A new feature of Panorama X 10.2 b21 is that the menus are all disabled while a procedure is running. In previous versions you could select a menu while a long running procedure was operating, which would completely disrupt the operation of the already running procedure – not good. So now the already running procedure is protected – you can’t mess it up by clicking, pressing a key, or selecting a menu. Much better, but this may turn up some previously hidden problems.
Today a user privately sent me a database where the menus were always dim. Once the database was opened, he couldn’t do anything. It turned out that the database contained a .CurrentRecord
procedure, and that procedure contained a show
statement. The show
statement causes .CurrentRecord
to run again, so .CurrentRecord
was running continuously, over and over and over. (The .CurrentRecord
documentation does warn about the possibility of infinite loops.) Before b21, he was never aware that this procedure was constantly running (though perhaps things ran a bit slow when this database was open, and I think eventually Panorama might crash from excessive memory use, though that might take hours or days).
I’m mentioning this because though this is probably a rare issue, it seems likely that it isn’t a one off – possibly someone else reading this will run into this. If you see that all the menus stay dim all the time, it means that there is a procedure running all the time. The .CurrentRecord
procedure is a good place to start looking if you are using one, but there may be other undiscovered possibilities. If you do run into this, you’ll need to use a copy of b20 to open and work with the database, since that version will allow you to click and use menus even if a program is running.