TOPIC: Questions about demo bugs

bugs in the demo of HIP?
I'm really anal about working my way through a demo to get used to a program and I have found a few "bugs" or at least what I think might be bugs.  I tried several different templates and these bugs showed up on all of them, so i don't think I'm dealing with a corrupted template.  I'm running it on windows 7, 64 bit, HIP demo version 2.8.2.  It made me wonder, when I purchase the program will I download a different file or will I enter a license number into the demo to make it active like the intro window shows?  Would these bugs still be present?  Here are the ones I think I have found, wondered if there is a solution or a work around...  or if I'm nuts:
- Cover Page Footer does not center text even though it is centered in the editing box.  It is always justified to the right when the report is produced. I saw in one message board post that this bug had been addressed in a previous version about a year ago, but it is still present in my demo.
- Related to the above, neither the "Cover Company Font" or the footer will change the font type if you choose anything different than "arial", "times new roman" or a few other common fonts.  As soon as you select something different it default prints them out in what looks like "arial rounded mt bold".  Is this a bug or on purpose?
- The "Selection/Description Font" cannot be changed in color, bold or italic even though it is in the format window.  Changes are gone as soon as you exit the format window.  I discovered this when I tried to bold and colorize them to make them pop when reading through a report.
- Bulleted items which are longer than one line don't have the same margin or don't line up with the starting word of the first line.  This may be a design issue and not a bug, but isn't that how bullet margins are supposed to be set?  Can this be changed somehow in-program? 

Sorry for the long post, I've been collecting these for a couple weeks as I test out the demo.  I'm really getting pumped up about switching to a digital reporting system and using HIP. I've been sifting through a lot of demos over the past few months (actually for about three years) and most of them are garbage. Just need to choose the computer and and then get it out to the jobsite!

Hi Cameron,

Answering in order

When you purchase Home Inspector Pro you get a license file that converts the trial into a full version.

1. Sounds like you had an older version of HIP installed at once point as this was corrupted. When updating, the program will not touch original files like that in order to protect any changes. With HIP closed, go to C:\Program Files\Home Inspector Pro\Data (Applications\Home Inspector Pro\Data on Mac) and delete the footer.xml file. Restart the program and it'll automatically create a new footer file that will center correctly.

2. I can't replicate this, what font are you trying it with? As soon as I highlight text, and then change it, the font in the program and reports change too.

3. I can't replicate this either. What font is it you're trying to use? The program will only work correct with True Type Fonts (TTF) which are what most fonts are. Just make sure you Save Template before going back into the program.

4. This is on purpose to help conserve space on the report and make it easier to see where new comments start. There hasn't been any requests to change this previously. Post a request in the Beta & New Features section and if a few people agree we'll add it in as an option.

No problem, feel free to ask away! We'll figure out what's going on with 2,3 once I get some more info.

Wow, that was a quick response.  Seriously, go take a walk and blow my questions off for the weekend. I haven't even bought the full version yet, you're making me feel all important!

But since you're here...     I did have that problem with the Optima Opentype font not working last week, but everything else worked with the Truetype version I downloaded.  So I deleted the footer.xml and now it works at the footer.  Okay, for the benefit of future users, I think I know what happened.  I didn't have an older version because my computer I'm running this demo on is newer (3-4 months old).  I did, however, copy and paste the info from a Filemaker Pro program I currently use for my cover page, contract and records.  I noticed a couple other posts where some guys were having problems with copying text directly from Word.  I wonder if the same problem was coming from Filemaker Pro copy and paste data?

As for #3, the "Cover Company Font" not working, I tried more samples and I think I downloaded a bad font(it was a free "bold" version of Optima).  I just paid another $20 buck to get the bold version from a reputable font company online and it works.  You realize, of course, that nothing works until we have pestered you with questions about it. :-[

I see what you mean about the new comment start being a bit more noticeable.  It is a bit like the indent on the start of a new paragraph.  Thanks for the help, your tech support is second to none.

Cameron

I'm glad you got it working! Yes, I have that effect, I come around and things start working. Just like when I take my car into the shop to complain about a noise and it magically goes away when I get there

Copying from any other program that has formatting can have undesired affects. This is because windows often copies the code that helped create that formatting, which then is not HTML compatible.

Tech support is always important, even on Sundays I try to check in every few hours and spend a lot of the rest of the weekend programming and doing other things.