be configured on your system. Typically, HOMEDRIVE is set to "c:", and HOMEPATH is set to "\".

 

GUI Builder Issues

  • When adding a GUI Builder project file (.ui) to a Komodo project file (.kpf), the files associated with the dialog are not included when the .ui file is added to a project. You must edit the dialog and save it before the files will be included under the dialog in the project. (Bug 21240)

 

Linux/Solaris Issues

Unless specified otherwise, these issues apply to both Linux and Solaris.

  • When closing any Komodo window that contains an editor component, a GLIB error entry will appear in the log files (or terminal if Komodo was started from one). This error can be safely ignored. A patch was submitted by the Mozilla group to the Gnome group that handles this error, and should be available in GTK 2.4 or higher. The patch can be viewed at http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=128546
    (Bug 33817)
  • On Solaris, GNU tar must be used to unpack the Komodo installation file. If you use the native Solaris tar version, you will get a checksum error when attempting to unpack the Komodo tar package, and any attempt to run the install script will fail. (Bug 28831)
  • On Solaris, interactions between Komodo and Sun's CDE Window Manager may cause a modal child window (such as the Preferences page, or the Open|File dialog) to get hidden behind Komodo's main window. The main Komodo window will be hung waiting for the (now unreachable) modal window to be closed. The problem is likely related to a specific CDE configuration "focus follows mouse" or similar. (Bug 28768)
  • The Fonts and Colors pane in the Preferences dialog box displays the same list of fonts in both the Fixed and Proportional lists. There is no programmatic way to identify whether a font is proportional or not on GTK; therefore, users must know the properties of the individual fonts when modifying these values. (Bug 27206)
  • If the GTK theme is changed while Komodo is running, Komodo will not change the menu/toolbar font colors, causing usability problems in extreme cases. (Bug 34508)
  • Install Komodo into a directory path that only includes alphanumeric characters. Komodo is known to have trouble with paths that include spaces and some non-alphanumeric characters.
  • Filenames or paths containing non-ASCII characters cannot be opened remotely.
  • Key bindings defined in the window manager (such as KDE) take precedence over Komodo key bindings. In the case of conflicts, you must either change the Komodo key bindings or the window manager key bindings. (Bug 30926)
  • You cannot move an existing Komodo installation to a new directory. You must uninstall Komodo from the existing location and reinstall it in the new location. (Bug 19478)
  • When using the PHP Configuration Wizard, you must have write access to any directories you specify in the wizard. (Bug 37176)
  • Red Hat Linux 9.0 is known to have threading library bugs in its glibc that may cause Komodo to hang in certain situations. The recommended solution is to upgrade to the latest glibc for Red Hat Linux 9.0. (Bug 24340)
  • Using colon-separated include paths in the Perl shebang line causes a parse failure on some versions of Perl. Instead of using "/usr/bin/perl -cwT -I/path1:/path2 yourscript.pl", try using multiple include arguments such as "/usr/bin/perl -cwT -I/path1 -I/path2 yourscript.pl"
    (Bug 33524)
  • Komodo may not start up correctly on some Linux systems if C++ compatibility libraries have not been installed. On Fedora and Red Hat systems, install the "compat-libstdc++" package. On SuSE, install the "compat" package. On Gentoo, as root, run emerge lib-compat. This is not thought to be a problem on Debian systems. (Bug 36244)
  • Komodo will work on Debian/Ubuntu AMD64 with some manual configuration (some libraries were not properly ported to support 32-bit applications). (Bug 41368) Run Komodo from a shell script which sets certain environment variables:
      #!/bin/sh
      export GTK_PATH=/usr/lib32/gtk-2.0/
      export PANGO_RC_FILE=/etc/pango32/pangorc
      komodo
      
    The pangorc file should contain the following:
      [Pango]
      ModuleFiles=/etc/pango32/pango.modules
      [PangoX]
      AliasFiles=/etc/pango/pangox.aliases
      
    More information on running 32 bit Mozilla applications on AMD64 can be found here.

 

Mac OS X Issues

  • Throughout the Komodo documentation there are references to key bindings that use the 'Meta' key. This key may be better known to OS X users as the 'Command' key. (Bug 41959)
  • Komodo will shut down and restart itself the first time it is run after installation. (Bug 40143)
  • Clicking on a scroll bar in the editor can sometimes cause mouse events to misbehave, moving the cursor to the last line of the buffer.
  • Display of text during editing ("painting") may sometimes be slow or pause momentarily.
  • The AutoComplete drop-box does not resize if the contents are longer than the drop-box. (Bug 40161)
  • Certain UI elements stop working after changing key bindings. Restarting Komodo fixes this. (Bug 38683)
  • When saving a file, Komodo does not set file information (type and creator) for the OS X Finder to know that Komodo created the file. (Bug 38745)
  • Breakpoints cannot be removed when debugging XSLT scripts. (Bug 40072)
  • PHP debugging will not work with the PHP build distributed with OS X because it does not load external modules. To use PHP debugging on OS X, build PHP from source or download a binary from http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/php
    (Bug 39901)
  • Key bindings 'F7' and 'F8' in "Diff" and "Compare File With..." conflict with default OS X key bindings.
  • Komodo is sometimes recognized as a web browser by some applications on OS X (e.g. Safari's "Default Web Browser" setting). Using Komodo as the default web browser is not recommended.
  • Application menu items that have multi-key key bindings will not show their key bindings in a pop-up tool tip on OS X. This is a limitation in OS X.
  • Selecting Fonts and Colors in the Preferences dialog box causes the next preference selected to display a blank space where the sample text had been. Browsing to another preference category, then back to the desired category, gets rid of this blank space.
  • Context menus may not display unless you hold down the mouse button for a period of time. This is because the Komodo editor is implemented in Mozilla as a plugin, and it does not access the apropriate context menu event to handle this behaviour properly without interfering with other mouse events (for example, drag and drop). (Bug 41216)
  • Due to a limitation in the Mozilla code base, key bindings for the Next File and Previous File options on the Window menu are not displayed next to the menu items. The key bindings are 'Meta'+'PageDown' to view the next file and 'Meta'+'PageUp' to view the previous file. (Bug 40716)

 

Other Issues

  • Komodo inherits a Mozilla bug whereby certain video drivers on Windows cause Komodo to crash. If you experience this behavior, upgrade your video driver to the latest version. If the problem persists, reduce the color definition assigned to the driver (Control Panel|Display|Settings). (Bug 32746)
  • On Windows XP, the Windows task bar may show the old Komodo icon from a previous installation of Komodo. To fix this issue, delete the icon cache, located by default in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\IconCache.db
    (Bug 32554)
  • Komodo inherits a Mozilla bug regarding display on dual-monitor systems where the secondary monitor is to the left of the primary monitor (causing negative coordinate results). The Komodo display occasionally fails to refresh; Komodo must be stopped and restarted to fix the display (Bug 26852)
  • When using Komodo's Preview in Browser feature, users running Mozilla on Windows XP Pro, Windows 2000 Pro and Windows 98 may find that they cannot exit Komodo if Mozilla is still open. If this should occur, close all open browser windows before exiting Komodo. (Bug 26431)
  • The Palm Desktop for Windows software makes exclusive use of the 'Ctrl'+'Shift'+'T' key combination, thus making this combination unavailable in Komodo. (Bug 27851)
  • When using the PDK Build Standalone Application feature in Komodo with Perl 5.8.0 on a Linux installation where the environment is set to use UTF-8, you must add a module 'utf8' on the modules tab. This is the equivalent of 'perlapp --add utf8'. This does not affect Perl 5.6.x or future versions of Perl 5.8.1 or higher. (Bug 26898)
  • On Windows NT, some interactive commands may not work properly when run from the Command Output tab of the Output Pane. You must run these commands in a separate shell. (Bug 23176)
  • Running interactive commands (especially "command.com") on Win98/ME through Komodo's "Run Command" feature can cause Komodo to hang. It is recommended that Win98/ME Komodo users run only simple commands using the Run Command feature (Bug 25699)
  • In file picker dialogs that display a list of files, when "All files" is specified, files that begin with a period are not displayed (Bug 18712)
  • Perforce client version 2001.1 and previous for Windows is known to hang when used for Komodo's Perforce integration. Upgrading to the most recent version of Perforce is known to fix the problem. (Bug 19959)
  • The Output tab cuts off lines at 250 characters. (Bug 20711)
  • Macros will not record certain commands, including (but possibly not limited to) 'Ctrl'+'Shift'+'B'|'R'|'E'|'D' (toggle toolbars or button text), 'Ctrl'+'Shift'+'N' (new default file), and View as Language menu items.
  • If you are using the Pop-Up Stopper ad-blocking program (Pop-Up Zapper on OS X), it will close the Rx Toolkit window immediately after it is opened. (Bug 21768)
  • When you schedule a new file to be added using CVS, CVS will not permit you to remove the file from the repository using the "revert changes" command. (Bug 27192)
  • Users of the Japanese version of Windows XP may experience difficulties in starting Komodo.
  • The Open field in the Open/Find Toolbar does not automatically display a drop-down list of directories when an UNC path is typed. Currently, the list is only displayed when a the path includes a subdirectory. (Bug 29011)
  • When creating a "diff" in Komodo (Tools|Compare Files), the line endings of the files are normalized to Unix style line endings. Lines in files that have different line endings are not displayed differently in the diff (unless other differences are present), but a warning is provided to the user in the 'diff' window, or the 'no difference' dialog. (Bug 32932)
  • In Komodo's Rx Toolkit, the match offsets for unicode or high-bit data are incorrect. When matching, the program does not account for UTF-8 multibyte characters. (Bug 33287)
  • When adding new key bindings via the Preferences dialog box, Komodo displays a message indicating that the key bindings will not take effect until Komodo is restarted. However, some changes do take effect immediately.(Bug 36710)
  • "Find" macros do not work because incorrect code is recorded. (Bug 36332)
  • The Code Browser incorrectly identifies PHP global variables as function variables. (Bug 36680)
  • If you rename a folder that was added to a custom menu, the name is changed in Komodo's Toolbox but not on the menu itself. A workaround is to move the renamed folder out and then back into the associated custom menu icon in the Toolbox. (Bug 36679)
  • The Mozilla code base currently does not support the Windows Unicode binary. As a result, Komodo for Windows is unable to open files or paths that contain certain character sets, such as Chinese. (Bug 33304)
  • A newly created custom menu is added to the Toolbox but is not immediately displayed alongside existing toolbars. Restarting Komodo causes the new toolbar to display. (Bug 40078)