I have done some basic checking with the basic Octave-3.6.2 compiled
with Visual Studio 2010 and it appears to work well. However I have
had some problems with the GUI. I hope that the following may help
along the path to a successful GUI.
Please keep in mind that the GUI is just a preview, it is far from being finished and ready to use for production.
I have windows 7 enterprise (64-bit) on a PC with core 2 duo 6600 CPU.
When I start the GUI I get all the expected windows, The GUI is
frozen and the following appears in the Command Window.
What is happening here is that "less" is fired at startup, because of the few lines that are printed in the default .octaverc file and the fact that octave is initially starting in a very small terminal widget (that is not shown yet). When the terminal widget is finally displayed, then the terminal is resized, but "less" (the pager) is already running and you get various funny things, like the ones you observed.
I didn't expect the pager to be active at startup, during execution of .octaverc. One workaround is to edit the startup file and add "more off" at the beginning and "more on" at the end. You can then avoid being started immediately into the pager.
Perhaps the program is looking for some resource that it can not find.
No, it's just the pager waiting for you to press 'q'.
After waiting several minutes if I press q I sometimes get a message
get a message
***************************************************
Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime error
Runtime Error
Program: C:\OCTAVE\Octave-3.6.2\bin\octave-qui.rxe
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an
unusual way.
That's the octave GUI crashing.
****************************
If I try to run a simple file test01.m the (END) vanishes and is replaced by
As you are in the pager, anything that you typed is captured by the pager.
The cursor is often displaced one or more columns to the left of where
the entry is to be made.
.If, at the prompt, I type x=[1,2;3,4] As the last ] is typed the
x=[1[2;3,4]. If I then press enter or change focus to this email the
entry is corrected. If I try to correct the entry it appears to cause
all kinds of problems. In any case it is very difficult to change the
entry because of the misplaced cursor.
By default, the octave GUI will most probably use an unsuitable font for the terminal (and the Windows terminal emulation might be buggy as well). Select "File" menu, then "Settings", go to the terminal tab and select another font (I'm using "Lucida Console", which works fine).
Michael.